Maybe he didn't want to tell you while I was there.
Paul ignores me. There's a pretense he likes to keep up, that we are equals in Curry's eyes.
What did he mean when he said he'd help you get excavation permits? I ask.
Paul looks over his shoulder nervously at a student who has fallen in behind us. Not here, Tom.
I know better than to push him. After a long silence I say, Can you tell me why all the paintings had to do with Joseph?
Paul's expression lightens. Genesis thirty-seven. He pauses to call it up. Now Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a coat of many colors.
It takes me a second to understand. The gift of colors. The love of an aging father for his favorite son.
He's proud of you, I say.
Paul nods, But I'm not done. The work isn't finished.
It's not about that, I tell him.
Paul smiles thinly. Of course it is.
We make our way back to the dorm, and I notice an unpleasant quality to the sky: it's dark, but not perfectly black. The whole roof of it is shot with snow clouds from horizon to horizon, and they are a heavy, luminous gray. There isn't a star to be seen.
At the rear door to Dod, I realize we have no way in. Paul flags down a senior from upstairs, who gives us an odd look before lending us his ID card. A small pad registers its proximity with a beep, then unlocks the door with a sound like a shotgun being shucked. In the basement, two junior women are folding clothes on an open table, wearing T-shirts and tiny boxer shorts in the swelter of the laundry room. It never fails: walking through the laundry room in winter is like entering a desert mirage, air shivering with heat, bodies fantastic. When it's snowing outside, the sight of bare shoulders and legs is better than a shot of whiskey to get the blood pumping again. We're nowhere near Holder, but it feels like we've stumbled onto the waiting room for the Nude Olympics.
I climb to the first floor and head toward the north flank of the building, where our room is the final quad. Paul trails behind me, silent. The closer we get, the more I find myself thinking of the two letters on the coffee table again. Even Bill's discovery isn't enough to distract me. For weeks I've fallen asleep to the thought of what a person could do with forty-three thousand dollars a year. Fitzgerald wrote a short story once about a diamond the size of the Ritz, and in the moments before I doze off, when the proportions of things are in flux, I can imagine buying a ring with that diamond in it, for a woman just on the other side of the dream. Some nights I think of buying enchanted items, the way children do in games they play, like a car that would never crash, or a leg that would always heal. Charlie keeps me honest when I get carried away. He says I ought to buy a collection of very expensive platform shoes, or put a down payment on a house with low ceilings.
What are they doing? Paul says, pointing down the hall.
Standing side by side at the end of the corridor are Charlie and Gil. They're looking into the open doorway of our room, where someone is pacing inside. A second glance tells me everything: the campus police are here. Someone must've seen us coming out of the tunnels.
What's going on? Paul says, quickening his steps.
I hurry to follow him.
The proctor is sizing up something on our floor. I can hear Charlie and Gil arguing, but can't make out the words. Just as I start to prepare excuses for what we've done, Gil sees us coming and says, It's okay. Nothing was taken.
What?
He points toward the doorway. The room, I see now, is in disarray. Couch cushions are on the floor; books are thrown off shelves. In the bedroom I share with Paul, dresser drawers hang open.
Oh God Paul whispers, pushing between Charlie and me.
Someone broke in, Gil explains.
Someone walked in, Charlie corrects. The door was unlocked.
I turn to Gil, the last one out. For the past month Paul has asked us to keep the room tight while he finished his thesis. Gil is the only one who forgets.
Look, he says defensively, pointing at the window across the room. They came in through there. Not through the door.
A puddle of water has formed beneath a window by the north face of the common room. Its sash is thrown wide, and snow is gathering on the sill, swimming on the back of the wind. There are three huge slashes through the screen.
I step forward into my bedroom with Paul. His eyes are running along the edge of his desk drawers, rising toward the library books mounted on a wall shelf Charlie built him. The books are gone. His head shifts back and forth, searching. His breathing is loud. For an instant we're back in the tunnels; nothing is familiar but the voices.
It doesn't matter, Charlie. That's not how they got in.
It doesn't matter to you, because they didn't take anything of yours.
The proctor is still pacing through the common room.
Someone must've known Paul mumbles to himself.
Look down here, I say, pointing at the lower mattress on the bunk.
Paul turns. The books are safe. Hands shaking, he begins to check the titles.
I pad through my own belongings, finding almost everything untouched. The dust has hardly been disturbed. Someone rifled through my papers, but only a framed reproduction of the Hypnerotomachia's title page, a gift from my father, has been taken off the wall and opened. One corner is bent, but otherwise it's undamaged. I hold it in my hands. Looking around, I spot a single book of mine out of place: the galley proof of The Belladonna Letter, before my father decided The Belladonna Document had a nicer ring to it.
Gil steps into the foyer between the bedrooms and calls to us. They didn't touch anything of Charlie's or mine. What about you guys?
There's a spot of guilt in his voice, a hopefulness that despite the mess, nothing is gone.
When I look in his direction, I notice what he means. The other bedroom is pristine.
My stuff's fine, I tell him.
They didn't find anything, Paul says to me.
Before I can ask what he means, a voice interrupts from the foyer.
Could I ask you two a few questions?
The proctor, a woman with leathery skin and curled hair, takes a slow look at us as we appear, snow-soaked, from the corners of the room. The sight of Katie's sweatpants on Paul, and of Katie's synchronized swimming shirt on me, catches her attention. The woman, identified as Lieutenant Williams by the tag on her breast pocket, pulls a steno pad from her coat.
You two are?
Tom Sullivan, I say. He's Paul Harris.
Was anything of yours taken?
Paul's eyes are still searching his room, ignoring the proctor.
We don't know, I say.
She glances up. Have you looked around?
We haven't noticed anything missing yet.
Who was the last person to leave the room tonight?
Why?
Williams clears her throat. Because we know who left the door unlocked, but not who left the window open.
She lingers over the words door and window, reminding us of how we brought this on ourselves.
Paul notices the window for the first time. His color fades. It must've been me. It was so hot in the bedroom, and Tom didn't want the window open. I came out here to work and I must've forgotten to shut it.
Look, Gil says to the proctor, seeing she's not trying to help, can we finish this up? I don't think there's anything else to see.
Without waiting for an answer, he forces the window shut and leads Paul to the couch, sitting beside him.
The proctor makes a final scribble in her pad. Window open, door unlocked. Nothing taken. Anything else?
We're all silent.
Williams shakes her head. Burglaries are hard to resolve, she says, as if she's wrestling with our high expectations. We'll report it to the borough police. Next time, lock up before you leave. You might save yourself some trouble. We'll be in touch if we have any more information.