14 – North of Boston
Sally Spofford Shapiro did not argue about politics with her husband often, especially not about the politics of cases he was involved in. She was angry now, though, angry and a bit frightened. “They killed Americans. My God, Ben, they killed American soldiers - the Coast Guard can be called soldiers, can’t they - right here in Boston.”
She did not like seeing her husband on television this time.
They did not usually have the television on during dinner. There was a period in their marriage when the always-on television played like Musak in the background, when the only eye contact they had with each other was in the reflections of their faces off the screen. Banishing the television from dinner, however, was one of the fruits of a bitter six months of marriage counseling they went through years ago. She did not like the return of the television to dinner. That was a bad sign for the marriage, she thought. The marriage was shaky enough as it was. Sally suspected that if Adam had not appeared in their lives, she and Ben would not be together.
Seeing her husband on television being confronted by the persistent interviewer triggered an angry reaction in Sally.
“Mr. Shapiro, do you have any personal hesitation about defending a foreign national who killed American servicemen on American soil?” Smarmy, Sally thought, that woman is smarmy. Just look at her in her jacket and her sprayed-up perfect blonde hair. And that tiny waist on her. Why do TV newswomen have such tiny waists? The thirty pounds Sally had put on when Adam was born still rested on her hips. It was not just her eyes that her husband had stopped looking at, she realized virtually every moment they were together. The less affection he showed her, the more she felt compelled to push him away. Now, look at him with that smarmy woman. He’s eating it up.
And I’ll bet her audience is loving it.
“It has not been established that my client killed anybody.” Shapiro looked directly at the camera, not at the reporter holding the microphone in his face. He’d been through this many times before, representing child molesters, murderers, even bankers. Shapiro liked watching himself on television, as he enjoyed reading the transcripts of his own trials, viewing both as learning experiences, as a way to do better next time, to be perfect next time, and more perfect the time after that. He knew to look directly at the camera, the camera was the audience, not the interviewer.
“We are researching a defense of necessity. People were dying on that ship. They would surely have died if they were turned away, turned over to the custody of the Egyptian Navy. The defense of necessity is a valid ground for violating the law. We will pursue that defense.
“Further, we will put to the test of public trial those persons who placed my client in the position of choosing between certain death or attempting as peaceful an escape as he could manage.”
The reporter turned her back on Shapiro.
“And our cameras will certainly be in that courtroom as America Demands Justice.” A logo of the scales of justice superimposed over an American flag, with the caption “America Demands Justice” filled the screen.
“For Eyewitness Action News, this is Natalie Arthur.”
Sally picked up the remote and turned off the television.
“Please Ben, please. Can’t you skip this one, just once, for me. I’ve never asked this before,” she pleaded.
“I don’t see why this case is any different,” he replied. “I’ve represented unpleasant folks before. Hey, I represented goddamned Nazis. That didn’t bother you. What’s the big deal this time?” He looked her full in the face, the same way he’d looked directly into the television camera. “What I said on TV was true. I’m a lawyer. Sometimes I represent people who have done bad things. That’s my job.
“You know it gives me the greatest stories to tell at parties.” He smiled at her, hoping, half expecting, that would be the end of the discussion. “Great salad. What kind of dressing is this?”
“No, no, no.” Sally stood up, looking down at him, looking down at the napkin in his lap, at the mouthful of lettuce he was trying to swallow. She, too, had her personal power moves. They’d played these cards so many times before, he with his oh-so-sincere stare, all powerful, she, looking down, chin quivering, containing an explosion he dreaded having to live with.
“This is different,” she almost whispered. “Different. I don’t know why its different. I can’t put it into words. But it is different this time. This time what you are doing feels, I don’t know the word to use. It feels unAmerican. I’ve never asked you this before but it is important to me. Please, once, this time, let another knight slay this dragon.”
She sighed, exhaling forcefully like a balloon deflating. Those were her best shots, and she could see they’d missed. She could tell by his eyes, by the way, this time, he looked down at his plate while speaking, chasing cherry tomatoes with his fork while he searched for words, or for the right effect. Sally knew her husband, knew he was always performing, in the midst of a fight with her or in the midst of a fight with a courtroom opponent. He lived his life onstage, at least in his mind.
“You’re right,” he finally said, speaking without raising his head from the plate. “This one is different. This one I can’t refuse.”
“Because they are Jews?” she whispered.
He looked up. Oh-so-sincere stare directly at Sally. “Because I’m a Jew,” he said. He stood up and held both hands out to her. Reluctantly, she played her part, held her own hands out to him, then leaned her head against his chest, feeling his arms wrap around her, feeling one hand slide down to her buttock and squeeze. It had been a while. Her head dropped to his shoulder. He pushed her out at arms’ length.
“Let me tell you about the S.S. St. Louis,” Shapiro said slowly.“You’ve heard of Kristallnacht?”
“Some Nazi thing, I think, wasn’t it?” Sally responded cautiously, not happy about where the conversation was going. It was the hug she wanted, not a history lecture. She was losing him, she knew she was. He was being dragged from her by something powerful, primal. Something Jewish.
“Yeah, some Nazi thing,” Shapiro replied. “In November 1938 Hitler let his goons loose. Kristallnacht means Crystal Night. They called it that because of all the glass that got broken in Jewish houses and businesses and synagogues in Germany that one night. After Kristallnacht, the handwriting was on the wall for German Jews. They knew they had to get out, but getting out had gotten harder, and, it turned out, getting in to any other country also became harder.
“The St. Louis was a German passenger ship. Nine-hundred-thirty-seven Jews managed to bribe their way on board. The ship sailed to Cuba, where the Jews expected to wait until they could get into the U.S.
“But it didn’t work out that way. The Cubans wanted half a million dollars to let the Jews off the ship. They couldn’t raise the money and the ship sailed for Florida, a ship with nearly a thousand Jews, old people, women, children. Things were so desperate the passengers formed a suicide committee to roam the ship to keep people from killing themselves, they were so afraid of being sent back to Germany.
“Remember, this is 1938. Franklin Roosevelt, the great liberal, is President. So guess where the St. Louis landed in the United States.”
Sally did not want to hear about Nazis and Jews. Nazis had nothing to do with what was happening now. This is America. There aren’t Nazis here. Nazis were history. She didn’t want to hear about Jews, either. She wanted her husband back. Jews were taking him from her, Jews and that damned thirty pounds, she thought. I’ll lose the weight, she vowed silently. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I’ll use my gym membership, I’ll hire a personal trainer, I’ll start the diet. Tomorrow. That will get him away from Jews and Nazis, from ships and killings. Back to his family, to me, or if not back to me, back to Adam. Adam was her trump card, She knew that. Enough with Nazis and Jews, fucking Jews all the time now.
“I don’t know where the ship landed, Ben,” she said, acid slipping into her tone. “But I am sure you are aching to tell me, so go right ahead.”
“Nowhere. That’s where in the United States of America the St. Louis passengers got off that ship. Nowhere. We shut the door. Wouldn’t let them in. The St. Louis sailed back and forth near Miami and we sent the Coast Guard to make sure nobody tried to swim to shore. So guess where the thousand Jews went. Back to Europe. The St. Louis delivered its passengers right back to the Holocaust. To the camps.
“Two years later Congress voted to change the immigration laws to allow 20,000 additional people into this country. Guess who they were. Jews? No, they were 20,000 English school children sent here by their parents to keep them safe.”
Sally knew she was losing more than this argument. Something more weighty than politics was drawing him farther and farther from her, some powerful magnet that treated him as iron and her as glass. She knew he was not quite finished with his verbal assault. He prided himself on the killer closing line to his jury arguments, reciting them over the dinner table puffed with pride. The closing line to this argument had not yet been delivered, she knew, and she knew her husband well enough to predict what it was going to be. He met her expectation. First that sincere look, its potency on her spent and dried out. Then, in an oh-so-sincere whisper, the question, “Think the St. Louis passengers could have used a good lawyer?”
She knew better than to answer. She turned her back and walked away from her husband, leaving him alone in the living room, thinking he’d won another argument.