Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) (34 page)

En route to my hallway, I wish for the first time that Jeff weren't my office neighbor. An I-told-you-so from him will shatter what little composure I have. I consider circumnavigating the department, allowing me to reach my office without passing his door. But that will mean walking past Eileen again.

“Tracy.” Victoria's summons is sharp as I round the corner. Standing in her office doorway, she looks severe, and—insofar as Victoria ever displays this emotion—agitated.

She doesn't speak again until I'm seated opposite her in her office, door shut. As she opens her mouth to begin, the telephone on her desk rings. With a deliberate gesture, she turns off the ringer. In the silence she regards me.

She speaks with a crisp formality unusual even for her. “I am seriously worried about this department.”

“Jeff's resignation?” I say dully.

“Jeff's departure, though a blow, is the least of it.” With her barretted white hair, blue eyes, and deep green sweater, Victoria is as perfectly put together as ever. But her posture is unaccountably stiff. Her eyes search me. “I hope you feel you can work to keep things together, rather than pulling them apart.”

“Of course.” I nod, impatient for a hint of what's troubling her so I can address it and retreat to my office, where only a few student conferences will intrude on my dreadful mood.

“There are people inclined to pull departments apart,” says Victoria even more slowly, “and sometimes they succeed. I hope you're not one of them.”

With a jolt I realize the meaning of Victoria's formality: she's angry. “I don't know what you're referring to,” I say. “I certainly would never do anything to harm this department.”

This statement only makes Victoria look cross.

“Victoria?” My voice sails into a higher register. Victoria: who is the paragon of reason in this department; who is one of the only colleagues I completely trust. Whom I've tacitly counted on to speak up for me at my tenure meeting. “If there's something specific going on,” I say, “maybe you can fill me in.”

“I'll leave that to Joanne.”

“Victoria, I know Joanne is sick. Eileen told me. I feel terrible for her, and I regret that there was friction between us this fall.”

“Frankly that sympathy surprises me in light of your recent action.” Again, her gaze searches me.

“I don't know what action you're talking about.”

She hesitates. Then she stands. “I'll suggest to Joanne that she speak with you about it.”

I don't budge. Anger, in my voice, is not formal. It is unstable, lightning flicking across the sky. “I would really appreciate a hint, Victoria.”

Victoria compresses her lips. “I understand you've been under stress. Jeff tells me you broke up with your fiancé.”

I don't speak.

“Jeff was trying to be helpful, Tracy. He was trying to explain your oddly timed absence.”
Victoria's face tightens with indignation. “Joanne did not, I can assure you, take kindly to the letter.”

“What letter?”

Victoria takes my measure. “I don't think anyone could forget writing this sort of letter.”

I lower my voice, dogged. “I did not write any letter. I have a right to know what I'm being accused of. This letter I supposedly sent to Joanne, I assume it wasn't kind?”

Victoria nods.

“Why do you think it was from me? Aside from the fact that I was absent this week?”

“It arrived the first day you called in sick. And it contains, shall we say, a
forceful
expression of opinions you've voiced to Joanne multiple times.”

At this answer my gaze scales the walls of her office.
Elizabeth.

My own words dizzy me. “Well it sure wasn't me who signed it, because I didn't write any letter to Joanne.”

Victoria sits. She looks past my head to Hopper's cold blue sea. Gently she lifts the bunched fingertips of one hand to the center of her forehead and, with lowered lids, presses as though this delicate touch might relieve the flower of a headache. The gleeful children in the bookshelf photograph are, I'm reminded, someone else's. The family in which Victoria invests her pride and mounting years is this department.

She speaks. “A serious offense has been committed. Someone has incited and possibly threatened another faculty member. Not to mention denigrating her pedagogical skills and personality. If it's true that you didn't write it—”

“
If
it's true?”

A quick, decisive nod. “I believe you, Tracy. I recognize, just from this brief conversation, that though you might endorse some of the opinions in that letter, you wouldn't have written it yourself, even under stress. The tone is too—well, you'll see. You had better ask Joanne to discuss it with you, and you had better explain things to her. Word got out fast that the feud between you two—which, I'm sure you know, had already attracted attention—has reached a new level. Having people believe you wrote a hate letter to Joanne is not good for you.”

People.
Meaning our departmental secretary, who is at this moment surely delivering news updates door to door. Yet would my
colleagues truly believe me capable of such self-destructive, irrational behavior? It doesn't seem likely.

Nor does anything that's happened in the last forty-eight hours.

“I'll do what I can to clear your name,” says Victoria.

I sit back. The wooden chair creaks. “People here know me, Victoria. They know I wouldn't do something like that. I'm not everyone's best friend, but I've got a reasonable track record.”

She doesn't answer.

“How about telling Eileen I'm innocent,” I blurt, “but making her swear not to tell a soul? That ought to do it.”

Victoria doesn't laugh. “Tracy,” she says, “the day you and Joanne had your argument in the faculty lounge, she was carrying the folder with her doctor's notes, as well as some articles from medical journals that she'd found through her own research. She'd come in expressly to share her concerns with me, and to consult with me about the smoothest way—the way least disruptive to the department—for her to take time off. I'm aware you didn't know this at the time, but there was a reason Joanne wasn't responsive to your concerns about Elizabeth. Joanne is quite ill, Tracy. I'm amazed in fact at how well she held herself together in public. She's broken down in this office more than once. She didn't want anyone to know about her illness for as long as possible. Now apparently the word is out among the faculty. Joanne had hoped for a few more weeks' privacy. On top of that, this letter she's received is”—here Victoria's voice betrays a tiny quiver of outrage—“astonishingly poor timing. I trust you understand why we need to determine authorship as rapidly as possible.” She inclines her head. “I apologize, Tracy, for assuming you were responsible. The letter—at least the parts Joanne was willing to read to me—does make reference to complaints you've made.” Victoria taps her desk softly. “Who do you think wrote it?”

In my mind's eye, Elizabeth hunches silently over a piled library desk, laboring away: pencil behind one ear, tongue peeping out the corner of her mouth. I allow my shoulders to drift upward with a bewilderment that is not a lie.

Joanne sets it all down when I enter: pen, headset, Walkman. Surrounded by neatly arrayed shelves, framed posters of Mary Herbert and other sixteenth-century poets in neck ruffles, Joanne draws
herself straight in her swivel chair. On her desk, the open tape case is the only hint of disarray: Gregorian chant, the plastic box lying open as though flung there. Her broad features are flushed.

“One would think you'd be savvier,” she says. Pushing aside the Walkman and cassette case, she lays her hands flat on the desktop. They are pale, cold-looking.

“Can I have a piece of paper?” I say.

She doesn't move. On my own I take the pad from her desk. My hand jerking slightly, I sign and hand it back to her.

“
That's
my signature,” I say. “Not whatever is on your letter.”

“Very funny. But given that the letter is signed
Herman Melville,
maybe we should get
him
in here for a handwriting test? Or maybe we should dispense with the bullshit and go with the obvious: you wrote it.”

“I didn't write it, Joanne. Whatever the message is, I didn't write it. Victoria implied it's insulting. I would appreciate it if you'd let me see this letter, because if I don't then the rancor around here is only going to get worse.”

She doesn't budge. “You did a pretty good imitation of Melville's style,” she says. “I'll grant you that. But then, American lit
is
your specialty. It can't have been too hard.”

“I'm sorry you've gotten a piece of hate mail, if that's what it is. But I didn't do it.” I draw a deep breath. “And even so, even though I didn't do it, I want to say I'm sorry for the hurt this clearly has caused.”

At the word “hurt,” Joanne stiffens. “Why should I let you reread your own handiwork?”

I keep my voice low. “I'm not responsible for it.”

“And I wasn't born yesterday.” But as she speaks she lifts a folder and slides a single sheet of paper from beneath it: a concession to reality. Whatever disagreements I've had with Joanne in the past, I've always expressed them directly. Sending an anonymous missive would be out of character and she knows it. The page trembles in her hand as she holds it out over the desk. Her expression is peculiarly intent.

The letter is single-spaced, typed in a percussive black that left slight indentations on the creamy letter stock. It begins without salutation or date. Halfway through the page, the lines begin to run off the right margin with increasing disorder.

Whence come you, Joanne Miller? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips—lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. In me divine magnanimities are spontaneous and instantaneous—catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can't write all I felt when you entered my world. Your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in Literature's.

You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect thoughts, and embrace the soul. You heard the ugly Socrates because you saw the flame in the mouth, and heard the rushing of the demon,—the familiar,—and recognized the sound; for you have heard it in your own solitudes.

But for the soul that sees is reserved the greatest burden. Have you upheld yours?

I charge you with misdeeds. Disdain for our fellow scholars; intellectual extortion; holding a degree like a carrot before a laboring mule; bullish commandeering of faculty gatherings; zero-sum politics; pugnacious and juvenile manners; toadyism melded with disdain (of which G is unaware but others, many others, know). You have woken the rage of those who love the book; those whose temple must not be desecrated.

Perhaps you ought consider the consequences.

This is a fiery letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. Possibly, if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you will missend it—for the very fingers that now pilot this typewriter are not precisely the same that just rolled into it this page. Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! It's a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold.

My dear Miller, the atmospheric skepticisms steal into me now, and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell.

I have written a wicked letter, and feel spotless as the lamb.

Goodbye to you, with my blessing,

Herman

The signature is penned in blue ink, with a great flourish, at the very bottom of the page.

“The only person who would accuse a colleague of
commandeering
faculty meetings, Tracy Farber, is someone who doesn't
have the guts or charisma to run them herself.” Joanne glares at me, but it's clear she's bluffing. ”
Now
will you confess who wrote that letter?”

“Herman Melville,” I murmur.

Joanne gives a sound of disgust.

My eyes drift back to the letter. “It's Melville, Joanne—at least most of it is, and it's verbatim or nearly so, with alterations for the sake of modernity, like substituting
typewriter
for
pen
and so on. It's from a letter Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

“So says the woman who claims she knew
nothing
about this letter?”

I look up long enough to make eye contact. “American literature
is
my specialty.”

Joanne relents.

I reread in silence. Brushing past the lofty praise and peculiar theological imagery, I focus on the central paragraph cataloguing Joanne's misdeeds—the only passage not lifted from Melville. It is a seven-line, scathing summary of my quarrel with Joanne Miller. The opinions are mine, the
temple
reference a clear allusion to my rejoinder to Jeff. Blessedly, Elizabeth didn't bother spelling out Grub's full nickname.

“
For you have heard it in your own solitudes,
” Joanne recites. She watches me fiercely, daring me to say what seems obvious: that this line, with its disturbing intimacy, has unsettled her. Melville meant it as praise for Hawthorne's art; but in this context it could easily be an unflinching reference to a lonely struggle with illness.

“
The body cold,
” Joanne continues. “
Farewell.
” There is a long silence. Joanne appears to be reading the posters on the wall behind my head. “Victoria wanted to call the police,” she says, “based on the parts I read to her. She said the letter sounded like a threat. By the way, you might be amused to know she initially insisted that something so florid couldn't possibly be from you. Until I explained about the sense of so-called humor shared by you and Jeff.” Her expression darkens as she pronounces his name. “And your recent erratic behavior. And of course,
Melville.
You and your Melville.”