A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall (47 page)

She had a few wry comments ready for this moment, but when she saw him her arms simply shot around his neck.

Joined lips joined laughs and they wove away.

H
e was worried that his return would mean gluing the leaves back on branches, his trembling fingers guessing at depth, holding each memory in place until it dried and was reattached. Instead, everything shot back at once, a live crown of memories: the shadow of her pulled-back hair just behind her ear, her almost hidden smile when she was being serious, the insistence this was serious whenever she laughed, her searching timbre, the skipped beat of each quick reply, skimming fingertips on his collarbone before she collapsed at his side, her breath against his eye, the voltage of her softness, the first beads high on her forehead, her hair falling over her left shoulder every time she let it down, her chin to her chest and her hair as a veil, first her veil then covering them both, curling then stretching awake with arms over her head in a dive, ordinary smells like soap and skin, the trust in her eyes and how she smiled when she watched it make him buckle, her warmth to his touch, clasped hands unclasping and rippling wrist and arm, the windmills of Nijmegen, Netherlands, the city where they parted.

The memory of their meeting, drawn on a transparency and sealed in a manila envelope, waited on the nightstand. Three corners with molar bites of travel, one corner beaked up like a paper swan.

She saw him looking.

—We could open it. And retrace Berlin. I found the projector in the garage and it works. But the Gaskins have planned a homecoming reception. And he's been implying that he has news.

Owen was too indebted to protest. She traced his rack-ribbed chest. He imagined her hearing xylophone notes, sometimes singular, sometimes paired, as the mallets of her first two fingers percussed his side. She listened, a finger suspended for a second then finding the next rib. He sat up, resolved:

—We'll eat, shake some hands, then come right back here.

Despite his resolution, it was dark before they began getting ready. He opened the window. Night lacquered black and a rustle of the trees. He imagined how their room looked to someone walking by: amber proving out against the dark, a warm glow from the petal-thin panels in the wall. The white noise of night was cut by distant car horns and a radio, faint enough to be deck music from a ship anchored at sea.

The occasion called for a jacket, but he only had one, corduroy, and since he had nearly transformed it into a murder weapon, he dressed down in a barn jacket left in his closet since high school. She dressed up in a sleeveless emerald dress. She took her leather jacket from the counter and squeezed his hand.

He led her through his shortcut to campus. Quiet stars and the still of expectation. The eucalyptus branches heavy with evening dew, their feet shuffling woodchips, braiding eights in the silver grass, and edging hillocks from the first mulch of fall. She walked up the cement balance beam of a culvert, climbing just inches above him, as she had been when they met.

The porch light spread into the salt-stained air. A crowd was shaking hands at the threshold, lumbering indoors like a creature eager for domestication.

They waited, enjoying the moment before they were discovered.

The porch light haloed a shuffling couple in hats. When Mrs. Gaskin opened the door to receive them, she spotted Owen and Stevie. She took Stevie by the hand and introduced her to friends, leaving Owen to grab a glass of wine and settle on the couch.

Without the rugs, wood polish, and white linen, the president's residence would have resembled an exclusive fraternity house at a university in the south. Every stick of furniture was Mission: drum-tight leather, heavy oak planed by thick hands.

People nodded, but kept their distance, presumably because of Berlin. And Basel. It would have been worse had he worn the jacket.

A crystal rocks glass rested on the arm of an adjacent chair. Owen watched a cold droplet roll over the glass's pineapple cuts, snailing ever closer to the polished grain. Over the din, he heard the ice snap and resettle. He heard the wood creak at the cold warping of the drink. He took the glass. The professor sitting next to him turned:

—I believe that's mine, dear boy.

Owen handed it back. Without taking a sip, the professor replaced the drink on the wooden arm, chaining the waterstain with a second ring.

President Gaskin had been watching. He approached:

—Owen, I see you've met Professor George Hill.

Owen stood. Gaskin shook his hand firmly and clapped his arm a few times.

—Professor Hill is currently advising your better half on her independent study.

She stood on the far side of the room under crystal pendants, two champagne glasses in her hands fizzing the incandescence and burning down like sparklers.

Hill spoke to Gaskin, but for Owen's benefit:

—Ms. Schneider is a gifted reader and picks up subtle rhythms of the texts that other students miss. The department would be lucky to retain her.

—I couldn't agree more. If you'll excuse us a moment.

At six-eight with an eyepatch, he didn't need to raise his hand to get his date's attention—standing gave them a private line of sight. But when he stood, he also raised his hand, and in the course of doing so, stopped conversation. The entire reception watched Owen follow Gaskin to the adjoining study.

Hundreds of volumes of poetry lined the shelves. This was very different from his father's version of Gaskin, the same president who was now pinching silver tongs and talking about the special whisky they would soon be tasting.

—Are these books yours, or Mrs. Gaskin's?

—When your father and I were younger, we had fierce debates at the Tilted Wig about Paul Celan and Georg Trakl. Your mother could recite poetry by the yard. She was friends with my first wife, but that's not why we met. I'm not sure your father ever knew this, but our friendship wasn't coincidental.

Gaskin now had Owen's attention.

—No. Not a coincidence at all. The academy stands on two pillars: theory and fundraising. Even as a grad student, I bristled at the word
thesis
. I was never going to come up with a theory—I'm too allergic to paradox. I did Frost, not the dark Frost of Brodsky, mind you; I read the apple orchard Frost, the walking for a think Frost. My Whitman was asexual, which is to say doomed. I latched onto the brightest star I could find, your father, and confirmed my private suspicions that I was no theorist.

—But you're here.

—But I'm here. Which speaks to the power of ambition meeting self-awareness. Unlike the legions of unsuccessful academics, I knew who I was and found another way to make myself indispensible. So I campaigned for a seat on the faculty senate and spent my day trading faculty grievances for favors. The provost was impressed enough to appoint me his special assistant. I played golf with the pioneers of Silicon Valley and squash with fund managers. When time came for a change, the Board of Trustees, maybe for the first time, saw someone who understood the business of education. For all your father's lecturing on
know thyself
, I think he's just recently learned his value. Which is to say, there are two ways you can continue living the academic life, but you have to know what value you bring to Mission.

Gaskin offered Owen a Scotch. Owen set down his wine and took it, uncertain what Gaskin was implying. He faced the problem:

—How bad's the fallout from Athens?

—Fallout? You mean
windfall
. I'm hearing from college counselors all over this great land that Mission University is the new Berkeley. That's because of your father. Now we have an edge. Only our name can hold us back. It sounds religious; there's no escaping that. I tell you this in confidence, but this year I'm going to put it to the trustees that we change the name to Big Sur. It has a valence to it, no?

—Big Sur is better.

—“Where did you do your undergrad?” “Big Sur.” Much better. It's less . . .

—Normative.

—I was going to say
snotty
, but yes.

They drank. Owen smacked his lips and nodded in appreciation of the drink. Both men waited to draw serious remarks. Gaskin won:

—Could you see yourself as an associate professor at Big Sur?

Owen coughed, whisky fumes laughing out his nose.

—I don't even have a degree.

—Three and a half years at Stanford . . .

—Three and a third.

—You have real-world experience as a contemporary artist. That's who kids want to listen to. That's the lecture alumni want to attend when they come back for homecoming. It sends a message.
You
send a message. And your connections will be a boon to fundraising if we build a museum of contemporary art.

—You've read the wrong CV. I'm no artist.

—And your legacy extends back to the richest days of Mission University. A clutch of professors like you will make Big Sur the most exciting school in the country.

—I appreciate the compliment, but I can't be a professor; I have nothing to profess. Especially about art.

Silence indicated Gaskin's displeasure at being handed back a gift.

Owen crunched ice. Owen guessed that if this silence lasted another moment, he was going to hear that his ninety-nine-year lease was less than iron-clad. He had an idea:

—You're focusing too much on my first name and not enough on my last. There's no one with a better grasp of Liminalism than me. My dad left behind one big manuscript, which I could edit in a year. You're going to have an influx of students looking for progressive theory and, no offense to anyone out there in the parlor, but it looks like you're lacking in that department.

They met eyes and sealed the proposal with a toast.

—We'll try to get you a course for the spring semester. Start putting together a lesson plan that I can show to the provost.

Gaskin rose. Gripping the door handle he asked a final question.

—You never told me. How the hell did he find you?

—By looking in every cave.

Gaskin looked puzzled, giving Owen an opening.

—Actually, do you mind if we have another? I have some bad news about my father, which shouldn't hurt our plans.

Gaskin tilted his head. He refilled Owen's glass, then his own. He sat on the bench in front of the casement window, crossing his legs and enjoying his role as spectator. Owen smiled then assumed faux solemnity.

—I'm afraid my father is going to meet a dreadful end next month.

Owen pinched his lips with another drink of scotch and shook his head.

Gaskin grinned.

—Oh really. How will this transpire?

—The Greenland Sea is vast, cold, and capable of capsizing any small craft on any given day.

—Why on earth would Joe be rowing a boat in the Arctic?

—Hunger. He was on the run. Had no money, I'm afraid. He had the idea he would catch a fish—two rural Icelanders will see him sneak into a rowboat with fishing gear. They'll say they saw the boat flip over, just on the other side of the fjord—too far for them to reach him in time. The boat was sucked up in the foaming cold then dashed down by a frozen slab . . .

—Okay. I get it. And when exactly is this going to go down?

—It should happen within the month. At that point, we negotiate the sale of a manuscript he left behind.

—The manuscript you're talking about is real?

—He left behind several. I'm going to be editing all winter to piece it all together, but he's been writing about this stuff since before I was born. He's writing his magnum opus as we speak.

—You're going to need to hold off on your negotiations for at least a year. The university will recognize the tragedy at once. We will help the authorities in whatever way we can. On your end, you'll hold out hope that your father is still alive. As far as you're concerned, he's a missing person and you would
never
look for a payout from the insurance company. You can get away with just about anything in this world until it costs people money. So. No insurance claim. I know the attorney who can handle this.

—We'll keep it small. He wants the ceremony at Point Dume.

Owen caught sight of Stevie through the glass door. She raised her eyebrows. Gaskin saw how eager Owen was to get back to her side.

—Shall we join the others, Professor Burr?

B
urr stood in longjohns and camp shoes, rubbing his arms and yawning out steam. He grabbed the keystone of the cave, stretched his back, and then looked down on the full sea. The cave faced northwest. He could almost see Greenland. He imagined his stare wrapping around the world a few times until it settled upon his son and Stevie in Big Sur. A light fan of arctic air rose up. He caught his foot to stretch his swollen knees. His hands still smelled of menthol and his Achilles burned from the camphor balm he knuckled into his frayed tendons first thing after waking. His beard was scratchy, his shoulders a knotted cordage, each day brought rain, but here he breathed down all the way to his pelvic floor and exhaled all the waste that had accumulated in his fifty years of sedentary life. He could feel all the cowardice he had crammed down under his diaphragm now lift to the thin air until his body was weightless and empty, his chest open, the best definition he had of what it meant to be a brave man.