speak up for me? Lem Carlyle? Not if it would hurt his impeccable reputation. Arnie Rosen? Not with his run for the deanship coming up. Dear Dana Worth? Certainly, but nobody listens to her. Rob Saltpeter, perhaps. But he is a very long way from the top of the heap. I imagine the knives being sharpened even now up there in the top tier, where those who possess influence and reputation gather: Peter Van Dyke, Tish Kirschbaum, and, of course, the estimable Marc Hadley, not so long ago a friend, would all be delighted by my departure.
“Lynda,” I say at last, “I need time.”
“That sounds like a but to me.”
“Not time to think over what you’ve said. What you’ve said makes perfect sense.” I am not very good at obsequiousness, but I have to try. “I want to go back to that old Talcott Garland-the one everybody loves, you said-I want that very much. I just need a little time to figure out what’s going on.”
“That sounds like the conspiracy again.” Her voice is hard. When a dean’s voice is hard, the pressures are immense. Probably Lynda Wyatt is following somebody else’s script, which suggests that a part of what she says is true: she has gone to bat for me. The university administration may be pushing her to get rid of me, and perhaps she has persuaded them to give me one last chance. The administration, in turn, has dictated terms which she dares not vary. Still, if I am right, if she has gone to bat for me, then… maybe…
“I’m not seeing any conspiracy anywhere, Lynda. I don’t think anybody is out to get me. But it is a fact, not a fantasy, that the man who was asking me questions about my father is dead. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that somebody trashed my father’s house in Oak Bluffs. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that I was beaten up in the middle of the campus by somebody who asked questions about my father. And it is a fact”-I stop suddenly. Lynda is watching me closely. I was about to mention the pawn. Which would persuade her absolutely that I have gone round the bend.
Lynda sighs. “Well, then, Tal, your turn to listen. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that you were almost arrested. No, don’t say anything. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that somebody from up here sabotaged Marc, and a lot of people think it was you. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that you were shoving and screaming at Jerry Nathanson in the hallway day before yesterday. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that lots of people on this campus think you are beginning to lose it. It is a fact, not a fantasy, that I think…”
“Two weeks,” I say suddenly.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Give me two weeks. Two weeks to wrap everything up. If I-”
“I can’t let you miss more classes.”
“I’ll teach my classes. I won’t miss a class. I promise you. But I have to have a little more time.”
“Time for what?”
I take a breath, force myself to stay calm. What am I supposed to say? That whoever is on the outside trying to ruin me is being helped by someone on the inside, somebody here at the law school? Somebody who knows where I am going to be almost before I do-and is in a position to smear my ethics as well, perhaps to make it even less likely that anyone will listen to whatever I might discover?
I say quietly, “Just time, Lynda. That’s all. I won’t miss any classes, but I need to work things out.” She just waits. “I won’t hurt the law school or the university. This school has been good to me. And, right now, this school is all I have.” I hesitate, wanting to say more, but not daring to open the painful subject of my waning marriage. “I’ve asked you for very few favors since you’ve been dean, Lynda. Now, you know that’s true. There are people who are in your office every week, complaining about their salaries or their committee assignments or their teaching loads or the size of their offices. I’ve never done any of those things, have I?”
“No, you haven’t. That’s true.” The ghost of a smile dances over her face.
“So I’m asking this one thing. To hold off those pressures just two weeks more. And then, after two weeks, I promise you, either I’ll be a good little boy or… or I’ll resign from the faculty and save everybody the trouble.”
My dean shakes her head. Her look is unhappy. “I’m really not trying to get rid of you, Tal. I respect you and I like you. I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true. What Stuart said about biased scholarship, for instance. You didn’t hear me say it. I know you wouldn’t do it, and even if I thought you would, there’s no way to prove it. It’s ridiculous. Besides, we live in a world of only”-a wan, cheerless grin-“imperfect objectivity. Scholarship is argument, isn’t it? And argument is advocacy. Were we to take the claim of bias seriously, any one of us might be open to the same charge. But…”
“But you have to think of the school,” I finish for her.
“You’ll have to apologize to Jerry Nathanson. No way out of that one. And Cameron Knowland, bless his heart, is still waiting to hear from you.”
More pain. “I’ll call Jerry. I tried to call Cameron but he wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Then try again,” she says crisply. Professors are not ordinarily subject to the dean’s orders, not at a school as eminent as ours. But these are no ordinary times.
“I will. I promise.”
Lynda conjures a small smile. She stands up. So do I. We shake. We both know our meeting is over, and that the deal has been made. Probably it falls within whatever parameters she was given by the university. But, just to make sure, she repeats the agreement as she escorts me to the door: “Two weeks, Talcott. No more.”
“Two weeks,” I echo.
Hurrying back to my office, I am weak with relief: after all, I might have been asked to resign on the spot. By the time I am behind my desk, however, the burden of reality has settled once more upon my shoulders. I still do not know what the arrangements are. Or what my father meant by his cryptic note. Or which one of my colleagues is trying to ruin my career. I do not even know whether I will still have a job tomorrow or the next day… or, for that matter, a wife.
All I know for sure is that I have fourteen days to figure it all out.
CHAPTER 43
“Where have you been?” asks Kimmer in a tone that I cannot at first identify. I have been home perhaps five minutes. Finding no one on the first floor, I came upstairs, kissed a slumbering Bentley good night, and walked into a storm.
“I… had a meeting with Dean Lynda. And then, well, I told you I might have to work late. The draft of my paper is overdue, remember?”
“I called your office, Misha. Three times.”
“Maybe I was in the library.” I do not know why I am being so cagey.
“You never go to the library.” My wife is sitting up in bed, extra pillows propped behind her, work strewn over the blankets as she flips through the channels with the remote. Her eyes seem puffy, as though she has been crying, but she does not look at me. “Or, when you do, you get in trouble,” she adds.
“The truth is… I went for a walk.”
“A walk? For two hours?”
“I had a lot to think about.”
“I’m sure.” But there is a catch in her voice. What is going on?
“Kimmer, are you okay?”
“No, I am not okay!” she flares, rounding on me at last. “My husband, who has lately been acting crazy, can’t be found for two whole hours! Two hours, Misha! Did it ever occur to you that I might worry?”
I cross to the bed, sit next to her, try to take her hand. She snatches it back. “No, I guess not. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry. You’re sorry. ”
“What do you want me to say, Kimmer? Tell me, and I’ll say it.”
“I shouldn’t have to tell you what to say.”
“Look, darling, I’ll apologize to Jerry. I was out of line. I know that.”
“There’s nothing going on with Jerry. There never was! Why can’t you just believe me when I tell you these
