The River in Winter

by Matt Dean

  Christa frowned. "What? Who?" Turning, she saw Thorstensen. "Oh. Gasbag."

  "He's not going to stop till we're abolished."

  "God," Christa said. "I want a cigarette." She took a bite of her sandwich. No, it was my sandwich; she'd finished hers. At her elbow her plate lay empty, dotted with pumpernickel crumbs. She chewed carefully. "I haven't wanted a cigarette since my drinking days in college."

  "This is hardly the time, with Peanut coming and all."

  "Peanut? Where did you get that?"

  I shrugged. "Just came to me, just now."

  "That's cute. I've been thinking of it-excuse me, him or her-as The Blob, which is accurate but not what you'd call adorable."

  I stared at Thorstensen, watched him as he moved through the line, as he stacked enormous quantities of food on his tray.

  Christa leaned forward, so abruptly that she shook the table. Plates rattled. She was suddenly avid, if not slightly manic. "Is he stalking Barbra Streisand?"

  "Thorstensen?"

  "Your friend who's ruining his life."

  "Barbra Streisand? I don't think Barbra Streisand has anything to do with it, or any other topic of conversation, for that matter, unless I missed something and we're suddenly talking about raging egomaniacs in desperate need of rhinoplasty."

  Christa stared at me.

  "Everyone treats her like some kind of goddess," I said. Now I was avid-if not slightly manic. "The Broadway Album. The. Not a, the. As if there's never been another Broadway album. Karen Holmes has been making Broadway albums for twenty years."

  "Note to self," Christa said. "Never mention Barbra Streisand again."

  "Sorry," I said. I calmed myself by tearing a paper napkin into tiny perfect squares. "Have you talked to Tory?"

  She groaned, so loudly that people at nearby tables turned to look at her. "Weigh 'nough. I'm not going to tell Tory. I'm just not." She poked at the remaining half of my sandwich, tentatively, as if it might poke her in return. "It's embarrassing. I just can't. It's not his."

  "You keep saying that."

  She looked at me. "It keeps being true."

  "Let me tell him, then. He's crazy about you, you know. For reasons I cannot begin to understand, he thinks you're marvelous. He deserves to know why you won't talk to him, at least."

  She sighed. "I'll think about it. Maybe I could write him a letter." The idea seemed to fill her with sudden hope and joy. "Could I do that?"

  "I don't think so." On the other hand-. What would be the harm? If she wrote the letter, maybe I could convince her that mailing it would be a tacky, chickenshit thing to do, that she needed to deliver it in person. And if not, at least Tory would know what had happened, why she had vanished from his life. "You could," I said. "You should. You can work on it while we're at the forum."

  She stared off into space, flicking the tip of her index finger with her thumbnail. If she'd heard me, she gave no sign.

  * * *

  Roughly ten minutes before the appointed time of the forum, Martin and I crept into the powder-blue third-floor conference room. Roughly ten minutes after the appointed time of the forum, the IR staffers we had invited appeared en masse. Three women, four men, each chin, each mouth, each eye creased and furrowed more deeply than the last. The staffers sat on the opposite side of the table from us, in a row of squeaky, high-backed blue chairs. Thorstensen ambled in and took a beige tweed side chair in a corner of the room.

  I looked at Martin. He was looking at me. I set my legal pad before me. Martin cleared his throat.

  "Good morning. We're here to-"

  But Thorstensen stopped him. "If you could introduce yourself for the record?" His tone was glacial.

  Record? What record?

  "Of course," Martin said. He tried a smile. Gray blank faces stared at him. "I'm Martin N. Maddock, director of the Office of Workplace Tolerance."

  He looked at me, and I said, "Jonah Murray, analyst for the OWT."

  Thorstensen leaned back, and his chair reared up on its hind legs. With interlaced fingers he cradled his head against the wall behind him. "Please proceed, Mr. Maddock."

  "Perhaps," Martin said, "perhaps we should all introduce ourselves?"

  The staffers tersely, tensely introduced themselves-names only, no titles. On my legal pad, I made a map. I drew an oval: the conference table. Around the oval, I wrote in the staffers' names: Betty Moseley, Bill Merton, Jasper Ulema, Burt Nichols, Sarah Lincoln, George Crocker, Sally Farrow. In ten minutes' time, I thought, Martin would have forgotten every name, and the map would come in handy. I snapped the page free of the pad and set it between us.

  Martin said, "As I'm sure you all know, our office is taxed-pardon me, tasked-with creating a comprehensive legislature-wide policy concerning all forms of tolerance and harassment binding all the many offices of the legislature. This policy cannot be-cannot instantly be-consummated, let us say."

  Consummated? Why not completed, or created, or even drafted?

  Sally Farrow stiffened, holding her straight back inches from the curved back of her chair. She was a study in gray-gray curls of hair piled atop gray folds of skin draped in gray pleats of flannel. She removed her glasses and, folding them, laid them before her on the table. Perhaps she could no longer bear the sight of us.

  Martin forged ahead. "We've divided the process into a number of overlapping intervals. We are conducting a series of forums like this one, through which we will determine the extent of the problem."

  Thorstensen cleared his throat. "Mr. Maddock, I'm going to stop you there for a moment. Can you tell us how much time and money has already been spent to conduct these forms?"

  While I dug through my notes, Martin said, "At this time we have only been able to conduct the forums on the DFL side. You yourself have-."

  "That's not what I asked."

  I wrote a couple of figures on a blank sheet of my legal pad. Sliding the pad toward Martin, I tapped the numbers with the butt of my pen. He shook his head. "That's not right," he told me. To Thorstensen, he said, "Rest assured, the cost is small, but we have attempted to be thorough, so a fair number of hours-. Excuse me. One moment."

  I covered my mouth, whispered to Martin. "That's the closest I can get. I never even tried to-. Christa would be able to-."

  Thorstensen said, "Mr. Maddock, if you don't have it, you don't have it."

  Again Martin said, "Rest assured, the cost is small. No more than the typical office supplies and what-have-you that any legislative office would incur."

  Thorstensen smoothed the folds of his vest; instantly the fabric puckered again around the buttons. "Somewhere along the line, someone thought it was a good idea to go around letting people vent about their petty qualms. But at what cost? That's what I'd like to know."

  "Qualms?" Martin said. "Not at all. We're only saying that-."

  "Just a moment." This was Jasper Ulema, a youngish man with flaky skin and a black pompadour. He tugged at the lapels of his blue blazer. "I think this is all ridiculous. I don't know why I have to be here. Aren't there harassment policies in place already?"

  "When this project began-."

  Ulema said, "Yes?"

  "Mr. Thorstensen-," Martin said. "Representative Thorstensen, rather-. Mr. Ulema-." Then, "Excuse me. It's my understanding-."

  Around the table, the faces were stony. Arms were folded. No one seemed inclined to speak.

  * * *

  On University Avenue the evening traffic crawled. I reached Eliot's office at twenty after six, as he was locking up. When my car swung through the parking lot, he waved and smiled. By the time I'd made my way through the barbarous cold to his door, a warm yellow glow lit the windows.

  The warm glow was deceptive; the office was frigid. Eliot sat at his desk, shivering in a gray cardigan sweater over a blue V-neck sweater over a red pinstriped shirt.

  Half-rising, he shook my hand. "Sorry about the cold. The ventilation system in this building is a disaster. It's either freezing
or boiling. I guess the furnace-or the heat pump or whatever it is-just can't keep up when the temperature outside dips below ten degrees."

  I slid my hand from his and, hugging my arms to my body, settled into a chair across from him. "You won't mind if I keep my coat on?"

  "Not at all." He rubbed his hands together. "It gets colder in here by the minute. We won't go too long."

  "As long as we stop when we can see our breath."

  "That could happen at any moment." He laughed. "Some business first, if you don't mind." In front of him on his blotter lay a sheet of white paper. He slid it toward me. "I found an assistance program that will help defray the cost of our sessions."

  "Thank you," I said. "I-. I appreciate that. How-how much will my part of it be?"

  He grinned. "Twenty dollars per session."

  "That's-. That's-." I felt my jaw drop. "Where do I sign?"

  "Fill this out and bring it next time," he said.

  He handed me the sheet of paper. At the top, in blue, it read "Twin Cities Mental Health Assistance Program."

  "I will," I said. I folded the form into quarters and slipped it into the inside pocket of my jacket.

  "Enough about that." He rounded the desk and sat next to me. "How are you feeling?"

  "Cold." I blew warm air into my fist.

  "Seriously, Jonah."

  I looked away. I looked at the baseball bat in its cradle. I let my eyes go slack, out of focus. The bat fattened, whitened.

  "When I started this," I said, "it seemed easy. I didn't do it on a whim. I did it for good reason, because I was-. You know how I was. Everything had come to seem so difficult. This-. This seemed easy."

  I said, "Weekends are hard." The empty hours to fill. The call of nightlife going on all around me. A box of Spike's old videos in the living room, and his pager number in every drawer in the house. "Every day is hard. There are-. I see men everywhere, and-. It's all willpower now."

  Eliot nodded. "I understand. What have you been doing to keep on track?"

  "I've read most of the Stinson book. I've gone over some of it three or four times. It helps. It really does, but-."

  "What else have you been reading? Besides your Biblical readings."

  I flinched.

  "You haven't been reading the Bible?"

  "I don't own one," I said. "I didn't-. That is to say-." Rocking forward on my hands, I fell silent.

  "This is an active process, Jonah. You have to participate. The emotions you first felt, the relief of having your burdens lifted, you can't count on feeling that way forever. Everyone has difficult days. I have difficult days. I'm sure Sam Stinson has difficult days."

  I leaned forward. "Wait. What? Is Stinson-? Was Stinson gay?"

  "No, no, of course not. I just meant we all have our temptations, our trials. Everyone has some thorn in the flesh. Whatever Stinson's is, I'm sure he has difficult days. We all have difficult days. Everything you need to get through them is in the Bible."

  He said, "You have to learn, study, develop your relationship with God. You have to work at it much of the time. You can't wait around for beams of light to come down from heaven and make you feel divinely inspired. You have to read. You have to study."

  Laying my hands on my knees, I stared at my knuckles. All were raw, winter-chapped, denim-scraped. Tiny red beads of scab studded the second knuckle of my left hand. "I wouldn't know where to start."

  "Romans. Start with Romans. It's my favorite."

  I nodded. "Thanks. I would have started with Genesis."

  "Don't. You'll never make it past so-and-so begat so-and-so."

  "I do feel I've made some progress," I said. With some pride, I remembered the last group session. It had helped to be some comfort to Charlie after his near miss in the Dayton's men's room, but I didn't say anything to Eliot about that. Instead, I described how I'd packed away all my books and videos, as though I'd packed them away just yesterday, not weeks ago.

  "That's very good," he said. "What did you do with them?"

  "Nothing yet."

  He leaned forward. "Then don't you see that you're still holding on? Part of you is still holding on."

  My thumbnail was ragged. In lieu of cutting my nails I'd taken to chewing them, though I couldn't remember precisely when I'd started. "You're right."

  "What will you do tonight?"

  "I'll buy a Bible on the way home, and I'll throw away the books and videos."

  * * *

  He saw me to my car and waited by my open window until I'd started the engine. Even through gloves, the steering wheel was stinging cold.

  "Until Thursday," he said.

  "Christmas Eve? Group meets on Christmas Eve?"

  "The holidays are hardest," he said. "There's no better time. Call me if you need anything. And don't forget to fill out that form. And actually-you know-bring it next time." He smiled. "Take care. Be well," he said.

  He plodded away, hunched over in the cold. I waited to see his car's exhaust. After some minutes, bluish smoke curled into the air.

  As I drove by, he waved and smiled.

  * * *

  The front windows of Turn the Page were steamy. Droplets of water rolled down the glass. Ceiling-mounted furnaces blasted and parched the air. Overstuffed shelves towered over narrow aisles. The warmth, the closeness, were entirely welcome.

  I dawdled in the music section, kicking a stool along in front of me. I considered and rejected a Ravel biography and a survey of Britten's operas. On the uppermost shelf, I found a slim paperback entitled Beethoven in London. Had Beethoven gone to London?

  McNamara was the book's author. That McNamara?

  I tipped the book forward, and it dropped into my hands.

  Above a portrait in oils of a scowling, black-maned Beethoven, the title scrolled across the cover in ornate white script. At the bottom, also in white, but in a blocky white font, "A Novel by Terrence McNamara."

  Yes, then. That McNamara.

  On the back, a short blurb read:

  In 1954, preeminent Beethoven scholar Terrence McNamara turned his immense knowledge of Beethoven's life and work to an ambitious work of fiction. His novel, Beethoven in London, long out of print but presented here with new endnotes and an expanded bibliography, asked "What might have happened if Beethoven, like Haydn before him, had undertaken a concert tour of London?" McNamara's deep understanding of the historical record concerning the composer's life, and of the psychological underpinnings that formed ?

  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

  I glanced around me. On the stool I stood on tiptoe, craning my neck to see over the shelves. I felt furtive and undeservedly lucky. Surely a horde of Beethoven fanatics lay in wait somewhere, waiting to seize the book from me. But the store seemed to be empty of people, and certainly-except for me-of Beethoven fanatics.

  I opened the book. End paper, title page, dedication. "To Jesse," the dedication read, "mein unsterblicher Geliebter."

  Geliebter-that would have something to do with love. Lover? Beloved?

  Unsterblicher, though-. I had no idea what that might mean. Something about stars, perhaps? Unstarry lover? No, probably not.

  McNamara had dedicated the book to someone named Jesse. Not a woman, surely. It was possible, I supposed, that some woman, somewhere, at some time in the history of the world, had been named Jesse. But it seemed far more likely that Jesse-McNamara's unsterblicher Geliebter-had been a man.

  I flipped to the back of the book, looking for some kind of biographical blurb about McNamara. I found one, a single paragraph that shared a page with a colophon explaining that the book had been printed in Baskerville, a font designed in 1757. The description of the font and its designer was twice as long as the blurb about McNamara.

  Terrence Alan McNamara was born in London in 1904. For his entire career he was a respected Professor of Music at the prestigious Barton School of Music in Manhattan, and the preeminent Beethoven scholar of his day. His explications of th
e Beethoven String Quartets, Piano Sonatas, and Symphonies are regarded as the seminal works on those subjects. He died in New York in 1973 at the age of 69. Beethoven in London is his first and only novel.

  Died how? Died of what? Died where, exactly? In the arms of Jesse, his-his what?-unstarry lover?

  * * *

  The Bibles must be on the second floor, in the Spiritual Studies section. I climbed the creaking stairs, forgetting as ever to avoid touching the sticky blue paint on the banister.

  The Gay Studies section was at the top of the stairs. When Tom and I had come here together, he'd always crouched there, browsing the novels, the anthologies of erotica, paging through a copy of The Joy of Gay Sex that for some reason never seemed to sell.

  I couldn't help glancing at the low shelf where The Joy of Gay Sex was kept. It wasn't there. Someone had finally bought it.

  I made straight for Spiritual Studies.

  I had expected to find very few Bibles-who would sell a Bible? But there were many, almost enough to fill an entire system of shelves. I walked my fingers along the spines, looking for the least abraded and creased among them. King James Version, Revised KJV, New International Version, The Living Bible, The Way.

  I took down two or three different versions. The modern translations were full of exclamation points and prosy fourth-grade-level sentences.

  I found something called a "Tyrone Study Bible," a King James Version bound in floppy maroon vinyl or Naugahyde. It was in perfect condition, except that a previous owner had penciled tidy glosses on many of its pages. Inside the front cover, a bookplate bore a watercolor image of flowers and ribbons and the name of the previous owner: Elizabeth Weitzel.

  I turned to Romans, where Elizabeth's handwriting filled the gutters and margins. A sentence across the top of a page bridged chapters six and seven: "Slaves to sin are free from righteousness, but slaves to righteousness are free from sin."

  Further into chapter seven, beside a bold heading-"The Law: Good or Ill?"-Elizabeth's meticulous hand had written, "Law exposes sin and its deception. We know we are sinful because of the law, but the law does not cause sin."

  A curved arrow connected chapter fourteen, verse ten-"But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at naught thy brother?"-to a small phrase-"Me, then, why do I?"