I’m going to show you what to do. Then you may write to her anytime you want. We encourage you to write, and to be friendly. How are you liking your friends? Do you know everyone’s name? Do you enjoy your classes?
Victor says nothing.
Naturally it has been difficult for you. You must try harder. It will get easier the more you practice. I see that you have not done your homework. That is not acceptable. You must do your homework. If you have trouble then ask for help. I will help you personally. That isn’t something I say to everyone. I say it to you because I think you’re a special child. I know that you’re capable of more than we’ve seen from you. I would like you to succeed. Would you like to succeed? Well would you?
He nods.
Good. Very good. Now let’s write that letter.
Dr. Worthe shows him the salutation. Now you write whatever you’d like.
Victor chews his pencil. He does not know what to do. He draws a picture of Belgium.
Dr. Worthe looks at the paper. This is what you want to write to her? Victor nods.
I don’t think she’ll understand this. Wouldn’t you like to tell her how you are? Do you want to tell her about your friends? Let me have that for a moment if you please. Dr. Worthe erases Belgium, leaving a faint outline that he writes over. Dear Mrs. Greene. Hello. How are you? I am fine. I am trying very hard to do my best in school. I am enjoying my schoolwork. I have many friends. What else can we tell her? Yesterday we had potato soup. It was—Victor? Did you like the potato soup?
He did not eat the soup. He shakes his head.
Dr. Worthe says All right. Yesterday we had potato soup. It was not my favorite although still very tasty. My favorite foods to eat are—
Dr. Worthe is staring at him. Victor?
Victor is frightened. He feels stupid. Oatmeal he says.
Oatmeal. Excellent. I enjoy eating oatmeal, which—Dr. Worthe smiles—is very fortunate because we receive it for breakfast almost every morning.
This is true. Victor has never eaten so much oatmeal in his entire life. He does not mind it, but he has a feeling that he will not like it soon.
I hope that you are very well and that you will come to visit. You may visit whenever you’d like. Perhaps when it is not so cold you will come to visit. Dr. Worthe stops writing. Is there anything else you’d like to tell her?
Victor shakes his head.
Now you need to sign the letter. How would you like to close? You may say sincerely or cordially or your friend. Here, take it. You choose.
Victor thinks. He writes Your friend.
Now sign your name.
He signs his name.
Good. Dr. Worthe turns the letter around. This is not correct. Let me— may I? He takes the pencil from Victor. Friend is spelled like this. Do you see?
Victor nods.
Very good. Now we need to address the envelope.
Then Dr. Worthe licks a stamp. He puts it on the envelope. You see, Victor? Now it goes in the mailbox. And now you’ve written a letter. Let’s see if she writes back to you.
She does. Many months later he receives a letter from Mrs. Greene. It is very short. Dr. Worthe gives it to him in his office.
Dear Victor Victor reads.
Read it aloud please. Speak up.
Dear Victor Victor says. I am so happy to hear about you. I think of you often. I have left the house, so I did not get your letter until they sent it along to me. I have a new home. The address is at the top of the page. I have a new job, too. I work for Dr. Fetchett. Do you remember him? He sends his regards. He thinks of you often, too. Love, Nancy. Inside curvy lines she has written Mrs. Greene.
Dr. Worthe looks pleased. That is a very nice letter. And now that we have her correct address we may write to her as much as we’d like. What shall we write?
This time he lets Victor lick the stamp. It tastes funny.
• 21 •
Our flight to Boston was delayed several hours; we didn’t make it to Cambridge until almost eleven P.M. We took a cab to the hotel where Tony Wexler would stay whenever he came to Harvard to fix my mistakes, and I gave my credit card for both rooms. In my attaché I had a plain-paper copy of Victor’s picture, as well as a CD-ROM with the scanned image. I hadn’t spoken much since that afternoon, and I must have looked morose, because when we got in the elevator, Samantha put her hand on my back.
“I think my blood sugar’s low,” I said.
“We can get dinner.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged. “I’ll make an exception.”
I smiled feebly. “I think I’m going to get room service.”
“Call me if you change your mind.”
In my room I stripped down to my underwear and ordered a tuna sandwich that I couldn’t bring myself to eat. I set the tray outside my door and lay down on the bed, staring at the darkened TV set, waiting for it to spring to life and fill up with Victor’s face. I’m no spiritualist, but I honestly expected at least an attempt at communication. If not through the TV then taps on the wall in Morse code or the lights flashing on and off. I waited and waited for him but he never came. My eyes started to close, and I was almost under when a soft knock woke me.
I put on my trousers and my shirt and opened the door a crack. It was Samantha. She apologized for disturbing me.
“It’s fine, I just passed out. Come in.” I stood back to let her in. She stayed outside, looking first at me, then at the uneaten sandwich on the floor.
“I wasn’t hungry,” I said.
She nodded, staring at the ground. I realized that my shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open. I drew it closed. “Please. Come on.”
She balked, then crossed the room to the armchair, where she sat looking out on the green Eliot House cupola. I stood next to her, and for a few minutes we said nothing, watching the moon flirt with us from behind the shifting clouds.
I said, “Did you see the size of his hands?”
She said nothing.
“They were like paws. Did you see them?”
“I saw.”
“I have a hard time picturing him strangling someone with those hands.”
“They were children.”
I said nothing.
“It must be jarring,” she said.
I nodded.
We watched the sky.
“Thank you,” she said.
I looked at her.
“For what you did on the plane,” she said.
“Of course.”
“You probably expected me to smack you.”
“I can take it.”
A silence.
She said, “I’m sorry I’ve been so cold to you.”
“You haven’t.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“A little, maybe.”
She smiled.
“It’s all right,” I said.
She said, “I can’t stand acting like this. I used to be such a stable person.” She paused. “I missed you when I was away.”
“Me too.”
A silence.
She said, “I want you to wait. Is that terrible for me to say?”
“No.”
“Yes, it is, it’s terrible to put you on notice like that.”
“It’s not terrible, Samantha.”
“Please call me Sam.”
“All right.”
“My dad used to call me Sammy.”
“I can call you that, if you’d prefer.”
She said, “Just Sam’s fine.”
SHE LEFT MY ROOM, and I got back into bed. I turned on the news. A clip of Bush, Cheney, and Rice in conference gave me an unpleasant flashback to the night of Marilyn’s party, and I switched to paid programming.
My hotel phone rang. I muted the TV. “I thought you went to sleep.”
“I didn’t wake you up, did I? I’ll feel awful if I woke you up.”
“I was awake.”
A silence.
She said, “Can I come back over?”
SHE WAS DIFFERENT NOW. She looked me in the eye, something I only then realized she had not done the first time. She moved more, too. It might have been the freedom afforded by a king-sized bed; or because we knew each other a little bit, had the advantage of a mental map; or maybe, probably, she was different this time because this time she wanted to feel not nothing but something.
BEFORE SHE DRIFTED OFF, she said, “I’m sorry I made you pay for two rooms.”
AT FOUR IN THE MORNING I awoke bullhorn-alert. Sam had one arm hanging off the edge of the bed and the blanket bunched between her thighs. I slipped from the bed and sat watching her change shape. Then I showered and dressed and went out for a walk along the Charles.
The river in winter becomes a patchwork of crackling ice and dark, poisonous water. Memorial Drive crackled beneath a speeding taxi. I stopped near the boathouse to zip up my jacket and to stare at the blinking Citgo sign. I’ve always had a soft spot for Boston. Its snootiness appeals to me, as does its anarchistic streak. It’s that odd combination of Puritanism and decadence that makes Harvard such a perfect breeding ground for the American elite.
I walked up Plympton, toward the trainlike hump of the Lampoon, turning west to head past the Fly. Inside, music was playing. I hadn’t kept in touch with anybody I knew back then, much less paid my alumni dues, but on a whim I went around to the front door and knocked. I was about to leave when the door swung open. A tall, handsome young man with shaggy blond hair stood there. He looked like a kid. He was a kid. He looked me up and down.
“Can I help you?”
“I used to be a member,” I said.
He seemed skeptical.
“Can I come in?”
“Uhm.” He looked at his watch.
From inside, a girl called Danny.
“One minute,” he yelled.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”
“Sorry, man.”
I turned and the door shut behind me. To my left was the backyard, fenced off, where in spring we held the Garden Party. I suppose they still do. Life keeps going.
I walked to the front gate of Lowell House, where I spent my latter two years. I wondered how short I was of a BA. I wondered if they would take me back. I pictured myself waiting in line for registration; carrying a futon up three flights of stairs; spooning myself green beans in the dining hall; whooping it up at the Game. The blond kid would be my friend. He would punch me for the Fly. We would hang out together and get stoned. I laughed and arched my thirty-two-year-old back.
Down the road was a Dumpster. I had a crazy urge to go rooting through it for my abandoned Cy Twombly. Maybe they hadn’t picked up the trash in twelve years.
I stood back and counted windows, picking out what I thought was my sophomore year room. The light was off. From its sill I had been able to see over the tops of the buildings, northward to the Yard and the Gothic spires of Muller Hall, a clear view of my past.
BY THE TIME I GOT BACK to the hotel, Sam was gone. She wasn’t in her room, either. I found her in the gym, pumping away at an elliptical machine. An MP3 player was strapped to her arm. One earplug in; its partner dangled at waist-level, freeing up the side of her head to pin a cell phone to her shoulder. A copy of Fitness lay upside down and unopened on the machine’s magazine thingie. With her right hand she swigged a bottle of water, and with her left she tattooed a Palm Pilot. Every part of her seemed to be moving in a different direction, like some marvelous sweaty cubist paroxysm.
“I appreciate it,” I heard her saying as I approached. “Thank you.”
“Good morning,” I said.
“Oh my gosh. You startled me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened to you. I thought you were gone.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I took a walk.”
“Leave a note next time, will you… I just got off the phone with James Jarvis.”
I looked at the gym clock. It was seven fifteen.
“He called me,” she said. Something new in her voice, a new timbre. Happiness. And it made her speak a little faster, despite her huffing and puffing. “He’s teaching today but he said we could come by after four. Do you know where Somerville is?”
“Five-minute drive.”
“Then we have a day to spend together.” She slowed down and stopped, her feet still on the pedals. “I’m gross right now, but I’m going to kiss you anyway, and you’re going to have to deal with it.”
“That’s fine with me.” And it was.
SOMERVILLE, CAMBRIDGE’S POORER COUSIN, is home to many a grad student. I remembered it primarily as the location of the Basket, a lowbrow supermarket favored by Harvard students as a place to buy liquor in plastic bottles with handles. I think they do more sales in food stamps than in cash; the employees walk around with the pall of death on them; we used to call the place the Casket.
A stone’s throw away (assuming you had a very energetic throwing arm) is Knapp Street and its short run of town houses. Our buzz summoned a young man in surgical scrubs, who introduced himself as Elliot and who, upon showing us to the living room, immediately began berating us for upsetting James.
“He was crying,” said Elliot. “He didn’t even cry when our dog died and he was sobbing. I really hope you realize what you’re doing here. You just sent years of therapy down the drain. I begged him not to talk to you but he’s his own person. If it were up to me I wouldn’t have let you in the front door.”
Sam said, “He might be able to help us catch the person who did it.”
Elliot snorted. “Like that matters. Whatever. He should be home in a few minutes.” He left the room; a door slammed.
I looked at Sam. She seemed unruffled. Quietly she said, “It’s never what you expect. It’s always the father who’s freaking out, or the older brother. The women are calm when you talk to them. They can describe the most horrific stuff and it’s like they’re reading the phone book. In a way that’s worse, you know? Like I remember this girl, nine years old, raped by her grandfather. I was asking her these very specific questions and she doesn’t flinch. The only time she gets upset is at the end. All of a sudden she gets this look. She goes, ‘Don’t send him to jail, I’ll go instead.’ ”
“That’s sick.”
“People are weird.” She picked up a copy of Architectural Digest and began to leaf through it. I was too tense to do anything but tap my fingers against my knees.
Jarvis had promised to be home by four thirty. At four forty-five Elliot reemerged, wearing running tights and a fleece, his bangs held back with a sweatband.
“He’s still not back?”
“No.”
He frowned and stooped to double-knot his shoes. It was obvious that he wanted to leave, wanted us to leave, as well; and everyone breathed a little easier when we heard a car pull up. Elliot ran out the front door and clomped down the steps. I heard the sound of an argument. I went to the window and pulled back the curtain. In the street he was yelling at a thin, balding man in an overcoat and bright blue galoshes. This, I presumed, was James Jarvis. He was older than his partner by at least fifteen years, with a fatherly aura, the look of someone resigned to constant ingratitude. He said nothing as Elliot ranted and gesticulated and finally turned on his heel and sprinted off. I hurried back to the couch.
“Sorry I’m late.” Jarvis set his bag down. “There was an accident on the pike.”
“Thanks for taking the time,” Sam said.
“It’s—well, I was about to say it’s my pleasure, but I think that might be overstating it a bit. Can I get a cup of coffee before we begin?”
“Of course.”
In the kitchen he loaded up an espresso maker and set out three small porcelain cups. “I’m sorry if he was nasty.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“He’s very protective.” Jarvis set the machine running, then crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “He has the zeal of youth.”
Sam smil
ed.
“I probably shouldn’t say that,” he said. “Look at both of you. You know what my first reaction was when you called? ‘I’m so old.’ That’s what really stung.” The machine clicked, and he fiddled with it. “Here I am living my Dorian Gray fantasy, and then you come along to remind me that in 1973 I was eleven. Elliot wasn’t even born then.” He made a face like The Scream. Then he laughed gloomily and turned to pour our drinks, which he set out for us at the breakfast nook. He also pried open a tin of biscotti. “Enjoy.”
Sam thanked him. “We don’t want to inconvenience you any more than we already have, so—”
“Oh, it’s no inconvenience to me. I might get the silent treatment for a couple of days but he’ll come around.”
“Well, all the same, thank you. If it’s okay with you we’ll just get started?”
He gestured Go ahead. I took the photocopy out of my attaché and put it on the table. Jarvis stared for a long time, his expression inscrutable. I looked at Sam and she looked at me and nobody said anything and I started to believe that we’d gotten it all wrong and I felt something like elation and something else like exasperation and I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to pick Victor out; he shouldn’t rush to point a finger.
“That’s him.”
Sam said, “Are you sure?”
“I think so.” He scratched his cheek. “It’s hard to tell because it’s so grainy.”
I started to speak but Sam said, “We have a scan that’s higher-resolution. Do you have a computer we could use?”
We went to an office at the back of the house. Jarvis’s armpits were dark; his good-natured slouch gone. Violently he jerked the mouse to revive the screen. He put in the CD and clicked on the icon and the photo exploded onto the screen: much larger, shockingly crisp. Victor had a small mole on his neck that I hadn’t noticed.
“It’s him,” said Jarvis.
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“All right,” she said. “All right.”
Was that it? Wasn’t there going to be something more catastrophic? Where was Victor’s spirit now? When did he come swirling out of the heating ducts, all undead vengeance? That could not be the end, not that whimper. Totem crumbling, I began to panic. I wanted to argue. Jarvis was mistaken. How much could he possibly remember? Not remember: know. We weren’t in a court of law. I had a higher standard than reasonable doubt. I wanted zero doubt. Now I saw Jarvis as the culprit, Jarvis as the antagonist, Jarvis as the liar. He had to prove to me that he wasn’t just a lonely boy vying for attention. He had to provide corroborating evidence. He had to describe the size and shape of Victor’s penis; he had to supply choice snippets of dialogue; he had to tell me the weather that day and what he’d had for lunch and what color socks he’d had on, something concrete and verifiable that would allow us to determine if his memory was as perfectly one hundred percent grade-A pristine as he claimed.
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