“I wonder,” I said as I swirled the oily liquid in my glass, “that you have not considered a post at a more exalted institution. Oxford, for example.”
Asher looked sharply up at me, and I could only guess at his thoughts. Was he wondering if I knew that he had had an offer from Jesus College? Or would he assume I had simply made a lucky guess?
“It is not a particularly propitious time to go abroad,” Asher said carefully.
“No, I suppose not,” I said. (There was, after all, a war on.)
Asher looked down at his drink.
“I came across an article in the Atlantic Monthly you wrote in regard to pacificism,” I said.
“Did you?” he asked, much surprised.
“Would you not go if asked by your country?”
“I am already too old,” he said.
“So it is a theoretical argument you make. Not one to affect you directly.”
“No,” he said, shifting in his seat. “But no less heartfelt, I assure you. I hold to it firmly.”
“Are you an atheist, Professor Asher?”
“No,” he said, “I’m not.”
“Remarkable,” I said. “Remarkable?”
“Well, the Nietzsche.”
“It is a field of study only.”
“Just so. Are you a Quaker, then?” I asked.
“No, I am not.”
“Well, what are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
It was a rude question, certainly, and even today I am not sure why I pressed him. And did Asher hesitate? I am sure that he did. Not in fear, but in preparation for the reaction his answer would provoke. He looked away a moment and then back again.
“I am a Jew,” he said.
I sat perfectly still, drink in hand, stopped in its progress to my mouth. I doubt anything Asher could have told me would have surprised me more. I am Chinese. I am a shaman. I am a Gypsy.
“Really,” I said, finally taking a sip.
Was Asher, which had sounded so plausibly English, actually a Jewish name? Did the Board of Corporators know that they were considering a Jew for the post of Dean of Faculty of Thrupp College, a school that had never, to my knowledge, hired a man of the Jewish faith? The unexplained descent from London to Cambridge to New Haven to Thrupp was beginning finally to make more sense to me.
(I cringe now to recall and to reveal these opportunistic thoughts. My only defense, insofar as a defense is even conceivable, is that at that time, Jewish academics were rare outside of Europe and virtually unheard of at a school such as Thrupp. Now, of course, it is entirely otherwise. At our college alone, I can count at least three Jewish academics who have been considered for posts: Isaiah Gordon and Robert Newman and Jerome Sills. Though none of them, I should point out, was hired.)
“There are many of us pacificists about,” Asher said.
“Not in Thrupp, I can assure you,” I said when I had recovered my equilibrium. “The sentiment is quite the other way in this village.”
Asher gazed around at the shelves of books, at a small Sargent sketch I had on the wall. He reached over and touched the foot of a bronze of Winged Mercury on the desk.
I was near trembling with my news and could scarcely think.
“What a remarkable coincidence,” I said, “that your brother should have known my wife.”
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“How is it that they met?”
“I believe my brother knew Mrs. Van Tassel’s father,” he said.
“They were both schoolmasters at Phillips Academy in Exeter.”
“A tolerant school,” I said delightedly.
Asher glanced up at me but said nothing.
“Your brother is of my wife’s father’s generation?” I asked.
“In between, I should think,” Asher said. “My brother is ten years older than I am.”
“My age, then.”
“Well, yes, I imagine he would be.”
“And you say he has emigrated to Canada?”
“Toronto. Yes. He had rather settled in, in fact, when he was asked to go to London.”
“Good, good,” I said.
Asher looked at me oddly.
“Though you must miss him,” I said quickly.
“We were not close,” Asher said. “There was the age difference. By the time I was ten, my brother had left the house.”
“I see. So you personally had never met my wife before.”
“Well, I had, actually. Once or twice in passing.”
“May I refresh that drink?” I asked, now in an intolerably expansive mood.
“Yes, thank you.” Asher shifted in the chair, the creaking leather betraying his unease. A truly poised man, I reflected, could sit for an hour without appearing to move a limb.
“I am guessing that my wife will dine at her aunt’s house,” I said. “We might even take in a meal together later, you and I. In town, perhaps?”
“I should like that,” Phillip Asher said. “But I am promised to Eliphalet Stone.”
“To Stone, you say?”
“Yes,” Asher said.
He did not elaborate. But then again, he didn’t need to. There was only one reason Eliphalet Stone would invite Phillip Asher to his house. Did Stone know that Asher was a Jew? Surely not, I thought.
“Well, another time, perhaps,” I said.
“Yes, another time,” Asher said, glancing at the clock over the fireplace. “Is it nearly six already?”
“The clock is fast,” I said.
Asher’s evident desire to be away teetered on the impolite.
“Britain has had heavy casualties,” I said.
“Not without inflicting considerable damage.”
“They will see an air war soon,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It is inevitable.”
“That was dreadful news about the Hawke,” I said, referring to the British cruiser that had been torpedoed off the coast of Scotland.
“Terrible.”
We talked further about the war in Europe. While I had another brandy, Asher nursed his first.
“May I ask you a question, Professor Asher?” (This may have struck Asher as odd, since I had been doing nothing else all evening; indeed, our little masculine chat bordered on an inquisition.)
“Yes, of course.”
“Why Thrupp?”
Asher cleared his throat. “I see an opportunity to bring a provincial college to the status of a university,” he said.
“Then you would institute schools of graduate study?”
“That would be my goal, yes.”
“And with what would you do this? Financially speaking, that is?”
“I should have to become a fund-raiser,” he said.
“I see. Is this not a job more suited to a president than a dean, whose job is, more often than not, that of a disciplinarian?”
“I must disagree,” Asher said, setting down his drink. “The job of a dean surely encompasses more than discipline. There is the proper management of the faculty, the planning of a curriculum …”
“You would broaden the scope of that position, then,” I said, my voice rising to a near giggle.
“Explore them to the full. Certainly.”
“I fear our small and unprepossessing college will strain and break under your ambition,” I said, trying to bring my voice under control.
Asher regarded me with a quick flicker of something like amusement. “Are we not all ambitious?” he asked.
“I suppose we are,” I said.
He glanced at his pocket watch. “I really must go,” he said, standing. “You have been very kind. Thank you for the drink.”
“Where will you go for the Thanksgiving break?” I asked, standing with him.
“Mr. Ferald has been kind enough…”
“I see,” I said, seeing only too well. (But would Ferald knowingly have a Jew to his house, I wondered? I could scarcely imagine such a thing.) “Pity your brother cannot join you.”
r /> “We will pray for his safe return.”
I walked Asher to the hallway. Abigail was summoned and retrieved Asher’s coat and hat. “May I give you a ride into town?” I asked. “I have an extra motorcar for the week.”
“I appreciate the offer, but no, thank you,” Asher said. “I have my own vehicle.”
“So you have, so you have,” I said.
“I hope you’ll join me one day soon at the hotel, where I can return your hospitality,” he said graciously.
“I should be happy to,” I said, opening the door.
Asher stepped out into the starry night. I watched as he drew on his gloves.
“You should not toy with the corporators,” I said.
He looked up at me, his face illuminated by lantern light. “Excuse me?” he said.
“I cannot imagine that you would remain at Thrupp for very long,” I said. “You are too ambitious and too accomplished. Thrupp is a backwater college, of little interest to you in the long run. But the corporation takes this election quite seriously. It is meant to be a post for life. I doubt you should hold it for life.”
Asher paused, as if weighing his words carefully. “That is my business,” he said.
“It is my business as well,” I said.
“Good night,” Asher said. He turned and began to walk to his motorcar.
“‘Had not thy pride / And wand’ring vanity, when least was safe, / Rejected my forewarning,’” I quoted to his back, knowing full well that Asher, of all men, would recognize the Milton.
I shut the door. I smiled. I did not believe I would be having the man from Yale to my house again.
I scarcely slept at all that night, agitated and buoyed by my delicious bit of news. I considered various scenarios. Could I casually mention the fact of Asher’s religious persuasion to Ferald in conversation? How best could this be accomplished? I must contrive to run into the man, I thought. Yes, I would do that. Was there a matter about which I could plausibly call him?
The Thanksgiving holiday was spent largely at church, with a meal in the afternoon at the widow Bliss’s house, during which our spoken thoughts were with the absent William. Nicky and Clara leavened the gathering with a pantomime they had prepared. Nicodemus played an Indian, nearly giddy at being allowed a tom-ahawk and scalping knife. Clara was a Quakeress, the sole survivor of a family massacre. She thrived in the role, particularly during the part when she was able to demonstrate her Christian benevolence by converting the miserable Nicky, who had to exchange his lovely leather tunic for trousers.
During a brief intermission, I thought about the matter of the painting Keep had mentioned and of William’s drug-addled state, and so I leaned over to ask Etna about a painting. Had she ever owned a Legny? I asked.
“A what?” she asked.
“A New England artist, of national repute. He paints impressionist landscapes. Some portraits. Surely you know who Claude Legny is, Etna.”
“Yes,” she said distractedly.
“So have you ever owned one?”
“Owned a painting of my own?”
“Yes. A Legny. Of your own.”
“What an amazing question!” she said.
“And I was just wondering,” I added quickly, since Nicky and Clara were about to resume their little playlet, “how it is that you did not mention to me that you knew Phillip Asher — particularly when you knew he was coming to the house?”
“I wasn’t at all sure if it was the same family,” Etna said with only mild attention. She was all eyes for her children upon the make-shift stage. “Phillip Asher is nearly unrecognizable now from the boy he was when my father knew the family,” she added.
And that was all we were able to say of the matter, for Nicky and Clara had again commanded our attention.
That night, Etna had a brief relapse and took to her bed for the remainder of the weekend. By the following Monday, however, Mary was able to report at breakfast that my wife had left especially early that day for the settlement house. I was pleased at this news, for it meant that Etna was once again herself. But just before lunch, as I was passing through the side hallway, I saw that Etna was perhaps not herself after all. She had left her carpetbag at the foot of the stairs. I opened it and noted that it was full of food — cheese and bread and meat pastries, doubtless leftovers from the Thanksgiving weekend. Had the contents of the satchel been clothing merely, I should have let it go. But because it was filled with food, I decided then that I would take Moxon’s motorcar, which still remained in our driveway, and deliver it myself. I had rather enjoyed the motoring during my previous visit there, and heaven knew I could use the practice.
The day was a miserable and rainy one, but I was able to congratulate myself on being able to sit back in my seat most of the way and not having to clutch the steering wheel as if it were a life ring. I was on Norfolk Street before one o’clock and was approaching the settlement house when I saw, from a distance, Etna emerging from one of the front doors. Really, I thought, my timing was impeccable!
I watched as Etna held up her umbrella and let it unfurl. She spread her arms out a bit and skipped down the steps to the coupe in the driveway. I stopped my own vehicle and got out of the car and called to her, but with the rain beating down and the sound of her own engine, she did not hear me. With the economic gestures of one used to such a machine, Etna reversed out of the driveway and made a turn.
She did not turn in my direction, however, but rather the opposite way. She hadn’t even noticed the presence of Moxon’s touring car.
Did Etna have an errand? I mused. Was she taking a shortcut home?
After an initial moment of surprise, I climbed back into the Stevens-Duryea and attempted to follow my wife. The road was wet and slippery, and the rain made a blur of shapes on the windshield. I pressed a bit harder on the pedal in hopes of catching up to Etna, but as I was a less skilled driver than she, I couldn’t seem to gather enough speed without skidding. I didn’t even know whether I was following Etna’s car or someone else’s, for a carriage had overtaken me soon after I had set out, and I had to hope that it had passed Etna as well. At some point, I was vaguely aware of having driven into another town, Drury, perhaps. I stepped even more firmly on the gas pedal, frightening myself with the sound of the straining motor (I was traveling at thirty miles per hour, which seemed rattling in those days). After fifteen minutes of this insanity, I was rewarded with a glint of green through the rain. I would pass Etna, I thought, and wave to her, and then she would stop her car.
But as I was formulating this plan, Etna veered left off the road into a driveway. She made the turn too quickly for me to do so as well, and so I bypassed that turning and stopped the car at a clearing farther on. I was shaken at having traveled so fast, though relieved not to have perished doing so. I sat for some minutes until the beating of my heart slowed. I got out of Moxon’s motorcar and walked back to the place where Etna had turned. I thought that I might have to lecture my wife about her driving. Really, I thought, she could have killed herself at such a speed and in such a downpour!
I stopped at the entrance to what clearly looked to be a large estate. Just beyond the main house — a white manse of several stories with massive pillars reaching to the roof — was a small carriage house. It was in front of that smaller building that Etna had parked the Cadillac.
Perhaps my wife was collecting a parcel from another benefactor, I thought. Not many women drove motorcars in those days, and Etna may have offered her services to an acquaintance. As I drew nearer to the main house, however, I saw that it was closed, as a summer cottage will be in winter. The shutters on the first floor were locked, and the curtains at the upper stories were drawn. If no one was in residence, I wondered, then what was Etna doing there?
Hiking my collar over my neck, I walked past the main house and directed myself toward the coupe. The estate had lovely grounds, undulating and benign, even in November. The property, as far as I could make out, was bordered with
a handsome stone wall. There were fruit orchards and dormant rose beds and a grape arbor in the back. What I had thought was a carriage house, however, was in fact a simple, unadorned dwelling with a front door that would admit no automobile or carriage. The structure reminded me of a schoolhouse, and for a moment I had the idea that Etna had taken on the job of tutor to a family and I had simply failed to attend to this bit of information. The house was white clapboarded with shutterless windows, and it had a pitched roof with a cupola at its crown. The grounds immediately surrounding the cottage had the look of having been cultivated and then tidied for the winter. There was no sign of activity and there were no other motorcars or carriages nearby. I walked to a window and peered inside.
I looked into a single chamber, neither sitting room nor dining room nor kitchen, but rather one that combined all three in the same way that the most impoverished shacks will do. The walls were painted white, the plaster chipped in places. At the windows, pale linen curtains were knotted just below the sills, and on the wall directly over a davenport hung the frame of a Gothic window, like that from a small chapel. Faded French floral studies were stuck onto the walls with hat pins, and in one corner of the room was a tall apothecary cabinet the color of cream. Atop the cabinet was a tin cake box with a green design embossed in its latched front door. There was a white pitcher of dried flowers on the single table. The light in the room was diffuse, as if it had been sifted.
In the center of the room, a white chandelier hung from the ceiling. The conceit of the chandelier, which was oversized for the room, was of a bouquet of white iron flowers, the rust poking through in patches lending the blossoms a tinge of ruin. Through this thicket of flowers — some daisies, some roses with sharpedged petals — the six sconces of the fixture spread out with open arms. All about the chandelier, hanging from the stems and leaves and vines of the sconces, were dozens of crystals.
Near a window and with her back to me, Etna sat in an upright wooden chair. She was bent over what looked to be needlework.
I turned away from the window and pressed myself against the clapboards, the rain striking my face. I cannot say why I reacted in such a way, why I did not simply rap at the window to catch my wife’s attention, why I did not, more properly, knock at the door. It was, I believe, the shock of seeing my wife bent so serenely over her work in the bleached quiet of the foreign room that confused me.