20 by John Edgar Wideman Read Free Book Online

turn up soon; something definite.”
    Mrs. Klein faced him for the first time; she turned, tilting her head, her arms clasped beneath her breasts. Her protuberant eyes were steady now, attentive and yet distracting still, their transformation from boredom to interest too sudden and complete.
    â€œIs that what you think—that it's the not knowing?” She walked to a chair and sat down in it. “But then, you're a detective, aren't you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd it's your job—to know, I mean; to come up with something definite.”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking.”
    â€œMy husband's a detective in a manner of speaking.”
    â€œYes, I was told that he was a scientist.” The Detective flinched at his use of the past tense, but Mrs. Klein didn't appear to notice it. “A physicist, they said.”
    â€œYes, a physicist, but a detective nevertheless, a detective in a manner of speaking. Not knowing bothers him too; coming up with something definite is his job too. Matter in motion, that's his field, pieces of matter so small that they can never be seen by the human eye. He worked on the atomic bomb.”
    â€œYes, I believe someone mentioned that.”
    â€œAren't you going to ask if we feel guilty about it—the atomic bomb, I mean?”
    â€œI don't think…”
    â€œWe don't believe in guilt. Oh, it exists, but we don't believe in its importance other than as a corrective adjustment for future behavior. We believe guilt is a feedback mechanism.”
    The Detective shifted in his chair. There was no doubt in his mind now; he saw bitterness in her face, heard sarcasm in her words—the overemphasis on the “we,” the mock blank expression—and instinctively he began to think of motive. Sarcasm negated meaning: “We don't believe in guilt” enunciated that way meant that she did believe in guilt, that she felt guilty. Or at least that she disliked her husband's lack of guilt. But ideas do not motives make, the Detective told himself. Wives do not kill their husbands because they worked on the atomic bomb; it was always more petty, irrational, personal. Murder was a personal act, the Detective had come to learn, though often rationalized by grander notions. Perhaps Mrs. Klein had convinced herself otherwise; but if she had killed Mr. Klein, the true motive would lie in the slough of their everyday lives, the balance of power between husband and wife, the subtle shades of emotional betrayal, the knife-glances and abused intimacies, the resenting of someone who knew her too well.
    â€œAnd you,” Mrs. Klein said, her eyes growing wider, circular and white-rimmed, “do you believe in guilt?”
    A frame, blurred frame, discolored from age (what day, what year, which moment, or is it many moments recomposed into one?); in it a chair, shapeless and unclear (which chair? whose chair? try to remember, to focus the picture but all that appears is the chair , an abstraction, an idea); Sadie in the chair, Sadie not abstract, Sadie now and forever a face in a moment, a profile turning toward him, pride smoldering in silence…all her accusing glances merged into one: “The Motive?” “The Motives?”
    â€œBut of course,” she said, “you're the detective, the criminal investigator, and the detective must believe in the assignment of guilt—first degree and second degree, felony and misdemeanor. That's your job, after all.”
    â€œNo, that's not my job.” The Detective sat up, a sore point struck, an argument he had fought time and time again. “Guilt is subjective; it's assigned by the judge, by the jury. I, I just…”
    â€œYou detect.”
    â€œYes, I detect. I tell them what happened.”
    â€œThe objective truth.”
    â€œThe objective truth; as close as I can come to it.”
    â€œYour subjective view of the objective truth.”
    The Detective watched Mrs. Klein,