by John Farrow
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On the occasion of my fortieth anniversary publishing novels (a longer time spent writing them), I’m dedicating this novel to my editors down through the years. In chronological order, this is for Dennis Lee, the late Gordon Montador, the late Ellen Seligman, Philippa Campsie, Ed Carson, Iris Tupholme, Barbara Berson, and most recently the joy that is Marcia Markland. I’m indebted to each of you and learned something of consequence—a truckload at times; sometimes a wee gem—from everyone. Thanks all.
PART 1
ONE
The clock in its tower. A watchful eye on campus.
He admires the mechanism, how the constant churning of the gears looms over the flawless serenity of his lover’s spent form. That contrast. Its pace not measured by a rudimentary tick-tock, rather by a methodical shhlunka-shhlunka as the big hand cycles through the minutes. In the afterglow of the clock’s exterior light, the young woman appears radiant to him. Her lips parted in anticipation of his farewell kiss. He’s done his best for her. Attended to each exacting detail. Not only is she beautiful now—has she not always been lovely with her alabaster skin, dark tresses, and sultry black eyes?—at long last she lies before him as exquisite and perfectly serene.
That’s the key, the wonder of it all: following their rapture, her serenity.
Shhlunka-shhlunka.
No time to dawdle. The more difficult task comes next.
The man regrets the vulgarity of this aspect, that he must lug her down the clock-tower stairs. Nothing about the transition will be elegant. Carry her in his arms, her limbs at a dangle, or hoist her over a shoulder like a sack of … But he will not disparage her dignity with that descriptor. He can no longer delay the job. She cannot be left high and dry in the tower, undetected perhaps for weeks before being found in unspeakable condition. An imperative, she must be discovered sooner, not later, that others can be struck by her presentation. If nothing else, her refined beauty is to be displayed as though for the first time. His artistry will be appreciated then, validated, even revered.
Steep, old, and cracked, the wood stairs are best negotiated with one hand on the railing. He chooses to bend his shoulder into her waist and lift her that way, which keeps a hand free to hold on. Her head and neck swing down, her hair gets mussed, and that’s unfortunate, yet this rude aspect will soon be over. Taking up the strain, he comforts her with words.
For the first time he is aware of his own breathing, it’s audible. He grunts as he adjusts her position to secure his balance.
Together, they embark on the treacherous descent.
“Easy does it, my lovely. Gently down.”
One careful step at a time.
Shhlunka-shhlunka.
He takes it slowly, not wanting to drop her. That would be a calamity. He guards against pitching forward, which might imperil his own life.
The effort is not merely physical. He must also harness his emotions. The force of the intimacy that flows between them arrives as a surprise. The faithful cooperation of her body with his own feels transformative. As though they have become one. His lover snuggles into the crook of his shoulder, her form adjusting to accommodate his heroics, to help make this journey safer and easier for them both. On the demanding descent, the intensity of his emotions revives, as when their passions were conjoined, for is this not the ultimate act of love and expiation, the letting go, the sacrifice inherent in his devotion to her and to her alone for the sake of their ultimate freedom? Never can others understand what they have known, what they have shared. His eyes well up. He staggers, his knees quake, his thighs rebel with the weight and the burden of their travail and his whole body aches with the solemnity of this final rite.
Yet, she is not a burden, he will not think of her that way, for she bears for him the weightlessness of love, of surrender, of intimacy. Seemingly she evaporates off his back and shoulders on the steep stairs. Rather, it is the weight of a pathetic, sordid world that he must lug as he turns at each landing and prodigiously maneuvers to shuffle with care to the next level. Around and around and down they go, not conveniently in a spiral but in tight right-angled twists, each minute marked by the decreasing volume of the clock’s accompaniment above them,
shhlunka-shhlunka,
until, at last, they achieve the base of the stairs.
The bottom step of the tower is located seven flights up. From here, an elevator ferries folks to the ground floor. He has no intention of making that descent with her. Here is where they must part. From now on, she’ll require a different consort, and will probably be zipped in a banal body bag, poor thing, to descend farther.
Before that indignity is inflicted upon her, the man arranges her positioning for her to look her best when next revealed. The chic white dress is an inspired selection. The blue ribbon—synthetic, which is regrettable, yet silky to the touch—hangs from her waist as a sash, a subtle yet illuminating accessory, youthful and free, very laissez-faire. A devil-may-care attitude, yet elegant. Her white blouse and business attire, so unbecoming, has already been removed from the tower, exchanged for what suits her best. The blue of the sash repeated in her hair with a touch of lace. Her makeup redone. She’s pleased, he’s certain. Much care is taken with her clothing and look. The nylon stockings are from another era, true, but seriously, how much longer can a man apologize for that? Even though she gives him a hard time about it, he knows that she’s secretly happy to play these dress-up games.
The demure bodice is enticing for its saucy reveal.
Silly girl, she likes it that way.
The blush created by a powder upon the shock of her white skin casts a glow.
What is left for him now remains vital. He needs to frame her properly, brush her hair again, arrange petals amid the strands and on the steps around her to permit her beauty to fully shine. His kit bag awaits by the exit door at the base of the stairs and he begins to execute these critical touches to her portraiture. He has rescued her from harm and vowed to sanctify her in this way. In the art and sweetness of death she will be revered, her beauty unblemished and now inextinguishable.
Let coarse people snap their photographs. Forensic scientists will sully her form with insensitive probes. Nothing is to be done about any of that except to disregard their primitive reactions, their pedestrian procedures. Despite their abundant ignorance, the fools will be unable to resist being impressed. They’ll know soon enough what it is to stand in the presence of luminous art.
She is his finest creation. The embodiment of his life’s work.
She deserves his best, he’s certain.
He owes her that much, so gives his all.
His cunning, of course, will also be recognized as brilliant. Yet for the moment, somewhat to his surprise, it is of no special interest to him. Only his transcendental artistry counts now.
At the base of the tower the young woman is arranged in a pose, one hand by her hip, another adjuste
d above her head. Every gesture exhibits a proper attitude, one of lassitude and superiority, of ease and entitlement, of largesse and indulgence. She is positioned. None too soon. She is beginning to stiffen. The flowers are precisely posited around her and upon her, the results tested repeatedly from various angles. He fusses and tries again until everything is just so, then places a printed invitation to a cocktail party between the fingertips of her upper left hand to further confound the imbeciles. To entice them as well. To draw them into his sphere, then to revel in their defeat. He imparts one last holy farewell kiss upon the woman’s lips, which lingers awhile.
The man breathes the empty cavity of her body and blows his own air into her lungs.
He must admit, then, to an error and apologize. He must not indulge himself again. He has a duty to remain above the emotional slurry, although it arrives more acutely than anticipated. Having smudged her lips, he must now repair and paint them more perfectly than before. The man wipes his own mouth clean, and sits upon the floor below her to gaze upward to best admire the view, as though she performs upon a stage and he has become her audience.
One final touch, now that all is done. A lasting grace. The ultimate gift to transport her through time and space, to commemorate the sanctity of their union—she has been his only perfect lover—that she might be carried upon angelic wings. He removes a felt cloth from the pocket of his kit bag which he unwraps to reveal a necklace, a shining, spiritual talisman. Bold, precise, the gemstones have been arranged in a manner to keep her alive, perhaps, even in death, or possibly through death into a next world. A nether life. Her vitality and her hope is embedded in the selection of stones, although one set curries favor for a request of his own. A petition for his own good health, a message for her to carry into the beyond.
Lovely for her to sacrifice herself this way.
He adjusts the necklace around her neck.
Perfect. Exquisite.
And now? Has the time come?
Not to go. Not to leave her. Not just yet.
Has the time come to switch off the light?
He will await the morning, when people flood the library seven floors below, where he will effect a disguise for the cameras and for his exit. He will await the morning, the crucial hour of her discovery.
The man sits in the light from a bare bulb, alone in the dead girl’s company, content to honor the sanctity of her memory and slowly turn his gaze away. The deep, still stare of her dark eyes bores into him one last time. So absolute. So final. This moment. He shuts his own eyes, and summons to mind again the young woman in the throes of their mutual rapture.
She was glad, back then, that he had come to rescue her from debasement and oblivion, from the fury of this world.
Glad now that he comforts her in the next.
He does what he must do. He reaches up and turns off the light.
Shhlunka-shhlunka utters the clock in its tower. As though her heart still beats with a sacred rhapsody, with life’s secret thrum. More faint down here, yet it beats on, rapturous in the dark, within their stillness.
Whispering, minute by minute, as the darkness takes hold.
Shhlunka-shhlunka.
She’s surely at rest now, and if all goes well, at peace.
TWO
Roiling with thunder, shot through by lightning, burly black cloud rises above the eastern hills of Vermont to blot out the morning sun. The storm amasses forces on the mountaintops, then releases a booming barrage upon the valleys of New Hampshire where the Connecticut and White Rivers converge. Over the radio, a particularly poetic weatherwoman describes the event as “an anarchy of meteorological maneuvers hell-bent on reckless destruction.” Tickled by her illustration, she giggles. Professor Philip Lars Toomey, listening in at seven-fifteen in the morning and brought up short by the quasi-hysterics, the lack of professionalism, suspects that the woman has not been to bed, and is probably inebriated.
Rather timidly, Toomey pokes his nose out the front door of his modest bungalow to judge the tempest for himself. A twitch of his nostrils and a glance up confirms the forecast of a deluge and widespread calamity. Rivers will flood their banks; sewers pitch off their manhole covers. Wind whips through the Norwegian maples on his front lawn. Leaves that sprouted relatively recently are suddenly everywhere, in the air and gallivanting down the sidewalk, while across the street the trunks of mature pines sway so erratically they might soon snap. Heavy rain is inevitable, yet a further prospect vexes him more. If he sprints to the carport immediately he’ll make it without being soaked. If he drives off, does he want to be out on a highway when hail pelts down? A forty percent chance, according to the tipsy morning weatherwoman. Should he trust a drunk’s forecast? Dare he risk a pockmarked hood? A dinged roof? His poor beloved Bimmer! Insurance will pay, but the hassle, the time, the aggravation of it all.
And of course, he’ll be out of pocket for the deductible.
He has to think this through.
He’s of two minds. Drive to work, get through the morning routine, lunch, exchange secret messages inside the bark of a ratty old hickory tree, then carry on to his lady love’s abode to enjoy an afternoon of illicit passion. Scandalize himself. Afterward, review his day and perhaps tally the damage to his car while downing a pint in a favorite pub. Sounds good. Inviting. The alternative is to skip all that and stay home. Risk nothing. Enjoy little. Phone his girl and beg off. She’ll understand. Then mope about it for a day which at least protects the BMW from golf balls hurtling out of the sky, and keeps his own life safe should the ice that descends prove to be the size of fists.
Out there, he could easily get clobbered.
Back when he was pushing himself from bed, the weatherwoman predicted an incessant downpour until midnight. “Epic,” she promised, vowing: “Torrential.” She giggled while sprinkling in words such as teeming and relentless and extremely wet to convey her perspective. She cheerily advised the morning news anchor that the day was bound to be “a soaker,” morning traffic might be washed away and the deluge approach Noah’s standards, a comment that apparently had her in stitches as her partner took over, all the while chuckling himself, although, in his case, nervously.
Toomey wants both of them sacked.
If she’s not drunk she’s on drugs.
Wrecking his day early in the morning, then laughing about it—the nerve of those two! He might write a letter. The male announcer is less giddy but he’s definitely slurring his words.
Two choices. Go or stay. A third option for the day suggests that he wait, stay home until noon, write that letter, then either make a run for it into town or suppress his raging lust completely. Makes sense, except that he fundamentally distrusts third options.
During a lifetime of spy craft, the professor has never desired more than a pair of best choices in any circumstance. Third possibilities propagate confusion, which in turn creates danger whenever there’s no time to think. If the best course of action in a given situation is to turn either right or left, then going straight ahead usually means over a cliff. A fourth escape route might work in theory and be the best one, yet inevitably leads to a paralysis of thinking. Limiting a decision to two options, whether they be agreeable or not, allows a man in the field to flip a mental coin and take his chances. Heads, he has a fifty-fifty shot of being right—better than that if he’s lucky, and any spy worth his salt must rely on luck—or tails, and if that’s the wrong choice, at least he knows which way to run.
Toomey has time to spare this morning, which might be the problem. He allows the thunder to force the issue—Quick! Decide!—before the next explosive rumble. Tossing a trench coat over his sports jacket, he clutches his messenger bag to use as an umbrella and bolts out the side door. By the time he starts up the BMW and pulls free of the carport, the rain has not only begun, the ferocity is stunning. The wipers scarcely keep up. All he’s experiencing is wind and rain, no hail, and Toomey knows that if ice doesn’t bombard him at the outset, he’s probably saf
e. As is his Bimmer. Whew. He’ll drive on, first to the Dowbiggin School of International Studies via a favorite coffee shop in Hanover and eventually into the randy quarrel of his lover’s bed. He’ll get some work done early then enjoy wicked sex. Crazy sex. Lovely sex. What a life. Storm aside, the day is setting up as ideal.
Under the waterfall pouring from a blackened sky, the pavement is difficult to discern in the headlights, although once on his way he desires nothing more than to be on the road, bound for the freeway, his life marginally at risk while driving through the fury. If anything, the prospect of making love in rhythm to the rain adds to the thrill. If the weather remains electric and cacophonous, so much the better.
Toomey is confident that no one suspects a thing.
That no one ever will.
While a number of professors are stuck teaching summer classes, he is unencumbered until the fall, yet chooses to trek onto the campus every morning to accomplish a modicum of work. Partly he suffers a need to justify his salary, as his income is a sinecure for a job well done in service to country. He’s well paid but underworked. He also insists on keeping up appearances because the habits of spy craft do not easily release their grip. Subterfuge—pretending to work—comes naturally to him, and doesn’t that hold him in good stead given that his new purpose, at long last, rightfully belongs to the craft of love? Secret love. True love, perhaps. Although a familiar doubt kicks in. Is it love? Can I call it that? Wipers lash the glass, the tempo evocative for him. Not lust? He muddles through the oblique equation. Love and lust both, then. God help me, will I ever—will anyone ever—discern a difference?
He can flip a coin to get his answer. He holds off, preferring to savor the moment. In the gloomy downpour, under the raucous thunder and startling lightning, Philip Lars Toomey enters the town of Hanover. Close to the Ivy League jewel of Dartmouth College he’ll pull in for coffee, then on out of town to a lesser campus where he plies his trade in the gentle hamlet of Holyoake, New Hampshire.
