The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  December 18

  To live long is almost everyone's wish, but to live well is the ambition of few.

  -John Hughes, The Lay Monk

  Simon walked out of the library, heading in the direction of the Woodrow Wilson Building, which lay one block down Washington Road. His purpose was to learn all he could about Frederika and her formative years. The psychiatric couch approach was clearly not possible, as both his personal experience and that of his tennis partner, Dr. Yoskin, had proven. Simon would have to reconstruct the shaping of her mind indirectly, through the help of persons who had surrounded her when she was young.

  Early in the morning he had gotten through to Stanley Krieger and arranged a brief appointment. Krieger had for three years served as dean of the School of Public and International Affairs and had been a professor at the university for twenty-two years before that. The pretext of Simon's request was a proposed Exhibitions Hall display on celebrated Princeton University professors. Simon told the dean that Frederik Vanderveen was to be one of the first subjects, and it was his job to begin gathering information. Stanley Krieger had been Professor Vanderveen's closest friend on campus.

  The Woodrow Wilson Building was an easy landmark to spot. Its futuristic World's Fair lines, fashioned of whitewashed concrete, contrasted unhappily with the rest of the upper campus's stolid, Gothic limestone structures. In the plaza that faced it, the shallow reflecting pool had been drained for the winter season. Its crazed, age-stained walls made the open space seem all the more bleak. Simon crossed the plaza, entered the building, and took the elevator to the top floor.

  Dean Krieger was fifteen minutes behind schedule. When he finally appeared, he prefaced his brief apology with his guest's first name. They knew each other initially from a course the dean had taught. In the years that followed, a number of occasions had woven their lives tenuously together. Simon had little expectation of answers shedding sudden, revelatory light on Frederika's dark secrets; Stanley Krieger was above all things a diplomat, volunteering little in conversations and choosing his words with great care when he did. Nevertheless, his closeness to both Frederik Vanderveen and Vanderveen's daughter demanded that he be interviewed.

  Krieger looked hale to Simon, in spite of advancing years. He was a short man but maintained an ideal weight through diet and exercise. The hair on his crown had thinned considerably in the past few years, but he had not succumbed to the common trick of growing side hair long and torturing it over the void. In compensation, his eyebrows grew thick and fierce, but these, too, the dean manicured to a fashionable length. His dress was always impeccable, proper and dignified. Today he wore a navy blue pinstripe suit, set off by red and blue regimental tie and red handkerchief. His shoes were black wingtip oxfords, shined to a fare-thee-well. Simon noted the crisp, boiled-white cuffs lying neatly just above the liver spots and protruding veins on the backs of his hands. His dress stood out especially on the Princeton campus, where most professors wore sports jackets without ties and worsted, gabardine, or denim pants over loafers, symbolizing the laid-back attitude of the true intellectual.

  Krieger motioned Simon into his office and indicated their informal relationship by seating himself at one end of his tufted leather couch. Simon put himself down at the opposite end. On the coffee table in front of them sat a three-foot-high white artificial Christmas tree sporting two dozen golden balls, equispaced in four rings as if by a machine.

  "I've got access to all the factual data," Simon assured, after the amenities. "What I'd appreciate from you, Dr. Krieger, is the benefit of your close friendship with Professor Vanderveen."

  "The human element," Krieger interpreted.

  "Exactly."

  "I know very little of his boyhood or school days," Krieger began. "That you can get from his sister, I'm sure. Katerina… what's her married name? Callahan. Shouldn't be hard to remember, should it? Katerina Callahan. Brutal combination of names, don't you think?"

  Simon nodded politely and took down the name on his notepad.

  "She lives… or did the last time I communicated with her… in a suburb of Chicago." His eyes unfocused in thought. "Let's see… God, it's hell getting old. Don't ever do it, Simon. Elmhurst, I think. Yes, that's it. I'm sure she'll be happy to speak with you. Now, what can I supply? As a professor he was a font of knowledge but not an especially good teacher. He lacked the desire to entertain, to make the material fun. I suppose he expected everyone to be as motivated by public affairs as he was. And then he was also hard-nosed about grades. Could never accept the notion of grade inflation. To him, a C was a perfectly acceptable mark. For others, naturally. Certainly never for himself. Very high standards."

  Simon was mildly stunned. He had not expected such candor, much less criticism, virtually from the dean's first remark.

  "He dressed beautifully," Krieger continued. "Took me under his wing and transformed me from a tweedy old ragbag. And his speech! More impressive even than his dress. Every word was chosen with care, and when he lacked for the precise one, he'd pause until he had found it. No y'knows, ums, or ers. He'd stand there in complete silence for several seconds-it never took longer than that, he was so fleet of mind-and then would fall le mot juste. Often like a headsman's ax. His wit was beyond caustic. Acrid might describe it. Like Oscar Wilde and James Whistler rolled into one. He was at his wickedest behind closed doors, especially when someone opposed his will on hunger relief. I recall him referring to one foreign cabinet minister as an earlobe. When I later asked him why he'd used the word, he said, 'Because an asshole has a function.' Don't you dare quote me on that. In the public eye, however, he was urbanity and mild manner personified. Few could resist his charm, especially since he cut such a handsome figure. I can recall several quotable instances."

  Krieger's eyes looked beyond Simon's shoulder into the past. Using pithy anecdotes and direct quotations, he labored well to reanimate flesh on his dead friend's bones, characterizing the consummate diplomat who worked his humanitarian way with men of greater power but lesser will.

  "He was a pragmatist as well," Krieger shared. "He wanted the family planning and the birth control right alongside the food relief, but he wasn't blind to religious, cultural, or ruling-class motives."

  After several minutes of hearing nothing but praise and positive words, Simon decided that Krieger's early criticism was isolated and unique and that the remainder of his words would be purely eulogistic. The dean glanced at his watch, which Simon recognized as a Rolex. Simon knew that securing a second interview with Krieger on this subject would be considerably more difficult. He plunged into his true agenda.

  "I need to know about the family man," Simon said. "How did his good qualities extend to his family?"

  "I'm not certain they did," Krieger answered. For an instant his eyes met with Simon's, catching his former student's surprised look. Then he glanced away, made a loop of his thumb and middle finger and gave a fillip to an imaginary piece of dust on the back of the couch. "Frederik married late in life. The girl was considerably younger. Let's see… I guess it was twelve years' difference. Her name was Alice. She worked at the United Nations as a secretary, lacking any of his education or background. But she had charm, native intelligence, and great beauty. I'm sure her beauty was the first thing that attracted him. But I believe what convinced him to marry her was her commitment to world hunger relief and her unquestioning adoration of him. Closest thing to hero worship I'd ever seen. Not a partnership of equals."

  "They had a daughter," Simon steered, hoping for more unexpected candor.

  "That's right. Only one child. Frederika. She works in the library; you must know her."

  "I've spoken with her, but I don't know her at all," Simon dissembled. "How did she and her father get along?"

  Krieger's brows furrowed deeply. He stared thoughtfully at his interlaced fingers. "On the surface it seemed wonderful. He'd wanted a son, but he was soon pleased with her. She was such a beautifu
l little thing. The best combination of her mother and father's genes. Got his brains. Whenever he threw a party, he'd display her as the apple of his eye. Had her recite and play the piano. That sort of thing. He'd smile at her and she'd beam back. But I always thought I saw a glimmer of fear in her eyes. Not that he beat her, of course. No physical abuse."

  "Fear from what, then?" Simon jumped in, too afraid Krieger might sail off on another tack.

  "I believe it was his expectations. As I said, he set rigorous levels of behavior for himself, and he expected those around him to do no less. Especially, I'm sure, his own flesh and blood. Just too much for a child. If she played a sonatina for us and missed only two notes, those notes were what he would comment on. 'Very good, Freddie, but…' You understand?"

  Simon nodded. His hand had stopped jotting words. "And her mother?" he asked, intentionally vague, inviting whatever response memory evoked.

  "She did her best. Played the perfect hostess. Even dogged around the world with him for a time, languishing in hotel rooms while he worked. But I think she just got tired of trying to please him. One day he returned from Africa and found her gone. Moved out."

  "Without her daughter."

  Krieger stared at Simon, and the interviewer knew the dean was reconsidering his intimacies. "I don't see that any of this could be of value to your exhibit."

  "I'm just trying to be exhaustive," Simon said, honestly. "But I suppose such questions are better put to Miss Vanderveen."

  "I've done you a favor today," Krieger said, pointedly. "Do me one in return: leave Frederika alone." Krieger got up from the couch and walked slowly around the coffee table. He stretched across his desk and fetched a pen and pad. "She's a troubled young lady, and I'm sure much of it has to do with her family. She'd be little help to your project, but you may cause her great harm if you open up old wounds." He fell silent as he wrote several lines, finished with a flourish, ripped the paper from its pad and folded it in half.

  The dean offered the paper to Simon. "Take this. I've written the names and phone numbers of two officials at the UN. They can tell you excellent stories of Frederik's skill as a diplomat. Stay away from Vanderveen the father and husband. Concentrate on the public man." He snapped the halves of his pen together.

  Simon closed his notebook. The dean's words had the weight of finality. Simon expressed his thanks and ushered himself quickly out of the building.

  The cold winter air felt good against Simon's burning cheeks. The dean had lost his wife six years ago. He was an older man, a man of power and authority, her father's best friend. Simon imagined Frederika returning to Princeton, Krieger offering the help of his influence and receiving in turn an invitation to her bed.

  Simon shook his head at his wild speculation. His time was better spent amassing pieces of Frederika's formative years. He was sure the jigsaw puzzle was a vast one, and he had only begun to assemble the frame.

  ***

  "If anybody calls, I'll be at the Annex," Simon sang out as he walked through the upper hallway.

  "Fine," Frederika called back from her room. "Have fun."

  Simon bounded down the creaking stairs and slammed the front door. For appearance's sake, he walked out to the sidewalk and turned in the direction of the town. He slowed his pace as soon as he was out of sight of the Vanderveen house. The huge colonial mass of bricks on the next lot lay dark. Simon jogged up the driveway and put himself in its shadows, from where he could see the entire side of the Vanderveen mansion.

  Five minutes later, Frederika hurried out of her back door. Gone were the jeans she had changed into when she had gotten home from work. He saw an expanse of shapely leg between knee-length coat and high heels. She disappeared into the garage and emerged a minute later driving her white Mazda sedan. She backed down the driveway and onto Hodge Road as if she were late for an appointment.

  Simon glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes past six. He was not meeting his friend Rich until seven-thirty. He had changed the hour of their dinner rendezvous that morning, when the physics student had called the library. Frederika had not surprised him. She was off to see the physically intimate herbalist on Park Place again, and she didn't want Simon to know. If the mystery that surrounded her was still far from solution, the woman's behavior was at least growing predictable.

  Simon shouldered through the bushes that separated the properties and strode around the rear of the mansion to the stairs that climbed over the ballroom. Once inside, he made straight for Frederika's bedroom. He found the door unlocked. Her trust gave him only a moment of guilt; his purpose outweighed lesser moral restraints. He was looking for a diary. It was admittedly a long shot; Frederika did not seem like the type for longhand introspection. The thought of such a psychological Golconda, however, was hard to ignore. Simon poked carefully through drawers, across shelves, into closets and under her mattress. Among the many books he found (she seemed to be as voracious a reader as he) was her private phone book. He spent precious minutes furiously copying information. Otherwise, the room kept her secrets well. He had found far more of her personality in the cellar, where a row of college notebooks, essays, term papers, and even a thin book of her poems were stored, sandwiched between school yearbooks of herself, her father, and her mother. Simon meticulously restored her unique style of dishevel and retreated into the hall.

  The door to Frederik Vanderveen's study stood effective sentry against Simon's curiosity. Hoping against hope, he tried his key in the lock. The keyhole took a different set of brass peaks and valleys. He gripped the knob hard and gave a quick twist. Neither the door nor the locking hardware was cheap; they held as if expecting invasion. Simon stepped back and looked up and down the hall. The study had no connecting doors. But it did have its own window; at a certain hour each afternoon, hard sunlight spilled under the door.

  A large wooden ladder hung on one of the garage walls. Simon fought it off its hooks and set it flat on the concrete floor. He got the hang of raising it a rung at a time after twice catching his fingers. Only after he had it extended far enough to reach the mansion's second story did he realize how unwieldy he had made it. But the damned thing was too much trouble to collapse and reextend, so he dragged it along the driveway and did an impromptu circus clown act of struggling to get it upright, discovering he had it at the wrong window, rocking it along and getting it caught on the rain gutter, dropping it noisily onto the study window's mullions, finally getting it flush on the window stool. The one saving grace, he figured, was that no neighbor could possibly suppose such a clumsy exhibition would be performed by a burglar.

  Standing near the top of the ladder, Simon pressed his face to the study glass. One light burned within the room, too feeble to be seen either from under the hallway door or from the driveway. It was a night-light, wed to an outlet that was set unusually high in the wall. The light shone like a votive candle, illuminating seven framed photographs spaced across the surface of a large wooden desk. Each picture was of Frederik Vanderveen and his daughter. In the picture on the far left he held her as a day-old bundle. Moving toward the right she grew progressively older until, in the last photo, she looked to be just entering her teenage years. The image of her mother was conspicuous by its absence.

  Simon pushed up against the mullions. The window was locked into place. He peered through the glass again. The room was crammed with books, overflowing the built-in bookcases onto the floor. Manila folders and large envelopes buttressed the desk legs.

  Under the photo frames, a number of typed pages were fanned out. An expensive fountain pen lay atop them, uncapped. Except for the glass covering the photographs, the corner of the room lit by the night-light was cloaked in a cerement of dust. Simon wondered if this was the scene of Vanderveen's fatal heart attack. He became aware of his rising gooseflesh. He climbed down and eased the ladder to the ground. Just as he had it collapsed and stored, the clock of nearby Trinity Church tolled out seven. He dusted himself off and headed for the street. Another day
of his short-term boarding agreement with Frederika had flown, with little knowledge gained. Time did not favor Simon Penn.

  ***

  The time was quarter to six, and the evening primroses obeyed their genetic clocks and continued to spread their petals fully open. Vincent had watched the process since the first fading of the winter sun, almost two hours before. He had not moved from the hardback chair set in front of the plant, had barely blinked in his concentration. It was not an act of self-discipline, although he had made exercises of similar situations. Nor was it for understanding; he left that to the inventors of time-lapse photography. It was simply for appreciation. If he had been a normal man, knowing that every beat of his heart, every breath he drew measured a sliver off his lifespan, he would have considered such use of time profligate, even absurd. He had had such thoughts, back when he was mortal. But time was now largely an abstraction to Vincent, a tool he could use, abuse, or ignore at will. He owned it, and not the other way around. Vincent considered himself more blessed than any creatures that knew only mortality or immortality. He had spent the first thirty-six years of his existence as a mere man, losing enough strength, speed, and wind to realize the preciousness of time, to appreciate the crushing weight of accumulated seconds upon all mortal endeavors. He wondered what would motivate a being immortal since birth, since there was always infinite time to accomplish any act, even the drawing of one breath if that being so willed.

  Vincent heard the footsteps on the porch. He replaced the chair and moved to the door, opening it only a moment after the knock.

  He stepped back to make way for his exquisite visitor. He was surprised to find that she was no less perfect than his memory conjured her. She was that rare embodiment of feminine beauties that compelled the ancients to invent goddesses, that turned vulgar men into poets. It had been almost five years since his heart had been so smitten; he had begun to wonder if it had finally become jaded. But here she was in the dead of winter, an early spring to his soul.