“ ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,’ ” Marshall said, as if Frost’s name were an association test.
“ ‘My little horse must think it queer!’ ” she called out.
“ ‘Whose woods are these? Whose woods these are I think I know,’ ” President Llewellyn said, not to be outdone.
But what he said ended the exchange. Marshall sat with his hands on the chair arms, smiling. He had decided to pretend that this was a 1940s movie and that he was a famous, wealthy man in his study, and that two mad people had come to call. The movie would be a comedy.
“Now tell me,” Mrs. Barrows said, turning to Marshall, as the President put a glass of sherry on the table near her chair. “Harvey sucks” was carved on the tabletop, but Mrs. Barrows didn’t see it, because Barbara had placed a doily over the scratched words. “Tell me if there is even a teeny, tiny chance that you remember Darcy Barrows.”
“Do you have a photograph?” he said.
The President glared at him, slightly upset, slightly encouraging. It was the look of someone who had bet a lot of money on a horse, watching that horse mysteriously and improbably come to a complete stop.
“She used to say that Bob Dylan was a poet, but I never did believe that,” Mrs. Barrows said, nodding as if she had adequately answered Marshall’s question.
“Then whom do you most like to hear sing?” Marshall said. (Butler! Please show these delightful people out now.)
“Kiri Te Kanawa,” Mrs. Barrows said.
She went up a notch in his estimation. As did the President, for dropping out of this Theater of the Absurd conversation as quickly as possible.
“And what do you think of the plays of Harold Pinter?” he asked, gesturing behind him as if they were shelved in the bookcases, instead of what truly interested college students: old Time magazines and books of Garfield cartoons.
“The inability of people to communicate,” Mrs. Barrows said. “It is a challenging problem.”
“If you were to offer us the funds to hire a poet,” Marshall said, “I would insist that you, personally, introduce that poet at the reading he or she would give when they arrived on campus.”
“My goodness!” Mrs. Barrows said. “Why, I have no training. I only know what I like.”
“Then I’d be happy to help you focus your ideas as you’re writing the introduction,” Marshall said.
President Llewellyn watched this volley as if he were watching a tennis match in slow motion. His own glass of sherry was empty.
“Tell me the truth now: Do you remember my Darcy?” Mrs. Barrows said.
“If you don’t have a picture, I don’t have a story,” Marshall said, smiling, as if he’d made a great joke.
She shook her finger at him and picked up her purse. She un-snapped it and unzipped a pouch inside. From the pouch she took a small leather folder. Inside, behind the plastic on the first page, was a photograph of a rather plain, round-faced, brown-haired girl. It was only her headband that made him remember her. Darcy Barrows: that tall, shy girl who sat front row center, never speaking unless called on. The girl who wore headbands with little plastic animals on them, or sparkling stars. Five or six years ago: Darcy Barrows.
“I see from your eyes you remember,” Mrs. Barrows said. “The eyes can never hide a lack of recognition.”
“She sat in the first row. I guess she did like my class,” he said.
“And do you know, she lives one and one quarter miles from my husband and me, and every day she doesn’t visit — with my grandchild, I might add! — she phones and reads us a poem.”
“You couldn’t ask for more as a teacher,” he said.
“Inspirational,” the President said.
“I think Darcy Starflyx should give the introduction!” Mrs. Barrows said.
“Her married name?” the President said.
“Her stage name?” Marshall said.
She ignored the President and poked her finger at Marshalclass="underline" her sign that he was being funny, but naughty.
Which he continued to be for another ten minutes, before the President, who was still puzzled about how things had gone so well when they had seemed so bizarre, stood and announced that they must “firm up the details” in his office and have Mrs. Barrows on her way well before dark.
(Butler! See that these people are pointed in the right direction.)
On the way out, Marshall picked up his mail. Maybe he should be an actor, he thought. But his performance had only been so good because Mrs. Barrows had been so good. Probably, if he had tried this act without her, he would have been about as funny as the Marx Brothers with no foil. In her way, Mrs. Barrows had been as charmingly perplexed as Margaret Dumont. All in all, a surreal afternoon. He looked at the junk mail and decided that no, the perfect finale to the day would not be having radial tires put on the car at a 10 percent faculty discount.
“Hey, Mr. Lockard, way to go,” a student said as he passed him on the stairs. The things the students said in greeting were formulaic, but didn’t really mean anything. The English language could be abandoned entirely. People could communicate by grunts. The graffiti were already everywhere, the new hieroglyphics. Words could be restricted to bathroom walls. Texts could be dispensed with. All right! as the students said. All fucking right.
In the parking lot, a girl in sweatpants and a blue parka was running in a widening circle, guiding a yelping puppy on a leash.
“Take it easy you don’t exhaust him,” Marshall called.
“He’s doing!” the girl laughed, continuing to run.
That wasn’t exactly what the girl meant, either, he thought. But if he thought too much, he’d be in a state of despair.
“Way to go!” he hollered, with false cheer.
“I’m like wiped,” the girl screamed back.
So was he. And he would be glad to return to his house, and to his adult wife, Sonja, who was so fluent in English.
Dearest Martine,
What was I thinking of? I do not, myself, want a dog! That is the simple truth. Lately I have found myself engaged in speculative thought that later seems quite perplexing.
Apropos my last letter: Do you think that sending a note to the Burks might persuade them to come to dinner another night? Might they return to the area specifically to see us, even though they will have relocated to Washington? I would ask them myself, but I know that she, in particular, is so fond of you that I think you might succeed better.
Am I being too overbearing, planning so far ahead? If so, ignore this note entirely, and I will contact the Burks myself once we’ve returned.
Fondly,
M.
4
WITH THE NEW aluminum snow shovel in the trunk, her felt-lined boots pulled off and placed to drip on the floor of the passenger’s side, wearing wool socks and flats with crushed heels that she kept in the car and used as driving shoes, Sonja pulled out of the driveway and bumped carefully into the narrow channel cleared by the snow-plow, reaching up to flip down the visor, moving her hand to the tape deck to click in the cassette and hear the rest of the Claudio Arrau recording she had begun to listen to the day before. On the seat beside her was a canvas bag filled with things she thought Evie might want or need: lotion, magazines, new underpants, cookies. The drive to the nursing home took about an hour, and though Marshall had offered to drive her to see his stepmother this coming Saturday, she decided she’d been housebound too long; the drive would do her good, as well as cheering Evie. And now she was being rewarded by Claudio Arrau playing Chopin. The music was as clear and direct as the channel the snowplow had pushed open — the sort of music, she thought, that made you aware that other possibilities surrounded it, music that suggested a physical place, where unheard tones might be as real as heaped snow.