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The Case Against Klimt

Michael Summerleigh

    In September things in our little corner of the world started to feel like maybe they were returning to normal. Most everyone in the village realised that normal was something that would in all likelihood need a new definition post-Coronavirus, but we had been pretty lucky—only a handful of cases in town forty miles away, and those the result of some bored, and very stupidly affluent housewives from Toronto chartering a pair of buses to have their hair and nails illegally done in a salon where they thought nobody would find out.
    Anyway...my loft spanned the upper floor over the local luncheonette, and my landlord was this wonderful Indian woman who seemed to regard me as a sort of science project, but on a spiritual level. Upon receiving my cheque for first and last month’s rent, and pointedly refusing my offer of a signed lease to seal our arrangement, she then mounted a campaign to help me find some inner peace in the wake of the death of my wife and best friends.
    Most mornings I would wake to the maddeningly wonderful aroma of grille-fried hash-browns, bacon, sausages and eggs with sides of toasted rye bread and a million other things she herself wouldn’t eat on a bet because she was pretty much a vegetarian. I’d stumble down the stairs that ended at a back door to her kitchen, mumble out a Good morning, Nandita, and she would unlatch the door, poke her head out at me and ask if she could make me breakfast.
    I always thanked her and said No thank you so much I’m trying to be a vegetarian...and she would smile.
    “Then I will make lunch for you, Michael,” she would say, even though my given name was really Roderick, with Michael in the middle before MacArthur at the end.
    “Michael is easier for me,” she had said on the day we met.
    “Do you like spinach?” she asked on this particular morning. “I am making potatoes with curry and spinach today.”
    I said “Nandita, thank you so much but I don’t eat spinach.”
    “You don’t eat spinach?” she said, incredulous. “It is good for iron in your blood.”
    “Normally when it comes to iron I just munch on old nails.”
    I grinned, and she grinned back because we’d gotten to where we were comfortable teasing each other.
    “I have spinach fear, Nandita,” I explained, with absolutely no illuminatories attached.
    “What is spinach fear?”
    “Spinach fear is when it gets into my food and makes everything horribly green and slushy. It’s the texture that ruins it. It makes me gag a little bit.”
    “Oh you will like my spinach.”
    “Nandita I love just about everything you’ve ever made for me, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say there ain’t no way I’m gonna like your spinach. I’m sorry, please don’t be offended.”
    “You would like a coffee then?”
    Again I had to shake my head and apologise.
    “Don’t be angry...I’m going over to see Devon Craig at the bakery before I go walking. Promised I’d bring him a disc of one of his grandfather’s concerts that I taped back in Toronto. He’s gonna want t’spot me a coffee...sort of in trade or thank you or whatever...”
     She’d had gotten used to my evasions, most of them an unwillingness to exploit her near-saintly dedication to all living things; and she was much too respectful of personal space and inclination to press issues beyond initial offerings. She shook her head and smiled her wonderful smile.
    “Have a good walk then,” she said. “Make sure you are dressing warm, the weather is getting colder.”
    We were not quite family yet, so I touched her shoulder lightly just to let her know her concern was appreciated, and then wandered out into the street and over to the bakery. And that was where I met him for the first time.
    Klimt.

1.

    He was sitting wedged into a corner table up by the front display window of the bakery, sunlight doing a dance through the unruly mop of white hair on his head and the pair of incredibly bushy eyebrows that went with. Under them in a fairly angular face two very pale blues eyes looked out at the world in a deceptively sleepy sort of way, but you could tell by the glint in them that he was nowhere near as agedly angelic as he no doubt wanted the world to believe. I figured him for about eighty years old. When I sat down at an acceptably socially-distanced table about six feet away, he seemed to perk up a bit, sipped his coffee for a moment and then growled:
    “You are the valker, no?”
    I picked up on the heavy German accept immediately, but heard Fokker instead of what he was talking about, and began wondering why he would have associated me with a World War I airplane manufactured in Holland. I must have been wearing a look of total incomprehension.
    “I live in zhe house on zhe corner,” he said, and by way of clarification he cocked his head in a direction that did nothing to point me in the direction of the corner or house where he lived. “I see you valk by every day. I am Klimt.”
    Still seated, he bowed stiffly from the waist; I probably imagined the clicking of his heels. When I introduced myself, he nodded sagely.
    “Ja...this also I know,” he said, looking very well-satisfied with himself. “Du bist der berühmte Musiker...the famous musician. I hear you playing Beethoven all summer.”
    I half-expected him to go on, to pay some polite compliment on the style or quality of my playing, but the simple statement seemd to be all he had to say on the subject. He returned his attention to the mug of coffee on his table and took a bite of pastry from the plate beside it, chewed silently and surveyed the world outside the plate glass.
    “You said your name is Klimt,“ I said, just to keep things going.
    “Ja,” he said, without looking at me. “Werner Gerhardt Klimt. From Stuttgart.”
    “Any relation to the famous painter?” I asked. Werner Gerhardt Klimt from Stuttgart shook his head in disgust and snorted.
    “Which one?” he replied.
    “Gustav...Gustav Klimt.”
    “Never heard of him. Maybe a distant cousin.”
    Once again, his pronouncement seemed to signal an end to our conversation. Devon brought me my coffee and two thick slices of liberally-buttered toasted sourdough; with his back to the window he grinned at me and rolled his eyes a bit. I looked down, smiling to myself. Klimt made an end to his coffee and pastry, then a great show of getting to his feet, majestically surveying the interior of the bakery as he buttoned his coat, slapped a feathered alpine fedora on his bushy head and moved towards the door.
    “Auf wiedersehen,” he said to no one in particular, and then he was gone.
    Devon grinned some more.
    “One of our more colourful residents,” he said, not unkindly. “Now that he’s taken notice of you, you can likely expect some ripples in the quiet stream of your existence.”
    “Somehow I’m not at all surprised,” I laughed. “He seems quite the character.”
    “You have no idea,” said Devon.
    He accepted the recording of his grandfather’s concert gratefully, comped me my coffee and toast.

2.

    His words turned out to be more than prophetic. I didn’t see him or Klimt for the next couple of days because I purposely stayed away from the bakery. I could have spent hours with plate after plate of Devon’s toasted sourdough, but figured that no amount of walking was going to do me any good if I made a habit out of it. Nevertheless, on the third day I awoke to some cool crisp sunshine and a horrible craving. Klimt must have been lying in wait, coming through the door moments after I sat down.
    “Guten tag, Musiker,” he said, nodding regally in my direction. He removed his coat and cap wth great ceremony, neatly folding the former across the back of his chair by the window.
    I realised in that moment that my name could have been Mickey Mouse, but as far as Klimt was concerned I was now and forever fated to be, simply, Musician. He sat down, ordered his pastry and coffee, acknowledged the presence of Rick from the hardware store and Darlene from the liquor store with slight inclinations of his head. Once served, he sipped delicately and munched decorously.
    “You are not valking today, ?Musiker?”
    I swallowed sourdough toast a bit hastily.
    “Right after toast and coffee,” I said hoarsely, reached for a paper napkin and hacked a chunk of crust out of my throat.
    He seemed to come to a decision already made. “Today I vill valk vit’ you,” he said, and that was that.
    He didn’t seem to notice the skeptical glance I threw his way, or if he did, took great pains to ignore it while downing his pastry and coffee. When he was finished he sat back with an air of quiet satisfaction, hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers and regarded me as if from some lofty height, but with a hint of challenge in his voice.
    “You think Klimt cannot keep up vit’ you,” he said contentiously. “You think I am ein alter Furz...an old fart.”
    I hastened to contradict him, all the while feeling that last bite of sourdough sinking into my stomach like a depth-charge in the North Atlantic on a date with destiny in the form of an unterseeboot.
    “Not at all,” I said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly, because Klimt’s icy blue eyes narrowed in my direction. “I’m sure you’re in great shape and won’t have any problem at all.”
    I could hear the silence from Rick and Darlene in their separate corners of the small table area, without turning my head could see their sympathetic but definitely-amused smiles quickly hidden away.
    Klimt appeared mollified by my response, harrumphed a bit and then looked on impatiently as I finished up my meagre breakfast. He was dressed for the outdoors and on the sidewalk before I had my coat on. Darlene muffled a laugh and said:
    “Good luck, Musicker.”
    “Thanks,” I said, with no gratitude at all. “Why do I feel like I’m really gonna need some?”
    Dave said, “You can tell us why tomorrow...”

* *     *

    We headed south out of the village, and though we must have passed das Klimt-Haus, my companion made no attempt to point out his residence, indeed made no sounds at all as he strode out with a look of ferocious determination on his old face. There was a slight breeze that ruffled the mop of his hair where it escaped from under his cap, though the eyebrows seemed to bristle entirely on their own without any help from the elements.
    For the first quarter mile or so we had nothing to say, and true to his word, Klimt kept up and then some, setting a rapid pace that would have shaved at least a couple of minutes off my best time if we’d kept it up.
    I usually did about four miles in just under an hour, took the half mile of high street down to where it met the end of the swamp road just west of the retirement home. From there, I walked a mile and a half out past the swamp to the T intersection at Marley Road, turning back there to retrace my steps.
    Klimt was going great guns, with me a step behind him, but just past halfway to the swamp road I could see his strides getting a bit shorter, could hear a rasp in his breathing I took pains to ignore. When his pace slackened I said nothing, just fell into step beside him and waited for him to get some of his wind back before making any kind of conversation. Suddenly he stopped dead, turned to me with a curiously pained expression on his usually contentious face.
    “You must go vit’out me,” he said quickly. “I have forgotten somezhing important. ”
    Without another word he turned and started back. I watched him for a while, shrugged, and went on my way. Klimt didn’t give you much in the way of options.

3.

    Eventually I figured out what was going on. After a repeat performance of his desertion a few days later, I began to watch him more closely whenever we sat down at the bakery for our pre-walk ritual.
    Over the course of a week our hikes went off without a hitch, though at a much more sedate pace than was my usual. Klimt was, in all honesty, a pain in the ass, but for some reason I never felt comfortable with the thought of embarrassing him by making him try to keep up with me...so I slowed down...and thereafter my brisk one-hour cardio-enhancing walk turned into more of a two-hour stroll, with a soundtrack provided by the cantankerous old German.
    In between I realised he wasn’t finishing his coffee; that the “something important” he’d forgotten on those two previous occasions when our walks together had been aborted was, in reality, the unavoidable howl of Nature calling.
    Klimt’s bladder had been the culprit.

* *     *

    “...For a young person you don’t valk very quickly,” he said one day, out of nowhere.
    Up until then he’d been complaining how the township never did a very good job of plowing the verges, forcing us to spend a lot of time on the roadbed. “You are vhat... maybe fifty-five years old, Musicker...?”
    “Closer to sixty-five, my friend,” I said with a sigh, resisting the temptation to tell him the real cause of our plodding along.
    “Still...Klimt is more than fifteen years older, and he is having no trouble.”
    He was so oblivious I could only shake my head.
    “I have to admit you surprised me,” I said.
    “The old fart can valk then, nein?”
    “Yes indeed,” I agreed at once. “The old fart can walk...”
    He made some huffy sounds, pulled his cap down more snugly on his head and picked up the pace for a hundred yards or so. That day we covered our four miles a whole two minutes faster. Klimt left me in front of the bakery with a large amount of smugness on his face.

* *     *

    Nandita was cooking up a storm in her kitchen when I came in through the back porch.
    The door she usually kept closed in deference to my privacy was slightly open, and there was a new smell wafting out of the luncheonette.
    “Good afternoon, Michael,” she said. “Come come, look what is new. I am making pizza now. Your lunch will be ready a few minutes.”
    Unaware that my lunch had been unready, or that I was about to have had any lunch at all, I stopped at the bottom of my stairs and allowed myself to be herded into her cooking area, where a small conveyor-like contrivance was making some very tantalizing aromas.
    “Smells really yummy,” I said supportively, and felt my taste buds tingling in spite of the fact that I was even then totting up all the extra miles I’d have to walk if I was to contend with toasted sourdough bread and pizza.
    “I am experimenting,” she said. “You must tell me if it is good.”
    Turned out it was very good...and not at all what I was expecting. She had used a pineapple sauce of some sort as the foundation for her pie, adding small chunks of the same, along with three different kinds of peppers, onions and black olives.
    As a kid growing up outside of Toronto I’d been a pizza-holic. When I was about nine I’d told my mother that when I grew up I was going to eat pizza every day. My favourite had been your basic sauce-and-cheese, drizzled with garlic-infused olive oil. Every now and again I’d go with pepperoni or some sausage, but a good old “plain” was always my go-to of choice. Nandita was a pioneer, and now I was her guinea pig.
    “This is really good,” I said, in between mouthfuls. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
    “So...how are you getting along with Mister Klimt?” she asked.
    Nandita knew everyone in the village, but I didn’t know what kind of relationship she had with Klimt so I proceeded with caution.
    “Well enough,” I said. “He’s got some pretty definite ideas about how things ought to be in the world, but mostly he’s easy to get along with.”
    “He is not a bad man,” she said, shaking her head, “but he is a little bit of a pain.”
    Nandita hated to say anything bad about anyone.
    “Oh...?” I said noncommittally.
    She nodded
    “He used to come every morning...before the virus...and always I’m making him the same breakfast...but one day suddenly he is telling me how my eggs are not easy over enough, and the toast is burned, and the coffee is not hot...
    “I think that day maybe somebody pee in his corn flakes, but he never come back...”

* *     *

    That afternoon I bumped into Rick at the liquor store. He and Darlene had been chatting while she rang up his pint of vodka. Once I walked in, the conversation immediately became three-way and turned, inevitably, to my new walking partner.
    “...He’s not a bad guy,” said Rick, “but he can be a real pain in the ass, eh.”
    Darlene nodded. “Whenever he shows up here looking for that godawful peach schnapps, doesn’t matter how many of us are here for the day, all of a sudden I’m the only one on the floor.”
    I decided to be diplomatic.
    “Oh, he’s all right,” I said. “Just an old guy set in his ways. Probably a bit terrified at the world rushing past him so he tries to slow it down by being cranky, getting his way whenever he can get away with it.”
    Darlene and Rick exchanged glances.
    “In that case we should have come to a standstill years ago,” she said. “There are a few people in the village who don’t have anything nice to say about him.”
    “Wait until you get to really know him,” added Rick. “He’s not a bad guy, but—“
    “He can be a pain in the ass,” I finished.
    “Yeah,” they said in unison.

4.

    I suppose it had to happen eventually—the part where Klimt’s nature finally got a bit out of hand (again) and spilled into the quiet of the village. Nevertheless, he and I continued our rambling together and I was regaled on a daily basis with stories of how he and his parents had come to Canada just before things got hot in Europe...
    “That ugly runt of a house-painter, I don’t know how we could ever let someone that stupid ruin our lives, destroy our country. Und das Stück Scheiße...in zhe United States...he is zhe same... ”

    For once I had to agree with Klimt. We spent the better part of an hour shouting political this and that across Devon’s bakery, sat far longer than our usual, ordered another round of coffee. It was almost eleven when we got outside; late September had turned a bit wintry even if there was no snow on the ground, with the wind whistling through the upper branches of the trees, tearing at leaves turned to red and gold and crackly brown. It was cold...colder than either of us had expected, and I half-expected Klimt to say as much...but he didn’t, and off we went.
    The cold made us move a bit more quickly than normal. I think both of us actually raised a sweat for the first time, but soon after we’d done the first two miles and had turned back towards the village, I recognised the pained expression on Klimt’s face...the one that told me he had again “forgotten something important”.
    “Are you all right?”
    Klimt waved off my concern.
    “Ja, ja, ich bin gut, danke. I am fine. I haf too much coffee, that is all.”
    I did a quick reconnoitre, looked around to find some sheltered space off the road a bit, where he could go about his business with some privacy. Unfortunately, we were on the stretch of the swamp road bordered only by deep ditches, and beyond them open fields and pastures. We went on, and now I could see Klimt definitely struggling with his over-indulgence.
    “Scheisse!”
    “What?”
    “I have to piss...now...”
    And Klimt undid his coat, and then undid his trousers, and went about his business in the middle of the road. On most any other day it wouldn’t have posed a problem; while the swamp road saw a lot of traffic, between rush hours it was intermittent at best...but no sooner had I, on the lookout, heard Klimt’s vast sigh of relief and the pitter-patter splash of his business on the pavement, a vehicle turned off Mallory and sped towards us. Then it slowed down as it approached and literally crawled past us on the right with the elderly lady at the wheel gazing out her window with something akin to total shock and disgust written all over her face. Then she was gone, accelerating down the road. Klimt was still busy, but his eyes were wide as he looked after the car, and he seemed dismayed.
    “Scheisse!” he said again.
    “Now what?!?!?” I said.
    “I know that voman,” he said bitterly. “I don’t like her, she is a busybody.”
    Turned out she was more than just a busybody; she also was thoroughly outraged by catching Klimt with his pants down and his private parts hanging out in the middle of the road. Both he and I found that out when the RCMP came by the next morning to inform him that he was being charged with indecent exposure and whatnot else; that he was expected to present himself at the Napanee courthouse in two weeks’ time to face the music. I was ordered along as a star witness for the prosecution.

5.

    “...Just explain what happened and why,” I said. “This sort of thing gets kicked as a matter of course.”
    He looked at me as if I’d grown a third eye.
    “No one kicks Klimt,” he said stubbornly. “Klimt kicks, no one else.”
    “That’s not what I said, Werner.”
    Somehow, facing the pair of RCMP constables together as we sat in the bakery had brought our friendship to what might have been a greater intimacy. He didn’t notice when I used his given name.
    “Vell...now I am under the eyes of your Gestapo it is for me to stand up and defend myself.”
    “They’re not my Gestapo...Jesus! Werner they’re not brown shirts, they’re—“
    “Gestapo in different colour.”
    “No...they got a complaint from that woman, probably talked to her, and they had to follow up. It’s their job.”
    “Just following orders, ?nein? That I have heard before.”
    “Werner, it’s not a big deal.”
    “They vish to humiliate me...me...Klimt! I vill not go...”
    He puffed out his chest and went into huffy mode, looking out the window of the bakery as if he were there by himself, his eyebrows clenched down over the bridge of his nose and his mouth clamped shut with outrage.
    “Well, I’m going...”
    “You are zhe vitness against me!”
    “No, I’m not. I was just there. I can explain everything, even if you’re gonna be stubborn about it.”
    “Verr'ter!” he spat, through clenched teeth.
    “Huh?“
    “Traitor! Betrayer!”
    “Oh bullshit, Werner, stop being an ass. If this has got you worried, I know a good lawyer in Toronto who owes me plenty. I’ll have him come up here—“
    “Nein! No lawyers! Klimt vill make his own defense.”

* *     *

    The next two weeks or so were rather quiet. Klimt was subdued...seemingly less inclined to thumb his nose at the rest of the world. About halfway along the way to his day in court, I realised one of two things was going on inside his bushy old head—either he was truly and deeply wounded by the fact he was being “humiliated” by having to appear at all...or...and this was what was worrisome about his silence...he was plotting something thoroughly outrageous in what he called his “defense”. Knowing Klimt, I figured he was up to something; it was easier to accept that possibility rather than consider that his fiery spirit (which I had grown to appreciate, in spite of his oftentimes rather stinging approach to relationships with others) somehow had been extinguished by so minor a bump on the old highway of his existence.
    We walked. Klimt loosened up a bit. He would remark about the weather, identify some of the sounds that came out of the swamp as we passed by, comment quietly and often quite perceptively (!) on the disarray of the world order in response to dealing with the pandemic, and discourse upon the merits or shortcomings of those who were charged with eradicating it.
    He made me very nervous.

* *     *

    It was early October, and Klimt’s day of reckoning arrived, bright with sunshine and cold as hell, with a blistering wind revving up to 30-klick gusts and most of the trees in the vicinity giving up the last of their leaves to the advance guard of Old Man Winter. I picked him up in front of the bakery, where Devon and a half dozen of our neighbours waved from the window as we drove off.
    “How are you?” I asked, as we took Mallory Road to the T intersection in Croydon before heading west to Highway 41. Klimt ignored me, lost in his own thoughts... plotting strategy...I had no idea... His face was smooth and impassive, his hair neatly brushed, his eyebrows startlingly...peaceful was the only word that came to mind.
    Leaving Croydon we passed farms and private homes, crossed the railroad tracks and wound through some short stretches of road flanked by stands of untouched woodland. A cinnamon-coloured vixen darted across the highway, a momentary flash of rust-red fluffed by the wind, before disappearing into the brush on the north side of the road. The dashboard heater let loose a soft stream of warmed air flavoured with woodsmoke from the chimneys along our way. Klimt chose to remain silent, keeping his eyes on the passing scenery.
    He was wearing his trademark feathered fedora, but was surprisingly elegant in a long double-breasted coat, brass-buttoned up the front, and a paisley scarf bunched across this throat. Again, I asked him if he was all right, and this time he turned his head slowly in my direction and said:
    “Klimt is ready.”
    Klimt being Klimt, I had to wonder if I was ready.

* *     *

    The courthouse on Thomas Street was an imposing two-storey limestone building that faced south over a broad expanse of manicured lawn, broken by two paved pathways that skirted a war memorial and flagpole before joining and approaching the steps to a pair of massive wooden doors. At the top of the steps you passed under three tall arches that enclosed a portico that rose above almost the length of the façade. All in all it was mighty impressive, with the Maple Leaf proudly aloft, the building itself rising up with stately grandeur into a blue autumn sky decorated with wind-driven white clouds.
    I parked on a side street, ready to jump around the car to give Klimt a hand, but he was already on the sidewalk, impatiently tapping a polished tasseled loafer on the concrete.
    As usual I let him set the pace, but he strode off with barely a glance at me and I had to run to keep up with him.
    “Werner, are you all right?”
    He turned briefly and smiled.
    “I am fine, Mac,” he said. “You vill see.”
    It was the first time he’d called me anything but Musicker, and I stood a moment stunned by the surprise of it, then ran again to catch him as he climbed the steps. Once inside we had to take the usual coronavirus precautions, and masked up as he stood before the directory to consult the official notification he had received a few days after our visit from the RCMP. We were a bit early, so we wandered around the carpeted hallways before actually looking for the courtroom where he was supposed to appear, and then stood around in a group of our fellow miscreants before being allowed inside.
    “Vhat are all these people?” he demanded, when we were seated on one of the long wooden benches that ran in two ranks from the back of the courtroom beside a central aisle. He looked at his watch and frowned. “Already they are late vit’ my appointment.”
    I explained that the time indicated on his notification was not for a personal appearance, but rather the beginning of a court session, where any number of others might be heard before and/or after him.
    “I cannot stay all day here,” he snorted.
    I laughed. “Well, maybe they heard you were coming today and will hurry things along.”
    Klimt glowered at me over top of his mask.
    “Don’t be zhe vise-ass, my friend,” he said.
    We all stood up when the judge entered the courtroom. I could hear Klimt smiling happily when he realised the final arbiter of his fate was female, half our age and seemingly quite good-natured, amiably greeting court staff as she arranged herself at her station and quickly reviewed the file folders placed before her.
    “Ve are in zhe bag,” he said cryptically.
    For some strange reason I got to wishing I was, but Klimt seemed totally relaxed, and after a while sat back to enjoy the proceedings, rendering his own judgments on the desperate criminals who preceded him...
    “That one is no good...”
    “How d’you know that?”
    “He is dressed very poorly. No respect, that one.”
    “Werner, the guy is a homeless drug addict charged with stealing chocolate bars from the Circle K.”
    He shrugged as if to say See...Klimt knows...
    It went on like that for about half an hour before we heard the clerk call out for the principles in the case of The Crown vs.Werner Gerhardt Klimt.
    My friend stood up slowly and walked down the aisle with his head held high, fedora loosely held in one hand. The court officer directed him to the table on the left, just past the railing separating the gallery from the actual court proceedings. I followed him, but took a seat on the bench behind the railing, waiting as the charges against him were read aloud, three or four violations and a couple of other obscure bits of heinously-violated legislation, probably older than the pair of us by a century or so, but still on the books just waiting for some poor soul to come along and cause them to be trotted out all dust-laden and creaky. There was a rumble of amusement from around me as the charges were read. Klimt was still standing behind his table, turned briefly to make a pair of his stiff bows to both sides of the gallery before sitting down. Suddenly he became aware of the elderly woman who had been in the passing car, the one he had called, with infinite disdain, der Informant. He glared at her where she sat on the other side of the aisle from my seat; she clutched her coat more closely round herself and glared back at him.
    The judge briefly went over the file folder in front of her, then looked up at him.
    “Mr Klimt, do you have defense counsel?” she asked.
    “Klimt will defend himself, danke,” he said.
    “Among other things, you are being charged with committing an indecent act, urinating in a public place, and depositing illegal materials on provincial property. Do you fully understand the charges brought against you?”
    “Ja.”
    “Are you ready to proceed?”
    “Ja.”
    “How do you plead to these charges, Mr Klimt?”
    My friend looked scandalised.
    “Klimt does not plead for anything,” he said proudly, “I am not a beggar.”
    “I’m talking about you pleading to the charges against you. Guilty or not guilty.”
    Klimt made some sort of sound to indicate comprehension, then seemed to ruminate for a while, considering his choices. As seconds ticked away, the judge appeared to get a little bit impatient.
    “Mr Klimt, can we move things along, please?”
    “Ja.”
    “Guilty or not guilty?”
    “Maybe.” said Klimt.
    “Maybe what, Mr Klimt?”
    “Maybe guilty, maybe not guilty.”
    “That’s what we’re here to decide.”
    I couldn’t see his face, but Klimt’s entire attitude became that of someone just having scored an important point, thus removing the need for any further discussion. The judge looked a wee bit exasperated, then shook her head as she directed the court clerk:
    “Let the record show that Mister Klimt declined to plead to the charges against him.”
    She turned to the Crown attorney, asked him to call his first witness.
    “The Crown calls Mrs Barbara Wincott!”
    Mrs Barbara Wincott, der Informant, stood up and made her way to the witness box.
    She looked to be of Klimt’s age, whatever that might be, a slender woman with a wealth of silvery-grey hair cut stylishly to frame her face. Her eyes flashed a deep green as she glared at Klimt in passing, then moved purposefully to her chair in the dock, smoothing a dark navy skirt over her knees and straightening the red ribbon at the collar of her white blouse. She provided her name and address, swore to tell the Truth the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, all the while riveting Klimt with an icy stare over top of the floral-patterned mask she wore. The slight rippling of his cheeks gave one to believe the Crown Attorney had apparently smiled benevolently into his own mask.
    “Mrs Wincott, can you please tell us what happpened on the day in question.”
    Barbara Wincott may have been well along in her seventies or early eighties, but there was nothing wrong with her memory. She launched into a twenty-minute account of breakfast with her two cats, driving leisurely into Napanee for groceries at the No Frills...
    “...I also stopped at the LCBO to buy a bottle of brandy...not that I’m a big drinker, you understand. My late husband liked his whisky rather well, but I was brought up...”
    Eventually she got round to her drive home, and how after turning onto the swamp road, she saw two men standing in the middle of it.
    “...One of them had unzipped his trousers and was...he was...relieving himself right there...in broad daylight!”
    “Is that man in this courtroom, Mrs Wincott?”
    “He most certainly is,” she replied indignantly, and leveled a well-manicured finger at directly at Klimt.
    “Let the record show that the witness had identified the defendant,” said the prosecutor.
    “So noted,” said the judge, nodding to the clerk.
    “Thank you, Mrs Wincott,” said the Crown Attorney, and turning to Klimt said: “Your witness, sir.”
    Klimt stood slowly, hooking his thumbs into his belt as he moved towards the witness box. From where I sat I thought I saw a brief, predatory gleam in his eyes, like he might know something everyone else had missed and was now ready to capitalise on it.
    “Mrs Vincott,” he said slowly. “Is it possible that you are mistaken?”
    “Mistaken about what?”
    “Mistaken that I am zhe man you saw doing business in the road.”
    “Of course not! I was as close to you then as I am now. I saw you!”
    “But how do you know it vas me? Did you see my face?”
    “I didn’t have to see your face—“
    “So you admit that you did not see this man’s face.”
    “I was a bit distracted by—“
    “If you did not look at this man’s face how then can you be so sure it vas me?”
    “Of course it was you, Werner, I should know—”
    Mrs Wincott stopped, put both hands to the flowered mask covering the lower half of her face, and wide-eyed with embarrassment turned the colour of the ribbon at her throat. A stunned hush passed over the rest of us in the gallery, and then someone laughed out loud. Klimt turned away with a satisfied grin on his face.
    “Zhank you, Mrs Vincott,” he said graciously. “I haf no more qvestions.”
    The judge ordered a brief recess.

6.

    In the end my testimony was deemed unnecessary. After the recess, the judge asked Klimt to stand and fined him fifty dollars for maybe being guilty as charged, and maybe not being guilty. At the same time she advised him that in future, if he should find himself in a situation similar to the one recently reviewed in her courtroom, he might want to give some thought to availing himself of a washroom before going for a walk.
    On the way back to my car I stopped Klimt and asked him what the hell had just happened. He smiled.
    “I know she did not look at my face.”
    “Then how did she know it was you?”
    The smile grew mischievous, and even in the wind whistling past us I could hear him laughing quietly.
    “Musicker,” he said. “Zhere are other vays to know.”
    “Like what, and why did she call you by your name as if she knew you?”
    “Because this voman und myself have been friends...until just zhe day before I meet you in zhe bakery. Ve have a fight and...”
    He shrugged.
    “But before that you were friends.”
    “Very good friends, Musicker,” said Klimt.
    The not-so-angelic glint was back in his eyes.

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