by John Barth
Where her husband and the others had got to she didn’t know, unless mistaking G. Herrold for Croaker (as she herself had done at first) and seeing him drown, they had judged the danger past and gone to find the body. Certainly she did not believe that any man, even one so unusual as her husband, would stand idly by and see a woman assaulted—the men in yellow she excepted, of course, and forgave, they being Commenced Graduates. A trifle uncomfortably I praised her large-mindedness and courage, and she in turn thanked the Founder for my chance presence in the gorge, which if it had not spared her one awful raping after all, had at least spared her more, or worse. As she spoke, distressed by the memory, she bent her forehead to my chest (where cold water still dripped from the fleece) and I was moved to pat her hair to comfort her. Silky to the touch it was, the nape beneath finely downed! But her closeness stirred Croaker under me, and she quickly stepped back, remarking only that if she had the sodium pentathol herself I wouldn’t need to keep my perch.
She concluded her tale by pleading with me not to imagine, as her husband surely would, that anything but concern for the safety of others had prompted her behavior. Ordinarily, for example, though a married woman and a registered nurse, she would have been far too modest to do more than call from the bridge. But even as G. Herrold had waded towards her she had spied Croaker leaping through the trees behind us, and fearing he might attack us she had put by shame and shift to make the urgenter summons. I asked her whether her husband wouldn’t be very much upset at what had happened to her.
“Maurice upset? You mean angry, or jealous?” She shook her head ruefully. “Not him! He’ll be unpleasant, but not upset. He’s not like other men.”
Indeed, I thought, he must not be. Anastasia went then to build up the fire for “The Living Sakhyan,” who for all he would tend it himself or acknowledge her aid, had as well been dead. Very much moved, I went off with Croaker—uncertainly at first, then with more confidence as I learned how readily he responded to command now his lust was appeased. We crossed the stream easily above the bridge, where it was only waist-deep, and retrieved Max, whose alarm I quieted with some difficulty. He had of course witnessed the unhappy scene across the river, at first in despair, then in horror, at last in anxious wonder. But when I explained who Croaker was, and who were the bridge-girl and the men in yellow, and repeated Anastasia’s account of her self-sacrifice for our sakes, he was more moved to pity even than I.
“That Maurice Stoker,” he said bitterly, “I know him, all right. He’s a real Dean o’ Flunks.” With the aid of my walking stick (which Max had retrieved) I’d made Croaker understand that he was to carry my advisor in his arms, as G. Herrold had done earlier in the day, and the three of us proceeded thus to make our final crossing. To what I’d heard from Anastasia, Max added that Maurice Stoker was reputed to be a half-brother to the present Chancellor, but had been disowned by the Rexford family, a worthy and distinguished one, as well as expelled from New Tammany College, many years previously, for advocating the violent overthrow of every administration between the two Campus Riots. A militant anti-Founderist and anti-Finalist, and a notorious intriguer in varsity affairs, he was reputed to have played a role in the great Nikolayan Revolution, in the rise of the Bonifacist Reichskanzler, and in terrorist movements in virtually every quadrangle of the University. Wherever disorder was, Maurice Stoker seemed to be also, whether to assist in an anti-administration riot (even against men who themselves owed their offices to his plotting) or to encourage with his presence so trifling a disturbance as the ritual spring panty-raids on co-ed dormitories in NTC. Yet no one, it seemed, understood the management of the great West-Campus Power Plant as he did, or the multifarious operations of Main Detention—the bureau in charge of counterintelligence as well as the detection and punishment of domestic miscreants and course-failers. Indeed, among the causes of Max’s disenchantment with political life was the fact that even the best-intentioned, most high-minded administrators (including young Lucius Rexford himself, whom Max rather admired) seemed unable to do without Maurice Stoker; fear and despise him as they might, all came at last to terms with him; in the present administration as in its predecessor, though he was seldom to be seen on New Tammany’s Great Mall, he retained his offices at the Power Plant to the north and Main Detention to the south.
“Imagine a nice girl married to such a man!” Max concluded—we were almost across the river by this time, and I pointed Croaker downstream towards the fire. “It almost wonders me whether we should trust her.”
“You won’t wonder when you see her,” I assured him.
“Well, I saw right much of her already. And you too—which you shouldn’t have enjoyed it like you did.” However, he added to my relief, during his anxious half-hour alone on the beach he had reviewed my behavior in the light of comparative cyclology and decided that while yielding to such temptations would in his opinion disqualify me for Grand-Tutorhood, simply being tempted in itself did not, at least not necessarily: Laertides, after all, had deliberately attended the sweet Sirens’ singing and even commanded his crew to change course from their true destination and head for the rocks. The difference between us, which must caution me for the future, was that Laertides, being properly forewarned, had seen to it both that his freedom of action would be suspended and that his commands would be ignored during his temporary madness, his relapse from herohood.
“It’s a kind of insurance,” Max declared. “Nobody can be a hero every minute of every day; even Enos Enoch must’ve had times when He wished He was just another freshman, He wouldn’t have to get Himself nailed up. What’s important is to see you can slip, and make sure nobody pays attention when you say ‘Pfui on Commencement!’ If you won’t stop up your ears and eyes, you got to tie yourself to the mast like Laertides did, and tell me not to mind your crazy talk.” The self-binding, he explained, was figurative: I must let him be my Mast as well as my forewarner, and tie myself to him with the Rope of a solemn vow, to submit to his restraining whenever I was tempted to compromise my difficult mission. There occurred to me certain objections—questions, really, of a theoretical nature—to what he said: it was easy enough for us to maintain, for example, that Laertides’ Siren-chasing moods were the improper ones and his home-striving moods the proper, inasmuch as we saw both from the poet’s perspective, and the choice moreover was inherent in the premise of the fable. What would have kept a real Laertides, I wondered, from telling himself that the Sirens’ voice was actually his wife’s, or that only now, having heard them, did he realize that their rock, and not the rocky coast of home, was his true destination? Other tales there were in which the hero’s conception of his task was not so insusceptible to doubt as Laertides’ had been-but it so relieved me not to be scolded for the lust that had possessed me (and not to have to worry about it further myself), I saved these reservations for some future time.
“Tell this ape he should put me down now,” Max requested. “Ach, what a pair of roommates, Eblis Eierkopf and this one!”
I did so, gratified at the promptness with which Croaker heeded the pointing of my stick. It seemed to control him better than either word-commands or pressure of the heels: a mild whack athwart his hip with it, for instance, even served to check his jumping up and down when Anastasia came to meet us, her fine eyes raised uncertainly to mine. I remarked that she was alone, The Living Sakhyan and his party having gone their way.
“Mrs. Stoker,” I said (recalling how such things were done in an etiquette book Lady Creamhair once had fed to me): “Max Spielman, my advisor.”
“How d’you do,” Anastasia murmured, and Max nodded shortly. I attributed the coolness in her voice to embarrassment, and so assured her that Max now understood and was grateful for her noble intentions, held her in no way responsible for G. Herrold’s drowning, and sympathized with her for what she had suffered.
“I’ll speak for myself,” Max interrupted. “Look me in the eyes once, young lady.” She did so, still maintaining her od
d reserve. “This fellow here has got a job to do, more important and dangerous than any other job on campus; it’s just what Maurice Stoker would try to keep him from doing. So: did you do what you did to save us from Croaker, or did your husband send you out here to stop this young man? Tell me the truth—it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d set Croaker on us too, and that whole story about Eierkopf was a lie.”
The girl did not answer at once; she bit her lower lip and seemed about to cry.
“Don’t scold her so, Max! She’s just had bad things happen to her.”
“Dear girl,” Max said more gently, “if you really been raped I kiss your feet and beg your pardon. Passèd are the raped, like it says in the Seminar-on-the-Hill. But it’s not easy to trust a person that lives with Maurice Stoker.”
“You don’t understand him,” Anastasia said distractedly; she put her hand to her forehead. “I think I’ve got to sit down. It’s hard to know what to say after all I’ve heard about you …”
“Heard?” Max cried. “Ja sure, from that Dean o’ Flunks husband of yours!”
She shook her head, still standing. “From my mother, Dr. Spielman! And from Uncle Ira, and Grandpa Reg!”
“What’s this?” Now Max was wide-eyed, and the girl seemed on the verge of swooning. He stepped to steady her; she hid her face in his shoulder. “Young lady, who are you?”
Her voice came muffled from his fleece. “My name used to be Stacey Hector. I’m Virginia Hector’s daughter … and I guess … yours too.”
4.
Having made this declaration, Anastasia lost her voice entirely and wept into Max’s wrapper, while my advisor, shaking his head from side to side, could say only, “Yi yi yi yi!” and pat her hair. I suggested we move to the abandoned fire, and went astride Croaker to fetch more sticks against the night-chill. Max was protesting, when I returned, that while he had indeed loved Miss Virginia R. Hector extremely, he was innocent of her impregnation and could not understand why she had persisted in accusing him. To which Anastasia replied, it was not her mother who accused him, at least not in recent years; her mother had alas gone somewhat out of her senses and declared by turns that she had never been pregnant at all; that she had been pregnant but by no mortal man in the University; that Anastasia was no child of hers; etc., etc.
“It was Uncle Ira and Grandpa Reg who blamed you,” she said. “I used to ask them who was this Max that Mother talked about when she’d had too much to drink—she used to drink a lot—”
“Yi yi!” Max groaned.
“—and when I was older they told me my father was a bad man named Max Spielman that had deserted my mother and caused a lot of trouble before they fired him. Please don’t do that …” Max had set himself to kissing her sandals and beating his forehead upon the sand. “I never hated you the way they said I should. I used to wonder what could have made you treat Mother like that, and I decided it must have been something you couldn’t help, or you never would have done it. I used to wish I’d meet you, so I could let you know I didn’t hate you for anything, and even if you cursed me or hit me, the way people do sometimes, at least you’d have me there to do it to, and it might make you feel better about Mother and me. Maurice is that way, and Uncle Ira used to be too.”
“Georgie!” Max cried. “Hear the voice of sweet Commencement!” He then declared to Anastasia, still on his knees before her, that so pass him Founder he was not her father, but the victim of heartbreaking accusations and false charges, the motive whereof he despaired of ever learning. That he nonetheless cursed and reproached himself for not having stood by the woman he loved, understanding (as one with half Anastasia’s own loving nature would have, he was certain) that his dear lady’s indictments were the fruit of some desperation; he would never forgive himself, he vowed, for not having pled guilty to the false paternity, so sparing Virginia Hector the dismal afflictions it seemed had come upon her, and Anastasia the egregious burden of illegitimacy.
“But it doesn’t matter!” Anastasia said. “I forgive you anyway. There’s no need to keep saying you’re not my father.”
“By me there’s need! I wish I was your poppa, such a girl! But I’m not, I swear it!”
“Then I believe you,” the girl said firmly. “Don’t go on like that, now.” As if he were the child and she the parent, she gathered Max’s old head to her breast, which lacking the hard-cupped harness I had noted on Chickie-in-the-buckwheat’s, yielded softly to his cheek—and I wished I had something to be forgiven for. The effect was admirable: Max soon recomposed himself and set to praising her virtues to me (who needed no persuasion) in a more controlled if no less enthusiastic spirit. He now believed her utterly, he said, and would add to the proofs of my untutored wisdom, and his own too-human fallibility, that I had been drawn strongly to her from the first, and had affirmed her goodness in the face of his skepticism.
“That was sweet of him,” she said, and smiled me such a warm smile of gratitude, I wished I truly had never doubted her, and been impelled from the first by the sight of her spiritual merits alone. “He tried his best to hold Croaker back, too, but it wasn’t any use.”
“An atrocity!” Max cried. “The brute ought to be caged up.”
But Anastasia protested once again that after all men were what they were, Founder pass them, and animals were what they were; Croaker couldn’t help himself any more than her husband could, who often did things to her and to others that were misinterpreted as proceeding from a flunkèd nature simply because the deeds themselves were flunkèd. Besides, it pained her to see anything caged, no matter how wild or dangerous—an animal, a criminal, anything … Often in the past, she confessed, she had pitied “poor Croaker” for not having a mate equal to his passions—though to be sure she pitied even more their unequal victims: the co-eds, the policeman, the poodle, and the cute little monkeys whose expressions had looked so like wise old men’s. But only look at Croaker now, she bade us, how docile and content he was, like a great spoiled child that’s had his lollipop at last. How could she, she asked us almost light-heartedly, be aggrieved at her own mistreatment—which albeit hurtsome had not been fatal, after all—when in addition to sparing others the same or worse, it had so plainly done its doer a campus of good?
I was purely touched, and asked her how it came that so gentle a lady girl had wed Maurice Stoker, whom despite her excusing him I took to be a flunkèder brute than Croaker, because more conscious of his ways?
“That’s well asked, Georgie,” Max approved. “That’s asked like a Grand Tutor.” And to Anastasia, before she could reply, he professed frankly his belief that I might be no person else than a true Grand Tutor to the Western Campus, destined to rescue studentdom from the tyranny of its own invention. “Don’t mock,” he cautioned her; “myself I’m a skeptic; I wouldn’t say such a thing in a hundred years without plenty good reasons.”
But Anastasia was far from mocking; she looked up at me in wonder as Max spoke. “So that’s it!”
I assumed she meant that she understood now certain earlier remarks and attitudes of mine which must have struck her as mysterious at the time (such as my alarm at her mention that Chancellor Rexford was expecting a Grand Tutor’s arrival at any moment). But she drew from the pocket of her shift a small glass phial, which she said had been given her by one of The Living Sakhyan’s company as they left the beach, just a short time previously.
“It was the strangest thing,” she said to Max—as if scarcely presuming to address me directly. “Here I didn’t even think they could talk our language, and I swear they hadn’t said a word to one another the whole time they were sitting here; but suddenly The Living Sakhyan smiled at me and raised His hand—it was like He’d just come out of his trance—and it made me feel peculiar all over! Then one of His men led me up to the fire—this was while George had gone back to get you. And I felt so funny, because I didn’t know whether they were going to thank me for fixing their fire, or—or do something to me, or what. And it didn’t see
m to matter, if you know what I mean, Him being such a great man and all; you can almost feel how wise and Commenced He is, and whatever He wanted to do, I had this feeling it was all right, and I’d be flunkèd not to let Him do it …” She turned to me, her eyes full of reverence. “But then His helper took out this little bottle and gave it to me, and said it was for you from The Living Sakhyan. ‘From ours to yours,’ is what he said—and he didn’t even speak with an accent! I was so surprised I stood there like a dunce, and didn’t think to ask what it was until they’d picked up The Living Sakhyan and were almost gone. Then the man who gave it to me sort of frowned and closed his eyes, as if I was so stupid he couldn’t stand to look at me, and he said, ‘It’s the Disappearing Ink.’ I swear that’s what he said!”
She held the phial out to me, rather diffidently. “He must have just said that to let me know it was none of my business. There doesn’t seem to be anything in it at all, that I can see …”
I held it up to the firelight, shook it at my ear. It did in fact appear to be empty.
“Do you think—” She touched her fingers to her cheek and smiled uncertainly at Max. “What I mean, could it have disappeared already?”
Max examined gravely the empty phial and returned it to me. East-Campus Graduates, he pointed out, famously spoke in riddles, and it was by no means unthinkable that The Living Sakhyan, or His disciple, had been making some obscure joke with Anastasia; but whatever the true nature and significance of the gift, he took its presentation as no joke at all, but one more proof of my authenticity.
