Dark on the Other Side (10 page)

Soothed and comforted by the familiar cacophony and the
friendly dirt, he was drifting off to sleep when he remembered
something else. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time to Randolph’s
remark; he had been tired and confused, and the remark hadn’t made any
sense anyhow. Now he remembered it, and the utter illogic of it brought
him out of his doze, wide awake and staring.

“If she should come to you,” Randolph had said, “try to
get her to see a doctor. Maybe you can do it.”

Had Gordon Randolph really said that? Of all the weird,
crazy things to say…And he had simply nodded and muttered, “Sure, of
course; be glad to.”

Michael groaned aloud. What had he got himself into this
time? What kind of tacit admission could be read into that acquiescing
mumble of his? He was always doing things like that, agreeing to
propositions without listening to them, letting his mind wander off
into byways and returning to a conversation to find that he had
committed himself to ideas he violently opposed or plans that he had no
intention of carrying out. But this was his worst fiasco yet. Did
Randolph really think…?

Of course there had been those two episodes. When a man
walks into a room and finds his wife in another man’s arms, he may be
excused for thinking there is something between them. Was Linda
Randolph a nymphomaniac as well as an alcoholic?

Michael groaned again, so heartily that it provoked a
loud response from Napoleon, out by the front door; but at the same
moment he denied the thought. He had spotted Linda as a heavy drinker
the first time he saw her. The symptoms of the other were just as
obvious, and she wasn’t…No, indeed, she wasn’t. His face burned, in the
darkness, as he remembered the strength with which she had held him off.

So, all right, he told his wounded male ego—so you made a
mistake. You got carried away. Perfectly natural. But the girl really
was sick, she had passed out cold.

“If she should come to you…”

Damn it, why didn’t he listen to what people said? He
should have rejected the preposterous suggestion. He shouldn’t have
seemed to accept any such possibility.

Then the most disturbing thought of all forced its way
into his reluctant mind. Had he failed to deny the proposition because,
in reality, it had not seemed so incredible? Did he, unconsciously,
want Randolph’s wife to seek him out—for help, for anything? He pushed
the idea away, outraged; but it came back. If a desire was really
unconscious, he wouldn’t know it himself. If he really wanted…

“Oh, damn it,” Michael said helplessly. There was only
one thing to do with an idea like that one. He turned over and went to
sleep.

THE FANTASIES AND SELF-DOUBTS OF THE
NIGHT
were easy to dismiss in the cold light of
dawn—which was not only cold, but gray, rainy, and sooty. But it was
several days before Michael could make himself stop listening for
footsteps coming toward his door.

He threw himself into work as a cure for mental
degeneration, and found that after a while he didn’t have to force
himself; the hunt was up, and as usual it gradually gripped him. Even
the inevitable frustrations were minor challenges, to be overcome.

One such challenge was Randolph’s book. Michael could
have sworn he owned a copy of
The Smoke of Her Burning
;
it took two hours of disorganized search before she would admit that he
no longer owned it. He kept meaning to get his books arranged in some
kind of order, but they wouldn’t let themselves be arranged; every time
he started the project, he ended up with piles all over the floor and
himself sitting cross-legged in the middle of the debris, deep in some
fascinating volume he had forgotten he owned. The bookshelves were as
motley as the volumes they housed; he had always meant to have some
bookcases built in….

What had he done with Randolph’s book? Damn it, he had to
read Randolph’s book, that was the least a biographer could do.
Standing in the middle of the floor, like a pillar in the midst of a
forum paved with literature, Michael scratched his chin. He must have
given it to someone. Why hadn’t he read it himself? That was not
unusual, though; he was a compulsive book buyer, and his collection
included a deplorably large group that he had never had time to read.
He would just have to buy another copy of
The Smoke of Her
Burning
.

But it wasn’t that easy. The book was out of print. After
all, as the third bookdealer pointed out waspishly, the printing
presses of America poured out thousands of new books every year. You
couldn’t expect them to keep every old title in stock. Oh, sure,
The
Smoke of Her Burning
had been an important book. But you
couldn’t expect…

So Michael tried the secondhand bookstores and
encountered another snare; he could waste days in such places. He
finally found the book, but not until he had loaded himself with old
masterpieces he hadn’t been looking for and probably wouldn’t
read—including, for reasons he refused to consider, a worn copy of
somebody’s
History of Witchcraft
. By the time he
got home, he had transferred his annoyance to Gordon’s book, and no
longer wanted to read it.

There were plenty of other things to be done. He spent
two afternoons in the newspaper morgues reading about the public
exploits of Gordon Randolph. It was an unexpectedly depressing
activity. Some of the yellowed, crumbling clippings were over twenty
years old; the face of a young Gordon Randolph mummified by antique
newsprint made any attempt at immortality seem futile.

The clippings came from sports pages, literary columns,
and the general-news sections, but there was one significant omission.
Randolph’s name did not appear in the gossip columns. Rarely, there
might be a mention of his presence at some charity affair or concert,
but he never escorted a lady who was not impeccable in reputation and
social status. Either Randolph’s private life was arranged with a
circumspection that verged on Top Secret, or he was abnormally well
behaved. Not a wild oat in the whole field.

His marriage had rated a long column, and the lady
reporter gave it the Cinderella approach—Professor Weds Student,
Millionaire Marries Policeman’s Daughter. They had been married at the
college chapel. There was a picture of Linda Randolph in her wedding
dress, and Michael found it more depressing, for different reasons,
than Gordon’s photographs. Poor as the print was, it conveyed something
of that quality Randolph had vainly tried to describe. It conveyed
something else—happiness. She glowed with it, even through cheap paper
and smeary ink. From that, Michael thought, to what I saw three days
ago. He turned the page quickly.

All of it, sports achievements, literary kudos, political
successes, were dry bones. This was just the beginning. The next step
was to talk to people who knew Randolph. So, on Wednesday, Michael got
his car out and drove up to the campus of the well-known Ivy League
school where Randolph had matriculated.

He had taken the precaution of providing himself with a
general letter of introduction, and it finally got him into the sanctum
of a Vice-President in charge of something. Public Relations, to judge
from the gray-haired gentleman’s suave manner. The President of the
university was unavailable. Probably away on a fund-raising campaign,
Michael thought—or building barricades in preparation for the spring
campaign of the SDS. Not that it mattered. Anything the President would
say about one of his most illustrious alumni wouldn’t be worth peanuts.
The same thing was true of the Vice-President. Michael only needed him
as a source of references.

“I’m afraid there are very few of Mr. Randolph’s former
professors available,” the Vice-President explained winsomely. “Now
although I was not myself in residence at the time, I have followed Mr.
Randolph’s career with interest, and I might say…”

He recapitulated Randolph’s public career, which Michael
could have recited from memory, for ten minutes before Michael could
stop him.

“I want to talk to people who actually knew him,” Michael
explained.

The Vice-President hesitated, torn between irritation and
caution. How these pompous asses did love to see their names in print,
Michael thought. The man was smart enough to know that if he vexed the
biographer, his name might appear amid adjectives that would make him
writhe. The pungent style of the periodical that had commissioned the
biography was well known.

“Well, of course, this was twenty years ago,” the V.P.
said, with a slight sniff. “Most of our professors are mature men when
they are at the height of their careers; by now the majority are
retired or—hem—deceased. And, while people tend to think of the
academic profession as static, there is in actual fact—”

“A lot of job shifting,” Michael interrupted. “I know
that. I’ll do the tracking down myself. All I really need are the names
of Randolph’s professors and their current addresses, if they are
available.”

“Well, if you insist, Mr.—”

Michael insisted. When the file was produced, the
Vice-President brooded over it.

“Physics; Professor Kraus. Emeritus, now, of course; I
believe he returned to Germany or Austria. If he’s still
alive…Sociology; that would be Professor Smith, he is now at Elm
College, in the—er—Midwest somewhere.”

“Chicago,” Michael said.

“Somewhere of that sort, yes. I don’t know that he would
be of much help to you; Mr. Randolph only took one of his courses. Now
his major, naturally, was English; the chairman at that time was
Professor—”

He looked up, his eyes widening, and Michael nodded.

“Collins. He was my father. He’s dead. Ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry…. Well, then, let me see, there was Doctor
Wilkes….”

Not a single one of Randolph’s former professors was
still in residence. Michael finally escaped with a very short list.
Four of the men were still living, two in Europe and one at Harvard,
plus the unfortunate exile in the Midwest. Michael went home and wrote
letters. He couldn’t go traipsing off to Munich to interview a man who
had taught Randolph algebra twenty years ago. The man at Harvard was on
sabbatical leave.

He had begun his investigations with the academic world
not only because it was more in line with his own interests but because
he believed in the importance of that period in character formation.
Sooner or later, he would have to interview Randolph’s business
associates. Talk about a subject being outside your field; he wasn’t
even sure what Randolph’s business was. One of those massive
conglomerates that included manufacturing, investments, oil wells, and
God knows what else. But there were offices someplace in the city; if
there wasn’t a Randolph Building, it was presumably only because
Randolph hadn’t got around to constructing one. Yes, eventually he’d
have to talk to the inhabitants of the business world, but he had no
illusions about that; no one who worked for Randolph was going to tell
him anything interesting.

So the next step was the college where Randolph had
taught. It was in Pennsylvania; not a long drive, but he decided to
plan to stay overnight, since that particular episode was fairly
recent, and there ought to be a number of witnesses still
available—possibly even a few students working for advanced degrees.

A sullen sun sulked above the skyscrapers when he left
the city, but it wasn’t until he had bypassed Philadelphia that he felt
any awareness of spring. The Main Line suburbs reminded him of the
countryside around Randolph’s home—manicured lawns and smug, neat
houses, flowers and kids playing in the front yard. Things were
blooming.

This time he had taken the precaution of setting up an
interview in advance, by phone, and he saw, not a Vice-President, but
the Vice-Chancellor. Michael had read too much history to have much
faith in revolution as a means of social progress; but every time he
met a college administrator, he was aware of a sneaking sympathy for
the militant students. The Vice-Chancellor might have been a brother of
the Vice-President—the same graying hair and discreet tie, the same
canny brown eyes. Michael sniffed. Yes; they even used the same scent.
Christ, he thought; and placed a look of intelligent interest on his
face as the Vice-Chancellor lectured.

“I was a mere Assistant Professor at the time,” he
explained with a deprecating smile. “Nor was Gordon in my department.
Economics is my field.”

“Then you didn’t know him well?”

“We had several interesting chats at the Faculty Club.”

In a pig’s eyes, Michael thought crudely.

“What did you talk about? Economics?”

“Among other things. He was very well informed for a
layman, very much so. A brilliant mind, of course. And capable in a
wide range of subjects. That is of course the outstanding factor in his
personality. And that’s what you’re interested in, isn’t it, my dear
fellow? His personality. I’m sure everyone who knew Gordon was struck
by that—the breadth of his interests.”

It went on in this vein for some time. Michael had
suspected from the first that this pompous ass could not have won
Gordon’s friendship, and after half an hour of name dropping and
burbling generalities, he was sure of it. It took him another half hour
to extract the information he wanted. When he left, the Vice-Chancellor
sent his regards to dear old Gordon.

On the steps of the Administration Building, Michael saw
a bearded youth attired in a red plaid poncho selling copies of the
school paper. He bought a copy. The picture on the front was a
scurrilous caricature, badly drawn but recognizable, of the
Vice-Chancellor. Michael turned back.

“Contribution to the cause,” he said, and went on his way
leaving the hairy young man looking in bewilderment at the five-dollar
bill in his hand.

It took Michael the rest of the day to find one of the
teachers who had been Randolph’s colleagues. Though they all had
offices and office hours, nobody seemed to be in his office at the
specified time—or, if he was, he refused to answer the door. (Michael
could have sworn he heard harried breathing inside one locked and
unresponsive room.) What were they afraid of? he wondered. Students?
Which wasn’t so funny, nowadays…He finally caught one man as he was
making a surreptitious exit, and when Martin Buchsbaum found he was not
a student, he invited him in.

Buchsbaum was a youngish man, chubby and pink, with a
nose that looked as if it had once been broken, and a cherubic smile.

“Randolph? Sure, I met him. But I never knew the guy, not
to talk to. I had just made my Assistant Professorship, didn’t even
have tenure. He was one of the sheep, and I was the lowest of the
goats. You know, the sheep and the—”

“I know. My father was a teacher.”

“Then you do know. The gulf between the tenured and the
non-tenured is wider than the one between the Elect and the Damned. I’m
sorry, friend, but I can’t tell you anything about the Great Man. He
was lionized, idolized—”

“Even canonized?”

“Man can’t even plagiarize a quotation these days,” said
Buchsbaum amiably. “What did your old man teach, English Lit?”

“Right.”

“It doesn’t follow, though. I threw a chunk of Andrew
Marvell at a cop once. He not only capped the quote, he went ahead and
gave me a ticket.”

“Amere traffic ticket? Weren’t you out there hurling
obscenities and bricks at the police last fall?”

“I was.” Buchsbaum’s face was glum. “I slipped and fell
and sprained my sacroiliac while I was running away. Cost me
seventy-eight bucks for doctor bills. After that I decided I was too
old and too underpaid to be a liberal.”

Michael laughed. He got up to go a little reluctantly;
Buchsbaum was a pleasant change from the Vice-Chancellor.

“Stick around,” Buchsbaum suggested. “A man who knows his
Fry is a man worth knowing. Or, better still, come home, meet the wife,
have a beer. I’ll try you on the more obscure metaphysical poets.”

“If I didn’t have eight more people to track down today,
I’d accept with pleasure. I used to enjoy this sort of thing, in my
younger days. You ivory-tower boys have a nice life.”

“You are viewing it with the rosy glow of old age
remembering lost youth. Don’t kid yourself. Why do you think I skulk
around the halls with my collar turned up like James Bond? Students,
committees, secretaries wanting lists of things, parents, students…”