A Matter of Conviction

Evan Hunter A Matter of Conviction

For my mother and father,

Marie and Charles

And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?

Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pygmy-self and the day of his god-self.

And that the cornerstone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

— THE PROPHET, by Kahlil Gibran

One

The azaleas were dying.

Naturally, they would be dying, and he should have known better. A man born and bred in New York City could dig each hole to its properly specified depth, spread peat moss in it, lay the plant onto this rich brown cushion with loving care, keep it watered and spoonfed with vitamins — and the thing would die anyway for no other reason than that a city boy had planted it.

Or perhaps he was being overly sensitive. Perhaps the intense heat of the past few days had been responsible for the plants’ illness. If that were the case, the azaleas might just as well give up the ghost, because today was going to be another scorcher. He rose from his squatting position near the fading shrubs that lined the terrace, squinting into the distant harsh glare of the Hudson. Another bright, sticky day, he thought, and his tiny office came instantly to mind, and he glanced rapidly at his watch. He still had a few minutes, at least time for a cigarette before he began his trek to the subway.

He pulled the pack from his jacket pocket, tore off the cellophane top and shook a cigarette free. He was a tall man with a large-boned frame, his body padded with sinew that would never turn to fat. His hair was black, cropped close to his skull in a crew cut which subtracted five years from his age. At thirty-eight, he still managed to convey to juries the look of a young innocent about to prosecute a case only because it was in the best interest of the people. And, like a young boy, he could suddenly vent seemingly spontaneous fury on a witness, turning his testimony into a shambles under the gleaming truth-sword of the very young. This morning, as every morning, his blue eyes were pale after a night’s sleep. Later in the day they would regain their full color, quickly readable meters of the ebb and flow of energy within the man.

He pulled up one of the rattan chairs, maneuvered it so that it faced the river and the pure cloudless blue of the sky, and leisurely puffed on his cigarette. He turned when he heard the screen door clatter shut behind him.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way?” Karin asked.

“I have a few minutes,” he said.

She crossed the terrace lazily, stooping beside the potted geraniums, plucking a few dead leaves from each plant, and then walking to the huge stone bowl that served as an ash tray, dropping the leaves, and coming to where he sat. He watched her, wondering if all men were still delighted by their wives’ beauty after fourteen years of marriage. She had been only nineteen when he’d met her, and the hunger of a Germany in defeat had robbed her body of its rightful claim to flesh. She was still a slender woman, but slender with the glow of health now, thirty-five years old with the firm unsagging breasts of a young girl, an abdomen only faintly striated by childbirth years before. She pulled up a stool and caught his free hand with her own, bringing it to her cheek. Her long blond hair touched the back of his hand. She was wearing a short-sleeved white blouse and dungarees and he thought, How American she looks, and then realized how ridiculous he was being. Why, even her English, heavily accented when he had first met her in Berlin, had lost its guttural Teutonic bite, had become rounded and polished, a pebble worn smooth by contact.

“Jennie up yet?” he asked.

“It’s summertime,” Karin said logically. “Let her sleep.”

“I never see that girl,” he said. “My own daughter.”

“The prosecution exaggerates.”

“Possibly,” he answered. “But I get the feeling I’ll come home one night and find Jennie sitting at the dinner table with a young man she’ll introduce as her husband.”

“Hank, she’s only thirteen,” Karin said. She rose and walked to the edge of the terrace. “Look at the river. It’s going to be very hot today.”

He nodded. “You’re the only woman I know who doesn’t look like a truck driver when she puts on a pair of pants.”

“And how many other women do you know?”

“Thousands.” He smiled. “Intimately.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Wait until my memoirs are published.”