But Mickelsson’s self-excoriation was brief. By the time he opened the door for Alan and Brenda, he was already smiling, Nugent’s unhappiness almost banished from his mind. They’d started out early, they explained, blushing and laughing as they took off their coats. They’d expected to have difficulty finding the place, but the map (Jessie’s work) was foolproof, and after stalling for half an hour, driving around sightseeing, wasting precious gas, they’d given up at last and driven—sheepishly, as Mickelsson had seen—into his yard. The minute they’d stepped out of the car, Mickelsson’s cat had vanished as if by magic. Mickelsson, nowhere near ready for guests—Jessie, who’d promised to help him, had been delayed—fixed Alan and Brenda drinks and allowed them to assist. They laid the white tablecloth in the newly finished diningroom, set up the candles, put out plates and silverware, started the mulled wine, set out the liquor and ice. By that time others were beginning to arrive—the ever-merry Bryants, wearing matching shepherd coats, holly in their lapels, the Garrets, the Rogerses, the Blicksteins and their friend (pale as a ghost, evasive of eye, but smiling), the Tillsons (Jessie had insisted that they be invited, really for Ruth’s sake), Jessie herself—in a purple coat baffling to Mickelsson, queer and untamable as something in a New York store window, and obviously expensive—and with Jessie, Kate Swisson, who was unable to drive a car. Her husband was not with her, away on another tour, she said. She wore a full-length mink over a Paris designer dress, and bore a fruitcake redolent of rum. In her startling attire she suddenly seemed to him—whether authentically or not he couldn’t tell—a creature from another world, the purlieu of movie-stars, TV personalities, maybe opera singers. (He wondered if it was Kate’s odd attire that had made Jessica come as a gypsy.) Kate Swisson’s shyness struck him differently now from when he’d first met her. If she was chilly and aloof, even when she smiled and bobbed her head forward on its long, white stem, her distance from the ordinary, common world seemed to him now (to his annoyance) perhaps not so much helpless as Olympian. The SUNY-Binghamton Music Department was supposed to be outstanding. It had two Tchaikovsky Prize winners, one of the finest opera departments in America—so they claimed—and a history of launching great chamber groups (and losing them)—the Guarneri, the Lenox. … Perhaps Ms. Swisson had a right to her mink. Whether or not that was so, he disliked her. She seemed to know it, smiling harder and harder at him, widening her gazelle eyes more and more, sinuating her long neck left, right, forward with increasing meekness. “Good to see you,” he said, suddenly conscious that while his mind drifted he’d been glowering. He took the cake from her with his right hand, then stepped around her and, with his left, caught the collar of her mink as one would the loose shoulder-skin of a kitten.
“Thank you,” she breathed, turning her head around at him, submissively smiling. (“Gratitude,” says Nietzsche, “is a mild form of revenge.”)
There was a knock at the door and he stepped over to answer it, still carrying the coat and cake. It was the graduate-student contingent, Wolters and Stearns, Ms. Cohen and Ms. Orinsky. “Come in! Come in!”
“This must be the place!” Christmassy laughter.
One moment, from Mickelsson’s point of view, the house had been quiet, elegantly—maybe even exquisitely—prepared, the next it was abuzz with talk and movement, Edie Bryant raving about the Christmas decorations—“Nicer than the ones down in Rich’s Department Store, that’s in Atlanta” (as she spoke, stealing the floor from Jessie’s art, the candles and ornaments were instantly diminished to mere prettiness)—Mabel Garret drifting here and there in stony silence, picking up everything and looking at the underside, presumably to see who’d made it, Phil Bryant and Blickstein heatedly arguing over President-elect Ronald Reagan’s proposed tax cut and decontrol of oil, Jessie and Kate Swisson talking earnestly about Binghamton child-care centers, though neither of them had children. (Living, he corrected himself, and fought a shock of gloom.) It struck Mickelsson, no doubt unjustly—he was liking Kate Swisson less and less—that she was coyly faking interest in having a baby. If he was right, Jessie was not fooled: sweetly cool, smiling, regal. He could not help feeling that some of the coolness was meant for him, though he’d given her no cause. He imagined his old friend Luther saying, with that scorn he’d always been a master of, “What a child you are!” “Old fart,” Mickelsson whispered. Mabel Garret’s dark eyes turned slyly to meet his.
Jessie wore a black floor-length dress with a low neckline and layers of gold chain. Mickelsson, when she’d come in, had squeezed both her hands, but though she’d smiled, she’d been reserved, like someone arriving at a party after hearing bad news. Had someone told her about Donnie? He could read nothing in her eyes. After the first instant, he decided on another, more likely explanation. That she took nothing for granted between himself and her was a kindness to him, a surprising bit of generosity; yet at some point—never mind what point, precisely—it began to verge on peculiar for a woman to hold a man still free, not responsible for the drift of her feelings, not to mention his own. His heart had leaped at first sight of her, Donnie Matthews and her troubles momentarily banished even farther from his mind than Michael Nugent. “What a lovely house,” Jessie had said, more to Geoffrey Tillson than to him, as if she’d never before seen it. Was she ashamed of Mickelsson? She went over to study the Christmas tree ornaments she herself had picked out. Mickelsson had felt, in spite of himself, hurt. But then, as he was leading the whole crowd through the house, showing off his work of restoration, all but the diningroom, his eyes and Jessie’s met, and Jessie winked like a conspirator, for the first time tonight showing affection. Bafflement on bafflement! A little later they’d accidentally come together in the doorway between the livingroom and the study, the doorway over which Alan Blassenheim and Brenda had hung mistletoe. They’d realized their predicament the same instant—they could feel the watching eyes—then abruptly had laughed, again the same instant, and had kissed briefly, like teen-agers. Her scent and the softness of her lips made his heart crash, his id, in its dark, grimy pen, bleating dolefully. “Merry Christmas,” Jessie said, patting Mickelsson’s shoulder, sisterly, then moving away.
“Should we light the menorah?” Mickelsson asked, catching her hand.
She gave him a look, a half-smile. Apparently there was some trick to it. Perhaps one couldn’t do it without a rabbi. “Whatever,” she said, and shrugged.
Tom Garret came out to the kitchen and set his mulled wine down to help Mickelsson chop onions. Tillson came too and stood by the outside kitchen door, drinking and smiling, his humped back to the woodpile in the snow. He said nothing, but eagerly laughed at all Garret and Mickelsson said, laughed as if he’d never had so interesting a time in his life. His laugh was like an old ram’s.
The Blicksteins’ young friend appeared at the kitchen door—gray of face, dark circles under her eyes—and said, “Mmm! Smells good in here! Can I help?”
“Ladies’ night off,” Mickelsson said, “but you can keep us company.” Garret laid down the vegetable knife and fussily spooned the chopped onions into the waiting bowl, then stepped back—a quick little dance step—out of the way. Mickelsson pushed into the oven a heavy pan of pastitsio, made for him in Binghamton by the man who ran the Greek restaurant, checked the temperature setting and closed the oven door. The kitchen bloomed with food smells. He wiped sweat from his neck with a paper towel, then from the upper oven took a pan of hors d’oeuvres, which he quickly spatulaed out onto a plate.
“I could take it around for you,” the young woman said.
He almost resisted; then, catching the look in her eyes, put the plate in her hands. “Thank you! Wonderful!” he said. “That does make it easier!” He gave her his crazed grin.
“How long does that take?” Tom Garret asked, uncrossing his arms for a moment to point in at the pastitsio and smiling.
It was interesting that Garret didn’t know. He was one of those little Napoleons who give the impression of being thoroughly inf
ormed on every subject—the Iranian power-struggle, Queen Elizabeth’s affairs of the heart, boat-building, tax law, Gödel’s proof, Sumerian astronomy. … “Forty-five minutes or so,” Mickelsson said, “assuming it doesn’t catch fire, so we have to start over. Lot of oil on it.”
“Forty-five minutes! That fast!” Garret said, pleased to have this new information. He recrossed his arms and tipped his head.
Garret’s wife Mabel was standing at the kitchen door now—silent, as usual, remote from the rest of them as a woods creature, her head ducked, drawn in, her fingertips exploring the scraped place on the door where Mickelsson had scratched off the hex sign. What she was thinking no one could have guessed, probably not Garret himself. Somewhere beyond her in the livingroom Kate Sw¡sson laughed falsely, tinkle tinkle tinkle, as she might laugh in a song, and Mabel Garret looked up, as openly curious as a child, black eyes widening, looking in the direction of the singer. Mickelsson was tempted to snatch a look, hardly aware of why it interested him; but there were more hors d’oeuvres to be gotten out, and anyway he’d be in there with the others soon enough. From the far end of the livingroom, or perhaps from the study, came the opening notes of a Christmas carol, maybe three or four singers, the grad students, no doubt. Someone was playing a violin. Then suddenly Dean Blickstein was planted at his elbow, as if he’d just materialized there, like Mephistopheles, smiling so hard his eyes were slits, holding a glass in each muscular little hand. “Ice in the refrigerator, Pete?” he asked. “I thought I’d just freshen up everybody’s drink.”
“Some in the refrigerator, some in the livingroom in the ice-bucket, and some in the plastic bag in the sink,” Mickelsson said, and pointed toward the sink with his chin. Tom Garret backed off, grinning like a child who knows he’s in the way, then retreated into the livingroom.
“Ah!” Blickstein said and, pivoting, went over to the sink. He nodded at Tillson, a little duck of the head like a wrestler’s feint, and again the muscular face punched out a grin. “Holding up through the cries and alarums?” Blickstein asked.
Geoffrey Tillson chuckled, his head going quickly up and down like the front end of a jitney, and he stretched his glass toward Blickstein as if accepting a toast. Tillson had on a dark pinstripe, tailored and expensive; he looked like Rumpelstiltskin dressed for an audience with the Pope.
“What’s it this time?” Mickelsson asked, about to step into the livingroom with his plate of hors d’oeuvres.
“Sociology, what else?” Blickstein said, half turning to face Mickelsson as his two hands, unwatched, deftly filled the glasses with ice. “Seems the Philosophy Department’s not so good on Karl Marx. Sociology Department would like to teach the course themselves, get it right for once.” He laughed. “Also the course in Contemporary.”
“That’s crazy!” Mickelsson said.
“You don’t have to argue with me,” Blickstein said, amused by Mickelsson’s blush of anger, “and I doubt that Geoffrey here will give you much argument either.” He winked at Tillson, then came away from the sink, Tillson silently laughing, head bouncing, behind him.
“What a bunch,” Mickelsson said. “Poor Jessie!”
“ ‘Poor Jessie’ is right,” Blickstein said, and shook his head. For a moment the muscular smile froze, as if the dean knew more than he felt at liberty to say. Then the smile warmed again, and he shook his head once more and said, “They’re feeling their oats—their ‘minority appeal,’ all the usual business.”
“You’re suggesting—?”
“Well, you know,” Blickstein said, “they would like a solid Marxist front. They need it, really.” He laughed and winked, then gave Mickelsson another sharp look. “If you asked me to predict, I’d say they’ll move to get rid of her before the year’s out.”
Mickelsson stared, for an instant not sure of his bearings. Blickstein wouldn’t be betting with such confidence if the process weren’t already under way. “They can’t do it, can they?”
Just inside the livingroom, at the edge of the circle where Blassenheim held forth, Tom Garret turned his best ear, apparently tuning in on Blickstein’s words, though he continued to smile as if with interest at Blassenheim. Brenda Winburn, to Blassenheim’s left, stood pressed up close to the young man’s elbow, touching him.
“Theoretically they can’t, and morally they can’t,” Blickstein said, and raised the glass in his right hand to give the air a little poke with it, as if ending the conversation with a period.
“But that’s not an answer,” Mickelsson said, refusing to let Blickstein past him into the livingroom. Tillson came up behind Blickstein, grinning, to listen.
“Pig-in-a-blanket!” Edie Bryant cried, almost a squeal of delight. “Did you make them yoahself or ah they the frozen kind?”
Mickelsson held the plate toward her and ignored the question.
“Well,” Blickstein said, and hesitated, obliquely smiling. One could see that he was teased toward launching a lecture full of inside information—a sport he relished. “I guess you might say they’ve got us hostage, Pete. You have to remember the larger picture. The whole university system’s under fire these days.” He cocked his head, grinning, and looked up at the corner of the room. “Governor Carey comes in at the end of every year with his six-hundred-million-dollar revenue bonuses, and the people whoop with joy. He’s no dummy, you know. He understands that if you close down a couple of mental hospitals, or two or three university campuses, overcrowd the prisons, even squeeze a few police and fire departments, you’ll get a lot of people mad but you make a lot more people happy. He’s figured out the leak in the Hobbesian theory of civilization. Self-interest does not necessarily lead to fine police departments, hospitals, and schools. It can as easily lead to some old man grinning like a monkey, stuffing his forty-dollar tax-rebate into his mattress. So he’s got us on the run. From the whole university system he’ll be cutting out one-half the budget this next year alone.” Blickstein smiled as if that explained everything.
“Which means?” Mickelsson said, squinting. His wrists and knuckles ached. The murdered man’s wife stood exactly in the middle of the livingroom, smiling fixedly, listening. In her two hands she held the empty hors d’oeuvres plate.
“Well,” Blickstein said, as if surprised that Mickelsson couldn’t see it, “here we are with these people we brought in—with the noblest of intentions—in the Holy Roller campus-under-fire days. Whatever their virtues or defects, they’re here. In force. Well, so now we’re reaping the whirlwind.”
“Go on,” Mickelsson said.
Blickstein shrugged, grinning sadly. “Their position’s very strong. They can embarrass us, you see. Why?” He raised his eyebrows and, shifting his grip on the glass, held up one stubby finger. “A. They appeal to minority students—and they may be right that it’s partly a function of their program’s politico-philosophical orientation. Poor people always want clear, fast answers, preferably pious and rich with potential for bloodshed. No disrespect for the poor, you understand—far from it! But the stomach’s an impatient organ, or, to put it another way, the injustice has always gone on too long already. So an attack on the Soc gang is a blow against the poor, you follow? And not only do we not dare touch them, we don’t even dare make too much point of their existence, at least not if we’re smart; because B.”—he held up a second stubby finger—“they know how embarrassed we’d be if the taxpayers were to learn, in this conservative day and age—Reagan’s ‘moral majority’ and all that—that our university’s got a whole department, with the exception of one member, that’s ‘pinko.’ Stirs visions of Iran, Afghanistan. This is no time for university scandals. We need every penny we can get from our friends the taxpayers, and you can be sure our new man in the White House will make it as hard as he can.” Blickstein smiled at his audience, pleased to have made things clear but not taking undue credit, a servant of the general good. “So all in all,” he said, “it seems safe to say that, when the time comes, we’ll negotiate.”
&nbs
p; “I see,” Mickelsson said, biting off his words. “In short, you’ll let them fire her.”
“I didn’t say that,” Blickstein said, half grinning, turtling his head in, lifting the ice-filled glasses up to shoulder level. “You know me better than that, Pete.”
That was true, Mickelsson thought, pouting. He glanced across the livingroom at Jessica, who stood poised, smiling and talking with Mabel Garret and Ruth Tillson; then he glanced over his shoulder at Tillson, just behind him in the kitchen. It was a depressing thought that this man he scorned might soon be his ally, and Blickstein, whom he liked, his enemy.
“It’s a mess, hey?” Tillson said, and nervously laughed. He sounded angry.
Mickelsson nodded, then remembered the plate in his hands and moved into the crowd.
The young woman whose husband had been murdered sat alone on the couch, the empty hors d’oeuvres plate on the coffeetable. When Mickelsson leaned down toward her with his filled plate, she shook her head. “Can I fix your drink?” Mickelsson asked. She’d hardly touched it, in fact. Again she shook her head and, for a second, smiled.