One

by David Karp

  The first of the students came in to interrupt his train of thought. Mr. Fulver, freshman English. Bad spelling, stilted construction, a fairly sterile young man. Burden looked at Fulver.

  “We seem to be having difficulties, Mr. Fulver,” he said to the pupil. The young man nodded and Burden noticed that the boy’s eyes were slightly out of alignment. He had a weak chin, a nest of blackheads around his nose and under his eyes like lines of fatigue. His legs were twisted awkwardly around the supports of the chair and his heavy, foolish lips were partially opened. Adenoidal breathing, too. Poor devil, Burden thought. Probably miserable at college. Burden’s eyes fell on the boy’s class card. A quota student. It partly explained the bad spelling. The local schools weren’t strong on the academic techniques. They stressed co-operation and obedience. Fine things in themselves, but they didn’t add up to good spelling. “Happy here, Mr. Fulver?” Burden asked with a faint, kindly smile.

  “Yes, sir,” Fulver replied, somewhat guarded.

  “Find the work difficult, Mr. Fulver?”

  The uncertain eyes moved uncertainly and Burden thought they seemed more out of alignment than ever.

  “Fulver’ll catch it, sir,” Fulver finally managed.

  “No doubt about that, Fulver. No doubt about that at all,” Burden said with a heartiness he did not feel. He looked again at Fulver’s paper and a silence fell between student and instructor, a silence that seemed deeper because of the cramped space of the chamber and the gloom that the desk lamp failed to dispel.

  “Bad, isn’t it, sir?” Fulver asked unexpectedly, looking at his paper.

  “Oh, no, not at all,” Burden assured the boy. “I’ve seen worse. Much worse. You mustn’t lose confidence in yourself. Your spelling’s a little—er—uneven and there could be a little more freedom in the way you write, but your ideas are clearly presented, in a logical and orderly manner and er—” Burden cast about for some more encouraging words and suddenly said, “and you have a very pleasant handwriting.” He was instantly sorry he had said it and almost bit off his tongue for the inanity of his remark. But Fulver seemed deeply pleased and smiled a ragged, toothy smile.

  “Penmanship was Fulver’s best subject, sir,” Fulver said with a pride that was unmistakable.

  “Was it?” Burden asked, pleased, leaning forward with interest. Odd, the way you struck a chord in a boy quite without intention.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Teachers used to say that there was no one who wrote a prettier hand than Mr. Fulver,” he said.

  “Ah,” Burden said, nodding, smiling, finding something obliquely charming in the way the boy referred to himself in the third person. He was probably of a Church of State family. It was a mark of that group. They all spoke of themselves in the third person as if they did not exist by themselves but only as part of a third group. Me, my, I, mine did not exist in the language of the Church of State families. They were very highly thought of in official circles. Some of the top administrators of the nation, as well as most of the convicted criminals, were members of the Church of State. Burden knew few State Churchers. There were none on the faculty and only about a fifth of the students were of that persuasion, although he had heard somewhere that the freshman class for the following year was composed almost entirely of them.

  “If it were just penmanship, sir, Mr. Fulver wouldn’t be too scared,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of, Fulver,” Burden said. “You won’t be asked to do more than you can.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s understood.”

  “The aim of education in the colleges is not to burden you with any arbitrary goals, Fulver. You understand that, don’t you? You learn the best you can and I’ll be satisfied.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll try, won’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Good lad,” Burden said, clipping together the pages of Fulver’s theme. He knew the boy was telling the truth. They were reliable, State Churchers. It was one of their great virtues. “Study the words you’ve misspelled. I’ve noted them with their correct spellings. Read what you’ve written aloud and see if it is difficult to read. The mark of good writing is that it can be read aloud easily. All right, Fulver?”

  “Yes, sir,” Fulver said, rising and accepting his theme from Burden. As soon as Fulver left the cubicle, Doctor Middleton poked his head in. He was smoking one of those small, black cigars he affected so much.

  “Hello, Burden—about done for the day?”

  “About,” Burden said, tidying up the papers on his desk.

  “That was a grisly specimen that just left,” Middleton said, indicating the departing Fulver with a nod.

  “Quota boy,” Burden said calmly.

  “Ugh,” Middleton said and Burden checked his feeling of distaste. “Sluggish little vermin. You can’t get things into their heads without pounding. When I was a student things were quite different. You didn’t get to college unless you had the mental capacity to absorb the instruction.”

  “We’re all born with the same mental capacities,” Burden said flatly.

  “What?” Middleton asked with great surprise, taking the cigar out of his mouth.

  “I thought it was a scientifically accepted fact that all men were born equal,” Burden went on, eyeing Middleton with a look of severity. Doctor Middleton surveyed his colleague for a moment, started to speak, but then thought better of it and put his cigar back into his mouth.

  “Oh, well, yes,” Middleton finally said through the cigar, “I suppose practically speaking you’re right. We’re all made much the same way, livers to brains. It’s the development that counts.” Middleton chewed on his cigar thoughtfully. “Still, these quota kids don’t seem to be as sharp and up to snuff the way the others are.” Middleton looked at Burden again as if to judge the effect of his words and then went on, in a softer tone. “But, of course, as I said—it’s all a matter of development. These quota kids generally come from substandard local schools. They don’t get the chances.”

  “Yes,” Burden said, nodding his head. Unfortunately, Middleton had uttered an important heresy. It would have to be reported.

  Conferences over for the day, Burden stuffed his brief case full and came out of the building into the foggy, smoky rain that was coming down, coating the needles of the pine trees planted along the walks. The college buildings huddled wet in the gloom and darkness of the fall evening, occasionally glistening in response to a touch of light from a window, a door opened for a moment. Burden was going home with a feeling of satisfaction, a day completed, a productive evening ahead. His coat was buttoned against the cold and his hat was well down over his forehead, but fog still misted over his glasses so that from time to time he had to stop to wipe them clear.

  When he got to his house he found it as well lit, warm, and inviting as he had recalled it during the day. Mrs. Burden smilingly helped him out of his coat.

  “Weather like this is going to bother your arm,” she said, touching his elbow.

  “Oh, no, it mustn’t. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight, Emma,” Burden said.

  “Never mind,” she patted him fondly, “I’ll rub some of that ointment on it before you go to bed. That is, if you come to bed at a reasonable hour. I’m not going to wait up the night.”

  “I promise,” Burden patted her cheek, “a reasonable hour. Or, as my Mr. Fulver would say—Burden promises a reasonable hour.”

  “Fulver?” Emma Burden asked as she hung up her husband’s coat, hat, and muffler.

  “A freshman student of mine. State Churcher.”

  Emma looked at her husband uneasily for a moment and then asked, “We’re getting an awful lot of State Churchers into the school, aren’t we, dear?”

  “Not particularly, Emma,” Burden said, looking at his wife’s face. When she started to speak again Burden had a presentiment of danger and hurriedly interrupted, “I’ll wash up a bit before dinner. The boys are ready for theirs, I suppose?”

&
nbsp; “Oh, yes,” she smiled, “they’ve been growling about food for hours now. You know.”

  “Well, nothing gets as hungry as a fifteen-year-old boy,” Burden said with a smile. “I’ll go and wash now.” Burden hurried off to the bathroom with fear dogging at his mind. In the privacy of the bathroom he looked at himself in the mirror. Why hadn’t he let Emma go on with what she wanted to say? Was it because he knew she was going to utter a heresy? Burden looked at himself more closely in the mirror. Her heresies could not interest the administration. She was not an intellectual, not a maker of the culture, not a manager, not a contributor to the informed climate of opinion. She was just a woman—a mother, a wife, a gentle, loving person who had nothing to do with the affairs of the country.

  Burden sat down on the edge of the tub, his mind troubled. He could keep Emma safe as long as he lived. It was the boys. How many heresies had the boys heard from her? How many had they repeated?

  He shook his head against the thoughts that crowded into it. Even if heresies had been reported against them nothing would be done to harm them. Harm? Hurt? Punish, punishment, punitive—again and again during the day the words came to mind. What could he be thinking even to let such words enter his thoughts? There was no punishment. Burden’s face tightened. How often did it have to be explained? There was no punishment. It had been abolished as a social and official concept nearly three decades ago, when he was just a boy. No one was punished—not for anything. People whose thinking was antisocial, heretical, were adjusted—by therapy, psychoanalysis, instruction, and understanding. In time the roots of their heresy, their antisocial thinking were torn up, exposed to the light, and withered. That was the concept of the State—no man was outside the fold of mankind. Wrongdoing stemmed from wrong precepts. You did not whip a flower for growing crookedly toward the sun. You tied it to a stick gently for guidance upward. Punishment was dead, gone and forgotten in the civilization of free men. Sin no longer existed—merely error. And errors could be, must be corrected. It was the benevolent age in which they lived. He understood that. He believed it. Then what was there to fear? No one would hurt the boys. Burden got up from the tub’s edge, annoyed with himself. Again the word hurt.

  At dinner Burden kept a sharp eye on his two sons. Mark, the younger, bubbled with laughter; more than once Burden found himself smiling at the boy.

  “I wish I were let in on the joke,” Burden said.

  “Don’t ask him, Dad,” Paul said disgustedly. “It’s idiotic.”

  “Oh, p-p-please ask me, Dad,” Mark said, stammering with laughter.

  “Shut up!” Paul exploded angrily.

  “Paul,” Emma Burden remonstrated with a frown.

  “That isn’t a polite way to speak, Paul,” Burden said calmly. Paul seemed upset, so Burden signaled Mark to stop. The younger boy finally did, choking on his food several times. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence and Mark, cautioned against bolting his food, did so anyway and hurried from the table. He made some remark to his brother as he hurried off and Paul sprang up, knocking over the chair to chase him.

  “Paul!” Burden cried after his eldest son, but it was too late. Paul streaked after Mark and the cries of the two boys were carried upstairs and out of hearing.

  “If you ask me, Mark deserves the thrashing he’s going to get,” Emma said, beginning to clear the dishes away.

  “What’s it all about?”

  “Why, a girl,” Emma said, faintly surprised that he didn’t know.

  “A girl?”

  “Paul’s been rather sweet on a girl named Erna—”

  Burden frowned thoughtfully.

  “Erna Fellowes,” Emma said when she saw the name meant nothing to her husband, “Dr. Fellowes’ daughter. You’ve seen her. She’s all pink and white and lithps,” Emma said, exaggerating the lisp.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Paul is love-sick over that little nitwit and wrote some poems to her. Mark, unfortunately, found them. You know what savages twelve-year-old boys can be. The poems are painted on rocks scattered all over the place.”

  “Paul painted the poems on the rocks?” Burden asked with astonishment.

  “Heavens, no! Mark and his friends did.”

  “Oh,” Burden said with an understanding smile. “I suppose they’re the usual love poems?”

  “The usual—sticky, silly, and oh, so sentimental.”

  “How awful for Paul,” Burden said with a grin. “I hope he doesn’t kill his brother.” There were several loud thumps on the ceiling above and Emma nodded.

  “That’s Mark calling for help. Well, he won’t get it from me. Not for a while. Let him learn what it means to betray the secrets of others. It’s time he learned that there are still some sacred things left in the world.”

  Burden’s eyebrows knit. The remark smacked uncomfortably of heresy. “Emma, if Paul is in love with this Erna he shouldn’t hide it. He should be proud of it. There’s nothing wrong in writing love poetry to a girl you admire.”

  “Good grief, you’re not suggesting that Mark was right?”

  “No,” Burden said deliberately, “I am merely saying that you are wrong.” Emma Burden looked at her husband for a long moment.

  “Darling—” Emma began, and again Burden felt the prickle of danger and interrupted.

  “The meal was delicious, Emma. I think I’ll go up and separate the mortal combatants so that I can get to work in peace.”

  “That’s the second time this evening you’ve kept me from saying something,” Emma Burden said calmly.

  “Forgive me, dear,” Burden said gently, “I didn’t mean to be rude. If you’ll excuse me—” and he left before she could speak again.

  There was no need to separate Mark and his brother. They were both resting on the floor exhausted, flushed, and breathing hard. Mark had his shirt collar torn and there was a scratch on Paul’s cheek. Burden told them to stop their rowdyism and apologize to one another. Both boys, flat on their backs, nodded breathlessly and said it was all settled. Burden retired to his room with a smile.

  3

  A tidy man, Burden sat down to his report at precisely eight o’clock. He was generally able to finish the report in an hour, which gave him time to read it again leisurely and then take it down to the letter box in time for the last pickup at ten thirty. That meant that the report would be in his reader’s hands at nine in the morning. Burden had often wondered which of the dozens of girls who sat in the small, glassed-in booths read his reports. He had only once seen the reading rooms and their quiet had impressed him. There were perhaps fifty young girls reading reports constantly. Occasionally he would see a pencil note made, or a girl referring to a thick bound volume, but aside from that the activity was entirely devoted to the reports. Surely the girl who read his report must know a great deal about him, Burden thought. For nearly ten years he had made daily reports of a thousand words or more. They represented a staggering total of words—nearly four million of them, describing the lives and activities of his college and all who lived and worked in it. Combine those with the reports of a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand other informers like himself, and the accumulated picture of the intellectuals of the nation would be overwhelming. Burden shook his head in awe. The Department of Internal Examination was a huge organization. And yet this ponderous body, with its thousands of employees and hundreds of buildings and acres of vaults and files and libraries, turned on two small jeweled pivots—justice and benevolence. It held four to six trials for heresy a year and its court had never been known to condemn a defendant. It was a remarkably pure and fair organ of government. While scandal and corruption might be breathed against other bodies of the government, the Department of Internal Examination had always held a spotless reputation—detached from politics, incorruptible, the greatest bastion of intellectual liberty and individual freedom in the world. And his reports formed part of that organization’s immense libraries. He was a tiny contributor to the huge block
of pure, scientific benevolence of the Department. Burden smiled faintly. It was quite a role.

  He smoothed out the official report form in front of him, filled in the heading with his name, his address, his professional position, his age, the day, month, and year. The report form was typical of the Department—it eschewed all mysterious coding symbols and numbers. Directly beneath the heading was a heavy line and the single printed sentence that read: “Begin your report here.” As simple as that.

  “Today, in the faculty dining room, I had occasion to overhear—” Burden paused, trying to select from the conversations he had overheard the most significant details. There had been Professor Kloetter’s remark concerning the tendency of professional journals to “popularize” and “vulgarize” scholarly reports. Yes, Burden decided, that would do well for a beginning. He started to write again.

  Burden’s pen moved slowly and deliberately. Only now and then did he hesitate over the proper word. When he came to the discussion around the art table Burden stopped. There was Miss Drake’s remark. Was it worth reporting? Burden put down his pen and looked at his report. He had more important things to deal with than Miss Drake’s complaint against literal art. There was all that Doctor Middleton had to say about quota students and State Churchers. Those were far more important heresies. And then Miss Drake was young, newly admitted to the faculty. Would it be fair for him to place her remark on the report? After all, the remark had been made casually, without heat, without great conviction. It seemed unfair to give the same stress both to Miss Drake’s minor heresy and to Doctor Middleton’s far more serious heresies. Did he not have a certain obligation to be selective? He was asked to report significant detail—not every detail. Burden thought again of her rich chestnut hair and the heavy, sensuous mouth. She was young and exuberant and the remark could very well have been innocent. Middleton, however, was a far different case. He was a mature man in a high place, and his heresies were of greater importance to the nation and to the Department. And then, too, he had forgiven minor heresies in Middleton’s remarks before. Middleton had gone on his report only four times in the past ten years. Burden decided in Miss Drake’s favor and turned back to the sentence that read, “At the art table a remark was made concerning the doubt of the speaker as to the desirability of literal art as opposed to the art of men like Picasso or Mondrian. By this I presume the speaker meant symbolic or expressionistic art as opposed to literal art. However, no discussion resulted from the expression of this deliberately provocative question.” Burden looked at what he had written with a faint smile of pleasure. Yes, he had managed that neatly. He hadn’t failed to report Miss Drake’s remark and yet she could not be pointed out as the speaker. If for any reason they decided to investigate further—well, he would have to name her. But she could always argue that she did not hold the opinion herself but merely put it forth to provoke discussion on it. The phrase, “deliberately provocative question” provided Miss Drake with a neat out. Pleased with himself for this touch of gallantry, Burden turned to the subject of Doctor Middleton. “A most serious expression of heresy was made in my presence today by Doctor Alexander Middleton. I was having a conference with one of my students—an earnest, hard-working State Churcher named Fulver. Doctor Middleton came into my office just as Fulver was leaving—”