Stuart nods, then leans back in his chair, steepling his long fingers, signaling that he is about to deliver a little sermon. I admire Stuart, but I hate his sermons.
“I don’t like it when members of our faculty compete against one another,” he says sadly, his tone proposing that his opinion matters. “It’s not good for our collegiality. It’s not good for the school.” He points toward his wall of windows, through which one can see spires and towers and the huge, blocky library, the Gothic glory of the campus proper. “We are, first and foremost, a faculty. That’s what it means to be in a university. We are scholars, and those of us who have tenure, what the university calls ‘Permanent Officers,’ are supposed to be leaders in our fields. Not politicians, Talcott, but Officers. Scholars. Every one of us is charged with precisely the same responsibility: to immerse himself in a chosen discipline, and then to teach his students what he happens to discover. Anything that distracts from that task is injurious to our common enterprise. You see that, don’t you?”
I am somewhere between astonished and furious. Stuart is surely not taking the side of the man who orchestrated his own fall from power. I never thought Kimmer would have many supporters on the faculty, but I assumed that Stuart Land would be one.
“Do you see?” he says again. He does not wait to see whether I see. He continues his oration, raising an admonitory forefinger. “You know, Talcott, over my many years on this faculty, I have often been approached by this administration or that one, asking after my interest in some presidential appointment. A judgeship. Associate attorney general. Some post in an agency.” He smiles in soft reminiscence. “Once, during a scandal, the Reagan people asked if I would be willing to come down and clean up a Cabinet department. But every time, Talcott, I have declined. Every single time. You see, it is my experience, my invariant observation, that a professor who is bitten by the political bug ceases to be effective as a scholar. No longer is he studying the world and teaching what he discovers. He is, in effect, running for office, and it affects everything from the subjects he chooses for his writing to the arguments he is willing to press in the classroom. He worries about leaving a paper trail and, if he has one, spends his time cleaning it up. As you can imagine, when two members of the faculty find themselves both bitten by the political bug at the same time, and both in competition for the same single slot on a court, well, the deleterious effects are… oh, geometrically increased. Quadrupled.”
I cannot let this go on any longer. “Stuart, look. I appreciate what you’re saying. But my wife is not a member of the faculty.”
“Well, no, Talcott, you’re right. She isn’t.” Nodding as though he knew this before and I, the slower thinker, have just realized it. “Not formally.”
“Not even informally.”
“Well, your wife may not be faculty, but she’s family. Part of the law school family.”
I almost laugh at that one. In Kimmer’s ideal world, she would not even have to see the law school, much less think of herself as part of it. “Come on, Stuart. No matter what she is, the fact that she is in the running can’t possibly affect how she does her job around the law school if she doesn’t have a job around the law school.” Refusing to fall into Stuart’s cadences, in which the entire faculty is male.
The steely eyes hold mine. “Well, that isn’t quite the end of the matter, Talcott. That your wife is, as you put it, in the running could have an effect on you.”
“On me?”
“Oh, yes, Talcott, of course. Why is that so hard to believe? Your wife wanting to be a judge, you not wanting to spoil her chances-why couldn’t such a situation lead to an excess of caution on your part?”
“An excess of…”
“Have you been yourself lately?” He chuckles to ease the blow. “The Talcott Garland we know and love? I think not.”
Enough is enough. “Stuart, come on. My father just died. And then the preacher who did the funeral…”
“Was murdered. Yes, I know. And I am terribly sorry.” He hunches forward, folds his small hands on the desk. “But, Talcott, listen to me. You’ve been distracted lately. A bit disorganized.” Then, to my surprise, a shrug. “But this is wide of the point…”
“Wide of the point! You just said the competition is affecting how I do my job!”
“And perhaps I was speaking out of school. Maybe it’s none of my business. Maybe I was merely speculating. The truth is, I was not thinking about how you do your job. I was thinking about Marc.”
“What about Marc?” I demand, anger still burning fiercely, even though I am utterly confused. A moment ago Stuart thought I was distracted and disorganized. Now it is none of his business.
“Marc is not doing his job well. I think the competition may be too much for him.”
“Then why are you talking to me instead of to Marc?” Stuart says nothing, but only stares, scarcely blinking. I feel a little heady, an odd deja vu, even though I cannot say what it is I am reexperiencing. I try again. “Did Marc put you up to this? Did he ask you to talk to me? Because if he did…”
“Nobody put me up to anything, Talcott. My only concern is this school.” Talking as though he is still the dean. “And I know that, like me, you want what is best for the school.”
“You’re not suggesting… You don’t think…” I stop, swallow the surging red anger, and try again. “I mean, if you’re suggesting that I should tell my wife to drop out of the process, to give up her chance to be a federal judge, for the good of the law school or the good of Marc Hadley… well, Stuart, I’m sorry, but that isn’t going to happen.”
“It is just possible, Talcott, that the good of the school and the good of Marc Hadley are, in this case, identical.”
“What do you mean by… Oh!” Did I happen to mention that Stuart Land is devious? I should have seen it earlier. Naturally he wants to help Marc obtain his treasured judgeship. Probably Marc could not have been a finalist without his help, for Stuart may be the only member of the faculty whom the administration would trust to vouch for the truth of Marc’s own repeated assertion that he is a political liberal but a judicial reactionary. And why would Stuart assist the ambition of the man most responsible for his downfall? Because, if Marc were to become a judge, Stuart would be rid of him at last; and Dean Lynda, his rival, would lose the cornerstone on which her power base in the faculty is built.
Stuart has a hoary witticism to offer: “Perhaps Marc Hadley’s departure from the law school to join the bench would enhance the quality of both institutions.”
Again I choose my words with care. “I appreciate your point of view, Stuart. I really do. But Kimmer is more deserving of this seat than Marc is. I am not about to suggest to her that she withdraw her name.”
Stuart nods slowly. He even finds a smile somewhere. “Very well. I had to give it a shot. I was fairly sure your answer would be what it was. And I respect you for it. But, you know, Talcott, there will be those around the building who will not.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You have many friends on this faculty, Talcott, but you have.. . well, there are those who are not fond of you. Surely this comes as no surprise.”
The curtain of red finally descends across my eyes. “What are you telling me, Stuart? Just spell it out.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, Talcott, if certain… pressures.. . were brought to bear on you, to try to get you to convince your wife to drop out, to let Marc have the seat. That is a most unfortunate fact, but it is still a fact. I would prefer that the school be otherwise, that we retain our collegiality, but, when the political bug bites one of our own, we behave less like Permanent Officers than like Temporary Schoolchildren.” He waits for me to grin at his small joke, but I do not. “I am afraid, Talcott, that some of the schoolchildren may try to… persuade you.”
“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this.”
“I will not be a part of it, of course, and I will happily use my influence to protect you. But, Talcott, you have to realize that I, too, have enemies on the faculty. It may be that my influence is less than I might prefer.” He sighs, contriving to suggest that the school would be a better place if he were still at the top of the heap. Perhaps it would. Say what you want about Stuart Land, his only ambitions, ever, have been for the school.
“I understand.”
Stuart hesitates, and I realize he has not quite finished his sermon. “On the other hand, Talcott, if you are determined to go down this path, I think I might be rather helpful to you in Washington.”
“Oh?”
“I believe I might have some influence there, and, if I do, I would gladly use it to help your wife along.”
Which brings us, I see, to the point of the whole meeting. Tired of Stuart’s subtle politicking, I try some
