Dreams

by Richard A. Lupoff

  There was the sound of knuckles on wood.

  The Dean raised her eyes, her glance passing over a bookshelf that held a row of Miskatonic's yearbooks dating from the university's Seventeenth Century founding to the present. Dean Sanders pressed a button located at the side of her great mahogany desk, releasing the latch on the door of her office.

  A tall, gray-haired, bespectacled man entered. The man was smiling. He wore a dark green alpine hat. In one gnarled hand he carried an elaborately carved stick. That this it was not for mere affectation was evidenced by his pronounced limp and the fact that he leaned on the stick with each step.

  "I'll bet you love the buzzers as much as I do," he said. He spoke with the nasal twang of a Maine native. Decades of exposure to Massachusetts surroundings had not changed his speech.

  "I don't like them a bit," Dean Sanders smiled. She stood and rounded her desk, taking the newcomer's free hand warmly in both of her own. "But ever since the recent series of break-ins, I suppose they can't be helped."

  She gestured to a comfortable chair opposite her desk. It was covered in rich maroon leather and studded in brass. The tall man lowered himself gingerly into it, moving with care. He removed his hat and placed it on a corner of the desk, then he leaned his walking stick against the dark stained wood.

  Once the newcomer was settled, Dean Sanders returned to her own chair. "Thank you for coming, Doctor Lazarus."

  "Bill."

  "Of course."

  "I'm glad to offer any assistance I can, Dean."

  "Please. Tivona. The least you can do is return that favor."

  William Lazarus nodded, waiting for her to continue.

  "You know I'd rather be in the classroom, teaching my courses in Middle Eastern and Semitic Archaeology. But the President personally asked me to take over Admissions for a year, and Miskatonic has been so good to me, I couldn't refuse."

  As Lazarus's speech marked him as a native of Maine, Tivona Sanders's accent was that of a native Hebrew speaker. She sported a modestly stylish sweater and skirt. She still wore her wedding ring, refusing to give up hope that her husband, Riston Sanders, would be found alive.

  "When I was a boy we had an expression for that kind of duty," Lazarus said. "Something vulgar involving a barrel."

  "I learned that in the army," Tivona Sanders grinned. "Israel can't afford to coddle its delicate flowers of femininity."

  She tapped a fingernail on the topmost manila folder near the edge of her desk.

  "Most of these are pretty routine," she said. "Of course Miskatonic has recovered from the scandals that hurt us so much under the former administration. We're getting many more applications than we can accept, and the quality of the applicants has risen. We can stand up to the best of the competition, academically."

  "That's good news, but not startling."

  Lazarus removed his gold-rimmed spectacles, patted his jacket until he located a gray velvet cloth, and polished the lenses. He set the spectacles carefully in place. "This isn't the Miskatonic it was when I was a young instructor of transdimensional geometry. The student body was exclusively male in those days. And exclusively Caucasian. And Christian. I remember the controversy when the Admissions Committee accepted the first Jewish student in—was it 'thirty-one? Poor fellow took a dreadful hazing. People leaving ham sandwiches in his room when he was out, sending him Gospels in the mail. But he stuck it out, I'll give him that. Poor chap enlisted in the Marine Corps after Pearl Harbor and died on Tarawa."

  He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dean. Ah, Tivona. You'll have to forgive an old man for wandering. I think I might retire after the spring semester."

  "Don't do that, Bill. Miskatonic needs your wisdom." She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts, then lifted the folder and extended it toward him. "What do you make of this?"

  Lazarus accepted the folder, opened it and studied its contents. After a few moments he raised his eyes to meet Tivona Sanders's.

  "I see."

  "Indeed."

  Tivona Sanders pushed herself back from her desk, turned and stood facing the fire.

  Lazarus waited for her to turn back.

  "Another Whateley," he muttered.

  "I wasn't here when the great scandal occurred. I wasn't even born then, no less in America." Tivona Sanders raised one hand and rubbed her forehead. "Hardly anyone is left at Miskatonic from those days. But you're the most senior faculty member we have, Bill. You were here, weren't you? You knew what happened? You know about the terrible—thing—the thing that died in the library? You know about the events up on Sentinel Hill?"

  Lazarus nodded. He removed his spectacles, studied them as if some wisdom might be spelled out on their lenses, then donned them once more. "I was on Sentinel Hill that night," he said at last. "But now—it's been so many years. Decades, Tivona. I thought there were no more Whateleys left in Arkham. Nor even in Aylesbury."

  "You didn't notice the applicant's address."

  Lazarus said, "Sorry." He studied the document once again. "Once I saw the name I'm afraid I stopped reading. All right, give me a few minutes to study this application."

  Soon he looked up. "West Athol." He allowed himself a grin. "I played for the West Athol Marauders, did you know that?"

  Tivona Sanders said, "Bill, I never heard of the West Athol Marauders."

  Lazarus uttered a sound that was mostly a soft, rueful laugh.

  "Semi-professional football team. Long gone, now. Professional football wasn't the big business then that it is nowadays. Even the NFL was small potatoes. Most of the players had day jobs, they just played football on Sundays. But that was my ambition. I was a center. I was pretty good, too. Until I got my kneecap shattered."

  He looked down at his rough tweed trousers, kneaded his knee as if to work out its soreness, let out a wistful sigh.

  Tivona Sanders said, "Football's loss was Miskatonic's gain, Bill. I hope you don't regret your career."

  "I'm sorry." He rose partway from his chair, then sank back into it. "You didn't invite me in here to talk about ancient events on a minor-league gridiron. You want to talk about—" he studied the application once more "—Miss Dorcas Whateley, senior valedictorian of West Athol Rural High School. Also senior class president, chairman of the dramatic society, captain of the girls' basketball team, and editor-in-chief of the West Athol Rustic News. Tivona, I don't see how you can do other than accept her."

  "But she's a Whateley. Do you know what that name means around here?"

  Before Lazarus could reply, Tivona Sanders answered her own question. "Of course you do. Of course. When I first came to Miskatonic, mere mention of that name was enough to silence a room full of chattering academics. Now, it's mostly forgotten. But do we want to stir up those ashes again? There are still people who react to the name. Old-timers who insist that they hear rumblings beneath the hills around Arkham, that there are foul odors on certain nights."

  "I know, I know."

  "Is it just superstition, Bill? Townies don't like Miskatonic much. And to be honest, the university hasn't done a lot to benefit Arkham."

  There was a long silence. Lazarus turned his eyes toward mullioned windows. A wind had risen and drifted snow was being lifted and whirled on the campus. Fresh-faced boys and girls—young men and women—were throwing snowballs, playing like children.

  "No, Tivona, it is not just superstition. Would that it were. Would that it were."

  "Well, then—" The dean left her sentence incomplete.

  William Lazarus said, "This is a new era, Tivona. It's a new world. Tradition or no, I would even say, this is a new Miskatonic University. We cannot penalize this young woman for the evils of her ancestors. I don't see how the university can turn her down. Let's hope that she redeems the name Whateley. Give her a chance to eradicate what bad memories remain. She deserves a chance, Tivona. Look at her record. She deserves a chance."

  Tivona Sanders retrieved the file folder from William Lazarus. "You're right," she sighed, "I
'm sure you're right, Bill. I was hoping you'd tell me to turn her down. Send her a polite letter, tell her we were over-enrolled for the fall semester, even offer to write a letter of recommendation for her to another institution. But no, of course you're right. She'll be here next autumn."

  William Lazarus retrieved his walking stick, leaned on it and got to his feet. He picked up his soft hat and pressed it onto his iron-gray hair. "Besides, West Athol would almost certainly be the undecayed branch of the family. Her transcript indicates as much."

  Tivona Sanders let out a sigh. "Let us hope."

  William Lazarus smiled. "Now that that's settled, Tivona, how about a couple of drinks and a good meal at the Arkham Inn?"

  The dean looked at her wristwatch. "I have a lot of work to do. I really shouldn't. I'll probably be here 'til seven or seven-thirty tonight."

  "I can wait."

  "All right. I'll meet you at the inn. Would eight-thirty be too late? I want to run home and freshen up after work."

  "I'll be at the bar." His smile broadened into a grin. "I'll be the tall fellow in the tweed suit with the fancy walking stick in one hand and a brandy snifter in the other." He stood at the window, watching students running and playing. The glass was thick and he couldn't hear their joyful whoops, but in his mind he could hear a long-ago cheering crowd.

  Fourth Avenue Interlude

  They're all gone now, all dead. Both Jacks, and David, and Alice. David was the first to go, then one Jack, then Alice, and then the other Jack. He was the last. I'm still here, of course, but at my age you never know how much longer you're going to be around either.

  And I want to tell you this now, because my memory isn't what it used to be and it isn't going to get any better. My wife tells me that I forget things that happened and remember things that didn't. Sometimes I tell the same story over and over, I know that. I guess it goes with the territory, along with the white hair and the stiff joints.

  This happened a long time ago. I think it was 1949. I would have been twelve years old then, and I'm pretty sure that's when it happened because people were still talking about the big surprise of the Dewey-Truman election, how old Give-'em-Hell Harry had outsmarted all the poll-takers and pundits and even the fool who wrote that famous headline about DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN for the Chicago Tribune.

  It was winter, the Christmas and New Year's holidays were over and it was damned slushy and icy and miserable in New York. I was just a kid of twelve. Did I say that already? I guess it goes with the territory along with the white hair and the stiff joints.

  I was just a kid of twelve and I was crazy for books. I'd discovered Book Row in New York, Fourth Avenue below Fourteenth Street. You could find anything you wanted to read down there, and at bargain prices, too, if you weren't too picky about things like first editions in dust jackets. If you'd settle for a reading copy you could get anything you wanted to read, and plenty cheap at that.

  Even so, I couldn't afford the books I wanted. Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs and Rafael Sabatini and E. Phillips Oppenheim and Octavus Roy Cohen. You could get a nice copy for a quarter and one that was messed up but still readable for a nickel if you prowled Book Row and knew how to look for books. But my father had come up from poverty and he always felt that the best way to teach me and my brother the value of money was to make sure that we never had any.

  After a while, all the booksellers along Book Row knew me, and I got to be friends with most of them. Sometimes they'd pay me to do odd jobs, and of course every dime I made went right back into books. Well, I had to save a nickel for the subway ride home, it was too far to walk.

  My favorite store was Biblo and Tannen. I remember the address, 63 Fourth Avenue. There were four people who worked there. The owners were Jack Biblo and Jack Tannen, born Jacob Biblowicz and Jacob Tannenbaum. I always thought of them simply as the two Jacks. They'd been in the book trade since the 1920s. They'd been partners for so long that they'd started to look alike and dress alike. Shrinking hairlines, dark fringes, heavy horn-rimmed glasses, bushy graying moustaches. They wore plaid shirts, solid-color knit ties, corduroy trousers. You could tell them apart because Tannen was a little stockier, a little more outgoing, a little more talkative. Biblo was slimmer, quieter, more on the introspective, intellectual side.

  Like any couple who had been together for many years they completed each other's sentences. They fought like Tracy and Hepburn, Ameche and Langford, Lee and Dannay, Chevalier and Gingold, Durocher and any umpire who was handy.

  They'd let me sweep out the store, re-shelve books that customers left out, bring in the bargain tables from the sidewalk at the end of the day. They paid me fifty cents an hour, that was a dime more than the legal minimum wage, and if I took it out in trade (I always did) I got an employee discount on any book I bought.

  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

  Tanar of Pellucidar.

  The Double Life of Mr. Alfred Burton.

  Jim Hanvey, Detective.

  I went to public school, of course, and to synagogue when my parents made me, and sometimes to Ebbets Field to see the Dodgers play, especially when they played the Giants, whom my brother and I both hated, and out-of-town teams like the Boston Braves and the Cincinnati Reds. But I really lived for my days on Fourth Avenue.

  On the subway, going, I would rehearse my want-list in my mind: The Land of Mist, The Land That Time Forgot, The Man Who Changed His Plea, Scrambled Yeggs. I'd get off at Astor Place and walk up toward Fourteenth Street, stopping at every store along the way—the Colonial Book Service, Stammer's Bookstore, Books 'n' Things, Louis Schucman, the Raven Bookshop. But I'd always wind up at Biblo and Tannen. They had a basement full of fiction, a huge room with all kinds of novels and short stories, and two smaller rooms, one full of mysteries and detective tales and one that was full of science fiction and fantasy and horror stories.

  Oh, I was telling you about Jack and Jack and David and Alice and I only told you about Jack and Jack. I'll back up.

  David Garfinkel was a retired high school teacher. He was a huge man, he could crush you in one hand if he wanted to. He used to sit in a chair near the counter at the front of the store. He—oh, you want to know what he looked like?

  He was balding with a gray fringe, dark-rimmed glasses, and a bushy gray moustache. He wore plaid shirts and solid-color knitted ties. He was a real old-timer. He loved to reminisce about dime novels. He'd talk about Old Sleuth and Young Sleuth, Nick Carter, Buffalo Bill, and Baseball Joe. He used to talk about a series of dime novels about a baseball team, the author helped you remember the players' names by giving them all the same initials as their positions. Pitcher Palmer, Catcher Carruthers, First Baseman Fillstrup, Second Sacker Simmons, like that. David considered pulp magazines a sign of the decay of modern civilization.

  Alice Ryter ruled her own little domain from a battered wooden desk near the back of the store. She was the secretary, office manager, financial manager, and general manager of everything. She wore a stern expression, kept her hair pulled back severely, and used heavy, dark-rimmed glasses.

  One Saturday I got to work late.

  "Where were you?" asked Jack Tannen.

  "Shul," I told him.

  "Shul?" Jack was astonished. "Temple? You? Since when did you get religion?"

  "My next birthday, I'll be thirteen. I have to be bar mitzvah. I have to go and study. I don't care but my brother was bar mitzvah and my parents say I have to be, too. So I'm late, I'm sorry. What work can I do today?"

  David Garfinkel reached over and grabbed my right biceps between his fingers. He squeezed, I felt like my arm was a tube of Ipana toothpaste.

  "He's a strong boy," David said. "I'll bet he can move those boxes upstairs."

  "Think you can do it?" asked Jack Biblo.

  "Sure I can, what do you think I am?" I knew the boxes he meant. They were heavy and I wasn't so sure at all that I could move them, but one thing I learned from my big brother is, Never say you can't do a th
ing, always say you can. That's how you get your chance in this world, and that's how you'll get ahead.

  "Come on, then," one of the Jacks said. By now I don't even remember which one. It doesn't matter anyhow. I think it was Biblo, though.

  We went upstairs. Biblo and Tannen was in an old building on Fourth Avenue, the store occupied the first floor and the basement, the second floor was office space and shipping and receiving and they kept overstock in boxes on the third floor.

  When we got to the third floor, Jack pointed to a huge pile of corrugated boxes full of books. "The whole building is starting to settle and we have to even the load before we have a Leaning Tower of Pisa here. You need to climb up there, get a box off the top row, bring it down, and put it over there. Then go back and do another. Come downstairs when you're done."

  I started moving boxes.

  They were very heavy, and soon I was sweating up a storm, even in the middle of the winter in New York in, I think it was 1949. Could it have been 1948? Maybe November, December, after the election. DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN. After Christmas, after New Year's, it would be 1949. That's what I think.

  The boxes were covered with dust that had accumulated on them for, I don't know, certainly years, maybe decades. What books were in them, anyhow? I didn't know, the boxes were sealed with brown paper tape and I couldn't look inside without cutting the tape and I was supposed to be moving boxes, not looking at books, so I just left them as they were and moved the boxes.

  Soon the sweat was rolling down my face and getting into my eyes, and stinging like anything. I tried to wipe my eyes with my elbow but I was wearing my first pair of glasses, with heavy, dark rims. I couldn't do it, so I took off my glasses and wiped my face with my hands. Now I was mixing dust with sweat and making a nice coat of salty mud on my face.

  I kept moving boxes.

  After a while a manila envelope fell out from between a couple of boxes. It must have been put on top of a box, then overlooked when the next row of boxes was added. It had been lying there for, who knows how long?