The Theban Mysteries

by Amanda Cross

  Kate and Reed were speechless. Reed began slowly to grin. Kate glared at him.

  “There is still the problem of telling the school. Miss Tyringham, at any rate,” she said.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Banister agreed. “No doubt I will be bounced.”

  “Well, from her point of view, of course, it does seem that you didn’t have the good of the school at heart in quite the way the Theban expects from its faculty.”

  “Probably I don’t,” Mrs. Banister said frankly. “It’s rather too structured a school for my tastes, anyhow. You don’t think she’ll try to interfere with my finding work elsewhere?”

  “Oh, no, I think that’s most unlikely. I’m not even sure she won’t want you back. When I asked her about her attitude toward a faculty member involved …”

  “Did you suspect me?”

  “Not of providing transport, no. I had come to expect it was at the encounter group that whatever happened happened, but, frankly, I assumed you had been there. Angelica said you hadn’t been with such transparent truthfulness that I dismissed it. But what she said was that you hadn’t been included in the group for the evening. She didn’t say you didn’t come later.”

  “One had to rally round. Well, I’m giving up the motorcycle.”

  “Are you?”

  “Andrew and I have agreed; starting next spring it will be only bicycles and shanks’ mare. Less pollution, less noise, less hurry, and good for the muscles and general health. Thank you for your honesty,” Mrs. Banister said, bouncing into the hall and seizing her helmet.

  “Thank you,” Kate and Reed said, shaking hands as though, Reed said to Kate when she had gone, the visit had been for the purpose of closing a mutually beneficial deal.

  “But it was,” Kate said. She walked to the phone to tell Miss Tyringham that she would have a good deal to report in the morning. Eight o’clock at the Theban? Yes, Kate guessed she could make it.

  “You might as well give me the song program for the shower now,” Kate said. “I’ll be joining you.”

  April sobbed and flirted its way into May. The Theban, a century old, endured. Miss Tyringham talked slightly less of retiring to her cottage in England. Julia spoke as though the curriculum might soon achieve revision. The Antigone seminar argued its way into many wider questions. Mr. Jablon sent Kate a short, noncommittal, unemotional acknowledgment of her efforts.

  Up on the roof, Lily and Rose slept away the days.