“Oh,” said Mervyn.
“Odd that you should be so interested,” Malinski said, inspecting Mervyn blandly. “Is not — how shall I put it? — is not your primary attention focused upon Susie?”
“Well, more or less.”
Malinski beamed. “That is as it should be. Mary is an unattainable ideal, Susie is flesh and blood. Living, breathing, aching, yearning.”
“That’s certainly a dramatic way of describing the Hazelwood sisters.”
“Is it possible you do not know that drama, excitement and sensation are all around us? We become so callous, so numb, that only the extraordinary arouses us from our torpor. Drama! One must live it!”
As Oleg Malinski spoke he went through a series of vehement gestures, raising a finger, pointing, extending his hand palm upward, hand clenched. His eyes suddenly focused over Mervyn’s shoulder and Mervyn, looking around, saw the girl in the tight pink shorts returning. To Mervyn’s horror, Oleg reached out as she passed and patted her straining, jiggling bottom. The girl whirled, staring. Oleg gave a cry of dismay. “Good heavens! A dreadful mistake. I thought you were someone else. Please, please accept my apologies?”
The girl’s mouth moved in an uncertain smile. “It’s all right.”
“Permit me to buy you a hot chocolate. Please? I must redeem my gaucherie in some way, Mad’moiselle...”
As Malinski nudged the girl off down Telegraph Avenue, chattering charmingly, Mervyn watched in wonder. If he had tried that, the girl would have screamed bloody murder.
Behind him the campanile chimed eleven times. Four hours to wait — four hours wasted. He became infuriated. Time gone forever which he should be giving to research, translation or, if nothing else, simply the atmosphere of Old Provence.
He looked for Oleg Malinski and the girl in pink shorts, but they were gone, lost among the people strolling in the street. Something in Mervyn’s mind shifted, refocused. Twelfth-century poetry as a way of life suddenly seemed ridiculous.
He walked slowly along, pondering the hows and whys of his existence. Was he a fugitive from reality? Not necessarily. After all, what could be less real than mesons; invisible galaxies that had outrun the speed of light, or, for that matter, the Antarctic? Yet these were foundations for respectable, even acclaimed careers. What were a mere eight centuries of past time in the infinite schedule of nature? And who knows? Mervyn thought. Maybe the troubadours are on the way back. All these guitar-twanging folk singers... And drama was more than taking care of itself in this Mary business...
But somehow these optimistic reflections did not lighten his spirits. He turned into a restaurant and ordered a sandwich, still gloomy and dissatisfied, still conscious of the tenderness in his stomach. Mervyn chewed, speculating on his invisible enemy. Suppose he properly identified “John”? What then? He stopped eating. What then indeed?
John Thompson lived in a tan stucco early-California-style apartment house on College Avenue, four blocks from the campus. At two o’clock Mervyn parked his Volkswagen across the street and settled down.
But a little, thought made him get out of the car. If Thompson secluded himself in his apartment for the weekend, well and good. But if he was headed somewhere, he would have to use his car, presumably parked nearby. Possibly around at the side of the apartment. It might be smart, then, to check.
Mervyn crossed the street. About where he had figured, a registration form on the steering wheel identified a scarlet MG roadster as the property of John Thompson. Reassured, Mervyn returned to his Volkswagen.
John Thompson appeared at a quarter to three, moving so self-effacingly that Mervyn almost missed him. The library stack superintendent shot one quick glance up and down the street and slipped into the apartment building.
Mervyn waited. It would be a long wait if Thompson spent weekends incommunicado in his own apartment. But no, twenty minutes later he suddenly reappeared, now wearing suntans and a long-sleeved green plaid shirt.
He looked more like a construction worker or a surveyor than a librarian. Again Thompson looked up and down the street; apparently reassured, he went quickly around the corner. A few moments later the MG slid out and turned into College Avenue.
Mervyn gave him a hundred-yard lead, then followed with what finesse he could contrive. John Thompson never turned his head. But Mervyn had the unpleasant feeling that he was being watched in the rear-view mirror. Nevertheless, he clung to the scarlet car’s tail.
Thompson bowled briskly south for a mile or so. Then, to Mervyn’s consternation, he swung the MG smartly into the parking lot of a supermarket.
Mervyn parked at the curb, fuming.
The librarian presently emerged carrying three large bags bulging with groceries. He loaded them into the MG, made a left turn on College Avenue and headed back the way he had come, his blunt profile as he passed perfectly placid.
Mervyn followed sheepishly. What if Thompson should stop and walk back to demand what Mervyn thought he was up to? He winced. Then he remembered his troubles, and he kept doggedly following.
He was soon glad he had persisted. For it developed that John Thompson was not going home after all. The MG turned right into Ashby Avenue, proceeded east, then swung onto the Contra Costa Freeway. Traffic was heavy and Mervyn edged closer; one of an army of Volkswagens, he was in little danger of being spotted.
Thompson suddenly accelerated, as if he could not wait to get where he was going. The MG began to gain, snapping from lane to lane, dodging around trucks and big cars. Mervyn barely managed to keep him in sight.
The suburban communities of Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill fell away. At Concord, Thompson turned right and drove two miles past a succession of housing tracts: RIVERVIEW ACRES, FAR HILLS, MOONRISE MANOR, ESQUIRE COUNTRY CLUB ESTATES. At the last one, ENCHANTED MEADOWS, he turned into Madrone Road, made a left into Willow Lane, then a right into Cottonwood Drive, and finally swung neatly into the driveway of 1315 Bramble Way.
It was a ranch-style bungalow with redwood board-and-batten front and side walls of pale-green stucco.
John Thompson stopped the MG alongside a planter built of used brick, with a quadrangle of bright-green lawn just beyond. The front door burst open and two little girls plunged out, shrieking with joy, followed more sedately by a strapping woman of about thirty-five with a pleasant face and a rather untidy abundance of sand-colored hair.
Mervyn, who had halted almost a block away, watched the librarian salute the woman with a hearty smack. He handed her one of the bags of groceries, took up the remaining two, and the entire group went into the house, the little girls pulling at Thompson’s trousers.
Mervyn sat in wonder. Ten minutes passed. How should he do it? He could hardly go up to the door and ring the bell.
Suddenly Thompson came out of the house in wrinkled blue jeans. He went into the garage, rolled out a lawn mower and began to mow the lawn. Mervyn made a U turn and drove back down Bramble Way to the intersection of Cottonwood Drive. Here he made another U turn and headed down the middle of the road, driving slowly. Thompson was pushing the mower toward the house.
Mervyn leaned out. “John Thompson! Is that you?”
The librarian stopped, turned slowly. Mervyn jumped out of the car. “What on earth are you doing out here?”
“I’m mowing the lawn,” said Thompson.
The two little girls ran out of the house and squatted on the steps. They looked intently at Mervyn.
“And what, may I ask, brings you this way?” asked Thompson in oily tones, rich with irony.