“I lost control of myself and knocked him down.”
Eleanor Arthur was delighted. “The murderer? Well bless you, I bet that made him think about what he had done.”
Not likely, he thought. He looked at Francesca, searching for a message across the maze of others. Her eyes were still bright, but he could not guess what they meant. He felt stupid, his powerful experience a shallow party boast. He felt ashamed, while Francesca looked at him with Laura’s eyes.
He decided to go to the student party. He waited for the buffet, so as not to be impolite, then said goodnight to Francesca Hooton and Gerald and Eleanor Arthur and Bill and Roxanne Furman, and he stepped out into the balmy June evening a few minutes before midnight and hurried to his car under the fresh leafed maple tree, wondering if there was still time.
To the third floor apartment of an old house, a narrow street, he had to park three blocks away. He could hear the music as he approached. Suddenly anxious again, another foolish thing, what interest could he have in these young people with their loud music, what was there to prefer here? The answer was Louise Germane. Of whom he knew nothing. Did Louise Germane have a boyfriend? Lover? Nothing. Only the flattering things she used to say to him and the personal note she had added to the mimeographed party invitation.
He climbed up the narrow steps into a jungle of noise. The door at the top was open, the room loud and crowded. His colleague Gabe Dalton leaned against the doorjamb with his pipe, his beard, a plastic cup of beer in his hand, lecturing to a group of three, avid and respectful. Inside, members of his seminar: “Hey Mr. Hastings. Beer in the kitchen.”
Glad of Gabe Dalton, to make him feel less out of place. He was speaking with great pipe-wielding beard-fortified authority about first one thing and then another. Snowing the kids. He touched Tony on the arm, not to interrupt the monologue, with a lot of unspoken meaning, such as, Good to see you coming out of your cave, pal. Tony looked around, disappointed. He went into the kitchen and found Louise Germane.
She was leaning against the refrigerator, talking to Oscar Gametti and Myra Slue. She saw him and waved. How colorful she was, tall, a blue and red T-shirt, a blue scarf holding back her wheat hair. “Get you some beer.”
The beer barrel in the corner, she pumped it up and handed him a cup. The kitchen was quieter than the rest of the party. She was glad he had come, as if she believed it. Oscar Gametti asked him a question, and he began to talk. The students stood around politely and just like Gabe Dalton he talked, with growing ease from the position of his greater age and knowledge, about national politics and mathematics and the Department of Mathematics. He thought how respectful they were, looking up to him with admiration.
He noticed what small bumps Louise Germane’s breasts made in her T-shirt. He wanted to talk to her in a different way, to say something different. She listened with interest, eagerly, he thought, her eyes seemed to glow at him. He wished he could detach her from the others. He wondered how. He wondered how she had come, how she planned to leave, whether he might, for example, take her home. If he could offer to, in a natural way without shocking her or attracting the attention of others.
He began telling his story, the whole thing starting in the night on the Interstate. He guessed they all knew it already, but he had never told it to students before. He heard himself doing it, he could hardly believe it, and he felt ashamed telling it, but he could not help it. He told it as plain as he could, with diffidence, but he left out no important facts. He told it like something everybody should know, like a lesson about the world. Their expressions became serious, they shook their heads and looked dismayed. He watched Louise Germane’s large awestruck eyes, looking as if she wanted to kiss him.
After the narrative, Myra Slue said, “It’s time for me to go home.”
Tony said, “Me too, probably. Soon.” Then, not too loudly, “Can I give anybody a lift?” Myra Slue did not hear, the others were turned and talking elsewhere. He looked directly at Louise Germane. Repeat, to her: “Can I give you a lift?” The kinship eyes and face that wanted to kiss veiled its pleased surprise. “Why, thank you,” she said, hesitating and adding, “I came with Nora Jensen.”
He allowed his disappointment to show. She said, “I’ll go ask her.” Like an afterthought, “I’ll meet you downstairs.” Like an intrigue, a scheme to conceal. His heart jumped. As she went off to find Nora, he noticed her suppressed little grin. His dignity reeled a little. He said goodnight to Gabe Dalton still holding forth at the door, and went downstairs by himself, where he waited for Louise Germane, wondering if she really would, while his heart leaped raggedly.
TWO
The space in the text is not a chapter, but Susan Morrow pauses, blocked by something. Anticipating the sex scene she sees coming. Not sure she wants it, unless she can keep Edward out of it. Nervous Edward, whose sexual imagination in real life was not great. She’s irritated with him. His snobbish picture of the faculty party. She likes faculty parties herself, thinking academic people more intelligent and cultivated than most. She’s irritated by Tony too, shocked when he tells the students his tragedy, irked by his male preference for young Louise over Eleanor. With a question about the ethics of faculty-student screwing, if he or Edward has thought of that.
What’s ailing her, obstructing her reading? Rosie hangs on the telephone, talking to Carol. If Arnold is trying to call from New York: Never mind, let her talk. Susan hopes he doesn’t call. The thought surprises her, why should she hope that? She’s afraid of his call for no good reason and suddenly realizes she’s afraid of his return too, tomorrow—tomorrow?—wishing she had another day to get ready. She imagines him bringing her some frightening gift. Some gift that is no gift, deadly. What would that be? She doesn’t know, it’s a lump of thought in her head, amorphous and opaque like coal.
She detects outside an alteration of city sound caused by falling snow. She hears it covering the car, which she will have to scrape clean tomorrow, and the sidewalk she will have to shovel—she or Henry. She’s caught by the strangeness of what she’s doing, reading a made-up story. Putting herself into a special state, like a trance, while someone else (Edward) pretends certain imaginings are real. A question for another time: What am I really doing? Am I learning something? Is the world better, Edward, because of this cooperation between you and me?
Tony’s world resembles Susan’s except for the violence in its middle which makes it totally different. What, Susan wonders, do I get from being made to witness such bad luck? Does this novel magnify the difference between Tony’s life and mine, or does it bring us together? Does it threaten me or soothe me?