“Which is?”
“The photos of my children, which were in my study at home. Florence claims them, too.” He shook his head in wonder at the tidal wave of bitterness that now engulfed his life.
I explained that Ellen and I had divorced in relative peace.
“I went through enough, though,” I said, “to know that five years of divorce litigation is worse than torture.”
My sympathy was real, although it would not have been very hard to write a brief for Mrs. Merriwell. She’d held house and home together for forty years, while Merry was out being great, and had probably believed that she had the relatively contented marriage with all its sharp compromises and reluctant acceptance that many couples know. Then she picked up the morning paper. There she discovered not only that her husband had achieved some hitherto unknown peak of satisfaction with another woman, but that the female in question was younger than one of their daughters, and even worse, that he had ultimately begged that girl for the chance to throw over Mrs. Merriwell, to whom he referred repeatedly in unrefined terms. Perhaps the most painful revelation of all was that he regarded his time with his wife in the wake of the affair as a barren purgatory to which he was now confined as some kind of poetic punishment for the rapture he’d briefly experienced.
“No end to that case in sight?” I asked.
“I’ve wanted to negotiate. None of us—my wife, my daughters, or me—needs to provide the press with another field day by going to court, but I’m losing hope. I’m earning a large income for the first time in my life and Florence gets half of it as long as she holds out.” He glanced up, with that whimsical smile that had first begun to emerge near the end of our meeting at the embassy. “There is a reason people hate lawyers, Boom.
“And, of course,” he added, “while nothing is resolved, my daughters seem to feel obliged to side with their mother. I had a granddaughter last year, whom I’m yet to meet.” He’d had too much to drink to remain completely stoical with that remark, and his gray eyes shifted south for a second. “But I received that photo at Christmas. So there’s hope.” I admired the picture of a beautiful, tow-headed lump framed at the very epicenter of his desk.
“And what about your life now?” I asked. “How are you finding dating?”
“Oh,” said Merriwell. “There’s been none of that. My lawyer believes it would only add fuel to the fire, since it will inevitably be a public event. And I’m not sure I’m ready anyway.”
“After five years, Merry, you’re probably as ready as you’re going to get.”
“Ten, really.” I didn’t understand for a second. Then I realized that he was referring to Major St. John. “It’s bound to involve compromises that I don’t want to face.” A crippling bolt of emotion, sped by alcohol, palsied his features for only a second and he refused to look my way as I took in the fact that the man remained heartbroken. Merry gazed into his drink.
“I lived a life of discipline,” he said. “And then I could summon it no longer. I wish I could say that with hindsight I would never do it again. I am devastated by the pain I caused everyone else. But I have a far better idea now of who I am. I would never want to have lived without learning that.” He peeked up at last. “Is that shocking?”
“Of course not,” I said, although I wasn’t positive I meant that. “I’m just trying to add it all up, Merry.”
“And what does it come to?”
“I doubt my impressions are worth much.”
“No excuses,” he said. “Something seems to have struck you.”
I turned it all over for a second more.
“I’m sure I’m way out of place, and probably wrong,” I said, “but you seem to be giving everybody permission to punish you, starting with yourself, as if that will make up for the value you attach to that experience. I think it’s time to move on and take advantage of what you’ve learned. I have no clue where I’m going, but I feel a lot better moving ahead than I did during the years I seemed to be standing still.”
In all likelihood, I was the one thousandth person to tell Layton Merriwell something like this. But that didn’t mean the other 999 had been heard. He stared at me as if it were the Annunciation.
“Thank you,” he said at last. Nine had just passed. I called a car and removed my jacket from his closet. We stood together at the door.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Boom. I hope it’s not the last occasion.”
“Same here, Merry.”
Life, of course, is full of people you discover you like a lot and then never see again. It’s one of the many small tragedies of going around only once. We both seemed to be contemplating that fact.
“I wish you luck with your investigation, Boom. I truly do. I don’t know what you will find. But I’m certain what you won’t.” He opened the door and extended his hand, which I took. To my surprise, Merriwell held on for a second.
“I did give some thought to what you said about the Army’s records absolving all of us. And there’s one aspect you may not have considered. The control of the documents you’d like to see, Boom, is more complicated than you may have recognized. Our troops were operating under NATO command. So some are NATO’s papers, others are duplicated in NATO’s files. If I were you, I’d look carefully at NATO’s Status of Forces Agreement and pay attention to the provisions about assistance in investigating crimes.”
As soon as he said this, I knew it was a revelation unlikely ever to have struck me. Except for the US, all the countries in NATO had signed the ICC treaty, which meant they would be obliged to cooperate with a document request from the Court.
I looked at him levelly for a minute before saying thank you.
III.
Bosnia
8.
Attila—April 11–15
My weekend in Kindle County, as I probably could have predicted, proved frequently charged. Being back made me recognize how persistent my sense of foreignness had been in The Hague, where I knew from waking to sleeping that layers of meaning lay in virtually every word and gesture that were simply beyond me. The contrasting realization that I no longer lived in the Tri-Cities left me feeling slightly off-balance at all times.
On Saturday, my younger son, Pete, who could magically score tickets for any sporting event, bought seats for himself and his brother and me for the Trappers game, the home opener. I pretended to be thrilled, but I’d given up on Opening Day two decades before, because it was almost never baseball weather in Kindle County. As I expected, the temperature did not reach 40, and after braving five innings, we adjourned to a nearby tavern, where we took turns making fun of each other, usually two on one, more often both boys against me.
In The Hague, I’d had standing phone dates with each of my sons, 6 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, when I was reaching them at the end of their days in the Midwest. They’d sounded good, but the reassurance of seeing them in the flesh now was uplifting.
The Saturday night dinner with the Rosenbergs was a success, with warm toasts and nearly constant laughter. Pete and Brandi had been together since high school, and after years of misgivings from all four parents, we had all come to recognize what the couple had seen long before: They were a durable, loving match.