Trudy refrains from scribbling, Do you have the slightest idea what you're talking about? in the margin and instead writes spell-check so vehemently that her pen rips the paper. Then she closes the folder and pushes it aside. perhaps she is not in quite the right mood for grading after all. She tilts her chair back and stares at the far wall, where the room's only decoration hangs: an archival photograph, enlarged to poster size, of American soldiers marching German civilians to Buchenwald a few days after the camp's liberation, where they will be made to bury the dead. The afternoon is gray and gloomy-not unlike the one beyond Trudy's window right now-and the Amis are in army-issue slickers, their prisoners in patched wool coats. Toward the rear of the column, clinging to an invisible hand, is a small towheaded girl who could be the identical twin of Trudy at that age. She might in fact be Trudy herself.
Trudy is gazing at the poster without really seeing it when she hears the dreaded knock on the door. She tousles her hair, which from the feel of it is drying in stiff unattractive spikes, like whipped egg whites.
Come in, she calls, and arranges her features into what she hopes is a welcoming expression.
But it is not a student who enters; it is Dr. Ruth Liebowitz, Director of Holocaust Studies, from down the hall.
Have I caught you at a bad time, Dr. Swenson? she asks.
No, not at all. Why?
Ruth laughs. Your face, that constipated look you get when you're trying to seem helpful. You must be expecting a student.
Trudy pulls a mock scowl.
I was, yes, but mercifully nobody's shown up. Come on in, I still have-Trudy checks her watch-another twenty minutes. How are you?
Ruth drops into the chair on the other side of Trudy's desk and tucks her feet beneath her, catlike. Trudy watches her fondly. People meeting Ruth for the first time often mistake her for one of her own undergrads. Her small freckled face, her nimbus of frizzy hair, her uniform of sweater and rumpled khakis seem more appropriate to a freshman than somebody in Ruth's important position. And Ruth deliberately fosters this impression, using what she calls my disguise to her advantage whenever possible: on the first day of class, she sits among her students to hear what they say about her. In actuality, she is only nine years younger than Trudy.
I'm fine, Ruth says now. More to the point, how are you?
A little tired, but-What. Why are you giving me that look?
Ruth narrows her dark eyes.
Come on, kid. You skipped out on your classes yesterday. You weren't home last night. What's going on?
How do you know I wasn't home?
I called, says Ruth. Several times, actually.
Several times? What did you think, that I was dead on the floor?
Ruth glances away.
So I was a little worried, she mumbles defiantly.
Trudy hides a smile. Knowing that Trudy lives alone, Ruth is sometimes a bit overprotective, but it is also comforting to know that if Trudy were indeed dead on the floor, she wouldn't have to lie there for days before being found.
What if I had been entertaining a gentleman caller? Trudy asks.
Ruth looks delighted. Were you?
No, Trudy admits. She sinks back in her chair and rubs her eyes. I had to go to New Heidelburg. There was a situation with my mother.
Ruth's gaze sharpens further.
This is the difficult mother? The one I so rarely hear about?
Of course it's her. How many mothers do you think I have?
Ruth flaps an impatient hand. What happened?
She had a little accident.
What kind of accident?
Honestly, Ruth, what are you, the Gestapo?
Ruth maintains an unwavering stare. The historically impossible friendship between the two women, the unlikely alliance between a professor of German history and the head of Holocaust Studies, requires black humor, a way of acknowledging and thus defusing possible tensions. But neither has ever applied it to the other personally.
Sorry, says Trudy. I'm not quite myself today… My mother's all right, it was nothing serious, but it's obvious she can't live by herself anymore. So I had to arrange to put her in a nursing home.
Ruth screws up her face in sympathy.
That's rough, she agrees. I know how it is. When we put my aunt in a home, she didn't speak to us for six months.
My mother hasn't spoken to me in fifty years, Trudy says, and laughs.
Again Ruth gives her a penetrating look, but she lets the subject drop.
Well, kid, she says, unfolding herself from the chair, if you want to talk about it, I'm here… Oh! I almost forgot the other reason I came in here.
What's that?
Ruth braces her palms on Trudy's desk and sways forward.
We got it, she says dramatically.
Got what? Trudy asks.
Ruth gives the blotter an emphatic slap.
For the love of God, woman, wake up! The funding for the Remembrance Project.
Oh, says Trudy. Oh, good for you. How much did you get?
Ruth rolls her eyes. Not as much as I'd hoped for, naturally. But enough to contact area survivors, to hire interviewers and videographers. I can cut corners by having one of my doctoral students encode the tapes for the archives. And if all goes well, next year I can ask for more money-the sky's the limit.
That's fantastic, says Trudy. Congratulations-
This is such a feather in our cap. This'll put our program on the map in terms of recording Holocaust testimony, put us right up there with fucking Yale. And not even fucking Yale has survivor interviews on camera.
I know, says Trudy. You must be so proud.
I am, I have to admit, Ruth says, grinning. Her teeth are tiny and pearly and crooked; like baby teeth, Trudy thinks, milk teeth, Anna would call them. This Project is my baby… But sometimes I think, what am I, nuts? There's so much work to be done-
Well worth it, Trudy assures her. Let me know if there's anything I can do.
Ruth settles a pert khaki-clad hindquarter on the corner of Trudy's desk, wrinkling the term papers.
Actually…, she says.
Oh, God, groans Trudy. I was just being polite, Ruth!
I thought you might want to try out, Ruth says.
Try out?
For an interviewer's position.
Me?
Yes, you.
Trudy shakes her head.
I don't understand, she says. Why would you want me? The Holocaust isn't my field of expertise.
Ruth waves this objection aside.
We have to get this off the ground quickly, she says, and we need historians who really know their stuff to be interviewers, and that means you. I think you'd be a natural. And you'd really be doing me a favor.
Trapped, Trudy swivels to the window and looks out. The quadrangle is deserted, the sleet being whipped sideways by a relentless wind, the Gothic red sandstone buildings gloomier than usual in the premature dusk. Her reflection hovers among them, transparent and watchful, a streetlamp in its throat.
It wouldn't matter that I'm not Jewish? she asks.
Well, of course you should be, since we are the chosen People, Ruth says tartly. But no, it wouldn't matter.
Huh, says Trudy.
Then she swings back around, reaching over to tug the papers from beneath Ruth's behind and stuff them into her briefcase.
I can't, she says. I'm sorry, Ruth. I'm truly flattered you asked. But I have such a full courseload this semester, as you know, and now there's this situation with my mother on top of everything else…
She feels herself flushing. Anna's transfer to the Good Samaritan center having already been arranged, there is nothing much left for Trudy to do except make a weekend visit to ensure that she's settled in. And this won't take much time. But Ruth doesn't need to know this.