“In what respect?”
“In every respect.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“There are privacy considerations.”
“You’re suggesting she’s been abused?”
“I’m not suggesting anything.”
“The health-center document she gave me said you were the person to talk to.”
“I understand, and I’m sorry. I can assure you she’s not violent.”
“I never thought she was, but how am I supposed to proceed? This is a seminar. There are only eight other students.”
“Nate,” she said after a long beat. “This is going to sound harsh and unfeeling, but pretend she’s watching you on television from a remote location.”
“Does the poor girl have any friends?”
“I don’t think so, but that seems to be her choice,” she said. “Opal isn’t…”
“Like everybody else in the world since the beginning of time?” Nate suggested. “Because if she doesn’t want friends, that’s what she’d be.”
She sighed. “I’ve already told you more than I should’ve.”
“You haven’t told me anything.” He could imagine the dean massaging her temples with her thumb and forefinger.
“This much I can tell you,” she said finally. “Just being here? On campus? You have no idea what it means to her. None.”
Whatever the Mauntz girl’s problems might be, they weren’t evident in her first paper, which was by far the best in the class. Three weeks into the term she’d still not spoken a word and remained physically isolated, her expression a mask of grim concentration, her head cocked like a dog listening to a sound only it could hear. Perhaps because the discussion was otherwise so lively, Nate found himself unintentionally following Greta Silver’s advice to pretend the girl was watching the proceedings on closed-circuit television. The problem was that when he did remember her it was always a shock. She felt doubly real then, her presence a rebuke. It troubled him to recall how after she fell on the StairMaster last spring, she’d refused both help and comfort from onlookers. Then again, had anybody really tried? Shouldn’t he try? Though she wasn’t “participating” in any conventional sense, he was convinced that Opal Mauntz was fully engaged in everything that went on in the seminar. Sometimes he saw, or possibly imagined, the hint of a smile, especially when he responded to her classmates’ comments in a particularly probing manner, as if she knew precisely what he was after. She seemed attuned not just to the discussion but to his methods, his unwillingness to let glib comments go unchallenged. And now, his intuition was validated by her brilliant essay.
Over the years Nate had his share of fine students, a few even gifted, but never really the one who justifies a career, and as he read that first essay with mounting excitement it occurred to him that the Mauntz girl might be just such a student. How cruel it was that he wasn’t allowed to speak with her. On the other hand it was also possible he was wrong, that on the basis of a single essay and perhaps a nonexistent smile, he was projecting onto her blank silence his own yearning, as if it were within her power to refute his growing conviction that he should’ve accepted Mr. Handscombe’s offer of a whole different destiny that long-ago summer.
Except for Opal’s, that first batch of essays was depressingly dismal. Their authors weren’t stupid—the classroom discussions had proved that much—but the writing was breathtakingly incoherent. All their academic lives they’d been cutting and pasting from the Internet—a phrase here, a sentence there—a pastiche of observations linked by little more than general subject matter. Individual sentences, lifted from their original context and plopped down in a foreign one, varied wildly in tone and style. Given a list of transitional phrases—but, rather, on the other hand, while, hence—the essays’ alleged authors would’ve been helpless to choose the one that correctly expressed the relationship between juxtaposed assertions, had any such relationship by chance occurred. Whole paragraphs were maddeningly free of both mistakes and meaning. By contrast, Opal’s thoughts, having sprung from the soil of a single, fertile mind, flowed elegantly from each to the next. Her sentences were carefully constructed to accommodate quotations, not just accurately but gracefully, from the primary text. She never used block quotations as filler, like her lazy classmates. Okay, there were errors, as well as spots where her thesis might have been bolstered, but here was an intelligence that was truly engaging. She wrote as if the book she was addressing mattered and somehow squared with her experience of the world. Here, for want of a better word, was a voice.
Handing back the students’ essays, especially the first batch, was invariably an unpleasant duty, marking as it did the end of the academic honeymoon. They’d all been getting along so well, pretending to be the best of friends, and now this. A grade. Having briefly thought that this class might be different, they now understood it wasn’t. Betrayed again. Sarah Griffith, an English major to whom Nate, on the very first day, had felt a visceral aversion, seethed with undisguised resentment at the generous B minus he’d given her instead of the C plus she deserved. Normally that would have irritated him, but not today. Opal’s reaction was the only one he cared about. He wasn’t sure exactly what he expected from her, perhaps a slight amplification of the smile he’d suspected whenever he refused to praise an idle observation in class. Whatever her response might be, he’d purposely put her essay on the bottom of the stack so he could savor it. How odd, he realized when he finally handed it to her, that he should be anxious and so let down when she barely glanced at the A he’d circled at the top of the page before stuffing it into her backpack. It was almost as if he himself had been given a failing grade or, worse, that she actually had just been streaming the class on her computer.
His custom when returning graded work was to circulate a conference sign-up sheet for those who wished, in theory, to discuss in greater detail the strengths and weaknesses of their work, though in practice these conferences amounted to little more than an opportunity for students to dispute their grades. While the page was slowly passed around the table, Nate excused himself and stood before the mirror in the men’s room and gave himself a good dressing-down. According to Brenda, his ex-fiancée, this was the abiding pattern of his life, especially with females of the species. He expected too much. He got his hopes up. Sensing this, women invariably fled. Okay, it wasn’t like he had a romantic interest in Opal Mauntz, but was it possible the same principle applied here? There was no denying he’d gotten his hopes up. How else could they have been dashed so devastatingly?
The talking-to must’ve taken longer than he thought, because when he returned to the classroom it was empty, the sheet placed thoughtfully on top of his briefcase…on it was a wonderful surprise. He hadn’t expected Opal to sign up for a conference, but there was her name! And she’d selected the last slot of the day, which in his experience suggested the student anticipated having more to discuss than the allotted half hour would accommodate. And just that quickly he forgot the scolding he’d just given himself. Tomorrow, he thought, at long last she would speak.
The following day, unfortunately, delivered only bitter disappointment. At first he thought she might simply be late, then that she might be pacing outside in the hall, trying to work up the courage to knock, though when he went out to check the corridor was empty. He waited until her entire half hour elapsed before tossing his things into the briefcase. To boost his spirits, he reminded himself that over the course of the afternoon he’d done some excellent work with the other students. He’d reassured each of them that while their first effort wasn’t all it might’ve been, he wasn’t discouraged, and they shouldn’t be either; he had every confidence they were up to the task. He even spent a few minutes at the end to inquire after their families and ask about their plans for after graduation. It wasn’t easy, but he somehow even managed to feign goodwill toward Sarah Griffith, who began by asking him to explain his criteria for assessing grades and wondering if his expectations were
in line with those of his colleagues, whose estimation of her talents was rather loftier than his own.
But of course it was now obvious that the first eight conferences had been merely rehearsals for the only one that really counted. He’d broached their personal lives and future plans so he’d be able, in good conscience, to ask Opal Mauntz about her own. As they talked, he’d mostly tuned them out, his thoughts running on ahead to that last half hour. He cautioned himself more than once that she might prove disappointing. It was possible she’d panic, clam up, say little more than hello and thank you. If so, he was prepared to bear the brunt of the conversation. Think of it, he told himself, as an opening gambit. They had the rest of the semester to establish trust. Mostly he wanted to assure her that whatever her personal challenges, everything would be all right. Life was long and could get better. He was there if she ever wanted to talk, and, yes, there even if she didn’t. Starting now, whether she wanted one or not, she had a friend. He would somehow make her understand she was not alone.
Damned foolishness. Crumpling the sign-up sheet, he started to toss it in the wastebasket, then reconsidered, smoothing the page out on his desk so he could stare at Opal Mauntz’s name, the curious back slant of her handwriting. A whole new set of inferences now occurred to him. She hadn’t selected that last time slot because she wanted more time with him. Her fellow students had just grabbed the earlier ones, and she’d taken the only slot left. Back in her dorm room she’d probably read the lavish praise of his end comments and concluded—hell, he’d said as much—that she didn’t even need a conference. She must’ve thought, Why waste his time? And she was right, it would’ve been a waste, because what could he have said to her? Keep up the good work? She had no need of such advice. No need, apparently, for the larger gift of friendship he’d been prepared to offer. Was it possible he’d actually allowed himself to imagine brief snatches of a conversation between them? I noticed you outside the gym…I was glad you were there…I wanted to say hello…Normally I can’t talk to people, but you looked nice and I thought maybe with you…
Bloody old fool. What had he been thinking?
Feeling resentment welling up inside, he quickly tamped it down. After all, it wasn’t the poor girl’s fault. Okay, she might at least have phoned to say she wasn’t coming, or, if she really couldn’t bring herself to speak, zipped him a quick e-mail (though he’d indicated on the syllabus that he preferred not to communicate electronically). Well, he thought gloomily, snapping his briefcase shut, that was that. She was, for all intents and purposes, gone. He had to reconcile himself to the fact—physical realities aside—that he had only eight students, an unacceptably low number for an undergraduate course. Next year, in place of the Austen seminar, he’d be offered a section of comp, an indignity that put him in mind of e. e. cummings’s Olaf, who from his knees declares there is some shit he will not eat. A better man than Nate, who, God help him, would probably eat it standing up, for the simple reason that autumn’s days grew paradoxically both shorter and longer, each with fewer daylight hours than the one before, even as those same hours were ever harder to fill. But of course there was no point in despairing over next year’s class when he’d barely begun this year’s. He would just have to accept what couldn’t be altered or improved.
And the following Tuesday, there she was, still voiceless and apart. Why, despite his every resolution to put her out of his mind, did she now somehow seem nearer than before? And she wasn’t really voiceless, in point of fact. She had spoken to him through her essay and would continue to do so. With that in mind he tried his best to address his remarks to the other students, those who actually responded, however inadequately. But try as he might his attention continued to drift back to the Mauntz girl. Sarah Griffith, noticing this, rotated in her chair to regard her silent classmate, then turned back to him with her eyes hooded, her lip curled.
Uncunted
Thoroughly buddyless, Nate spends the morning at the Scuola San Rocco looking at the Tintorettos and trying to imagine the world in which they were created. What was that line from Arnold? The Sea of Faith…like a girdle unfurled about the world? Something like that. How comforting it must’ve been to know that everybody was proceeding from the same basic assumptions about God and creation and arriving at the same conclusions about the eternal existential questions: Who are we? What is our purpose? Yet Nate suspects the shared belief that nurtured Tintoretto must’ve been every bit as constraining—girdle, indeed—and mean-spirited as the balkanized academy of his own experience, as well as, apparently, the world of contemporary art. In Renaissance Venice, placing the Virgin and infant Jesus anywhere except the exact center of a painting was heresy, akin to suggesting, as Copernicus did, that the earth revolved around the sun and not, as the pope insisted, vice versa. Contemporary Venetians would have regarded such impiety an assault on public virtue, every bit as outrageous and indefensible—not to mention far more dangerous—than hauling a half ton of dirt up four flights of stairs, dumping it on the floor of a decaying warehouse and calling it art. Renaissance painting and architecture were both designed to make the individual feel inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, which to them was, well, grand. Was it the loss of this grandeur, and of the faith that was its foundation, that led to the fragmentation of today’s world, to postmodern silliness, art as a sight gag? Possibly, though Nate has little affection for Tintoretto’s muscle-bound figures, their heavy, brutal limbs foreshortened to emphasize their relentless determination to climb up and away from Mother Earth. Even his gray-bearded elders look ripped and ready for battle, which might be why Nate, feeling paunchy, leaves the Scuola San Rocco feeling bullied.
Noon finds him in the Piazza San Marco, sipping a staggeringly expensive cappuccino in an outdoor café and watching the tourists feed pigeons in front of the Doge’s Palace. He keeps expecting to see his brother and Renee cross the square, with slow-footed Bernard—no Tintoretto elder, he—trailing in their wake. After all, their chances of reconnecting with Klaus and the others before lunch are no better than his own, which means they, too, are probably wandering around the city, killing time. The sun warming his face, Nate begins to relax, and his resentment toward the three of them—why hadn’t they stayed where he left them?—to dissipate. Actually, there’s no reason at all to be annoyed with Bernard, who hasn’t asked anyone for anything. Or, for that matter, with kind Renee, either. And Julian, well, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that he’s just being Julian, so let it go.
According to his new phone’s locator app, Trattoria Giacomo, where the group will have lunch, is nearby, only a five-minute walk. Arriving early would make him appear anxious, as if he’d been lingering there all morning, unable to function on his own, and he doesn’t want that. On the other hand, it would be good to get there before his brother does. More gratifying by far to join the others in worrying about Julian and Renee and Bernard than to have them worrying about him. The impression Nate would prefer to cultivate among his new acquaintances is that of a man no one needs to fret about, and at the moment, having just spent twenty dollars on a very small cup of coffee, that’s exactly how he feels. At twelve-thirty, when he tries his brother’s cell one last time and again is sent directly to voice mail, he decides it might be a good idea to at least locate the restaurant. If the others aren’t there yet, he can take a leisurely stroll along the Grand Canal until one o’clock.
Not a bad strategy, except the restaurant isn’t there. He has no trouble finding the right small, bustling square, which is home to several other restaurants, just not Trattoria Giacomo. Though it’s embarrassing to solicit directions to one restaurant in another, he has little choice. None of the waiters he asks, however, has ever heard of the place. Nate tries to make sense of this but simply can’t. In the interest of demonstrating that he’s not a lunatic, he shows the waiters his phone, enlarging the map so they can see the little teardrop that fixes the establishment he’s searching for exactly where they’re now standing. T
hey are uniformly impressed with the phone, how prettily its excellent graphics represent their little campo, but as to this Trattoria Giacomo he’s looking for, they can only shrug their shoulders.
Ten minutes later and three campos over, he runs across a shopkeeper who nods enthusiastically when Nate again names the restaurant. The man sketches a diagram in the air before them: a right, a left, then a hump, which Nate takes to mean a bridge, then another right—directions that when followed dead-end at a major canal. Backtracking, he consults another shopkeeper, who’s also heard of Trattoria Giacomo but claims it’s much farther away, and his directions bear no relation to the last set. Only the result is the same. No restaurant. Worse, Nate’s no longer even sure which sestiere he’s in. The streets are virtually empty, which means he’s well off the beaten path, but where, exactly? Which beaten path is he off and how goddamn far? When his phone inquires, as it did late last night, if he wants it to make use of his present location, he clicks YES, but the map that then fills the screen is inexplicably of his college town in Massachusetts. Clicking out of the app, he continues to stare at the fucking thing, utterly mystified, as if awaiting further instructions. On the off chance that he entered the name of the restaurant wrong, he types it in again, more carefully this time, but the aggravating little teardrop reappears in the same campo as before. Substituting ristorante and osteria for trattoria yields the same result. A trickle of nervous perspiration tracks between his shoulder blades.
Initially concerned about arriving early, he’s now a good forty-five minutes late. Why, he wonders, his earlier resentment returning with a vengeance, hasn’t Julian called him? Obviously, Nate thinks bitterly, because now he’ll have the lovely Renee all to himself. But this cynical inference doesn’t really hold water, because for all intents and purposes Julian already has her to himself. Nate had his chance last night but frittered it away. This morning, when he came downstairs and saw Renee standing by herself in the lobby, he thought about going over and maybe picking up where they’d left off at dinner. It then occurred to him that they’d actually said relatively little to each other. It was open, direct, no-nonsense Evelyn who’d carried the conversation, making everything seem easy. Still, why conduct an autopsy? Let. It. Go.
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