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question your fitness every day—you know, that way madness lies.” He pauses. “I used to pick Brother Black’s clerks, when I was still a professor. Good Harvard men, but none of them any finer than you, Cash.”
    I frown at the nickname. “You know me?”
    There is ease and pleasure in his face now. “Knowing things is my business. And Herbert Wechsler and I are good friends. Do not doubt yourself. You are one of us now.”
    â€œA little too late, maybe. I feel like I missed the action.”
    â€œYou wish you’d been here for the saboteurs’ case,” he says. “That’s the spirit. We served law and war together.”
    I remember the news stories. A tribute to democracy, the papers said.Proof that in the citadel of liberty, law and justice still function. “And now I’m doing certs.”
    Frankfurter leans across the desk, taking hold of my elbow. “Perhaps you feel useless,” he says. “Sidelined. Many do, even among my Brethren.”
    â€œI was supposed to fight,” I tell him. “I flunked the physical.” I feel a small sense of shame at the admission, but also some relief. Now it is out in the open.
    Frankfurter nods. “Your ankles. I have heard. Well, I will not be carrying a rifle either. But we are still part of the struggle.”
    â€œI don’t know,” I say. “I have classmates in uniform.” Bill Fitch, with his curls cut short. His father pulled strings to get him into the Army Air Force, I heard, thinking he’d be safer. “I think about what they’re doing, and all this seems . . .”
    â€œSo far removed? It is not, though. You read what happened. The enemy came to kill our fellows, and we meted out his fate. It is the stroke of a pen, not a sword, but the same responsibility.” Something kindles in his eyes. “You must be willing to do it, Cash. That is what it means to be a judge. You cannot write that opinion unless you would pull the trigger yourself.”
    â€œI’m not going to be writing opinions, though. I’m just a clerk.”
    Frankfurter’s smile has a different aspect now, one conspirator to another. His shirt is fine white cotton, his cufflinks onyx. “Oh, clerks can be influential,” he says. “If I could be my brother Black’s clerk for one year, the law would be much improved. I won’t keep you from your work. But I will advise you to enjoy some music while you labor. And if you would like variety, you might try standing. I always write standing up at a lectern. It stimulates the flow of blood to the head. I learned it from Holmes; that’s the way he wrote.”
    He walks out. After a moment’s thought I resume my seat and turn the radio back on. Before me on the desk lies a paper in which a farmer argues that he should be allowed to grow wheat free from government quotas. It is the kind of case the Court would have jumped at five years ago, when it was doing battle against the New Deal. But then Roosevelt announced his plan to pack the Court with his sympathizers. Owen Roberts changed sides, and the rest of the old guard stepped down or died. The Four Horsemen are long gone; of the nine Justices now sitting, Roosevelt has appointed seven. In their eyes, there is nowhere the arm of Congress cannot reach. Still, I think thispetition is worth hearing. It will be my first grant recommendation, and just typing the word makes me nervous.
    I push the typewriter away and lean back in my chair. Despite Frankfurter’s advice, I am second-guessing myself. Not just on the petition, but on the whole matter of coming here. The work is not what I thought it would be. And Washington is not Philadelphia. Neither is any other place in the world, of course, but Washington is not in a particular, distinctive way. It has customs and culture of its own. People are too busy to talk, or they speak only of politics and can’t