Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [121]
In short it was too bad to turn this ugly violent moron Pinsker loose on me but if I remained uncooperative, the judge would unleash him.
“Three, four, five separate times we’ve negotiated with Mrs. Citrine,” said Tomchek.
“Your offers weren’t good enough.”
“Your honor, Mrs. Citrine has received large amounts of money,” I said. “We offer more and she always increases her demands. If I capitulate, will you guarantee that I won’t be back in court next year?”
“No, but I can try. I can make it res judicata. Your problem, Mr. Citrine, is your proven ability to earn big sums.”
“Not lately.”
“Only because you’re upset by the litigation. If I end the litigation, I set you free and there’s no limit to what you can make. You’ll thank me. . . .”
“Judge, I’m old-fashioned and maybe even obsolete. I never learned mass-production methods.”
“Don’t be so nervous about this, Mr. Citrine. We have confidence in you. We’ve seen your articles in Look and in Life.”
“But Life and Look have gone out of business. They’re obsolete, too.”
“We have your tax returns. They tell a different story.”
“Still,” said Forrest Tomchek. “In terms of reliable business forecast. How can my client promise to produce?”
Urbanovich said, “It’s inconceivable, whatever happens, for Mr. Citrine ever to fall below the fifty-percent tax bracket. So if he pays Mrs. Citrine thirty thousand per annum it only costs him fifteen thousand in real dollars. Until the majority of the littlest daughter.”
“So for the next fourteen years, or until I’m about seventy, I must earn one hundred thousand dollars a year. I can’t help being a little amused by this, your Honor. Ha ha! I don’t think my brain is strong enough, it’s my only real asset. Other people have land, rent, inventories, management, capital gains, price supports, depletion allowances, federal subsidies. I have no such advantages.”
“Ah but you’re a clever person, Mr. Citrine. Even in Chicago that’s obvious. So there’s no need to put this on a special-case basis. In the property division under the decree Mrs. Citrine got less than half and she alleges that records were falsified. You are a bit dreamy and probably were not aware of this. Perhaps the records were falsified by others. Nevertheless you are responsible under the law.”
Srole said, “We deny any kind of fraud.”
“Well, I don’t think fraud is a great issue here,” said the judge —and made an “out-the-window” gesture with open hands. Pisces was evidently his astrological sign. He wore tiny fish cuff links, tail to head.
“As for Mr. Citrine’s lowered productivity of recent years, this may be deliberate to balk the plaintiff. Or it may actually be that he is mentally in transition.” The judge was having a good time, I could see that. Evidently he disliked Tomchek the Divorce Statesman, he agreed that Srole was only a stooge, and he was diverting himself with me. “I am sympathetic to the problems of intellectuals and I know you may get into special preoccupations that aren’t lucrative. But I understand that this Maharishi fellow by teaching people to turn their tongues backward past the palate so that they can get the tip of the tongue into their own sinuses has become a multimillionaire. Many ideas are marketable and perhaps your special preoccupations are more lucrative than you realize,” he said.
Anthroposophy was having definite effects. I couldn’t take any of this too hard. Other-worldliness tinged it all and every little while my spirit seemed to disassociate itself. It left me and passed out of the window to float a bit over the civic plaza. Or else the meditative roses would start to glow in my head, set in dewy green. But the judge was giving me a going-over, reinterpreting the twentieth century for me, lest I forget, deciding how