by Alison Lurie
Something is happening, Jane thought, I should stop it. But she could not move.
“I—Oh, hell.” The telephone had begun to ring.
“Unger Center for the H-Humanities,” Jane said, also stuttering a little.
“This is Sergeant Dan Warren at the Hopkins County Public Safety Office.”
“Uh, yes?” And now something else is happening, she thought, feeling frightened and confused. Someone has been arrested, someone is dead or injured.
“Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Jane Mackenzie. I’m the administrative director of the Unger Center for the Humanities at Corinth University.” Hearing her tense, formal tone, Henry sat back and took his hand off her arm.
“We have an individual here who has been detained by the Airport Security Officer at the county airport. He was trying to board a plane with weapons and contraband materials. Claims he is employed by your organization. Says his name is David Gakar.”
“Davi Gakar. Yes, I mean he’s a Fellow here, at the Center,” Jane said, still shaken but also relieved. “You mean, you’re saying they think he was going to hijack an airplane?”
Henry’s thick dark eyebrows rose, and he opened his mouth in a mime of astonishment.
“Maybe. He didn’t get that far.”
“But Professor Gakar is a famous professor from Yale University. He wouldn’t—” Jane fell silent. After all, how did she know what Davi Gakar would or wouldn’t do?
“He says you can verify his identity.”
“Well, yes. Of course I can.”
“In that case we’d appreciate it if you would come to the County Security Building as soon as possible.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.” The phone clattered loudly as she fit it back into its base. “They’ve arrested Davi Gakar,” she told Henry, annoyed to hear the wobble in her voice. “They think he’s a terrorist or something.”
“Yeah, I gathered.”
“I’ve got to call Bill Laird.”
“Yeah.” Henry smiled, to her mind inappropriately.
Bill, as usual, was calm and calming. Not to worry, he said: he would get in touch with the University counsel’s office and meet her at the Security Building (he called it by its former name, the County Jail) as soon as he could. She should go there now, and bring Davi Gakar’s file, along with his contract and letters of recommendation.
What is the matter with me? Jane thought as she went through the necessary actions: getting out the file, asking Charlie to cover the phone until Susie got back from lunch—carefully not telling him what the “minor emergency” was. I am a good administrator, she told herself. I am calm and capable in crises much worse than this one. When Wilkie Walker slipped on the icy front steps last February and was lying there with his leg twisted under him; when the fire started in the bathroom wastebasket the year before that, I knew what to do. But now she was confused; she felt as if she were running a fever, and her heart kept up a fluttering uneven rhythm. It’s because of Henry, she realized, looking at him and quickly looking away.
“I have to go now,” she said.
“I’ll drive you.” Henry stood up.
The confused thought crossed Jane’s mind that this might not be a good idea. But why not? She did not try to answer her own question, only said, “Thank you.”
“I probably won’t be of much use, but you never know.” He smiled. “Anyhow, I wouldn’t want to miss this.”
It’s not a TV show, Jane thought, but she said nothing.
They did not speak much on the way to the County Jail. Once she asked Henry to please not mention to anybody what had happened to Professor Gakar, and he replied, “All right.” But most of the time she was just silently watching the rain soak the windshield of Henry’s SUV and the wipers slosh it away, and wondering alternately whether Davi Gakar was an international terrorist and when or if Henry would say whatever it was he had started to say at the Center. She was tensely, annoyingly aware of him beside her, his rough tan duffle coat, his broad tanned hands on the wheel.
In the outer room of the Security Building, Davi Gakar’s wife and children were sitting on a long wooden bench. Whenever they came to the Center, they had always seemed happy and casual, and been dressed in casual New England preppie style. They smiled often, showing perfect teeth. Now they all wore formal dress-up clothes and varying unhappy expressions. Davi’s wife, a small, sophisticated woman who was a dentist in real life, had on a gilt-embroidered silk sari, heavy gold earrings, and a weary, sour expression. His nine-year-old daughter, in a lace-collared dark-red velvet party dress, looked lost and frightened, while his five-year-old son, in a miniature suit and tie, was restless and bored.
“It’s really important that we get to New York this afternoon,” Mrs. Gakar said in tones frayed by repetition. “My husband’s niece is being married there.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Davi was extremely upset at the airport. He was in the right, of course, but what he said wasn’t useful. Maybe you can talk a little sense into him.”
“We’ll try,” Henry said. Jane, who found Davi Gakar rather formidable, did not have the confidence to echo this promise. Going to the desk, she presented his file, and Sheriff Hanshaw was summoned.
“If you’d come this way, please.” Jane and Henry were directed by a female clerk down a corridor to a small ugly room containing six plastic chairs, a table, a very young uniformed policeman, and Davi Gakar, in an elegantly cut three-piece suit and a state of indignation.
“This is totally unreasonable, unforgivable,” he declared after being told that he and his family could not yet leave the building. “You have the documents now.”
“Please be patient, Professor,” the policeman said in a manner that suggested he had said it several times before. “The sheriff is looking at your papers now.”
“The staff at the airport are incompetent bunglers,” Davi Gakar declared. “They cannot tell a wedding present from a weapon. Look.” He gestured at the table before him, on the white plastic top of which was laid out a heterogeneous collection of objects, as in the memory game Jane had played at children’s parties. The center-piece was a rectangular black leather case lined in royal-blue plush and containing a large carving knife and fork with bone handles. Surrounding it was a debris of shiny silver wrapping paper and ribbon, a child’s flute, a pair of nail scissors and a nail file, and a bright-yellow toy bulldozer with a shiny metal scoop. “The stupidity was amazing,” Davi continued. “They imagined that with this equipment my family and I planned to hijack their plane. Presumably, I would attack the pilot with this carving knife and fork. My wife would stab the copilot with her nail scissors, my daughter would poke them with her flute, and my son would hit them with his toy car. That is what they thought, apparently.”
The young policeman said nothing, but it was clear from his expression that this was exactly what he did think. Henry, however, laughed, causing Jane to look at him with disapproval.
“Why, I asked them, would an American citizen, born in Forest Hills, New York, wish to attack an American plane? And if I wished to do so, why would I bring my wife and children into danger? I tried to be reasonable. I pointed out that we are not Muslims, we are Hindus, whereas the terrorists of September 11 were Muslims. If they are so determined to arrest someone, I said, why didn’t they arrest Charles Amir when he flew to Washington last week? He is a Muslim, and he is not a citizen.”
The young policeman, who had been sitting at the table in an attitude of deep boredom, looked up. “Would you repeat that name, please?” he asked.
“Amir, A-M-I—Wait a minute.” Davi checked himself. “I am not accusing anyone of anything, I am merely trying to suggest that this sort of profiling is irrational, appalling, and illegal.”
“Professor Gakar,” Jane said, feeling helpless, “I’m sure this can be resolved—” But Henry interrupted her, turning on Davi.
“Listen,” he said. “If you want to get out
of here today and get to that wedding, you’ve got to shut up. These guys don’t get academic irony. Didn’t you see that sign by the screener in the airport, warning people not to make jokes? You go on like this, you’re digging your cell with your own teeth.”
“So what do you suggest I should do?” Davi asked scornfully.
“I suggest you should stop complaining and start apologizing for all the trouble you’ve caused.”
“The trouble I’ve caused?” Davi inquired. He frowned, cleared his throat, and looked up at the acoustical tiles as if they were an object of scholarly interest. “You may have a point,” he finally said, lowering his gaze. “In certain situations, expediency rules.”
Now more people entered the room: the sheriff followed by Bill Laird and an energetic young lawyer from the University counsel’s office. It was clear that the balance of the event had shifted. Polite and conciliatory remarks were exchanged by all parties; local and long-distance phone calls were made. The airport manager was consulted, and it was arranged that the Gakars could leave on the next flight to New York, which would depart in about an hour. The carving set and the nail scissors would be transported in checked baggage; the flute and the yellow bulldozer were returned to their owners. Everyone shook hands and smiled, some agreeably and others wearily or ironically. The sheriff bought cans of Pepsi-Cola for the Gakar children from a vending machine, causing them to giggle and gobble, while their mother the dentist suppressed her natural reaction with difficulty. Finally Henry and Jane conveyed the family back to the airport.
“It was really great, what you said to Davi Gakar,” Jane told him as they drove away through the rain. “I wouldn’t have dared, but it worked.”
“For the moment,” Henry remarked.
“He was being unreasonable. And why did he insist on putting that carving knife into a carry-on bag?”
“Some people hate to check luggage.”
“Then he could have mailed it. Wait, you’re going in the wrong direction; this isn’t the way to the Center.”
“Yeah, I know.” Henry turned off the main road onto a wooded lane.
“I have to get back,” Jane protested as he stopped the car under a big dripping maple tree whose wet leaves had turned a brilliant gold.
“Not yet.” Henry turned off the engine. He moved closer, and kissed her.
“No, you shouldn’t,” Jane said weakly.
“Yes, I should. We deserve it. You know we do.”
“No,” Jane murmured, but when Henry moved back she met his mouth with her own. Just this once, she told herself.
Two minutes passed in a silent, deeply satisfying blur; then another car went by, throwing up a heavy spray of water.
“I must get back to the office,” Jane said, trembling all over. “Susie will wonder what happened—Bill Laird’s probably called too—”
“All right.” Henry started the car. “I’ll come by the Center later.”
“No, please don’t. Not now. I can’t—it’s too much—”
“Okay. But you’ll be at the Farmers’ Market tomorrow morning, right?”
“Yes, I guess so.” I don’t have to go, she told her conscience.
“Good.” Henry turned back onto the highway. “You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he said.
“No,” Jane agreed, thinking that it couldn’t be as long as she had wanted it. “How long?”
“Since the first time I saw you at the Center, when you were so mean about the sofas.”
“Really?” And in spite of herself, she smiled.
TEN
On a late October afternoon, Alan Mackenzie stood at the window of a Manhattan apartment, gazing east across Central Park. Back in Corinth the trees were unsightly and bare; but here they still kept their leaves, and from the tenth floor the view was of a broad sunlit carpet of chrome yellow and ocher and flame-colored chrysanthemums, rippled by a gentle breeze. Indoors, however, there was little to see. This two-room apartment, the occasional pied-à-terre of an acquaintance of Delia Delaney, was furnished in a bleak, minimalist style, all smoky gray mirrors and black leather and chrome.
For Alan, the last twenty-four hours had been strange: alternately exhausting and exhilarating. It was his first trip alone since his illness. Jane had offered to come, but he had refused, partly but not wholly because he knew she disapproved of his purpose and was reluctant to ask for a leave from her job. But without Jane’s help he had been burdened with invalid equipment: the cane, the wheeled carry-on, and the clumsy black nylon bag containing his medications, his two icepacks, and the three foam rubber chair pads that he needed to make almost any chair tolerable. Even so he could not sit for more than fifteen minutes without pain, and the flight to New York had been hideous. The seats on the little commuter plane were narrow and hard, and its wind-buffeted motion made him ill. The ride to the city in the jolting taxi was even worse, and by the time he reached his destination he was in agony.
Jim Weisman and Katie Fenn, the friends with whom Alan was staying near Columbia, were among his oldest and closest. They had been on sabbatical all last academic year, and had not seen him since his back trouble. They were clearly disconcerted to find him walking with a cane, and even more when he asked almost at once if he could put his icepacks in their freezer and lie on their sofa, with a tapestry pillow under his head and another between his knees. As he explained his condition, they listened with concern and dismay. They turned with relief to their own immediate history, describing with enthusiasm a Fulbright year in Southeast Asia, where Alan would now probably never go, and New York theater and opera productions that he would never see.
After half an hour his exhaustion and pain were so great that he had to retreat to his friends’ spare room. For over an hour he lay there, unable to sleep, listening to their murmured voices. He could not distinguish the words, but it was clear from the tone that Jim and Katie were distressed. He realized that he should somehow have prepared them for the change in his condition and appearance, which for people back in Corinth had come more gradually.
By the time Alan emerged from the spare room, there had been a seismic shift in his friends’ attitude. They were now warm and solicitous, offering vodka and wine and bourbon, and then chicken curry and fruit sherbet; but for the rest of the evening they spoke mostly of the past, recalling their mutual adventures in college and graduate school and several European countries. Though he joined in, laughing and reminiscing, he became more and more aware that invisibly his friends had taken a step or two away from him. He had become a beloved character from their past rather than their present or future.
Alan and Jim were almost exact contemporaries, but he had always been just a little ahead: published sooner, promoted to tenure sooner, married more successfully (Katie was Jim’s second wife). Now it was clear that he had lost this edge. He was no longer ahead of his friends or even parallel with them, but a member of another, inferior species: an invalid. His project for a book on religious architecture was old news, and he could see that they were surprised that it was not yet completed.
Out of superstitious motives, he did not say that he might soon be having a show of his watercolor paintings. Delia had been enthusiastic and optimistic, but she was not part of the New York art world. It was quite possible that she had exaggerated her friend’s interest in Alan’s work, or that his gallery was only a shabby small-time operation. That at least was what Jane suspected. She had been doubtful about the whole project. (“If that dealer really wants your pictures, why doesn’t he come here to see you? He knows you’re ill, doesn’t he?”) Of course, Jane had also been prejudiced against Delia from the beginning, for some reason, and suspicious of her motives. (“She’s always flattering people and wanting them to think she has a lot of power and influence.”)
Last night Alan had slept badly, in spite or perhaps because of all the wine and bourbon he had drunk and the various pills he had taken. At four a.m. he staggered into the guest bathroom in
a state of dizzy, blurred pain and despair. Unlike the bathroom at home, Jim and Katie’s was brilliantly lit, and in the mirror he could see himself with hideous clarity as they must have seen him: a sick, worn, overweight, prematurely aging man with a scruffy haircut. That wasn’t his fault: for almost a year and a half he had been unable to sit in a barber’s chair, and at monthly intervals Jane had climbed on a stool to cut his hair. She had done the best she could; but by New York standards her best was not very good.
As he stood before the mirror a great wash of despair and self-disgust came over Alan. Why am I kidding myself? he thought. My back is not getting better. I am not teaching or working on my book, only wasting time making drawings of imaginary ruins. I am the ruin of a professor, the ruin of a scholar, the ruin of a man. It would be better if I were dead. In a drugged blur of self-hatred he turned to the bathroom window and tried to lift the sash. But the building was old, and the window had warped shut; he could only raise it a couple of inches before he had to give up and lie down on the guest room bed again, giddy and gasping with the effort, wracked and wrecked with pain.
It’s a good thing I couldn’t get that window open last night, Alan thought now as he stood looking over the field of flowers that was Central Park. I must have been a little crazed from all those drugs. For one thing, Jim and Katie’s apartment was on the second floor, and probably he would only have injured himself further, not to mention causing them lifelong remorse. (“What could we have said to make him do that?”)
After breakfast Alan had taken a painful taxi ride to the rather grand building on Central Park West where Delia was staying, and waited in the lobby for fifteen increasingly painful minutes. Finally she appeared, strangely transformed. Her mass of hair had been compressed into a chignon from which only a few gold-red tendrils escaped; she was elaborately made up and dressed in fashionable New York black: a long-skirted suit, a black silk blouse, a trailing black lace scarf, and dangerous-looking pointed black high-heeled sandals. She did not apologize for making Alan wait, only gave him a New York air kiss near one cheek.
