The Semester of Our Discontent

by Cynthia Kuhn

  We shared a commiserative look. “I’m so sorry, Tad. How awful.”

  He took a long drink before continuing. “It was. I’d left myself vulnerable by submitting a group of critical articles instead of a book-length study. Roland had told me when I was hired that either was acceptable, but it turns out that equivalence wasn’t written down anywhere. He fought as hard as he could to get rid of me. I fought as hard as I could to stay.”

  “That doesn’t seem right.” Roland’s warning about junior faculty needing to be quiet came back to me. I’d thought it was directed at me, but perhaps he felt that way about everyone.

  “No, it doesn’t. And when I was tenured, it didn’t feel appropriately victorious, especially since I suspect it took a call from Tad Senior.”

  “Your father was involved?”

  “He was the one who hired Roland back in the days of yore. And of course the chancellor saw the error of Roland’s ways after a gentle reminder of Father’s legacy, by which I mean enduring financial generosity.” He raised his glass. “A toast to family.”

  I didn’t know what to say about that, so I opted for the logical question. “Why do you think Roland turned against you?”

  Tad snorted. “I disagreed with him a few times on curricular matters. Maybe that was enough. Or perhaps it had to do with him having read what I actually wrote, rather than just patting me on the head for what he thought I wrote. In which case I was just the latest in a long line of efforts to keep the academy pure. He had appointed himself gatekeeper.”

  “Gatekeeper?”

  “Yes, Roland felt the application of contemporary critical theory to literature was a destructive force—‘a muddying flood,’ he called it—and viewed anyone who had the audacity to wield theory as a threat to his beloved tradition. But that was just one of his projects—he also objected to any attention paid to newly discovered writers, especially those of the ‘fairer sex,’ as he liked to say.”

  I nodded. “I sensed that, actually.”

  “Oh right, he protested about your research too.”

  “He did?” I was suddenly short of breath. Although Roland had asked challenging questions after the presentation I’d given during my campus interview, I had figured it was intentionally done to see how the candidate holds up under pressure and all that. It’s a component of the culture: the dissertation defense provides another case in point. Anyone who has presented at an academic conference has likely also encountered the trend for complicated—sometimes completely inscrutable—interrogations by scholarly audience members. And there are many reasons, aside from wanting a genuine answer, that such questions are asked. One never knows if the questioner is probing the depth of the speaker’s knowledge, foregrounding their own area of expertise, or just being ornery.

  “Yes, he stood up in the faculty meeting and argued we should hire the other candidate, a woman from Notre Dame who had demonstrated what Roland perceived as the ‘good sense’ to write a dissertation comparing Robert Frost to John Donne.”

  I tried to process the fact that there had been controversy about my hiring.

  Tad paused.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

  “Please, go on.”

  “No one agreed with him. The rest of us wanted to hire you, but he tried several times to convince us your research was necessarily more limited because your work on Isabella Dare was…” He seemed uncomfortable.

  I waited. The tick of the ebony mantel clock was deafening.

  “Tad, please go on. I would prefer to know. I can handle it, promise.”

  “I’m trying to remember exactly what he said.” Tad studied the ceiling. “Oh yes—your topic was ‘not important enough to guarantee publication, much less acclaim for our esteemed reputation.’ He also tried to claim that your presentation seemed ‘aggressively feminist.’”

  “Wow.” I froze, my face flaming and my ears ringing. “Unimportant and aggressive?”

  He caught sight of my expression and looked apologetic. “Lila, don’t take it personally. No one listened, I swear—we were all so used to him attacking something or other for no reason. He was a bit of a joke and only had a few friends in the department. Any respect he once commanded dissipated once we all discovered what a horrible person he was.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Did you ever speak with him after the tenure issue?”

  “Not until this fall. We went on summer break after the announcement, and I retired to my family’s place in the Hamptons as soon as possible.”

  “Well, I hope that was restorative.” The Hamptons sounded about right, considering the Ruthersfords’ ability to have their very own family vineyards.

  “It was indeed. I returned ready to put my feelings about Roland Higgins behind me, though obviously it takes time. I’m working on it. But enough about that sordid business. Let’s move on to more current sordidness—have you recovered from finding his body?” I flinched. Putting it that way seemed so harsh. I’d spent a number of sleepless nights reliving, in nauseating, slow-motion detail, the moment I’d realized what I was seeing on the table. It took pronounced effort to squash that horror. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Tad said, in a softer voice. “Not ready to talk about it?”

  “No. It was too terrible. I’m sorry.”

  “Fair enough. How was the service?”

  “It was dignified.”

  Tad’s lip curled. “Of course. Putting the best face forward—quintessential Stonedale. Who from the department spoke?”

  “Spencer and Norton. They truly seemed to care about him.”

  “They’d been colleagues long enough to forgive him his sins.” While I was trying to decide whether or not to bring up Norton’s wild accusation, the mantel clock chimed. Tad took my wine glass gently from my hand and set it on the table. “But we can talk more later—I believe you said you had professorial duties to attend to this evening?”

  “Thanks. And it’s been lovely talking with you. I was hoping we’d have a chance.”

  “Sorry it took me so long to act civilized.” He rubbed his face briskly. “It’s still rather embarrassing, having to walk into that department after last year. I’ve been hiding.”

  “Why is it embarrassing? You have tenure.”

  “I grew up in Stonedale. Literally on campus—hell, in our department, even. Everyone knew what was going on. Not to mention my father has since taken every opportunity to remind me what a failure I am. When he was a professor here, he was a star. Sailed right through the tenure process with nary a glitch.”

  “But surely he knows that academic politics play a role—”

  “Yes, but he thinks that’s my fault too. Says he raised me to be able to navigate them better,” said Tad glumly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Do your parents still live in Stonedale?”

  “They alternate between Aspen in the winter and the Hamptons in the summer. They also have a house down here for the other seasons. But I see them all the time. Command performances at the Ruthersford manse. You know how it is.”

  Not really.

  Later that evening, I was curled up on my sofa, holding a mug of herbal tea with one hand and pulling at a loose thread on my favorite black yoga pants—someday I was actually going to have to take up yoga if I kept wearing them—with the other. I thought about what Tad had been through. A lesser person might have walked away from Stonedale altogether. I hoped over time he would be able to enjoy, even celebrate, the fact that he’d made it through the gauntlet.

  I set my tea on the plastic crate currently in use as an end table and looked around the room. My furnishings were coming together slowly, thanks to Craigslist, but I still had some gaps to fill. So far, I’d scored the soft red chenille sofa in perfect condition, a brown oak dining table set with only one wobbly chair, and a matching coffee table with a small corner scr
atch that didn’t bother me a bit. It was a good thing I wasn’t picky about décor, because I couldn’t afford much. Some people think all professors make a lot of money, which is not the case across the board. Not to mention many of us will be paying off school loans for decades to come. Although choosing a career in higher education doesn’t always make financial sense, I was grateful for the opportunity to teach.

  I stared at the textbooks for my current courses—American Literature since 1865 and Gothic Literature—and tried to choose which one to prepare first. As I reached for the pile of books on the coffee table, my cell phone rang, the screen displaying Calista’s name. Saved by the bell. We spent a few minutes talking about classes, then I steered the conversation to Tad.

  “Hey, what’s your take on Tad’s tenure fight? He just told me about it.”

  “That’s good, I suppose, that he can talk about it. Unless he’s being obsessive and harping on it. It’s one of those things that would probably be better left behind him.”

  “Is it true Roland went out of his way to blackball Tad?”

  “And Spencer got all caught up in it as well,” Calista said.

  “Judith’s husband?” That was news. “How?”

  “Spencer and Roland were close friends but super competitive with one another. It didn’t help that they were both Renaissance scholars, though Spencer worked on Christopher Marlowe and Roland was a Shakespearean. Spencer’s work is very interesting—he has done fresh things with Doctor Faustus. But the way Roland wrote about women characters was disgusting. He makes all these claims about how their bodies corrupt the moral landscape. Ick.”

  I made a mental note to search for some of Roland’s scholarship. “How did Spencer get involved, then?”

  “Well, after Roland put out that email about prestigious journals, it was obvious he was trying to make Tad look bad. I should say Tad was a trouper about it, overall. He never bad-mouthed anyone: he just started showing up pale and disheveled, as if he weren’t sleeping or taking care of himself. We all tried to comfort him, but that didn’t accomplish much…”

  “Spencer?” I reminded her.

  She made a sound of exasperation. “That’s where I was headed. So at the last spring faculty meeting, Spencer stood up and thanked us for our hard work over the year, then added that he did not want any of us to think Roland’s email had been meant to speak for the feelings of all senior faculty. We should be proud, he said, of our publications in academic journals both old and new. The room burst out in applause and Roland’s face went dark purple as he sat there, sputtering.”

  “Wow.”

  “It was awesome. And a few days later, Tad’s tenure was officially announced and we all went home for summer. But rumor had it Spencer and Roland stopped speaking to each other after that meeting.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. “Any idea why Spencer might have done that?”

  “No. He always seemed to have Roland’s back. I mean, he didn’t always agree with him, but when they did have a public confrontation of ideas, he made sure Roland was treated with respect and that he had a graceful exit opportunity available.”

  I had met others who acted like Roland—overinflated egos are easy to find in academia—and they usually did reserve one corner for allies. They might be terribly condescending to students but not to colleagues. Or they were rude to most people but had a few select friends to whom they chortled about the supposed inferiority of everyone else.

  Roland seemed to have alienated almost everyone who knew him, judging from the anecdotes piling up—but not, it appeared, Spencer. At least until the Tad situation. I filed that away for future contemplation.

  “The tributes to Roland at the memorial service made him sound practically saintly.”

  “Well, Stonedale has a reputation to maintain, first and foremost. We may fight like cats and dogs within our own walls, but we don’t let the villagers see. Wasn’t that on page one of your faculty handbook?” She chuckled.

  “You’re funny.”

  “I’m surprised Addison Goldman didn’t speak. They were extremely close friends, though I personally think Roland treated Addison awfully—almost like an indentured servant.”

  “What about Judith? Was he respectful of her?”

  “Well, I know Roland introduced Judith to Spencer. For a while, they were all good friends with another woman too—whose position you took, actually—Elisabetta Vega. But after Spencer and Judith’s wedding, Roland started hanging around with Addison instead. Third-wheel syndrome, I guess.”

  “Hmm.”

  Calista continued, “It’s sad to admit, but Roland was almost universally loathed. Though in our defense, he was so mean it was impossible to like him.”

  “No redeeming qualities whatsoever?”

  The line was quiet while she thought.

  “He did wear some interesting ties.”

  Chapter 7

  As I packed my satchel Friday morning, Tad’s description of the hiring process flashed through my mind. Was Roland the only one who hadn’t wanted me at Stonedale, or was Tad just trying to spare my feelings? The tiny snippet he shared about the departmental discussion of my scholarship was upsetting enough—and who knows what else was said? I yanked the flap over the bag with perhaps more force than was necessary and snapped the nickel clips shut.

  The indignation subsided during a breezy walk to campus, and by the time I reached my office, I was determined to introduce positive energy into my life by organizing all teaching documents into easy-to-locate folders. Several hours of applying order to my small corner of Crandall Hall was invigorating. When it was time for the faculty meeting, I pushed the file cabinet closed with a sense of satisfaction.

  We gathered in the freshly painted and re-carpeted department library, now reassembled with different furniture: cherry bookcases lined the walls and a gleaming table dominated the center of the room. The black leather chairs were comfortable, if somewhat scuffed, though I knew that to be from use rather than the intentional marks sometimes given to pieces to achieve a “shabby chic” appearance. In this community, authentic distress is acceptable; faux distress is not. These chairs were cast-offs from the dean’s office conference room, Calista had informed me, whispering, “Whatever was in here when Roland died was destroyed.” And thank goodness for that. Plus, it gave the dean a chance to upgrade his own furniture. A win-win.

  Not counting Roland, of course. I winced at the thought.

  Spencer, whom the dean had appointed interim chair, began the meeting by introducing Simone and me as the newest members of the department, which resulted in a light smattering of applause. I wasn’t expecting that and was mortified to find myself smiling at the floor instead of at my colleagues. My reactions to any sort of public attention make no sense to anyone, not even me.

  “Now,” Spencer said, shifting tones, “I know we are all profoundly saddened by the loss of our longtime colleague. Let us have a moment of silence for Roland, who was deeply devoted to the work of our discipline.” We bowed our heads until he began speaking again. “Thank you to all who attended the memorial service. His brother was most grateful to see Roland was a part of such a caring community. Finally, please continue to cooperate with the investigation—I know we are all committed to finding out what happened to our friend.”

  Addison, who taught Myth and Folklore, straightened his yellow bowtie, then lifted his hand tentatively, almost as if he wasn’t fully committed to raising it. “I was wondering if we might discuss putting together a scholarship in Roland’s name. He was such an important part of the department for so long…”

  A ripple of responses around the conference table followed. Calista and Judith looked at each other, Tad tightened his lips, Nate gave him an encouraging smile. Clearly, Tad still had an emotional response to even the mention of Roland’s name. Could he have killed Roland as payback? I chided myself for th
e dark thought—Tad had been so pleasant to me—but I didn’t know anyone else who had a specific motive.

  “Addison, perhaps you could write something up and discuss it with the scholarship committee? We would have to locate funding, but you’re right that it would honor his dedication in a suitable fashion.” Spencer turned to Judith. “Perhaps as chair of the committee, you could report back to the department at our next meeting?”

  Judith agreed. She was wearing a stunning necklace today—a large stone pendant—with her olive jacket. Very stylish. Calista sat on her left, clad in an indigo wrap dress, staring attentively at Judith.

  Wrenching my attention back to the meeting, I heard Willa Hartwell say something about a university-wide assessment project planned by the dean. As was fitting for her drama specialty, she underscored the need for our participation with exaggerated gesticulations that set her long hammered-silver earrings rocking. It was almost mesmerizing.

  Willa concluded her plea with a request for volunteers to lead the charge. Unsurprisingly, no one spoke. Norton, his serene demeanor today in direct opposition to the menacing performance from the other night, finally held up and wiggled his pipe.

  “I’ll leave this in your capable hands then,” she said to him. “We need two additional department representatives to report to Dean Okoye next week.”

  Norton warned us that he’d be knocking on office doors. I sincerely hoped I wasn’t there when he knocked on mine.