Blue Angel

by Francine Prose

  “Professor Swenson was there?” asks Carl Fenley. Lauren and Magda and the dean—half the panel—know that.

  “Ted was there. With Sherrie.”

  Silence. No one wants to touch this.

  “And how did Professor Swenson behave?” says Bill.

  “Fine,” says Dave. “Really. For most of the evening…impeccably.”

  “For the whole evening?” prompts Lauren, who knows very well what happened. But this is not for Lauren. It’s for the record, the committee.

  “For almost the whole evening. It was late, we were tired, we’d all been teaching hard. A good deal of wine was consumed.” Dave smiles again. “Any one of us could have acted badly. It just happened to be Ted.”

  What a stand-up guy Dave Sterret is! Dave doesn’t want to do this. He’s working hard to let Swenson off easy. It was late. The wine was flowing. But what Dave wants doesn’t matter. Who knows what dirt Bentham has on Dave? Years of dalliance, for starters.

  “We all understand how these things happen.” Lauren understands nothing of the sort. She doesn’t believe that any substance could trounce her superego.

  “And what did Professor Swenson do that you think the committee should know about?” asks Amelia. Swenson searches his conscience. What did he do to her? Those few failed conversations at faculty gatherings couldn’t have ignited the flicker of rage glinting in her anthracite eyes. Amelia’s only doing her job, playing by the rules of this cult to which she’s surrendered her life.

  “Well, the odd thing,” says Dave, “given what’s happened since, the truly ironic thing is that the trouble occurred during a conversation about sexual harassment. I remember because later…I recall telling Jamie that Ted’s behavior was so extreme it made me wonder if Ted might not have some sexual harassment issues.”

  A volcanic rage boils in Swenson, fueled by the idea of Jamie and Dave gassily discussing his issues. Anyway, he would like to object to this whole line of inquiry. A dinner party is private time. Let’s stick to the classroom, the hostile workplace environment.

  Dave says, “We were sharing experiences we’d had in class around gender issues. Tensions. Rough moments. We all know how things are lately.” The committee nods. It knows. “And suddenly, Ted began to use the most disturbing language….”

  “What language?” asks Lauren gently. “Can you remember?”

  “I would prefer not to,” says Dave. Lauren, Magda, and Francis smile at Dave’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” reference. The chemistry and the anthro guys merely look perplexed.

  “We understand,” says Magda. Magda’s first contribution to all this could hardly be more benevolent, assisting Dave off the hot seat, ending this part of the hearing. Still, Swenson’s disturbed to hear her use the plural.

  “Thank you, Dave,” Lauren says. The committee concurs. Yes, thank you thank you thank you. Bentham shakes Dave’s hand once more, and as Dave walks past Swenson, he winks and says, “Good luck, man.”

  Everyone watches Dave ascend the stairs. Oh, how they wish they were free to leave! The door at the top of the steps slams shut. Are lectures here interrupted every time someone exits? Bentham should be nagging Buildings and Grounds instead of persecuting Swenson.

  “Who’s next?” Bentham asks Lauren. Lauren checks her notes.

  “Betty Hester,” says Lauren.

  As Betty makes her way downstairs, her full skirt parachutes out. How tiny Betty’s feet are! How could Swenson never have noticed? All at once he sees in Betty the chunky girl heading bravely off to the torment of ballet lessons. Every cell in Betty’s body wishes it were back behind the library desk and not here, exposed to the committee watching her navigate this challenging descent, mined with potential stumbles. Betty stops and shakes Swenson’s hand. Her soft face swims before him. Enragingly, the tears in her eyes almost bring tears to Swenson’s.

  “Ted,” she says. “How are you?”

  He wants to fling himself on her pillowy breast. He wants to kill her for asking.

  “I’m fine,” he says. Jim Dandy, Betty. Frankly, I’ve never been better.

  Betty pauses, then impulsively leans down and whispers, “I wish this weren’t happening!”

  “Me, too,” says Swenson. “Believe me.”

  Betty smiles and sighs, then goes over and shakes Bentham’s hand, carefully maintaining that fragile smile as she sinks down into the hot seat. Come on. This isn’t Betty’s fault. She’s got a job. Kids to support.

  “Thank you for coming in, Betty,” says Lauren.

  Betty sighs dramatically. “I think it’s a shame,” she says.

  Shame! What does she think the shame is? Swenson having sex with an—allegedly—innocent student? Or Swenson’s life being ruined by the not-so-innocent student? The panel members study their folders again.

  “All right, then, Betty,” says Lauren. “What you agreed to tell the panel concerns the book that Professor Swenson checked out of the Euston library on the afternoon of November first.”

  “That’s right,” Betty says.

  Lauren settles back into herself, signaling her fellow panelists that someone else has got to take over. After a stall, Amelia says, “And what book did Professor Swenson borrow?”

  Magda can’t hold out any more and looks searchingly at Swenson, her taut pretty face drawn several notches tighter than normal. Strung-out attractive Magda now just looks a mess. Magda loves him, sort of. And they alone in this room know how this book borrowing came about, the intense lunch à deux at which Magda told him that Angela’s book was shelved in the poetry section. Shouldn’t Magda confess that she told Swenson about it? Why did Magda mention the book? Just to have something to say, to make herself more interesting? Swenson knows that’s cruel. They were talking about a student. He detaches his gaze from Magda’s. If he looks at her too long the committee might think he’s sleeping with her, too.

  “Can you describe the book?” Lauren prompts Betty.

  “Well…,” says Betty. “It’s a book of poems. A pamphlet, really. Self-published.”

  “What kind of poems?” Lauren asks.

  “Well…,” says Betty. “I’d say they have a fairly strong…sexual content.”

  “Excuse me!” Bill Grissom clears his throat. “Maybe I’m just a simple literal-minded Joe from the social sciences, but I don’t get exactly what this book of student poems is doing on the shelves of the Euston College Library.”

  Bill, that’s a very good question! Why doesn’t Magda tell them? She explained the whole thing so well to Swenson. The last thing Magda wanted was trouble—trouble exactly like this—about work that Angela did for her class.

  “It was a gift to the library,” says Betty. “She wanted us to have it so badly. Out of politeness, I couldn’t refuse. And it’s certainly not the only racy book we have….”

  Politeness. Swenson knows all about that. Politeness has got him sitting here and not punching out Francis Bentham. And as always, the impolite are winning. Angela’s strong-arming poor Betty Hester into putting her dirty poems in the library should tell them something about Angela, a pornographer and careerist terrorist, an ambitious maniac blackmailing her way into those hallowed stacks. Naturally, a snake like that would wriggle her way into Swenson’s heart and convince him to peddle her novel. And is that what Angela did? Swenson wishes he knew.

  “I have the book here with me.” Betty produces the bound manuscript from her voluminous eggplant-colored tote. Holding it at arm’s length, she gives it to Lauren, who, sniffing with distaste, passes it down the line. Swenson shouldn’t have returned it. But wouldn’t it be worse if the book were still charged out to him and they subpoenaed it for the hearing? He waits for Lauren to ask some brave committee member to read Angela’s verse into the minutes. But she won’t do that to her colleagues.

  “For the record,” says Lauren, “Ms. Argo’s manuscript has been introduced as evidence.”

  Evidence? Against Swenson? Naturally. Who else? By definition, a ninetee
n-year-old student sex poet is innocent compared with a forty-seven-year-old professor using her poems to get off. But why is Swenson complaining? He should be thanking his lucky stars that no one’s reading Angela’s poems aloud, or sending them down the table for the group’s appalled inspection. Actually, if he could distance himself, that could be entertaining, watching each committee member gingerly leaf through the book, deciding how much smut to peruse before passing it on. Magda wouldn’t have to look. She knows what’s inside. Lauren slips the book into a folder as if it were a used condom. And the book disappears. How conveniently all this has worked out for everyone concerned. It’s the ideal solution to Betty’s pesky little problem of how to spirit Angela’s book off the Euston library shelf. Why couldn’t she have let Swenson steal it when he tried?

  Then Lauren says, “Betty, can you tell the committee…for the record…in a bit more detail…what these poems were like?”

  What is Lauren thinking? Doesn’t she know how this looks? This heartless interrogation that keeps bringing fresh tears to Betty’s eyes? Is Lauren suggesting that Betty Hester rattle off the hottest moments of Angela’s raunchy sex poems?

  Desperation saves Betty. She says, “Well, really, I just got a chance to skim through them. I believe that Professor Moynahan was working with the student and probably would know….”Betty falters, and her silence bullies Lauren into looking at Magda.

  “Magda?” Lauren says.

  Sure. Magda’s the perfect choice. Dear Magda can just barrel through this with no agony and no bullshit, just say what the goddamn poems are about, and let this circus resume.

  Magda says, “They’re a related series of poems about a young woman who works in the phone-sex industry, with subthemes of child abuse, incest….”

  Child abuse. Incest. Swenson sees a fine glaze come over the male committee members’ faces. Strangely, he wants to defend the poems, and he’s annoyed at Magda for leaving out the fact that the poems have a certain…intensity. Intensity. God help him.

  Meanwhile, Lauren’s not about to let the committee imagine that Angela’s poems are just ordinary expressions of romantic undergraduate angst.

  “Professor Moynahan, would you describe these poems as graphic?”

  “Graphic?” Magda smiles. No one smiles back. “I’d say they were fairly out there.”

  Fairly out there is apparently a signal for them all to stare at Swenson. Why aren’t they watching Angela and her parents to see how they’re absorbing the information that she’s written a collection of lurid verse about incest and child abuse? How could the esteemed committee manage to look Angela’s way when it’s practically inspecting Swenson for a bulge in his pants? Well, sorry. It’s not there. Not today.

  Lauren says, “Thank you, Magda. And thank you, Betty. Is there anything else you would like to tell the committee?”

  “Well…” Swenson’s disturbed by what he hears in Betty’s voice: the tone of someone with a morsel of gossip so juicy it can’t be suppressed.

  “Yes, Betty?” coaxes Francis Bentham.

  “Well, when Professor Swenson borrowed the book, I couldn’t help but notice that he was acting rather strangely.”

  “Strangely how?” Bentham says.

  “You know, I had the funniest feeling that he was trying to, well, not steal it, exactly. Just not…properly check it out.”

  “Did anything Professor Swenson do give you this feeling?” asks Amelia.

  “No,” says Betty. “It was just a feeling. Anyway, maybe he changed his mind, or maybe I was wrong. He gave it to me, and I checked it out for him.”

  What did he do to Betty? A moment later, he knows.

  “The other thing is that…Professor Swenson didn’t return the book until a week or so ago.” Well, there it is. Case closed. He’s guilty of the ultimate library sin, keeping a book out past its due date. Betty isn’t the kindly, generous, Mother-Hubbard librarian, after all, but the retentive bad-witch librarian, longing to send you to the electric chair for that overdue fine. But wait a minute. Senior faculty can keep books forever. Stacks of overdue books and unread papers are part of every professor’s office decor. So the sin must be that he’d taken it out at all. Not just any book. The priceless first edition of Angela’s dirty poems.

  “Thank you, Betty,” Lauren says. Betty stands and leaves, this time without the tremulous pause for a heart-to-heart with Swenson. He will never forgive her, never go into the library and pretend this hasn’t happened. Not that Betty will notice, since this is most likely the end of his library-going life at Euston.

  Bentham waits a few beats, then says, wearily, “And speaking of phone sex…let it be entered into the record that Professor Swenson made a call to a…900 line, a…phone-sex line. From his office telephone.”

  Swenson hovers briefly on the edge of hysteria. What about his privacy? His First Amendment rights? Since when does this committee have a mandate to examine his phone bill? Well, their phone bill, actually.

  “Next witness,” murmurs Bentham.

  Carlos Ostapcek bounds down the stairs—Rocky Balboa in reverse. Jogging past, he punches Swenson’s arm, a declaration of brotherly solidarity. Carlos is no Betty Hester, wimping out under pressure. Carlos is here on Swenson’s side, on behalf of his coach. Touchingly, Carlos has put on a suit. He’s more dressed up than Swenson, who half expects Carlos to pump his hands in the air when he finally reaches bottom. But he simply takes his seat and plunks his elbows on the table.

  “Welcome, Mr. Ostapcek,” Lauren says, and the committee members mumble greetings, a process that by now they’ve got down to a mild mass exhalation.

  “Can’t say I’m happy to be here,” says Carlos, with a pointed look in Francis Bentham’s direction.

  “None of us are,” says Bentham. “Believe me, Carlos.” It’s not lost on Carlos that the dean is calling him by his first name.

  Son of a bitch, thinks Swenson. Not even he suspected just how slimy Bentham is. How else does someone get to be dean of a pretend college? This hearing’s an education on the subject of his colleagues’ true natures.

  “Carlos,” says Lauren, “I know this is tough for you. But in the interests of the college and your fellow students, there are certain questions we need to ask. And a number of your classmates have chosen you as their spokesperson.”

  This news encourages Swenson. The students—many of whom, he fears, have resented him all semester—have picked, as their representative, the one most likely to defend him. Swenson thinks of them, every one, with tenderness and regret. They’re his class. They’re sticking together. Swenson’s been too hard on them—and himself. Clearly, he’s taught them something. They’ve all learned together.

  “I don’t know about spokesperson,” says Carlos. “I just know what I know.”

  “And that’s all we’re asking from you,” Amelia says. The aristocratic señorita patronizing the dumb little campesino.

  “All right, then,” says Lauren. “Has Professor Swenson done anything in class that seemed peculiar to you or that has made you feel uncomfortable in any way?”

  “No, ma’am,” says Carlos. The ma’am is priceless, really. All those years in reform school and the military have given Carlos the strength to hang in there and not crack under torture administered by the likes of Lauren Healy.

  “Nothing at all?” prods Bentham.

  “Nothing, nope,” says Carlos.

  Is Swenson’s teaching on trial? He’s still under the misguided impression that they have convened to discuss the matter of his sexual relations with Angela Argo. The sex did not take place in the classroom, though now it occurs to Swenson that what passed between him and Angela in class was considerably more satisfying than what they finally did in her bed.

  He shuts his eyes for a moment and through the darkness hears someone ask, “Did you ever notice anything unusual or surprising, anything unprofessional in Professor Swenson’s behavior toward Miss Argo?” It takes him another moment to realize that the
voice is Magda’s. Magda doesn’t sound like herself. Why does Magda want to know? Did she notice something on that very first day when she ran into Swenson and Angela walking across the quad? If so, would she please tell him. He’d like to know what she saw. Because despite everything Angela’s done, Swenson longs to hear Magda say that when she saw him and Angela together, she sensed some current of…mutual attraction between them.

  “Nope, can’t say as I did,” says Carlos.

  “And what was his attitude about her work?” Good old Magda, trying to get this back on track. Teaching. Learning. Work.

  “He liked it,” Carlos says. “And I could see why. It was pretty good. Okay. She had a kind of tough workshop. But I think everyone secretly liked her stuff.”

  “What was Miss Argo’s work?” Bill says.

  “A chapter from a novel,” Carlos says. “At least that’s what we were told.”

  “And what was the novel about?” Surely Lauren knows: the oppression of the female sex by the phallocentric male hegemony.

  “Well,” says Carlos, “it was about this girl. This high school girl. And she’s hatching these eggs for her science project.” Carl and Bill perk up slightly at the mention of something so tangibly, reassuringly concrete as a science project.

  “And what else?” says Lauren. “Can you remember anything else?” Lauren knows what she’s looking for. She’s heard about the book. Who told her? Magda? Angela? Has Lauren read it? Swenson hopes she has. He hopes they all have. It will, as they themselves would say, alter the terms of the discourse.

  Carlos says, “There was this part about the girl having a crush on her teacher.”

  “And did any of you find it strange?” says Bentham. “Did it make any of you uneasy that Angela was writing about a student with a crush on her teacher?”

  “No,” says Carlos. “Not at all. Professor Swenson taught us, like, practically the first class, that we should never assume that anything’s, you know, autobiographical.”

  What a good boy Carlos is! In this crowd he seems like a pillar of moral rectitude, setting everyone straight, little Jesus lecturing the elders in the temple.