by Micah Nathan
“I’m sorry?”
Officer Lumble sighed. “Is this a stunt of some sort, or has your friend Daniel decided to take a little extra time off this semester?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You don’t?” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, the chair creaking helplessly. Behind him, through the window, snow swirled and swooped, a whirlpool of white pressing against the thin glass.
“No, sir,” I said. “I don’t know where he is.”
“Okay…” He pursed his lips and stared at me. A pause, then:
“I guess I have some more questions for you.” He sat back, crossed his legs, and rested the clipboard on one knee.
I told him that Dan didn’t have any girlfriends I knew of. He asked about Dan’s other friends, and I said that I thought he only socialized with us, his housemates. No, I didn’t know anything about Dan’s parents, but I believed he only had his mom and that his dad had died. There hadn’t been anything unusual about Dan’s behavior, and he never drank or used drugs, at least not that I knew of. Yes, I said, I did consider him a good friend, and I did believe if he was going somewhere he’d tell me. And no, he wasn’t the adventurous type. He was, in fact, very studious and a bit of an introvert.
“Daniel’s an excellent student,” Officer Lumble said, riffling through a handful of papers. “So this is a bit weird—not the usual party animal that things like this happen to—but if there’s one thing I’ve learned here at Aberdeen, it’s to never judge anyone by their appearance. Especially the smart ones. You have to keep a close eye on them—one day they’re fine and then boom, they can’t take the pressure and they’re off somewhere with their parent’s credit card and an exotic dancer from one of them clubs in Bookertown.” He laughed. “You’d never believe the shit these students put us through.” He spoke to me with an air of confidentiality, as if I weren’t a student but a fellow public safety officer from a neighboring college. “Mostly drug stuff—ODs, bad trips, coke cut with baby laxative and weed dipped in formaldehyde. I caught a kid dealing pot right in the Quad, clear as day, last spring. Hauled him in, called the Fairwich police, and before they could do anything the kid’s dad sent a lawyer from New York and that was the end of that. This kid was from a very famous family—if I told you the name you’d know it. That’s why we’d rather keep things under Aberdeen jurisdiction; no sense in rousing the locals, and they can’t seem to stand the rich kids making a mess of their town. They’re an okay bunch, though, these kids here.” He smiled affectionately. “Spoiled, that’s all. And who can blame them. Throw enough at a kid and something’s bound to stick. What about you? Your dad some big shot?”
“No,” I said. “He’s a traveling salesman.”
“Probably taught you the value of hard work.”
“Yes he did.”
“Good for you, then. You got yourself a leg up on your fellow students.”
The office door swung open and a short man clomped in, his ski hat and matching coat covered in snow, boots trailing water and slush. He wiped his thick black mustache with the back of his gloved hand. “Je-sus it is blustery out there,” he said, speaking to Officer Lumble.
“This is Eric Dunne,” Lumble said, tipping his head toward me. “Eric, Officer Pitts.”
“Anything new?” Officer Pitts said to Lumble, who shook his head and went back to writing.
Pitts walked over to the desk and dropped a folded bunch of papers onto it. “No one has seen this kid since Saturday. Thank God nobody’s called his parents yet. No reason to get them into a frenzy. Things like this happen every so often.” Officer Pitts turned to me. “You see, usually it’s one of two things—”
“He knows,” Lumble said. “I already told him.”
Pitts cleared his throat and looked around the room, as if searching for something important to do. “Anyway, all I’m getting at is that these matters usually resolve themselves. We just have to be patient. You staying in the dorm or at Professor Cade’s?”
I thought for a moment. “Professor Cade’s,” I said.
“Good. If anything changes give us a call. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch. You know,” Pitts smiled and leaned against the desk with his arms crossed, “that Howie is a real cutup. Can you believe he offered me a drink? A Harvey Wallbanger, for Christ’s sake. I haven’t had one of those since the Dark Ages.”
They both laughed while I thanked them and left, hoping they didn’t notice how sweat-soaked the back of my shirt was.
That’s how it all started, like that child’s game where a metal ball rolls down a trough and into a cup, which sinks and trips a lever that drops another ball onto a seesaw, and so on until the entire contraption has been altered by one simple motion in the very beginning.
When I arrived home from my meeting with Officer Lumble, Howie was fiddling around on the piano while Art played Go with Professor Cade at the dining room table. Dr. Cade said he’d just gotten off the phone with one of Dan’s professors, Dr. Junta, who claimed he’d seen Dan in class that day, sitting in one of the back rows. I had a brief stab of panic—Did Dan rise from the dead? Did the elixir actually work?—before remembering that Dr. Junta’s course, The Medicis: Fact and Fiction, was famed for both its enormous class size and Dr. Junta’s senility and poor eyesight, which made cheating mandatory in a course so confusing that any other approach meant certain doom.
Katie Motts had returned Art’s call, and said she hadn’t heard from Dan since before vacation, so now Dr. Cade’s curiosity shifted from where to why. Was Dan avoiding them? Had someone gotten into an argument with him? Was he dissatisfied with school? Work? His personal life, perhaps?
“I should like to think,” Professor Cade said, as he surrounded the last of Art’s black stones, “that Dan would approach me if he was having difficulties in the house. I’m expected to produce a workable manuscript by the end of this semester, and not having Dan’s assistance puts serious demands upon the rest of you.”
Dr. Cade had been repeating himself lately, always about his book, and how he didn’t want it to interfere with our studies.
“He was unusually quiet when we last saw him,” Art said, scanning the Go board for any possible escape routes. “He didn’t even say goodbye. He just left.”
“Yes, for errands, you said. I remember.” Dr. Cade sat back, knowing—as did I—that Art had lost the game. “I can’t imagine why he failed to come back. I really must look for him on campus, as should all of you. Perhaps one of you said something that angered him…” He glanced in Howie’s direction. “Whatever it was, let’s put it behind us. I don’t care who was at fault, I only care that a member of our team is missing.”
It was strange to hear him talk like that, calling us a team. Dr. Cade never played the role of mediator or advice giver; in fact, he’d been remarkably neutral when it came to our personal lives. I’d always had the impression that he didn’t really care what we did outside the house, and I think my impression was accurate. For a man who had no children of his own, we served as his children, but I realized he was more like an impersonal deity than a parent, something like Aristotle’s unmoved mover or Copernicus’s grand clock maker.
“We did have an argument,” Art said quietly. I looked at him but he kept his gaze on Professor Cade. “A few days before I saw him last. It was over something silly, like who’s turn it was to do dishes. He seemed short-tempered. Not like himself.”
Dr. Cade nodded curtly, stood up, and glanced at his watch. Hearing about our daily lives always displeased him. “I’ll be at my department office for the remainder of the day,” he said. “Should anyone come in contact with Dan, please call me immediately.”
There was silence as Dr. Cade stared at Howie, who was trilling the piano keys. After a few moments Howie stopped playing and looked up.
“What?” he said, bouncing his gaze from person to person.
I knocked on Art’s door that night, making sure that Howie was downstairs and that Dr. Cade hadn’t ye
t returned home from campus. Art opened his door just wide enough to show his face. He didn’t have his glasses on, and his eyes were red and dazed, as if he’d been reading for a long time.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Bad dreams again?”
“Just let me in.”
“First tell me what’s wrong,” Art said.
I leaned in closer. “Dan sent me a letter over Christmas break,” I whispered harshly. “It was in my mailbox at school.”
Art shrugged. “So.”
“He told me he was quitting,” I said. “He said he didn’t want to help you anymore with your alchemy project.”
“And?”
“Well,” I said, “did Dan say anything to you?”
Art thought for a moment. “Dan wanted to quit but I convinced him otherwise.”
Art stared at me. “You have another theory?” he said.
I stood there, staring back at him.
“You need to get your mind off it,” Art said, rubbing his eyes. “Go see a movie, read a book. Finish those translations. Write that section on Barbarossa or whoever the fuck it was. The walk could use some shoveling, actually…”
“Why did you tell Dr. Cade you got into an argument with Dan?”
Art raised an eyebrow. “Figure it out. Here, take this—”
His face disappeared and reappeared, and his hand emerged from the narrow slit between door and doorpost. In his palm was a tiny green pill.
“To help you sleep,” he said.
I looked at the pill for a moment. “Is it?”
His expression darkened and he withdrew his hand.
“Sweet dreams, then,” he said, and he closed the door.
The rest of the week brought more snow, another six inches that fell redundantly upon the swelling white dunes heaped across Dr. Cade’s land. I could barely make out the pond, now just a shallow crater surrounded by trees fuzzy with snow, and winter birds sometimes landed briefly on the snow-covered ice, crows and sparrows and chickadees, huddled together like bolts of gray and black cloth. Even Nilus trotted onto the pond’s surface, cautiously, at first, as if remembering a time when it had been water. I wondered if he could smell Dan out there, under the black ice, if that’s where Dan was, or maybe he could smell a shoe of Dan’s that had fallen off before Dan was swept into the Quinnipiac, the shoe now lying nestled among the rotting birch leaves and dormant hornwort at the pond’s bottom. But if Nilus smelled Dan, he never gave any sign, and he would only lope back to me with the fluorescent tennis ball, ready to retrieve again.
When Dan didn’t show up for Friday evening’s dinner, Dr. Cade decided he was going to call Dan’s mom.
“Perhaps she could give us some insight as to his whereabouts, or why he left in the first place. I do know they’re quite close, Dan and his mother. If he was having difficulties I’m certain she’d be the first to know.”
“I could call,” Art said, seated at his usual place, on the other end of the table. He speared a carrot chip from his plate. We’d eaten the last of the vegetable lasagna Dr. Cade had prepared, and as always, whenever Dr. Cade cooked (a rare occurrence), the food was outstanding.
“Two years ago I spent Christmas at their Back Bay condo,” Art continued. “We played bridge the entire time. She sent me a holiday card this year.”
I don’t believe anything you say, I thought. Everything you say is a lie.
“Very well, whatever you’d like,” Dr. Cade said as he folded his napkin. “But please call her tonight. I need this problem resolved. The deadline for Dan’s sections is fast approaching, and the work he’s done thus far has been nearly perfect. I can’t imagine any of you taking over at this point…there isn’t enough time.”
Howie snorted into his napkin. He’d come down with a bad cold a few days earlier, and was suffering publicly since then, wandering around the house in bathrobe and slippers, glass of warmed rum in one hand and box of tissues in the other. His alcohol abstinence was short-lived; why it began or ended he didn’t say. But I think he was more affected by Dan’s absence than he let on, because although Howie enjoyed teasing Dan, Dan was also, out of all of us, the most tolerant of Howie’s teasing. I think Howie blamed himself for Dan supposedly leaving the house. Some argument before vacation, maybe, or one too many slights and insults, had ended in Dan finally deciding he’d had enough.
A day earlier Howie had pulled me aside and asked if I was keeping anything secret.
“You can tell old Howie,” he said, winking. His breath smelled of Irish coffee. “I won’t say a word. It’s because of me, isn’t it? Because of what I said.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. He looked desperate. “If I knew anything, I’d tell you.”
Howie closed one eye and pulled away from me. “About a month ago Dan and I got into a little…debate, I guess you’d call it. Nothing much, you know, nothing much at all. It was about that Philosopher’s Stone bullshit.” He looked around the living room to see if anyone had sneaked in during our conversation. “Before vacation. I told Art I wasn’t interested in it anymore. He had this whole thing planned, some big ceremony in the woods—” Howie stopped.
“Aw, what the hell,” he said. “He probably told you anyway.”
“Actually,” I said, “Art hasn’t told me anything.”
“Doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done. Art told us when he returned from Prague he’d have the real formula for the elixir. I told him I didn’t give a shit because I’m done. I told him this alchemy business stopped being fun a while ago. You know how it is, sometimes those types of things are interesting, like ouija boards and seances…not that I ever believed any of it anyway. But you know Art. Once he gets something in his head he won’t quit. So I told him I wasn’t interested, and Dan said I was being stubborn, and that got me going…” He trailed off, a sad look in his wide, green eyes. “Maybe I said some things I shouldn’t have said.”
“Like what?”
Howie sniffled. “Well, I sort of stated the obvious.”
I held out my hands to indicate I didn’t get it.
“Oh, come on, Eric. You may be young but you aren’t blind. You know Dan is…you know.” He rolled his eyes.
“Gay,” I said.
“Yeah.” Howie sighed, as if relieved I’d said it first. “Or at least he’s leaning in that direction. Frankly, I just think he’s confused—he doesn’t act like a queer, and usually with those types you can tell the second you meet them. And God knows I’ve tried to help. I can’t tell you how many dates I’ve set him up on. Something about fags draws women like stink to shit. But I think Dan could go either way, and I don’t think some of the things he does with Art are right.”
“Ellen told me about the forest ceremonies,” I said. “About the circle jerks and everything.”
Howie fell silent, his red hair in swirls and whorls, a couple of days’ worth of facial hair covering his chin.
“She wasn’t there,” he said, quietly. “She took it out of context.”
I could see we were heading into dangerous territory and I quickly asked him again about Dan. Howie sniffled.
“I told him I thought he was only into this whole alchemy thing for the sex.”
“Oh, man,” I said.
Howie ran his hands through his hair and exhaled sharply. If I hadn’t known the truth about Dan’s disappearance, I would have believed Howie’s comment was the reason.
So it was only fitting that Howie was the catalyst that Friday evening, since he’d burdened himself with unnecessary guilt, and although I’m sure, in his drunken stupor, he thought what he’d found wasn’t anything important, a part of me still wonders if Howie suspected something subconsciously, and with alcohol as solvent the grains of doubt swirled and collected at the bottom of his mind, waiting to be plucked between his outstretched fingers and held to the light and inspected with a revelatory Ah-ha! He looked up from his plate, speech slurred, eyes unsteady. “There was a poem on Dan’s bed when I go
t back from vacation,” he said. “I went into his room to drop off the book I got for him, and I found a poem. In French. Does Dan speak French?”
I looked to Art, who looked to Dr. Cade, who looked to Howie. “Where is this poem now?” Dr. Cade said.
“In my room,” Howie said. The radiator groaned. “On my dresser. I translated it, and totally forgot about it.”
Professor Cade set down his napkin and left the table. For five minutes we waited in silence, listening to footsteps creak across the upstairs floor. Howie refilled his glass with wine, and Art refused to look at me, instead rooting through the remainder of his lasagna wedge, giving it a few desultory jabs with the tip of his knife. Nilus padded softly across the living room and moved to his favorite spot in front of the fireplace. A yellowing leaf toppled from the stalk of Dr. Cade’s ficus tree framing the archway and fell to the floor.
Dr. Cade returned, holding out a folded sheet of paper between thumb and forefinger, his forehead wrinkled with worry, his mouth turned down at the corners. He looked concerned, and a little afraid, but most of all he looked curious, as if he were watching a great tragedy unfold and found it fascinating.
Soon after I realized why—Professor Cade was holding what he believed was Dan’s suicide note.
Chapter 5
There was the phone call, Dr. Cade’s solemn voice coming from the kitchen, telling the Fairwich police he has reason to believe one of his students may have harmed himself. There was the suicide note itself, laid out for us on the dining room table, between the vegetable lasagna dish and the radicchio and olive salad, a piece of white, unlined paper, containing a single stanza typewritten in the center of the page:
…L’eternité.
C’est la mer mêlée
Au soleil.
There was the long wait in silence and the flashing red lights of a police cruiser, and then Nilus barking and knocks on the door and Dr. Cade welcoming in two policemen, who looked at our strange scene with what must have been astonishment. The three of us, Art, Howie, and myself, sitting equidistant from one another at the dining room table, the cryptic note as the centerpiece lying there as if we were waiting for it to morph into human form and sing its sad tale.
