Moo

by Smiley, Jane

  “What’s the reaction up there, Sarah?”

  “Well, Steve, most people are shocked, of course, though one student did voice the feelings of many when he said, ‘Wow, you should have seen these old dudes rolling around in the snow and fighting. It blew me away, man!’ ”

  “Thank you, Sarah. We’ll have more on this story as it comes into our newsroom.”

  State Journal, January 31, 1990: “Provost Denies Allegations.”

  Provost Ivar Harstad denied today that the university was sponsoring a gold mine under a rain forest in Peru. Recent allegations by a campus protest group have alerted environmental organizations both inside and outside of the state, who promised to mobilize lobbying efforts to prevent the mining. In a prepared statement, Provost Harstad declared, “This university is not in the mining business. We are in the business of education.” The statement denied the allegation that a university-sponsored report had promoted such mining. “While individual faculty members may be hired as consultants by certain corporations, the university itself does not act in such a capacity. We have no interests in Peru, India, China, or anywhere else in the Third World.”

  Noticias Mercurios de San José, 1 de febrero, 1990.

  Hoy, en una acción no esperada, el senador Hector Salazar retractó las acusaciones de soborno que hizo hace diez dias en la Asemblea Nacional. En un comentario preparado, el senador Salazar dijo que había estado mal informado por sus fuentes sobre el origen de las fotos que el había enseñado y de las figuras que identificó en el 19 de enero como el secretario del estado Oscar Montez y Juan Molina, un abogado de San José y hermano del presidente Roberto Molina. El senador Salazar se negó a responder a preguntas después de su corto comentario, pero un miembro de su gabinete, Ana Guzman, luego dijo a periodistas que las fotografías aparecen ser fotos fijas de una película de Hollywood filmada en Costa Rica el otoño pasado. “Cualquier persona puede estar mal informado,” dijo ella.

  Miembros del partido de la Democracia Social se levantaron en sus pies demandando que el senador Salazar y los oficiales del partido de la Victoria se desculparan, pero el senador Salazar dejó la cámara inmediatamente después de que leyó su comentario.

  El presidente Molina después expresó satisfacción que la crisis reciente parecía haber pasado. “Nuestra dedicación a la paz y al gobierno honesto nunca ha fallado,” dijo. Cuando los periodistas le preguntaron sobre qué piensa del hecho que los habían confundido a su hermano y al secretario del estado por los actores norteamericanos Mel Gibson y Dennis Quaid, el presidente Molina dijo, “¡El fotógrafo tenía que estar usando unos lentes muy, muy largos!”

  State Journal, February 5, 1990: “Governor Proposes Cuts.”

  In a memorandum to the state board of regents today, Governor Orville T. Early proposed another round of cuts in state support of education. The governor said that he would press for a reversion of $5 million from the budget of the state university. In order to fund the reversion, he suggested that the university administration “fire all those bozos up there who are getting the sons and daughters of the people of this state stirred up. That’s what the people of this state want and that’s what they are going to get.” When asked whether the budget reversion was designed to be a punitive one, in light of recent protests on the campus, Governor Early said, “You bet.”

  60

  Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

  MARLY, who had finished her shift after lunch and gone home without passing Lafayette Hall, was just waking up from a long nap when Nils called her from the emergency room at the hospital. She looked at her watch as she answered. It was nearly seven and she had slept through Father’s suppertime. Where was Father, anyway? She picked up the phone on the fourth ring after calling out, “Father? Father? You here?” and receiving no answer. Rooms were dark.

  “… pick me up because Ivar is all involved with the police,” said Nils.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, my dear, you’ll be happy to know that my injuries seem to be very slight, although I am sure that there will be neck problems later on. And I am going to press charges against that little man—”

  “Nils, I’ve been asleep, so I really don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “This sort of thing is at the root of our social ills, in my opinion. I don’t think anyone could accuse me of being a vindictive man, and I can truly say that I don’t feel any anger at the person, only at the act—”

  “What act?”

  Shortly thereafter, Marly Hellmich realized that she had missed the only exciting thing to happen in this town in her lifetime.

  Nils was waiting, his coat buttoned, his hat on, and his leather gloves in his hand, in the chair closest to the door of the emergency entrance, so that as soon as Marly walked in, she saw him. That is, before she had prepared herself to see him. He stood up with a courtly smile, saying, “There you are, my dear.”

  Two of his fingers were taped together and he had a circular white bandage attached to his forehead. He put his hand on her shoulder. He looked, even more than usual, as if he had had his throat slit, been turned upside down, and drained of blood. “Not too fast,” he said as she led him to her car.

  “Nils, are you really all right? You look terrible.”

  “It has been a trial, my dear. Did you see me on the local news? I know I was on KCOM, but only for a split second, as they were carrying me off the field. Would you mind opening the door, my dear? I am just so very stiff.”

  As he got into the car, his muffler slipped down, and she saw the bruises around his neck, standing out violet against the deathly pale flesh. She looked away.

  As she pushed the key into the ignition, she said, “Who in the world attacked you, Nils?”

  He drew himself up with a groan. “A very unimportant little man, my dear, that chairman of the horticulture department. He is a madman, in my opinion, a regular Luddite. I’ve been patient with him for years, turning my cheek week after week to one insult after another. Well.” Nils’ voice went very soft, and Marly strained to hear it. “He. Is. In. Deep. Shit. This. Time.” Marly gave out a bark of laughter, but Nils pretended not to hear her.

  She drove carefully, slowing for yellow lights, looking for oncoming cars at stop signs as if they might pop into sight without warning from another dimension and crash right into her. Perhaps she was still disoriented from her nap, Marly thought.

  Nils said, “The accusations he made against me were highly unwarranted. The coca plant isn’t even grown in Ceylon, as far as I know! It is not criminal to plant corn in Asia …” His voice trailed off.

  Marly didn’t answer, a victim of her own guilty conscience. Hadn’t this man, her husband-to-be, treated her from the first moment with kindness and generosity? Hadn’t he taken her as he found her, accepted Father and all the rest of her crazy family, spent money on her, promised to spend more? In some way, that hurt her the most, that he had bought her clothes and pieces of jewelry, that he had bought her father a Lane recliner, deprecating the gift with the remark that it would fit nicely with the furniture in the big brick house. Father used that recliner all the time now, sat right down in it, swinging his rear from side to side and screwing his shoulders into the luxuriously padded chair back, finding all the comfort there was to find. Nils’ fiscal surplus and her lifelong deprivation had seemed to her from the first like tab A and slot B—a perfect fit—but now as she drove carefully along, his gifts struck her as poignant.

  Her sympathies lay with his attacker, not with him. Without even knowing the other man’s motive, Marly could supply one of her own. There he had been (she imagined), standing on the sidewalk, and here came Nils Harstad, pale and bustling and self-important, and he had just wanted to. That was all. He had felt his hands clench into fists and his body tense. Nils could provoke that. He could make you just want to punch him or strangle him or trip him. As Nils came along the sidewalk, his feet turned out, his face wide and bland, the wanting had grown unbearable, the han
ds had risen of themselves, a throttling had commenced.

  It was reassuring in a way, because it made her same desires not so much her fault after all.

  They pulled up at his big brick house. He opened his door, but she did not touch hers. He said, “Do come in, my dear. Ivar isn’t home, and it would be sweet to feel your gentle touch on my fevered brow.”

  Marly sat still.

  “I will tell you all about it.”

  “Really, Nils. Really. I haven’t made Father his supper yet. You know how he is. Maybe I’ll come back later. You’ll be all right, I bet.”

  After a long quiet moment, Nils pushed the squeaky door on his side all the way open (not like the door of the Lincoln, which practically opened itself, heavy as it was) and hoisted himself out with a little groan. Marly sat curled over the steering wheel. When, almost to the door, he turned, she gave him a big wave and a bright smile.

  IVAR LAY on Helen’s couch, listening to Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante on the CD player. He couldn’t see anything, though, because Helen had placed an extremely fragrant warm cloth over his face. Now she was in the kitchen, making some little delicious thing to eat, something to revive him before he had to get back to his office for a meeting with the president.

  Ivar understood his position perfectly, and more than that, he accepted it as his office. The university had become a broad, bare field in the center of which he stood alone, while everyone else covered their heads and fled. His job was to stand there, smiling, pretending that everything was fine, while sniper fire from the press, the regents, the legislature, the governor’s office, the faculty senate, and the parents of students ricocheted all around him. He had to keep smiling and use certain words, “concerned,” “situation,” “of course,” over and over again. Other, truer words and phrases ran through his head. “Fall guy” was one.

  He heard steps, then Helen said, “Why don’t we just eat right here at the coffee table?”

  Ivar removed the cloth from his face. There she was above him, smiling, a plate in each hand. When he sat up, he saw that there was a triangle of pizza on his plate, no banal wedge of pepperoni and cheese, but a collage of sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, feta, walnuts, roasted garlic cloves, and fresh basil giving off the most delicate column of fragrant steam.

  She sat down and set his plate in front of him. She said, “Did you reach the doctor?”

  “Oh, yes, and Nils, too. The doctor says there’s nothing to worry about, and Nils is spending the evening with Marly, so I think we’re fine on that front.”

  “What about, you know, the Chairman?”

  “Nils is not going to be arrested. At least four witnesses say that Nils was already ten feet away from him when X slipped on the ice and fell, and that it was cracking the back of his head on the wall of the fountain there that knocked him unconscious. And he was the attacker. Everyone is agreed on that.”

  “Elaine is at home. She’s got a lump over her eye, but they didn’t think she needed to be kept under observation since she never lost consciousness. I said I would go over there later.”

  In fact, Ivar was angry at all three of them, not especially for anything they had done, just for who they were: a man easily provoked, a man often provoking, and a woman who enjoyed it when all eyes were upon her. He bit off the tip of his piece of pizza. Anchovies, too. He chewed appreciatively. He said, “No students hurt, thank God. What a nightmare that would be.” He ate another bite, watching Helen lift her glass of Lambrusco (given the meeting and who the president was, a Friend of Bill who considered AA the crossroads of America and the greatest fund-raising network in the world, he had decided to have mineral water himself), and said, “What if I have to go back to the physics department?”

  “What goes up must come down, Ivar.”

  “I’d have to study up just to teach introductory physics now. I’m that far behind.”

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

  “You know, I was very romantic about physics when I first started. I came in through astronomy and the big bang theory, but actually, I was more drawn to the steady state theory. Studying physics was my method of contemplation. All through college and grad school, I put myself to sleep every night by imagining that the universe was inside my head, so vast and silent. I could lie there with my eyes closed and contemplate the universal darkness or, if I was in a different mood, I could contemplate the random scatterings of light. Darkness or light. Darkness THEN light. It worked. Every night I eased off into perfect rest, and slept eight productive hours. That was the point. I wasn’t like some of the others, who really got excited devising experiments or arguing about strong force and weak force. Apart from getting to sleep, my only real interest was how Oppenheimer got all those warring personalities to live together in the desert. I didn’t know a single other physicist who wasn’t bored by just the idea of personality. I think that I’ve loved being an administrator after all.” He sighed.

  “Would you like another piece?” said Helen. “It’s nearly eight.”

  “Let’s get married,” he said. He saw that she could not help looking shocked at this, so he pressed on. “Let’s get married in spite of the fact that we aren’t the marrying kind, even though I’m asking you at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons. I want to marry out of fear and for security, and because Nils is getting married! I want to live here because Marly and Father are invading my space, so I want to invade yours! I’m getting old and I feel alone and I want to feel less alone!”

  Helen got up and went to the closet. She returned with his coat. She seemed to have retreated light-years.

  He looked up at her and said, “Our getting married can’t be justified by reason or convention. We’re happy the way we are. Our relationship is satisfying to both of us just the way it is. There’s no reason it can’t go on like this for the rest of our lives. We would like it if it did. But, Helen—”

  He finished the last bite of pizza and stood up, wiping his mouth on his napkin. She helped him into his coat as if, he thought, she was hardly in the room.

  “—Helen, I want to. I want to get married. To you, that is. I want to get married to you!”

  “Ivar—” She walked him to the door.

  “Say yes just for now, for all the wrong reasons and at exactly the wrong time. Just for now. Let the word ‘yes’ cross your lips.”

  She said, “Yes.”

  He opened the door and walked out onto the stoop, not daring to look at her. He went down the steps to the sidewalk. His car, he thought, would be cold and unwelcoming. He wanted her to call him back one time, just once.

  Then, behind him, she shouted, “Careful on the ice and don’t let them fire Mrs. Walker!”

  BETH HADN’T BEEN sure of the exact hospital protocol for ex-wives who weren’t really married to their husbands even though everyone they knew thought they were, who had four children with said non-husbands, but whose children were not speaking to their father because he-had-taken-up-with-a-younger-woman even though according to the terms of their nonmarital compact that no one knew about, outside sexual liaisons were encouraged, at least in theory, in order to subvert the capitalist tradition of marriage as a property relationship and the consequent intrusion of the corporation into private life. On a simpler level, Beth did not know whether X would want her there when he regained consciousness. On the other hand, he would not know whether he wanted her there, either, because he was so in the habit of mistrusting his desires that he never consulted them if he could possibly avoid it. The children, who had been there for about an hour and were now at home with a baby-sitter, were no help. Their notions of protocol did not, to begin with, include having a father who instigated political actions in front of university administration buildings. Beth had been in the room for a while. He was still unconscious, though the doctors said that he seemed to be mostly fine. His CAT scan showed a little swelling at the site of the injury, but no underlying damage. They implied, without saying so, t
hat he chose to be unconscious. Her comment, also implied, was “Well, I wouldn’t put that past him.” Now she was in the vestibule of the front entrance, having a cigarette, her first in eight years. The smoke was simultaneously horrible and delicious. Across the parking lot in the darkness, picking her way around the ice, came a woman Beth knew for certain was The Woman.

  Here was a protocol challenge that Beth knew well.

  As the woman approached, Beth gave her the obligatory once-over. Nice boots, nice hat, but it was only twenty degrees out, and this woman was bundled up for twenty below. A hothouse flower. When she opened the door and came into the vestibule, she stopped to stamp her feet, and took off her hat and mittens. Dark hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her hands were pale and graceful and long-fingered. She slipped one of them under her hair and lifted it out of her collar.

  Protocol demanded that Beth give her a meaningful glance, communicating their, well, not relationship, exactly, but their emotional juxtaposition. Beth did not. Instead, she stubbed out her cigarette and followed the woman back into the hospital as if there were no link at all.

  The woman held the elevator for her and, when Beth got on, said pleasantly, “What floor?”

  “Four,” said Beth.

  “Oh,” said the woman. “Me, too. I have a friend who was beaten unconscious in the riot today.”

  “Really?” said Beth.

  The woman teared up. The area around her eyes was so delicate that it reddened at once, as if the skin she had there was the very best, most translucent available skin. She said, “It’s been hard to find out what happened. I was here earlier.”

  Missed you, thought Beth.

  “But he was still unconscious then. People who were there say it was shocking.”

  “Oh, really,” said Beth.

  The woman fell silent. If they really had been strangers visiting different patients, Beth would have offered her story, but she didn’t. The elevator stopped, the door opened, and Beth followed the woman out. Of course, in her deception, she hadn’t reckoned with the nurses’ station. One of the nurses looked up as the elevator dinged and said, “Oh! Mrs. X! We think he’s waking up!” The woman spun around and stared at her.