LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (XV)

He flicks on the light switch.

"Please, Claudia" he says. "Always have the light on when you go up and down these stairs at night."

"All right. That would be much safer."

"Except if you see a mouse you would not otherwise have seen, and lose your balance as you start screaming."

"There is that to consider. But Persnickitty has been doing a crackerjack job in the mouse reduction department."

"I don't want anything to happen to you."

He stares at her, dead serious.

"Of course not, dear," she says shyly. "I've worried about your catching cold when you bound up or down these stairs in your bare feet. But I do worry more about your slipping in your stocking feet."

"They're steep."

"Rather."

"I was in real danger of being arrested. I doubt that I would have been taken to trial, much less found guilty and sent to the hot seat. I would have had the best lawyers in the English-speaking world, for one thing. And some of the motives attributed to me would have been deemed funnier than Charlie Chaplin eating his shoe by the American public. But arrested? That was a possibility. And it wasn't his choosing the pistol he chose which saved me from that. It wasn't just the blackened fingers. It was having old friends of mine who happen to be intelligent and conscientious working the case and insisting on the proper deductions. We know how the police twisted things for the Knapps' benefit when they issued their statement to the press. It very easily could have gone the other way. Lester Knapp, 35, and Floyd Brightwell, 33, were longtime antagonists as members of the Camel Creek Village Board, frequently engaging in heated arguments at Board meetings. And according to Mr Brightwell's own statement to police they had words about Mr Brightwell's wife Claudia, 28, shortly before the fatal shot was fired."

"I kept thinking of those blackened fingers. I kept my mind fixed on them."

"Smart girl. Because it's highly likely that there never would have been a way of establishing a motive for suicide. Lawyer Phil said that it was not up to me to explain why Les shot himself. True enough, but I can hear the District Attorney informing Philip that the People could establish a motive for my shooting Les. And that that weighed much more in the scales of justice than any debatable forensic evidence. Floyd with a motive and clean fingers might make a better target than Les with black fingers but no motive in this world. Then there's Cousin Elmina. She spoke about her professional task of noting the unlikely in suicides. A man blowing his brains out upon finding out that his wife is cheating on him? That must come under the square egg heading."

"Dear, I suspect that there are countless angles that we have not considered. I'm sure, I'm sure now, that the police took seriously your indications, and Castle's, that someone had driven to the Knapps' house that night. He would have been considered a suspect too no matter what you said about Les's shooting himself. But I do agree with you that you had reason to be worried about your prospects as a free man. I never put any stock in the argument that everyone in Camel Creek knows you and knew of Louise Knapp. I put all my stock in his fingerprints' being on the trigger and not yours. How could you have wiped off yours without wiping off his? And if you wore gloves, where are those gloves? Lex was there five minutes after the shooting. Louise would have had no reason to lie about that or not to corroborate that. And then there were those blackened fingers..."

"Those blessed blackened fingers. I should have asked Hank Trudley or Jim Grey to chop them off and put them in a jar of alcohol for me. We could have put them on the table right out here. Just as a subtle reminder to all our friends and neighbors."

"Really, dear..."

"Back in the bad old days, when I was recuperating from France, I read a lot. Up in my room at home. What else was there to do? I slept all day and read all night. One summer when Brother Philip was on vacation from law school I asked him if I could read some of his books. He was reluctant, but he allowed me to take some back into my lair. Quite a few, actually. I was fascinated. I was appalled. I learned that to no small extent our rules and regulations about the conducting of trials are geared to make a certain amount of buffoonery inevitable.

'Out of my sight, O wicked false witness, O most perfidious, O thou hell-hound thou, O malevolent son of he whom Holy Writ terms the fallen star, of all false cows the falsest, who says he saw the murder transpire from across the street and yet has just admitted that he wears glasses and was not wearing them that night!' 'But, but, but, but...' 'You are here only to answer questions, Mr. Jones...' 'Yes, Your Honor, but...' 'Have the people a question for this witness?' 'The people certainly do, Your Honor! What is the problem with your eyes, Mr. Jones? Why do you wear glasses?' 'Because I'm far-sighted! Which is what I was trying to tell that clown over there!' 'Order in the court! And I find you to be in contempt of this court, Mr. Jones. Off with your head!'

"Okay. There is gamesmanship as well as comedy. In that case Counsel would have known that the People wouldn't let him get away with it. But the trickery perpetrated against Mr. Jones by Counsel could be a little more subtle than that and the People might not catch it in time or ask the witness the right question. And it could just as well be the People who played the trick, and Counsel who nodded off at the expense of his client's neck. But that's how trials work. What about police investigations? What about the relationship between the police and, say, medical examiners? That's where I was really appalled. 'And why is it, Dr Dumbbell, that you failed to examine in the usual indicated fashion the body of the six year old girl whom Mr. Jones is accused of strangling?' 'Because when I saw that little angel lying there with her golden curls on that cold hard table, I simply couldn't bring myself to do anything reminiscent of what the fiend sitting over there had done.'

"Now except for the names, this last exchange is a quote from an actual trial. Mr. Jones was dragged out of prison and burned alive by an angry mob of concerned citizens. But he had been scheduled to be electrocuted by the State for murdering the little angel. Rape being understood as the motive. Even though rape was never established. And there were no witnesses, no evidence, no clue except that Mr. Jones lived two houses down and for certain unstated reasons might be expected to have an interest in raping little angels with golden curls. Even though legally speaking there was no rape."

"I think that I can guess where this happened and why Mr. Jones in particular was thought to have that interest."

"Things like that happen all over all the time. Something like that could have happened to me. I have done something to society for which society might want to punish me."

"Oh dear, I know. I think that we're in the same boat there."

"Lex MacEveny was always the mild one. The just plain nice one. Now imagine Willy Boy wearing his badge. Imagine me at his mercy. Willy is humble. Willy is honest-"

"But he's also full of anger and envy. Directed now mostly at you because you're still alive. Yes. I'm seeing the truth in what you're saying more and more as you speak. But somehow... Well, you seem annoyed at particular people, dear. Or at someone in particular."

"I think that I am a little bit. Not with you. Maybe with-... Well, I don't know. I don't want to say with anyone in particular. I just want it to be understood that I had a close call. I very easily could have paid a heavy price for what Lester did to himself. And you would have paid too. Just my being arrested and whisked away to the big house would have been a devastating blow to us. And then the slim but very real chance of my actually standing trial. It would have been murder in the second degree. Life, perhaps. I don't care about going to a small room and not being able to do anything for years and years but read books. I've done that before. All I care about is being taken away from you. Now that I've had the pleasure of being with you."

"You told me in Catskill, Floyd. Two days before we were married. You have a low opinion of the people who run the world. And yes, you said, you do think that you could do better. And you promised to hold forth on that subject only rarely and under great provocation. I would say that you have had great provocation this week. But there is only one person who has done you wrong here, my darling. And that person in Lester Knapp. Your friend. He is your friend. He always will be. But he was the one who did something to you. He is the guilty party. Society is innocent this time out."

Floyd looks at her. Then he steps over to the wall. He flicks the switch off. He sits down on the third step. Lady Claudia watches him. Then she sits down on the edge of the landing, her legs resting on a lower step.

"That's true," Floyd says. "Les is the only one at whom I should be sore. Well, I am sore."

He looks up at her.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asks.

"No," she says. "The whole idea seems so silly to me. Fun house projections from the living on to the world of the dead, which is closed to us. It's always the slender young headless lady who is quite understandably looking for her head. Never the fat old biddy who is quite incomprehensibly obsessed with finding out who was bequeathed her favorite purple scarf."

"Thomas Aquinas believed in ghosts."

"Aquinas believed in souls on leave from Purgatory. There are only souls, Floyd. We can only pray for our dead. That's it. This right here, right now, is a very ghostly set-up. The place where we last saw Lester Knapp, all dim and frigid. But Les is either in Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. That's it. He's nowhere near Camel Creek, New York."

"Could I have gone to the funeral? Was I wrong to have qualms about the burial? Or was I wrong to allow it?"

"I think that you could have gone to the funeral. We could have gone. And this without betraying our old-fashioned ideas about suicide or adopting any questionable modern sentimentality about it. Les was not a suicide in the eyes of the community. He died accidentally in the eyes of the Law."

"So maybe it was wrong not to go. My Lester shall a ministering angel be, when thou, churlish Brightwell, liest howling. Gosh, it would have been nice if I had asked your advice before. Now he's six feet under."

"It was a question of how you felt. Of how you had the right to feel. Not of some abstract moral conundrum. Mrs. Knapp understands. Cora Knapp. The burial in your cemetery? It's not a Catholic cemetery, dear. You are not a Catholic. You certainly are not a Catholic bishop. You may bury whomever you please in your own little cemetery. Bishops are in a position to make moral statements to their subjects when they permit certain questionable characters to be buried in the Church's hallowed ground. Private citizens are not. Your burying Lester Knapp was just the last step in the process that began with Lex MacEveny's covering him up with a sheet. Gate of Heaven Cemetery is not consecrated ground."

"You sound so sure."

"I've been reading up on these matters in recent days."

"That might have made good bedtime reading."

"You would have had both of us up until rosy-fingered dawn."

Floyd chuckles.

"And then I would have had you continue out in the barn as I milked Greta."

He pauses.

"Peter Knapp," he says softly. "Rochester."

"It's sad if Will doesn't even know that his father has cousins with whom he is close in Rochester. Mr. Knapp has mentioned them a number of times to us. Dear, I'm not sure that I could set forth any strict logic in what I'm going to say. But I think that Mr. Knapp's flight to such a distant land is a show of support for you. And a confession of family disgrace. Of failure as Lester Knapp's father. If he had just stayed down at the farm on the Creek road and refused to attend the funeral or even be around... If it had been a question of his sitting in his rocking chair feeding biscuits to that smelly old dog of his as all hell broke loose for his poor wife... That would have meant nothing. Or it would have meant that he strongly disapproved of Lester's deplorable recklessness where guns were concerned. His leaving town like that? That's honor, Floyd. That's shame and that's honor. A cowardly honor, some folks will say. A cruel honor. But for those of us who understand the language of the beau geste... Well, I've spent most of my life around people who speak that language. I think I understand. I also understand the thinking of people who read the Bible every day and carry over Biblical modes of thought and action into their own modern lives.

"Leaving town was Mr. Knapp's way of saying that for one thing, he knows that his son killed himself. His pretty daughter-in-law was a slut and everyone knows it and that drove his son to take his own life and put Floyd Brightwell's freedom or at least good name in jeopardy. His leaving town was his way of saying without saying it what most needs to be said. To the community, to the State, to Almighty God, Who sees and knows and judges all. Floyd Brightwell is innocent. Fleeing unto a distant land is also his way of telling the world that he is desperately sorry and unspeakably ashamed. But above all... Ah. I can't explain. But I know. He did it for you, Floyd. You would not be attending the funeral. He would not be attending. He could not show his face to his neighbors. But Floyd Brightwell could. Leaving town was his way of saying, 'I have to leave the fellowship of men with my head hanging, but Floyd Brightwell has the right to stay here among you and walk with his head held high.' His not going to Lester's funeral was a matter of honor. Just as your not going was a matter of love. Not morality, not anger. Just love."

"Love. Yeah, I reckon so. Love. You know something, Coffee Queen? Until half past nine this past Wednesday night I just always presupposed that one day the light would break for my old pal Les and I would have my old pal back. But for the first time as a true friend."

There is silence for a few moments. Floyd left the parlor door open. Lady Claudia can see him wiping his cheeks with the heel of his hand.

"But it didn't go that way, did it?" he asks, his voice breaking.

"I don't know, dear. I don't want to say no. It won't do to break our hearts with dead end formulations of that sort. The light breaking? You have a lovely picture of Christ in your parlor. You showed him Christian courtesy and kindness until the bitter end. Maybe in his last moment of life those memories and your prayers and best wishes for him had their good effect..."

"You forgot my lovely wife. You're so much nicer than that girl in the poem... That little floating waif. You know. That Beatrice. Not a bad kid, but surely a bit of a prig? And kind of a cold fish. I'm in Heaven, blah blah blah. You're in Hades, ha ha ha. She needed more pepper in her spaghetti sauce, that signorina did. You know something? I think that we've had just about enough of that blasted Inferno around here."

"I myself have always detested the Inferno. But maybe we should lay the entire Comedy to rest. The other parts get you all excited. And that's not the idea."

"True. And the Inferno wouldn't bore me anymore. It would get me all excited. But in a bad way. Yes. Les is still my friend. My heart prays to the heart of Jesus' mother for him."

"Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that, dear!"

"She's the queen in such matters, I hear. She's the one to call on first and last. The Mother of Mercy. But mind you, it's only my heart that prays to the lady I named. My mind would give me a stern lecture if it ever found out. Let's see. Lester was Dutch Reformed. He was not aboard the Ark of Salvation. But he could have had Invincible Ignorance about the Roman Church. So he could have checked out okay there. Lester was also an atheist. And not just any old atheist. An apostolic atheist. But he confessed before men that his heart was warming towards the King of the Jews in his last hour upon this earth. That was the blessing you brought upon him. So that leaves us with the fact that Lester killed himself. Well, as you say, he could have repented in his last moments. So strictly speaking he had a shot at beatitude. But if he was saved, he probably is going to be frying in Purgatory for a long time. A long time."

"We can't say that either. Let's trust in the mercy of our Heavenly Father. Let's pray every day of our lives that angels will take the soul of Lester Knapp to paradise. Let's leave it at that. But please don't feel that you shouldn't mention him. I like hearing things about him that are nice and funny, that do him credit."

"Really? Then I should be able to dig up two or three more by Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving of 1937. He was a handful, old Les was. He was a Pip. I can't think of him sitting over there in the Tavern anymore. I don't remember him driving his Model T up and down the Turnpike. I think of him suffering in Hell."

"Oh, dear..."

"Well, it's better than arguing against your point about Louise and the timing of the shot and Lex's arrival. Isn't it? I can think of a reason why she might have made it fifteen rather than five minutes."

"I know. The words were scarcely out of my mouth when I thought the same thing. Yes. Let's talk about Les suffering in Hell. I much prefer that."

"But that's only because you know that my Inferno would be worlds apart from the Inferno of that spiteful little Eye-talian Signor Alighieri. So here we go. I'm taking a guided tour through Hell. Virgil says, 'Now if you'll kindly step this way, there are some embezzlers being eaten alive unto endless ages by red ants up ahead...' Ugh. I slip away. I look for Les. My old buddy Les. Finally I spy him. He's sitting with a six or seven other Sad Sacks in some grim and dim open space. They're all ignoring one another. For some reason it strikes me: None of these Sad Sacks knows or cares that he said wistful things about Jesus right before he died the admittedly sinful way he died. None of these mugs knows or cares when his birthday is. Or that he loved classical music. Especially Bach.

"I walk right to Les. I say, 'Hi, Knappy.'

"He asks, 'Is that you, Brightwell?'

"I say, "What are ya, blind?'

"He says, 'Well, yeah. Pretty much. Last time you saw me one eye was hanging out of the socket by a string, wasn't it?'

"I say, 'Sorry. I didn't know that it worked that way.'

"He grunts in disgust over my ignorance.

"I ask, 'How bad is it down here, Knappy?'

"He says, 'Do you see me dancing on any tables, genius? Am I singing hallelujah with harp and timbrel?'

"I say, 'No. You look sad. You look tired and lost and sad.'

"He scowls at me. 'Go blow your nose, Brightwell,' he says.

"''Why did you do it, Knappy?' I ask.

"I expect him to say something rude. But he is now candid in the most gracious way.

"'It wasn't just the shock of learning what my wonderful bride really was,' he says. 'It wasn't just the humiliation of seeing myself as a cuckold. It was knowing that everything was over. I could forgive her. I would have forgiven her. But she never would have accepted my forgiveness. She was a very modern girl. She had cheated. So naturally she would piously and haughtily demand a divorce. She wouldn't marry the Lover Boy from Onatonga or Milbury. She'd hone in on some Harvard professor and move to Massachusetts. I would lose my boy. I might never marry again. It had taken me so long to find a girl the first time. My ways were not winning. And with the onset of that little paunch... And what was it that Christ had to say about divorce? I felt trapped. I felt past everything. I felt hopeless. I felt utterly unloved.'

"'I just wish that you had come back with us,' I say.

"'I do too,' he says. 'I sit here, Floyd, and I picture us sipping that brandy and smoking those cigars in the Tavern... I think of what you would have said to me. And I know that it would have been the right thing. To lift my spirits. To chase the devils away. Or maybe you just would have sat with me in silence, seeing that my grief was great. And then I see so clearly that narrow bed in the Mud Room... That crazy quilt...'"

"'Well,' I say. 'I appreciate your candor. But now it's time to go. I'm taking you to some place of light, happiness, and peace.'

'You think so, hot shot?' Les asks.

"He's sneering. He's his old self again.

"'Have you ever tried to ditch this hellhole?" I ask.

"' Watch your language,' he says. 'No, I haven't.'

"'Well then," I say with a shrug and a smile. 'Come on. Stand up. Take my arm if you need to. We're busting loose. Everything will be okay. That weirdo in the bedsheet, that ghoulish busybody, that Virgil, may be a problem. You just leave him to me. Even a pagan should have figured out that what any human heart suffers in the world is as ineffable to mortal man as the processions in the Trinity. Reducing people to representatives of certain sins and making their torments the lesson of the day is as ungodly as it is tasteless."

"'Don't push that cheeky routine too far, Brightwell,' Les says, looking over his shoulder. 'Though I seem to recall a sermon in Camel Creek Dutch Reformed about this pagan lady who had the better of it in a theological discussion with Christ Almighty. She wanted Him to help her little daughter, who was full of demons, and at first He said no...'

"You're getting the idea,' I say. 'Stand up. Let's get going.'

"'I'm scared, Floyd,' he says. 'I am so scared.'

"'So am I,' I say. 'But He's our Father. He wants to give us good things. And what all good fathers know above all is that what their children want most is another chance. Loaves of bread and eggs and fish are fine. But what children ask for most plaintively is another chance. Let's at least try, old friend. Let's give it a shot...'"

"And then Lester stands up. And he clasps my hand..."

Floyd falls silent for a few moments. But the hallway is not silent. Lady Claudia is trying to muffle the sound of her weeping. She is failing.

Floyd stands up. He crosses his arms and rests them on top of the handrail newel.

"In about a minute I am going to stop talking about Lester Knapp for a long, long time. I'm going to turn that light back on and go back into the parlor and wait for you to bring down the quilt. But one final word on my old friend Lester. I think that it may explain certain things.

"I've told you that it was he who got me out of bed in April of 1925 and told me that I was going on a European tour and two days later drove me to the pier in Manhattan himself, with Pop in the back seat. I've never told you what I heard Pop and him say when he arrived at 61 Juniper that evening. It was starting to get dark. I had been sleeping all day. I had been having bad dreams. I heard Pop call up the stairs. 'Rise and shine, sleepy head. Lester Knapp is here. He craves an audience.' I uttered some sort of catatonic gibberish. Pop took it as a refusal. He said, 'You're not so old that I can't go up there and put you over my knee!' Then Les called up. 'Did you hear that, Brightwell? But I don't think that old is the operative word here. Not with this father and son!' I smiled. I remember thinking that I hadn't smiled in weeks and weeks. I got up. I walked out into the hall. That's why I could hear what Les said to Pop. He was speaking softly. He said, 'I'm going to get our boy back to the land of the living, Pop. I don't care how long it takes. If you ever tell him I'll have to slit your throat, but I love that guy up there. That crazy, sweet, wonderful guy up there. I love him...'"

THE END