The Inner Circle

by T. C. Boyle

  “Yes,” I said, “and so what?”

  “So what? Aren’t you listening to me?”

  “Look, Iris,” I said, and all the wind went out of me, “I’ve told you myself, a thousand times, you have to give up your history because of how bad it’ll look if you don’t—how bad it already looks.”

  “He’s a blackmailer.”

  “A blackmailer? Have you gone completely nuts?”

  “Don’t give me that, don’t pretend you’re blind.” I reached out a hand to her again, but she shifted away until her shoulders were pressed up against the window and the light of her cigarette revealed her face there, in shadow. “I give him my secrets, I tell him what I’ve never told anybody, not even you, and he’ll get you off.” A beat, time enough for the bitterness to saturate her voice. “And if I don’t—well, goodbye, Johnny, huh?”

  A week later, Corcoran arrived. He’d come alone, without his wife, arriving early one Saturday when I was off someplace with Iris—at Prok’s behest. Prok was interested in my impression of Corcoran, of course, but on that first day he wanted him to himself, and I didn’t know what, if anything, happened between them, but Prok, I’m sure, was his usual courtly self and wound up giving Corcoran the VIP tour of the facilities, ending up with an intimate, Mac-prepared dinner at the faerie cottage on First Street. The following evening, on Sunday, Iris and I were invited to Prok’s for one of his weekly “musicales” as he called them, in order to socialize with a select group of his friends and colleagues, listen to a recorded program Prok had selected for the occasion, and, expressly, to meet Corcoran.

  We were a few minutes late, nothing to worry over, though Prok had asked me to come early so as to have some time with Corcoran before the others arrived. Iris was the one at fault here. She seemed to take forever with her dress and makeup—maddeningly so—and I must have had the RA ring for her five times before she finally came down the stairs and through the door at which I’d been staring so hard and for so long I actually began to believe I could force it open by will alone. I was impatient, maybe even a bit angry, though I have to admit it was worth the wait: Iris was stunning that night, all in black, with a single strand of heirloom pearls her mother had given her and an especially vivid shade of lipstick that lent her all the color she needed. I don’t know what it was—the pearls, maybe—but she looked transformed, as if she’d suddenly gained five years and the sophistication of a socialite, and forgive me if I couldn’t help thinking of Mrs. Foshay and her savoir faire.

  Most of the guests had already arrived by the time we got there. I suppose there must have been fifteen or twenty people present, professors and their wives, Prok’s next-door neighbor, two awed-looking undergraduates who seemed afraid even to glance at the crackers, nuts and chocolates Prok had set out around the room in cut-glass dishes. Mac greeted us at the door. “John,” she puffed in her airless voice, drawing me to her for a kiss on the cheek, “and, Iris, so nice of you to come,” and she took both of Iris’s hands in her own and embraced her as if they’d been separated for years.

  They held on to each other just a moment longer than I thought appropriate, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, as if I’d been deserted there in the entrance hall, the eyes of the guests beyond already roving toward us. “But, Mac,” Iris said, fixating on her face as if they were exchanging telepathic secrets, “you know I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She was smiling, beaming, as happy as I’d seen her since the draft notice arrived, all her irritation over Prok dissolved in that instant. She was genuine, I’ll give her that. “You’re simply the best, you are, and I—we, John and I—we’re always thrilled to come visit. You know that. I just wish we could return the favor …”

  “Don’t you worry,” Mac said, taking our coats and leading us into the living room, “something’ll turn up. Prok and I went through the same sort of thing after our honeymoon, and the place we did find—well, you kids probably wouldn’t look twice at it today.”

  Iris cooed something in response—I still hadn’t got round to broaching the subject of Mac with her, and I know it was ridiculous and maybe even cowardly, but I think too that anyone in a similar situation will understand the temptation to let sleeping dogs lie—and then we were among the company and Mac had excused herself to dart off to the kitchen. I didn’t know everyone there, though I’d attended several of Prok’s musicales in the past—the cast of invitees was forever shifting—and so I wasn’t able to pick out Corcoran right away. We were distracted by Professor Bouchon of the Chemistry Department, and his wife, who appeared to suffer from logorrhea, and then we were separated, and I found myself wedged into a corner and nodding at what seemed appropriate junctures as Mrs. Professor Bouchon told me in exhaustive detail of the defects of the German character and the privations she’d suffered as a girl in Nantes during the first war. Iris was across the room, clutching a long-stemmed glass of greenish liquid (one of Prok’s herbal liqueurs) and talking guardedly with Professor Bouchon and a gaunt, hunched man in a flannel suit who was too old to have been Corcoran. It was only then that I realized that Prok wasn’t among us.

  But a word here on the musicales: Prok, always the inveterate collector, had amassed a personal library of over a thousand records, and for the past decade or more he’d been hosting these weekly gatherings in order to share the musical wealth. There was a high tone to these evenings, and the shape of the program was uniform and even fairly rigid—Prok was in charge, and Prok would do as Prok would. The guests gathered, as we were doing now, for a brief period of socializing, Prok delivered a lecture on the pieces and composers he’d selected, and then there was the listening. Seated in a semicircle facing the gramophone, the audience watched in silence as Prok wiped the record free of dust, sharpened the cactus needle and gently laid it on the revolving disc; this was succeeded by a moment of tense anticipation, during which the guests sat rigid and expressionless through the initial poppings and crackles until the music began with a characteristic roar and they settled into their listening postures. The records were always played at full volume, because that was the only way, Prok believed, to pick up on the nuances of the pianissimo movements and the full complexity of the interweaving of the various instruments, and for the duration of the symphony or quartet or whatever it was he’d chosen for the evening, absolute silence was required on the part of the audience. I remember one evening on which the wife of a first-time guest seemed especially restive and kept shifting in her seat, though Prok threw her one admonitory glance after another—her chair was squeaking and she couldn’t help herself. Afterward, during the break for refreshments, Prok ignored her. She was never asked back, as far as I knew.

  But this evening was different, in deference to Corcoran. The preconcert gathering was more elaborate and animated than usual, as if this were a dinner party rather than a musical evening, and I was just about to excuse myself and go looking for Prok, when the door from the kitchen swung open and he strode into the room with the crystal bowl from our wedding party held out before him in both arms. Right behind him, holding the door, was Corcoran.

  The first thing I noticed about Corcoran was the look on his face—not smug, exactly, but utterly relaxed and self-assured—and then the physiognomy itself. It’s been discovered (not by us, but by other researchers in the field) that the most appealing face in either sex is the one that most closely approaches perfect symmetry, and Corcoran’s certainly fit the bill. He was handsome, no two ways about it. Eyes the color of a calfskin wallet, sandy hair, the perfect expanse of brow, everything about him sleek and neat to a degree that was just pleasing, simply that. You saw him and you liked him, and when he smiled, and then when he spoke, you liked him even more. That was Corcoran: handsome, charming, gregarious. He was just slightly taller than average, five eight or nine, I guess, and he didn’t look particularly athletic—too slack, somehow, too insouciant, as if there were an invisible bellpull hanging in front of him and he had only to give it a tug to summon a whol
e team of servants at a trot.

  In the bowl, trembling at the cut-glass rim, was a deep ochre liquid in which floated the carapaces of three or four bright emerald limes, and I recognized this immediately as Prok’s special version of Planter’s Punch (two parts dark rum to one part triple sec, orange and pineapple juice in equal proportions, squeeze of lime, dash of grenadine, to be shaken and poured over ice and garnished with an orange slice and maraschino cherry). Prok looked bemused as he set the bowl down on the coffee table, obviously still turning over in his mind some little witticism of Corcoran’s, and then his face was neutral again as he focused on the task of preparing the individual glasses of punch and handing them out to his guests. Corcoran, meanwhile, had turned to Dean Briscoe and his wife, and was already talking animatedly with them, gesturing, smiling, as slick and frictionless as a tail-walking trout, and then, even as Mrs. Professor Bouchon reminded me for the third time of how she’d subsisted entirely on turnips for a period of nine weeks in the autumn of 1917, I saw him register Iris’s presence. She was in the far corner, still engaged in conversation with Professor Bouchon and the stooped, skeletal man who was too old to be Corcoran, and I watched Corcoran’s head swivel on its axis and then fix on her.

  “A toast!” Prok proclaimed, though he was holding up a nearly empty glass himself and had never before offered any alcoholic beverages of any kind—even his liqueurs—prior to a musicale. The room fell silent. “To Purvis Corcoran,” he said, raising his glass high, “a fine and a talented young man—one who is certainly not sex shy, not in the least, and who I understand just might be willing to join us in our endeavors here … that is, if we can ever manage to lure him away from the cultural and physical charms of South Bend.”

  There was an unfocused laugh or two in appreciation of Prok’s attempt at humor, and then we drained our glasses, Prok setting his down untouched and immediately looking about him as if he’d misplaced something. I patted at my lips with a napkin, smiled absently at Mrs. Professor Bouchon. She was a bore, of course, but I was nothing if not polite and attentive—that was my nature, and that was my job. But now Prok was motioning me to him even as Corcoran disengaged himself from the Briscoes and began a peculiar shuffle in the direction of my wife (it was almost a dance, and the verb “to sidle” doesn’t begin to do it justice—he was skating, that was what he was doing, skating across the polished floor as if it were the municipal rink).

  “Milk,” Prok was saying, “Milk,” as I mumbled something excusatory to the professor’s wife and strode across the room. “And, Corcoran,” he called, causing my future colleague to whirl round on his heels as if he were a human gyroscope Prok had just set spinning, “I’d like to introduce you to John Milk.”

  The chatter had started up again, fueled now by the bite of Prok’s rum. I felt it myself—the rum—as a sudden stimulant, as if there were a flap at the back of my head and I’d poured it directly into my brain. At the same moment I caught a glimpse out the window of the denuded persimmon tree, framed over Corcoran’s big smooth head like the standing remnant of some ancient conflagration. Corcoran was smiling. He held out his hand, the happiest man alive, the best-adjusted and most relaxed, an emperor in his own bedroom, and I took it in my own.

  “It’s a real pleasure,” Corcoran said, pumping my hand. “Dr. Kinsey’s been singing your praises for two days now. I feel I know you already.”

  And there was Prok’s face, creased, jowly, the keen-edged eyes and accipiter’s crest, hanging there between us. Prok was nodding, nodding and approving.

  “Yes,” I said, registering the touch of the man’s skin on my own, “me too. I mean, yes, it’s a, well, pleasure.”

  “He’s turning into a first-class interviewer,” Prok interjected, turning to Corcoran. “And that is no mean feat, as I expect you’ll come to learn as soon as we can put things on a firm footing.”

  I bowed my head at the compliment to show how little I deserved it. Both men were studying me now, as if I were some rare object in a museum. “You’re too kind, Prok, really you are.” I focused on Corcoran. “It’s all in the teaching. And Prok, he’s, well—”

  “I’m sure he is,” Corcoran said, giving Prok his soberest look.

  “A firm footing,” Prok repeated, all business now. “And I certainly hope you won’t keep us in suspense, Corcoran, because the project requires data, and we do have several other candidates lined up at this juncture, quite capable men, like yourself.” If there had been an air of festivity to this point, Prok had erased it. I could see that he was impatient with the whole process, eager to get on with the musicale—to get it over with, though he treasured these evenings as a way of giving himself over to the emotional side he so rigidly suppressed in his workaday life—and beyond that to get Corcoran hired, trained and out in the field. He looked at us shaking hands and sizing each other up, and he saw nothing more than data, data accumulating at the rate of fifty percent more rapidly.

  Mac went round with a tray to collect our glasses, and we took our seats. Prok insisted on ushering Iris and me into the front row beside Mac, and I had a brief moment of panic over the seating arrangements before opting to interpose myself between the two women, who immediately leaned across me and exchanged a birdlike flurry of conversation, not a word of which I caught. Corcoran, as guest of honor, was seated in the front row along with us, taking his place beside Iris. The room quieted. Professor Bouchon’s wife returned from the lavatory and ducked into her seat at the end of the second row, while another woman (middle-aged and doughy, someone I didn’t recognize, or at least didn’t remember) pulled out her knitting and began counting stitches with a mute movement of her lips. There was the fragment of a moment during which Prok turned away to check the gramophone and I was able to lean across my wife and make a hurried introduction—“Iris,” I whispered, “this is Purvis Corcoran; Corcoran, my wife, Iris”—and then Prok started his lecture.

  “This evening we have a real treat for you—two versions of Gustav Mahler’s exquisite and powerful Symphony Number Four in G Major, the one conducted by the immortal Leopold Stokowski of the Philadelphia Orchestra (though some of you will no doubt remember him from his early days with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra), and the other by his protégé and successor, Eugene Ormandy, the new kid on the block, as it were.” Prok went on, in full lecture mode, to give a brief biography of Mahler, a discography of known recordings, both in the United States and Europe, and then a summary of the contrasting styles of Stokowski and Ormandy. “Now,” he said, his fleshy face and oversized head hanging there before us like a great ripening fruit, legs slightly spread for balance, right hand gesturing, “I intend to play alternate movements, beginning with the Stokowski for the first and third and Ormandy for the second and then the fourth and final movement, but I will then conclude by playing that final movement as well in the Stokowski version. Now, of course, that movement contains the stirring soprano solo, ‘Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden’ as sung by”—and here he named two singers I’d never heard of—“but I don’t want you to be distracted by the distinctions in vocal coloration, but rather attune yourselves to the tempo work of the respective conductors, all right?”

  There was a vague murmur of assent, which seemed to satisfy him. Prok clasped his hands in front of him briefly, in what might have been prayer, or, more likely, conciliation, then turned away from us to start the record. We heard the needle hit the vinyl surface with a jolt, a blast of static, three distinct pops, and suddenly Mahler was there with us, at full volume.

  We lingered for half an hour or so once the concert was concluded (again, the evening was unusual in that Prok generally scheduled an intermission and finished up his program with a few light pieces, but not tonight), and stood around in little groups, sipping coffee and remarking on the music and the clear differences between the two conductors, at least when those differences were made apparent in a demonstration such as this. I had entertained fond hopes of spiriting Iris off somewhere
in the Nash, but it was late and there was work in the morning for me and classes for her, so I just stood there stupidly with a coffee cup in one hand and a ladyfinger in the other while Professor and Mrs. Bouchon boxed me into a corner and made appreciative noises about the music we’d just heard. Since I knew nothing about classical music, other than what I’d just picked up from Prok’s remarks, I essentially just stood there listening while Professor Bouchon reminisced about having seen Stokowski in action once—it was in either Philadelphia or New York, he couldn’t be sure which—and his wife pointed out that thanks to the Germans her family’s piano had been destroyed, and all her joy in music along with it.

  Across the room, Iris and Corcoran were getting acquainted. Corcoran had somehow managed to talk Prok into bringing out his tray of liqueurs again, now that the time was appropriate, and I watched as he leaned over to pour something the color of urine into her coffee. She hadn’t enjoyed the concert. That much I was sure of. She always claimed that Prok’s clinical dissection of the pieces took all the spirit out of them, and as the years went on she would come to view these musical evenings more and more as a duty than a pleasure. But on this night, as she stood there with Corcoran in the shadow of the far corner, framed by the slick black architecture of Prok’s furniture and the dark stain of the walls, she seemed to be having a high time of it.

  How did I know? I could tell from the way she held herself—and from her face. I knew that face better than I knew my own, and I could see by the way she widened her eyes and pursed her lips as he spoke (and what was he telling her, what was so fascinating?) that she was fully engaged. And, too, there was a way she had of ducking her head to one side as she laughed, tugging unconsciously at her right earring and shifting her weight from foot to foot as if the floor had caught fire beneath her. Body language. I’d become a student of it, of necessity. Was I jealous? Not in the least, not yet, anyway. Why should I have been? I loved her and she loved me, there was no doubt about that—and there never has been, not to this day—and all the rest, as Prok had taught me, was nothing more than a function of the body, physiology at its root, stimulus and response. I listened politely to Professor and Mrs. Bouchon, nodding and smiling when it seemed appropriate, and then I excused myself and crossed the room to collect my wife, thank our hosts and head out into the night.