The Novels of William Goldman

by William Goldman

  “Professor Janes,” she told me, stepping inside.

  He was there, sitting down, waiting for us.

  “Hi,” Harriet said, going over to him. I stood in the doorway. She was about to say something more but she stopped and stared at the two of us as we stared at each other. I suppose she guessed it right then. “Why don’t you wait outside,” she said to me. “Private conference and all that. It won’t take long.”

  “I’ll be in the Square,” I said, and I left them, closing the door. I walked back across the street and lay down on the grass, my hands behind my head, looking up at that blue sky. I wasn’t thinking, not at all, but just lying there, muttering to myself “boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy,” with that sky, blue as blue, covering me.

  I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but some time after, I heard footsteps and then Harriet was prodding me in the ribs.

  “Hey, wake up,” she said. “No loitering.”

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “Give me a tour now?”

  She shook her head. “He wants to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Harriet said. “But inside there, he asked me who you were and I told him, and what you’d told me, about wanting to work on the magazine, and he said he’d like to have a talk with you.”

  I nodded.

  “Shall I wait?”

  “This may take a while, Harriet. You better not.”

  “Euripides,” she said, “he knows who you are. Doesn’t he?”

  “We have mutual friends,” I said, and then I waved good-by, crossing the street to The Athenian, stopping in the doorway.

  He was still sitting in the same chair, his chin balanced on the tips of his long, thin fingers. “Come in,” he said, not looking at me.

  I closed the door and sat down on the other side of the desk, watching him. He was a handsome guy, Janes. Trim, dark-haired even though he must have been pushing fifty. With a soft, slow way of talking and an easy smile.

  I sat there, nervous, my stomach beginning to tense, waiting for him to say something. He didn’t, so after a minute or two, I started. “Harriet told me you wanted to see me,” I said.

  “Yes,” he answered quickly, smiling that way too. There were no windows open and the room was full of warm, dead air. I began to perspire.

  “My name is Ray Trevitt,” I said.

  “I knew your father,” he told me.

  I nodded, waiting for him to continue, staring at him. I suppose it was then I first realized he was nervous too. I went on. “I met Harriet on the way down here and—”

  “Charming girl,” he interrupted. “Do you know her well?”

  “Pretty well,” I said. “I went out with her awhile before I—”

  “Before you what?” he said, interrupting again.

  “Flunked out,” I finished. He nodded.

  “But I’m back in school now,” I told him. “I had a talk today with President Atkins. He okayed it. And—”

  “What do you plan to major in, Mr. Trevitt?”

  “English,” I told him, and he nodded again and asked me why and I told him that too. We went on for a couple of minutes, making chit-chat, hedging around as if we’d never met before, never known anything about each other; as if we were complete strangers. My stomach got worse as we talked, knotting so tight that finally I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Look,” I said. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I’ll tell you what I want from you. I want to be made editor next year.”

  “Well, Mr. Trevitt,” he said. “Perhaps—”

  “I want to be editor and I’ll work for it,” I said. “I just want you to know my hat’s in the ring. That’s all.”

  “I was going to say that perhaps you’re making a mistake, Mr. Trevitt. A look at your previous record might indicate that what we do here is a bit, shall we say, out of your line. Perhaps some other extracurricular—”

  “Please,” I said.

  “Perhaps some other extracurricular activity would be better suited to your talents, Mr. Trevitt.” He was talking louder now, glaring across at me.

  “Professor Janes,” I said. “I’m going to be editor next year. You might as well know that now.” He was about to talk, but I went on. “I’ll make it on my own, Professor Janes. So you don’t have to worry. Just a fair shake is—”

  “Mr. Trevitt,” he said, leaning toward me, “there is no chance.”

  “What’s over is over,” I said. “The slate’s clean as far as I’m concerned. You can relax. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of. Just relax and give me what I deserve. That’s all I want.”

  “Mr. Trevitt,” he said, and both of us were close to yelling, our words shoving their way across through that dead air, “I don’t want you working around here. This is my magazine and I don’t want you near it. I know what happened in the cemetery, Mr. Trevitt. Does that make it all clear?”

  “Sure,” I said, standing up. “That makes it all clear! But you listen to me anyway. Because I know what you did to Annabelle and I know why your wife’s a dipso, so you don’t rank too high on my list either. But just the same, when the time comes, I’m going to deserve to be made editor. You’re going to go right in to President Atkins and give him my name. Because I’m going to work my ass off down here. I’m going to work harder than anybody else and when spring comes, you’re going to have to make me editor. So you better get used to seeing my face, because I’m going to live here. I’m your boy, Professor Janes, and you better know it now.”

  “Whatever you wish, Mr. Trevitt,” he said, smiling at me. “Whatever you wish.”

  I ripped the door open and ran.

  I tore across Patriot’s Square. Then all of a sudden I sagged, making it over to a tree, falling against it, my eyes closed. “Why does it have to be so hard?” I said, right out loud. “Why does everything have to be so hard?”

  Finally, I snapped out of it and headed for home, my leg aching and my head, my stomach worse than ever. I walked inside and went to the kitchen, holding my head under the faucet, letting the cold water spray over me. It didn’t help much so I climbed up the stairs to lie down and wait for Terry.

  But she was there already.

  Sprawled on the bed, sniffling, a wet handkerchief in her hands. “Hi, baby,” I said. “What are you doing here?” At which she really started to cry. “I guess it didn’t go so well for you either, huh, baby?” She managed a nod. I took her in my arms, cradling her, kissing her swollen eyes as soft as I could. “Don’t you worry, baby,” I told her, lying back, pulling her down against me. “You can cry, but don’t you worry.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because, baby,” I whispered, squeezing her, holding her tight. “Because we got no place to go but up. ...”

  Which was the way we went—up. From that day on, at least for a while, things got better. But we worked for it.

  I was carrying a full load at the college and then some, seeing as I’d talked them into letting me have an extra course to speed things along. So in the morning, I’d get dressed, grab a cup of coffee and then off to the library, my arms practically breaking with books. I took English and history and a lot more, including a goddam geology course that I really hated. I studied at the library, went to classes, then came home and studied some more, reading and remembering, reading and remembering, day after day, week after week. With only The Athenian serving to break up the routine.

  We had our first meeting at the start of October. Harriet put a notice in the college newspaper that anyone interested in working for the literary magazine should report to the old barn at four the next afternoon. Naturally, I was there.

  Arriving early, pulling up short by the door. Because Janes was inside, talking with Harriet. I watched them until Harriet waved to come on in. Janes smiled at her, turned to me.

  “Nice seeing you, Mr. Trevitt,” he said. Then he left us. I went over and sat down by Harriet’s desk, waiting for the others to show.
/>
  They came, one by one, straggling in. Maybe twenty-five in all. And an uglier bunch of people I never saw. Mostly girls. Sporting ponytails. And blue jeans and dirty sweaters. All of them smoking away a mile a minute, jabbering on about Proust, who I’ll never forget; and what did Yeats mean there; and how about roses in Eliot? There were some boys, too, mostly with horn-rimmed glasses, standing around smirking, as if they’d found the handle but left it outside so as not to get it dirty. Tall, short, thin, fat, they all had one thing in common: pimples. Millions of them. And why some skin doctor didn’t set up shop next door, I’ll never know.

  Anyway, Harriet fiddled at her desk until it got quiet, after which she stood up and gave a little talk. About how this was the office of The Athenian and The Athenian was the literary magazine of Athens College. And how there were four issues per year, in November, January, April, and June. And how glad she was to see everyone because she could use all the help she could get, and if you’ve written anything, submit it, please, stories, poems, essays, anything, because we need it. Then she stopped, took our names, and asked if there were any questions. There were a few, scattered here and there, and then this girl raised her hand, a freshman if ever there was one, straight from some progressive school, without a doubt.

  “What sort of thing do you publish?” she asked.

  Harriet laughed. “It depends on what’s submitted.”

  “Well,” the girl went on, “I think we should publish good stuff.”

  “I agree,” Harriet said.

  “Well, I’ve written a story and I think you ought to print it.”

  “Fine,” Harriet said. “If you’ll just submit it, we’ll be—”

  “I spent last summer in Greenwich Village,” Good Stuff cut in. “And I wrote a story about two college girls who go to Greenwich Village. They meet there. They come from good families but they find themselves irresistibly attracted to each other. Irresistibly. Lesbians, you might say, except really, they’re not. Really, they’re both nice girls who are attracted to one another.”

  “Irresistibly,” Harriet said.

  “Yes.” The girl nodded.

  “Do they get married?” I asked.

  “They do not,” she answered, glaring at me. “They make a suicide pact and—”

  “We try to skirt the controversial,” Harriet said.

  “And what?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Good Stuff said. “I haven’t finished it yet.”

  “Why not give it a happy ending?” I said. “How about if one of the girls is really a boy, disguised? Then they could live happily ever after.”

  “Euripides!” Harriet said. She smiled at the others. “Submit whatever you want,” she continued. “Anything at all. And have your friends do the same. Are there other questions?”

  “Yes,” Good Stuff said. “Who’s he?” She pointed in my direction.

  “He’s sort of my court jester,” Harriet answered, giggling. “You can ignore most of what he says. He’s harmless and if you bring him a lump of sugar, he’ll be your friend for life.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Well,” Good Stuff muttered. “He talks as if he owns the place.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I answered. “I’m a regular wizard.”

  “O.K.,” she said. “All right. If you’re so smart, who wrote Biographia Literarial?”

  “You really want to know?” She nodded. I closed my eyes. “Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” I began. “1772 to 1834. In 1798 he wrote Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth. But he wasn’t much of a poet and don’t let anyone tell you he was. He never finished anything, Coleridge, except maybe the ‘Ancient Mariner.’ He threw in the sponge on poetry and since he loved gassing on, he became a critic. Biographia Literaria came out in 1817 and it’s a book of criticism. Wordsworth gets the short end of the stick, except not really. Because Coleridge was a good critic and Wordsworth was a good poet and—”

  “My God!” Harriet yelled. “Meeting’s over. Class dismissed.”

  They all filed out, mumbling. I sat there, looking across at Harriet. “You feeling all right?” she asked. I nodded. “How did you know all that?”

  “How do you think? I read that goddam book. I read most of Coleridge. I can’t stand him but—”

  “Euripides”—Harriet laughed, coming over and sitting in my lap—“you may be a genius after all.”

  “Naturally,” I said. Then we both started laughing.

  I walked home singing, letting the front door bang shut behind me, calling for Terry. She didn’t answer, so I went to our room, dropped my books on the desk, and began cleaning up for supper. I was getting undressed when she came in.

  “Where were you?” I asked. “I yelled.”

  “Thinkin’,” she answered. “I been thinkin’ a lot lately.” Which was the truth. Ever since that afternoon at the Red Cross, about ten days before, she’d been spending all her time in the house, moping around, thumbing through old copies of the Bedside Digest. “Trevitt,” she said then.

  “What?”

  “Educate me.”

  “How?”

  “Well,” she said, “I been thinkin’. And I decided to go back to the Red Cross. You want that?” I nodded. “So, I figured—I figured if maybe you’d help me along a little, I’d do better.”

  “You do fine now,” I said.

  She shook her head. “That’s a lie and you know it. When those biddies down there get to blabbing, I don’t understand what the hell’s going on. So I want you to educate me. Maybe give me something to read. A classic. Something I can talk about with the biddies. Make conversation. A real classic’s what I want.”

  Right then my mother called out that dinner was ready, so we went down. We sat around, eating, discussing the problem, Terry listening very close to what we said.

  After supper we went back to my room and I gave her a copy of Hamlet, then started on my homework. I didn’t get very far.

  Because Terry began laughing. “Is he kiddin’?” she said.

  I turned. “Who?”

  “This Shakespeare. Ophelia. Who ever called anybody Ophelia? He must be kiddin’.”

  “Go on reading,” I told her. “It takes a while to get into it.”

  About two minutes later she called me again. “How come nobody’s got a last name in here?”

  “What?”

  “Nobody’s got a last name,” Terry said again. “Hamlet who? Didn’t people have last names then?”

  “Of course they had last names. It was just a convention not to use them.”

  “Some convention,” Terry said.

  “Please,” I said. “Just read the play.”

  “I am reading. And I don’t understand one word. And why does this Hamlet always talk to himself? Is he nuts?”

  “Those are soliloquies,” I told her. “It’s another convention.”

  “Somebody ought to write a book on conventions then. So a person could know what’s going on.”

  “Just read the play,” I said. “Remember. It’s a classic.”

  Which shut her up. She lay in bed a long time, flipping the pages, giggling a lot, while I sweated away on my Geology. Adrian and my mother were downstairs. Pretty soon I heard him leave, the front door close.

  It was right then that Terry slammed the book on the floor.

  I turned. “Finish it?”

  “I should say not,” she answered. “That’s trash. I been brought up better than to read trash.”

  “Terry,” I said, “what’s the matter?”

  She picked up the book, thumbed through it. “What’s the matter?” she bellowed. “Listen. Right here. Hamlet’s talkin’ to Ophelia. And she says: I-think-nothin’-my-lord.’ And he says—catch this—he says: ‘That’s-a-fair-thought-to-lie-between-maid’s-legs.’ ”

  “So what?”

  “It’s dirty, that’s so what! Dirty talk is all it is. A
nd I asked you for a classic. Smut! Smut! Smut!”

  “Terry,” I said.

  “What is it, children?” my mother asked, standing in the doorway.

  “Your son got a dirty mind, Mrs. Trevitt. Listen to what he gave me to read. Right here, Hamlet says: ‘That’s-a-fair-thought-to-lie-between-maid’s-legs.’ ”

  “We mustn’t take things too personally, dear,” my mother said.

  “I ask you,” Terry went on, “is that dirty or is that dirty?”

  “So what if it is?” I said.

  “You hear that, Mrs. Trevitt? He admits it.”

  “Good night, children,” my mother said, and she was gone. Terry banged Hamlet down on my desk and walked to the bookcase. I went on with my work.

  “Purity of Soul Is Attainable,” Terry said, suddenly.

  I jerked up. “Huh?”

  “Purity of Soul Is Attainable,” she repeated. “By Maxwell P. Carter. August. Last year.” And with that she began to read to me. Fortunately, it was a short article, in which Mr. Carter told how he got his soul purified. When she was through reading it, Terry undressed and went to bed. I studied awhile longer, then did the same thing, going right out.

  It must have been three in the morning when I felt her shaking me. “Trevitt,” she whispered. “You asleep?”

  “What is it, baby? Don’t you feel well?”

  “Trevitt,” she went on. “I been thinkin’. About that play. How does it come out?”

  “What play?”

  “Hamlet, for chrissakes. How does it come out? What happens to Ophelia?”

  “She dies.”

  Terry was quiet for a while. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

  “We’ll send a card in the morning,” I said, rolling over.

  She shoved me. “How about her old man? Polonius. Does he get all shook up when she dies?”

  “Nope,” I said. “He dies first.”

  “How about her brother?”

  “Him too. Now, will you let me go to sleep?”

  “How does her brother die?”

  “Hamlet kills him.”

  “Is he brought to trial by the king?”

  “Hamlet kills the king too.”

  “You’re makin’ this up, Trevitt.”

  “It’s the truth,” I told her. “So help me.”