The Burden of Proof

  On these evenings when he wandered, the wine made him sleepy—he had never been a drinker. He jolted awake to find himself upright in a chair, dry-mouthed, the lights blazing. One night a particularly vivid dream startled him out of his sleep. He was bathing at Wolf’s Point in the Kindle River. Unnoticed, the water grew turbulent, and soon he was kicking and struggling while the white froth seethed about him. On the shore, amid the trees, his mother, father, and older brother, dressed in heavy dark woolens, watched, each immobile as a statue. Although he was moving backwards, he somehow caught sight of Clara and the children through the bare branches. They were in a schoolroom. The children were seated at desks while Clara, with a finger raised, offered instruction. Churning his limbs in the powerful waters, he called, but they did not notice him fighting off the current, being driven farther and farther away.

  Fiona Cawley, his next-door neighbor, greeted him, highball glass in hand.

  “Sandy!” she cried. From the first word, Stern knew she was drunk. Fiona let her front door fly open and stood with her arms thrown wide, backlit by the burning lamps of the living room. Nate, Fiona’s husband, also drank more than he should have. Perhaps that was what kept them together. For the present, Stern was struck uncannily by a sudden understanding of what motivated Fiona. Loosened by the liquor, she was more attractive; her posture had an alluring pliancy. Clearly, she savored her liberty. She was handsomely dressed as ever in a robin’s-egg knit suit that showed off her small figure to advantage. Her hair and makeup were flawless, and she wore jewelry for her evening at home, a large diamond piece between the clavicles. Fiona spent her days caring for herself. She shooed the dog away and pulled Stern into the house by the hand, assuring him, in response to his question, that he was not interrupting dinner. She seemed delighted to see him.

  “How are you, Sandy.” She touched his face, a drunken, excessive gesture. “We think so much about you.”

  Already he had taken up certain inscrutable mannerisms in response. He had always been good at this, wordless flexing of the brow to suggest complex feelings. Now his look was more pinched, more allusive of pain.

  “I am as well as could be expected, Fiona. Is Nate about for just a moment? I was hoping to have a word with him.” A personal appearance, Stern had decided, might catch Nate’s attention. After hearing from Cal, Stern was determined to be more direct in attempting to unravel Clara’s knotted affairs.

  “Hasn’t he called you? I gave him the message twenty times. Well, he’s out for the evening, Sandy, but stay for a second. Have a drink with me. There’s something I wanted to ask you about. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Without awaiting an answer, she walked halfway down the hall to drive the dog back to the kitchen. Fiona was one of those people who always got what they wanted. She’d given him no chance to make an excuse.

  For nineteen years, the Sterns had lived beside the Cawleys. They had watched the Cawleys’ modern ranch go through three separate expansions, so that it now wore a somewhat awkward-looking second story, resembling a small top hat on a large-headed man. They had witnessed the coming of age of the Cawley children, both of whom were now in college. They had enjoyed weekend conversations over the fence; an occasional drink or barbecue; two decades of holding mail and exchanging garden tools—but the Cawleys as a couple, like many others, were treated with reserve. Years before, with the retirement of the obstetrician who had delivered the Sterns’ children, Clara had begun to visit Nate as her gynecologist and principal physician. In an emergency—a fall from a tree, a minor infection—he was the unofficial medical adviser to the entire family. Somehow, this professional relationship suited the Sterns well, since it offered a diplomatic means of enjoying Nate without Fiona. As a doctor, he was knowledgeable, relaxed, and affable; at home, he was apt to be overwhelmed by his wife. Younger, Fiona had no doubt been a great beauty, and she was still a fine-looking woman, handsomely slender, with arresting light eyes that were almost yellow. But she was, in a phrase, hard to take: nervous, high-pitched, forever striving, striving. Fiona nursed a hothouse conservatory of internal competitions and visible resentments. A good person to avoid.

  “Highball?” Fiona asked now.

  Stern put himself down on a love seat upholstered in a fabric of peonies. The Cawleys’ living room was decorated in what Stern took to be Irish modern fashion, a self-conscious upgrading of American colonial style. The rooms were crowded with dark tables and commodes, most of the pieces beset with shawls of lace. Fiona occupied herself in a small adjoining den, where she’d set up a tea cart with booze. She drank in elegance; the liquor was in cut-glass snifters, and a large sterling-silver ice bucket had been set down like a centerpiece.

  “Some dry sherry, if it is there, Fiona. On a cube of ice. I really must do some work this evening.”

  “Work?” she asked. “Already? Sandy, you should give yourself a chance.”

  This was a frequent comment. But no one mentioned alternatives. Dancing? Nightclubs? He must have missed the boat somewhere. What was the etiquette of grieving? To disdain useful labor and watch addlepated fare on TV? Really, Stern was tiring already of these conventional efforts to orchestrate his feelings.

  As she handed him his drink, he asked if she was well.

  “Oh, me? I’m just ducky,” said Fiona, and looked into her glass. Stern recalled now that he had determined years ago, without reflection, not to ask Fiona such questions. The dog was pawing about and growling in the kitchen, where he had been shut up; you could hear his claws racing on the tiles. “What is it you wanted with Nate?”

  “I merely had a question or two concerning Clara. Tell him I need only a moment. I wanted to know if he was treating her for any ailment.”

  “There was something,” said Fiona. She used her glass and gestured with a rummy lushness.

  “Was there?”

  “He used to stop over there in the morning. She needed medication or something.” Fiona waved her free hand about, suggesting the way Nate, probably, had put her off.

  “Ah-ha.” As he suspected. Stern held still. Then, fortified to learn he was right, rose to go.

  “Oh, you can’t leave yet. Remember? I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Just so,” said Stern. He had indeed forgotten.

  She went into another room and returned with a small package.

  “Sandy, you’re probably not ready for this yet, but when you are, you have to let me introduce you to Phoebe Brower. She is charming. And you’d have things in common. Her husband, you know—” Fiona fiddled a hand and wriggled her features. “Sleeping pills.”

  He could not quite remain silent—some sound escaped him, a noise of sorts. If Fiona were not drunk, or Fiona, he might have actually taken offense. Perhaps she thought he was starting a club. Unbearable Spouses Anonymous. He recognized the wrapper of the local camera store on the package Fiona was holding. Photos, too? There should be a sign up on his house. Decommissioned. Shipwrecked. Out of use.

  “As you say, Fiona. It is much too soon.”

  She shrugged. “I would think that’s something most men would look forward to. Being on the loose again.”

  Well, they had done fairly well until now, but Fiona was veering off the road. Stern slapped his thighs, a sign he was ready to be on his way.

  “Perhaps you are correct, Fiona. Women always know better about men.”

  “Don’t humor me, Sandy. You do that too much. I have a reason for asking.”

  She was masterful, no doubt about that. Stern sat silent, watching, as Fiona at last drew herself together.

  “Sandy, I want you to look at this. I need to ask you a question.” She offered the package.

  “What is it, Fiona?”

  She shook her head. Just look at it, she said. She had no wish to explain. Somehow he had a powerful sense of Clara’s absence. This scene could never have taken place a few weeks ago. Fiona, even drunk, would have felt less free to prevail upon him.

  When he opened the
package, he found a videocassette.

  “Watch it.” She gestured through an arch toward the small adjoining family room. Stern, thinking of resisting further, abandoned the notion. With Fiona, there was no point.

  He found the VCR and pushed the buttons; he was good with machines. The images jerked onto the screen in the midst of some sequence. The picture was of poor quality, homemade. The skin tones were far too rosy. But they showed enough. The first frames were of a young woman. She zoomed in and out of focus, but she remained naked as the day of her birth. She was slender and small-breasted—seated on a bed, and smiling at the camera in a harmless way. He was too taken aback at first to understand what consequence this naked woman could be to Fiona. But then he recognized Nate’s voice on the sound track; the words were not clear, and Stern, as he stood there, suddenly nipping at his sherry, had no wish to boost the volume and further intrude. He understood enough: Nate was the cameraman.

  Strangely, his first impulse was to feel sorry for his neighbor. How could he have done this to himself? There was nothing particularly salacious about the girl’s poses. She crossed a leg casually at one point; she had on black high-heeled shoes, and as Nate moved the camera about her, the dark pubic triangle was more visible, split with the bright pink lick of her labia. There was something almost innocent about these pictures. Certainly relaxed. Nate and the young lady, whoever she was, were well acquainted. She smiled as if she were on a beach.

  Then, as Stern had a finger poised over the stop button, the picture flipped; the screen went black, then raced with fuzz, and finally filled once more with figures. It took him an instant to sort things out, and a sense of disturbance preceded his willingness to name what he was seeing. Nate, it seemed, had turned the camera on himself. Out of focus, the white shaft of his erect penis was nonetheless recognizable; perspectives were hard to discern, but Nate appeared to be a man of generous proportions. Then, without warning, the image jumped again and settled finally on what Nate likely had been meaning to portray all along. The distances were too short for the camera’s focal range, and you saw mostly the young woman’s hair, which, blurred, looked like some matted bathroom rug. But there was no mistaking her reddened lips fixed over the end of Nate’s member. “This is great,” Nate said on the tape. “This is great.” Stern could understand that much. Nate’s blow job was preserved forever.

  “I see,” said Stern. He had stopped the recorder.

  Fiona had remained by the tea cart, with her back to the screen.

  “Pretty nasty, don’t you think? The son of a bitch told me he was going to AA at night. How do you like that?”

  “Fiona—” he said, but he had no clue as to what else he should add.

  “Here’s what I want to know, Sandy.” She threw cubes quickly into her glass; she still had not faced him. “If I file for divorce, can I use that in court?”

  Stern at once turned elusive. He was not about to get caught between his neighbors. His practice did not include matrimonial work, he told her. Different courts often followed different procedures.

  She interrupted, making no effort to hide her harsh look.

  “Don’t give me a song and dance, Sandy. Yes or no? What do you think? I want to know where I stand.”

  He realized that he was highly alarmed. The tape had upset him. And it bothered him more than he would have expected to find that the Cawleys, one more fixture in his life, were coming apart. Eventually, however, he answered.

  “I would think it is likely to be admitted in court.” There was really no question. Any lawyer with half a brain could think up a dozen ways to get the tape into evidence.

  “Well, he’ll be a sorry little bastard that day, won’t he? I’ve told Nate for years he can’t afford to divorce me. Now he’ll really see what that means.” Fiona had her chin erect; defiant. It was hard not to be frightened by her obvious relish in the pain she meant to inflict. “Do you know where I was the first time I saw that, Sandy? At the store. Nate actually asked me to take the camera in to have it fixed. And the boy behind the counter showed me the cassette in there and said, ‘What’s this?’ He played it in the camera—you know how you can do that?—and he gave me this look. This twenty-year-old kid. And you know what I did? You won’t believe it. I pretended, Sandy. I couldn’t think of anything else. I actually pretended they were pictures of me.”

  She cried then. Stern was surprised she had held up as long as she had. It struck him that Fiona was right. The young woman looked a good deal like her. The same slender, high-cheeked prettiness. Was that a hopeful sign, or something dismal? Or just one more indication that some people always made the same mistake? Certainly there was no wondering now what distractions had kept Nate from returning his calls.

  “Fiona, you are upset,” said Stern.

  “Of course, I’m upset!” she screamed. “Don’t patronize me, damn it.”

  Thinking he might soothe her, he had started to edge forward. But now he held his place.

  “Nate doesn’t know I’ve seen this. I couldn’t stand to listen to him explain.” She looked fiercely at Stern. “And you don’t say a thing. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do.”

  “No, no, of course not,” answered Stern, although it was difficult to think that Nate, who after all had handed her the camera, was innocent at every level. But Fiona was not one to adhere to complicated views of human intention. She had a narrow vantage, a limited range—her emotions moved only between mild hostility and absolute rage. She was at the point now of flailing, and was likely as a result to do herself serious harm, as she had just now by urging Stern to look at this tape, thinking she would shame Nate before the respectable neighbors, and finding instead that the humiliation was worse than she could bear. It probably was best that she avoid the confrontation with her husband. In humor, Clara and he had promised over the years that they would never disclose their infidelities to one another. A joke, but not without its point. It was hard to imagine a loving explanation of this sort of business. At any rate, he had been lucky enough to limp through his marriage without unfaithfulness—at least, not of the carnal variety.

  Stern tried to be solicitous. Couples have gone on, he told Fiona, but she was paying no attention. She sat on the corner of a lounger, a few feet from where he was standing, sobbing into her drink. He could see the spots of rouge on her cheeks, the perfect part in her colored hair.

  “You know what I resent the most? That he would do this now. Now. Twenty years ago, there was always some fellow around. I got out of the car and men watched me walk down the street. They ogled me.” She pronounced it with a soft o, so that the word rhymed with ‘google.’ “I could feel it,” said Fiona. “But he has to go looking for the fountain of youth. For what? What does he think is so wonderful? What does this do for him? Can you believe that last business? The big goddamn stud.” Fiona cried harder. She held the highball glass up to her cheek. “Don’t you think I can do that, too? I always thought he wanted me to have some dignity. I can do that. I’ll let him take movies. I don’t care. Pull your pants down, Sandy, I’ll do it to you. Here.”

  For the faintest instant, Fiona’s look became far more purposeful than the liquor would have seemed to allow, and Stern was convinced that she meant to move toward him. Perhaps she even started and he faltered. Something happened—the quickest moment, in which he did not observe things clearly, given his sense of alarm.

  “Oh, what do you care,” she murmured. She had come to her feet, but she sank down now. He was not sure precisely what she meant by the remark—probably that he was without compassion; but there was some strange insinuation in her voice, in her usual domineering tone, an odd suggestion that he was an abject thing with no right to resist.

  “Fiona,” he said.

  She waved a hand. “Go home, Sandy. I’m losing my mind.”

  He waited a moment or two until she had composed herself a bit.

  “I’ll tell Nate you were looking for him.”

  “Yes,
please,” he answered, and they parted on that odd note of propriety.

  That night, he could not sleep. Throughout their marriage, Clara had suffered prolonged bouts of insomnia, and often went through the days with a worried look and smarting eyes. Occasionally, in the depth of night, he would rouse himself to find her wide-awake beneath the reading lamp on her side of the bed. In the early years, he had asked what ailed her. Her reply was always reassuring but elliptical, and in time he responded to these episodes only by muttering that she should turn out the light. She complied, but sat upright in the dark. Now and then, when this went on for nights, he had made the mildest suggestions, but Clara was much too circumspect to lay her head, or troubles, on any psychiatrist’s couch. She, like Stern, believed that, in the end, one must master these matters on one’s own. So be it. Now the troubled nights were his.

  He sat up with his pillow propped against the headboard, the single directed beam on his bedside lamp the only light in the house. He took up a Braudel history, and then replaced it on the night table. This episode with Fiona would not pass easily. From his body a mild force field seemed to rise, an almost electrical aura. In the dark he made his way to the sun room for a drink. Vodka and soda, something he had seen a client order in a bar. He pushed aside the curtain, looking to the Cawleys’. Nate’s BMW was in the circular drive, and the only light was borrowed from the street lamps and the moon crazing the dark windows. Was Fiona also restless, or did she sleep soundly, spent by ire and impulse?

  He roamed back to the bedroom with the drink. With the liquor, the sensations had become stronger and more localized. His genitals were almost singing. With a certain shyness, he reiterated in his mind the tape recording. One image seemed to fascinate him, a peculiar lateral alignment in the camera’s eye as it looked down to the woman’s head in Nate’s lap and caught the white part in her hair, the shining ridge of her nose, and the glistening pale stalk growing out between her lips as she drew back. Slightly drunk, he had no power to resist his own excitement. His organ throbbed, lifting the bedcovers. Three weeks ago, he would have assumed that he was dead forever to such stimulation.