Passion Play

by W. Edward Blain

  Multiple sclerosis.

  “The odd thing is that I feel better,” she had said. “I’m stronger, and I can walk better. My vision is clearing. I thought I was getting well.”

  Ben had held her hand and had said nothing.

  She was going to see a doctor in Washington next week for a second opinion, but she was already letting the news settle into her life, like a dye into cloth. Dr. Manning had been nice about explaining the disease. He had suspected it when she had reported her first episodes last summer, but the diagnosis depended largely on eliminating other possibilities. The good news was that she did not appear to have the type of MS that ran its course quickly. In these early stages, especially, she could look forward to remissions. There could be times when she felt well and could certainly go back to her work. Finish her dissertation? Absolutely. Play Desdemona? Of course, if she felt like it.

  It was the later part that he had played down, that she and Ben had avoided discussing themselves. The doctor said there were all kinds of new treatments involving diet and water therapy. It was not at all a bleak prognosis, he suggested. But bleakly was how the Wardens had reacted. It could take as few as five years or as many as thirty, but eventually she was likely to become more and more debilitated, less and less able to move or to speak, and she would very slowly die.

  She should not be dwelling on the future. It was 8:00 on Friday evening, and she lay in her own roomy, comfortable bed. She stared at the digits on the face of the alarm clock across the room and realized that she was seeing clearly. Her double vision was gone. She cautiously emerged from bed. Yes, the eyesight was clear. Her left ankle was still a bit shaky, but it, too, was improved. She wanted so much to believe that it had all been a mistaken diagnosis, that she was actually well, and that the aberration of the last week would not visit her again. She could not do it, though. As much as her heart wanted to pop champagne corks and toss confetti, her head stood sternly by to remind her that she was suffering from a devious, unpredictable disease. She was sick with multiple sclerosis. There was no cure.

  And the facts made tonight that much more precious to her. The poisons in her system had lost their power for the moment. It was low tide. She slipped out of her cotton nightgown and into some jeans and a tee shirt. She was twenty-three years old, and she felt good. She liked the feel of the jeans against her bare skin, liked the unrestraining T-shirt. The instant after she pulled it on, she wanted to pull it off again. She was doused in desire to make love to Benjamin Warden, who sat and wrote in the study next door.

  Ben was working on a poem. He had been working on it since Wednesday, and it was giving him trouble. He was struggling to fit the information into the fourteen lines of a sonnet. Cynthia had known better than to ask why it had to be a sonnet. Ben was no more free to manipulate the shape and the structure of a poem than a mapmaker was to change the contours of a landscape. Ben had told her more than once that revising his work was just a matter of listening for the finished version of a poem, the version that had existed all along.

  The building was quiet. The boys were studying in their rooms. She walked out of their bedroom to peek into Ben’s study and saw him facing away from her, leaning back in his swivel chair and reading a piece of typed paper. That was good. Perhaps he was finished. If he were in the middle of a problem, he would be hunched over the keyboard or pacing.

  In a moment she would interrupt him, but just for now she took in the pleasure of observing him. He was twelve years older than she, but he was still so much like a boy. She loved to look at his shoulders, at the shape of his dark hair on the back of his neck, at the long lobes of his ears, at the way he sat back and still kept his feet propped up on their toes. He might have been eighteen years old from the back. And from the front he was many ages at once. The crimson blotch down the side of his face gave him the aspect of a hideous demon, one of Satan’s minions that had plagued the earth for centuries. It was his eyes and the kindness of the other side of his face, however, that redeemed his appearance. He was so loving, so kind. She thought of his birthmark as a mask that had not yet crumbled entirely away. It was, to her, a lovely metaphor for the body and the soul—the ugly physical shell beneath which dwelt the splendid countenance of love.

  She did love him. She wished he would simply relax into her love for him instead of listening to the doubts that attacked him like viruses from time to time. This latest crush on her from Dan Farnham was no more serious to her than a third-former’s would have been. But it was anguish to Ben.

  Was it fair to interrupt him now? Perhaps she should resume her own work. Cynthia had a study of her own, but whereas Ben’s was messy with unanswered letters, stacks of papers, open books on the desk and on the chairs and on the floor, hers was tidy and even dusty. His was a working study; hers was a museum. She would let herself rest through another weekend, and then she would return to her work. She needed to pick up her research again. But later. Tonight she sought other satisfactions.

  “Are you at a good stopping place?” she asked from the doorway.

  He swiveled to face her. “You’re up,” he said. “I heard nothing.”

  “You were with the virgin at the homecoming bonfire,” she said. “I should be jealous.”

  “You should not,” he said. “The virgin is a bit too dense, I fear.”

  “Let me see.”

  “Can you?”

  She told him that her vision had cleared. He waved the paper toward her, and she came forward to take it. She read:

  THE VIRGIN ALONE AT THE HOMECOMING BONFIRE

  The pagans knew a thing or two of fire.

  (I’m not about to make a study list

  Of functions: heat, light, cleanliness. Let’s kiss

  The lesson plans goodbye for half an hour.)

  I mean more primitive matters still:

  The way it flickers, seduces the eye,

  Pumps sparks deep into the hard night sky,

  Bonds us together, obviates my chill.

  It’s life, they said, that elemental heat

  (Combined with earth, with air, with wetness) makes.

  We celebrate that life-heat now. It aches.

  The sparks spill past the stars, die at my feet.

  Why am I bitter? Here’s a cryptic hint:

  The hottest fire springs from the coldest flint.

  “You’ve got some syntax problems,” said Cynthia.

  “Yes,” said Warden. “How do you read the situation?”

  “She’s a frustrated old maid,” she said. “Not that old an old maid, but never married. And she teaches, and she’s attending the homecoming bonfire, and she’s bitter because she seeks sexual fulfillment, and she can’t have it.”

  Warden smiled. “That’s very good,” he said. “You don’t think I need to put some lively teenagers in there anywhere? Cheerleaders with their skirts flying up, strapping football players with bulging crotches?”

  “It’s very sexy now,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  He stood up and held her to him.

  “Leave the lights on,” she said. “Just pull down the shades.”

  Instead he dropped to his knees, lifted her tee shirt and kissed her midsection. She felt a surge of heat and slid down onto the carpet with him. She pulled at his shirt. He unbuttoned her jeans.

  “ls this wise?” she giggled. She did not stop what she was doing.

  “No,” he said. “I love you.”

  “Love you,” she said. She was kicking now to get the jeans off when they heard the door to their apartment slam downstairs. “Mr. Warden?” came the voice from the living room. It was a student. She froze.

  “What?” called Ben. His voice was shaky.

  “It’s Robert Staines,” came the voice. “I was wondering if I could ask you about the grade on this poem.”

  “Hell,” said Ben. “What’s he doing off his dorm during study hall?”

  “We should have known better,” she said.

 
; “Mr. Warden? Is it okay?”

  Ben was sitting up and tucking in his shirt. “I can’t come downstairs right now, Robert,” he called.

  “No problem,” came the voice. “I’ll be right up.”

  “No!” they both shouted at once, but it was too late. He was Robert Staines, star athlete, and he took the stairs three at a time. Cynthia was struggling to pull her jeans back on and to hide her most private parts behind Ben on the floor when he saw them.

  “Oh. Mr. Warden. Mrs. Warden.”

  “Go downstairs, Robert,” said Ben.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Leave the apartment.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do not interrupt my wife’s physical therapy exercises again.”

  “Yes sir. I’m really sorry, Mr. Warden.”

  “Just leave now. I will meet you in the common room.”

  Robert Staines left even faster than he had appeared.

  Cynthia lay on the floor and laughed. She had never felt so humiliated.

  “I will never, never set foot in the dining hall again,” she said. “I will never be seen on this campus by anyone ever again.”

  “That bastard came charging up here deliberately,” said Ben.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” said Ben. “I know that boy. He’s devious.”

  “‘Physical therapy lessons’? Do you think he’ll believe it?” Cynthia laughed helplessly at how awful it all was.

  Warden started to laugh with her.

  “It was our own fault for acting so impulsively,” Cynthia said. “I’d just like to die right now, that’s the only problem.”

  Warden stood up and finished tucking in his shirt.

  “Mr. Staines is going to wish he were dead after I finish talking with him,” he said. “He’s supposed to be studying in his room, not traveling around the campus. And not by himself.”

  “Don’t be too long with him,” said Cynthia. “Walk him back to his building and then hie thee hither.”

  “You’re awfully forgiving this evening.”

  “Not at all,” she said. “I just want to finish my therapy.”

  SCENE 16

  The number rang eight times before somebody answered.

  “McBain House.”

  “Is Hesta Mccorkindale there, please?”

  “No, Thomas, she’s in the library. Some people are serious about their studies, you know.”

  “Hi, Susie.” He hadn’t recognized her voice. It was Susie Boardman, Hesta’s roommate.

  “She’s going to be so angry when she finds out you called and she missed you.” Susie had this funny voice, clipped and sort of British-sounding. Hesta said she was hyperintelligent. Thomas had never met Susie face-to-face; they were telephone acquaintances.

  “What time is she getting here tomorrow?”

  “Dinner, I suppose. Isn’t that when the bus is to arrive?”

  “Yeah,” said Thomas, “but can she get a ride earlier?”

  “Sorry about that. She’s got a swim meet.”

  Damn. Thomas had forgotten about her swim meet.

  “You can entertain me until she gets there,” said Susie.

  Then she laughed, but Thomas felt a pleasant stirring. What was he, some rock star or something? All these women seemed to crave his body.

  He had one distasteful chore to perform. Was Staines still expecting him to arrange a date for him? And should he? Wouldn’t he be acting like a hypocrite, arranging a date for the guy he had just turned over to the councilmen for an honor violation? On the other hand, if Staines got acquitted, wouldn’t setting him up with a date show that Thomas had no personal grudge against him?

  “Susie?”

  “Yes?” she said, in her mock operator voice.

  “Do you know Katrina Olson?”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “This guy I know at school wants to go out with her.”

  “It’s too late,” said Susie. “She’s got a date with all of the Washington Redskins.”

  “That’s fine,” said Thomas. At least he had tried.

  “I’m kidding,” said Susie. “Actually, she’s going to be down at the mixer this weekend with Stud-of-All-Studs Robert Staines.”

  “What?”

  “He called her last night. You should have heard what she promised to do to him. Such a nasty, nasty girl.”

  “He was the one that wanted to go out with her,” said Thomas.

  “He got his wish,” said Susie.

  “Yeah,” said Thomas. “And he’ll probably get herpes on Saturday.”

  Susie giggled. They hung up the telephone anticipating a memorable weekend.

  Susie thought about what she would wear. Thomas thought about what he would try.

  SCENE 17

  Thomas had thought his morning classes were dull, but they were nothing compared to having to sit and listen to Robert Staines at the training meal on Saturday morning.

  “You should see her thighs,” he said for the fifth time. “The thighs are perfect. And you should see her smooth stomach muscles.”

  It was 11:30 on game day. The twelve guys on the basketball team were eating roast beef on bread with gravy, mashed potatoes, and canned peas. It was the meal every athletic team at Montpelier ate before a game. They would play at 2:00 today. The varsity would play afterward at 3:30. Thomas was nervous. It was their first game of the season. Coach McPhee had told him that he wouldn’t be starting but that he’d probably play a lot. He had taken maybe two bites of roast beef and had stirred the gravy around in his potatoes, but he couldn’t remember what it was like to be hungry. He just wanted the game to get here. And now Staines was telling the same story about catching Mr. and Mrs. Warden in the act last night. It was all getting on Thomas’s nerves.

  “Why’d you go upstairs?” asked Ralph Musgrove.

  “That’s where they were,” said Staines.

  “I never would have gone upstairs in a teacher’s house,” said Ralph.

  “I thought he was alone. Everybody was talking about how Mrs. Warden was in the hospital. So when I heard his voice up there, I just ran up the stairs. You should have seen old Red Label squirming around trying to cover up the old secret spot.”

  “Shut up, Staines,” said Thomas.

  Staines asked what his objection was.

  “Just let somebody else talk for a while, okay?” Thomas wanted to say that he liked the Wardens, that he didn’t like to hear Mr. Warden’s birthmark made fun of, that he didn’t like to hear Mrs. Warden discussed in such vulgar terms. But he couldn’t say all that at the damn lunch table in front of everybody, and he couldn’t sit there and listen to any more of it either.

  “Okay,” said Staines. “Only you seem to be the only one here who’s complaining.”

  Nobody else at the table spoke.

  “You make it sound like Mrs. Warden is a whore,” said Thomas.

  “Let me tell you something about women, Mr. Rogers,” said Staines. “They all want it. You hear all these fairy tales about beautiful princesses saving themselves for the handsome prince who will marry them? That’s bull. They’ll tell you they don’t want it, but they do. And old Red Label was about to deliver the pepperoni when I interrupted.”

  “They’re married,” said Thomas. “You make it sound like animals breeding.”

  “Marriage doesn’t matter,” said Staines. “You think it’s some spiritual experience? My dad’s been married four times. He’s taught me all about women. You know how you daydream about it? Girls dream about it, too. They spend their lives waiting to get popped.”

  “Not all girls are like that,” said Thomas. He wished somebody else at the table would speak up.

  “Maybe the ones you hang around with,” said Staines. “No wonder you’re still a virgin, Boatwright. You hang around with den mothers.”

  Thomas replied that he ought to hang around with Staines’s mother if he wanted to get anywhere.

  Staines lunged for him, and they wou
ld have gotten into a fight right there if Mr. Delaney and two councilmen hadn’t been at the next table.

  Thomas spent the next hour in his dorm room fantasizing about pounding Staines’s face in. Apparently the stupid beanie-brain had forgotten all about the Right Guard episode. Staines thought he was safe. He’d find out differently Sunday night. Thomas was glad the councilmen knew. And even if Staines did get acquitted and did get to stay at school, Thomas could live without the guy’s approval.

  In the locker room nobody said much while they were getting dressed. Coach McPhee reviewed the offense and their starting defense with them, and then it was time to warm up, and then the game started.

  They were playing Albemarle Academy. Thomas got into the game in the second quarter but got yanked for not passing to Staines, who was open on a back-door twice. Coach McPhee was furious at halftime.

  “Man’s open, you pass him the ball,” he said to Thomas in front of the team. The boys sat on the benches in the locker room while the coach paced. “That ball isn’t your private property.”

  “Sorry, Coach.” They were down by three points.

  “Sorry, nothing. You play ball the way we practice it.”

  In the second half Thomas got into the game again. He passed the ball inside to Staines, but the pass never arrived. Albemarle was ready for the back-door play and stole it. Coach McPhee said nothing the first time it happened. The second time he pulled Thomas out again.

  “See me after the game,” he said.

  Staines got hot in the fourth quarter. He hit two shots from outside and stole a pass for a lay-up, and Montpelier was ahead by one with thirty seconds to go. Coach McPhee signaled for the four corners slowdown.

  “Make them foul you,” he yelled. But with fifteen seconds to go, Staines got the ball on the baseline, drove toward the basket, and put up a fifteen-foot jump shot that missed. Albemarle got the rebound and scored at the buzzer. Montpelier lost by a point.

  “I got fouled on that shot,” Staines said in the locker room afterward.

  “You never should have taken it,” said Coach McPhee. “We didn’t play smart ball today, boys. We didn’t use our heads.”

  “If I’d gotten the ball more, we could have won,” said Staines.