The Winston Affair (23 page)

Dear Kate,

I call you so because to me I know someone right away. I don't have to try. When I saw you this morning God cut my belly. I put my hand down there and there was some blood so God cut me maybe with a dagger. That was a signal. This is a woman for you Winston—God said. And I am going to change everything now. I was waiting for you. Not me—God said that. So I have chosen you to be next to me I will give you money and you can live like a queen. I am only pretending to remain in here. I will walk out when I want to. I will spit in the face of the lousy mp at the door. They are all laughing at me but I am laughing at them. You are lucky that I like you.

It was signed, “Winston.”

She finished reading and looked at Adams, now for the first time with tenderness and hopelessness. Then she looked past him at Winston, who leaned his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands.

“After Lieutenant Winston gave you the letter and you had read it, what did you do with it?”

“I showed it to Major Kaufman. He read it and then he gave it back to me.”

“Did Lieutenant Winston make any further reference to the letter?”

“No—he made no reference to it ever again.”

“Did you ask him to show you where the bleeding was—the bleeding referred to in the letter?”

“I asked the wardsman to look for it But there was no wound, no bleeding.”

“Thank you,” Adams said. And to the court, “May it please the court, I have no other questions of this witness.”

Major Smith's cross-examination was brief. He asked a series of questions as to the rationality of Winston's conversation and actions. Was he able to tell time? Read a newspaper? Discuss events? Remember things that had happened the day before? Adams raised no objections, and Sorenson answered practically all of the questions in the affirmative.

It was twenty minutes after eleven when Lieutenant Sorenson had finished her testimony for Smith. Adams waived any redirect examination, and Thompson instructed the witness to stand down.

Then Thompson said, “I am releasing this witness from any further responsibility to this court, since she is under travel orders for this afternoon. Does either counsel have reason to object to this—or further require her presence?”

Both Adams and Smith shook their, heads.

Thompson said to Adams, “I understand, Captain, that you have only one more witness to examine?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Very well. In that case, we will recess immediately and reconvene a half-hour past noon. This court will now recess.”

Adams went to his table, where Moscow was gathering the papers and repacking the briefcase. Adams said to Bender, “Get an empty room here where I can talk to Winston.”

“The MP?”

“Let him be there—I don't care about that. And Lieutenant Moscow, suppose you see if you can find us a few sandwiches and some beer or something. We won't have time to go out to eat. Get enough for Winston, too. I think they have a mess of some sort in the basement here.”

“I'll get the sandwiches, sir, don't worry.”

Adams hurried from the room just as Kate Sorenson was leaving.

Tuesday 11.30 A.M .

Adams had to push his way through the reporters and outside before he found a place to have a moment alone with Kate Sorenson, and then, with a sense of utter despair, she said to him, “What good is it, Barney? We can't say anything that will make it any better.”

“Will it make it worse, Kate?”

“Don't argue now.”

“I am not going to argue,” he said. “I am not going to try to change your mind at all. I just want to spend a moment with you and say good-by decently.”

“We can't say good-by decently, Barney.”

“Give me a chance.”

“I'm trying to give myself a chance.”

“All right, it will be the way you want it to be. Let Baxter take you back to the hospital or to the airport—or wherever you must go now. The jeep is right over there.”

He took her arm and they walked toward the jeep. She began to cry quietly, as if this were a reaction apart from herself. She could not control it and said, “I didn't want to cry, you see.”

Adams shook his head hopelessly. He helped her into the jeep, while Baxter watched both of them silently and curiously.

“Take Lieutenant Sorenson wherever she has to go. She'll have her valpack. Help her with it. Stay with her until the plane leaves, Corporal, and then come back here.”

“O.K., Captain.”

“I hope England is good for you,” Adams said. “It's a nice place, cool and kind.”

“Thank you, Barney,” she whispered. “I don't want it to be dark all around you.”

“It has been for a long time.”

“It will change.”

“I hope so,” he said.

Tuesday 12 Noon

“Why are you trying to prove that I'm crazy?” Winston demanded of him.

“I'm not trying to prove that. I am defending you on the grounds that you are sick. You are sick, you know.”

“Don't defend me! What mother-friggen right you got to defend me? I don't want to be defended!”

“You have to be defended. Neither of us have any choice about that, Lieutenant Winston. Now, I want to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer them.”

“Go to hell!”

“That doesn't get either of us anywhere.”

The corner of Winston's mouth began to twitch again. He covered his face with both hands.

“I want to know as well as you can tell me exactly what happened between you and Quinn on the night you killed him—what happened before he left you?”

Winston's skinny body began to shake spasmodically. He kept his hands pressed to his face. A minute went by. Adams repeated his question.

“It's no use, Captain,” Bender said. “Oscar and I tried to question him. It's no use.”

Winston let his hands drop. His eyes were listless now, as if a film had been drawn across them.

“Try to eat something,” Adams said.

He didn't respond. He was alone now.

There was a note of pity in Adams' voice as he asked Winston whether he would have a cigarette. It made both Bender and Moscow glance at him sharply. Adams lit the cigarette and handed it to Winston.

“It's all right, Lieutenant,” Adams said, thinking: As right as it will ever be.

Tuesday 12.45 P.M .

After Major Kaufman had been sworn in and had given details of rank and position, Adams asked him to describe the events of the morning in question.

There was an electric quality in the courtroom on this afternoon. Outside, the clouds were gathering for rain. The heat was heavy and oppressive, and the ceiling fans, moving so slowly, appeared to be turning in liquid. Major Kaufman sat erect and withdrawn, the object of the whole population of the room, the officers of the court watching him seriously and intently, Major Smith and his two assistants sitting with the impatient frustration of hunters. The observers also watched and waited. Even Winston was intermittently held by the quality and mood of the place.

The thought came to Adams that this was a sanctuary—the only sanctuary in a world torn and twisted with every conceivable violence and hurt. But history was full of sanctuaries that crumbled.

Major Kaufman spoke to the court, yet he spoke through' them and past them. Before he took the stand, he had offered no word or greeting to Adams. Adams could only wonder what his thoughts were—but such wonder and doubt were not a new experience during the last few days. Adams had come to ponder a great deal on the problems of a great many people.

“Lieutenant Winston,” Major Kaufman said, “was brought to the hospital by two military policemen. That was early in the morning. These two policemen had been instructed by Major Kensington to bring their prisoner to the psychiatric section of the hospital. When the prisoner had been brought into our receiving room, Lieutenant Sorenson called for me. I came immediately, and as soon as I saw the prisoner, Lieutenant Winston, I realized that he was in a state of acute depression and, to some degree, shock.”

“Mr. President?” Major Clement said to Thompson.

Thompson nodded, and Clement asked Kaufman, “How were you able to see that immediately, Major?”

“There were unmistakable signs. Depression translates into a condition of indifference. But the indifference is profound and pathological. The drive to live, to exist, a very important part of man's emotional structure, is submerged. When you have seen acute depression, you recognize it. Also, his breathing was labored. He sweated excessively. His facial muscles were without tone. And he was only in part aware of his surroundings—and therefore able to respond to those surroundings in a most limited sense. You must understand, sir, that I am attempting to describe a medical phenomenon in lay language.”

“I realize that,” Clement replied.

Colonel Winovich wanted to know exactly what Major Kaufman meant by depression. “I have heard that term for two days now, like someone might say cholera. I've been depressed. I imagine you have, Major. Why treat it like some hellish disease?”

“Because it can be more hellish than most diseases, sir, and because it is a disease. When a normal person is depressed, he is not experiencing what we call, in a medical sense, depression—and, happily, most people never have that experience. I'll try to explain this as simply as I can. Depression, pathologically, is a combination of fear and hostility turned inward against the organism which is experiencing this fear and hostility. In its extreme form, it is a condition of total repression, total frustration, and total hopelessness. That is why we speak of the very deep depression as being suicidal. Most suicides are the result of this type of pathological depression, although many different mental conditions can bring about depression.”

“Is this a physical condition, Major?” Thompson asked him. “Like heart disease or kidney trouble?”

“It has its physical aspects. It affects the entire organism rather than any single organ, and it is accompanied by changes in blood pressure, pulse beat and so forth, But the profound physical changes, I imagine, are chemical and have to do with various ductless glands and probably with the basic adrenaline-histamine balance.”

“You say you imagine? Are you guessing? Don't you know?”

“There is a great deal about all disease that we don't know, sir, a great deal about the body that baffles all physicians. We grope and guess and attempt to learn. As for diseases of the mind, well, until a generation ago they were for the most part treated no better or more wisely than in the Middle Ages.”

“Did you examine the patient, Major?” Adams asked now.

“I did.”

“How often?”

“I examined him physically when he was admitted—that is, I took blood pressure, pulse—listened to heartbeat and breathing, tested reflexes, examined his eyes and ears—the whole procedure of a thorough physical examination. I ordered a cardiogram, since his pulse was rapid and his blood pressure dangerously high, and a blood test and urine analysis. This was repeated two days later. Each day, he had a superficial physical. In addition to this, I examined him verbally each day for five days.”