Fortunate Lives Read online

  The astonishing vision was gone in an instant, but Dinah felt absolutely convinced that that was why no one had eaten any of that soup—whenever it was that Netta had first made it—except Anna Tyson, who would have been so young that not much that happened would have affected her appetite.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BAD WEATHER

  TOWARD THE MIDDLE OF this past spring semester, Professor Charles Beck’s ten-month-old male cairn terrier had developed an incurable lust for Anton Vrabel’s medium-sized mixed breed. Professor Vrabel’s mutt appeared to be distressed and baffled whenever the tenacious little terrier attempted to mount her. She shook him off, dropped her ears, and slunk away, leaving the frustrated cairn to attach himself to whatever was nearby—someone’s pants leg, a box of computer paper stacked against the wall, the newel post that turned the corner of the stairwell on the second floor of Jesse Hall. Several of Chip Beck’s colleagues suggested gently to him that it was an unkindness to bring the lovesick cairn with him to the office, at which point Professor Beck approached Anton Vrabel in the beautiful old lounge in Jesse Hall during coffee hour and demanded that Anton leave his dog at home.

  “You know the saying we had in Austria, Anton? ‘You coop your chicks, mamma! My rooster runs free.’”

  Like many of its faculty, Chip Beck was a man of some stature beyond the confines of Bradford and Welbern College. He had taken a prolonged leave several decades before to chair the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and more recently he had served as an adviser to a presidential candidate and done a brief stint in the Health and Human Services Department. He was a tall, bony, kindly-looking man who gave up his jovial tone in the face of Professor Vrabel’s blank-faced refusal to agree that they had a mutual problem. There in Jesse lounge, beneath the portraits of deceased dignitaries of Bradford and Welbern College, he accused Anton Vrabel of harboring in his office “an ill-bred slut of a dog!”

  Professor Vrabel was instantly enraged and accused his former friend of being no better than all the other “robotlike, cold-blooded economists who have done more to dismantle any decent social programs over the past years than any one of a half-dozen monster capitalist conglomerates would have dared to hope for!” In one moment amenities between two old friends ceased, and each aired all his long held hostile views of the other—their philosophical disagreements, their political antipathy.

  Other faculty members, who were standing in clusters around the book-lined, paneled room or were sitting together on the dark red leather couches with coffee and doughnuts that the Jesse Hall receptionist, Mrs. LaPlante, set out each afternoon at three o’clock, fell into embarrassed silence when they could no longer ignore the raised voices of those two dignified, elderly men who were saying unforgivable things to each other, venting frustrations that had lain dormant for years under the weight of their mutual respect and the long-standing friendship of their families.

  Three years previously, in fact, Katherine Vrabel—although suffering herself from rheumatoid arthritis—had taken Marie Beck out for long drives three or four times a week during the last year of her life when she knew she was dying but was forced, in Chip’s presence, to assume a ghastly facade of wellness, because the thought of her death was unbearable to him. It was Katherine who eventually sorted through and disposed of all of Marie’s clothes, straightened her neglected closets and cupboards, and rearranged Marie’s house with sensitivity and great sorrow for its surviving occupant. “For God’s sake, Katherine,” Marie had said, “please don’t let Chip sell that house when I die! He loves that house. He designed it during all those years when we lived in those terrible, sterile, box-like houses on the outskirts of Washington. I know he’ll be lonely. Oh, God! I can’t tell you how much I wish now that we’d decided to have children! But make him get a cat, or something.”

  Katherine had agreed to do all these things, even though the slow death of this closest of friends was a singularly debilitating torment to her, and she was careful to hide from Marie the signs of her own distress and deteriorating health. While Katherine cleared and cleaned the modest, modern cedar-and-glass house, Anton drove Chip up to spend several days sorting out and arranging the sale of the Becks’ cabin on Lake Winnipesaukee in Moultonboro, New Hampshire. But that was some years ago and apparently all forgotten—or perhaps their sorrowful intimacy had been so wounding all around that it was too well remembered. In any case, the fury that mounted between the two men that afternoon last spring in Jesse lounge was terrible and absolute.

  Three days after the disagreement, Larry Croft, who was Chip Beck’s physician, had called Martin—breaking the time-honored doctor-patient confidence—to say that he had hospitalized Professor Beck for observation after an unnerving spell of irregular heartbeat, and to ask Martin if there was any way at all to resolve tactfully the question of whose dogs were to be allowed in Jesse Hall. Dr. Croft was concerned about Chip Beck’s angry belaboring of the subject. He was worried on several counts—it did not bode well for what Dr. Croft was beginning to suspect was his patient’s deteriorating mental state since his wife’s death, although he didn’t mention that concern to Martin. He explained arrhythmia to Martin in general terms, and he expressed his worry over Professor Beck’s excitability. Martin had gotten in touch with Jean Atwell, and on Monday of the following week the faculty found a slip of paper in their mailboxes.

  Memorandum

  From: Jean Atwell, Chairperson, Jesse Hall Users’ Committee

  To: All Faculty

  It has come to the attention of this committee that several faculty members have complained of an infestation of fleas in the hallways and in some offices. Please make plans to vacate your offices between Friday at 4:00 P.M. through Monday at 7:00 A.M., removing any plants or other living things from the premises, so that the Buildings and Grounds Department can exterminate these pests.

  Since the Jesse Hall Users’ Committee deems it likely that these parasites are being carried into the building on pets accompanying their owners, we formally request that hereafter no animals be allowed inside the building. An exception will be made in the case of the fish and other marine life in the aquarium presented to Mrs. LaPlante by a student group from the class of ’82.

  Otherwise, the committee asks all faculty and staff to observe this restriction for the sake of our mutual comfort and health.

  Sincerely,

  Jeanette Atwell

  Department of Philosophy

  But now that summer was here, Martin disregarded the committee’s regulation. Jesse Hall was almost empty and, besides, Martin liked Duchess’s company as he strolled through the grounds of the school. He thought the grounds should be teeming with teachers with their dogs, teachers with their children, teachers on bikes. He thought men and women who wanted to impart knowledge should be available, visible, along all the paths, around every turn.

  After his own graduation, Martin had discovered that he had loathed almost every minute of his years at Harvard, where he had learned a good deal but had been taught very little. And he had infuriated his graduate director, a distinguished man of letters—a scholar—at the University of Virginia, when he took the man’s advice to enter academe, but at the first opportunity opted to teach at a school that claimed to cherish undergraduate teaching with an ardor equal to, if not greater than, that with which it embraced publication. Early in his career, in fact, Martin had turned down three separate offers from large and distinguished universities with prestigious graduate programs. He knew his zealousness about teaching was regarded by his colleagues at best with affectionate tolerance and at worst with suspicion, cynicism, and disdain. But he also knew that many of those men and women still harbored what he believed was the foolish desire to be famous people within their designated sphere. He accepted their condescension and regarded them, in turn, with some degree of pity.

  Even Dinah thought that his devotion to teaching was sometimes unthinking, that he was likely to be ill-used by the very institution tha
t he served. Martin, however, had seen that happen to some of his colleagues, and he was cautious in his affection for the place. He was simply pleased for his own sake to be walking across the campus at a leisurely pace while Duchess nosed into a hedge, or stopped to examine a tree, or looked longingly after the complacent squirrels that chattered at her from the high branches.

  As he had set off with Duchess in the late morning, Dinah had rounded on him. “Are you going to the office today? You’re taking that silly dog? Well, for God’s sake, please be home in time to eat this soup that the whole world has gathered to make in my kitchen.”

  “I have to meet Vic and Owen Croft to explain the summer assistant’s job at The Review. I think it’s something Owen can handle. I won’t be long.” He was trying to get Duchess to hold still while he attached her leash, and he saw her ears go flat when she heard Dinah insult her. He always felt compelled to defend Duchess against Dinah’s occasional scorn, although within the household the dog was entirely devoted to Dinah, following her up and down the stairs, back and forth across the kitchen, always underfoot. Martin had never claimed that Duchess was a dog of noble character, but he also took care to point out that the dog’s fearfulness and various neuroses required a certain degree of intelligence. “Any fool can be brave,” he had said that morning in Duchess’s defense.

  “I think she was just weaned too soon,” Dinah replied.

  One of the pleasures of Martin’s life was the long summer days he spent working at The Review offices while Duchess sprawled across the cool linoleum in luxurious security. Vic was usually in the adjoining office, but the rest of the building that housed the English and Philosophy departments was almost empty. Now and then the sound of someone else engaged in some sort of studious work would filter down the staircase—a file drawer rasping open, a pencil sharpener, the Xerox machine. These sounds were as comforting to him as Dinah’s house was to her or David’s garden was to him.

  And occasionally he or Vic would come across something brilliant, a piece of fiction, an essay—like Netta Breckenridge’s. Her prose was elegant, her thesis stringent, and her subject of interest. He had known only that she was a Fennel Doyle Scholar in her first year of a two-year appointment when he sent her a letter of acceptance for her article. Because of the ferocity of her prose, he had made a guess at who she might be during a faculty meeting. For several weeks after that, Martin had taken care to nod agreeably at a very tall, handsome, dark-haired woman with a severe face and a mildly aggressive nature.

  One day he had been standing in the ten-item express lane at the grocery store, waiting to pay for a half-gallon of milk, when this same woman met his eye steadfastly as she approached him. “I’m in a frightful hurry!” she had declared, with a trace of a British accent, and he stepped back to allow her to go ahead of him, only to be dismayed when she trundled forth a cart full of groceries.

  The check-out girl looked up to object, but began ringing up the items with a sigh when she met the woman’s implacable gaze. When Netta had finally shown up in the office toward the end of the semester, Martin had assumed she was a student applying for the summer job which now, in fact, he and Vic had offered to Owen Croft. Martin had been enormously relieved at Netta’s unprepossessing nature, and she further endeared herself to him by not being the fearsome woman of the express lane. He remained irritated in retrospect that he had so docilely surrendered his place in line to that mysterious person.

  As he entered Jesse Hall today, though, he began rehearsing his greeting to Owen, the way in which he would carefully construct a channel of amiability between Vic and Owen, in order to protect Owen from Vic’s cynicism. But Owen had arrived ahead of him, and Martin had an unexpected sense of suffocation—really as though there were not enough air in the place—when he came around the corner of the corridor and saw Owen sitting, half turned, on the arm of the old wing chair in Vic’s office. Owen twisted in his direction, and Martin nodded in acknowledgment, stopping in the doorway and fighting an unnerving queasiness while he unclipped Duchess from her leash.

  Owen continued his conversation with Vic. “Hey, I think I can help you out, Professor Hofstatter! I’d like to do it.” He was mocking himself slightly.

  Vic leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head, swinging his swivel chair slightly from side to side, enjoying the banter.

  “We’d count on you to pretty much use your own initiative to answer these letters,” Vic said, getting down to business now that Martin had arrived. “I’ll tell you how we usually handle it. Mrs. Krautz sorts the correspondence into fairly rough categories. We get letters from a variety of people that are essentially just ‘letters to the editor,’ but some of them require a reply. We don’t publish any letters in The Review, so until Penny Krautz is back you’d better let us see all of those. There’s no way you could know which ones need to be answered. But most of the answers fall into a sort of formula. How do you want to work this, Martin?”

  Martin had pulled a wooden chair away from the wall and was sitting catty-corner between Vic and Owen. He couldn’t help but think that Owen’s wide-eyed expectancy looked a little stale, as if it were calculated.

  Larry Croft had come to Martin in despair this spring. Larry had been embarrassed but desperate, and Martin had agreed to try to help Owen get a grip on his life. Larry continued to believe that Owen’s emotional problems were due to his having been involved in Toby’s death, and that any kindness that Martin could see his way clear to extend to Owen would be the only thing that might help him heal. Martin was willing to give it a try, but he had let several weeks pass before telling Dinah about Larry’s request.

  Martin began explaining the job to Owen. “Penny and I have about a half-hour conference every morning to run over the general answers to queries or comments.” He looked hopefully at Owen, and Owen nodded. Martin was encouraged and went on. “There could be four or five letters that I could tell her to reply to with the ‘Thank you very much for your suggestion, blah, blah, blah… We’ll certainly consider it in the future.’ Do you see what I mean?”

  “Sure,” Owen said, “but do you have some copies of her letters that can give me a general idea of the tone?”

  Vic and Martin exchanged a brief, satisfied glance, and Vic picked up three files of letters from his desk. “I pulled these for you,” he said to Owen, “but they’re on the computer, too, so you can just alter them to personalize whatever form is suitable.”

  “Okay, okay. That sounds good,” Owen said, growing animated. “But say some letter comes in that doesn’t have a precedent. Look! Maybe I could do something like this. I could mark anything that I need to consult you about with green pencil, anything that seems to be a ‘Thank you very much’ in red, and a query that will be turned down in blue. I could leave them on your desk in the evening, and you could look them over in the morning before I type them up to send out.”

  “Great. That’s a good idea,” Martin said. “Don’t worry too much about typos and so forth. Helen LaPlante will type them from your printout. We don’t like to send out letters that look as if they were composed on a computer. Even when we print something ‘letter quality,’ it looks less personal than Helen’s standard typewriter.”

  “Oh, yeah! That’s good! That gives it a sort of personal touch, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s like you guys are actually answering the letters yourselves.”

  Owen’s interpretation made Martin uncomfortable, but Vic grinned. Martin realized that they were, of course, practicing a kind of deception, but he had never thought of it as a clever stunt—a slick idea—as Owen clearly did.

  Owen had been sitting with his arms lightly clasped around his torso and his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, but he dropped his hands to his sides and collected his feet beneath him as he bent toward Vic. “Well, this sounds good to me. I really do think it’s something I’d enjoy doing. Helping you out until I can get things sorted out again. I’ve talked to the registrar. Bradf
ord and Welbern’s admitted me as a special student. I’m planning to finish my degree next year, so I’ll be around, and I could always help you out if Mrs. Krautz is away. But it would be great for the rest of the summer.”

  Martin was unable to listen to Owen without feeling uneasy, and even physically his was a contradictory presence. Owen was tall and lanky and sometimes oddly menacing in his angularity, with a curious half smile and a habit of ducking his head in conversation so that his words tumbled down his long frame. Any listener was forced to lean forward and gaze up at him, as though in supplication, in order to catch a phrase. And anything he did say had an edge to it, slipped this way and that in intention.

  At other times, though, he was endearingly gangly, with a subdued, self-deprecatory attitude in all his gestures, as if to illustrate that he was making every effort to rein himself in so as not to take up more space than other-sized mortals. And then, when he spoke, he was careful to meet the eye of his audience, and whatever he had to say was straightforward. At moments like that everything about him was sympathetic.

  Martin realized that he wouldn’t need to mediate between Owen and Vic, and Martin should have been relieved, but instead he was unaccountably apprehensive. Owen was still good-looking, with the beginnings of lines crinkling at the corners of his green eyes, but he had an almost tenuous presence. It was not so much that he seemed vulnerable as that he appeared to be already slightly bruised, a bit weathered for a twenty-three-year-old, as though he were the blunted edge of something that had once been quite sharp.