woman had ceased to giggle and gossip about me with her partner. I had a purpose I did not then wish to admit to myself. I examined unspeakable clothing; I regarded sad toys and dusty envelopes and yards of material best suited to the backs of horses. The old response to stress became conscious: I took a five-dollar bill and folded it into my palm.
I was helpless before my own advice to
get out
.
On the second floor I spun a rack of paperback books. One of the jackets and titles snagged my attention. My Ph.D. supervisor, a famous scholar, had written it. It was Maccabee’s mostpopular book,
The Enchanted Dream
. Actually a mechanical treatise on nineteenth-century poets, it had been tricked out with a jazzy cover showing a long-haired young man apparently inhaling an illegal substance while a slightly less beautiful nude maiden coiled lambent legs and tendrils of hair about him. Unable to control the impulse which was my purpose—I hadn’t thought of such amazing luck—I took the book off the rack and slid it into my jacket pocket. It had been Maccabee who had suggested I write on Lawrence. Then I turned cautiously around (when it was too late for caution) and saw that no one had witnessed my theft. My chest thumped with relief; the book hung unobtrusively in my pocket. I twitched the pocket flap up over the top of the book. When I passed the cash register I dropped the bill on the counter and continued out onto the street.
And nearly into the arms of Bertilsson. That hypocritical pink moonface and wet smile were directed, I swear, toward the pocket with Maccabee’s book before Bertilsson decided he wished to favor my face with them. Balder and fatter, he was even more repulsive than I remembered him. His wife, several inches taller than he, stood stock-still beside him, her posture suggesting that I might be expected at any moment to commit an act of disgusting perversity.
As I suppose I had, in her eyes. When Joan and I were married, Bertilsson had taken pains to incorporate into his homiletic address some allusions to my past misdeeds; later, on a drunken night during our honeymoon, I wrote him an abusive letter and posted it on the spot. I think I said that he did not deserve to wear his collar.
Perhaps the recollection of that statement was what put the malicious icy chips in his eyes, far behind the sanctimony, when he greeted me. “Young Miles. What have we here? Young Miles.”
“We heard you were back,” said his wife.
“I’ll expect you at tomorrow’s services.”
“That’s interesting. Well, I must—”
“I was grieved to hear of your divorce. Most of my marriages are of the enduring kind. But then few of the couples it is my privilege to unite are as sophisticated as you and your—Judy, was it? Few of them write notes of thanks as distinctive as yours.”
“Her name was Joan. We never did get divorced in the sense you mean. She was killed.”
His wife swallowed, but Bertilsson, for all his oiliness, was no coward. He continued to look straight at me, the malice behind the sanctimony undimmed. “I
am
sorry. Truly sorry for you, Miles. Perhaps it’s a blessing that your grandmother did not live to see how you…” He shrugged.
“How I what?”
“Seem to have a tragic propensity for being nearby when young women are lost to life.”
“I wasn’t even in town when that Olson girl was killed,” I said. “And Joan was anything but nearby when she died.”
I might as well have been speaking to a bronze Buddha. He smiled. “I see I must apologize. I did not intend my remark in that way. No, not in the least. But in fact, since you bring up the matter, Mrs. Bertilsson and I are in Arden on a related mission, a mission of mercy I think I may describe it, of the Lord’s mercy, related to an event of which you seem to be in ignorance.”
He had long ago begun to speak in the cadences of his tedious sermons, but usually it was possible to figure out what he was talking about. “Look.
I was helpless before my own advice to
get out
.
On the second floor I spun a rack of paperback books. One of the jackets and titles snagged my attention. My Ph.D. supervisor, a famous scholar, had written it. It was Maccabee’s mostpopular book,
The Enchanted Dream
. Actually a mechanical treatise on nineteenth-century poets, it had been tricked out with a jazzy cover showing a long-haired young man apparently inhaling an illegal substance while a slightly less beautiful nude maiden coiled lambent legs and tendrils of hair about him. Unable to control the impulse which was my purpose—I hadn’t thought of such amazing luck—I took the book off the rack and slid it into my jacket pocket. It had been Maccabee who had suggested I write on Lawrence. Then I turned cautiously around (when it was too late for caution) and saw that no one had witnessed my theft. My chest thumped with relief; the book hung unobtrusively in my pocket. I twitched the pocket flap up over the top of the book. When I passed the cash register I dropped the bill on the counter and continued out onto the street.
And nearly into the arms of Bertilsson. That hypocritical pink moonface and wet smile were directed, I swear, toward the pocket with Maccabee’s book before Bertilsson decided he wished to favor my face with them. Balder and fatter, he was even more repulsive than I remembered him. His wife, several inches taller than he, stood stock-still beside him, her posture suggesting that I might be expected at any moment to commit an act of disgusting perversity.
As I suppose I had, in her eyes. When Joan and I were married, Bertilsson had taken pains to incorporate into his homiletic address some allusions to my past misdeeds; later, on a drunken night during our honeymoon, I wrote him an abusive letter and posted it on the spot. I think I said that he did not deserve to wear his collar.
Perhaps the recollection of that statement was what put the malicious icy chips in his eyes, far behind the sanctimony, when he greeted me. “Young Miles. What have we here? Young Miles.”
“We heard you were back,” said his wife.
“I’ll expect you at tomorrow’s services.”
“That’s interesting. Well, I must—”
“I was grieved to hear of your divorce. Most of my marriages are of the enduring kind. But then few of the couples it is my privilege to unite are as sophisticated as you and your—Judy, was it? Few of them write notes of thanks as distinctive as yours.”
“Her name was Joan. We never did get divorced in the sense you mean. She was killed.”
His wife swallowed, but Bertilsson, for all his oiliness, was no coward. He continued to look straight at me, the malice behind the sanctimony undimmed. “I
am
sorry. Truly sorry for you, Miles. Perhaps it’s a blessing that your grandmother did not live to see how you…” He shrugged.
“How I what?”
“Seem to have a tragic propensity for being nearby when young women are lost to life.”
“I wasn’t even in town when that Olson girl was killed,” I said. “And Joan was anything but nearby when she died.”
I might as well have been speaking to a bronze Buddha. He smiled. “I see I must apologize. I did not intend my remark in that way. No, not in the least. But in fact, since you bring up the matter, Mrs. Bertilsson and I are in Arden on a related mission, a mission of mercy I think I may describe it, of the Lord’s mercy, related to an event of which you seem to be in ignorance.”
He had long ago begun to speak in the cadences of his tedious sermons, but usually it was possible to figure out what he was talking about. “Look.
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