Ghosts of Harvard

by Francesca Serritella

  “Oh, I’m sorry. How did he pass?”

  “It was suicide.” It was still hard for Cady to attach the verb to him. “He suffered with schizophrenia, and then …” she trailed off.

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” A reflexive answer she always hated herself for saying.

  “It must be very difficult to be here with that history.”

  Cady nodded. Greg seemed nice, but she was losing her nerve. “There are things about his illness that I wish I understood better, that I feel like I need to understand better to move on, and that’s why I thought you could help me. I don’t know who else to talk to.”

  “Whatever you want to talk about. I’m not an expert in schizophrenia, but I’ll try to answer as best I can.”

  “My brother told me that he heard voices. Do you know anything about that?” It was a weak version of the old “asking for a friend …” trick but Cady couldn’t own it, not yet.

  “Auditory hallucinations. They’re common among schizophrenics.”

  “What are the voices generally like?”

  “I think that sort of symptom varies pretty greatly from patient to patient.”

  “One thing Eric said that stayed with me was that the voices told him things he didn’t otherwise know.”

  “Eric was your brother?”

  “Yes, did you know him?”

  “No, I’m just trying to follow your story.”

  “Oh. Anyway, I mean the voices would tell him about a book he’d never read, or the history of a building on campus that was before his time, and it was accurate information, pretty much.”

  Greg nodded but appeared otherwise blank.

  Cady couldn’t understand his lack of surprise. “I mean, that’s weird, right? I remember him being kind of scared by it.”

  Greg parted his lips with a smack. “I’m sure it was scary for him. And it must be very difficult for you to walk through the same halls your brother walked, see the same sights. I see how that could be upsetting.”

  “But how is it possible to hallucinate something you didn’t know? Eric thought it proved the voices were real, you know, not just in his head. I mean, how could a figment of his own imagination tell him something he didn’t already know?”

  “Well, there are a lot of explanations for that apparent … phenomenon, I guess you could call it. One possibility is that the facts the ‘voice’ gave are inaccurate. Schizophrenics are often good at sounding highly informed and educated, or privy to special knowledge, and because they believe what they’re saying is true, they deliver it with confidence. Throw in a couple of big words it can sound official, but in reality, it’s nonsense.”

  “But what if all the facts checked out, one hundred percent correct? I mean, theoretically, is that possible?”

  “It can happen. Sometimes we’ve read or heard something at one point or another, and we forget that we did. Then when we see those same facts packaged or presented in a different way, they appear new.” Greg scratched his chin through his beard. “Like unintentional plagiarism. Some of the world’s greatest scholars have accidentally plagiarized another scholar’s work, because they forgot the origin of that information. This famously happened to the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, a former Harvard professor, I might add. The point is, the mind can play tricks on you. The brain is a fallible organ.”

  Cady chewed on the inside of her cheek. The Dante reference could have been floating around sometime in her past, Inferno gets enough play in pop culture, it might’ve been a Jeopardy question or something.

  He went on, “You know, suicide is a tragedy unlike any other. It leaves a lot of complicated emotions in its wake. Anger, sorrow, guilt. There’s a reason we call the family and friends of the victim ‘suicide survivors.’ ”

  Cady nodded, already trying to think of a way to leave as quickly and gracefully as possible.

  “Have you participated in any grief counseling, with a psychologist, or perhaps a pastor or rabbi? Feelings of depression would be normal in this aftermath.”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m okay on my own for now.” For now—it echoed in her head.

  “Something made you come here today.”

  Cady looked at her lap—now the only voices warring in her head were her own. She tried to summon the courage to tell the truth: I’m afraid it will happen to me.

  She settled for a half-truth. “Sometimes I just feel so distracted. I came here with a clear idea of things I wanted to do and learn, but now that I’m here, I can’t clear my head.” She wanted to understand her brother, and now her own mental troubles were threatening that goal, one she had risked her family’s well-being to pursue.

  “So this isn’t just about your brother. You want help focusing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, I see.” Greg sat back in his seat, his affect suddenly guarded. “We would need to be in more regular sessions before I could recommend a prescription, and until then, I would strongly discourage you from trying any of your friends’ medication to help you focus. Adderall and its ilk are not candy.”

  “What?” Cady recoiled. “No, I’m not—I don’t want medication.”

  “Good. You know what you should try?” Greg pressed his palms together and smiled. “Yoga.”

  15

  Cady stepped outside feeling like an idiot. No counselor was going to open Eric’s file and hand it over, nor could anyone help her if she wasn’t honest about her own experiences. But she couldn’t be honest, not yet. Because once you’re diagnosed with a mental illness, you don’t get a say—she had seen that with Eric. For the first time, Cady felt she was gaining some insight into what was happening to her brother before he died, and she needed her freedom now more than ever.

  So she flinched when she heard someone call her name as she was trying to discreetly descend the steps of the study bureau. Andrea waved as she scampered uphill on the brick sidewalk, her giant backpack thudding against her slight frame.

  “Hey, I texted you. Do you have a class right now? Have you eaten lunch?” Andrea asked, slightly out of breath from her hustle.

  “I’m supposed to be in Psych lecture, but—” Cady checked the time on her phone. “I’ve already missed half of it, I might as well make it official. I can get the notes from Ranjoo. She owes me.”

  “Oh, thank God. I hate eating alone.”

  Andrea said she wanted a change from Annenberg, the freshman dining hall, so they walked around the corner to a restaurant called Clover. Clover was a funny mix of old and new; its walls were historic white tile with an upper border of tiled pennants belonging to private schools and other Ivy League colleges that, according to a sign, dated back to 1913, juxtaposed with a giant natural wood slab communal table in the center and digital menus on the wall. Cady and Andrea joined the long line of people waiting to give their order to a server holding an iPad.

  “How was the rest of the Phoenix party?” Andrea asked. “You got back late. I heard the door, it woke me up.”

  “Sorry about that.” Cady considered telling Andrea what happened but decided against it; she already felt overexposed leaving the bureau. “It sucked. You made the right call.”

  “What were you doing at the Study Bureau? Were you seeing a therapist?”

  She hesitated to answer. “I was just checking it out. I don’t think I’ll go back, it wasn’t that helpful.”

  “Okay. But you don’t need to be embarrassed. I went to a psychiatrist back home. I used to have anxiety. But I beat it.”

  “With yoga?”

  “No! Zoloft.”

  Cady snorted. Andrea could be annoying, but Cady admired how unfiltered she was. Maybe she didn’t have to be so guarded all the time. “To be honest, I went to talk about my brother. He died last year.”

  “Oh my God, I had no idea.”

  “I kno
w, I didn’t tell you. It’s hard for me to talk about. It was suicide.”

  “Oh my God, that makes it worse!”

  Again the blunt honesty made Cady laugh.

  “I meant, worse for your family.” Andrea made a pained expression. “Sorry, I don’t know the right thing to say.”

  That made Cady only laugh harder. “Nobody does! And you’re not wrong. It’s definitely the worst.”

  “Did you see it coming?”

  That stopped her giggles. “He’d been struggling with mental illness for the last couple years, schizophrenia, but I never thought …” her voice trailed off. “Now, looking back, I do see the signs. I think back all the time about where was the moment it turned for him, the moment before the point of no return, when we could have done something to save him. But we missed it.” It was painful to say it out loud, but there was some relief in telling the truth for a change, even if she was still leaving out that he went to Harvard. “All we talk about at this school is potential, like what you do here is going to set you up for the rest of your life. But not all potential is good. Mental illness can be hereditary, and so I get scared sometimes, like, what if I have that in me?”

  “No way. You seem so together.”

  “He did too.”

  Andrea shook her head. “You can’t think like that. It’s like manifesting in reverse. If you worry about something too much, you can make it come true.”

  Then Cady was in real trouble.

  “Why didn’t you feel like you could mention this before?”

  “I wanted you to get to know the normal me, not the tragic-story me, but the thing is, I don’t feel normal since Eric died, so I end up just feeling fake. But I don’t want people to tiptoe around me, you know?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m bad at that kind of thing anyway.”

  It was finally their turn to order. The server swiped their credit cards on her iPad and assured them they’d bring the food over. Cady and Andrea took window seats at the counter that faced Mass Ave.

  “I wouldn’t normally spend money like this, but it’s my birthday, so it’s okay.”

  “It’s your birthday today? Happy birthday!”

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you doing anything to celebrate, like a party or something?”

  Andrea shrugged. “I don’t really have enough friends here for a party.”

  “Aw, well, it’s only because it comes up so early in the school year, nobody knows anybody yet. We should do something fun, you and me. Let’s go out for dinner tonight.”

  “We’re already out for lunch. And anyway, I can’t. My Orgo study group is meeting over dinner.”

  “Oh my God, skip it. Your birthday celebration can’t be a study group.”

  “I don’t want to skip it,” Andrea said, defensively. “I need to review.” Then, a little softer, “and I like this one guy in my group, Marko. It’s the only time I talk to him.”

  “Ooh, Marko,” Cady said with a shimmy. “Okay, I take it back. Tell your study group it’s your birthday and invite them, mainly Marko, back to our room for cake!”

  “I can’t invite him to a party with no other friends. I’d rather not celebrate at all than look pathetic.”

  Cady thought for a minute. “Okay, I have a better idea. When your study group is wrapping up, text me. Find some reason to get Marko to come back to our room, can you do that?”

  “I’m supposed to bring copies of my chapter four notes for everyone. I could forget his.” Andrea giggled.

  “Perfect. So you text me when you’re heading home, and I’ll be in the room, waiting with the lights out and everything ready, and when you guys walk in, I’ll shout ‘Surprise!’ I’ll get Ranjoo in on it too, if I can.” Cady was still determined to make the two of them get along better somehow. “You can play it cool like, ‘Gosh, I wasn’t even going to celebrate until later this weekend.’ ”

  Andrea rolled her eyes with a smirk. “This is a full-on scheme.”

  “Yes, a birthday mission! We’ll call it Operation: Marko Polo.”

  Andrea cracked up at that, and Cady laughed too. She was thinking of the fun missions Eric used to set up for her, and for the first time on this campus, Cady felt warmed by his memory and excited to be sharing a moment with a new friend. “C’mon, we’ll get a cake at Mike’s Pastry after this, my treat.”

  A smile tucked into Andrea’s rosy cheeks. “I’ve never had a surprise party before.”

  The two roommates headed back to campus with their Mike’s Pastry booty: a luscious fudge layer cake in a big box, and, since they’d agreed delayed gratification is overrated, they had each gotten a cannoli for the road—classic chocolate chip for Cady and caramel pecan for Andrea. They gossiped in between crunches as they walked through the fallen leaves and bit into the crisp cannoli shells. Andrea stopped walking just inside the great wrought-iron gates of the Yard and began to giggle. “Cady, you are literally covered in powdered sugar.”

  “I am? Oh my God, I really am! How are you not?” Cady said through a mouthful. “Help me!”

  Andrea began brushing her chest—“Are you trying to touch my boobs?” Cady teased, making them both laugh harder—but it only seemed to press the white sugar into her black wool coat. Andrea tried to find more napkins through her tears of laughter, as Cady discovered a new patch of snowy sugar on her person. “But seriously, how did I get it on my shoulder?” Yet as Cady craned her neck, a small stone plaque on the exterior of the yellow clapboard administrative building beside them caught her eye.

  As Cady read the words engraved upon it, the humor drained from her like blood.

  Wadsworth House

  titus & venus

  lived and worked here as enslaved persons

  in the household of

  president benjamin wadsworth (1725–1737)

  juba & bilhah

  Lived and worked here as enslaved persons in the household of

  president edward holyoke (1737–1769)

  Her memory replayed the words from that morning: I’m Bilhah, the Holyokes’ girl.

  “Okay, where else?” Andrea held a wad of napkins in her hand. Then she noticed what her roommate was staring at. “Oh, yeah, Harvard had slaves. Did you know that?”

  Cady couldn’t speak. The President of Harvard don’t need a mute houseboy.

  Andrea chattered on. “It’s okay, nobody knew it for a long time. I read an article about it in the alumni magazine; my parents subscribe. The fact had been effectively buried, left out of every historical narrative, either by bad record keeping or willful ignorance. Doesn’t really fit with the ‘progressive bastion of higher education’ label, right? Although in a way, it’s progressive that they’re acknowledging it now. Harvard deserves credit, even if I think Brown copped to it first.”

  But Cady heard only the terror, and the desperation. I need your help to save my son!

  Andrea looked from the plaque back to Cady’s ashen face. “Are you okay?”

  This wasn’t a well-known passage in a classic book, information she had learned but forgotten. This wasn’t her imagination or a hallucination. This was etched in stone.

  This was proof.

  This was real.

  16

  Cady didn’t have to pretend to feel normal with Andrea much longer, as she had had Prokop’s physics colloquium to attend, so she sent Andrea home with the cake and walked the rest of the way herself. Was it better or worse that the voice she’d heard was coming from outside rather than inside her? If they weren’t her own delusion, what did that make them, ghosts? Could she really believe that? She needed to stay skeptical, stay grounded. Thankfully, there was no place better to do that than the Science Center.

  Cady arrived at the designated lecture hall and felt a pang of guilt to find it so close to where her Psych lecture was held. As soon as Cady pushed throug
h the double doors, the smell of chalk filled her nose, and she quickly realized this was going to be nothing like the relaxed TED Talk style of Professor Bernstein’s Psych lectures. The seats faced a full wall of blackboards, three across, and Cady could see that one on the far left was pushed upward to reveal another underneath. She took a seat near the back right corner and shuddered to imagine the type of math problem that would require six blackboards to solve.

  If you’d been here last year for Niels Bohr’s lecture, you’d have some idea.

  Cady’s breath caught.

  My dear, you look stricken. Je vous demande donc grâce—I only meant that his theories of atomic structure could fill the room. He just won the Nobel Prize in ’22, they don’t give those out for arithmetic. But he was mesmerizing, well worth the calcium carbonate.

  Cady recognized him from her medieval class, the Dante one.

  Yes, I’m a fan of Mr. Alighieri, though I’d prefer you call me Robert. I love literature, but at my essential self, I’m a man of science. Bohr only reminded me what a dreadful error I’d made declaring chemistry instead of physics. Men under twenty shouldn’t be permitted to make life decisions.

  She debated whether or not she should leave. “Robert” prattled on.

  I was glued to my seat. No easy feat in these god-awful wooden chairs. The angle’s all wrong, I think I’m too tall for them.

  The seat Cady sat in was molded and upholstered plastic. What world was this voice coming from?

  My two great loves are physics and New Mexico. It’s a pity they can’t be combined.

  She still wanted to believe this was a figment of her imagination, but his references were so specific, and not to her. How could she be imagining this when she’d never been to New Mexico?

  Never? Then you must plan a trip, it’s the most remarkable country you’ll ever see. So beautiful, wild, pure. That place changed my life, truly.

  Professor Prokop entered, along with the visiting speakers, Professor Daley from MIT and Professor Zhou from Columbia, and a moderator (all men, Cady noticed), plus a small phalanx of teaching fellows. More of the seats had filled in while Cady had been distracted, and now, to her surprise, the audience began to applaud. This lecture was a bigger deal than she had realized, and she was having either a paranormal experience or a psychotic episode in the middle of it.