Identical (39 page)

“I bet. And no trouble practicing law?”

“Paul didn’t know any more than Cass about practicing criminal law when he started in the PA’s office. You don’t really learn how to be a prosecutor in law school. It’s on-the-job training. And both of them picked up a lot from Sandy Stern during Cass’s case. A few years later, when Paul went into private practice, he got into a big case in Illinois and needed to be admitted to the bar there. Cass stayed in the joint for six weeks and studied, and he was the one who took the bar exam and passed it.

“So practice was never the problem. It was the details of life. They wrote down as much as they could for one another in those letters they sent every night, but I must have apologized a million times over the years for Paul’s poor memory. The hardest part was the kids. The prosthetic had to come off at night, and with it or without it, each boy could tell their father from their uncle by the time they were three. It was a big chance telling each of them the truth, when we finally did. We had this pact among the three adults that there would be no recriminations if one of the kids blew it. But they didn’t. Kids don’t like to be different, it’s the kind of thing they keep to themselves naturally. At this point, they’re grateful. They feel like they have two fathers. A lot of children of identicals will tell you that.”

“And what’s going on now?” Tim asked. “What’s the point of changing identities?”

“Paul’s had his fill of politics, Cass hasn’t. Paul is going to be happier opening that charter school. It’ll be for ex-cons and kids out of juvenile confinement, young men fourteen to twenty-six. The curriculum will go from high school through junior college, with a big emphasis on job training and internships. The notion is that the cons will teach the kids to stay straight. It’s a neat idea. And it’s the right job for ‘Cass.’” She made the quotation marks in the air. “A con teaching cons? Paul’s already talked to Willie Dixon about it and the county will fund it. And Cass wants to stay in office. So it makes sense. Doesn’t it?”

“Not for me to say. But I hope you all live in peace. You’re entitled.” Tim thought about what Sofia had said. It was a lot to take in. “How was it having your kids while they were swapping places?”

“Paul was always home when they came.” She looked Tim in the eye. “And when they were conceived. I can tell the brothers apart.”

Tim laughed out loud.

“You settled for half a husband?”

“Lots of spouses spend time apart. Think of families in the service. Besides, I was twenty-four and crazy in love. And I thought any man who loved his brother that much would love me the same way.”

“Were you right?”

She smiled a little, philosophical, as he’d expect of any grown-up.

“I think so. I think our marriage really is another reason Paul’s willing to leave public life. So we have a space to build a more normal relationship. Until February, I hadn’t lived with my husband longer than two months straight in twenty-five years.”

“Working out, I hope.”

“It’s been great, thank God. I won’t pretend we weren’t both worried. But you know, Mr. Brodie, Tim-as hard as it’s been at times, I always thought about the way you and Mrs. Brodie were while Kate was dying. And afterwards. You two really were my model. God knows, it wasn’t my parents.”

She’d surprised him. “Did it truly look that good?”

“Yes. Really good. Really solid.”

“And do you think Maria was happy?”

“I’m positive she was, Mr. Brodie. Positive. Don’t let her death take that away from you. I remember one day when I was in high school, I was over at your place, and I passed through the kitchen, and at just that moment Mrs. Brodie, Maria, lit up like somebody had turned on the power, just beamed. And I couldn’t understand and then I realized she was looking out the window at you coming up the walk. I wasn’t more than fourteen or fifteen, but I thought, That’s what
I
want.
That.
”

Tim, as often happened these days, found himself near tears.

“You couldn’t have told me anything, Sofia, that means more to me.”

She smiled. “I’m glad.” When she straightened up, she looked into the car for another second.

“I told them that you were a person of your word. That you won’t tell anyone about this part. The last switch?”

He nodded then and she leaned in to kiss his cheek. As always, she told him to say hi to Demetra.

Evon was still parked at the foot of the bridge. She jumped out of the car as soon as she saw him coming.

“Who hit you?”

“My own damn fault,” he said. He told her about grabbing Paul’s nose and getting attacked by Beata.

“Paul’s nose is real?”

He nodded and didn’t say anything else.

“That kind of screws what you were saying on the phone, right?” Evon asked.

“Maybe. But whatever they were doing, or are doing, I guess it’s not our business. That’s the deal we said we’d make, right?”

“Right,” Evon said. “I don’t know why I should care.”

It was late now. The sun was starting to set into the river in an astonishing display of color. They leaned on the hood of Evon’s Beemer, the sight soon lost on them while Tim told her what he’d heard about the night Dita was killed.

“So,” he said at the end, “either Lidia lost it more than she admitted or recalled and is the killer. Or Cass is lying and he killed Dita. Or someone else took a turn whomping on young Ms. Kronon.”

“And what’s your bet?”

“Cass didn’t do it. I’m convinced of that. And there’s no skin under Dita’s fingernails. She’d have fought off Lidia, especially after Lidia slapped her. But she didn’t raise a hand to whoever killed her. Which means, probably, that it was someone she never ever expected it from.”

“Like someone in her family?”

“That’s tonight’s guess,” said Tim. “Hermione, she was a wafer, she never had the strength. So that leaves the two men.”

Evon stared at him. “Hal?” she asked.

Between the row of Corinthian columns that surround the dripping porte cochere at the front of his grand house, Zeus raises his palms to signal to his fleeing guests that he accepts the judgment of the gods: The picnic is over. Sheltered by umbrellas and newspapers and, in a few cases, the plastic cloths filched from the tables, his fellow parishioners rush down the hill toward the lower meadow where their cars are now sinking into the mud. His suit, swan-white at the start of the day, has been grayed by rain, but he keeps his place, waving, throwing kisses, shouting to the boys from the caterer to assist the old yiyas, many of whom stop to touch Zeus and bless him as they depart. Diane Trianis, built to the same stately proportions as her mother, comes close again to kiss his cheek. She remains lovely, even with her hair reduced to a fringe of wet scraps. “Call the campaign office Tuesday,” he tells her again. She has just divorced, needs work. He slept with her mother twenty years ago, and the fleet thought of what may be ahead with Diane sends a jolt to the part he has been known to refer to as his thunderbolt. So much happening, so many people-real people he has known for years-in his thrall. The picinic is always a wonderful day. Hermione has him by the elbow and he turns at last to the darkness of the house and the gloom he dwells with whenever he steps out of the circle of light that shines on him in public.

His wife, miraculously if predictably, has remained almost completely dry. Hermione is always in precise control of her appearance, so much so that years ago she had her eyebrows plucked out, preferring to draw them in perfectly in pencil each day. She remains sleek and elegant in the expensive garments she has had tailored, even if she looks like a ruler once her clothing has been shed. But she is reliable. Her smile has been fixed faultlessly for six hours now. Without doubt, she is exhausted, but Hermione is too rigid to complain. Yet no one in a marriage ever fully forgets its worst moments, which in Hermione’s case involve alcohol and a torrent of shrill anger that she finds difficult to dam once it bursts forth. In those times, usually when he himself is drunk and has in Hermione’s presence chatted too amiably, canted too close, hungered too openly for a young woman, she calls him a callous monster, whose ego is a well that can never be filled. He accepts these outbursts, even her judgment, in silence, knowing he has brought it on himself. The truth, of course, is that he is not a good person. He is entranced by his power and impressed by the way it has grown up in him like the trunk of a strong tree. But the immensity of the appetites Hermione deplores often shocks even him. She is right. He will never be happy.

Hermione inevitably restores order to their marriage. Ordinarily it is the next day when she comes to him and says simply, ‘I am grateful to you, Zeus. I am grateful for my life.’ This is enough, and far more than most men receive within the walls of their homes. He knows that. Thanks to his late father-in-law, Hermione understands their relationship the way a man would, as a deal well made on both sides.

Zeus has stopped in the living room, amid the brocades and the treasures. Phyllos brings him a glass of whiskey. Pete Geronoimos, who has been upstairs in Zeus’s office using the phone, comes down the stairs whistling.

“I’ve got a plane to take us to Winfield at 6 a.m. The Farmers thing is in line.” The UF, United Farmers, is going to endorse Zeus. He will talk about his family in Kronos, at the foot of Mount Olympus, who kept sheep and goats and horses, a few of which they had not stolen from someone else. His father had actually come to the US because a posse of local men had spent a full day tracking him like a wolf. But Zeus will limn Nikos as a gentle shepherd.

Pete is a food importer, but he has loved politics since they were boys together. By all rights, he should be the candidate, but Pete stands five foot three and is built to the same proportions as a kitchen stove, and has been busted three times Zeus knows about, propositioning undercover cops who told him they were sixteen. Last year Zeus finally acceded to Pete’s repeated requests to run. Pete undertakes most tactical decisions, attends to all operational details. Zeus’s job is to make them love him, a task he relishes, talking about his modest start in life, the war, business, the glory of America, selling his whole story, which he knows they yearn to believe. The voters are still angry with the Democrats and that weak cluck Jimmy Carter in his cardigan, telling Americans to turn down their thermostats and perk up from their funk. People want strength. Eighty percent of the people who will cast a ballot in November have no idea what the governor actually does besides live in a mansion and attend parades. Zeus is strong. The idea of standing on the balcony of the governor’s mansion after his inauguration and waving to a throng of thousands is as exciting to Zeus as sex.

When Hal and Mina come into the living room to say good night, Pete heads home to his dog and a few hours’ sleep. Zeus’s daughter-in-law-to-be embraces him and praises every aspect of today’s event-the food, the music, the warmth of the people from St. D’s. Hal, who is learning to follow her example, repeats every word as if he had thought of it himself. Hal is a good boy, far younger than his age, but dear to Zeus, due especially to his eagerness to please his father. Hermione is in despair because the couple cannot be married at St. D’s. The rules are absolute, Father Nik says, he does not make them. Were Mina a Catholic, a Presbyterian, anyone who accepts Christ and the Trinity, she could receive the sacrament. Zeus could not care less. He is a Greek of ancient sensibility, who believes more in the gods on Olympus than some mystical three-headed ghost. He takes Mina with him when he gives speeches at synagogues.

As Hal and Mina head off, Dita, his treasure, flashes by. Zeus calls her. She answers him, as always, with impatience.

“What?”

He considers her as she stands there, an extraordinary beauty with her sharp features and penetrating eyes. There is no love in his life like the ravening desperate love he feels for his beautiful daughter, his only true child. It precedes everything else. He is dirt and muscle and bone; but first he loves Dita. This love holds power over him, so much so that at a terrible moment it was beyond his control. Which is why she despises him in a way that will never ease. She needs him, too, as children always do, and is twisted on the rack by that antagonism, between her hatred and her need. But neither of them will ever fully escape that darkness in the past, a cataclysm that resides in the same place in Zeus as the chaos of war. It was a sad drunken time in his life, right after his mother died. He rarely lets his memory turn there, and neither Dita nor her mother nor he ever speaks a word. But the lock on her door is always a reminder.

“Thank you for being so gracious to our guests,” he says.

“You’re welcome. I hate this fucking day,” she tells him. “Those people bore me to death. Greek this, Greek that. They don’t seem to know they’re living in a cage.”

He ignores her. That is all that he can do. She will be twenty-four in a few days and remains under her father’s roof with the implicit proviso that she will be free from any criticism, including much she unquestionably deserves.

“Your boyfriend is Greek, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Cass? I’m just about done with him. His family hates me. What in the hell did you do to them, Dad?”

“Nothing. It was a misunderstanding. Lidia unfortunately married below herself. Mickey is really nothing but a Greek hillbilly. He has more pride than ability. He felt humiliated by my kindness to his family and I only meant well.”

Zeus spoke to Lidia today, the first words in many years. Teri believes Lidia attended the picnic because she is beginning to accept that Cass will marry Dita, as he well may, despite tonight’s hard words from Zeus’s mercurial daughter. Lidia is stout now and gray. Yet the woman he so desperately longed for remains visible to him. For years, especially when he entered the service, he retained the hope that he would return in glory and marry Lidia, whatever her father had to say. When Zeus learned that she had wed herself to a creature as simple as Mickey, it was like a stabbing. Zeus has always recognized that he married Hermione in part because the only woman he ever envisioned as his partner was gone. He wants so many females in other ways. Even now, he can saunter across some broad avenue, stricken by longing for half the women who come into sight. Any manifestation of beauty is enough to stimulate his ardor-good legs, a full bosom, a pleasant face. But he had truly yearned to marry only Lidia, who then chose her father over him. In reprisal, in time, Zeus fucked her. It was the way the gods always served him. He saw that the instant that Terisia asked him to give her best friend a job.