Dante's Wood Read online

  Gradually, the collective aneurysm died down as the spectators, coaxed by the bailiff, resumed their seats and the babble of a dozen simultaneous conversations dwindled to a few pronounced whispers. I bowed my head, wishing there were some way to conceal my shock. With quiet finally descending on the room, I knew everyone’s eyes were on me. It wasn’t hard to guess the group judgment. Pity, disapproval, contempt: I sensed them all as easily as if I’d been watching the scene myself on a hugely popular YouTube clip. Had I been capable of any show of defiance I would have stared right back. As it was, all I could manage was a silent prayer that I might be allowed to escape, Star Trek fashion, in a cloud of vanishing pixels.

  “What’s your answer to her question, Mr. Di Marco?” the judge snapped raggedly. “Why wasn’t this exhibit made available to the defense before today?”

  The room was now as still as the eye of a hurricane.

  Di Marco answered, “Due to the sensational nature of the evidence we ran the procedure several times to be absolutely sure of the results. I didn’t think Ms. Sanchez would object, since it was she who insisted that this hearing take place at the earliest possible opportunity.”

  “You didn’t think I’d object?” Hallie roared back. “What about the discovery rules? My client should have been informed of these results the minute they were available!”

  Di Marco was unapologetic. “State has no obligation to speed up production of evidence that further incriminates the defendant, as counsel well knows.”

  I paid scant attention to the argument that followed, knowing only with numbing certainty there would be no stays of execution for me that morning.

  Di Marco was back to me now. “Would you like me to read the DNA report to you, Doctor?”

  “I’ll take your word for the contents,” I said miserably.

  “When we left off we were discussing the Dickersons’ visit to your office last fall.”

  I managed a yes.

  “At which time his parents expressed fear that the defendant was being molested by one of his caregivers, correct?”

  “That’s what I testified.”

  “But you dismissed those fears, didn’t you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Because you were convinced all the defendant needed was some sex education.”

  “No,” I repeated in a tight voice.

  “You decided ‘the birds and the bees do it, so why not Charlie?’”

  “That isn’t what I—”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Masturbation isn’t intercourse. In an eighteen-year-old boy it’s completely harmless.”

  “Natural, you’d say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it also natural that this eighteen-year-old boy, having discovered what all the fun was about, would want to get a taste of the real thing?”

  “I . . . I saw no evidence of that kind of forward thinking during our session.”

  “Sure. The only thing you saw was a boy with a loaded gun who didn’t know how to use it.”

  “No,” I said again harshly.

  “So you decided to give him some target practice.”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “Tell me, Doctor, when you recommended your novel treatment program, did it cross your mind that it might unleash emotions that someone with the mental age of a ‘six- to nine-year-old’ would have difficulty handling?”

  All I could do was shake my head.

  “Emotions like jealousy and rage when the girl of his dreams decided she was tired of sex with her retarded lover and told him to get lost?”

  I groped for my water. My head was throbbing like an arena in a rock concert and I could barely hold the glass steady enough to take a sip. “You have no proof of that,” I said, nearly sending the glass to the floor as I set it back down.

  “Don’t I? Care to speculate on other ways his sperm found its way into her body?

  “Objection,” Hallie said meaningfully. It was my cue to stop and take a deep breath.

  But I was sick of being humiliated. “Look,” I said, “even if you’re right, that one thing led to another and Charlie made that woman—I mean the victim, pregnant—that doesn’t mean he killed her. This isn’t the dark ages, after all.”

  “What does that mean?” Di Marco asked dangerously.

  “It means that disabled adults can have sexual relationships just like anyone else. You’re talking like physical intimacy between two human beings, one of whom happens to have lowered intellect, is some kind of crime.”

  “So you believe retarded people are entitled to have lovers?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Even with someone who can run mental rings around them.”

  “If they consent to it freely.”

  “What sort of form would that consent have to take? Would they have to sign a piece of paper or something?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “But you’d agree with me that consent depends on all the facts and circumstances.”

  I had no choice but to say yes.

  “And that, despite his low functioning, the defendant was capable of making that kind of important decision on his own?”

  I realized then the full extent of the trap I had fallen into.

  “Yes, but you can’t compare it to—”

  “No,” Di Marco said. “I didn’t expect you could. No further questions.”

  Eight

  The next day, a Saturday, I tried to keep busy with my usual routines, starting with a ride on my road bike. It’s a DeRosa, one of the most exclusive cycling machines ever built. A few hundred or so find their way into the United States every year, but I had gone straight to Ugo DeRosa’s factory in Milan to get mine. I love its sleek profile and flawless construction, the endorphin high I always get after a punishing workout on its saddle. Once I rode it outdoors almost every day in dry weather. After my illness I kept it hitched to a stationary trainer in my spare bedroom. Once I got going with a fan blowing on my face I could usually imagine I was on a real road again.

  That morning, though, the only image I could summon was of Charlie weeping in his stripped-down cell. Although Judge La Font had taken the matter under advisement, I didn’t need a lawyer to tell me the hearing had gone badly for us. As soon as it was over Nate had found me in the hallway and snarled in my ear, “I’ll see you fired for this.” Hallie hadn’t been much more forgiving. “You sandbagged me! Why didn’t you tell me what the Dickersons came to see you about?” I could have replied that she hadn’t asked, but it didn’t really matter one way or the other. Charlie’s fate was sealed the moment Di Marco had flourished the DNA results.

  After thirty minutes of half-hearted pedaling I gave up. One of my wheels was out of true and I vainly attempted to fix it—I always did my own maintenance and had learned to make even the most complicated repairs by touch—but I kept fumbling my tools and applying too much pressure. When one of the spoke lugs snapped in half I decided I was doing more harm than good and forced myself to quit.

  I wandered aimlessly around my apartment picking up articles of clothing I’d strewn on the floor during the week and trying not to feel so useless. My place was a condominium unit in a tower just north of where Lake Michigan flows into the Chicago River. It was nothing special: two bedrooms, two baths, a living-kitchen area, and a small outdoor terrace. Most of its value came from the view. I furnished it my first week in Chicago in a single trip to Marshall Field’s, haphazardly choosing whatever pieces seemed to clash the least. On my salary I could have afforded something much nicer, but I was in a self-­punishing mood then and didn’t need the space. When I’d left my wife a few months before there was only time to pack a suitcase, and I never had the stomach to go back and claim the rest of the possessions that were mine. Apart from my books and my collections, which I had her lawyer ship, there was nothing from my past I wanted to salvage anyway.

  After a time I showered and dressed and rode the ele
vator to the first floor. On the way down a couple entered with a dog I knew, a hulking breed that smelled like raw steak. They never did anything to control him and he always went straight for my crotch. “I wish you could see how much Hannibal likes you,” the female of the pair said after I had pushed off his muzzle for the third time.

  Outside, it was frigid and gray. An Alberta Clipper had roared in the night before and even though it was the first of May it felt like November. I went south along the lake path through a gale-force wind. Breakers pounded against the sides of Monroe Harbor and slapped spray on me every few feet. In a short time I was soaked to the skin and dull with cold, but it was preferable to the walls pressing in on me at home. I wandered around the museum campus and the gravel paths near Buckingham Fountain for an hour until the arctic blasts finally drove me inland. While I was passing by the Art Institute I overheard someone mentioning an Edvard Munch exhibition. It was a shame I couldn’t see it. The Scream would have suited my mood perfectly.

  By then I had developed a sliver of an appetite. The café in Millennium Park was a block away and I decided to stop there, thinking that if nothing else it would make a good warming hut. As always the place was jammed. The maître d’ offered at once to jump me to the head of the line, but I turned him down. It was enough to be indoors and out of the freezing wind, with other people’s voices filling my ears for company. The dollar’s slide against foreign currencies had brought a wave of European visitors to Chicago that year, and most of the accents were foreign. I eavesdropped for a while on a husband and wife arguing animatedly in Italian while I waited my turn. “Cieco,” I heard her whisper to her husband, obviously referring to me. “Ma non sordo,” I said, giving her a tired smile.

  “I thought you’d feel more comfortable back here,” the maître d’ explained when he’d finally shown me to a table in a distant corner. I knew what he really meant but bit down a retort. “Just wave if you need anything,” he added chummily. I squeezed through the narrow space between the tables and took a seat on the leather banquette against the wall. After I’d ordered a Reuben and a cup of tea I slipped on my earphones to occupy the time. Reading at mealtimes is an old vice of mine, and I’d gotten into the habit of always carrying an audio book in my pocket so I wouldn’t be stuck in restaurants with nothing to do.

  Midway through the sandwich something hard ran over my foot. I jerked it away and put my book on pause so I could make out what was going on. Someone was trying to fit a stroller between my table and its closely packed neighbor.

  “I’m so sorry,” a youngish-sounding woman said. “They don’t give you much room here and my baby is sleeping, so I can’t leave it by the door. Do you mind? I’d ask for another table but I had to wait twenty minutes to get this one.”

  “I don’t mind at all. Can I help you?”

  “It seems to be stuck. Maybe if you lifted the wheel?” I reached down. What I’d thought was a stroller was really a baby jogger and the single front wheel had become lodged between the pedestal of my table and the banquette. I freed it by lifting and shifting the pedestal slightly.

  “Thank you. You’re very kind,” the woman said. She slid onto the banquette a few inches away from me and said apologetically, “I shouldn’t have taken her out today but it’s so hard staying cooped up inside all day with a newborn and the only time she stops crying is when we’re walking. I must have put in twenty miles with her already this week.”

  “She’s a beautiful baby,” I said politely. This didn’t provoke any reaction, and I realized that with my cane hidden away on the floor I must have looked like anyone to her.

  “Isn’t she? She’ll be six weeks next Tuesday, though it seems like an eternity since she came home. They don’t prepare you, do they? For what it’s really like, I mean. Or maybe it’s just impossible. You have to go through it yourself to know. Before she was born my mother kept telling me they’re easier to take care of when they’re inside. This was when I was as big as a house and couldn’t breathe at night unless I was propped up with a dozen pillows. I thought, who’s she kidding? All I want to do is get this thing out of me. Now all I want to do is sleep. Do you have children?”

  I don’t know what made me tell her. “A son. A little older.” I didn’t add that I had never met him.

  “So you know about babies. Listen, I wonder if you could do me a favor. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I desperately need a potty break and she’ll wake for sure if I move her. She only went down when we came in. Do you think you could watch her while I scoot in there? It’ll only take a minute or two. I suppose you think I’m a terrible mother. I shouldn’t even be thinking of leaving her with a stranger, but if she wakes again I’ll never get something to eat. You seem like a nice man.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll mind her. What’s her name?”

  “Anna. And I’m Kate.”

  “Mark.” I held out my hand and she shook it.

  “I’ll be back in a flash,” Kate said.

  Almost as soon as she left, Anna’s baby radar went off and she began to fuss. I felt around her blankets for a pacifier but couldn’t find one. I tried to soothe her by pushing the jogger back and forth, but there wasn’t enough room to move it, and when her cries became more insistent I leaned over and eased her out of the sling. She was tiny, barely the size of a kitten, and as toasty as a coal. The mingled smells of Dreft and curdled milk drifted up from her terry onesie. I brought her damp head to my shoulder and bounced her up and down on my arm, crooning a little rhyme my father had sung to me when I was small: “Trin’ trin’ cavallin, sut’ e’ porta di Turin, sut’ e’ porta di Tortuna . . .”

  When Kate returned Anna was still fussing, but no longer on the verge of wailing.

  “Oh, you bad girl,” Kate said, taking her from me. “Crying again. Aren’t you lucky Mark was here to take care of you?” Then to me: “Thank you. Again. You really are a saint. Can I pay for your lunch? It must be pretty cold by now.”

  “Don’t even think of it. I enjoyed holding her.”

  Kate said, “One last thing. You are going to start thinking I’m such a pest. Is it OK if I breastfeed her next to you? Some people are bothered when they see it, especially if they’re eating, and I’ve already imposed on you enough for one day.”

  I decided I had to tell her.

  I was worried she’d be horrified about leaving Anna with me, but she took it well. “Wow,” she said. “I can hardly believe it. You look so normal. I noticed you weren’t looking directly at me, but I thought you were just shy. Wait until my husband hears about this. On second thought, maybe I won’t tell him.”

  When the waitress came I ordered a second cup of tea and chatted with Kate while she nursed Anna and ate her lunch. I was glad for the company and in no hurry to get anywhere. Kate seemed impossibly young. Anna was her first, a surprise pregnancy who had given her parents a brief fright when ultrasound testing during Anna’s third month suggested she was undersized. Kate’s ob-gyn recommended amniocentesis to be on the safe side, but Kate declined. “I wasn’t going to do anything about it, so what was the point?” she told me. “I didn’t care if she came out with two heads so long as she was healthy.” That was the point but I didn’t say it. Maybe she felt she needed to show me how fair-minded she was.

  “Those decisions are always difficult,” I said. “There’s no right answer.”

  “But how would you have felt if your parents had decided to abort you?”

  “I wouldn’t have known.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I guess that’s right.”

  We talked for a long time. Kate allowed me to hold Anna again and I gently traced her profile with a finger while she slept. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not possible to “see” a face by feeling it. The most I could make out when I tried it on my own were a series of bumps—nose, chin, mouth—and most blind people I know would sooner sink into the earth than grope another adult that way. But if Anna’s face was, strictly speaking, a blank, the memo
ry it evoked of another sleeping infant was as real to my mind as if I’d traveled back in time and was once again standing beside his crib, watching the moonlight play over his delicate features. Kate seemed glad to be relieved of the isolation of new motherhood, if only for a few hours, and it was nearly three before she made her excuses to leave. When we parted she and I exchanged telephone numbers, even though we knew we would never run across one another again.

  When I got home, my place seemed emptier than ever.

  I napped for a while in front of the television. When I woke dusk was settling, the room was dark, and I felt stiff and wooly-headed. While I was sleeping I had dreamt of babies and test tubes and crying in the night. And something else too, though I couldn’t recall precisely what. It hovered just below the surface of consciousness like a daring housefly, always managing to pull off a last-minute escape. The sense of something urgent eluding me persisted as I went from room to room flicking on lights. I didn’t always do this, being well able to navigate my home in the dark. But that evening I was rebelling against a profounder darkness, or maybe needed a symbolic act to chase the shadows away. When the apartment was lit up like a candle I went to the kitchen to heat up a can of soup for dinner.

  As I was opening the can it slipped, squirting its contents everywhere. I swore and dumped the opener in the sink. I had just twisted the tap to wash it off when I idly recalled what brand it was, one that always made me think of a game of tic-tac-toe. And just like that, I remembered what had come to me in my dream.

  Hallie’s number was recorded in my cell phone and I nearly tripped over the pile of shoes near the door in my rush to grab it from my coat pocket.