The Laws of our Fathers by Scott Turow Page B

ahead, I finally catch the drift. The prosecutors have a problem with their case. They've gummed things back together for right now, but it's going to go from bad to worse with time. Probably one of their witnesses has had a change of heart. Hardcore, perhaps? Someone important.
        But does that mean I have to say yes to a bench trial? The older judges always tell you not to rush. They have a dozen sayings:
        'There's no stopwatch on the court reporter's transcript.' 'The court of appeals won't reverse for delay of game.' I find myself staring down into the open pages of my bench book. It's an oversized volume, with a red clothbound spine, heavy stock pages lined in green, feathered edges, and a cover clad in rough black Moroccan leather. On the spine, my name has been impressed in gold. In the quaintest of courthouse customs, the book was presented to me when I took the bench, a judge's diary, the place for private notes about each trial. The pages before me are blank, as undetermined as I am.
        Decide, I tell myself, as I so often do. In this job, deliberation is respected. Indecision is not. My work, in the end, is simply that, deciding, saying yes or no. But it's hard labor for the natively ambivalent. There's no other job I know of that more reliably reveals the shortcomings of a personality than being a judge. The pettish grow even more short-tempered; the silently injured can become power-mad or abusive. For someone who can spend a tortured moment before the closet, picking a dress, this work can be maddening. I'm supposed to let the conclusions roll forth as if they were natural and predetermined, as if it were as easy as naming my favorite color (blue). But I wait now, as I often do, silently hoping that some alternative, some forceful thought or feeling, will expose itself. The years roll on and life seems like this more and more, that choices don't really exist in the way I thought they would when I was a child and expected the regal power of adulthood to provide clarity and insight. Instead, choice and need seem indistinguishable. In the end, I find myself clutched by the resentment, which I still think of as peculiarly female, of being so often the victim of circumstance and time.
        'Mr Eddgar,' I say and call him forward. I explain to Nile what it means to have a bench trial, that I alone will decide whether or not he is guilty, and ask if he's willing to give up his right to a jury-
        'That's what we want,' he replies. Perhaps because it's the first sound of Nile's voice since the start of these proceedings, the remark takes me aback. What does that mean? 'What we want'? He's going to get it, notwithstanding.
        'Trial shall be to the court. What are your thoughts on scheduling, gentlemen?' After discussion, Hobie and Molto decide they're better off spending the balance of the morning on stipulations, hoping to agree about certain facts now that there's no need to educate - or fool - a jury. 'If you care to make opening statements, I will hear them immediately after my bond call at 2 p.m.' I point to Marietta, seated below me on the first tier of the bench, and tell her to call a recess.
        The courtroom springs to life with an urgent buzz. A bench trial! The court buffs and cops and reporters mingle, exchanging speculations as they head into the corridor. I converse with Marietta about discharging the seventy-five citizens who've been summoned as prospective jurors. Then I gather the bench book and the court file. A day at a time, I tell myself. Weary already, I sink down the stairs.
        'Judge? Can I talk to you?'
        When I look back it's Seth Weissman, hunched somewhat timorously beside the front corner of the bench. A little squeeze of something tightens my heart, but I'm struck principally by the way he's addressed me. It must have been less peculiar to be a judge back in the Age of Manners, or even thirty years ago, when the lines of authority were