by Greg Fields
From Harvard he moved to Yale, earned a master’s, then a doctorate. His doctoral defense completed one early May afternoon, Jordan Brophy could no longer delay the obvious: it was time to get a job.
He had, of course, realized this long before. In fact, he had known from boyhood that he would teach, and so he faced this reality with only the slightest fear—that his teaching duties would limit his own personal pursuits. In actuality, Jordan Brophy was home free. Once employed he found it easy to curtail virtually all social obligations. His personal library grew and grew.
His graduate studies had specialized in early twentieth century literature, where he had cultivated an intimate relationship with Theodore Dreiser. His dissertation, examining the impact of Dreiser’s late adolescent Chicago years on the writer’s traditional themes of social power, turned the heads of other scholars throughout the East. His advisor at Yale recommended him to another of his former students, then English Department chairman at a private college near Philadelphia. It would be, explained the advisor, the perfect place to start a brilliant career. The young scholar could establish his teaching credentials before going on to a truly outstanding position at, say, one of the Ivies.
Thirty-one years later, Jordan Brophy had yet to move anywhere. Not that his ambition deserted him, for, in truth, his only real ambition had been fully met. Here he could teach, he could read, he could pursue his research. Whether he taught the industrious middle-class students of this college or the distinctively brilliant minds of the great North American universities made no difference. The comfort of this situation became apparent during his first year there. He had no need to look elsewhere. In his own unusual way, Jordan Brophy was a fulfilled man.
Over the course of those years, Dr. Brophy had formed his habits. As he sat in his office watching the leaves, he indulged in one of his most familiar. Brophy chose to teach his courses in the late afternoon. He had not taught before lunch in more than a decade. After his last class of the day he would retreat to his office, shut the door and brew some tea. He would sit then at his desk, sipping slowly with no distractions, and examine the view from his window. His office faced away from the college itself, with a view that spanned across the wooded, rolling hillsides that ran up to the campus edge. Each season lent its own texture, and, as he sat, Brophy would reflect upon the class just concluded and the day that held it. The solitude, the quiet, the tea, the view—the serenity—was Jordan Brophy’s personal buffer between realities.
This day’s last class had been a freshman literature survey. Most senior faculty steered clear of such basic assignments, preferring the upper-level courses that allowed them to display their specialties like peacocks spreading their fans. Here was as much intellectual stimulation an undergraduate college could offer. And while Brophy shared these sentiments, he had never surrendered his survey course. It was another habit, and teaching it offered no strain. At the same time he could evaluate the younger students and possibly identify a bright light here or there who might be persuaded to major in English. The department always needed more majors.
The classroom specified social roles without ambiguity. Brophy’s place as instructor defined itself, so he did not have to contend with the egos, idiosyncrasies or nuances that most social occasions engendered. He did not have to worry whether or not he was well liked, or even tolerated. He was professor, they were students. Nothing else mattered. In the classroom Brophy could relax and present his material with an élan that spoke to his own devoted love of it. He had become one of the college’s favorite instructors. Students regarded him as a touch odd, but he knew his stuff and taught it so that it could be understood.
Jordan Brophy sipped his tea and reflected on the class just concluded. A typical group, somewhat awed by their surroundings, as are most freshmen, but most were eager, and trying very hard to be impressive. It was late October. A few were beginning to develop something approximating literary appreciation. And a sense of critical thought, too, seemed to be coming around. Freshmen were so malleable.
The semester was half over, yet Dr. Brophy knew few names. Unless a student particularly impressed him, he or she remained anonymous. Even if a student should climb the stairs to Brophy’s office to solicit help or advice, he or she rarely penetrated the professor’s memory. Brophy was universally polite, sometimes warm, but never transgressed the line between teacher and friend. Students were fluid: they came and went in annual herds, never aging. Only Brophy grew older. Students were replaceable, coming in endless supply. Brophy might concern himself with them collectively; individually, they would only clutter his well-ordered mind.
Except one.
A young girl had walked into his survey class on the first day, had sat down in the front row and then fixed her attention on the professor. She possessed none of the outward uncertainty that usually denoted first-year students. She carried herself confidently, although her actions were never bold, nor called attention to her in any way. She did not come forward to answer questions, and infrequently took part in discussions, nor did she speak much to her classmates. On those rare occasions when she did open her mouth, she spoke without hurry or tension. Brophy noticed that she seemed to speak in complete sentences, her thoughts well formulated. Her soft voice resonated. She was pleasant to his ears.
It was the rarest occurrence for Jordan Brophy to think about a student of only average ability, one who did not make herself noticeable through intellectual strength or agility. The fact that this young lady’s face stood in his mind now disturbed him, and disquieted his reflections. He struggled with himself to see why.
Through the years, he had had young women in his classes who were nothing short of gorgeous. This one would not qualify as such, but none of the others had engrained themselves in his mind as did this catlike girl, who, Brophy mused, moved through her world without being a part of it.
She possessed a rare beauty, soft and subtle, that could cause an immediate ache in one seeing her for the first time. Her hair, a gentle brown, hung long down her back. Her face radiated a visual sensation of softness, so that a heavy touch might pass right through her skin. Her eyes, deep and brown, contained mystery and magic. She kept her gaze upon Dr. Brophy as he lectured. Confident, unhurried, slightly detached. The corners of her mouth curled ever so slightly into a half-smile, half-smirk. Her high cheekbones accented those remarkable eyes, or so it seemed. One would be hard pressed to forget those eyes.
Jordan Brophy was not well versed in the opposite sex. He was, in fact, a virgin, a state about which he carried few regrets. The sexual urges he regarded as annoyances, something that cluttered the roadway to a higher plane, not unlike a runny nose, and were easily dispatched. Where he could not imagine Nathaniel Hawthorne dripping mucus across his upper lip, neither could he picture himself in the passionate embrace of a lustful female. The language of love and all its attendant rituals lay far beyond this wise man’s comprehension.
But this girl disturbed him, and ruffled his thoughts. She transmitted in her cool bearing a definite sexuality, and it was not lost even on so naïve a soul as Jordan Brophy. The professor looked at her, she looked back, and his thoughts strayed, became vacant. More than once he had had to stop his lecture to regroup the ideas that had dispersed under her gaze. He would feel an alertness in his loins, a subtle quickening of his pulse. His extremities might lose their warmth, his voice grow lower and more hurried. Thinking of her later, after class, his reaction might be the same. She would walk out of his classroom, and Dr. Brophy would watch her go, measuring to himself each slow, distinctive step.
He could not fathom his reaction to this fine young woman. What he could not fathom, he could not control. A lack of control made him uneasy; it shattered his orderly patterns. No student had ever drawn his attention so, not in thirty-one years of impersonal discipline.
Jordan Brophy sat back in his chair, drew the final swallow of his tea, and watched the leaves. Where was she now? Was this haunting impression
merely illusion?
The leaves by his window had lost their color. The sun had nearly set, and the walk back to his apartment would no doubt be a cold one. Jordan Brophy gathered four books he wanted to skim that night in preparation for a class on Dos Passos and placed them in his ancient briefcase. As he left his office, he shut off the light. His footsteps echoed without companion in the empty hallway.
***
Where lies the bridge between love and contempt, and when do we know that we have crossed it? What compels us to thrust away that which once we held to our bosom? When does the sacred become the profane, the shapely become the grotesque? And, when at last we see it so, what do we do? Where do we go? Where do we find once again that which we can hold dear?
Come now, nighttime, and shroud the day. Like Lazarus, we are too soon entombed. Like Lazarus, we slumber, and for a time seek not beauty, but peace. Like Lazarus, we wait again for a savior, for a new day, to stretch our limbs again, to breathe the air that we now find.
Where lies the bridge between love and contempt, and when do we know that we have crossed it? To what new land does it bring us?
My father was a gentle man who loved us well. In our time he nourished us, grew us true and hearty. We stayed with him to feed him in return. He grew lean, though, the bones on his sides protruding like nails. He groaned in pain while we watched, all of us. Nothing to be done. One night he was gone. The body became headless. Decay will set in, and we will rot. We will grow misshapen and warped. My father stayed with us. He is dead now. We are grotesque and brutal, not as we were when we were young.
Where lies the bridge between love and contempt, and when do we know that we have crossed it?
***
The blonde girl pushed her chair back from the hardwood desk that was tucked into the room’s far corner. “Roommate, what say you to a coffee break?”
The roommate lay on her bed, a history textbook propped against her drawn-up knees. “Sounds agreeable. Student Center?”
“Unless you want the machine kind.”
The roommate made a face. “I can’t stand that swill. Let me put on a sweater.”
“Yeah. You never know who you might meet.”
“It’s not that. It’s cold out, is all.”
The evening was still young. In point of fact, the two girls had not been back from dinner more than two hours. On a weekday night there was precious little to do on campus but study. Neither girl was a scholar, nor wanted to be. They grew bored quickly and often, usually together. When one thought of a suitable diversion, a pretext for delaying their studies or ending them altogether, and presented it to the other, declinations rarely followed.
The student center was one of the campus’s older buildings, made of brick and adorned with white pillars in an attempt to cultivate elegance which, sadly, failed. The building could not bluff away the scars of forty years of heavy, abandoned student pillage. The snack bar sat in the basement at the foot of slick grey stairs.
“God damn, I’m tired,” said the blonde, whose name was Lynda, as she stretched back in her chair. “I hope this wakes me up. “As if to prove her point, she yawned. As she came out of it, her eyes landed on the blue and gold banner bearing the mythical medieval creature resurrected as the school’s mascot. The banner took up most of the wall adjacent their table.
“That thing’s disgusting, don’t you think? It belongs in a high school pep rally. Not very uplifting.”
“Are you here to be uplifted?” asked the other, a slightly sarcastic lilt in her voice, for she knew why they both had come there.
“I’m here to get away. So are you. Don’t kid yourself. But then, I don’t think you’re the self-deceptive type. You’re clever, girl. You know that?”
“I try to be,” she smiled. “But no one’s hurt by it. I like to be in control.”
“So do I,” replied Lynda. “But I rarely am. I never have been, really. That’s one reason why I like it here. So far, I’m pretty much in control. Of myself, I mean.”
“It’s still early, girlfriend. Do you think you can stay in control?”
“Hell, I don’t know. But I’ve turned a corner, I think. I’m responsible for what I do here. No one else. That part of it won’t change, no matter what. I won’t let it. If nothing else, college is going to teach me how to take care of myself, and that’s a lesson too damn long in coming. Yeah, I’ve turned a corner.”
Her roommate listened to this and was not at all convinced that the girl believed it herself. “Lynda, can I ask you something? It’s personal.”
“Sure, kid. You’ll learn all my secrets in due time anyway.”
The other girl fingered the lip of her coffee cup thoughtfully, and when she spoke she measured her words with care. This was her friend, or perhaps someone who could be. “You don’t seem very happy. You haven’t, really, since I met you. It seems as if there’s always something holding you back, bothering you and making you sad. And that’s so strange to me because you can be such a warm person. You don’t have to tell me anything, and I don’t mean to pry where I don’t belong. Maybe I’m just no good at reading people. But I want you to know that I can sense that something important to you is not right. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
Lynda listened quietly. She was, in a real sense, amazed. Everyone had secrets. She had her share, and one of them had compelled her to leave her home to come to this place. She had an option immediately before her. She could deny the sadness her new friend had perceived, and build the walls a little higher, a little thicker, pretending as if what they could both see did not exist. Or she could, for the first time in her life, discuss what really mattered. Her roommate possessed a gentility that inspired trust, although she could also be almost inhumanly cold when her mood shifted. Lynda had seen some black humors, when she was so quiet and inward as to be almost haughty. Yet this girl was her roommate, her closest friend for the moment, both logistically and emotionally. They would spend at least this year together, and probably more. Something called her on.
“Let’s go for a walk. I don’t want to talk here. That is, if you want to hear a story.”
“I’ll listen. If you want to tell it.”
“I don’t mind. It’s probably good that I do. You’re right, you know. There is something. I’m trying to sort it out, to get over it and find some peace. You can tell me what I should do.”
They left the student center and went along the pathway that led down to the slope upon which the college had been built, then around the campus perimeter. Few people would be out along this path on a chilly night.
“You’re pretty amazing, roommate. I’ve always thought I could hold things inside. But that comes down to playing a role. Congratulations. You found me out, although I’m sure it was just a matter of time. Any role grows tiresome after a time.”
“It wasn’t difficult, Lynda. You might not be as complex as you imagine yourself.”
“I’ve gone through something that almost ripped me in two. And one of the worst parts was that I couldn’t tell anyone. I never have. You’re the first. I don’t know why I should be so trusting, you know. You’re still more a stranger than a friend, although I sense you’ve got the makings of a great friend, maybe the best I’ll ever have. I suppose you’re still reasonably objective toward me. Are you willing to lose that?”
“I’m hardly objective. That leaves us at first glance. Tell me what’s on your mind, Lynda. I have my hurts, too. Maybe we can hurt together a little bit.”
“I’ll pay you back some day. Okay?”
“I’ll count on it.”
“Have you ever been in love? I know that sounds unbelievably trite.”
The other laughed inadvertently, a spasm that rose through her lungs and into her throat. But immediately she retracted and became serious. “I’m sorry. No, Lynda, I haven’t. I haven’t even come close, and I don’t want to for a long while.”
“That’s good. Neither have I when it comes right down to it. But I thought
that you might have a few battle scars. Something to judge the depth of my wounds. They’re made of a different tissue, though. Thicker. It’s all I think about sometimes, what happened. And it’s so simple, really, and I’m not the first. Not a very mystical matter. I made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“I convinced myself that I had fallen in love. Hopelessly, irredeemably in love, with the perfect man. Two years ago. I was sixteen. Can you imagine that?” she chuckled bitterly. “I wanted to be sophisticated, so cosmopolitan. The world at my feet, advanced beyond my tender years. God, I was so confused. I was so taken by illusion. I had no definitions, so I let a man fill in the blanks. He told me what I was. He told me who I was in love with. I believed him.”
“Who was this man?”
“Ah, girl, there’s the rub, and therein lies the heart of my mistake. It would have been stupid enough to become involved with anyone, but I would have been much better off if I had chosen someone less complicated, less demanding and just as naïve as I was. I would have been better able to weather the whole stormy mess. In fact, there would have been no stormy mess at all. Then we might have both learned something from it and I wouldn’t have been the sole casualty. But I chose no ordinary man, roommate. He was older, with a family. And he was my English teacher.”
There followed a silence of several seconds, perhaps longer. They walked without speaking, with only the soft crunch of pathway gravel and dead leaves underfoot. The other remained quiet, waiting for her friend to continue.
