Dinner was over. The kitchen window was open to the evening air.
“What did Odysseus do to deserve such a punishment?”
Dorothy handed him a plate.
“He made Poseidon angry.”
Charles put the plate in the cabinet. “Was that wrong?”
“No, it was Greek.” She turned the water on in the sink and set a pot in it to fill. “I should have soaked this. It’s hard as a rock.”
“What did you do to deserve that?”
“I burned the rice.”
“Please. Allow me.” He took the scouring pad from her.
“Gladly, dear.”
“Can you think of any place in classical Greek literature,” Charles said, “where someone suffers on behalf of someone else?”
“Like you’re doing for me with the pot?”
“Oh, maybe on a more epic scale.” He scrubbed, hard. “Although this does seem Herculean.”
“Alcestis. Do you remember? King Admetus was about to die, but Apollo talks the Fates into giving him a reprieve as long as he can get someone else to die in his place. He thinks maybe one of his aged parents will, but they won’t. Finally his wife, Alcestis, says she will.”
“I don’t think I remember this at all,” Charles said.
“There is a play by Euripides. As she is being taken to the underworld, Admetus realizes that Alcestis is better off than he is. He has to mourn for her, and his life will always be filled with sorrow and strife. But she will never suffer again.”
“So she doesn’t suffer on his behalf.”
“In Greek mythology,” Dorothy said, “everyone suffers. Hercules happens by on the day of the funeral, tears open the tomb, wrestles Thanatos, the god of death, to the ground and makes him let Alcestis go.”
“So they all get to suffer on through life together.” He gave up on the pot and left it to soak. “If a person does something wrong, what can they do? Do they have the stain forever?”
“Well, of course not.”
“Exactly. There are two options: punishment and redemption. In the case of someone like Karen Liu, I know what the punishment would be. She would probably lose her position in Congress, and possibly go to jail. It would be worse than what happened to Patrick White.”
“If those checks really represent a crime.”
“Which we don’t know for sure,” Charles said. “But assuming they do, what is the alternate to punishment? What would redemption look like for her?”
“Everything she’s done in Congress,” Dorothy said. “You think she’s accomplished lots of good things.”
“Legally, that doesn’t matter. But should it morally?”
“What difference would that make?”
“It makes a difference to me. If I have to decide what to do with the papers, should I consider that her good works outweigh the bad?”
“That’s not exactly what redemption is.”
“No,” Charles said. “And that was where my question came from, about one person suffering for another. That’s what redemption really is.”
“In the case with Karen Liu, who would suffer for whom? In real redemption, not just anyone’s suffering would count.”
“No. It would have to be someone who’s earned the right.”
“I think your queen is in trouble, Charles.”
“She has been from the fifth move, Derek. That’s the problem with bringing her out so soon.”
“You’re usually more conservative with her.”
“I thought I would try to upset your expectations.”
“In this case, Charles, perhaps you shouldn’t have. There.”
“Then… there.”
“It doesn’t help. The lowly pawn moves… and there, you can’t save her now.”
“Perhaps. I’ll try this.”
“Wait. Let me see what that does. Ha! Very clever. And that means… at least I take your knight. Poor fellow. Nothing of his own doing, was it, Charles? The queen makes a mistake, and the knight pays for it.”
“They are all in it together, Derek. Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. And there. That’ll make up for it anyway.”