I went back to my seat, heart pounding. Lack would take Alice, he said. The worst possible news. At the same time, I was flattered by Lack’s cooperation. I had a scoop. Lack was a Ouija board, and I was the medium. I felt possessive. This was the first time Lack had aimed his seductiveness at me directly. I understood Soft, and Braxia, and De Tooth, and even Alice, a little better.
I couldn’t underestimate this enemy. The temptation I felt was proof of his power. I looked at the blond thread of hair in my hand. He’d already removed Alice from me, I reminded myself. And now he’s promising to finish the job, to remove her from the world as well. I laid the hair aside, picked up the pen, and wrote:
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SHE LOVES YOU?
I offered Lack the slip, and he took it. This time I didn’t bother looking behind the table for something that wasn’t there. The question was meaningful to him, and the answer was yes. He knew. Alice had managed to make her feelings known. I shuddered. I took another slip, and wrote:
ARE YOU WAITING FOR HER TO CHANGE?
Lack took that one, too. My worst fears confirmed. Lack was aware of her attempts to change herself for him, and he was judging her. So Braxia was wrong; Alice would be Lack’s first reversal of policy, his first acceptance after refusal, after revision. Because she tried so hard. He was charmed, like a heartless mythological god with a mortal admirer. Imaginary bastard. I hated him. I jotted out:
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I LOVE HER?
I pushed it across. In it went, engulfed, devoured. It was like he wanted to eat my love itself. Each answer was more cruel than the last. Holding my breath, I wrote:
IF YOU TAKE HER, WILL SHE BE HAPPY?
Lack sucked it away. I sat blinking, stymied. Was that better, or worse? Which answer was I looking for? Should I act selflessly now, urge her back up on the table? No. I’d guard that information jealously. Why had I been so stupid as to ask?
I picked up another slip. I had a thousand urgent questions. Then a vague suspicion crept over me. My pile of slips was half gone, and I still hadn’t received a single no. Was I leading the witness?
I had to test him. I wrote:
WOULD YOU LIKE A LITTLE RED PARTY HAT?
The idiotic question was taken. Engulped. I picked up the blank slips that remained and hurled them toward Lack. As they fluttered chaotically across the line they each, in turn, were spirited silently away. Extinguished. Only one fell to the side, just missing the entrance. The rest were welcomed as gladly as my careful questions.
Lack was just a girl who can’t say no. He liked freshly torn paper, or irregular rectangles. He liked fucking with my head. I picked up the slip that escaped, and wrote:
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I HATE YOU?
I tossed it into Lack’s maw as I got out of my seat. Bull’s-eye, a perfect strike. I was nearly to the door before it fluttered past the end of the table and landed, with the lightest possible sound, on the floor.
31
I felt responsible for the blind men. It couldn’t be Alice, not in her state. And Cynthia Jalter didn’t live with them. They’d given me warning, too. I’d heard them yearn for a divorce from a reality that, despite their tabulations, always slipped through their grasping fingers.
I got back in my car and searched for them, pretending I didn’t believe Lack. I followed the route of their walks across campus, and into town. I felt sure I’d turn a corner and see them, in their twin black suits, cocking their heads at a sound, or arguing the location of some phone booth or bus stop. But I didn’t. The darker it got, the more possible it seemed that Lack was telling the truth. That he’d gobbled the blind men.
I exhausted the routes, but I kept on driving, repeating my path. I was mapping. It was like an incantation to bring them back.
Finally I drove back to the apartment. Alice was gone. I didn’t care. I went in and turned on all the lights, trying to chase out the silence with light. I switched on the television and sat on the couch. No one came home. No moths were drawn to my little flame. The refrigerator hummed into activity, a life-support system for mildewed cottage cheese, stale muffins, encrusted, forgotten spreads. Outside, students walked the pathways, shattered by their attempts at last-minute term papers, pacing off the effects of powdery drugs consumed in the cause. I curled up on the couch and slept.
32
The apartment spilled over with sunlight. I was still alone, still on the couch. I looked at the clock. I’d slept all night and morning, through most of the last meeting of my freshman class.
I struggled back into my preworn clothing, my pretied shoes, ran to the anthropology building, and rushed upstairs to the airless classroom. Only one of my sixteen students remained. He sat alone at his desk, writing in his notebook with a ballpoint pen. He looked up, astonished at my arrival.
“Professor Engstrand.”
“Angus.”
“I’m almost done.”
“Done with what? Where did they all go?”
He blinked twice. He looked frightened.
“Tell me what happened, Angus.”
“We met and waited for you, sir. Sat in our places. But you didn’t come. No one said anything. Half an hour passed. Then someone suggested that your absence might represent some new form of final exam. Some arcane and menacing form, I believe those were the exact words. We laughed nervously at first. But one by one we opened our notebooks. Began attempting to answer the question you were posing. That’s why it’s a little unsettling to see you here, sir. I was almost finished. The others handed in their papers to the department secretary. May I ask you a question, sir?”
“Yes, Angus.”
“Does this mean I failed?”
“No, Angus. There’s no time limit. Hand it in when you’re done.”
“Thank you, sir. Also Professor Soft was here looking for you a little while ago.”
“Thank you, Angus.”
I went downstairs to the faculty lounge, looking for coffee and a pastry. The place was empty, designer aluminum chairs stacked in an awkward, helix-shaped tower. The professors were all out drinking quietly in off-campus bars, unable to wait for the end-term Christmas party. I went to the snack tray and fed on crumb cake and hot black coffee.
Soft hurried in, looking pinched. He saw me and exhaled through his nostrils.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
He sighed. “Let’s talk outside.”
“I missed my class,” I said, crumb cake clinging to my lip. “I need breakfast and a shower. I didn’t sleep well.”
“Let’s talk outside.”
I followed him out of the building, onto the lawn. The day was bright, the winter rinsed out of the air by the insistent sunlight. Students were back out on the grass, lolling, as if after sex, their work finished or abandoned. Walking with Soft among them reminded me of our earlier talk, the day of our haircuts, the day Lack was named. We both needed haircuts again. It was only one of the many differences between that innocent, orderly time and now.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s blood in the chamber.”
I looked at Soft, hoping to see the signs that accompany cruel humor. Dancing eyes, et cetera. I didn’t find any. His brow was knit.
“De Tooth,” I suggested meekly.
“I’ve already located De Tooth.” Soft’s voice was reproving. “He’s fine. It isn’t his blood.”
“But it’s his shift. He’s supposed to be down there. He’s in charge.”
“No it isn’t. You haven’t looked at your schedule.” Soft pulled out his from his pocket, held it too close to my face. “It’s Alice’s shift as of midnight last night. De Tooth flies back to Belgium after tomorrow, for Christmas. We gave the winter break to Alice.”