bastard from
As he backed off from the table, Edgar bent in what almost seemed like a curtsy and said, “You boys are giving me the honor of my life.”
He then turned and exited to the flourish of invisible trumpets.
Soon thereafter, Harvey Madison departed, leaving the two authors to revel in their success.
“Hey,” said Stu, “I’ve gotta call Nina. Can you wait and we’ll walk uptown together?”
“Sorry,” Danny replied. “I’ve got an important matinee in twenty minutes.”
“I didn’t know you were performing today.”
Danny grinned.
“Strictly chamber music, Stu. See the cover of this month’s
“Not my style of magazine,” he replied, still not tuned in to his partner’s wavelength.
“Well, check it out at your local newsstand, my friend. She’s the guest of honor at my studio this afternoon.”
“Oh,” said Stuart Kingsley.
Except for the occasional cocktail parties, the junior and senior members of the Harvard Classics Department almost never socialized. It was not merely a question of age differences, but the almost Calvinistic distinction between those who had tenure and those who did not.
Assistant Professor Ted Lambros was therefore surprised when Cedric Whitman invited him to lunch at the Faculty Club, even though, as both he and Sara agreed, he was the most humane humanist they had ever known.
After they ordered, the senior professor cleared his throat and said, “Ted, I got a phone call from Bill Foster, the new chairman at Berkeley. His department very much admires your book and wonders if you’d be interested in their tenure opening in Greek literature?”
Ted did not know how to respond. For he could not sense precisely what lay behind the question. Was it an intimation that he was not going to be granted tenure at Harvard?
“I — uh — I guess I should be very flattered.”
“I should say,” Whitman replied. “Berkeley’s got one of the best departments in the world. They’ve certainly got some very distinguished scholars. Pragmatically speaking, their salaries are extremely generous. I took the liberty of telling Bill to write you directly. That’ll mean at least a nice invitation to go to California and lecture.”
Ted felt like Aeschylus’ famous description of Agamemnon “struck deep with a mortal blow.” But he summoned the courage to ask.
“Cedric, is this Harvard’s way of saying they won’t renew my contract? Please be frank, I can take it.”
“Ted,” said Whitman without hesitation, “I can’t speak for the whole department. You know that John and I admire you enormously. And naturally, we’d like to keep you here. But this will ultimately come down to a vote, and heaven knows how the historians and archaeologists and people who are less familiar with your work might stand. If you got a formal offer from Berkeley, it might stimulate the uncommitted into feeling more possessive.”
“So you think I should at least go out there?”
“Take it from a veteran,” his mentor smiled, “an academic never gives up a free trip to anywhere halfway decent. And to California, well, res
Sara was delighted to see him.
“What a nice surprise,” she said as she skipped down the stone steps of the University Press and saw her husband. He kissed her perfunctorily but could suppress his fears no longer.
“Cedric had some pretty gloomy words at lunch.”
“They’re not renewing you?”
“That’s the bitch of it,” he answered with frustration. “He evaded the whole Harvard issue. All he said was that Berkeley wants me for a tenure job.”
“Berkeley’s got a fantastic classics department,” she replied. Ted’s heart stopped. This was not what he had hoped to hear.
“So you think it’s the ax, huh?” he asked mournfully. When she did not reply, he added, “I really thought I had a shot at tenure here.”
“Hell, so did I,” she answered honestly. “But you know how their system works. They almost never bring up someone through the ranks. They sort of send them off and see what kind of a reputation they build up. And if they grow, they pluck them back.”
“But it’s in California,” Ted complained.
“So what? Can’t we survive three thousand miles away from Harvard?”
Two nights later, Bill Foster called and formally tendered the invitation to lecture. They agreed on a date close to Harvard’s Easter vacation.
“We don’t usually do this,” he added, “but we’d like to include your wife as well. The folks at U.C. Press would like to meet her.”
“Uh — that’s great,” said Ted, while inwardly he thought, They know all about me. I’m like a baseball player being traded. They’ve gone over my hitting and fielding — and probably even my team spirit. It intensified the feeling that, in some way, he had failed.
On the last Sunday in March, Ted and Sara, having left their son in the care of his doting grandparents, boarded the late-afternoon flight to San Francisco.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Sara bubbled as they fastened their seat belts. “Our first free trip, courtesy of your brain,”
Ted looked at his watch three hours later. They had barely crossed half the continent.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “I mean, where the hell is this place? It’s incredibly far from civilization.”
“Ted,” she chided affectionately, “stay loose. You may just discover something wonderful about the world.”
“Like what?”
“Like the life of the mind does not cease at the borders of Massachusetts.”
As they disembarked in San Francisco, they were met by a middle-aged academic and a younger colleague holding, as a sign of identification, a copy of Lambros on Sophocles. Ted’s mood, which had changed from glum to numb during the last few hours of the journey, lifted at this gesture of respect.
Bill Foster greeted them warmly and introduced Joachim Meyer, a papyrologist, recently transplanted from Heidelberg to California. They were both enormously cordial and in the baggage area insisted on carrying the suitcases out to their car.
Though it was early evening Berkeley’s main street was swarming with activity.
“I seem to see a lot of hippies,” Ted observed with a tinge of disapproval.
“I can hear some nice music,” said Sara.
Bill Foster picked up on Ted’s remark.
“Don’t get the wrong impression, Ted. These students may walk around in jeans instead of tweeds, but they’re the brightest kids you’ll ever meet. They drive you crazy with their penetrating questions. Keeps you intellectually on your toes. We’ll visit some classes if you like.”
“Yes,” Ted replied, “I’d like that.”
“I’d enjoy that too,” Sara chimed in.
“
Just then they reached the end of the avenue and Bill Foster announced, “Meyer and I will drop you at the
