Dead Men's Hearts

Was anything?

Chapter Three

How did people like Clifford Haddon get that way, Arlo Gerber asked himself as Haddon prattled away. So full of themselves, so in love with their own voices, so certain that any remark that came to their lips would fall on ears eager to catch every shimmering phrase. Haddon didn’t converse, he delivered speeches, self-indulgent and meandering, thickly interlarded with previously worked-out gems of wit. Comments and questions were brushed aside as so many bothersome obstructions to the grand narrative flow.

Had he really worked under this man for five years now? It seemed impossible; five years of thankless production, five years of Haddon’s endless strutting and petty despotizing. On the other hand, it had also been five years of evenings blessedly his own, five years during which his interest in Eighteenth Dynasty jewelry, avocational to begin with, had blossomed so joyously and unexpectedly. First there had been a brief, diffident note on his observations that had been published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, then two papers as his confidence increased, and finally a contract with the University of Wisconsin Press to produce a comprehensive monograph, complete with his own color photographs.

That glorious day had come two years ago, and by now Personal Ornamentation from the Time of Akhenaten was well on the way to completion, the photographs almost completed, the text more than half-done. With luck and perseverance, another year would do it. He had no doubt that it would be the making of his career, that it would get him out of this parched and backward country, out from under Haddon, and into a respectable academic post in the United States. Someplace civilized, with soft, moist summers and a little snow in the winter; someplace with clouds. Virginia or Maryland sounded nice.

But how unfortunate this news of a schedule change was. Arlo had been hearing rumors about some jewelry of interest in the storage cabinets at the el-Amarna Museum, and he had hoped to use the visit as a way of examining it for himself, but now—

“—for which I am relying on you, Arlo,” Haddon said out of the blue.

Arlo straightened up, scrambling for something to say. For all Haddon’s shabby faults, the older man still had the ability to tie his tongue in knots.

“I beg your pardon… I wasn’t…”

Haddon spoke with exaggerated patience. “I am relying on you, Arlo, to see to it that Forrest Freeman’s video production does not result in a distorted, typically sensationalized program in which Horizon House’s genuine accomplishments are trivialized or oversimplified to suit the television mentality. As a trained photographer yourself, you are in a position to work closely with them in the day-by-day editing—”

“But I don’t know anything about making a documentary. I don’t know anything about video. It’s a completely different field, as different as… as—”

“Nevertheless, I’m depending on you. We’re all depending on you, Arlo.”

“But—but even if I did know something about it, how in the world could I tell them what to do? I don’t have any authority—”

“Authority?” Haddon snatched the word out of the air as a frog might snatch a bug. “By which you mean the power to elicit compliance?”

“Well…”

“Well, now, Arlo,” Haddon said, and the pedantic, glossily genial overtones were unmistakable. A set piece was on the way. “It seems to me,” he said, crossing his legs more comfortably, “that there are essentially four types of authority…” Arlo slumped bleakly in his chair.

“… four types of authority. First there is the authority of com-pe-tence, in which one’s power to influence others derives from one’s knowledge and abilities. Second, there is the authority of con-fi-dence, achieved only when one has won the trust and reliance of one’s associates. Third, there is the authority of char-ac-ter, built on the strength of one’s personal integrity. And fourth—” Haddon’s lip curled, his voice dropped dismissively. “—there is the authority of po-si-tion, which has nothing to do with achievement or expertise, but derives solely from the perquisites of title and office, and evokes—at best—mere com- pli-ance. Ahem.”

What an absolute schmuck Haddon was, Jerry Baroff thought; not rancorously, but with something close to admiration. It was amazing, the old guy just never let you down. Every time you thought he might actually be going to say something different—something original, for example, or something nice about somebody else, or something responsive or even helpful—he managed to come up with another dose of the same old crap. Arlo, the poor fish, was getting Lecture Number 94, the one Haddon usually reserved for any staff member dumb enough to mention in his presence that he was having trouble getting the Egyptian antiquities authorities to go along on something or other.

And the old bugger was in prime form, especially considering that he was drunk as a skunk, or pretty well on the way. Only the windup remained now, the part where he leaned forward keenly and said: “Now tell me, young man, just which type of authority do you lack?”

Haddon leaned keenly forward, eyeing the cringing Arlo. “Now suppose you tell me,” he said with quivering beard, “just which kind of authority do you lack?”

For a man who prided himself on observing the vagaries of others with tolerance and detachment, on not letting people get under his skin, Jerry was ready to admit that he’d met his match in Clifford Haddon. Usually Haddon, who didn’t even pretend to take any interest in Jerry’s domain of library and collection administration, let him go his way in peace, but in the past few days he’d seen more of the director than in most months, and he was beginning to get a glimmer of why Tiffany, who had to deal with him every day, needed a neck massage about three nights a week and got that look on her face when his name came up. Still, if you looked at it right, you had to admit the guy was funny. Sometimes you just had to laugh out loud. Which, not intending to, he did.

Haddon turned to look sourly at him. “Something amuses you?”

Jerry raised his hands apologetically, one of them holding the pipe. “Sorry, Dr. Haddon, no offense. Something just struck me funny.” He shrugged amiably, grinned at Haddon, and stuck the pipe back in his mouth.

Dr. Haddon’s retort was interrupted by the appearance in the arched doorway of a wiry, dark-skinned man in turban and long, loose dirt-stained galabiya, who appeared to be in a state of mild, pleasurable excitement. This was in itself an extraordinary occurrence. It was one of Dr. Haddon’s rules that outside workers were not to enter the living quarters.