“Are you restless?” said Henry.
“Basil would say so,” said Philip. He sat down on the windowsill.
So — the young man called his professor “Basil.” Henry said, “His letter indicates that I am not to discuss literature with you, so what else are you interested in?”
“How do you feel about these bouts of campus—”
Henry waited to hear what word he would use—“unrest”? “silliness”? “brutality”? Henry had heard dozens of words applied. His aunt Eloise, who knew the U of Chicago catalyst, Marlene Dixon, slightly and said that she was “well meaning but doctrinaire,” always talked about “campus preliminaries.” Philip said—“rebellions.”
That was nicely limiting, but respectful. He said, “Ask me in ten years. I have no idea. I suppose I am sympathetic, but from a distance. As a medievalist, I am not asked to do teach-ins, but I would if I could think of something to teach. The fate of the Cathars is not a heartening precedent. I think the military draft has been God’s gift to the left.”
Philip smiled. “I didn’t realize God gave gifts to the left, or that those gifts were accepted.”
Oh, he is a charming boy, thought Henry, and Basil was right — he might have been born at the BBC, his pronunciation was so perfect and smooth.
Just then there was a knock, and when he opened the door, Henry saw Marcy Grant, his tallest student, decked out as usual in her giant army-surplus pants held up by a string, her glasses sporting a piece of masking tape, her hair a tangle. She peered at Henry and said, “Oh, Professor Langdon,” then looked around. She smiled her brilliant smile. Someday she would stand up straight and discover that she was a lovely woman. “That’s me,” said Henry.
“I forgot to sign up for the history-of-the-language course, but I thought I had. I already wrote my first paper over the summer.” She held out some typed pages. Henry knew they would be excellent. He took them, set them on the bookcase beside the door, and said, “Come in, I’ll give you a note.”
She squinted at him, then walked through the door. Philip’s response to Marcy wasn’t even curiosity, though whether that was because Marcy was female or because she was a mess, Henry couldn’t tell. Marcy’s response to Philip, though, was gratifying. Her mouth dropped open, and she kept glancing at him while Henry wrote the note to the registrar. Henry said, “Marcy, this is Philip Cross. He’s come over from England to do grad work at Chicago. Philip, my excellent but disorganized student Marcy Grant.”
Marcy exhibited the good manners her Wisconsin mother had impressed upon her — how very nice to meet you, hope you have a good time — but she could go no further. Philip gave her his fingertips and said, “You are very kind,” as if Marcy could now be quietly executed and removed from the company of the civilized. Henry handed her the note and herded her toward the corridor. Henry eased back into the office and closed the door.
Philip had picked up Henry’s monograph, which was sitting on the windowsill, Dialectical Variations in Anglo-Saxon Epic Poetry, Yale University Press, unreviewed in any American publication, but embraced by two scholars at Cambridge, one at Oxford, and his mother, Rosanna Vogel Langdon. Henry said, “It could keep you up at night.”
Now the expected knock came, and then Rick Kingsford pushed the door open, calling, “You here, Doc? Oh, hi. How are ya?”
Henry said, “I’m fine, Rick. How are you?”
“Well, I had this cough, but it’s not so bad today. I thought I was gonna havta go to the infirmary, but not yet.” Rick was an enthusiastic student of Old English. He planned to do a translation of “The Seafarer,” with notes, as his thesis. He also carried a thermometer with him at all times and refused to shake hands. When he saw Philip, he recoiled slightly.
“What can I do for you, Rick?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Philip was getting bored.
“I need a form you got, for the thesis credit.”
“Oh, I do have that,” said Henry. “Let’s see.”
Philip stood up and stretched, then looked out the window. Henry opened the top drawer of his filing cabinet and began to go through the folders.
Rick, looking over his shoulder, said, “That’s it, Doc.”
“Oh, good. Is that all you—”
“Hell, no! I mean, I was thinking I was going to do something like free verse; then, the other night, I thought obviously iambic pentameter, but now I’m not so sure. We could have echoes of Ibsen or something.”
Philip was at the door, his hand on the knob. Rick sat down in the chair beside the desk and wiggled around, making himself comfortable. “The words would be English, but the meter would evoke the North, you know? I’m thinking of my guy — let’s say his name is Thor — sailing almost to the Arctic Circle. It’s dark, it’s cold. No Latin-derived words, or, God, Norman French — you don’t want that. Well, maybe a few, but carefully se—”
“Just a minute, Rick, okay?”
As a known campus bachelor, Henry had to be careful, but he did step one step toward Philip.
Their gazes locked. Henry said, “Let me know if you need anything.” Then, “And give my best to Basil if you write.”
“Ta-ta!” said Philip.
The door closed behind him.
“Ta-ta?” exclaimed Rick.
“A bit of slang that could come from Swahili, oddly enough. Now, let’s get on with it, what do you say?” He sounded put out, and Rick looked alarmed.
At dusk, when he was walking home from the university, feeling not quite down but not quite up, thinking that the sixteen weeks of classes just now commencing was a long stretch of talking and reading, he sneezed and put his hand into his jacket pocket for his handkerchief. Instead of his handkerchief, which he now remembered leaving on the corner of his desk, he pulled out a slip of paper. It read, “Philip +, 312-678-3456.” Henry immediately felt much better.
—
“YOU LOOK SO GREAT,” said Ruth.
“Don’t say that,” said Claire. They were having breakfast at the pancake house, which they did every Monday morning. She had her turkey and a dozen eggs in the car, but the temperature was in the forties — she didn’t think the eggs would freeze. Paul wanted a “private Thanksgiving, just us,” but the smallest turkey she’d found was eighteen pounds. She and Ruth didn’t have much in common anymore, but they still referred to each other as “best friends.” Bradley was sitting quietly on the seat between Claire and the wall. He was holding his blueberry muffin, staring at it, turning it, and taking bites. He was concentrating. Claire smoothed his hair.
“Why not?”
“Because whenever Paul says that it’s because I’m pregnant again.”
Ruth laughed, but then said, “You don’t look…”
“No.” Then, “Not yet.” Claire knew this was a sensitive subject, and was sorry she hadn’t thought before saying what she did. She’d been taking the Pill for two months now, and she knew she had put on at least five pounds. She was also wearing contact lenses — she told everyone (including Paul) that that was Paul’s idea. It had been, at one point, but he had sort of forgotten about it. Brad looked up at her. Claire said, “That’s good, BB. You keep eating that. You need that.”
Brad nodded.
“He looks healthy,” said Ruth. “He ate the piece of sausage.”
“My mother says she never produced a picky eater.”
“I wish I’d been a picky eater,” said Ruth. “We heard so much about the starving Armenians that we had the clean-platter club, not the clean-plate club. You have such cute boys,” said Ruth.
“I do,” said Claire. This was how she was to be punished for veering toward a topic that had become taboo between them, the fact that Ruth had been married now for two years to Carl and still had no children. Not even a miscarriage. She would soon be thirty-one; ten years ago, she had planned to have had her own two by this time. Nor was she a member of the Wakonda Country Club, which Paul had joined the previous summer — three-thousand-dollar initiation fee, one-thousand-a-year membership. Claire took Ruth there as often as she wanted, but Carl, a builder, wouldn’t go. Carl was good-looking, as nice as pie, and could fix anything (Claire hired him whenever she could get him), but playing golf and tennis, swimming in a pool, and eating in a formal dining room with a tie on were not for Carl.