“Prays?” I said.
Agaard sighed, looking down at the old worn carpet between us. “When he was small we had a woman who took care of him, a Mrs. Knudsen, one of those hellfire fundamentalists. I’m afraid she put the fear of the Lord into him. The hellfire part’s behind him now — we’re Presbyterians. But he still gets down on his knees sometimes and …” He gestured vaguely. “He was very fond of her — for good reason. She was as kind as she knew how to be, a far cry better than the people who got him later — the school he went to, the hospitals—”
“Surely the university hospital—” I suggested.
“Worse than the snakepits!” He laughed angrily and began again to make his way down the hallway. It was long and windowless, lit by three bare bulbs. He touched the wall with the fingertips of his right hand as he walked. “He was happy there at first, but then he began to break things. They took a dislike to him — understandably, I suppose. He was difficult at the time, didn’t speak much English. …”
“You’ve tried private psychiatrists?”
“Psychiatrists,” he hissed, half turning. “You use the plural, Mr. Winesap. I see you know about psychiatrists.”
“Just the same—” I began. With a part of my mind I was musing on his various uses of my name: “Winesap,” as to a student; “Mr. Winesap,” as to an underling; “Professor,” never without a sneer.
“It’s gotten out of hand,” he was saying when I returned my attention to him. “Utterly out of hand.”
“I can see that,” I said — not so much a lie as a stalling action.
He raised his left arm, a gesture again oddly child-like, or puppet-like, pointing nowhere. He spoke more softly now, hurriedly; we were apparently close to Freddy’s room. “As I’ve said, I think, he reads day and night. There are very few books in this house he hasn’t read, and of course I bring him whatever he wants from the library. I act as his teacher — it’s been a great pleasure, in many ways. I don’t mean to sound like a boastful father, but …” He scowled, then changed direction. “As I mentioned, I think, for some time now — more than a year, close to two years — he’s been working on a book of his own.”
“Interesting,” I said, glancing down the hallway in the direction we’d been heading. “A book about—”
“As I told you, I haven’t seen it.”
I nodded, apologetic and baffled. Something rubbed against my leg and I looked down. The cat, Posey, had found the open stairway door and come up. I looked again at Agaard. “He’s told you nothing about it?” I asked. “That is, he sees no one in the world but you, and for two years he’s been working on a book, and in all that time—”
“Not a word,” the professor said. He crinkled up his lips, his eyebrows jammed together again.
“When you take him his supper,” I said, “or sit in the same room reading, does he—”
“Never,” he snapped. “Not a word, not a hint!”
I nodded, then started down the hall again as if I knew where I was going — perhaps I did, in fact, following the cat — but again the professor caught my arm.
“One other thing,” he said, “he’s read your books.” He tipped his head up, as well as he could, given the stiffness. “He’s a kind of ‘fan.’”
I took my pipe from my pocket, tamped the tobacco, and lit it. When I’d taken a few puffs, I stepped forward abruptly, reached down, and picked up Posey. I held her against my chest with one hand. Professor Agaard looked at me; then we continued along the hall. At the end he bent forward to knock on a door, waited a moment, then called, “Freddy? Unlock your door, Freddy!”
The boy pretended not to hear, though we knew he had to.
“Freddy?” Agaard called. “We’ve got company, son!”
My heart jerked, hearing him say “son.” I’d never used that word on Jack Jr.; it hadn’t been the way we, as they say, “reached out.” The way Agaard used it, it was like a blind man casting a net over the side of what might or might not be a ship. The boy, I was sure, couldn’t help but hear it as I did. How could he not answer?
There was a sound then; some heavy movement. The cat craned her neck. A lock on the door clicked, a dead-bolt slid open, a chain-latch scraped, and at last a startling voice said, “Wait a minute, Dad. I’m not dressed.” The voice was sweet, like a young singers. Agaard saw my surprise but made no comment.
We stood listening and heard him move away across the room; then, softly, the professor pushed open the door, stepped in, and gestured for me to follow. I obeyed, stroking the cat as I did so, the pipe clenched hard between my teeth.
“Freddy?” the professor called again.
The cat tried to jump. I held onto her. It was a large room, plain and clean-swept as a forest floor, bookshelves in rigorous order on every side; against one wall, half blocking the window, an oversized, specially made desk, very plain, with two neat locks on it, and a great sturdy chair to match. Around the chairlegs there were smooth iron bands. The giant furniture threw everything else in the room awry, what little there was — a few pictures on the white walls, framed pen and ink drawings of viking ships, carefully and elegantly done in a slightly old-mannish hand, rendered as if for an expensive picture book. They were signed “F.A.” It came to me only somewhat later — perhaps because they seemed professional and seemed to have been professionally framed — that the pictures were by Agaard’s son. On the prow of one of the viking ships a king in a horn-helmet stood looking thoughtfully at a hawk on his wrist. Agaard, when he saw me looking at it, looked away.
The room was so spare one could see everything at a glance: a closet door with a lock on it, a long table with five perfect constructions — three ships, two dragons — nothing else on the table but a neat stack of stainless-steel razor blades. What defined all the rest, of course, was that immense desk and chair. They made it seem that the room itself was from a picture book, or better yet, a stage-set, for across one end hung a dark green curtain. Beyond that, presumably, the professor’s son crouched, hiding. My gaze stopped and froze on an enormous bare foot that protruded, unbeknownst to its owner, no doubt, from behind the curtain. It was the largest human foot I’d ever seen or imagined; if the rest of the body was proportionate, the creature must stand eight feet tall or more. But it wasn’t just the size of the foot that made my heart race. The thing was visibly unhealthy, bluish gray with red blush-spots; bad circulation, lack of exercise. How the poor creature had gotten to this state God only knew, or God and Agaard. “Out of hand,” the old man had said. I accidentally mumbled the words aloud, causing the professor to glance at me, then look away.
“Freddy,” he called, “remember I told you Mr. Winesap might visit us? Well, he’s here. I’ve brought him to see you.” There was a pause. “Freddy?” Agaard glanced at me, then moved over to the curtain to poke his head in and talk with his son. Though he talked as loudly as ever, the heavy curtain muffled the sound; I caught only one phrase from Agaard: “I want you to.” Freddy answered with only a polite syllable or two, his voice low, so that I couldn’t catch the words. I continued to look around. There was a typewriter on the desk, spotlessly clean, a very old electric with a thick gray cord, a cord heavy enough, one would have thought, for a welding machine. Beside the desk stood a large wooden box, no doubt a wastepaper basket, with a wooden cover, locked.
The professor drew his head back outside the curtain now and, whether or not with his son’s permission, reached up and snatched the curtain open. The look on the professor’s face was like mingled anger, fear, and triumph. There before us, half-turned away, sat a monstrous fat blushing baby of a youth, his monkish robe unbuttoned, his lower parts carefully covered with a blanket. All around him, neatly stacked, lay papers and innumerable books, some closed, some open, arranged about him in a perfect fan. The skin of his face and arms and chest was pink-splotched, shiny. He was as big as some farmer’s prize bull at the fair, big as a rhinoceros, a small elephant. I exaggerate grossly, but such was my impression that first instant.