All He Ever Wanted (23 page)

I watched as Phillip Asher let Etna’s hand go. Though her manner was cool, her fingers trembled. I noted that Asher saw this
as well.

“He lives in Canada,” Phillip Asher said. “But now he is in London. With the British Admiralty.”

Etna blinked and nodded again.

“Because of the war,” Asher added.

“So you two know each other,” I said, a bit bewildered by this exchange.

“Not well,” Etna said. “I knew Professor Asher’s brother when I lived in Exeter. He was a friend to the family.”

“I see,” I said. “It is not someone you have ever mentioned before.”

This was a boorish statement on my part, slightly insulting to Phillip Asher and his brother.

“I am just on my way to fetch the children,” Etna said. “They are visiting with their aunt.”

“Just so,” I said, still somewhat confused.

“Good-bye, Professor Asher,” Etna said. “I hope I shall have more time to visit with you when next you come around to our
house.”

“I look forward to that,” Asher said.

“Drinks are waiting,” I said with bluff heartiness to Asher as Etna was putting on her hat, and it seemed the man left the
hallway only reluctantly.

I led Asher to my study. I had arranged my books and papers on the desk to look as if I had been writing an essay. He glanced
at the disarray and then took one of the leather club chairs. “What can I get for you?” I asked. “Brandy?”

“Yes, please,” he said.

“Soda?” I asked, holding the seltzer bottle.

“No, thank you.”

“Very good,” I said, making a drink for myself as well. I sat opposite Asher. I reached for a silver box on my desk. “Cigarette?”
I asked. “Or are you a pipe man?”

“Neither, actually.”

We each took sips of our drinks. Asher had his legs crossed at the knee, exaggerating the length of his limbs. But though
his posture suggested an easy elegance, I noted that he seemed to have lost a bit of his poise somewhere between the hallway
and my study. From time to time, he jiggled his foot.

“Your lectures have been remarkable,” I said. “The entire college has been abuzz with them.”

“Do you think so?” he asked.

“Small debates, like brush fires, have been starting up in the least likely of places as a result of your comments. The lecture
series is intended to do this, so I think we can say you have succeeded admirably.”

“I still have one left to give,” he said.

“And then you will be returning to New Haven?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, uncrossing his legs. “There is the vote.”

“You’re still a candidate, then?”

“I believe so,” he said, taking another sip of his brandy. I had kept the lights in the study low. A bit of kindling snapped
in the grate.

“I wonder,” I said as I swirled the oily liquid in my glass, “that you have not considered a post at a more exalted institution.
Oxford, for example.”

Asher looked sharply up at me, and I could only guess at his thoughts. Was he wondering if I knew that he had had an offer
from Jesus College? Or would he assume I had simply made a lucky guess?

“It is not a particularly propitious time to go abroad,” Asher said carefully.

“No, I suppose not,” I said. (There was, after all, a war on.)

Asher looked down at his drink.

“I came across an article in the
Atlantic Monthly
you wrote in regard to pacificism,” I said.

“Did you?” he asked, much surprised.

“Would you not go if asked by your country?”

“I am already too old,” he said.

“So it is a theoretical argument you make. Not one to affect you directly.”

“No,” he said, shifting in his seat. “But no less heartfelt, I assure you. I hold to it firmly.”

“Are you an atheist, Professor Asher?”

“No,” he said, “I’m not.”

“Remarkable,” I said. “Remarkable?”

“Well, the Nietzsche.”

“It is a field of study only.”

“Just so. Are you a Quaker, then?” I asked.

“No, I am not.”

“Well, what are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

It was a rude question, certainly, and even today I am not sure why I pressed him. And did Asher hesitate? I am sure that
he did. Not in fear, but in preparation for the reaction his answer would provoke. He looked away a moment and then back again.

“I am a Jew,” he said.

I sat perfectly still, drink in hand, stopped in its progress to my mouth. I doubt anything Asher could have told me would
have surprised me more.
I am Chinese. I am a shaman. I am a Gypsy.

“Really,” I said, finally taking a sip.

Was
Asher,
which had sounded so plausibly English, actually a Jewish name? Did the Board of Corporators know that they were considering
a Jew for the post of Dean of Faculty of Thrupp College, a school that had never, to my knowledge, hired a man of the Jewish
faith? The unexplained descent from London to Cambridge to New Haven to Thrupp was beginning finally to make more sense to
me.

(I cringe now to recall and to reveal these opportunistic thoughts. My only defense, insofar as a defense is even conceivable,
is that at that time, Jewish academics were rare outside of Europe and virtually unheard of at a school such as Thrupp. Now,
of course, it is entirely otherwise. At our college alone, I can count at least three Jewish academics who have been considered
for posts: Isaiah Gordon and Robert Newman and Jerome Sills. Though none of them, I should point out, was hired.)

“There are many of us pacificists about,” Asher said.

“Not in Thrupp, I can assure you,” I said when I had recovered my equilibrium. “The sentiment is quite the other way in this
village.”

Asher gazed around at the shelves of books, at a small Sargent sketch I had on the wall. He reached over and touched the foot
of a bronze of Winged Mercury on the desk.

I was near trembling with my news and could scarcely think.

“What a remarkable coincidence,” I said, “that your brother should have known my wife.”

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“How is it that they met?”

“I believe my brother knew Mrs. Van Tassel’s father,” he said.

“They were both schoolmasters at Phillips Academy in Exeter.”

“A tolerant school,” I said delightedly.

Asher glanced up at me but said nothing.

“Your brother is of my wife’s father’s generation?” I asked.

“In between, I should think,” Asher said. “My brother is ten years older than I am.”

“My age, then.”

“Well, yes, I imagine he would be.”

“And you say he has emigrated to Canada?”

“Toronto. Yes. He had rather settled in, in fact, when he was asked to go to London.”

“Good, good,” I said.

Asher looked at me oddly.

“Though you must miss him,” I said quickly.

“We were not close,” Asher said. “There was the age difference. By the time I was ten, my brother had left the house.”

“I see. So you personally had never met my wife before.”

“Well, I had, actually. Once or twice in passing.”

“May I refresh that drink?” I asked, now in an intolerably expansive mood.

“Yes, thank you.” Asher shifted in the chair, the creaking leather betraying his unease. A truly poised man, I reflected,
could sit for an hour without appearing to move a limb.

“I am guessing that my wife will dine at her aunt’s house,” I said. “We might even take in a meal together later, you and
I. In town, perhaps?”

“I should like that,” Phillip Asher said. “But I am promised to Eliphalet Stone.”

“To Stone, you say?”

“Yes,” Asher said.

He did not elaborate. But then again, he didn’t need to. There was only one reason Eliphalet Stone would invite Phillip Asher
to his house. Did Stone know that Asher was a Jew? Surely not, I thought.

“Well, another time, perhaps,” I said.

“Yes, another time,” Asher said, glancing at the clock over the fireplace. “Is it nearly six already?”

“The clock is fast,” I said.

Asher’s evident desire to be away teetered on the impolite.

“Britain has had heavy casualties,” I said.

“Not without inflicting considerable damage.”

“They will see an air war soon,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It is inevitable.”

“That was dreadful news about the
Hawke,
” I said, referring to the British cruiser that had been torpedoed off the coast of Scotland.

“Terrible.”

We talked further about the war in Europe. While I had another brandy, Asher nursed his first.

“May I ask you a question, Professor Asher?” (This may have struck Asher as odd, since I had been doing nothing else all evening;
indeed, our little masculine chat bordered on an inquisition.)

“Yes, of course.”

“Why Thrupp?”

Asher cleared his throat. “I see an opportunity to bring a provincial college to the status of a university,” he said.

“Then you would institute schools of graduate study?”

“That would be my goal, yes.”

“And with what would you do this? Financially speaking, that is?”

“I should have to become a fund-raiser,” he said.

“I see. Is this not a job more suited to a president than a dean, whose job is, more often than not, that of a disciplinarian?”

“I must disagree,” Asher said, setting down his drink. “The job of a dean surely encompasses more than discipline. There is
the proper management of the faculty, the planning of a curriculum …”

“You would broaden the scope of that position, then,” I said, my voice rising to a near giggle.

“Explore them to the full. Certainly.”

“I fear our small and unprepossessing college will strain and break under your ambition,” I said, trying to bring my voice
under control.

Asher regarded me with a quick flicker of something like amusement. “Are we not all ambitious?” he asked.

“I suppose we are,” I said.

He glanced at his pocket watch. “I really must go,” he said, standing. “You have been very kind. Thank you for the drink.”

“Where will you go for the Thanksgiving break?” I asked, standing with him.

“Mr. Ferald has been kind enough…”

“I see,” I said, seeing only too well. (But would Ferald knowingly have a Jew to his house, I wondered? I could scarcely imagine
such a thing.) “Pity your brother cannot join you.”

“We will pray for his safe return.”

I walked Asher to the hallway. Abigail was summoned and retrieved Asher’s coat and hat. “May I give you a ride into town?”
I asked. “I have an extra motorcar for the week.”

“I appreciate the offer, but no, thank you,” Asher said. “I have my own vehicle.”

“So you have, so you have,” I said.

“I hope you’ll join me one day soon at the hotel, where I can return your hospitality,” he said graciously.

“I should be happy to,” I said, opening the door.

Asher stepped out into the starry night. I watched as he drew on his gloves.

“You should not toy with the corporators,” I said.

He looked up at me, his face illuminated by lantern light. “Excuse me?” he said.

“I cannot imagine that you would remain at Thrupp for very long,” I said. “You are too ambitious and too accomplished. Thrupp
is a backwater college, of little interest to you in the long run. But the corporation takes this election quite seriously.
It is meant to be a post for life. I doubt you should hold it for life.”

Asher paused, as if weighing his words carefully. “That is my business,” he said.

“It is my business as well,” I said.

“Good night,” Asher said. He turned and began to walk to his motorcar.

“‘Had not thy pride / And wand’ring vanity, when least was safe, / Rejected my forewarning,’”
I quoted to his back, knowing full well that Asher, of all men, would recognize the Milton.

I shut the door. I smiled. I did not believe I would be having the man from Yale to my house again.

I scarcely slept at all that night, agitated and buoyed by my delicious bit of news. I considered various scenarios. Could
I casually mention the fact of Asher’s religious persuasion to Ferald in conversation? How best could this be accomplished?
I must contrive to run into the man, I thought. Yes, I would do that. Was there a matter about which I could plausibly call
him?

The Thanksgiving holiday was spent largely at church, with a meal in the afternoon at the widow Bliss’s house, during which
our spoken thoughts were with the absent William. Nicky and Clara leavened the gathering with a pantomime they had prepared.
Nicodemus played an Indian, nearly giddy at being allowed a tom-ahawk and scalping knife. Clara was a Quakeress, the sole
survivor of a family massacre. She thrived in the role, particularly during the part when she was able to demonstrate her
Christian benevolence by converting the miserable Nicky, who had to exchange his lovely leather tunic for trousers.

During a brief intermission, I thought about the matter of the painting Keep had mentioned and of William’s drug-addled state,
and so I leaned over to ask Etna about a painting. Had she ever owned a Legny? I asked.

“A what?” she asked.

“A New England artist, of national repute. He paints impressionist landscapes. Some portraits. Surely you know who Claude
Legny is, Etna.”

“Yes,” she said distractedly.

“So have you ever owned one?”

“Owned a painting of my own?”

“Yes. A Legny. Of your own.”

“What an amazing question!” she said.

“And I was just wondering,” I added quickly, since Nicky and Clara were about to resume their little playlet, “how it is that
you did not mention to me that you knew Phillip Asher — particularly when you knew he was coming to the house?”

“I wasn’t at all sure if it was the same family,” Etna said with only mild attention. She was all eyes for her children upon
the make-shift stage. “Phillip Asher is nearly unrecognizable now from the boy he was when my father knew the family,” she
added.

And that was all we were able to say of the matter, for Nicky and Clara had again commanded our attention.

That night, Etna had a brief relapse and took to her bed for the remainder of the weekend. By the following Monday, however,
Mary was able to report at breakfast that my wife had left especially early that day for the settlement house. I was pleased
at this news, for it meant that Etna was once again herself. But just before lunch, as I was passing through the side hallway,
I saw that Etna was perhaps not herself after all. She had left her carpetbag at the foot of the stairs. I opened it and noted
that it was full of food — cheese and bread and meat pastries, doubtless leftovers from the Thanksgiving weekend. Had the
contents of the satchel been clothing merely, I should have let it go. But because it was filled with food, I decided then
that I would take Moxon’s motorcar, which still remained in our driveway, and deliver it myself. I had rather enjoyed the
motoring during my previous visit there, and heaven knew I could use the practice.