Nimrod was worth it.
That was Loring’s conclusion.
It made his assignment bearable.
4
Nothing could be written down; the briefing was slow, repetition constant. But Loring was a professional and knew the value of taking breaks from the pressures of trying to absorb too much too rapidly. During these periods, he attempted to draw Matlock out, learn more about this man whose life was so easily expendable. It was nearly midnight; Sam Kressel had left before eight o’clock. It was neither necessary nor advisable that the dean be present during the detailing of the specifics. He was a liaison, not an activist. Kressel was not averse to the decision.
Ralph Loring learned quickly that Matlock was a private man. His answers to innocuously phrased questions were brief, thrown-away replies constituting no more than self-denigrating explanations. After a while, Loring gave up. Matlock had agreed to do a job, not make public his thoughts or his motives. It wasn’t necessary; Loring understood the latter. That was all that mattered. He was just as happy not to know the man too well.
Matlock, in turn—while memorizing the complicated information—was, on another level, reflecting on his own life, wondering in his own way why he’d been selected. He was intrigued by an evaluation that could describe him as being mobile; what an awful word to have applied!
Yet he knew he was precisely what the term signified. He was mobile. The professional researchers, or psychologists, or whatever they were, were accurate. But he doubted they understood the reasons behind his … «mobility.»
The academic world had been a refuge, a sanctuary. Not an objective of long-standing ambition. He had fled into it in order to buy time, to organize a life that was falling apart, to understand. To get his head straight, as the kids said these days.
He had tried to explain it to his wife, his lovely, quick, bright, ultimately hollow wife, who thought he’d lost his senses. What was there to understand but an awfully good job, an awfully nice house, an awfully pleasant club, and a good life within an awfully rewarding social and financial world? For her, there was nothing more to understand. And he understood that.
But for him that world had lost its meaning. He had begun to drift away from its core in his early twenties, during his last year at Amherst. The separation became complete with his army experience.
It was no one single thing that had triggered his rejection. And the rejection itself was not a violent act, although violence played its role in the early days of the Saigon mess. It had begun at home, where most life-styles are accepted or rejected, during a series of disagreeable confrontations with his father. The old gentleman—too old, too gentlemanly—felt justified in demanding a better performance from his first son. A direction, a sense of purpose not at all in evidence. The senior Matlock belonged to another era—if not another century—and believed the gap between father and son a desirable thing, the lower element being dismissible until it had proved itself in the marketplace. Dismissible but, of course, malleable. In ways, the father was like a benign ruler who, after generations of power, was loath to have the throne abandoned by his rightful issue. It was inconceivable to the elder Matlock that his son would not assume the leadership of the family business. Businesses.
But for the younger Matlock, it was all too conceivable. And preferable. He was not only uncomfortable thinking about a future in his father’s marketplace, he was also afraid. For him there was no joy in the regimented pressures of the financial world; instead, there was an awesome fear of inadequacy, emphasized by his father’s strong—overpowering—competence. The closer he came to entering that world, the more pronounced was his fear. And it occurred to him that along with the delights of extravagant shelter and unnecessary creature comforts had to come the justification for doing what was expected in order to possess these things. He could not find that justification. Better the shelter should be less extravagant, the creature comforts somewhat limited, than face the prospects of continuing fear and discomfort.
He had tried to explain that to his father. Whereas his wife had claimed he’d lost his senses, the old gentleman pronounced him a misfit.
Which didn’t exactly refute the army’s judgment of him.
The army.
A disaster. Made worse by the knowledge that it was of his own making. He found that blind physical discipline and unquestioned authority were abhorrent to him. And he was large enough and strong enough and had a sufficient vocabulary to make his unadjustable, immature objections known—to his own disadvantage.
Discreet manipulations by an uncle resulted in a discharge before his tour of service was officially completed; for that he was grateful to an influential family.
And at this juncture of his life, James Barbour Matlock II was a mess. Separated from the service less than gloriously, divorced by his wife, dispossessed—symbolically if not actually—by his family, he felt the panic of belonging nowhere, of being without motive or purpose.
So he’d fled into the secure confines of graduate school, hoping to find an answer. And as in a love affair begun on a sexual basis but growing into psychological dependence, he had married that world; he’d found what had eluded him for nearly five vital years. It was the first real commitment he’d ever experienced.
He was free.
Free to enjoy the excitement of a meaningful challenge; free to revel in the confidence that he was equal to it. He plunged into his new world with the enthusiasm of a convert but without the blindness. He chose a period of history and literature that teemed with energy and conflict and contradictory evaluations. The apprentice years passed swiftly; he was consumed and pleasantly surprised by his own talents. When he emerged on the professional plateau, he brought fresh air into the musty archives. He made startling innovations in long-unquestioned methods of research. His doctoral thesis on court interference with English Renaissance literature—news management—blew into the historical ashcan several holy theories about one benefactress named Elizabeth.
He was the new breed of scholar: restless, skeptical, unsatisfied, always searching while imparting what he’d learned to others. Two and a half years after receiving his doctorate, he was elevated to the tenured position of associate professor, the youngest instructor at Carlyle to be so contracted.
James Barbour Matlock II made up for the lost years, the awful years. Perhaps best of all was the knowledge that he could communicate his excitement to others. He was young enough to enjoy sharing his enthusiasm, old enough to direct the inquiries.
Yes, he was mobile; God, was he! He couldn’t, wouldn’t turn anyone off, shut anyone out because of disagreement—even dislike. The depth of his own gratitude, the profoundness of his relief was such that he unconsciously promised himself never to discount the concerns of another human being.
«Any surprises?» Loring had completed a section of the material that dealt with narcotics purchases as they’d been traced.
«More a clarification, I’d say,» replied Matlock. «The old-line fraternities or clubs—mostly white, mostly rich—get their stuff from Hartford. The black units like Lumumba Hall go to New Haven. Different sources.»