The Divorce Papers: A Novel (29 page)

TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678

MEMORANDUM

Attorney Work Product

Bruce Meiklejohn has invited you and me to lunch at the Plimouth Club on June 3. Can you make it? I think you’d enjoy yourself. Let me know. We can go somewhere else. Porter’s would work for you, wouldn’t it? He was very impressed with your work on the settlement offer. He said he wanted you to work for him. I’ve attached his letter.

That quote from Ms. Meiklejohn about dying on your feet. Where’s that from? Hemingway? No Frenchman said that, nor any Englishman. Men think they’re Sherman marching on Atlanta or Grant taking Richmond. Again, divorce as war, but a civil war, and victory is not in doubt.

P.S. I’m sorry I roped you into this divorce. But, come clean, aren’t you having a little fun with it? Truce?

TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678

MEMORANDUM

Attorney Work Product

I’d like to have lunch with Bruce Meiklejohn—at Porter’s, not at the Plimouth Club, but we’ll have to change the date. I’ve got an evidentiary hearing on the 3rd. How about next Tuesday, the 8th? I promise to behave myself, but of course I can’t work for him. I’d be disowned. If you think I’m cranky now, just put me in the library with the Uniform Commercial Code. The only thing I remember from my course on commercial transactions (viz., the only thing I
had
to remember, according to my professor) was that the bank never loses.

The quote about dying on one’s feet is attributed to La Pasionaria, during the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway wasn’t a bad guess (he may even have used it in
For Whom the Bell Tolls
), though you clearly didn’t grow up under the tutelage of a Marxist father. (See supra, on being disowned.) That was my father’s favorite war. (Mine is WWI, the most heartbreaking slaughter.) He even wrote a book on England’s tacit support of Franco and the Nationalists (Papa’s interpretation),
The Sixth Column
.

I was planning to take off tomorrow for the Memorial Day weekend. I hope that’s okay. I’m going to Wellfleet, to my mother’s and Jake’s. My sibs are all coming. Is there anything else I need to do before I go? I’m up on all my other cases.

My parents’ divorce was a guerrilla war. The collateral damage was extensive and the pacification program unsuccessful.

TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
ATTORNEYS AT LAW

May 27, 1999

Bruce Meiklejohn
50 Saint Cloud Street
New Salem, NA 06555

Dear Bruce:

I am glad you approve of the legal work the firm is doing for your daughter. Sophie Diehl is first-rate, smart as they come. She graduated from Yale, where she spent most of her time working on capital cases with Stephen Bright and his Southern Center for Human Rights. She then clerked for Anne Howard on the 13th Circuit. She’s not for you; she doesn’t know a tort from a breach of contract. That being said, she and I would like very much to have lunch, though she can’t make the 3rd. She’s got a very busy criminal calendar. Could you do the 8th? And would you be our guest at Porter’s? Sophie has a weakness for their double lamb chops.

Yours,

David Greaves

I did it again

Dear Maggie—

You were right. Again. DG showed me a letter from the Big Client that made it clear he was in New York on firm business, advising on a takeover. If he saw my mother (and he
still
may have), she wasn’t the object of the trip. Just a fringe benefit.

I don’t know what to say about last night. I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it. Harry slept for about six hours. When he woke up at about 4 a.m., he hadn’t a clue how or why he came over. He was very apologetic (replaying the earlier part of the evening) about barging in. I don’t think the original apologies had to do with his turning up; I don’t know what they had to do with. Thank God, I slept on the sofa. As he got dressed to leave, I told him that he’d shown up about 9:30, completely slammered, sentimental, and apologetic. (I intended “completely” to modify all three adjectives.) He was embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as he might have been, or should have been. “I’m a wreck,” he said, smiling wanly and shrugging. Papa would have done the same thing. The gorge rose in my American throat. I wanted to say something mean like “I’m not charmed,” but I held my tongue. (Am I showing progress?) He apologized once more and left.

I’m off to Wellfleet for the weekend. The sibs are all coming. Perhaps I’ll ask my mother point-blank if she’s messing around with my boss. What’s the worst she can do? Perhaps I won’t ask her.

I feel better, though I’m not sure why. Because Harry showed up? Because I wasn’t charmed? I often wish I could be like my father and Harry, self-dramatizing and self-forgiving. Buttoned-up is what you said I was, no? You were right. But those drama queens need sane people like
me. No wonder my mother married Jake after all those years with Papa. I don’t know how he does it, but he never behaves badly. Jake says it’s because he was overanalyzed.

What time tomorrow are you leaving for Williamstown? How will you celebrate your anniversary?

Love to you and Matt,

Sophie

P.S. I’m so happy you and Matt like the print. My divorce client told me that paper was the proper gift for the first anniversary, so I thought, what better than an Ed Ruscha. But there’s paper and then there’s paper. “In my mother’s family,” my client told me, “the standard gift was engraved monogrammed note cards. Cream vellum, charcoal or navy lettering. I got seven sets on our first anniversary, from various great-aunts, two in the name of Mrs. Daniel E. Durkheim, one spelled ‘Durkhiem.’ ” What was it like to open that seventh box? Do you laugh, or do you cry? No returns possible, or regifting.

TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678

MEMORANDUM

Attorney Work Product

I received a very interesting letter this morning from Bruce Meiklejohn, with an enclosure, another very interesting letter, from his daughter to him.

Lunch is on with him on the 8th at 12:30 at Porter’s.

BRUCE MEIKLEJOHN

50 SAINT CLOUD
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555

May 29, 1999

David Greaves
Traynor, Hand, Wyzanski
222 Church Street
New Salem, NA 06555

Dear David:

When I got your note about lunch, I called my daughter and asked her what was going on. I told her I’d invited her lawyers out to lunch at the Plimouth but they’d turned the tables on me and asked me to Porter’s. Mia said I was a dinosaur and hung up on me. Then she sent me the enclosed letter.

Is Mia right? She’s never said anything to me like that before. I wonder. Is this a new Mia? Or is she regularly like that with others?

I’ll go to Porter’s with you, of course, but please, I’d like you to be my guests. And the 8th is fine. Is Elisabeth Diehl Sophie Diehl’s mother? I like her books, especially
Death Duties
.

Mia’s really mad at me. I couldn’t bear it if she didn’t let me see Jane. I love that little girl more than anyone else in the world.

You’re not Jewish, are you? It’s fine, of course, if you are. I was just wondering.

Yours truly,

MARIA MATHER MEIKLEJOHN

404 ST. CLOUD STREET
NEW SALEM, NA 06556

May 29, 1999

Father—

Sophie Diehl kyboshed the Plimouth Club because she doesn’t eat at restricted clubs. She’s not only the daughter of an English Catholic Marxist, she’s the daughter of a French Jew. You may have heard of her mother; she’s the mystery writer Elisabeth Diehl. (You did your research; I did mine.)

It’s time you got over your knee-jerk anti-Semitism, if for no other reason than it makes you look stupid and benighted. Everyone marries Jews these days, not only Helen Fincher and I. And they’re everywhere. Your beloved law firm has Jews, including some of the senior partners. Daniel Durkheim may have behaved badly, but let me assure you, WASPs behave just as badly, often worse. And I don’t think he married me for my connections. I like to think I have—or had—other things going for me. And he was on the fast track to success, whomever he married. Then there’s the obvious. Your granddaughter is Jewish, or half-Jewish, which, I need not tell you, was Jewish enough for Hitler. I want you to keep one thing in mind. He’s her father, and he’ll always be in her life. If you don’t shape up, I’m not going to see you anymore.

Nor will Jane.

I’m going to outlive you, you know, and inherit mother’s house on the Vineyard, free and clear. And when I die, I’m going to leave it to the United Jewish Appeal.

And by the way, mother was called Maria; I’m,

As always,

TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678

MEMORANDUM

Attorney Work Product

It seems to have been a memorable Memorial Day weekend at the Meiklejohn/Durkheims. I also received a letter this morning, from Mia Meiklejohn. Dr. Durkheim hit the roof after he read the counteroffer. What happens next? Do I tell her to sit tight? Do we sit tight? I hate the way children get caught up in divorce.

Bruce Meiklejohn’s letter was moving in its perplexity. Mia’s to him was a doozer. She must have been working on it secretly for 15 years. It is the Mia I know. Wait till the UJA hears about the legacy.

I didn’t know Proctor Hand was Jewish.