“Do you know where Judith is now?”
“Finally you ask me. You’re a proud man.”
“I’ll ask it as a favor if you like.”
“I heard her mother died of cancer this summer. Then I was told she found a job as an assistant professor at Wellesley College. Not far from here, a trip of a few hours. I wrote to tell her you were coming, but she hasn’t answered my letter. She’s like you. Too full of pride.”
34
HE’LL REMEMBER THIS NIGHT’S storm, the rain pounding against the windshield and drumming on the roof of the car when Stevens took him back to the guesthouse after the dinner with the president of Burton College. He had too much to drink; he was nervous and didn’t know what to say, what to do with his hands; he drank to give himself the courage to speak English and confront strangers. He’ll remember the dizziness he felt on the curves, the windshield wipers moving at top speed in a back-and-forth fan, and on both sides of the road, large tree branches flung about by the wind. Stevens drove cautiously: from time to time a gust of wind shook the car as if to overturn it, and he clutched the steering wheel tighter and leaned forward. But now he remembered having seen him drinking before dinner no less avidly than he, and guzzling glasses of wine at the table. Perhaps Stevens was nervous too, doubly insecure in the presence not only of Van Doren but of the other authority figure before whom he bowed with such assiduous courtesy. Stevens was a man who seemed destined to serve, who suffered the anguish of not knowing to what extent his actions merited the inscrutable benevolence of his superiors. Take it from me, he told Ignacio Abel when they were walking to the car and he obsequiously held the umbrella over him, you’ve made quite an impression on the president, identifying with Ignacio in the precariousness of a position that depended on the favor of omnipotent men. Ignacio grew lightheaded in the car simply by remembering the conversations, the dishes with French names pronounced with punctilious correctness by the president’s wife to whose right he was seated at the table, the strangers coming up to him, the names he heard and forgot or couldn’t decipher. The president’s sumptuous name was Jonathan Joseph Almeida, but he asked to be called Jon, shaking his hand and placing his other hand on top as if to confirm his welcome, his admiration for Abel’s work, perhaps also sympathy for the afflictions of the Spanish Republic, which had, according to another dinner guest, a professor of medieval English literature, not much more than forty-eight hours left. He’d heard on the radio or read in the paper something he repeated as if he’d memorized a headline: “The rebels appear to be less than a day’s march from Madrid.” As he said it, he stared at Ignacio Abel as if doubting he was who he said he was, or curious to see the face of someone who before long wouldn’t have a country to go back to. Through cigarette smoke and his growing alcoholic haze, faces approached Ignacio Abel and receded, or rather faded away, like the names and cordial phrases expressed and the visiting cards offered that he looked at appreciatively then put in his pocket, apologizing for not being able to reciprocate. He’d left his cards in Spain, was his excuse, but as he said it, he imagined he wouldn’t be believed, and that no one, not only the funereal medievalist, took seriously the role he had to play that night, incompetently, or the awkward English that alcohol made even harder to understand. Across the table, with his partially protective, partially ironic air, Van Doren observed him, intervening at times to help him out of a linguistic difficulty, repeating Ignacio Abel’s credentials as if to confirm his identity: Professor Abel, Van Doren explained, spent years directing the most ambitious university construction project in Europe, and had studied with Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius in Germany. And though what he said was approximately true, the portion of calculated exaggeration made it suspect, at least to the vigilant ears of Abel himself, more alert and insecure because he was engaged in several conversations at the same time and felt himself observed by pairs of eyes on whose scrutiny his future depended, above all the eyes of President Almeida, forceful behind round tortoise-shell glasses, his gaze arrogant and cool, as solidly protected against uncertainty as his large healthy body and his house, with its stone foundation and solid walls, were protected against the storm. He remembered an expression Judith Biely had taught him: walking on thin ice. He was feeling his way and walking on very thin ice. Observed by others, he was afraid they might discover his inner lack of substance, detect the discomfort behind his smile or the fear that had gradually become his natural state. The sullen professor of medieval English and a pastor or chaplain in a black suit and clerical collar looked at him as if suspecting a character flaw or secret vice or some kind of complicity in the burning of churches and killing of priests in the early days of the war, about which they seemed to have unlimited information. The president’s wife sighed as she lifted her hand to her bosom, recalling the photographs of children in Madrid after bombing raids. He had to smile at the excessive gestures, keep himself upright to give the impression of personal integrity, accept pity as charity, knowing that at some point gratitude might be inseparable from humiliation. (Where would he go when the school year ended if it was true that Madrid was on the verge of falling?) He had to search in vain for clear, strong words to explain to the red-faced pastor in the black suit and clerical collar that the Republican government did not persecute priests, and though there were several Communist ministers, they were not planning to collectivize agriculture. He spoke, the heat rising in his face, the anxiety of the impostor who at any moment may be discovered; he swallowed and reached for his glass. A waitress approached from behind and filled it with wine. Over the noise of the general conversation, President Almeida asked him a question in his well-modulated voice, as if subjecting him to an examination: if Hitler and Mussolini were helping the rebels so shamelessly, did he believe the democracies would intervene at the last minute to save the Republic, or at least guarantee an armistice? “But there’s no more time,” the medieval scholar said, not without satisfaction, shaking his napkin, “they’re lost.” He leaned across the table to look at Ignacio Abel more closely and observe the effect of his question: “Do you see yourself being allowed to return to Spain any time soon, Professor?”
Meanwhile, at the back of his mind throbbed the name Van Doren had mentioned, Judith’s name and the name of the place he could reach in a few hours by train. And another face and identity acquired a precise contour in spite of his confusion, exacerbated by his not being accustomed to drinking alcohol, a woman who looked American and spoke Spanish with a strange accent but who was a Spaniard: Miss Santos, the always useful Stevens told him, and then corrected himself, Doctor Santos, the head of the Department of Romance Languages, who was happy to greet a compatriot, she said, though she had been in America for so many years she was no longer sure where she came from. Van Doren had mentioned Judith Biely’s name and the name of Wellesley College, then remained silent and devoted himself to observing the effect of his confidence, studying Ignacio Abel from his corner of the dinner table where Ignacio had Dr. Santos on his right, more aseptic and American in her gestures, taking small sips of water, never wine. It was she who named the place, not because Ignacio Abel had asked but because someone spoke of the many European professors, Germans in particular, coming to American universities. They spoke of Einstein at Princeton, of Thomas Mann settling in California, and Dr. Santos said to Ignacio Abel, assuming no one else would recognize the name, “I’m not sure you’re aware that Pedro Salinas is at Wellesley College. Do you know him personally?”