There were dazed-looking nods all around.
“So,” Mira went on, “a few hours after skin slippage, there begins the escape of bloodstained fluids from the orifices and the liquefaction of the eyeballs. Within twenty-four hours—again, depending on the weather—there will be the presence of maggots, and in another twenty-four hours, the shedding of nails and hair, and then the conversion of tissue into a semi-fluid mass, which, along with the buildup of gasses, will cause the abdomen to burst, often in a noisy explosion.
“It may not surprise you to learn that the number one cause of ‘shell shock’ as we used to call it, among war veterans, or posttraumatic stress disorder as we call it now, is not actually due to the experience of shelling, or the fear of their own deaths, but by encounters had with corpses.
“It’s why the old man in ‘The Monkey’s Paw,’ who perhaps lived in a time before the funeral parlor business got so big, and who might have been a war veteran himself, would not have wanted to open the door to find his three-days-dead son on the other side, and why the old woman in Bosnia swept the doorway to make sure her beloved daughter wouldn’t come home. It’s why the fear of the dead, and the conviction that they are evil—our utter aversion to them—has persisted and influenced so many of our rituals and beliefs. And, as with anything so feared, there are corresponding obsessions and fascinations. That will be the focus of our next class.”
There were no questions. The students seemed vaguely disoriented, as they often did on Putrefaction Day, and Mira let them go ten minutes early. They gathered their things in silence. As they filed out past her desk, Perry unplugged the slide projector and wound the cord carefully. As she packed up her things, he asked, “Are we meeting this afternoon, Professor?”
Mira looked at her watch. It was Tuesday, and Clark would be eager to be relieved of the twins, who had been especially cranky that morning—tossing their Cheerios around the kitchen, hollering at Mira in their musical, unintelligible chatter. Clark had said, “Don’t be late,” as Mira hurried out the door.
“Clark,” she’d said, stopping, turning, “I’ll try not to be, but I have a job. I have students, and colleagues, and emails, and phone calls—”
Clark held up a hand, shaking his head. “No need to list all the things you have, Mira. I get it. See you when you can manage it.”
“Clark,” she’d said, holding out her hands—not as if she were reaching for him, she realized, but more as if she were offering him her wrists to slash. She’d said his name again, but he’d gone into the bathroom and shut the door.
She looked now at Perry.
All weekend she’d thought about their project. She had a hundred questions for him, and a strange bright spot of hope about the future. Despite herself (how well she knew the foolishness of putting the cart before the horse), she’d thought of a title: The American Campus: Sex, Superstition, and Death.
It was, she had to admit to herself, the first sense she’d had since the twins were born that she might have another book in her, and a continuing academic career.
“Well,” she said to Perry. “Yes, we should meet. But I’ll need to leave within the hour. Childcare.”
She shrugged, but felt a soggy lump in her throat that she thought must have to do with the twins, and the way, that morning, the boys had looked up from their high chairs as she bent over to kiss them, their faces wet with milk and a few stuck-on Cheerios, and how she’d been too worried about what their reaction would be to her leaving (and what Clark’s reaction to their reaction would be) to actually say good-bye. They were babbling in their sad foreign language, and she had to push down, as she always did, her fear that there was something wrong, that this was not just your routine “delayed language acquisition,” and as perfectly normal as the pediatrician had insisted, but something much larger, much more predictive of future horrors. Clark refused to talk about it except to say, “You blame me, I suppose?”
“Why would I blame you?”
“Because I’m the one raising your kids, I suppose.”
Everything, even the sounds that came out of their toddlers’ mouths, was a minefield between them now.
She couldn’t say good-bye. Instead, she’d waited until they were busy with their plastic airplane spoons again to sneak out the front door, pulling it closed behind her without making a sound.
20
“I’m in love, man.”
Craig was sitting at the edge of his bed. It was a Saturday night, mid-November, and Perry had just finished writing a paper on Socrates’ belief that rational self-criticism could free the human mind from the bondage of illusion. He didn’t want to talk to his roommate about Nicole Werner.
“Great, man,” he said.
“I’m serious,” Craig said. “I know you think I’m an asshole, but—”
“Well, who’s to say an asshole can’t fall in love?”
Perry deliberately kept his back turned to Craig’s side of the room, hoping he’d take the hint.
“You’re not fooling me,” Craig said.
Perry couldn’t help it. He turned around. “Okay,” he said. “So, what is it I’m not fooling you about, Craig?”
“You’re in love with her, too. You’ve probably been in love with her since kindergarten or something. It galls you that I’m dating her. You’re going nuts.”
“Jesus Christ,” Perry said, leaning back, looking at the ceiling. “You’re so full of shit, Craig. You’d be saying that about anyone you were dating. You think the whole world’s just watching you, burning with envy. But you know what? News flash: We’re not.”
Craig snorted, as if Perry had confirmed his suspicions by denying them. It was one of the many, many infuriating things about his roommate. You could not win with Craig Clements-Rabbitt. You either confessed or you were lying.
“Look,” Perry said, and inhaled. “Even if I’d been madly in love with Nicole Werner since kindergarten, I’d have fallen out of love with her by the time I realized she was stupid enough to date someone like you—not to mention this sorority bullshit, which seems about as stupid as it’s humanly possible to get.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Craig asked.
Perry shook his head.
“Huh?” Craig prodded.
“Forget it,” Perry said.
“So she likes her sorority, Perry. I think it’s cute. You have to admit, she looks incredible in a string of pearls. And that was one helluva float they decorated for Homecoming.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. And you know so.”
“What happened to all your cynicism, man?”
“Well, then I fell in love with Nicole Werner. Just like you did, back in Bad Ass.”
“Jesus Christ,” Perry said. “Why do we have to talk about this? Why do we have to talk at all.”
“Because you won’t admit it to me, or to yourself. You’re in love with Nicole.”
Perry tossed up his hands. “Okay, Craig. Okay. If I ‘admit’ I’m in love with your girlfriend, will you shut the fuck up? Will that make you feel like a Big Man? Like the Big Campus Stud with the girl we’d all die to get our hands on?”
“How about you admit it first, and I’ll decide after that?”
“Okay,” Perry said, and cleared his throat, rolled his eyes heavenward. “Let me see. The first time I saw Nicole Werner in Mrs. Bell’s kindergarten classroom, clutching a crayon in one hand and a piece of construction paper in the other, I thought to myself, There’s the only girl I’ll ever love. I sure as hell hope she doesn’t end up dating my roommate in college, because then I’ll have to kill myself.”