Stillness & Shadows

by John Gardner

  The young secretary in the silver wig was looking out at him, smiling and nodding encouragement. He jerked forward—the glass door stood open—went up to the front of her desk, and snatched his hat off. “Good morning,” he said, slightly bowing.

  She studied him, wonderfully polite but noticing the whiskey stink. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for one of your employees,” Craine said. “Man named Ira Katz.” He smiled, head tipped. He held the hat in both hands.

  Still smiling, she gave him a calculating look, seeing if he was putting her on. The secretary at another desk called over, “Ira didn’t come in today.”

  “Didn’t come in?” Craine said, as if offended.

  “I’m sorry,” the one in the wig said, and smiled more widely.

  Craine jerked his hands out sideways, as if astonished, playing crazy. “He just ‘didn’t come in’? Didn’t call in with an excuse or anything? Just didn’t come in?”

  “It must not have been one of his teaching days,” she said.

  He already had his mouth set to start up his mad scene—offended taxpayer, What kind of bidness you running here?, etc.—when he was stopped by the pictures on the walls. He covered his mouth with his hand and squinted at the one over her desk, then swung around and looked at the others, one by one. They were interesting; that was what was strange about them. Not all interesting in the same way, like the pictures in the office of an art museum. They were pictures of utterly different kinds, in fact—a photograph of barns and a tree; a lithograph of ruins; a theater poster; some kind of modern-art print even Craine, for all his reading, had never seen before; a small assembly of New Yorker cartoons; a blown-up picture from some popular magazine—a bald man reading a book.

  “Who did the art?” he said.

  They looked at him—all three of the secretaries and the student worker who was passing through, a boy in suspenders—then the secretary in the wig began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” he said.

  “Nothing. I’m sorry!” she said and covered her mouth. She was pretty, it struck him. All three of them were pretty; so was the boy in a faggoty way. Bunch of movie stars.

  “It’s not often you see interesting pictures in an office,” Craine said, moving in on her. “Very good PR. I take my hat off to whoever’s responsible.” He tapped the side of his head. “Parent comes in, sees the pictures on the walls, right off he says, ‘Cultured, very cultured’ around here! This is the place for my Deirdre.’ ”

  Now the other two secretaries were smiling, watching him like something from the zoo. He began to catch on. His eyes opened wider. “Nobody did it, it just happened,” he said. “You all put up whatever you felt like, and this is the result!” He saw that it was true. “Interesting!” he said. He clasped his hands behind his back and went over to look more closely at the lithograph of ruins. “Interesting,” he said again. He took a slip of paper from his pocket and a pencil from the nearest of the desks, discovered that he’d forgotten what he meant to write down, drew a face, folded the paper, and put the pencil back. He returned to the desk of the secretary in the wig, hunted for the license in his suit coat pocket, found it, and held it out to her. “Pictures on office walls are usually pretty phony,” he said. “Nobody really notices, they wash over you like Muzak, but they always have a message. You know—these lousy crap paintings in a doctor’s office; travel-bureau posters, pictures of ducks and fish in the dentist’s office, photographs of government buildings at City Hall. —You’re sure Ira Katz isn’t in today? It’s pretty important, actually.”

  She looked up from the license to his face. “I could give you his number at home, if you like.”

  “Yes, good. Good idea. Maybe I could borrow your phone for a minute.”

  She flipped through a file, reached for a slip of paper, and wrote down Ira’s number. “Here,” she said, “I’ll dial, if you like.” She lifted the receiver and, without listening for the dial tone, began to dial. When she was finished she handed the phone to Craine. “I hope it’s not trouble,” she said.

  He gave her a vague headshake and listened. The phone rang and rang. Nothing. “Anyplace else he might be?” Craine asked.

  The secretary at the desk nearest the door said, “You might try the computer center.”

  The girl in the wig, Janet, nodded thoughtfully, pressed down the receiver button, and began to dial again. Behind and to the left of her an office door opened and a white-haired man looked out, concerned. He gave Craine a little nod, at the same time sliding off his glasses. Craine returned the nod, then looked down at the secretary’s dialing finger, carefully showing no expression, struggling to get his mind crystal clear. Had the man been listening? Was Ira in trouble with the department? He cleared his throat.

  The secretary held up the receiver. “It’s ringing,” she said.

  As soon as he had it at his ear, a voice said, “Computer center.”

  “Hello,” Craine said. “Tell me, is Professor Ira Katz there, by any chance?”

  There was a pause. “One moment please.” Half a minute later she was back. He wasn’t there.

  Craine hung up, and glanced at the secretary. “No luck,” he said. He drew his hand back and pushed it down into his overcoat pocket. “Tell me,” he said, “what does Ira Katz have to do with computers? I thought he was a poet.” He shot a furtive look at the man with white hair.

  “Excuse me,” the man said, suddenly smiling, “perhaps I can be of help. You’re Detective Craine?”

  “I am,” Craine said. It crossed his mind that he sounded like a man in a Victorian novel. The man in white hair would appreciate that; he might well be one of the few people in Carbondale who would notice. Perhaps. Craine glanced at the man’s face again, then down at his belt buckle. It said, “Colt 45.” Craine sighed.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” the man said, coming toward him, sticking out his huge, clean hand. “Ira’s mentioned you. You’re neighbors, I think? Come in!” He had a grin like a baseball star.

  Uneasy, against his will, Craine shook the man’s hand. When the man put his other hand gently on Craine’s back, Craine went into the office with him. Softly, the man closed the door.

  “I’m Wendel Davies,” he said, “chairman of the English Department.” He gave a laugh and waved Craine toward a chair. “Sit down,” he said, “make yourself at home!” He laughed again, perfect teeth flashing, then went around, sat behind his desk, and put his feet up. He wore Wallabees. “So!” he said.

  Craine studied him, lips pursed, then got his pipe out. The man sat motionless, smiling, his head thrown back. Craine nodded. He knew the type. Professor Davies was a watcher and waiter, true-born aristocrat of bureaucrats. He could sit there warmheartedly smiling all day, playing no cards, pretending time had stopped, waiting for the sweat to break out on his opponent’s forehead. Craine found his matches, lit the pipe, blew smoke out. “So you’ve heard of me,” he said.

  Davies waved his hand, dismissive, then froze again, still smiling, delighted to be alive.

  “Excuse me,” Craine said, and pointed the stem of his pipe at the man, “you invited me in here. If all you mean to do is just sit there grinning—”

  Nothing could have prepared him for the man’s look of shock—preposterous embarrassment like a child’s. He blushed beet red and fell forward in his chair, his boyish face twisted to the expression of a man about to tumble from a cliff. “My gosh!” he began.

  “Now wait a minute,” Craine said, “I don’t mean to suggest—”

  The man was flailing, trying to recover himself, pushing a small stack of papers away, picking up a pencil, setting it down again. “Crazy!” Craine whispered to himself, squinting in astonishment. It was a judgment he was increasingly forced to, these days. Everybody, everywhere, crazy.

  “Now listen,” Craine said, “what’s going on here?” He raised both hands. “Take it easy, take it easy!”

  Now the chairman of the Department of English was
laughing, one hand over his face. He was gradually regaining control.

  “I startled you, is that it?” Craine asked. He leaned forward and put both hands flat on the desk. He strained his wits, studying the blush. “Ira Katz has mentioned me, you say,” he said. “I see. So you’re friends with him. Good! He’s a good man, I’m glad to see he’s friends with the boss.” He snapped his fingers as the pieces fell together—the secretary’s alarm when he’d showed her the license, her eagerness to help, then the chairman’s stepping in. Did they know about Ira and the woman named April? No doubt they’d seen the paper, or heard a newscast, knew she was dead.

  Professor Davies shook his head, smiling again, ghastly. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said.

  Instantly Craine’s eyes hooded a little, all his wits on guard.

  “I meant to sort of. … see what you had in mind,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to think …” He dropped it, embarrassed. “We’re all very fond of Ira Katz around here. We’re a close group, this English Department. That might surprise you. We’re one of the largest, most powerful departments on the campus, but even so …”

  “Sounds like good leadership,” Craine said, smiling so that his teeth showed, testing.

  The professor hurriedly waved it away. It was probably true, Craine mused, that Davies was good at what he did. Good-looking man, boyish for all his sixty-some years and snow-white hair. Big, easy smile, broad shoulders, eyes of a man who liked to work out in the open, as no doubt he usually did; maybe that was why he’d reacted so extremely when Craine had nailed him. Also maybe not.

  Now the professor was steadily meeting Craine’s eyes, his expression troubled. “You’re his neighbor, more or less his friend,” he said, “so I guess I may as well come out with it.” The eyes moved away, gazing past Craine’s ear. “I was afraid we’d find the murder of that poor young woman would have something to do with Ira.” He picked up the pencil again and with both hands nervously played with it. “As you know, there’s been a great deal of trouble in his life—another casualty of the marriage wars, and in the middle of all that his mother’s death—” He glanced up, blushed again. “All right,” he said, “I guess you caught me out. I was never a good faker. It’s characteristic of people in my profession, you’ll find—English professors. A certain childlike quality in all of us, or so it seems to me—never properly grew up.” He gave a sharp classroom laugh, ironic, and abruptly pushed back his desk chair and swivelled to the left as if thinking of rising; but he changed his mind. He tapped on the desk top with the tip of the pencil in his right hand and continued, “I take it you weren’t personally acquainted with the girl?”

  “Not really,” Craine said.

  Now Professor Davies did rise, still playing with the pencil, and crossed to the window, where he stood looking out. He fell silent for a moment, and Craine resisted pushing him, merely glancing over the objects on Davies’ desk. A few blue exam booklets—so chairmen taught courses, he reflected, surprised—an anthology of American literature, a dictionary, two or three official-looking letters, meticulously stacked, ball-point pen, small appointment calendar still on yesterday’s date, October 13, every hour on it filled in up to 7 P.M., where someone had scrawled—no doubt Davies himself —club meeting. Odd, if his schedule was so busy, that he hadn’t turned the page, Craine mused. Odd that there was no one out there waiting to get in. No doubt some days were busier than others, he thought. He glanced at his watch, then checked the clock on the wall. They agreed, half past eleven. That too seemed odd, though he couldn’t think why.

  “It’s a shame what Ira does at the computer center,” Professor Davies said. “I’m afraid he’s been working on concordances. You’ll say it’s a terrible waste of time for a man with a talent like Ira’s, and I guess I’d agree with you, but universities are peculiar places, not always enlightened. Tenure committees—” He gave a little shrug, glanced at Craine, then looked back out the window. “Ira can be difficult. I don’t say I blame him, I’m just telling you the facts. He refuses to write critical articles or work on a scholarly book—those are the kinds of things tenure committees like—not that such things are beyond his capabilities; he’s an excellent teacher, a really brilliant critic—at least that’s the report I get. I could show you his files. But he ‘prefers not to,’ as Bartleby would say.” He glanced at Craine. “Bartleby the Scrivener—story by Melville.”

  Craine waited.

  Professor Davies looked down. “Never mind. As I say, he won’t do what the committee wants, though he could if he would. With a little arm-twisting—on my part, mostly—he was persuaded to begin a computer concordance. That, it seems, doesn’t too much interfere with the flow of his poetic spirit.” He studied the pencil, which he held now by the point and the eraser, between his two index fingers. His smile was slightly rueful, perhaps apologetic, aware that he’d let a touch of irony creep in. “It’s turned out very strangely, I must say. An extremely self-destructive young man. But that’s not relevant just now.”

  Craine waved his pipe, stopping him. “What do you mean, ‘strangely,’ ” he said.

  Davies cleared his throat, sorry he’d brought it up. “Well you see,” he said, “the original idea—my idea, that is—was relatively simple. Do a concordance, a kind of word list or index with line numbers, and so on—of the work of some relatively important modern poet—Ashbery, Ammons, Anne Sexton, or whoever—bring it out through some respectable university press … It might be bullshit, granted, but it’s the kind of thing university committees understand. That’s what I thought he was doing all this time, but it seems I was mistaken.” He sighed, then again glanced at Craine and smiled. “He’s been doing—or trying to do—a concordance of all ‘serious’ American poetry published since January 1970.”

  Craine thought about it. Hundreds of books and magazines? Thousands? Tentatively, he said, “That’s insane.”

  Davies smiled, meeting his eyes. “You’re telling me!” He came back to the desk, put the pencil down, and laid his hand on the back of the desk chair, as if thinking of sitting down. “But they love him over at the computer center. Not just because of the programmer time, or the absolutely incredible budget for printout. They like the idea. Philosophically.”

  Craine puffed at his pipe, trying to get it going, and waited for Davies to explain.

  “You see, what they’re after—Ira Katz and his mad mathematical friends—is a picture of the whole American reality, that is, mental reality. If you assume we don’t live in the world but only in the world as we have words for it—”

  Craine raised his pipe. “I see,” he said. A tingle went through his brain.

  Davies nodded. “No doubt it’s a wonderful idea; I’m no philosopher. But I can tell you one thing: it will never get him tenure. Ten years—more like fifty—maybe by then he’d get something he could publish. Meanwhile, he’ll be long gone from here. Don’t think he doesn’t know it.”

  Craine nodded, thoughtful. “I take it you’ve got some idea why he’s doing it.”

  Davies nodded. “I think so. Partly, of course, it’s because he believes it’s a good idea, maybe a brilliant idea. One should never underestimate the seriousness of these young intellectuals. Tenure’s the least of what they’ll sacrifice in the name of their convictions. He’s a poet, after all. Poets—even relatively bad ones, and Ira’s not that, I think—poets have an almost frightening tenacity, not unlike hard scientists or mathematicians. They’ll work days, weeks, months to get one small detail just right by their own private judgment.”

  “Autumn, clear as the eyes of chickens,” Craine said.

  Davies glanced at him, decided to let it pass. “Yes, something like that,” he said. “Everything in a poem—rhymes, rhythms, line breaks, every slightest little technical trifle—aims at one single thing, saying exactly and precisely what you mean, intellectually and emotionally. Choose a slightly wrong word, let in the slightest distracting assonance, even indent a given line too far, and
you change the whole meaning—disastrously! Believe me, it takes a madman—I mean in Plato’s sense—to write poetry. What I’m saying may not hold for every poet—I’d say it doesn’t hold for Robert Duncan, for instance—well-known poet in San Francisco—but it’s true, I think, for Ira Katz and for many others like him. He gets an intuition and he follows it out; nothing on earth can stop him, all ordinary human considerations are forgotten—family considerations, anything you can name—he follows it out with the ferocious concentration of a maniac, or a cat at a mouse hole, follows it till he gets it—or it kills him.”

  “You admire him a good deal,” Craine said.

  “I envy the son of a bitch, that’s the truth of it.” He did not smile. “So anyway, put a mind like that on this crazy computer idea and you can predict what will happen.” Now he did smile, shaking his head. “And then, of course, there’s the social-psychological component.”

  Craine waited.

  “It’s a natural alliance, poet with an idea, metaphysical idea, and a group of first-rate computer mathematicians. They’re already half persuaded that the world’s all symbols. They encourage him, and he’s flattered. You know how it is with these literary types. They’re impressed by a man who can add nine and seventeen. They’re a class above him, always have been. When he got C’s in algebra, they got easy A’s, though in every subject he was always very smart. When they talk over coffee, he’s lost most of the time—yet they look up to him, they respect him. Compare what he gets in the English Department. We deal—just between you and me, Mr. Craine—with dead poets, the kind that don’t ever say ‘That’s not what I meant!’ Here Katz is, three books out and a collection of small prizes, and his fellow teachers of freshman comp and sophomore lit can’t make sense of what he writes, don’t even read him—don’t read anybody, just Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter again and again, and write articles on ‘Hawthorne and Alchemy,’ for which they get promoted, as Katz does not. It could make a man bitter, if that were his natural inclination. Ira’s not the bitter type, needless to say. But by degrees he pays less and less attention to his colleagues, occasionally lets a little slur slip out—to a student, or some friend—and it gets back, in time. These people, you understand, are the people that get to vote on his significance to the department. I don’t mean to say they’re mean or small-minded—not at all. We have a top-notch department, some outstanding scholars. But he makes himself an unknown quantity, if you see what I mean. Take Professor Schaffer, eighteenth-century specialist. He doesn’t read Ira or any other modern poet, though he’s a very good man, we were lucky to grab him. Taught at Columbia, then Princeton. Three fat books with the Oxford University Press. Kind man, beloved. Ira Katz meets Schaffer in the hall, doesn’t even know he works for us! Wilbur T. Schaffer! One of the three biggest names in the field. You see the problem, Mr. Craine.