lest a single phoneme emerge incompletely rounded.
On Gideon’s other side, between him and Janet, sat Eric Bozzini, assistant professor of psychology. Three times during the meal he described himself as a laid-back Californian, and groomed himself for the part: long hair, neatly trimmed into a sort of page-boy cut below the ears, a Pancho Villa mustache, tinted glasses that never seemed to come off, and an open-throated shirt revealing some sort of canine attached to a thin, gold chain and nestling on a tanned, hairy chest. But at something near Gideon’s own age of thirty-eight, the image was wearing a little thin; a widow’s peak was discernible under the brushed-forward hairline, the face was a little fleshy, the chest a trifle puffy and soft-looking. Even the bronze skin seemed sun-lamp-induced.
Gideon thoroughly enjoyed the dinner. While Bozzini directed his laid-back charms at Janet with grim determination, and Danzig competed with prissy little attempts at humor, Gideon concentrated on the food, enjoying the ripe German menu terms—
After the tables were cleared, the waiters, gratifyingly obsequious, continued to move about refilling glasses with the luscious wine. This helped considerably during the long speeches by assorted college and military officials. Gideon, like most of the others, sat through them with a pleasant if slightly glassy-eyed expression. Administrators of the United States Overseas College welcomed them to the program, and military officers thanked them for bringing college courses to Our Boys in Europe, joking ponderously about them having all the advantages of army life (PX privileges, base housing, officer club memberships, free movies) and none of the disadvantages (unspecified).
Once, after hearing several speakers use the term, Gideon leaned over to ask Bozzini what a “you-socker” was, thinking it was a military word.
Bozzini laughed.
“I get it,” Gideon said.
About an hour into the speeches, Gideon, in a happy, nearly mindless daze, was puzzled to find his tablemates making peculiar faces at him, wiggling eyebrows and jerking heads. At the same time he became aware that the room was quiet.
Finally, Bruce Danzig spoke in a stage whisper, mouthing each syllable extravagantly. “Gideon, stand up!” Frowning, Gideon stood.
“Ah,” said the platform speaker with heavy joviality, “we wondered if you were still with us, Professor.” Dr. Rufus, the college’s chancellor, had an avuncular smile on his pleasant, smooth face.
“Sorry, sir,” said Gideon with a sheepish smile. “I was deeply engrossed in mental preparation of my lecture notes.”
Laughter and applause came from the other tables, as well as shouts of “Give him some more wine!” Gideon was pleased to see Janet smile.
The chancellor went on. “Dr. Gideon Oliver, whom I am happy to have you all meet, does well to so occupy himself. He has a lot of lectures to give. Professor Oliver, as I mentioned a moment ago—some time ago, actually— is this semester’s visiting fellow. He comes to us on a leave of absence from Northern California State University”— scattered applause and a look of surprise from Eric Bozzini—“where he is an associate professor of anthropology. As those of you who are old-timers know, the visiting fellow is expected to cover quite a bit of ground in two months, both academically and geographically, ha, ha.”
There was a polite spatter of laughter from the tipsy scholars, and Gideon smiled dutifully.
“Professor Oliver,” boomed Dr. Rufus, “will be presenting the Visiting Fellow Seminars in Human Evolution at, um…” He consulted his notes. “Let me see; Sicily first, then back here to Heidelberg, then Madrid, then, ah, Izmir…”
Gideon’s mind focused soggily. Izmir? Madrid? Sicily? That wasn’t the schedule he’d contracted for. Heidelberg had been on it all right, but the other places had all been German cities too— Munich, Kaiserslautern, some others he couldn’t remember. Was Dr. Rufus confusing him with someone else? He hoped not; the revised schedule was tremendously more exciting. But they might at least have checked with him about it.
“As most of you know,” continued Dr. Rufus, “we have not had a visiting fellow since the semester before last, ever since… well, since the semester before last.”
Dr. Rufus frowned and paused, and a small ripple of discomfort seemed to spread over the room. Was Gideon imagining it, or did most of the eyes watching him suddenly avoid contact?
Dr. Rufus had lost his train of thought and did not recover well. “And so,” he said, no longer jovial, “and so I… with pleasure I welcome Professor Oliver to the USOC faculty for the fall semester. Thank you.” Abruptly, he turned from the lectern and went to his seat.
“Hey, man,” said Eric before Gideon had quite sat down. “I didn’t know you were from California. Northern Cal, where’s that at, near San Francisco?”
“About twenty miles south. San Mateo.”
“Far out. California. No kidding.” He turned to Janet. “Hey, Janet, remember that other guy we had from L.A., Denny Something?”
Janet laughed. “The one who fell asleep after he taught a class on a submarine, and wound up at the South Pole?”
“Nah, that was Gordon Something. I mean the chemistry instructor, remember? Who got stuck in jail in Spain because the border guards thought his demonstration stuff was coke?”
They were both laughing now, well into their cups; old friends excluding Gideon and not paying much attention to Danzig, who sipped his wine and stared into the middle distance.
“Mmm,” Janet said, spluttering slightly into the brimming glass at her lips, “what about the time—was it 74? —when they wouldn’t let Ralph Kaplan off a base during a big alert, so he swiped a general’s uniform and tried to get through the gate?”
“Yeah, with that beard yet!” Eric and Janet both spluttered this time, spraying Gideon with Reisling.
