Legacy

by Larissa Behrendt

  … a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.

  ‘That’s beautiful. What do you think it means?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s from Albert Camus’s The Plague. It was the first book I discussed with him when I became his PhD student.’

  The book is old and the pages are worn. The leather is soft with wear. The writing, in faded blue ink, is Professor Young’s. I flick through the pages, all written by him.

  ‘It’s poetry,’ I say.

  ‘What an extraordinary thing.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is. But why would he send it to me? And look at this. It is postmarked the day after he died. And it’s addressed in his own hand so he must have sent it off himself.’

  ‘If he wrote all of these poems himself, this really is a precious gift.’

  ‘It’s more than that, Mum. I didn’t tell you before but, well, he killed himself.’

  ‘Oh, my,’ she gasps.

  We both look again at the note.

  Once I have read the book from cover to cover, I begin again. But this time I savour each poem, taking time to reflect on every one. Although each poem is a singular gem, together they tell a story of a smouldering, dark love and a crushing, cruel betrayal. I cannot help but weep at the deep, poignant emotion. This facet of Professor Young, the life he injected into each phrase, word, syllable, letter, is a revelation. I feel misery about losing this John Young that I never knew, just as I am grieving for the one I did.

  Mum is in the kitchen at the table working on her teaching materials. I think of how often I have sat in this kitchen and talked to Dad, excluding Mum. Why had I so often sought his advice and so rarely hers?

  It is almost time to head to the airport but I feel the need to ask her advice now.

  ‘I have a problem and I don’t know what to do.’

  She stops writing and looks up at me.

  ‘It’s this,’ I say as I place the book on the table. ‘I am flattered that Professor Young sent it to me and all but it’s such a personal gift. There are some very … personal emotions in here. And it is quite old. He must have kept it for many years.’

  ‘He must have wanted you to have it.’

  ‘But so close to his … you know … he couldn’t have been thinking clearly. And it seems like such an extravagant gift too. Surely his family would want it. There’s something unsettling about having it.’

  ‘Of course it feels strange, given the circumstances. Is there anyone in his family you could ask about it?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve never met his wife or his daughter. And maybe they will be upset that something so precious was sent to me instead of given to them.’

  ‘Well, if you feel that strongly about it you can only ask. If they are upset, just remember that they are angry about his decision not at you.’

  ‘You know, his ex-wife is on the faculty. Maybe I could go and see her.’

  I wrap the book carefully into an old scarf and gently tuck it into my hand luggage, alongside the copy of Billy Budd.

  I make one last call before I leave.

  Jamie doesn’t answer the phone. I leave a message telling him that I am flying back to Boston. Just as I am taking my bags to the door he calls back.

  ‘Hey, you’re heading back.’

  My heart still leaps at the sound of his voice. ‘Yes. My supervisor has passed away.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘Yeah. Bummer. I’ve been calling you the last two days …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So why didn’t you call me back?’ The ghost of my argument with Tanya is making me provoke him.

  ‘You know, I’ve been busy.’

  ‘We had an agreement that I’d only call if it was something urgent.’

  ‘Okay. I’m sorry. You ring so often when it’s not an emergency that I just didn’t assume that it was.’

  ‘Do you mind that I call?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t the deal.’

  ‘Yeah, about that. I don’t like the deal. I never did. In fact, I think it was your idea, not mine.’

  ‘But you agreed to it.’

  ‘I know. And I’m not sure I should have.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Simone. And besides, you’re leaving.’

  ‘I noticed you only rang me back when I finally left a message saying that I’m going away again. But I’ll be back. And with my supervisor dead now, maybe I’ll come back for good.’

  There is a silence long enough for me to reflect again on the horror that Professor Young is gone and that I have mentioned it callously, using his death as a way of challenging Jamie.

  Finally Jamie replies. ‘Don’t come back for me, Simone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I demand.

  ‘You shouldn’t factor me into your decisions.’

  And suddenly I hear it - what Tanya was saying but I didn’t want to hear, what I refused to see.

  17

  BOSTON, USA

  When I finally unlock the door to my apartment I call Tanya.

  ‘Yeah. It’s me. Look, no one likes hearing “I told you so”,’ I say.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So I’m just going to say that I will never mention Jamie’s name again. Ever. And this time I mean it. You were right. I can see that now but I can’t talk about it just yet.’

  ‘Sure. I understand. And Simone, I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Yeah. Me too.’

  Professor Louise Baxter’s office is lined with shelves neatly stacked with books. Glass ornaments have been placed around the room and they glint when the light hits them. Her room has a feel of unaffected but sophisticated elegance.

  ‘Hello. Take a seat,’ she says, walking from behind her desk and motioning to the white leather lounge. She sits in an armchair to my right. ‘So you were one of John’s students?’

  I nod and say what I have been rehearsing since I made the appointment three days ago. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you. It’s about Professor Young and I know this must be an imposition at a time like this so please forgive me if I seem insensitive. I just didn’t know who else to talk to.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. I realise this is a strange time for many people.’ She smiles, sincerely if not warmly.

  ‘I know this sounds odd but a few days after Professor Young passed away a package arrived for me at my home in Australia.’

  I take the book gently from my bag. I notice a look of recognition sweep across Professor Baxter’s face as I place the book on the table between us. She puts her hand out to touch it, lightly, and then withdraws it.

  ‘It just seems a very generous gift and I thought, given the circumstances, that it might be better if it was kept by someone in his family. His daughter maybe.’

  ‘That’s a lovely idea. But if he sent it to you, he did so for a reason. You should keep it. That book did mean a lot to him. It may even have been his most loved possession so he must have wanted you to have it or he wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to get it to you.’

  I think of her instinctive touch of the book, the selfconscious withdrawal of her hand. I feel sure I was right about its importance.

  ‘It’s just that the package was postmarked the day after he died so he must have put it in the mail the day he … well, I just thought that maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. I thought it might be more appropriate if his own daughter had it.’

  She looks at me as if appraising my earnestness.

  ‘She wouldn’t want it.’

  ‘But surely …’

  ‘Simone, I am trying to tell you that she wouldn’t want it,’ she says gently, firmly. ‘Without taking anything away from all that was good in John, while he was a great man he was also a complicated man. Complex. Brilliant. But very self-absorbed, selfish. You might not have seen that side of him because, as your supervisor, you would have s
een the best of him. With such self-absorption it is very hard to have much left over to give to others and that can make personal relationships also complicated. It is very thoughtful of you to come here and offer but, believe me, trust me, his daughter wouldn’t want it.’

  ‘Oh,’ I whisper.

  Professor Baxter’s once soft mouth now seems set firm. I sense I am pushing her too hard so I stop.

  ‘Through all his internal turmoil he obviously made an effort to get that book to you. He must have known you would appreciate it. You should keep it.’

  18

  After Simone left her office, Louise sat down on the couch. Weariness seeped into her. The book. That damned book. Once she would have coveted it. As soon as Simone had produced it, it brought back memories of the man John had been when she had first met him.

  When John had read his poems to her she swelled with the first flushes of dizzy love. Newly married, John’s career success, her achievements, and the sheer joy of the girls - how happy she’d been in those days.

  And then Lucy’s death. She’d watched helplessly as John turned in on himself and destroyed the rest of their world as though Lucy had pulled him into her grave. Louise, even with her own broken heart, tenderly watched over him but his withdrawal made him unreachable. He resisted her every time.

  Louise felt helpless against Charmaine’s ability to release a spell that she herself had been unable to break. She had sensed at the time that John was chronically depressed and did not know the words to shake him awake the way Charmaine seemed to. Louise felt she had no choice but to unlock her fingers and let him go. He seemed to have forgotten that she had lost a child too. She could hardly bear her own grief at Lucy’s death - a mother’s grief - let alone continue with the fruitless, exhausting task of trying to save John as well.

  Unlike John, Louise had been able to find great comfort and strength in Jessica and she had tried to soothe her daughter’s anger towards him. ‘Your father couldn’t cope.’

  Jessica could never be placated by such entreaties. ‘No, Mum. Why do you constantly defend him?’

  She understood Jessica’s rage, fuelled by John’s indifference, his own selfishness. And this resentment only deepened with John’s death.

  The evening after the funeral, Jessica was sitting on the couch, flicking through television channels with the sound down.

  ‘How are you coping?’ Louise asked, sitting beside her.

  ‘Pissed off more than anything else. I was so mad when he left us and I always thought - or hoped - that one day he would see how selfish he was, what a bad father he was to me and apologise for it. At the funeral today I realised he can’t do that now. He’ll never figure out what he’s done, never say “sorry”. It’s like he’s closed a door that I can never open.’

  ‘I think he had a lot of regrets about that.’

  ‘There’s no evidence of that. I know that he didn’t love me as much as he did Lucy.’

  ‘Parents love their children in different ways. He loved you both but just differently.’

  ‘No. When Lucy died I didn’t know what it meant. I even remember thinking that maybe now I’d become Dad’s favourite. I know that sounds bad but I was very young. And it shows how deep down inside I always knew I came second.’

  Jessica’s matter-of-fact tone tugged at Louise’s heart. Stripped of her rage, the rawness of Jessica’s hurt was gut-wrenching.

  ‘One day, not long after Lucy died, just when I was beginning to understand what her death meant and that she was never coming back, I went to see Dad. He was sitting alone in his study. The room was dark. I called to him and he didn’t move, didn’t turn to look at me. So I called to him again, waiting for him to look up, to notice me, to take me in his arms, to console me. Still he didn’t move or acknowledge that I was there. I called him again, almost pleading for him to say something to me. And he never moved, never even looked up.’

  ‘Oh Jess,’ Louise whispered.

  ‘I knew at that moment that I was nothing to him. That not only would I never take Lucy’s place but that he would never really love me. Not the way I needed him to love me. Anyway, soon after that he moved in with Charmaine.’

  ‘I know he loved you, Jess. He told me. And you have to remember that your father was a very complicated man,’ Louise tried to console her daughter but in the aftermath of Jessica’s candid admissions, she felt her reassurances sounded hollow.

  Louise was still haunted by that conversation with Jessica. She thought about the forthcoming memorial service. Like the funeral, there would be accolades to celebrate John’s achievements, anecdotes about his success, reflections upon his insights and an outpouring of sorrow for the loss of his company, his friendship.

  It was only right that the focus be on the good in him, leaving a portrait of an idealistic public intellectual. It was only right that all his failings, all his faults and all the bitterness he would leave behind him should be left unspoken, unacknowledged. It was only right that the bleak look on Jessica’s face, the grey resignation, would not be mentioned.

  19

  Wandering through the University Yard back to the Law School, there is a pinching in my throat. The trickle of tears had begun during the eulogy given by the Dean. Seeing Professor Young through the eyes of others only reminds me of how much I’d admired him, of how much he meant to me. He was more than just my supervisor. He had been a kind of guide, encouraging me to push myself and my ideas in a way that no one else had - apart from my father.

  I’m too restless to go home and I find myself instead in the lecture hall where I’d taken my first class with Professor Young. I sit in the same seat I occupied during his classes. I can see him standing at the front. ‘I am a zealot among the cynics,’ he once exclaimed and laughter rippled through the room.

  Since he passed away I’ve often had a chill of panic when I wonder what his loss means to my work. I’m halfway through my thesis and it’s difficult to change supervisors. The task of finding a replacement has been so daunting I don’t know where to start. I’ve thought of just giving up and going home.

  Giving up. Just like Professor Young had decided to. I’ve been going over and over my last conversation with him trying to find a sign, some hint that could explain why he chose to end his life. I’ve found nothing. Nothing in his book of poems explains it either. And many times I’ve pondered the mystery of the note he sent with it:

  … a loveless world is a dead world … there comes an hour when one is weary … of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is … the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.

  It seems to speak of the desolation left by unrequited love, the same theme that runs through Professor Young’s book of poetry. The numbness I feel about Professor Young’s death is coupled with the despair of realising that Jamie does not care for me, no longer loves me, if he ever did. But Professor Young could not have known that. That’s not what he meant by the note.

  In the last few days I have re-read The Plague, seeking anything that could shed light on the meaning of the phrase. With a title like that, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a book about death. A plague breaks out in the town of Oran. The gates are shut and it becomes a prison that no one can leave.

  Trapped, people have to fight their individual battles against the plague, and also against the suffering and separation that has come with their isolation. People resort to smuggling and start to plan ways to escape so that they can reunite with their loved ones. The plague reaches its worst period in the brutal hot summer months. It kills so many people there is no space left to bury them and the crematorium is working overtime. Everyone suffers from being cut off from the outside world.

  The plague ends as suddenly as it began. There is a celebration in the streets, the town gates are opened and families and loved ones return. The book ends with the haunting observation that although the plague bacteria can go into hiding for years, it never disappears for good.

  I had discussed the novel with Prof
essor Young, pulling out the themes. In the context of such great suffering, the importance of love to the human spirit becomes clear. The situation created by the plague requires everyone to ask the questions that we should ask ourselves every day. In a crisis that threatens your community, do you flee or do you stay to fight? Do you use the situation for your own advantage or do you volunteer to help? Do you seek others out or do you withdraw within yourself? Do you take action or do you become complacent?

  These are the questions that face us all when we are confronted with any great crisis. They provoke us to think about who we are and what our values are. With the possibility of dying so real and so close, every character in the book comes to see themselves and their lives differently. By reflecting on death, they see life more clearly. Professor Young had looked at death and it must have given him more comfort than life. But why?

  In re-reading The Plague I underlined one phrase that seemed to fit with the one Professor Young had chosen: If there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love.

  Students for the next class start to come into the lecture hall. When I had started law school back home in Australia I never felt I had the same confidence that other students seemed to naturally possess. Their sense of privilege seemed alien to me. That was, until I found my interest in legal philosophy and legal theory. It gave me a way to explore the bigger ideas that underpin law, a natural match for the passion for social justice that had made me want to study in the first place.

  The class is about to start so I leave the lecture hall.

  I find myself standing outside the closed office door. ‘Professor John Young’ is etched on the brass plate. I feel that if I knocked on the door I would hear Professor Young yell, ‘Come in.’ I put my fingers lightly on the brass doorknob but do not turn it. Nan often tells me that she can hear the voices of the old people who have passed. I used to think she was a bit batty but now I understand what she means.