Final Exam

by Kluge, P. F.

  “What happened?”

  “What always happens. Change. The president died. The college grew. The village got pretty. Styles changed, not styles in clothing, but styles in people. Not just here, of course. Very little that happens, happens here first. Things took their time coming. But, in the end, they found us. Even here...”

  “What arrived?” Graves asked.

  “Mr. Graves, it would take forever.”

  “Just a few words.”

  “A loss of focus, a restlessness arrived. Ambitions that couldn’t be realized here. A loss of integrity. A loss of identity, almost. An odd combination of complacency and discontent. A pandering to students. Customer is always right or, if wrong, forgiven. The devolution of an educational institution into a faculty-centric user-friendly therapeutic kibbutz. The end of almost all requirements, assembly, attendance, chapel attendance, class attendance. Dress codes, Saturday classes, you name it. An embrace of diversity which, while it enriched, also diluted and divided. What did it come to? In the head a loss of edge, in the heart, a loss of love. That’s what arrived, Mr. Graves. Am I vague? I’ll be more specific. Martha Yeats arrived. Martha Yeats. Are you sure I’m not a suspect?”

  “Yes.” Graves said.

  “Would you tell me if I were?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the fact is, I liked Martha Yeats.”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “Not at all. If you’d been a part of a college all your life, wouldn’t you be curious about what followed you? Wouldn’t you love to take a peek into the future? That’s what I was granted. Hartley Fuller thought it was time for a change. I was out of touch with recent developments in what he loves to call ‘the profession.’ My teaching style didn’t appeal to ‘today’s students.’ Warren Niles agreed it was time for me to go and Martha Yeats was the beginning of the end for me. My class sizes had dwindled, I admit, and there had been complaints. I was harsh, I was sarcastic, I wasn’t sufficiently interested in students’ opinions. I’d become an acquired taste. Hard grading, heavy reading. Oh my. Well, alright, but I got Warren to give me a couple years more. It wasn’t the money. It was pure curiosity. I wanted to be a guest at my own funeral. Now, as it happens, I’ll be attending Martha’s. Well, I was a specimen to her, she to me. There was no contest between us. The issue had been decided, the future was all hers. Time turned me into a local character. Also—in her eyes—an elitist, hegemonic, hierarchical patriarch, way past ripe, outward bound, the bell tolls for thee, old fart, fossil, fogey! But published. More books than the rest of the department combined. There was that. Well, from where I sat the view was delicious. My courses were titled American History 1600 to 1800, 1800 to 1900 and 1900 to present. Martha’s courses were calls to arms, credo, invitations to therapy, things like Bitches, Witches, Snitches: Women in the Middle Ages. I walked into a classroom in a suit, stood behind a lectern, addressed students as mister and miss. Martha was on a first-name basis from day one, teacher and students all in a circle, campfire style. And her office hours! The halls lined with students waiting for an audience, waiting to talk not just about their papers, their unwritten or half-written papers, which she criticized, edited, rewrote, and, I suspect, finished in their presence. No, more than that. She was a mother, a sister, a friend. Every student, I soon learned, began her class with an A. It was theirs to lose. Grades were demeaning, she told them. So, too, it turned out were fraternities, athletic contests, our choice of guest lecturers, the Christian symbols in the college flag, the college songs, our policy on day care, the arrangement of tables in the dining hall, the honorary degrees we awarded. It was around this time that, having become aware of William Butler Yeats’ ‘Leda and the Swan,’ a poem which had escaped her notice until then, Martha decided to differentiate herself from an author who celebrated rape, wings flapping, loins shuddering, all that. So Yeats, rhyming with gates became Yeats, rhyming with beets. The world was alerted to this re-naming, via an all-student, all-employee e-mail. Oh, life was lively with Martha Yeats. And what paradoxes! Committed to the students yet endlessly combative towards the school, indifferent when not hostile to its character, its tradition. An odd position for an historian, no, acting as if the history of the school began on the day of her arrival? As for me, I was her daily reminder of all that was wrong with the place. In my office across from hers... well, it was as if a leper had been wheeled into a maternity ward. And it was that. There were infants a-plenty and many childhood diseases. The homesick and lovesick and lonely and not sure of gender, the about to withdraw, transfer, flunk out, harm themselves, harm others, they all sought her out, all the birds with one wing. I grew accustomed to hearing people crying across the hall. And then, late in her second year, it was Martha crying.

  “I was in my office after a seminar on history-as-literature, three hours in the daunting company of Francis Parkman. Seminars are exhausting. I’d venture a true full three hour seminar is beyond the abilities of half the current faculty. I sat in my office tired, mute, replaying what I’d said and forgotten to say, the inevitable highs and lows, feuds and alliances. I reached into my drawer for a bottle of brandy, poured some into a coffee cup. Across the hall, I heard someone crying. It was April, I recall, because the wet, earthy breeze came into my office—what a relief from the stuffy, caged-in seminar room. It was April because that’s when students cry the most and Martha had been doing land-office business lately. Abuse and molestation are terrible things. But—forgive me—one notices how those memories tend to surface in April, close to exam time. I heard a tap on my door and Martha was standing there. Tissue in hand, red-eyed, she made no effort to disguise that she was the one who’d been crying.

  “‘How do you do it, Wright?’ she asked. ‘Or rather, how did you do it?’” She nodded towards my shelf of books. Not conference papers, not journal articles, not book reviews. Books. The very books which she’d referred to as ‘out of touch, out of date, and, alas, not out of print.’ This from the same woman who called Harry Stribling, our dear gentle miniaturist, a ‘dingleberry from the fetid asshole of the Old South.’ That was in a faculty meeting. And no one corrected her. It was amazing how quickly the old guard caved in, how the faculty who made a religion of civility swallowed their tongues when Martha spoke. And now she’d come to call. I wondered why.

  “I invited her into my office and, when she sat, I gestured towards my brandy. She nodded gamely back, returned to my office with a clean cup. This time she closed the door. I poured, she drank. She’d just re-read her thesis, she said. Cunts and Counts: Courtesans and Power in Eighteenth Century France. Oxford University Press—‘isn’t that the same place that published your stuff a million years ago?’—had expressed an interest. They’d wanted some revision of course, an opening and closing which would appeal to a broader audience. And they were more than willing to wait. Then the second year rolls around and there it sits because Martha’s on nine committees. She has advisees, she’s writing letters of recommendation, she’s liaising with student groups, the women’s caucus, the gay-lesbian forum, anti-fraternity task force, eating disorders council, multi-cultural steering committee, alternative lectureships program. Out of breath, she peered up at me and asked why I wasn’t laughing at her. Because it wasn’t funny, I said.

  “It got worse. Her original editor at Oxford had moved on and the successor, while professing enthusiasm, didn’t seem as committed to the project. Then again, Martha reasoned, urgent interest would have been as disturbing as a nonchalant ‘whatever.’ How she looked forward to the summers! How quickly they slipped by, no longer than a three day weekend, and no more productive. Just enough time to recognize the saddest truth of all. She wasn’t the same person she was when she started writing. She’d changed. ‘I let this place take me over,’ she said. Teaching, grading, comments on papers, committees. Students in her classroom, in her office, in her house. Students waiting for her, even now, to review what happened on the Take Back the Night March...”
>
  Wright interrupted his story, poured himself another drink which he lifted, maybe a toast to Martha. He let us wait a little longer. He knew he was a storyteller alright. And “the smartest man for miles around.” But I couldn’t help wondering what all this had to do with nailing the killer. Graves wasn’t rushing the old man, that was for sure. It’s not like a guilty person was making a getaway and every second counted. Then the intermission was over and Wright began again.

  “I realized that Martha Yeats hadn’t come to me for advice. She’d come to me for punishment. Punishment was sitting in front of me, confiding failure. So it didn’t matter what I said. Therefore, I said what I wanted. I told her that the most important books, more important than the books that I had written, maybe even more important than the ones that she aspired to write, had been written under far worse conditions than obtained at this college now. I told her that when people came to me and said they’d always wanted to write, I said, if that were true, they would have written. Somehow. She didn’t like what she was hearing. Punishment she meted out to herself was one thing. Correction from me was quite another. She was getting out of her chair, out of my life, but I kept talking, knowing we would never talk again. I told her she was talented but that talent was promiscuous. There was always lots of talent around and...and then she was gone.”

  Wright sat back in his chair. “That was all. We never talked like that again. But, from what I saw, my fears came true. She had a look in her eyes. Two strikes against you before you spoke. I didn’t speak. And I don’t know who killed her. I couldn’t begin to guess. Are you sure that it wasn’t...random...an accidental crossing of paths?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well, do you think we’ll ever know? I’m an historian, not a detective. But I know there are questions that are never answered. Could this be one of those?”

  “I hope not.”

  Wright followed us to the door, out onto the lawn and slowly walked us over to where we were parked. The morning was pretty much shot. I wondered what Hiram Wright did with himself, how he got through the days and nights. All the things he did, he did alone—cooking, eating, reading and writing. I was by myself but at least I had a job. I dodged loneliness. I worked nights.

  “I forgot to mention something,” Wright said. Graves and I were both inside the Cherokee. “I’ve benefited from Martha’s death. Maybe it’s a benefit. We’ll see. Warren Niles stopped by this morning, before you came.”

  “He visited here?” Graves asked.

  “Don’t be surprised,” Wright said. “People find me here. All kinds of people. Warren comes by every few weeks. There’s a bottle of cognac on my shelf that has his name on it. We talk. Anyway, I’m back in the line-up. Martha’s classes. It was too late to run a search. I’m teaching Monday.”

  “Bitches, Witches, Snitches?” Graves asked.

  “American History, 1800-1900. American History 1900 to Present. Quaint, isn’t it? Like Amelia Earhart radioing the Honolulu Airport for permission to land. It should be something.” He tapped my shoulder. “Stop in, Billy. Take the class if you like.”

  “I don’t think I can,” I said.

  “Just do it. Do it for your father’s sake. I was after him for years to take my class. I had no doubts about his intelligence. Only his confidence. Sooner or later, he’d be sitting in my classroom. Then...he died. Now, I’m retired. Now it’s a second chance. Take it, Billy. For my sake too.”

  “That might not be such a good idea,” I said. I wondered about telling him that I flunked out once already.

  “He’s going to be busy,” Graves warned. It came as a relief.

  “Well,” Wright said, “drop by when you can. Alright?”

  I nodded. “When I can.”

  “Excellent,” Wright said. “It’s amazing,” Wright said. “I taught for thirty years. I’ve been retired for ten. But I’m nervous. It’s in my legs, my stomach, the palms of my hands. I’m rejuvenated. I feel wonderful, knowing there’s a group of lives that are going to intersect with mine. I can’t tell you how it feels. I’m a professor. I profess history and literature. I’m young again. I can’t wait. If I could only click my heels...” He laughed and shook his head, amazed at how good he was feeling. “I have Martha Yeats to thank. Or her killer.”

  “Next stop?” I ask.

  “We’re looking for Robert Rickey.”

  “Okay,” I say, heading towards my property, just a mile from Wright’s place. I glance at Graves to see whether he wants to talk. You know how some people, when they want to turn you off, pick up a book or newspaper to hide behind? Graves does the same thing, only without the book. He closes his eyes and folds his hands. So I drive home along the river, checking like I always do to see that the old railroad trestle is still in place. They’re mostly gone now, just like the trains, and I guess I’m one of the last bunch of kids who ever heard the sound of a train at night, that whistle you can hear a hundred miles. When they stopped trains, it’s like an animal we know got hunted out of the world.

  Linda Thorne was a college kid, the same way there are army brats. Her father was a money-raiser, moving from place to place until he landed here and pretty much put up his feet. Linda and I went to school together, kindergarten through high school. The summer of my senior year, as a service to the community and a favor to a friend, she took my virginity. I’ll never forget how it was, late that Sunday morning, grass smelling sweet, a picnic planned at the old canal locks at Black Hand Gorge. Her house was completely empty, her parents in Columbus, and it seemed against her nature, letting a morning like that, a house like that, a Billy like that, all go to waste. She stepped away from the sink, where she’d been making a salad, she walked over, dried her wet hands on the front of the t-shirt I was wearing. “I’d like to fuck you,” she said, leaning into me. “I didn’t know a woman could fuck a man,” I said, honestly puzzled. “Thought it was the other way around.” “I’ll show you,” she said. So she did, a few more times before she left for college. And lots of times after I came back from the army. Now I know. A woman can fuck a man. I know that for sure.

  We park by the barn and Linda comes out the porch door, smiling at me, this sad, pitying smile of hers. Robert Rickey is making arrangements for his ex-wife’s memorial service, she says, but he ought to be home soon. We sit at a picnic table while Graves chats with her. I check out the place, the overgrown kitchen garden, the barn that’s got my father’s truck—the one he died in—parked outside. It’s rusted now, sunflower stalks coming out the windshield, plants living where my dad died.

  “He’s coming,” Graves says, watching a car bump down the driveway.

  Robert Rickey is a peppery, sharp-tongued kind of guy who would last about twenty minutes in a local bar. I guess he spotted our College Security vehicle driving in and that gave him time to prepare.

  “Hi, Billy,” Robert says. We’ve worked out this no-hard-feelings thing. I started it, Robert picked up the cue. “How’s it?”

  “Busy,” I answer. “You know that.”

  “Guess I do.” He nods at Graves, doesn’t introduce himself or offer his hand. “Alright. We were married and we were divorced. If you need the dates I can look them up. I don’t celebrate them. On the night she died I was with this lady here. We drove to Columbus at four p.m., arriving at the Stone Ridge Shopping Center sixteen-plex in time for a 5 p.m. showing of Jackie Brown, which we saw in the company of Howard Stein, who’s current writer-in-residence at the Thurber House. After the movie we kept an eight o’clock reservation at Lindey’s Restaurant on Beck Street in German Village. I had a mussels appetizer, the half rack of lamb with garlic mashed potatoes and more than my share of nice merlot, followed by a double espresso with crème brulée. Honey, what did you have?” Linda doesn’t reply. She just smiles. She once told me she liked men because of shoulders or butts, eyes or hair or skin. Even astrological signs; one year she screwed her way around the zodiac, sign by sign. But Robert Rickey drew her because he was so
bristling smart, so quick on the draw. “I think you had portobello mushrooms on some kind of pasta. I paid by credit card and I kept the receipt which shows we left the restaurant at 10:32 p.m. Was Martha still alive then?”

  He reaches in his wallet and pulls out the receipt, offering it to Graves who hesitates before taking it. Robert is messing with him and Graves doesn’t like it.

  “I saved the receipt because Howard and I were discussing his agent’s taking over a manuscript I’m finishing up and, God willing, this qualified as a business dinner. I thought the receipt would help me with the IRS. If you take it, I’d like to make a copy.”

  Graves returns it to him, without a word.

  “We drove back here via routes 62 and 661, arriving here just after midnight. We shared a cognac in the living room and went upstairs, will you back me up on that one darling?”

  Linda smiles again. Robert is always taking chances, smart-ass chances, but he’s lively, I’ll give him that.

  “We’ll take silence for assent,” Robert says. “And now let’s all ask ourselves why I’m talking like an upperclass twit on Columbo? Could it be because I’ve just done funeral planning for my wife and come back to find cops waiting? Could it be I don’t know how I should feel right now or what I should say? Let’s say I’m looking for my voice.” Now he offers Graves his hand. “Who are you, mister? What about you?”