Mudwoman (20 page)

Mudwoman Fallen. Mudwoman Arisen.

Mudwoman in the Days of Shock and Awe.

March 2003–April 2003

R
eadied! She was.

In her sleep, still alive.

I
n astonished silence she fell. So suddenly she’d missed a step. So suddenly she hadn’t time to draw breath, to scream. Nor was there purpose in screaming—or in breathing—for there was no one in the vast darkened house to hear her.

On the stairs she fell. Not on the staircase at the front of the house but on the steep narrow tight-curving staircase at the rear of the house that had been the servants’ staircase in long-ago days when a staff of servants had lived in Charters House.

Striking the side of her head on the rungs of the railing, and her mouth. Striking her right shoulder. Something liquid and scalding splashed on her fingers, her exposed right forearm as she fell and continued to fall slip-sliding down the steps that were carpeted—but meagerly carpeted, with inches of exposed wood painted gray, ugly and unyielding—the side of her skull, the undersides of both elbows and the underside of her jaw striking these steps in rapid succession
one-two-three
and a sharp blow like a kick in her ribs and still she could not scream for the breath was struck from her though at last there came grunts, sobs of surprise, pain, humiliation—
Alone. Alone—like this.

It was 1:06
A.M.
of March 22, 2003. In the early days of the Iraqi invasion—the days of Shock and Awe.

And in the aftermath of Alexander Stirk’s (attempted) suicide.

In her public appearances the University president spoke very carefully of course. She did not discuss “sensitive” University matters—(like Stirk)—and she did not speak openly of politics. Though she was always being questioned on these subjects, she did not declare herself publicly as strongly opposed to the President and his war. Since taking office she’d been cautioned. And she’d learned. Belatedly she’d learned: impulsiveness/impetuousness in a chief administrator is not a desirable trait. Rashness is not a desirable trait. To speak plainly, frankly—to speak one’s heart—is only possible when one is a private figure, not the representative of an institution. And so her anger, alarm, despair at the bellicose idiocy of the government smoldered beneath her bright animated public words. And her fury at the Bush administration’s cynical exploitation of a fear of “terrorist attacks” in the wake of 9/11—all that her Quaker parents had imbued in her, to abhor and to resist. And so if she alluded to
This terrible news, this latest crisis
it was strictly in private, among people she knew felt exactly as she did.

Or, more daringly, she might allude to
This new war! This death-knell for education
. . .

Maybe—maybe in her speech to the Chicago alumni organization earlier that day—she’d uttered such words. But not from the podium, only afterward, among individuals she knew to be fervent
anti-war.

In the country, in these early days of the Iraqi invasion, division between
pro-war, anti-war
was fierce and irreconcilable.

As fierce and irreconcilable as
pro-life, pro-choice.

About which the University president had better not speak openly, either.

And so in Chicago, as in Minneapolis—in Cleveland, in Columbus, in Milwaukee—in Seattle, in Portland—anywhere it was the University president’s duty to address University alumni groups as she did frequently through the academic year on the subject “The University in the Twenty-first Century: Challenges and Opportunities” M. R. Neukirchen was passionate on issues involving the University and issues involving education; her manner was unfailingly upbeat, optimistic; of course she smiled often, if not continuously; her face ached, so many smiles!—as, at commencement when she shook hands with each graduating senior and with the families of each graduating senior, her hand ached and throbbed.
This is my role: to bring happiness to others. If I am strong enough!

She was remembering now, with a tinge of dismay—self-rebuke—how her voice had quavered at the podium—though she’d continued smiling, and would not have seemed, to a neutral observer, to have lost any fraction of her composure. No one had asked a political question, all questions were about the University and one of these—she’d been prepared of course, she had known this might be imminent—had been asked point-blank about Alexander Stirk—“Is the University liable, d’you think?”

It was not a hostile question. It was not even a challenging question. It was a quite natural question from a friendly older man, a Chicago alum-donor who’d endowed a professorship in economics at the University and had been negotiating with the University director of strategic partnerships and planning to endow an entire program in computational economics.

“The University is not liable, we think.”

M.R. spoke carefully. M.R. was not smiling now but utterly earnest, a sharp vertical line between her brows.

“Leonard Lockhardt—our chief counsel—thinks we are not. But of course—it’s a terrible thing, a”—M.R. paused, fingers gripping the edges of the podium from beneath, invisible to her audience. There came a roaring in her ears as of a distant landslide—“a tragedy.”

In the elegant dining room of the University Club with its high, ornamental ceiling and silk-wallpaper walls and crystal chandeliers (unlighted, for the sunshine falling from the sharp-blue sky above windswept Lake Michigan was so powerful, no artificial light was required) amid a tinkling of china cups, coffee spoons and a sound of china and cutlery being cleared deftly away by white-uniformed servants bred for such deftness—the syllables
tragedy
sounded strangely, like the syllables of an archaic gray-cobwebbed word.

Tragedy. Trag-ed-y.

“ . . . no one could have anticipated.”

Friendly-faced and yet affable, the gentleman spoke with just a hint of a steely edge. And his features that had seemed Midwest-generic like those of the older gentlemen of Norman Rockwell’s folksy paintings acquired a sudden sharpness.

“Except it’s in the damn newspapers. In the God-damn media—‘cyberspace.’ And that’s a space where they don’t print retractions.”

Light laughter spread across the gathering like ripples on a shallow and sequestered pond. M.R. was conscious of her unnatural grip on the edge of the podium and made an effort to relax her fingers one by one.

Discreetly then the subject was changed. Another luncheon guest raised his hand to proffer a question to M.R. in the way of a pitcher pitching underhanded to a disabled batter.

Always end on an upbeat note.

Education is the—(hope? instrument? promise?) of the future. Education is—the future.

And education at the University—the vanguard of the future.

It had been a highly successful visit to Chicago arranged by the alumni organization of greater Chicago and the University’s alumni-liaison staff. In attendance were eighty-four University alums of widely divergent ages—the oldest, class of 1952, the youngest, class of 1998—of which more than two-thirds were established donors to the University. The occasion was luncheon at the University Club with “remarks” by President Neukirchen and two associates—the University vice president for campus life, an energetic young woman with flame-colored hair, and the vice president for development, who exuded an air of brisk and capable authority, like an Ivy League scoutmaster. When M.R. returned to her seat at the head table with her arms folded tight across her quick-beating heart almost immediately she ceased to actively listen: her warm-flushed face continued to exude light, but it was a fading light.

I am so ashamed.

I am sick with shame.

No—I am triumphant. I will prevail.

It was so. Despite Alexander Stirk, yet the president of the University had prevailed. More or less.

The University was one of the great clipper ships of lore, the
Cutty Sark
of universities—a majestic artifact of a long-ago era, miraculously intact, invisibly empowered by engines to withstand storms at sea that would shatter lesser vessels.

On the schedule printed for her, M.R. could now cross out
Chicago.

A downward arrow through the heart of
Chicago.

Her assistant had booked her for a 3:40
P.M.
plane out of Chicago. Of course, she’d lost an hour, and more than an hour with flight delays, returning to the East.

From Philadelphia airport to the “historic” president’s house at the edge of the University campus, an hour and forty minutes by car.

Carlos was no longer M.R.’s personal driver: now, a younger, unfailingly cheerful black man named Evander. He was twenty-six years old and had come with his parents to the U.S. when he was a baby, from “D.R.”—Dominican Republic.

M.R. was very fond of Evander who chattered at her like a six-foot shiny-black parrot that did not expect her to listen attentively, still less to reply. It was true, Evander called M.R. “ma’am”—occasionally, with touching awkwardness, “Mz. Neukit’chen”—but M.R. was relaxed with Evander in the driver’s seat of the Lincoln Town Car for Evander had not worked for M.R.’s predecessor and so had no notions of what a University president might/might not do. And M.R. liked it that Evander wore his thick black hair in astonishing snakelike coils that stuck out from his head as if greased.

“My wonderful driver, with dreadlocks.”

(Was this condescending?
Was
this racist?)

M.R. knew about Evander’s young wife, his twin daughters Starr and Serena. She knew that Evander planned to study computer science at the Hunterdon County Community College in a few years.

If M.R. chose to carry her own bags, wheel her own lightweight suitcase along briskly through the airport, Evander observed her bemused and not, like prim Carlos, with disapproval. It had become something of a joke—long-limbed Evander in his dark driver’s uniform pretending to have to trot to keep up with M.R. “Man, ma’am—you
fast.
”

Rarely now, M.R. saw Carlos Lopes. He was semi-retired, worked only part-time, the senior driver on the president’s staff and the one entrusted to pick up VIP visitors at the airport and drive them about during their stays at the University. If Carlos was hurt by having been replaced by dreadlock-sporting Evander—M.R. had no reason to know.

O
h God! Don’t let there be anything broken. . . .

And she was alone in the darkened house: she’d sent her housekeeper home early.

Of course, she hadn’t wanted her very nice housekeeper/cook to prepare a meal for her when M.R. could so easily prepare a meal for herself, if she’d wished.

“A night alone!”—she’d felt almost giddy.

Returning from Chicago late, and after dark. For flying east out of daylight, you are flying into night. And how swiftly night comes on, like an eclipse.

As soon as she’d left Chicago—as soon as she’d left the University Club and her marvelous hosts—as soon as she’d slumped into the limousine in which she was driven to the airport, she’d felt exhausted. Now her smile could be shut off, like a high-wattage lightbulb. Now her manikin-posture could relax, like a sock puppet minus fingers. Crudely she thought—or, rather, the crude thought came to her—
How much money did we make today in Chicago? Might it be—millions?

She’d connected with what-was-his-name—Ainscott. He’d liked her, she’d seen with relief—those frank blue eyes, hair trimmed short as a Marine’s and it was said of Ainscott that the man was worth more than one hundred million dollars he’d made in—was it
junk bonds
?—
hedge funds?—
he’d graduated from the University in 1959—and if he’d been opposed to a woman for the University presidency, he’d been gentlemanly enough to support M. R. Neukirchen as soon as she’d taken office.

A flood of protest mail had come to the University alumni magazine, when M.R.’s name was first released to the media. And some of these letters were cruel, cutting, unapologetically sexist. M.R. had insisted upon seeing them—all of them—and M.R. had replied personally to each of the letters, by hand.

Her staff had been astonished. Never had any president of the University taken on such a task but M.R. was conscious—(was this M.R.’s vanity?)—that her presidency was significant in the history of the University and that it was her privilege to define herself to her detractors, whom she could not bear to on their own terms as
enemies.

It was her Quaker instinct. Silence, stillness. At the core of the storm, stillness. To strike a blow even in defense of oneself is to provoke another blow, and yet another. The folly of war is that it can have no natural end except in the extinction of an entire people. She would be a Child of the Light, if she was worthy.

But returning from Chicago she’d made the error of not going immediately to bed. Or, at least to undress, to lie in bed and watch TV—(for M.R. did sometimes watch late-night TV—the parody-news programs that were her students’ favorite programs, reruns of PBS documentaries, classic films, foreign films—she would watch for a while until her eyes glazed over and sleep came to her quick and lovely like a great lapping tongue). Instead, she’d gone to her desk, and to her computer—always there was a phalanx of e-mail messages for her to answer and now in the aftermath of Alexander Stirk. . . .

To her housekeeper she’d insisted she wasn’t hungry. But nearing 1
A.M.
, she’d become ravenously hungry.

Since becoming University president, M.R. rarely ate an evening meal alone; yet more rarely was she able to retire to her upstairs apartment in Charters House by 9
P.M.
She might have scheduled an engagement for that evening—for there were numerous obligations for the University president, awaiting her—but her assistant had told her sharply
No!
—the luncheon in Chicago was enough for that day.