“Your parents had told you they were taking you to your grandparents’ farm to enjoy some time in the country, but you had heard the viciousness of their argument when your father revealed the arrangements, against your mother’s wishes, to admit her into a treatment center for alcoholics and your mother revealed her knowledge that he had been having an affair. All that had held them together was you, and you were convinced that only a crisis would hold you all together now. You considered running away, but this would only separate you from them; you had already tried modulating your grades, but the good marks only gave them confidence of your adjustment and the bad just another source for blame. Behaving and misbehaving had the same weak effect, and crying worked only temporarily and could not be sustained. You had even contrived illnesses, but doctors confirmed your health and the proper functioning of your organs.”
I could no longer bear the pain of reliving those difficult days. “Enough!” I said. “Please, stop.”
“You did not plan what to do next,” Luas continued, ignoring my discomfort. “Your grandfather had warned you to stand clear as he worked his pitchfork through the pile; he climbed down from the bin and up onto the tractor, but he left the guard off the conveyor chain. You watched the chain hesitate for a moment under the load and then break free with a bang, whirring through the gears and cogs as the tractor engine roared and the manure flew. The thought struck you in that very moment, before he could disengage the power and replace the guard. You ran up and thrust your hand into the gears. You thought you’d only cut your finger or perhaps break it; but feeling no more than the return of a firm handshake at first, you watched in astonishment and disbelief as your forearm ripped from your elbow and hurled along the conveyor like a toy on an assembly line. You stood frozen for a moment, the way one does upon first seeing one’s own reflection, watching yourself watch yourself, but not fully recognizing the image. In the moment before you lost consciousness, your body tingled-not with pain, but with the brief exaltation that you had finally succeeded in reuniting your parents and all would soon be well.”
“No more, Luas,” I begged, sobbing. “Please, stop.”
“But there is more,” Luas said callously. “So much more. This is the only way to separate yourself from the powerful memories of the postulants, and this is what must be done. Two years later, after your parents had divorced and the right sleeves of your clothes had been sewn shut, you took the witness stand in the Huntingdon County Courthouse, where you would one day practice law, and a young attorney named Bill Gwynne asked you to show the jury the mangled stump of your arm and tell them what happened. It was the most critical testimony in the case, to establish the liability of the manufacturer of the manure spreader for producing a defective product and bestow upon you and your family a small fortune in recompense. The courtroom was silent, every moist eye turned to you. You had practiced your testimony so often with Mr. Gwynne that you actually believed what you were about to say. He had promised you justice. You faced the jury and do you remember what you said?”
“Yes, yes,” I cried, traumatized and ashamed. “I remember. There’s no need for you to repeat it.”
“Oh, but I must,” Luas said. “‘I was standing on my toes,’ you told the jury, ‘trying to see what my grandfather was doing. I slipped on the wet grass and fell against the guard. I didn’t hit it very hard, but the guard gave way and my arm got caught in the gears-’ You became too emotional to go on; the memory of what happened next was too painful.”
Luas’ relentless recounting of the story was having the desired effect; so immersed did he have me in my own memories that I couldn’t possibly confuse my life with that of the postulant I was about to meet. I saw myself there on the witness stand, a ten year old girl again: the judge, robed in black, glaring down at me from the bench, old and terrifying like God; the pinch-faced stenographer yawning as she taps her keys; my grandfather, pale with guilt and remorse, nervously fondling his pipe, aching for a smoke; my grandmother waving a roll of Lifesavers at me for encouragement; my mother sitting by herself on the other side of the courtroom with her “I told you so” face, snarling at my father and grandparents; my father sucking on a Lifesaver my grandmother insisted he take, checking his watch; the defense lawyer from Pittsburgh, too slick and condescending for Huntingdon County, whispering to the vice president of the equipment manufacturer, a Texan, who crosses his legs and strokes the brown suede of his cowboy boots. To my right sits the jury who will decide the case: three farmers, a hairdresser, a housewife, and a truck mechanic. The farmers tug uncomfortably at the collars of their white dress shirts; the hairdresser, wearing too much makeup, cracks her gum, drawing the glare of the overfed tipstave with stains on his necktie; the housewife, wearing too little makeup, fusses with her hair; the truck mechanic bites his dirty fingernails, stealing glances at the hairdresser.
“It’s ok, honey,” Mr. Gwynne says. He’s here to protect me, my knight in shining armor, gallant and handsome; I have a secret crush on him. “Take a moment to blow your nose; I know it’s difficult with one hand. I’m sorry we have to do this, but the makers of the manure spreader here want their day in court, and they’re entitled to it. Just a few more questions, ok? We need you to be brave now and tell the truth. Are you certain the guard was in place? I’m talking about the metal shield over the chain.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Gwynne, I’m certain.”
“And you slipped and bumped into it?”
“Yes.”
“And it gave way?”
“Yes.”
“And your arm got caught in the chain.”
“Yes. Gee, I’m sorry, Mr. Gwynne; I’m awfully sorry for all this. I should have been more careful.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Brek,” he reassures me. “We’re the ones who are sorry for what happened to you. You’ve been very brave for us today, and we appreciate it.”
The jury returned a verdict against the manufacturer in less than an hour: four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. An expert hired by Mr. Gwynne testified that if the spreader had been designed properly, there would have been no need to remove the guard to fix the problem in the first place, meaning that my lie might not have made the difference after all. One-third of the money went to Mr. Gwynne; another third put me through an expensive Quaker boarding school, four years at a private liberal arts college, and three years at an Ivy League law school; the rest paid my medical bills with some left over for other expenses, including a semester abroad in Europe. Only my grandfather knew for certain I lied about the guard, but we never spoke about it to each other. He testified that he couldn’t remember whether he left it on or off, which made it seem like only half a lie.
Luas wasn’t finished with me yet: “Nobody in the courtroom that day knew,” he said, “not your parents, not Bill Gwynne, not even your grandfather-that you deliberately put your hand into the machine. You told only one person, Karen Busfield, and that was almost twenty years after the trial. Do you remember?”
It came back to me with the same clarity as the trial, as if it were happening all over again-as if I were seeing my own life being replayed in the Urartu Chamber. Karen called me late one night; Bo and I were asleep.
“Hi, Karen,” I said, yawning into the phone. “What time is it? Are you ok?”
“ 2 a.m. Sorry for calling you so late. I need a lawyer.”
“I told you this day would come,” I quipped. The sounds of a jail echoed in the background; rough voices, the slamming echo of steel doors. “Where are you?”