Quieter than Sleep

by Joanne Dobson

  “Dr. Pelletier,” he said, “I know you’re concerned about this girl—”

  “Young woman,” I interjected, and then dimly recollected that I had just called her a girl.

  He nodded and continued, “… young woman. But I have to talk to her. A murder has been committed and she may well know something about it.” As I started to interrupt again, he held up his hand to silence me. “No matter what it may look like, Doctor,” he gestured at himself with a look of wry self-deprecation, “I am not a brute.”

  I started to protest, and the hand came up again. “I understand Miss Warzek is emotionally vulnerable right now, and the hospital’s counseling staff knows I’m here. She will be well looked after. Now, why don’t you go home? I saw a very cold-looking young woman sitting in your car. I assume that’s your daughter? Amanda, is it?”

  “Yes,” I replied with some asperity, turned on my heel, and headed for the elevator. Know-it-all.

  Amanda was waiting for me in the lobby, standing with her hands clasped behind her back as she read the dog-eared notices on the community bulletin board. She turned to look at me, expressionless, when I touched her on the shoulder. “I was getting cold,” she said flatly.

  As we walked to the car, I tried to convey to her some of the pathos of Sophia’s life: the poor kid at the rich school; the heavy workload; the brutal father. I wanted to tell her about Randy, but, of course, I didn’t. Amanda remained expressionless. All she seemed to respond to was Sophia’s lack of clothes.

  “God!” she said, with obvious feeling.

  It was enough. I’d use it.

  We pulled into the mall just outside of Enfield, circled the parking lot until a space opened, and plunged into the chaos. Loudspeakers blared “O Little Town of Bethlehem” as we pushed our way through the crowd. A short man with a hockey stick plowed into me and let loose an astounding string of profanities. Directly into my ear Amanda sang, “the hopes and fears of all the years …”

  At The Gap I asked Amanda to choose jeans for Sophia. This turned out to be a momentous decision requiring consultation on numerous aspects of Sophia’s life and taste ranging from hair color to academic major to favorite musicians. Once chosen—properly dyed, properly faded—the jeans had to be complemented with sweatshirts and tees. After three shirts I remembered my credit card balance and called a halt.

  “But, Mom, she’s got nothing!” Amanda was genuinely horrified.

  “Well, honey, now she’s got jeans and three shirts.”

  Amanda stared at me as if I had revealed unpardonable moral ignorance.

  “That’s what I said, nothing.”

  “Listen, after Christmas there’ll be sales.”

  Amanda subsided, perhaps mollified by visions of heroic postholiday shopping adventures.

  From a shelf I grabbed a cotton sweater, the rich azure of a cloudless August sky, checked the price tag, shuddered, added it to the pile, and headed for the cash register.

  Well, she needed at least one Christmas present.

  Amanda trailed behind me, for once uttering noises of approval. I didn’t know whether it was my taste in clothing that was improving, or my morals. Or then, maybe, really, there was no difference.

  Eleven

  THE ANSWERING MACHINE message light was on when we arrived home. In the dark living room it blinked eerily, as if it were some diminutive beacon of disaster. But when I turned on the overhead light, the couch and chairs sprang into visibility, and the illusion of danger vanished.

  The first call was a hang-up. So was the second: silence on the other end, then the soft thunk of a receiver being recradled. The pause before the hang-up was so prolonged it made me uneasy. I wondered if this was a crank caller. I’d had to deal with one in New York: a perverse oppression—I know who you are; I know where you are. And now you know that I know. I decided not to worry about it. Probably a student angry about a grade. He’d get over it.

  The third call was not a hang-up. Definitely not. “Karen. Avery Mitchell calling at four thirty-five. I wanted to let you know the college is planning a memorial service for Astin-Berger. It’ll be in mid January, swhen everyone’s back on campus. Maybe the seventeenth. I have Lonnie calling around to put it together, but I wanted to let you know myself.” (Brief silence.) “Because of the, ah, circumstances, I mean.” (Another silence.) “His wife is coming.” (Pause.) “Did you know he had a wife?” (Silence. Then briskly): “Well, sorry, I’m meandering. I’ll be back in touch when things are finalized. Good-bye, Karen.”

  Before I had a chance to collect my thoughts, Amanda emerged from the kitchen nibbling a date pinwheel. “Nice voice,” she commented. “Who’s that? New boyfriend?”

  Children can be so irritating.

  “Hardly,” I responded. “That was my boss, the college president.”

  “Oh.” She raised her eyebrows at my tone. “Nice voice.” She threw herself down on the couch. “Is there anything to eat?”

  It was destined that I should run into Avery the next morning. On the way to pick up Sophia, I allowed myself an extra hour to stop by campus and do a few things: collect my mail, drop off papers and exams, clear off my desk. As I rounded the corner from the mail room, Randy’s office door opened slowly. Half expecting to see his ghost emerge, I almost dropped my armload of manila envelopes and publishers’ catalogs. Avery Mitchell walked out carrying a stack of file folders. When he saw me, his eyes widened. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I work here.”

  His strained expression lightened and he laughed. “You do, don’t you? Guess you should be asking what I’m doing here.” Then, without giving me a chance to respond, he went on. “It’s just that the secretaries are all on vacation. That’s why I came sover myself—to pick these up, I mean.” He gestured with the folders. “I didn’t expect to see anyone here, so close to Christmas.”

  “I stopped by to get my mail.” I knew as I said it that an explanation was totally unnecessary. But, then, why had Avery felt compelled to offer me one? And such a detailed explanation, too.

  “Curriculum revision,” he said. Once again the folders came into play. Avery’s blue eyes were shadowed with something resembling exhaustion.

  “Oh.”

  “Astin-Berger was working on a plan. But now …”

  “Right.”

  “College-wide. Someone’s got to get on it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you get—?” The hall door opened, and Ned Hilton entered with a bulging briefcase. When he saw us, he looked spooked, as if he wanted desperately to turn and run. Avery nodded at him gravely. Uncomfortable situation all around. Then he glanced back at me. “Well—Merry Christmas, Karen.” He tucked the file folders under his arm and strode away. Ned stared at Avery’s retreating back until the heavy wood door slammed behind it. Then he ventured a tentative nod at me and scooted into his office. Awkward—but understandable.

  But it wasn’t like Avery to be so awkward. And it wasn’t like me to be tongue-tied around a man. What the hell was going on here?

  A light went on behind the thick, translucent glass panel in Ned’s door. All the other doors remained dark: No one was in the secretary’s office, as Avery had said; even Miles’s office appeared vacant—and he practically lived in the department.

  My office smelled stale; it had been almost a week since I’d been back. I left the door open to air the room. Being there reminded me forcefully of the disquieting poem on Randy’s computer. His murder seemed to hang in a diffuse fog over my holiday needs and desires. A little like acid rain. I kept trying to forget his contorted face, but the memory polluted most of my waking thoughts and just about all of my dreams. Merry Christmas, Karen, his ghost seemed to sneer. Merry, merry Christmas.

  I cleared a space on one of the shelves and stacked student papers, arranged alphabetically so I could find them easily when the students returned in January. Then I remembered Sophia’s paper on Dickinson’s Master letters. Warzek: It should be
on the bottom of the pile. Yes, there it was. I pulled it out from among the others, thinking briefly that I would return it to Sophia when I picked her up. Thinking, stupidly, that the A+ would hearten her. When I glanced at the first page, however, I realized just how insensitive that would be. I should look at this again, I decided. Maybe it would give me some insight into what was going on in Sophia’s mind.

  As I took the paper over to the window seat, I heard Ned’s door close; then the heavy building door slammed. I was alone in the department. Eerie. Sitting in the window, I put my feet up on the cushion, and read Sophia’s paper for the second time. With this perusal the subtext was clear. On one level, the essay had been an attempt to provide some insight into Emily Dickinson’s experience, but, more to the point, it had also been a desperate attempt to understand her own. In the poet’s letters Sophia had read her own heartbreak. No wonder her insights had been so acute: Over a chasm of one hundred and thirty years, pain had responded to pain. I put the paper down and sighed.

  The window behind my desk is one of those nineteenth-century treasures Enfield abounds in; tall, wide, and deeply recessed, with green plush cushions on the ledge, it commands a view of the entire campus quad. I sat curled up in the window seat with Sophia’s paper in my lap, staring out at the snow that had begun to whirl through the leafless trees and thinking about this troubled young woman. Then I found my thoughts turning to the encounter with Avery Mitchell. Curriculum revision? Why would that necessitate a personal visit from the college president? And how would he have known where Randy kept his files?

  When I looked up, a man was standing in the office door staring at me. He was big, wearing the dark blue uniform of a college custodian, and his bulk filled the doorway. It was the man from the hospital elevator, the one I had decided must be Sophia’s father.

  “Yes?” I queried, shuddering involuntarily. How long had he been standing there, silently watching me?

  “Are you Professor Pelletier?” The man’s voice betrayed an edge of suspicion.

  “Yes, I am.” I smiled at him politely. “And I think you’re Sophia’s father. I saw you at the hospital.”

  “Oh, yes?” His response was not friendly. My smile died of malnutrition. “Well, I want to talk to you.” A faint accent betrayed his Eastern European origins. He pronounced “want” vont.

  Although not heavy, Mr. Warzek was broad across the shoulders and upper arms, muscular, a tall man, blond and severe. He was in his mid to late forties, handsome, I suppose, with a long, pale, rigid face, high cheekbones, and icy blue eyes. His hair was cut severely short in a very out-of-date brush cut. He looked like a man who held himself in a state of strict physical and emotional discipline, and expected everyone around him to do the same.

  “Certainly,” I responded. “Won’t you come in?” I’m usually not so formal, but this man’s rigid expression did not encourage a casual response. I rose from the window seat, feeling oddly vulnerable there, where he had watched me without my knowledge. I sat behind my desk. I seldom used the desk when I was talking to students, but a solid oak barrier between Mr. Warzek and me didn’t seem like a bad idea.

  “Have a seat.” I gestured at the green vinyl armchair by my desk. But Sophia’s father didn’t sit down. Rather, he strode over to the bookshelves and stood with his back to me, perusing the titles. After a brief hesitation he pulled down a book. I could tell by the cover that it was Extravagant Love, a recent history of female homoeroticism. He leafed through the pages for a moment, as if he knew what he was looking for. Mr. Warzek paused, seemingly at one of the illustrations, then slapped the book shut and slammed it down on the table. He turned toward me, his face tight with disgust.

  “What’re you teaching them here? Filth and perversion? Sophia brought that book home and I made her get it out of the house. Was it you assigned it?” Anger intensified his accent. He was at my desk now, looming over me. I immediately regretted my seated position. I nodded. I’d assigned the book as optional reading.

  Warzek’s look of loathing intensified. “I shoulda never let her come to this school. This place ruined her. She usedta be such a good kid. I thought maybe you’d learn her to be a teacher. Take care of herself. Help the family out. But no. All you did was spoil her for anything useful.” He braced his hands on my desk and leaned toward me.

  Earlene is right, I thought, he is a scary dude.

  “And now she got crazy notions. Wants to be a writer. No goddamn money in that. How’s she gonna live? Huh? Am I supposed to support this kid for the resta her life? Tell me that? How’s she gonna live?” The sleeves of his blue shirt pulled tightly across the muscles of his upper arms. Red stitching over his shirt pocket identified him as “Stan.” He was glaring at me as if he actually expected an answer.

  I shrugged. His manner was angering me. “People do. Live by writing, I mean. I didn’t know Sophia was thinking about that, but she might succeed. She’s got a great deal of talent.”

  “Fuck—talent.” He pounded a large fist on my desktop, twice, emphasizing each word. I jumped with each crash of his fist and thought about calling Security. He must have seen from my expression that he had overstepped the line. He straightened and moved several inches back from the desk. His Adam’s apple bobbed up, and then down.

  Then he pivoted away from me and walked over to the bookshelves again. I wondered what other perverse or obscene texts he might find there. Lady Chatterley’s Lover? The Catcher in the Rye? I wondered, briefly, if someone had told Sophia’s father about her affair with Randy.

  Warzek mustn’t have been looking at the books, however, because when he turned toward me and spoke again his voice was tightly controlled. He had obviously used the time to collect himself. And he didn’t seem to have Randy on his mind; it was me he was thinking about. “The hospital told me you was taking Sophia home with you. Is that right?”

  I nodded.

  “Why?” It was not a question, but a challenge.

  “She needed a place to go.”

  I hadn’t asked for this hassle. In my younger days I’d taken a lot of shit from abusive men, and this was beginning to feel like an all-too-familiar encounter. Power and control. Nothing that belonged to this man was going to be taken away from him, by God. Not his daughter. Not her clothes. Not her life.

  “She needed a place to go,” I repeated. “So I told her she could come to me.”

  “She’s got a place to go, dammit! She’s got her own home.” His voice was low now, but impassioned, each word expressed through clenched teeth.

  I’d had enough. I got up slowly from my seat, walked around the desk with measured steps, and stood confronting him. I’m tall, and sometimes in dealing with obnoxious men I find that useful. Bullies don’t operate well when they’re looking a woman in the eye.

  It didn’t work this time. Warzek must have been about six three; he had at least six inches on me.

  I drew myself up to my tallest, nonetheless, and squared my shoulders. A tiny muscle in the corner of Warzek’s left eye jumped. He was in danger of losing control again.

  “I’m not taking her away from you, you know, Mr. Warzek. She simply doesn’t want to go home. I don’t know why, but maybe you do. Do you treat her like you’re treating me? Do you bully her? Well, goddammit, maybe that’s why she doesn’t want to go home. Did you ever think of that? Maybe she’s simply not well enough to handle being tyrannized!”

  With each sentence I advanced on Warzek a step or two. And for each step I took, he took one backward. His eyes widened, just a little, and he looked surprised. It occurred to me that he was used to bullying women, but that having one browbeat him in return was a new experience.

  By the time I had backed him all the way to the door, he had recovered his composure enough to glare at me one last time. His voice was venomous. “What’re you gonna do with her? Teach her to be a dyke?” Then he turned on his heel and departed.

  His accusation stunned me speechless. Not because he thought I was a lesb
ian; that didn’t bother me. But the loathing in his eyes was a different matter. It terrified me, and for the first time I understood the kind of irrational hatred my homosexual friends face on a regular basis. I thought about reporting this encounter to someone in authority at the college. Then I realized it might cost Warzek his job. It wouldn’t do Sophia any good for me to get her father fired.

  “Shit.” I think I said it aloud. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  Furious, I stalked back to the window seat, retrieved Sophia’s paper, and replaced it at the bottom of the pile. If she wanted it she would ask me for it.

  I somehow didn’t think she would.

  Through my office window I could see Warzek walk across the snowy quad toward the staff parking lot. His shoulders were squared. His back was unnaturally straight. When he had vanished from sight, I sat down in the window seat and began to debate the wisdom of taking Sophia home with me. Perhaps she’d be better off in the hospital rather than all the way out there in the country with no one around but Amanda and me. Reaching over to my desk for the phone, I called Earlene’s extension. Her voicemail told me she’d left for the holiday. For several minutes I sat motionless in the window seat while snow tapped lightly against the pane. Then I sighed. Sophia was expecting to come home with me. I couldn’t disappoint her. Especially not at Christmas.

  I shrugged my shoulders, but couldn’t rid myself of the anxiety I carried there like some kind of appalling cosmic backpack.

  Since I already had the phone in my lap, I tried Greg’s number again. I’d been calling him sporadically for the past couple of days but hadn’t been able to get him. Maybe he’d gone to New York again. As I sat there in my office, holding the phone to my ear, absently listening to it ring eight, nine, ten times, I saw Greg walking across the quad through lightly blowing snow, hands shoved deep in the pockets of a slate gray parka. It seemed hallucinatory: the phone ringing unheard in the empty house; the object of the call passing before my eyes.