Authors: Mary Chase Comstock
"Even so. . ." Panda began tentatively.
"And, if you don't mind, Mrs. Ruiz," Deirdre
went on, "I guess I would appreciate it if you'd call your nephew. Maybe
he can give me a few ideas for making this place more secure. It would be nice
to have someone I can talk to informally."
"I call him from my next job, Deirdre," Mrs.
Ruiz promised. "I gotta go now. You be careful. I call you tomorrow. You
come too, Panda. Deirdre needs to be alone."
"Okay," Panda grumbled. "I know when I'm
not wanted. You want my pepper mace?" She began to rummage in the depths of
her purse.
Deirdre groaned. "Enjoy New Orleans and don't worry
about me. I'll be sure to lock my door."
"Push a chair up against it," Panda added.
"Right,"
Deirdre smiled. "And scatter some broken glass on the carpet, set up a
trip wire…
"Okay, okay, Deirdre. While you're at it, be sure to
plug in your electric knife by the bedside." Panda laughed and gave
Deirdre's arm a little squeeze. "I'm glad to see you've got your sense of
humor back. You scared me a little. I’ll bring you back some good magic."
VI.
Deirdre shut the door behind them and leaned her forehead
against it.
Happiness makes
up in height what it lacks in length.
Hers had lasted all of three days.
She let her face relax, and felt the expression of forced
composure give way at once to the apprehension beneath its surface. All her
life, survival had dictated that she disguise her jagged thoughts with a
pleasant demeanor. Wearing a bright mask helped her negotiate the
uncomprehending world. It had become routine, and today it had stood her in
good stead.
Regardless of her promise to Panda, she had no intention
of calling the police. She'd had sufficient dealings with them to last a
lifetime. If Panda asked her about the call, as Deirdre knew she would, she'd
just say they treated the incident with routine indifference. The police were
busy, no one had been harmed, etc., etc.
She'd make it believable. Layers of lies protected her
secrets and she was a pro by now.
Ever since she had discovered the contents of the
package, the image of her hair tangled in the wreath of flowers had wound
through her thoughts. Even with her back turned to the room, she was aware of
the box, still sitting on the coffee table. What hands had done the weaving?
What mind had devised such a nightmare as today had been?
Her hair.
What
sort of souvenir had it become?
It had been a long time, but she could still hear the
echoes of a psychology class she took as an undergraduate. The professor was
always going on about the symbolic nature of hair. According to him, it was
usually associated in some way with sexuality, desire…control.
What someone did with another person's hair was evidence
of the ways they wanted to control them. Some mothers cried the first time
their baby had a haircut. They saved the clippings in little envelopes or taped
locks of hair inside the baby book. They wanted them to stay babies. There were
men who became outraged if their wives changed their hairstyle without
permission. They wanted to be the creator of the woman. Not to mention the
morbid Victorians who made bracelets and brooches from the hair of dead
relatives.
Yes, hair was a means of controlling a person. In her own
past, it had played a small but significant part. That's why today's incident
had rattled her so thoroughly. The attack itself was almost nothing in
comparison to the sensation of someone touching her hair. Far worse demons
haunted her, but memories of her hair being pulled or petted all those years
ago brought the bile to her throat. Always, it had been the prelude to
violation. And then, that final night…
Now, someone had cut her hair again.
That was menacing enough, but to be followed home, to
make sure she continued to be scared…
She returned to the sofa and sat down. Before her on the
table lay the letter announcing the Dovinger Prize. Next to it was the teaching
file she'd begun to compile for the tenure committee. Then, the box with the
wreath. One, two, three.
Things happen in
threes.
Dreams and nightmares, perhaps even fate, loomed here as they did
in the tarot cards.
The Dovinger prize had come first, out of the blue, an
affirmation that good could come from evil. The poems that had prompted her
book,
Porphyria's Revenge
, were
deeply personal, but so couched in metaphor and symbol no one would ever guess the
personal hell lay behind them. The title would suggest a mere response to
Browning's poem of misogyny, and titles went a long ways toward guiding a
reader's perception of text. Receiving the Dovinger meant that her poems would
be
read
, and her story told, however
obliquely.
Tenure
was another thing altogether. She had never known a happy home, but at least
Northwest University was the place where she was comfortable. A strange
attribute of universities was that people knew less and less about one another
as time passed. Professors were described by what they taught
. She's in the Americanist position. He's
our medievalist.
Deirdre was the
Poet
in Residence
. The title appealed to her: it implied habitation. Now, with
tenure, she could stay and teach and make her place in the world.
But the hair cutting, the wreath. What did they mean in
this series of three, if anything at all? She picked up the box. After a
moment, she opened it and forced herself to touch the wreath and the hair. She
wondered if this wreath was the very one she had tried on. It looked the same,
but there was no way of telling.
And the hair. One long, curling tress. Gingerly, she felt
the spot where it had been cut away. Whoever had done this had only used a bit
of what they'd taken. What would they do with the rest?
It didn't matter. A bad moment in time. A line gone wrong
and crossed out. She would not let this be significant.
VII.
Deirdre arrived on campus early the next morning and made
her way to her office, a thin-walled former closet that marked her as an
untenured assistant.
As she shut the door, she could feel the words piling up
inside her almost palpably. She hadn't been able to write last night. Images
had swirled through her head all night—the flower wreath, tarot cards, the lock
of hair.
Now,
finally, they crystallized into words.
She pulled a yellow legal pad from the piles of papers on
her desk, paused a moment, then scrawled:
My scissors itch
for more than hair
and you must pray
– if fiends can pray
– for angels
smite with wrathful care
She smiled, pleased with her
work. Writing felt good. It energized her, helped her take control.
As was often the case, the act of writing energized her,
helped her take control. The telephone had rung only once—just Panda checking
on her before she left town. No one had even knocked at her door.
Through the thin walls, though, she could
hear that her colleagues on either side had arrived and there was conversation
in the hall. She stretched and looked at her watch. It was time to venture out.
Deirdre opened the door and glanced down the long corridor
in both directions. Several students sat along the narrow corridor waiting to
talk to professors, their papers strewn about them.
Stepping through this obstacle course, she
continued to the English Department office. Just inside the doorway, she
stopped to check her mail.
There were
the usual memos from the administration, various committee reports, catalogues
from publishing companies. Nothing menacing. She didn't realize until she
actually sifted the mundane correspondence that she had been afraid of finding
something ominous.
"Well, here's our little Emily Dickinson, bright and
early.” Freemont Willard’s patronizing voice spoke from behind her. . She bit
the insides of her cheeks to check a bad-tempered retort.
"Good morning, Freemont," she replied without
looking up. Of all the people she might have run into, Willard was the worst.
Regardless of Northwest University's scholarly reputation, Willard's lackluster
performance was legendary. He had published poetry in several good journals
during the early days of his career, but he had produced very little in the
last ten years. Despite Deirdre's junior status on the faculty, the volume and
quality of her own work easily outshone his. Now the Dovinger would snuff out
his tiny bit of fame like a guttering candle.
It was impossible to feel sorry for him, though. She
couldn't remember a time in the past three years when his comments to her had
pertained to anything other than her appearance. Today, she had pulled her hair
back into a severe twist to hide its unevenness, and she knew he would say
something.
"You
really mustn't hide your pretty locks."
God! Sometimes she hated being right.
"What
a shame!" he continued in his oil slick tone, as he placed one large hand
on the top of her head and caressed it slowly. His hand stopped at her bare
neck and stayed there for a few seconds.
"Don't do that," she said, shaking his hand
away and turning to face him. Willard had by now stepped back. His hands rested
innocently in his pockets, and his lips eased back in a smiling leer. He should
have stood over six feet tall, but he slouched at five foot ten.
Willard
continued to beam down at her.
"I
really didn't mean anything by it, dear Emily,’ he said. “But it is so
tempting. I can't think why, but the roundness of it, the sheen, as it were,
reminds me of the smiling Buddha. What is he called? Hoti, I think. I rub his
belly for luck, you know." He winked slowly.
Deirdre’s face grew hot. She wanted to say, 'Fuck you,
Freemont.' But it was a chance she was not going to take. Her future here was
too important to give into such temptation. The Dovinger would carry plenty of
weight, but tenure reviews traditionally provided a forum for vengeance. As a
full professor, Freemont had a vote and she didn't want it to become a weapon.
"You
know, it's really very becoming," Willard went on, still smiling, his head
cocked to one side.
"Thank
you, Freemont."
One. Two. Three.
"By the way, I've heard your thrilling news. The
Dovinger Prize. What a big feather for such a little cap! And a treat for me as
well: I'll be observing one of your classes this week. I've been asked to serve
on your
ad hoc
tenure committee, you
know."
Deirdre
froze. "No. I didn't know. I thought it was Michael and Veronica."
"Well, I was a bit concerned." Willard lowered
his voice to a confidential tone. "Michael's scholarship is confined,
after all, to medieval studies. I felt him out about it, and as I suspected, he
didn't really feel qualified to make judgments about writing pedagogy. So,
naturally, I volunteered to take you on. Just as a favor, you know."
Willard
widened his smile a fraction then and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You have no
idea how I miss teaching poetry. You'll be giving me a vicarious thrill. I'll
just need to take a peek or two at your classes, and after the observation is
over, I'd like for us to have a
tête à
tête
. Perhaps we can discuss this famous approach to teaching of yours I've
heard so much about. In fact, Deirdre, " he said, looping a long arm over
her shoulder, "why don't I cook dinner for you? A celebration in your
honor. You'll like my place. It will remind you of a poem.
In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree."
A
moment later, Deirdre watched numbly as Freemont Willard disappeared down the
hall. "Pompous ass," she muttered.