Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) (44 page)

Jeff doesn't answer. He surveys my office. He indicates the poster of Zora. “She looks exhausted.”

“I expected I wouldn't want to come in today,” I say. “Thought I'd take a conspicuous day off.”

“Then you woke up and couldn't stay away.”

“I figured I'd come in to do some writing, assert normalcy. In retrospect a hideous idea.”

Jeff shrugs. “It would be torture either way.” He tilts his glass toward my desk lamp and studies the thin slice of lemon resting at the bottom of the drink. “By the way, any news from Elizabeth?”

“I haven't heard from her. I'm assuming that's a good sign.”

He nods. “Well, if she starts channeling British writers, let me know. Maybe I can learn something.” He drinks, draining half the glass in a gulp. We lean back in our chairs. I believe both of us are considering the eight-year arc of our friendship, its recent strains, the many hundred miles that will soon separate us. After all this time there seems to be some sort of debt we owe each other, though I'd be pressed to articulate it. Opposite me Jeff reclines,
pensive. Wondering whether his wry humor will find a welcome in Atlanta, I feel a small stab of protectiveness.

He glances at his wristwatch. “It's time.” He stands.

“Eileen says they can't afford not to tenure me. But that's crap. They can always hire someone. This city is teeming with Ph.D.s.”

“Not Americanists with your strengths. Buck up.” He squeezes my shoulder.

“Will you come as soon as people turn in their votes?”

“I'll wait for the tally. Then I'll come back.”

“No, just come back after the votes are collected. You'll know which way it went.”

There's a knock on the doorframe. Steven Hilliard greets me with a salute. “Shall we?” he says to Jeff.

When Jeff doesn't speak, Steven gestures toward the conference room down the hall.

“Since when,” says Jeff, “do they let visiting Oxford men attend tenure meetings?”

“I'm not planning to attend. I'm just going to pop my head in.” He examines his fingernails. “And ask to say a few words on Tracy's behalf before the meeting starts.” He looks up with a puckish smile. “They can just consider me one of the external reviewers.”

“They're not going to consider you anything.” Jeff's voice is uncharacteristically brusque.

“All I plan to do”—Steven's smile turns ironic—“is say a few words before proceedings begin. Then I'll hie my
visiting Oxford man
self away.” He levels a gaze at Jeff. Then he turns to me, his face unreadable despite its pleasant expression. He says, “It's a simple matter of supporting a deserving candidate.”

Jeff is silent. He looks as though he's recalibrating something. Without another word to me, he follows Steven down the hall.

I stare at the wall. I tell myself to get busy with work. I am still staring at the wall minutes later when there is a rap on my doorframe. Turning, I'm greeted by Steven's jaunty salute as he strides past. He doesn't stop.

I take out a file labeled “Syllabi—Spring” and survey my plans for week one of my Literature of the American City seminar. Slowly I scratch notes onto a pad—the outline of a lecture.

Forty minutes pass. An hour.

An hour and a half.

Some tenure meetings, I tell myself, take a long time. Surely some must take more than an hour. It doesn't necessarily mean something's wrong.

A door swings open down the long corridor, and thuds shut. Footsteps approach. Victoria appears at the door.

“How are you?” Her voice is tense.

I don't answer.

“May I sit?”

I nod, a dreadful constriction in my throat. She settles heavily into the chair.

“Tracy, your committee is in the midst of deliberation.” She meets my eyes. “You know that, of course.”

I don't answer.

“There is a question,” she says, “that has come up.” She purses her lips, choosing her words. “Due to the length of the discussion, the committee decided to take a ten-minute recess. And knowing that you are in the building, one of the committee members suggested that we ask for your input on a particular matter that some are finding puzzling.” She sighs; for an instant her posture softens and she looks at me frankly, as though she'd like to tell me, for real, what's going on. Then she straightens. “As the moderator of this meeting, I've been dispatched to speak with you.”

“Elizabeth.” My voice, loosed from its moorings, wanders high and low over the name.

Victoria nods. “Specifically, the strife between you and Joanne over Elizabeth's work and well-being. Whatever motivates you two, it's created a difficult situation in the department.”

“Whatever motivates us
two?
” I say.

She's silent.

“Victoria.” My voice rises. “You've seen me try to get along with Joanne. The only thing I couldn't do was sell my own advisee down the river. Do people truly think this is just competition between Joanne and me?”

Again, silence.

“Because . . . and please forgive me for speaking plainly, Victoria, but”—I lean into her eyes, placing my trust—“everyone knows Joanne's at the root of the problem. But no one wants to blame her because she's sick.”

“Because she's sick,” Victoria echoes, her expression guarded.
“Yes. But also because Joanne takes on a Herculean load of committee work. Even in the midst of her illness, she breaks her back for this department. Without Joanne . . .” Victoria stops. She lines up her hands and slides them against each other, moving so slowly it's more meditation than motion. Slide. Slide. Slide. She stops. “No,” she says. “I don't feel you're ultimately at fault in the conflict with Joanne, Tracy. And no one who truly thinks about it will blame you for the tension. But everyone wants this”—her eyes rise warily to the clock—“unpleasantness to end.”

I feel nauseated. “Has the committee taken note of the fact that I made sure one of our graduate students got help? While she was facing her own potentially fatal illness? Victoria, you never saw Elizabeth at her worst, but I need you to trust me that it was bad. If I hadn't . . .” I stop myself. Victoria is watching me. “I could have walked away,” I say.

“I appreciate your intervention. And others do as well. But Elizabeth's fate is her own responsibility. This is an English department, not a counseling service. You chose to help a graduate student, and that's kind. But your championing of a student who was teetering on the brink of an unsavory dismissal, and whose behavior was directly harmful to a faculty member with whom you'd clashed, has raised questions among some of your colleagues”—her face clouds with disapprobation, directed at some unspecified constellation of faculty members assembled down the hall—“about whether they can count on you.”

“I'm a team player, Victoria. I always have been. Maybe I haven't been the savviest political player, but that's just because I'm not
playing
here. I'm teaching and studying and living and breathing American literature.” I force myself to pause until my voice is under control. “Since the day I came here I've done everything this department asked.”

“I appreciate that,” says Victoria slowly. “Perhaps more, Tracy, than you credit me for. You've been steady and unselfish and smart, and it hasn't gone unnoticed.” She hesitates. Then, her eyes fastened on mine, she crosses the line: a breach of academic protocol that would mean little coming from anyone else. “As I'm sure you can guess, Tracy, I've recommended your tenure.”

The door opens. Jeff enters. His lips are compressed, and he gives no response to the silent question I send his way.

Victoria frowns and ignores him. “I should get back in there, Tracy. But if there's anything you can say that will strengthen your position, I'll go back in there and report it.”

I face Victoria. What words, to persuade a collection of people I've known without knowing them—people who have in turn labored alongside me without the slightest real notion of who I am—of my worthiness?

“If I've erred,” I begin, “it's been with the best of intent.” The words drain hope. “I've worked, and would like to continue to work, to build—”

“Don't waste your breath,” says Jeff. “Victoria wasn't sent to talk to you during everyone else's smoke break because the committee wanted to give you a shot at defending yourself. She was sent so that if your tenure is denied, committee members can tell themselves they were fair-minded and can sleep well tonight. The gesture isn't generous, it's despicable.” He shakes his head crisply. “Nothing you can say is going to sway the vote one way or another. You have plenty of support, Tracy. Don't think you don't. God knows, if a certain Oxford professor were a member of this faculty, you'd not only be tenured, you'd be chairwoman.”

“Jeff—” Victoria cautions sharply.

“Hell with confidentiality,” Jeff says, turning sharply to face her. “Victoria, you know how this works. You know that despite the criticism Joanne is taking in there, people are going to hesitate before voting against her, because she pushes this department and makes sure we have a place at the table for major university decisions, and nobody else wants to have to do that work. And you know what Tracy gets from the straight world for breaking off an engagement. She's bad luck. Open game for wicked speculation.” He doesn't so much as glance my way. “The effect will take about a year to fade, and even then it won't fully disappear unless she marries. Tracy needs other voices defending her right now. She needs members of this faculty to speak out. Regardless of
tone.
”

Victoria's jowls dimple with concentration. I expect her to contradict Jeff's statements as absurd. Instead she rises and, with a curt nod to me, follows him out the door.

Voices rise periodically from down the hall, a muted surf. There is a long silence, then a distant rise in tempo like a washing machine
going into spin cycle in the basement. I shut my door. I pick up
Welty: A Companion
and read a long segment on the author's uses of metaphor, taking meticulous notes.

When Jeff opens the door his expression is grim.

“
What?
”

He enters, and leans against the wall, flexes his shoulders. “I don't know,” he says.

I can't speak.

“I just don't know,” he says, “which way this one is going to go.”

“Tell me,” I manage.

“You're sure you want details?”

I hesitate, then nod.

“If these people are your colleagues for the next twenty years, you may find it easier not to know.” He looks at me. Then folds his arms. “All right,” he says. “As you're aware, your record is fantastic. There was absolute agreement on that. In fact people agreed on that so quickly they had to move on to a more controversial subject. Tracy, I don't know what possessed you to leak word of that half-conceived project you're working on, but—”

“Who—”

“Steven made a speech about it at the start of the meeting. He very Britishly begged everyone's pardon, and asked to offer a comment before the meeting was called to order. He discussed your new project as an example of your groundbreaking ambition, and mentioned parenthetically what a strong impression you were making on higher-ups.” Jeff grimaces. “Joanne was ashen. But not for long. Clearly Steven's plug was the first she'd heard about your project, but she knows good grist when she sees it. She could barely wait until he'd left the room to start taking you apart. She said this project was just the latest example of a tendency to be lightweight. She said your projects are too broad, too ambitious, too focused on primary sources at the expense of critical literature. She said now you're getting lost in sweeping generalities about happy endings. She called your book idea grandiose, tilting at windmills, lacking a sense of scholarly rigor. Which of course she used to bring the conversation to the topic she'd obviously prepared to discuss: your selfish obsession—that's her phrasing—with controlling your advisee's work. She made out like she was Elizabeth's
protector, and you were unreasonably interfering with that collaboration, obstructing her efforts to deepen Elizabeth's dissertation so that it considers the whole critical literature.
Tracy must not be encouraged to take shortcuts with the honest academic travail to which this assembly devotes its hours. I've been working all my professional life to defend academic standards.
She was developing stigmata up there.

“Victoria tutted at her, but only a bit. You know Victoria.” He sighs. “I think the response to that was divided—some people fell for it, others didn't. Your record of achievement, after all, speaks for itself. But nobody was sure what to make of your new project, or whether it enhanced or undermined your record. For once, though, there was plenty of back talk to Joanne. And also plenty of pointed comments about competition between you two . . .
women at each other's throats.
”

“That's a sexist—”

“Of course it is.” He shrugs irritably. “The more Joanne hammered away, the more people sank their teeth into the question of your defense of Elizabeth. That conversation went on forever, and kept getting more tangled—as Victoria let on. You should know that several people spoke strongly in your defense. But then it got really interesting.”

I don't think I want to hear more.

“Paleozoic stood up.”

“He
stood up?
In a tenure meeting?”

“
And
his eyes were open. He made a speech that was just incredible. I'll confess it took me entirely by surprise. I didn't know he had it in him. Made me think maybe he was once more than a figurehead. He said academics were bolder in his day. He said they used to take on the big questions, the sweeping questions, the questions at the heart of our culture, things that helped us understand where we come from and where we're going. He said academia today has nitpicked its way into nonsense. He went on a couple tangents there about everything after formalism being a wrong turn, and sex obsession in American culture—not sure why that was relevant—but the whole arc of the speech was actually pretty glorious. He said it's rare to find someone bold enough to take on more than a tiny corner of literature, and you ought to be commended.”