“I’m sure it’s not,” she said. She wondered why Berrington had said that. He ought to want a reconciliation; it was not in his interests to be inflammatory. She kept her eyes and her smile on the president. “We’re rational people. We must be able to find a compromise that would allow me to continue my work and yet preserve the university’s dignity.”
Obeli clearly liked that idea, although he frowned and said: “I don’t quite see how.…”
“This is all a waste of time,” Berrington said impatiently.
It was the third time he had made a quarrelsome interjection. Jeannie choked back another waspish rejoinder. Why was he being like this? Did he want her to stop doing her research and get into trouble with the university and be discredited? It began to seem that way. Was it Berrington who had sneaked into her room and downloaded her E-mail and warned off the FBI? Could it even be he who had tipped off the New York Times in the first place and started this whole row? She was so stunned by the perverse logic of this notion that she fell silent.
“We have already decided the university’s course of action,” Berrington said.
She realized she had mistaken the power structure in the room. Berrington was the boss here, not Obeli. Berrington was the conduit for Genetico’s research millions, which Obeli needed. Berrington had nothing to fear from Obeli; rather the reverse. She had been watching the monkey instead of the organ-grinder.
Berrington had now dropped the pretense that the university president was in charge. “We didn’t call you in here to ask your opinion,” he said.
“Then why did you call me in?” Jeannie asked.
“To fire you,” he replied.
She was stunned. She had expected the threat of dismissal, but not the thing itself. She could hardly take it in. “What do you mean?” she said stupidly.
“I mean you’re fired,” Berrington said. He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his right index finger, a sign that he was pleased with himself.
Jeannie felt as if she had been punched. I can’t be fired, she thought. I’ve only been here a few weeks. I was getting on so well, working so hard. I thought they all liked me, except Sophie Chapple. How did this happen so fast?
She tried to collect her thoughts. “You can’t fire me,” she said.
“We just did.”
“No.” As she got over the initial shock, she began to feel angry and defiant. “You’re not tribal chieftains here. There’s a procedure.” Universities usually could not fire faculty without some kind of hearing. It was mentioned in her contract, but she had never checked the details. Suddenly it was vitally important to her.
Maurice Obeli supplied the information. “There will be a hearing before the discipline committee of the university senate, of course,” he said. “Normally, four weeks’ notice is required; but in view of the bad publicity surrounding this case I, as president, have invoked the emergency procedure, and the hearing will be held tomorrow morning.”
Jeannie was bewildered by how fast they had acted. The discipline committee? Emergency procedure? Tomorrow morning? This was not a discussion. It was more like being arrested. She half expected Obeli to read her her rights.
He did something similar. He pushed a folder across his desk. “In there you will find the procedural rules of the committee. You may be represented by a lawyer or other advocate provided you notify the chair of the committee in advance.”
Jeannie at last managed a sensible question. “Who’s the chair?”
“Jack Budgen,” said Obeli.
Berrington looked up sharply. “Is that already settled?”
“The chair is appointed annually,” Obeli said. “Jack took over at the start of the semester.”
“I didn’t know that.” Berrington looked annoyed, and Jeannie knew why. Jack Budgen was her tennis partner. That was encouraging: he ought to be fair to her. All was not lost. She would have a chance to defend herself, and her research methods, in front of a group of academics. There would be a serious discussion, not the glib superficialities of the New York Times.
And she had the results of her FBI sweep. She began to see how she would defend herself. She would show the committee the FBI data. With luck there would be one or two pairs who did not know they were twins. That would be impressive. Then she would explain the precautions she took to protect individuals’ privacy.…
“I think that’s all,” said Maurice Obeli.
Jeannie was being dismissed. She stood up. “What a pity it’s come to this,” she said.
Berrington said quickly: “You brought it to this.”
He was like an argumentative child. She did not have the patience for pointless wrangling. She gave him a disdainful look and left the room.
As she crossed the campus she reflected ruefully that she had completely failed to achieve her aims. She had wanted a negotiated settlement, and she had got a gladiatorial contest. But Berrington and Obeli had made their decision before she walked into the room. The meeting had been a formality.
She returned to Nut House. As she approached her office she noticed with irritation that the cleaners had left a black plastic garbage bag right outside the door. She would call them immediately. But when she tried to open her door it seemed to be jammed. She swiped her card through the card reader several times, but the door did not open. She was about to walk to reception and call maintenance when a dreadful thought occurred to her.
She looked inside the black bag. It was not full of wastepaper and Styrofoam coffee cups. The first thing she saw was her canvas Lands’ End briefcase. Also in the sack was the Kleenex box from her drawer, a paperback copy of A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, two framed photographs, and her hairbrush.
They had cleared out her desk and locked her out of her office.
She was devastated. This was a worse blow than what had happened in Maurice Obell’s office. That was just words. This made her feel cut off from a huge part of her life. This is my office, she thought; how can they shut me out? “You fucking creeps,” she said aloud.
It must have been done by security while she was in Obell’s office. Of course they had not warned her; that would have given her the chance to take anything she really needed. Once again she had been surprised by their ruthlessness.
It was like an amputation. They had taken away her science, her work. She did not know what to do with herself, where to go. For eleven years she had been a scientist—as an undergraduate, graduate student, doctoral student, postdoctoral, and assistant professor. Now, suddenly, she was nothing.
As her spirits sank from despondency to black despair, she remembered the disk with the FBI data. She rummaged through the contents of the plastic sack, but there were no floppy disks. Her results, the backbone of her defense, were locked inside the room.
She pounded futilely on the door with her fist. A passing student who took her statistics class gave her a startled look and said: “Can I help you, Professor?”
She recalled his name. “Hi, Ben. You could kick down this goddamn door.”
He studied the door, looking dubious.
“I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I’m fine, thanks.”
He shrugged and walked on.
There was no point standing and staring at the locked door. She picked up the plastic bag and walked into the lab. Lisa was at her desk, keying data into a computer. “I’ve been fired,” Jeannie said.
Lisa stared at her. “What?”
“They locked me out of my office and dumped my stuff in this fucking garbage bag.”
“I don’t believe it!”
Jeannie took her briefcase out of the bag and extracted the New York Times. “It’s on account of this.”