The afternoon before the hearing in which we were due to hear Macri’s testimony I didn’t even touch the file. I concentrated on other things entirely. I wrote out an appeal which wasn’t actually due for another week. I made out a few bills for clients who were late paying. I updated some out-of-date files.
Maria Teresa realized that something wasn’t quite right, but was wise enough not to ask any questions. When it was time to close the office and she put her head in to say goodbye, I asked her to order me the usual pizza and beer.
I didn’t get down to work until after nine. That’s typical of me. I’m a specialist in leaving things until the last minute. If a task is difficult, or important, or possibly both, I tend to deal with it only when the water is already up to my neck, or even a little higher.
I reread all the papers in the file. There weren’t many of them. I also reread all my notes. Not many of those either. I started to jot down a series of questions. I wrote about twenty of them, according to the strategy I proposed following, as some of the manuals suggest. But then I felt a fool, and I was sure I would feel a fool reading out those questions when I examined Macri.
You don’t prepare for a fight, I told myself, by writing out a list of the punches and dodges and moves you’re thinking of making in the ring, from the first bell to the last. It doesn’t work like that. In the boxing ring or in court. Or in life.
As I crumpled up my stupid list of questions and threw it in the waste-paper basket, I recalled the world heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa in 1974.
The most extraordinary fight in the history of boxing.
In the days before the fight, Foreman had said he would knock Ali out in two or three rounds. He was certainly capable of it. He started the fight punching like a madman. It looked as if this wasn’t going to be a long contest, couldn’t be a long contest. Ali tried to dodge, defended himself, was pushed back onto the ropes, and took a lot of punches to his body, punches as heavy as stones.
Without reacting.
And yet he was talking. No one could hear what he was saying, but it was clear to everyone that in the middle of that torrent of violence unleashed by Foreman, Ali’s lips were moving constantly. He didn’t look like someone who’s taking a lot of punches and losing the game.
Contrary to all the forecasts, Ali didn’t get knocked out in the first rounds, or the later rounds either. Foreman kept on hitting him furiously, but his blows were having less and less effect. Ali continued dodging, defending himself, taking the blows. And talking.
In the middle of the eighth round, with Foreman now breathing from his mouth and having to make an effort to lift his arms after hundreds of ineffectual punches, Ali suddenly came off the ropes and landed an incredible combination of two-handed blows. Foreman went down, and by the time he got up again the fight was over.
I closed the file and put it in my briefcase. Then I looked among my CDs for a Bob Dylan collection I remembered leaving in the office. It was there. And among the songs on it was ‘Hurricane’.
I turned out the light, put on the CD, went and sat down in my swivel chair, my feet crossed on the desk.
I listened to the song three times. Sitting in the half-light, thinking about many things.
Thinking that sometimes I was glad to be a lawyer.
Thinking that sometimes what I did really had something to do with justice. Whatever the word meant.
Then I turned out the light and went home. To sleep, or try to.