Ghost Story

I went home dazed and stayed that way for weeks. I could not understand what had happened. I felt enormous relief and enormous loss. She must have left her rooms on the day we were to meet at the restaurant: but what had been in her mind? A last joke? Or had she known that everything was over, had been since Still Valley? Was she in despair? That was difficult to believe.

And if I had been so eager to be rid of her, why did I now feel that I was shuffling through a less significant world? Alma gone, I was left with the bare world of cause and effect, the arithmetic world-if without the odd dread she had aroused in me, without the mystery too. The only mystery I had left was that of where she had gone; and the larger mystery of who she had been.

I drank a good deal and cut my classes: I slept most of the day. It was as though I had some generalized disease that took my energy and left me with no occupation but sleeping and thinking about Alma. When after a week I began to feel healthier, I remembered seeing Benton in the plaza and imagined that he'd been angry because he had known that what I had gotten away with was my life.

After I started to meet my classes again I saw Leiberman in the halls after a lecture and at first he ducked his head and intended to snub me, but he thought better of it and flicked his eyes at mine and said, 'Step into my office for a second, will you, Wanderley?' He too was angry, but it was anger I could deal with; I want to say it was only human anger: but what anger is not? A werewolf's?

'I know I've disappointed you,' I said. 'But my life got out of hand. I got sick. I'll finish out the term as honorably as I can.'

'Disappointed? That's a mild word for it.' He leaned back in his leather chair, his eyes blazing. 'I don't think we've ever been let down so much by one of our temporary appointments. After I entrusted you with an important lecture, you apparently threw together the worst mishmash-the worst garbage-' He collected himself. 'And you've missed more classes than anyone in our history since we had an alcoholic poet who tried to burn down the recruitments office. In short, you've been lax, slipshod, lazy-you've been disgraceful. I just wanted you to know what I thought of you. Single-handedly, you've endangered our entire program of bringing in writers. This program is supervised, you know. We have a board to answer to. I'll have to defend you to them, as much as I detest the thought.'

'I can't blame you for feeling as you do,' I said. 'I just got into an odd situation-I think I've sort of been cracking up.'

'I wonder when you so-called creative people are going to realize that you can't get away with murder.' The outburst made him feel better. He steepled his fingers and looked at me over them. 'I hope you don't expect me to give you a glowing recommendation.'

'Of course not,' I said. Then I thought of something. 'I wonder if I can ask you a question.'

He nodded.

'Have you ever heard of an English professor at the University of Chicago named Alan McKechnie?' His eyes widened; he folded his hands. 'I don't really know what I'm asking. I wondered if you knew anything about him?'

'What the hell are you saying?'

'I'm curious about him. That's all.'

'Well, for what it's worth,' he said, and stood up. He marched over to his window, which gave a splendid view of the plaza. 'I dislike gossip, you know.'

What I knew was that he loved gossip, like most academics. 'I knew Alan slightly. We were on a Robert Frost symposium five years ago-sound man. A bit too much the Thomist, but that's Chicago, isn't it? Still, a good mind. Had a lovely family too, I gather.'

'He had children? A wife?'

Lieberman looked at me suspiciously. 'Of course. That's what made it so tragic. Apart from the loss of his contributions to the field, of course.'

'Of course. I forgot.'

'Look? What do you know? I'm not going to slander a colleague for the sake of-the sake of-'

'There was a girl,' I said.

He nodded, satisfied. 'Yes. Apparently. I heard about it at the last MLA convention. One of the fellows from his department told me about it He was vamped. This girl simply pursued him. Dogged him. La Belle Dame Sans Merci, in a word-I gather he finally did become enchanted by her. She was a graduate student of his. These things happen of course, they happen all the time. A girl falls for her professor, manages to seduce him, sometimes she makes him leave his wife, most times not. Most of us have more sense.' He coughed. I thought: you really are a turd. 'Well. He did not. Instead he went to pieces. The girl ruined him. In the end he killed himself. The girl, I gather, did a midnight flit-as our English friends have it though what this has to do with you, I can't imagine.'

She had falsified nearly everything in the McKechnie story. I wondered what else might have been a lie. When I got home, I rang de Peyser, F. A woman answered the phone.

'Mrs. de Peyser?'

It was.

'Please excuse me for calling you on what may be a case of mistaken identity, Mrs. de Peyser, but this is Richard Williams at the First National of California. We have a loan application from a Miss Mobley who lists you as a reference. I'm just running the usual routine information check. You're named as her aunt.

'As her what? What's her name?'

'Alma Mobley. The problem is that she forgot to give your address and phone number, and there are several other Mrs. de Peysers in the Bay area, and I need the correct information for our files.'

'Well it's not me! I've never heard of anybody named Alma Mobley, I can assure you of that.'

'You do not have a niece named Alma Mobley who is a graduate student at Berkeley?'

'Certainly not. I suggest you get back to this Miss Mobley and ask her for her aunt's address so you don't go wasting your time.'

'I'll do that right now, Mrs. de Peyser.'

The second semester was a rainy blur. I pushed at a new book, but it would not budge. I never knew what to make of the Alma character: was she a La Belle Dame Sans Merci, as Lieberman had said; or was she a girl on the far borders of sanity? I didn't know how to treat her, and the first draft took so many misdirections it could have been an exercise in the use of the unreliable narrator. And I felt that the book needed another element, one I couldn't yet see, before it would work.

David telephoned me in April. He sounded excited, happy, more youthful than he'd been in years. 'I have amazing news,' he said. 'Astounding news. I don't know how to tell you.'

'Robert Redford bought your life story for the movies.'

'What? Oh, come off it. No, really, this is hard for me to tell you.'

'Why don't you just start at the beginning?'

'Okay. Okay, that's what I'll do, wiseass. Two months ago, on February third' -this was really the lawyer at work-'I was up on Columbus Circle, seeing a client. The weather was terrible, and I had to share a cab back to Wall Street Bad news, right? But I found myself sitting next to the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life. I mean, she was so good-looking my mouth went dry. I don't know where I got the guts, but by the time we got to the Park, I asked her out to dinner. I don't usually do things like that!'

'No, you don't.' David was too lawyerly to ask strange girls for dates. He'd never been in a singles bar in his life.

'Well, this girl and I really hit it off. I saw her every night that week. And I've gone on seeing her ever since. In fact, we're going to get married. That's half of the news.'

'Congratulations,' I said. 'I wish you better luck than I had.'

'Now we come to the difficult part. The name of this astounding girl is Alma Mobley.'

'It can't be,' I said.

'Wait. Just wait. Don, I know this is a shock. But she told me all about what happened between you, and I think it's essential that you know how sorry she is for everything that happened. We've talked about this a long time. She knows she hurt your feelings, but she knew that she just wasn't the right girl for you. And you weren't right for her. Also, she was in a bad patch in