This business of Parlabane’s alleged son could be a nuisance. After a queasy breakfast, which he made himself eat because not eating was one of the marks of the boozer, he put through a call to a man who was a private detective, and owed him a favour, for Simon had pushed and pulled his promising son toward a B.A.; the man had connections that were very useful. Then he talked on the telephone to Dean Wintersen, not stressing his worry about the missing libretto, but probing to see what the Dean knew. The Dean was reassuring. Probably the relevant papers had been mislaid or temporarily catalogued under another name, possibly that of the librettist himself, who was thought to be James Robinson Planché. Neither the Dean nor Darcourt knew who Planché was, but they sparred in the accustomed academic manner to find out what the other knew, and worked up a cloud of unknowing which, again in the academic manner, seemed to give them comfort. They arranged a time when Darcourt could meet Miss Hulda Schnakenburg.
When that time came, Darcourt and the Dean cooled their heels in the many-windowed office for twenty minutes.
“You see what I mean,” said Wintersen. “Don’t think I would put up with this from anyone else. But as I told you, Schnak is special.”
Special, it seemed to Darcourt, in a disagreeable way. At last the door opened, and in she came and sat down without waiting to be asked or greeted, saying, “She said you wanna see me.”
“Not I, Schnak, but Professor Darcourt. He represents the Cornish Foundation.”
Schnak said nothing, but gave Darcourt a look of what might have been malignance. She was not as unusual as he had expected, but certainly she was unusual in a Dean’s office. It was not simply that she was sloppy and dirty; lots of girls thought such an appearance obligatory because of their principles, but they were sloppy and dirty in the undergraduate fashion of their time. Schnak’s dirt was not a sign of feminine protest, but the real thing. She looked filthy, ill, and slightly crazed. Her dirty hair hung in hanks about a face that was sharp and rodent-like. Her eyes were almost closed in squinting suspicion, and on her face were lines in improbable places, such wrinkles as one does not often see today, even on ancient crones. Her dirty sweater had once been the property of a man, and was ravelled out at the elbows; below she wore dirty jeans, again not the fashionable dirt of rebellious youth, which has a certain coquetry about it; these were really dirty and even disgusting, for there was quite a large yellow stain around the crotch. Her dirty bare feet were thrust into worn-out running shoes without laces. But this very dirty girl was not aggressively dirty, as if she were a bourgeoise making some sort of statement; there was nothing striking about her. If it is possible to say so, Schnak was distinguished only by her insignificance; if Darcourt had met her on the street he would probably not have noticed her. But as someone on whom large sums of money were to be risked she struck chill into his heart.
“I suppose the Dean has told you that the Cornish Foundation is giving serious thought to presenting your enlargement of the Hoffmann score as a stage piece, Miss Schnakenburg?” he said.
“Call me Schnak. Yeah. Sounds crazy, but it’s their dough.” The voice was dry, rebarbative.
“True. But you realize that without your full co-operation it could not be done?”
“Yeah.”
“The Foundation could count on that?”
“I guess so.”
“They’ll want better assurance than a guess. You are still a minor, aren’t you?”
“Naw. Nineteen.”
“Young for a doctoral candidate. I think I should talk with your parents.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll be.”
“Why?”
“They don’t know shit about this stuff.”
“Music, you mean? I’m talking about responsibility. We must have some guarantee that you will do what you say. I’d want their agreement.”
“Their idea of a musician is a church organist.”
“But you think they would agree?”
“How the hell should I know what they’ll do? I just know what I’ll do. But if it’s money they’ll probably go for it.”
“The Foundation is considering a grant that would pay all your expenses—living, tuition, whatever is necessary. Have you any idea what the amount might be?”
“I can live on nothing. Or I could develop some expensive habits.”
“No, Miss Schnakenburg, you couldn’t. The money would be carefully supervised. I would probably supervise it myself and anything that looked like the kind of expensive habit you hint at would conclude the agreement at once.”
“You told me you had stopped all that nonsense, Schnak,” said Wintersen.
“Pretty much. Yeah. I haven’t really got the temperament for it.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Darcourt. “Tell me, as a matter of interest, would you pursue this plan—this opera plan—if you did not get the grant?”
“Yeah.”
“But I understand that you have been exploring very modern paths in composition. Why this enthusiasm for the early nineteenth century?”
“It kinda grabs me, I guess. All those crazy guys.”
“Well then, tell me how you would support yourself if this grant were not forthcoming?”
“Job of some kind. Anything.”
Darcourt had had enough of Schnak’s indifference.
“Would you consider, for instance, playing the piano in a bawdy-house?”
For the first time Schnak showed some sign of animation.
She laughed, dustily. “That dates you, prof,” she said. “They don’t have pianos in bawdy-houses any more. It’s all hi-fi and digital, like the girls. You oughta go back and take another look.”
Important rule of professorcraft: never show resentment at a student insult—wait and get them later. Darcourt continued, silkily.
“We want you to have freedom to get on with your work, so you needn’t worry about jobs. But have you considered all the problems? There doesn’t seem to be much of a libretto to go with these scraps of music, for one thing.”
“Not my problem. Somebody would have to fix it up. I’m music. Just music.”
“Is that enough? I’m no expert on these things, but I would have imagined that the completion of an opera that exists only as sketches and rough plans would call for some dramatic enthusiasm.”
“That’s what you’d imagine, is it?”
“Yes, that’s what I’d imagine. You force me to remind you that nothing has been concluded about this matter. If your parents don’t stand behind you, and if you are so indifferent to the money and the encouragement it implies, we’re certainly not anxious to force it on you.”
Wintersen intervened. “Look, Schnak, don’t play the fool. This is a very big chance for you. You want to be a composer, don’t you? You told me so.”
“Yeah.”
“Then get this through your skulclass="underline" the Cornish Foundation and the Faculty are offering you such a chance, such a springboard toward a career, such a shortcut to important attention, as very great people in the past would have given ten years of life to have. I’m telling you again: don’t play the fool.”
“Shit.”
Darcourt decided the time had come for a strategic loss of temper, a calculated outburst.
“Look here, Schnak,” he said, “I won’t be talked to in that way. Remember, even Mozart got his arse kicked when he couldn’t be civil. Make up your mind. Do you want our help or don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t yeah me, young woman. Yeah what?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“No. I want the magic word. Come on, Schnak—you must have heard it somewhere in the distant past.”
“Please—I guess.”
“That’s more like it. And keep it that way from now on. You’ll be hearing from me.”
When Schnak had gone, the Dean was genial. “I enjoyed that,” he said. “I’ve wanted to talk to Schnak like that for months, but you know how cautious we have to be with students nowadays; they’re very quick to complain to the Governors that they’re being harassed. But money still gives power. Where did you learn your lion-taming technique?”