“I can’t believe you went there with her,” Doreen said when I was finished.
“I didn’t think she could do it alone. And she did ask me to.”
“She asked you to?”
“Yeah. She said she couldn’t do it unless I went with her.”
Throughout this exchange, Bible still had not said anything. I wanted to know what he thought, so I looked at him. I was standing next to him, so I could only see the side of his face; I couldn’t read an expression there. It was quiet for more than a minute, and then I said, “So, what do you think?”
“You sure you only went with her because she asked?”
“What do you mean?”
He paused for a beat, then he looked directly at me. “Was the baby yours?”
“Of course not.”
I think the vehemence of my response took him back a little. Doreen said, “Good lord, you better hope not.”
“It wasn’t mine. I don’t have that kind of relationship with her.”
Bible said, “Still, I would not have gone with her.”
“She was so afraid,” I said. “I didn’t want another George Meeker on my hands.”
Bible looked at me now. “Her father was abusive?”
“I don’t know. She said he would be rough on her. That he would die if he knew.”
I told him about the uncooked rice and Leslie’s devotion to him.
“I wonder if you realize the risk you took, young man?” Bible said.
“I know.”
“Perhaps you don’t know. It could ruin your career.”
“She won’t tell anybody.” I looked at Doreen. “And you won’t either, right?”
She seemed hurt. “Of course not.”
“I’m not just talking about your career,” Bible said. “Young girls like that. She could have formed an attachment.”
“Yeah, well,” I said.
“It is every bit as much a danger to her as it is to you,” he said.
We smoked for a while in silence. I had the feeling Professor Bible disapproved of me now, and it made me want to defend myself. “She really was desperate,” I said. “I couldn’t just sit by and watch her founder like that.”
“What if it was little fat Pamela Green?” Bible said. It was the most crude sentence I’d ever heard come out of his mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“I wonder why you chose to get involved in this one case.”
“I’ve been involved with all of my students,” I said. Now I felt as though I was arguing with Annie and I didn’t like it. “If you had heard her talk … if you had read her journal, you would have tried to help her.”
He nodded a bit, but I could see he didn’t believe it.
I finished my cigarette and flipped it into the bushes. Bible did the same. Doreen tried to get a last puff or two out of hers and then she said, “I think light cigarettes burn faster.”
Bible let out one small huff of a laugh. I made a move to go back in, but he stopped me. “Listen young fellow,” he said. “You are important to me. This thing—this involvement with a woman to the extent … to where she might have been harmed, or her parents might have had deeply religious objections—you understand that you risked a whole lot more than a simple reputation, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You put her at risk too.”
“I think I saved her,” I said.
“It’s not your job to save anyone. Not your job to even determine if someone needs saving. Not in a classroom, anyway.”
I had no response to that.
“You move in traffic of ideas and notions. You teach them to unlock this,” he pointed to his head. “How to think about thinking.”
“I know.”
“You don’t intervene so completely into their private lives.”
“Sometimes, you’re drawn in. Isn’t that what happens in every life?”
“All of us get involved to some degree,” Doreen said, defending me. A few students came out to smoke. The three of us watched the traffic at the bottom of the hill for a while, then Doreen said, “Anyone want another cigarette?”
“We should get back in,” I said.
We moved back into the room. The disc jockey was playing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and in the middle of the dance floor, Leslie Warren danced with her father. He would turn slowly, guiding her. I saw her thin arms, her long, slender fingers spread wide on the back of his black coat. I couldn’t see her face. Then his face would come round, and the back of Leslie’s head, her hair brilliantly lit, reflecting like something woven from gold. They were a striking couple. When the song was over, he stood back and clapped, and I saw her eyes glistening as she looked up at him. He watched the disk jockey as he clapped, but she watched him. I think it is sometimes possible to see love in a woman’s eyes, and that is what I saw in Leslie’s eyes that night. She clearly idolized her father. So much so that I was beginning to think maybe I was wrong about him being an asshole. Perhaps she insisted on bringing him to the prom instead of one of her many suitors. I was proud of her that night and I couldn’t wait to tell her father that she was going to graduate.
I was also glad I had been spared from an individual conference with him over the earlier troubles with Leslie. He was such a tall and imposing figure. He might have talked me into passing his little girl whether she did any work or not. I really mean that.
Later that night she introduced me to him. He had a firm, eager sort of handshake, and he smiled a lot. Leslie told him I was now one of her favorite teachers. “That’s quite an accomplishment,” he said.
I thanked him, and smiled at Leslie. She glanced over at Doreen and said, “Hi.” She waved sort of automatically at Professor Bible.
“Your daughter will graduate this year,” I said to Leslie’s father.
“Well, thank you,” he said.
“It’s Leslie’s doing,” I said. “She’s the one who has buckled down and done all the work. She’s been …” I smiled at her. “A fine student this year.”
He put his arm around her, and she looked up at him. “She’s my little girl,” he said. Then he talked about his travels, how he was always on the road and always thinking of his family. He said he didn’t like being so far away, that he used to call Leslie at all hours of the night, but she never minded it at all.
“I didn’t,” Leslie said.
“Did you know she speaks three languages besides English,” he said proudly.
“Well yes, I guess I did know that.”
“I always tried to include her in things I was up to—especially downtown here. Sometimes, I’d take her with me to Europe. I like to have someone with me I trust.” He squeezed her and the smile left her face.
“I agree,” I said a little too loud.
“You do,” he said. I had the feeling he knew more than he was letting on; that he might know all that had happened with his daughter, and it made me tense and uneasy. Suddenly I wanted to be away from him.
Leslie looked at me, a slightly puzzled frown on her brow, then she smiled. Something intimate passed between us. That’s exactly what it felt like: she and I shared a kind of intimacy and it made me feel rather extraordinary: nervous, and excited, and even a little triumphant. And frightened too. For her. I was conscious of her looking at me during the rest of our conversation with her father, and I felt admired, as though winning Leslie’s trust and admiration was an achievement. But I really didn’t want her to be in love with me. I wanted to believe she was mature enough to realize that a lot of girls fall in love with their teachers. Her father whirled her back away from us when the music started again and I watched them dance. She seemed completely okay just then.
Back at our table, Doreen said, “I think Leslie’s father is hot.”
I said nothing.
After a while, Professor Bible wanted to know how Suzanne Rule was doing. I was still staring at Leslie and her father. I heard Doreen say, “I wonder what happened to he
r.”
“Tonight?” said Bible.
“No. I mean before she came to the school.”
Bible said, “You really don’t know?”
I turned to him. Doreen too was paying attention now. “You know what happened to her, too?” I said.
“I heard something from Mrs. Creighton about rape,” Doreen said. “Or some kind of ongoing abuse by her father, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Mrs. Creighton said her father was involved,” I said.
“Her father had sex with her for most of her life. He even let his friends in on it.”
“Jesus,” I said.
Doreen shook her head, still staring at Bible. “His friends?”
“It was his way of getting back at his wife. His hatred trumped any other emotion with him. I’m surprised you didn’t know about it. I thought everybody did.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Creighton knows,” I said. “She said she didn’t …”
“She knows. She just probably made up her mind not to tell anybody. It’s private.”
“Of course,” I said.
“And anyway, it doesn’t matter what kind of abuse,” Bible said. “That’s not what matters now.” We fell quiet for a beat, then he said, “What you should be worrying about is how to reach her. How to get her to learn.”
I knew who he was addressing but I had nothing more to say on the subject. I might have bragged a bit about getting Suzanne published, and about her poems to me and all, but I figured after everything we’d talked about that night, I wouldn’t mention it. Besides, I think I knew what he might say. I admired him enough that I was afraid of his judgment.
And I realized nothing could save Suzanne Rule.
46
A Formal Feeling Comes
After the prom I tried not to worry about Leslie too much. She still came to school looking worn out and sad. Her hair was frequently unwashed and hung down limply by her ears. But she smiled a little more and I knew she would eventually get over everything and come back to herself. I counted it a triumph when I made her laugh a little bit in class. It seemed to me that we had this bond of affection between us because of what we’d been through. (I really did think of it as something we had both endured.) I did not want to encourage her feelings toward me, but more and more I found myself wondering at the possibilities; at all the things that might develop once Leslie graduated. I didn’t want to have thoughts like that; it felt like a kind of plot in the back of my mind, ready to hatch at any further sign of Leslie’s readiness.
I would never consciously pursue her as long as she was my student. It’s just that suddenly she was possible and that knowledge changed something in my heart. We talked to each other almost as equals when we were not in class and, to be completely honest, at some level I must have wanted to charm her; to win her over again, not in any romantic way, but to bring her back from guilt and rejection. If she ever actually fell in love with me it would have to be in completely different circumstances. I don’t really think that is what I wanted though. If it was, I did nothing to bring it about. I was afraid of that, to tell the truth. I didn’t want to do anything that might threaten my relationship with Annie. I loved Annie. Or at least I thought I did and the idea of breaking up with her made me sick at heart. But to come close to falling in love with Leslie—to have her think for a while that she was in love with me—was so intoxicating I would be lying if I said it was not on my mind. I really was balancing on a kind of high wire, trying to be everything my job as a teacher called me to without taking advantage of either my knowledge or my influence, so that I might win her trust again—not in me but in her own capacity for love; in the human potential for healing and restoration. Why should that desire be any less ennobling than the wish to teach her the world?
Then near the end of May, during a long period of unusually hot weather, Leslie came to school one day looking the way she always used to: her hair perfectly quaffed and her makeup just right—understated but with a hint of glamour, so that her features just seemed to glow with loveliness. She wore a white skirt, a light blue blouse, with a red scarf tied loosely around her throat.
“Well, look at you,” I said, for she was early and there was no one else in the room with us. “You are the picture of spring this morning.”
“Thank you,” she said, with cheer in her voice.
I watched her take her seat. She looked at me, then averted her eyes, but she was smiling. We were simply glad to be in each other’s company. That’s all it was. Then Suzanne came in, hunched over as usual. She sat down in her chair and stared at the surface of her desk. I said good morning to her, and she nodded slightly. Eventually the whole class filed in and we got down to work. Leslie really had regained something of her old, spirited self. Everything awakened in her bold blue eyes—she was animated and alluring. I was teaching the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning and when I started talking about syllogisms she raised her hand excitedly and announced to the class that she knew what they were, that she’d been working with them at “the London School,” in her freshman year when she and her family had been in England. I enlisted her help in explaining how the syllogism works and she showed that she knew more about them than I did. I knew the basic form—premise A plus premise B equals conclusion C. The most famous syllogism is, of course the old saw about Socrates.
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
But I didn’t teach it like that. I wanted to get their attention so I wrote it like this:
Some day all human beings will be rotting humus
We’re all human beings, therefore
some day we will all be rotting humus.
Then I showed them what fun you can have with syllogisms. I wrote the old joke on the board:
God is love
Love is blind
Therefore, Ray Charles is God
Everybody laughed, including Suzanne Rule I think, but then Leslie started talking about the “undistributed middle term” and other things that I’d never heard of. I was so proud of her.
At the end of the class I went over to her and patted her on the shoulder. “Very good, Leslie. Even I learned something.” She smiled and thanked me. Her voice was strong and sweetly girlish. I was elated that she had gotten beyond her guilt. I wished Annie and Bible could see her now; I wished they could have witnessed her gradual return to happiness. As she picked up her books and started out of the room, she turned and bestowed a glorious smile, waving one lovely hand. Once again I had the most profound sense of well-being; I felt exactly as I had when Suzanne Rule sat up and looked at me with those amazing green eyes: buoyant, and lucky. Like you feel on the finest day when you are young and free; free to enjoy every second of it. It was a feeling that had the purity of youth and all the great possibility of a long future bound up in it. I think people get to a certain age and they forget how that feels. And isn’t that the very beginning of old age—when you can no longer actually feel the exquisite permanence of youth? I knew I would go home, find Annie smiling a greeting, and I would forget my anxiety about Leslie. All that was going to happen between us had already happened. I was absolutely convinced of it. I almost skipped to the parking lot and my car. Maybe, I thought, this is truly what I was meant to do.
And on that warm, windless day, while I drove home from school, marinating in my joy, Leslie Warren went home and put a bullet through her head.
47
The Sky, It Seems, Would Pour Down
There’s something kind of disingenuous about teenage expressions of grief. Don’t get me wrong. They’re sincere enough, I guess. But you have to admit, when the newspapers report that a young teen’s funeral has been attended by at least a “thousand of her closest friends,” it gets a little hard to swallow. I attended Leslie’s funeral. So did Doreen, Mrs. Creighton, and most of the people from the school. Even Suzanne Rule made a stooped appearance, her hair hangin
g scruffily by her face, her white ears sticking out like potato chips through a red curtain. I watched Leslie’s parents. I don’t think I’ve ever seen people more stricken, pale, and distraught in my life. They looked as if they were continually witnessing Leslie’s death; watching her fall.
What happened the day she killed herself was pretty clear. According to her mother, Leslie came home, bounced into the family room, threw her arms around her neck and said, “I love you.” Mrs. Warren said she hugged her daughter and told her she was a “wonderful young woman, now.” Then Leslie said she had to do some homework. She did not call her father, as some newspapers reported. He was in Ireland. She went into her father’s den, took out one of his pistols—a .22-caliber revolver he’d taught her how to shoot, the Washington Post reported ruefully—went into her room, put the gun against her head, just above the left ear, and pulled the trigger.
There were early reports of a possible homicide. “Young women don’t kill themselves this way,” the Fairfax County chief of police said. But apparently she had been planning it for a long time because a few days after the event her parents got a letter from her. She had composed a suicide note the day before and posted it to her mother at the home address.
That whole week was just a blur. I know the sun came up; the days were warm and slightly breezy with just enough clouds to make the sky a wreath of white in blue sorrow. The song of birds in the morning sounded vaguely insulting; as if sweetness had not withdrawn from everything. When the leaves on the trees hissed in the warm, swift breeze, it sounded like something that rose out of hatred; as if the whole world scoffed at anything lovely. I hated anyone who made the argument that a tiny bundle of cellular tissue is a human being.
At first I was angry. I mean really enraged at the insipid stupidity of it. How could she have done that? She was so happy and normal the last time I saw her. How could anyone with such promise destroy all the bloody future? I couldn’t get my mind to grasp it. But eventually everything I looked at came to me in light of her place in it—the rooms of the school, the parking lot, the chair she sat in—as if every single angle of repose was empty of her shadow and lacking something essential, something that made life real and sweet and apprehensible.
In the Fall They Come Back Page 34