Sourland

the widow foolishly fumbled removing folders from a briefcase — the deceased husband’s birth certificate, and her own birth certificate; their marriage certificate…

Quickly Adrienne handed over the marriage certificate. She could not bear to see what was printed on it and, long ago, gaily and giddily signed by her husband and her.

“And your husband’s death certificate, Mrs. Myer?”

Your husband’s death certificate. What an eccentric form of speech — Your husband’s. As if the deceased husband yet owned “his” death certificate.

Your husband’s body. Your husband’s remains.

Adrienne fumbled to hand over the odd-sized document. Though it had been newly issued and was scarcely twenty-four hours old yet it was creased and mud-smeared as if someone had stepped on it. Adrienne murmured an apology but Capgrass silenced her with an impatient wave of his fingers.

“This will do, Mrs. Myer. Thank you.”

With a pencil-thin flashlight the Probate Court official examined the death certificate — was this infrared light? — and the ornamental gilt State of New Jersey seal. The document must have been satisfactory since he stamped it with the smaller gilt seal of the Surrogate’s Office which bore, for some reason, quaintly and curiously, the just-perceptibly raised figure of a horse’s head, or a chess knight in profile.

“Oh — why is that? This seal — why does it have a horse’s head on it?” Adrienne laughed nervously.

“It is the Court’s seal, Mrs. Myer.” Capgrass paused, as if the widow’s question was embarrassing, a violation of protocol. “May I see —? Have you brought —?”

“Of course! Of course.”

As the primary beneficiary and executrix of her late husband’s estate Adrienne was required to provide photo I.D.s of herself and her husband — she’d brought drivers’ licenses, passports — as well as IRS tax returns for the previous year — documents attesting to the fact that she and the deceased Tracy Emmet Myer had lived in the same residence in Summit Hill, New Jersey.

To all these items the frowning Capgrass subjected the same assiduous examination, with the pencil-thin light.

“Now, Mrs. Myer: may I see your husband’s Last Will and Testament.”

This was the single document that most unnerved Adrienne. She’d had difficulty locating it in her husband’s surprisingly disorganized filing cabinet and she’d been unable to force herself to read more than a small portion of the opening passage — I, Tracy E. Myer, a domiciliary of New Jersey, declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, and I revoke all my prior Wills and Codicils…

Nervously she said, “I hope this is complete, Mr. Capgrass. It’s all that I could find. I’m not sure what ‘codicil’ means. I’m afraid that…”

“Hand it here, please.”

Leafing through the document of about twenty pages Capgrass paused midway.

The expression on his face! Adrienne stared uneasily.

“Mrs. Myer, this is — this is not — this is irregular.”

A crude blush rose into the middle-aged official’s face. His eyeglasses glittered in alarm. Rudely he pushed the document toward Adrienne — at first she couldn’t comprehend what he wanted her to see, what she was looking at — then she realized it was a page, or several pages, of poorly developed photographs of stunted, broken, naked figures — death camp survivors? — manikins, or dolls?

“I don’t understand. What is — ”

Numbly Adrienne took up the offensive pages, to stare at them. How could this be? What were these ugly obscene images doing in her husband’s will? She was sure she’d looked through the will, or at any rate leafed through it — if barely recognizing what she saw, for she’d been upset at the time, very tired, and the densely printed legal passages had seemed impregnable, taunting. Now she saw that she was staring not at printed passages but at photographs — blurred, not-quite-in-focus photographs as of objects seen underwater — bizarre disfigured manikins, or adult dolls, some of them missing arms, legs — bruised, blood-splattered — several of them hairless, bald — all of them naked — and all of them female.

Adrienne felt a stab of horror, shame. How could this be! How could Tracy Myer who’d been so courteous, so kindly, such a good decent gentlemanly man who’d taken care with every aspect of his work have been, at the same time, so careless, reckless — hiding such obscenities in his study, in his legal files where they would be discovered after his death?

Yet thinking But they are not real, at least! Not real girls, or women. Real amputees.

“You may take these back, Mrs. Myer. Please.”

“‘Take them back’? They don’t belong to me, or to my husband — I’m sure. I’ve never seen these before…”

Capgrass removed his crooked plastic glasses and polished the lenses vigorously with a strip of chamois. His eyes, exposed, were small, rust-colored and primly disapproving; the crude hot blush had expanded to cover most of his face, and the gleaming-bald dome of his head. Clumsily Adrienne took up the offensive sheets of paper, which were in fact not photographs but Xerox photocopies of photographs, several to a page: not wanting to see she saw nonetheless that the figures were both painfully lifelike and perversely artificial; she had the idea that they were artworks of another era, perhaps “Germanic” maybe it was possible to interpret the reproductions as a historian’s assiduous and uncensored research, and not pornography. Adrienne tried to explain that her husband Tracy Myer — Professor Tracy Myer, who’d taught at Princeton for nearly thirty years — had been a distinguished historian, his field of specialization was post—World War I twentieth-century European history and this included the notorious — decadent — Weimar era. Though deeply embarrassed Adrienne managed to sound convincing: “By accident my husband must have filed these — documents — in the wrong folder. They seem to be ‘art’ of some kind — posed manikins or dolls — maybe Surrealist. Or — Dada. Tracy was always fascinated by art — by what art ‘reveals’ of the culture that gives rise to it, as well as of the artist. They are not…” Adrienne couldn’t bring herself to utter the ugly word pornography.

Capgrass interrupted Adrienne to inform her disdainfully that there appeared to be “irregularities” in her husband’s will; he’d had time only to peruse the document in a cursory fashion but had noticed that the first codicil hadn’t been properly notarized — the notary public had used a seal with what appeared to be several broken letters which undermined the validity of the transaction, should litigants want to take issue.

Litigants! Adrienne’s heart beat in alarm.

“Though it’s unambiguous that you’ve been designated your husband’s primary beneficiary, as well as the executrix of his estate, it would appear, from a strictly legal standpoint, that the document is of questionable authenticity. I’m sure that ‘Tracy Emmet Myer’ was indeed your husband, and that he has indeed died — but, unfortunately, if there is a pre-existing will, either in your possession or elsewhere, it might take precedent over the one we have here.”

“But I — don’t understand…‘Pre-existing’ — there is none…”

“How many times such a claim has been made, and a pre-existing document turns up, that is fully legal. Mrs. Myer, please understand that we can’t proceed to ‘probate’ your husband’s will in its present state. There are no legal grounds for the assumption that you are, in fact, the executrix of Tracy Myer’s estate.”

“But — I am his wife. You’ve seen my I.D., and the marriage certificate — ”

“And if there are claims against the estate — these must be processed.”

“‘Claims against the estate’…”

Adrienne spoke faintly. What a nightmare this was!

She remembered how several years before — following the unexpected death of one of Tracy’s brothers — he’d made arrangements for both their wills to be drawn up. This was a task — a necessity — Tracy had postponed as Adrienne had postponed even considering it and at the signing in the attorney’s office she’d so dreaded reading through the dense legal language that she’d signed both wills without reading them assured by the attorney that everything was in order.

It was the future Adrienne had dreaded when one or another of the wills would be consulted. Now, the widow was living in that future, and it was more terrible than she’d anticipated.

“Letters will have to be sent by you, Mrs. Myer, by certified mail, to all of your husband’s relatives and