Mickelsson's Ghosts (53 page)

They'd come to the library-building doors. Mickelsson held back, letting Nugent enter first. Nugent held back, too, unsure of the rules, then hastily stepped forward. When they were inside, Mickelsson looked around at the door, making sure it was automatically closing, then moved on.

He said, “He was a German, of course, and the son of a Lutheran minister, which put him in a good position to see how troublesome strict rationality can be. Still, there's something to be said for his uneasiness. He has an interesting remark on human language. ‘In general,' he says”—Mickelsson slowed his walk again, smiling his fixed smile, and put the back of his right fist to his forehead, striving to get it right, though he'd quoted it a thousand times—“ ‘in general, whenever primitive man laid down a word, there he believed himself to have made a discovery. How different it really was! He had hit upon a problem, and thinking he'd solved it'—it goes something like this; I'm afraid I'm paraphrasing slightly—‘thinking he'd solved it, he in fact only raised an obstacle to its solution. And now,' Nietzsche says—something like this—‘now, with every piece of knowledge, one must stumble over stone-hard, everlasting words—and one would rather break a bone than a word.' ”

They'd come to the first floor men's room. Mickelsson stopped. “I need to go in here,” he said, and pushed the door open. Nugent nodded and followed. Mickelsson braced up against the urinal, Nugent at his back, and said, “Nietzsche's whole philosophy—like modern positivism, and ultimately like nominalism—is based on a deep concern with language. The idea that if
you
can understand me, I must not be saying much.” With his stream he wrote
“P J M”
on the cracked white wall of the urinal.

“Well,” he said, “it's true, I'm a little lax in class. I'm glad to hear my students thinking about anything at all.” He shook his penis, then put it back inside his pants and zipped his fly.

“I suppose I'd have to admit,” he said, “I'm not very comfortable with undergraduates. ‘Certitude is weakness,' this same Nietzsche says. In undergraduate classes one of the main things we do is offer an illusion of certitude.” He smiled, almost nasty. “It helps the F.T.E.”

“I
thought
that was what you were doing,” Nugent said.

Back in his office, Mickelsson partly closed the door, leaving it only an inch or two ajar since Jessica would be coming, she'd said; then he went directly to his desk, where he rummaged through the drawers until he located his Susquehanna-Montrose phone book, found the number, and dialed the Susquehanna Hospital. Over the hills outside his window a gray wash of cloud had moved in, making the trees along the ridges and the weedy fields below more drab and dingy than they'd been earlier this morning—sickly, in fact, as if infected, mile after mile, with mange. The phone rang six times, seven times, eight. … He rechecked the number, thinking it impossible that a phone could go so long ignored in a hospital; but there was no mistake. He waited on, and at last a friendly, middle-aged female voice said, “Seskehenna Hospital, Hennessy speaking.”

“Hello,” Mickelsson said. Just then his office door swung open and Jessica came in. When she saw that he was phoning, she signalled him to go on, she'd wait outside, and started to leave, then paused as he waved her toward one of the chairs he had for conferences with students, gave him an inquiring look, then settled gracefully though perhaps not entirely at home there in Mickelsson's learner's seat, crossed her legs at the knees, and cupped the upper knee in both hands. Mickelsson was saying into the phone, meanwhile, “Hello. This is Professor Mickelsson out on Riverview Road. I wonder if I could talk to Dr. Bauer.”

“Dr. Bauer?” the voice said. “We haven't gaht a Dr. Bauer anymore. We used to, but—”

“I know she's not with you anymore,” Mickelsson said, “but I understand she was planning to drop by today. I'm the man who bought her house from her.” He laughed, vaguely like an old friend. “If I could just get in touch with her—if there were someone there who would be likely to know—”

“Just a minute, Prafessor.” Blips and buzzes hit his ear, then a husky male voice said with practiced haste and distraction, “Benton.”

Now the other voice, the woman's, sounded miles away. “Dr. Benton, the prafessor that bought Dr. Bauer's howse is on the line. He's trying to locate Dr. Bauer?”

“All right, I'll talk to him,” Benton said. Then, loudly, as if he distrusted phone-wire, “Hello?”

“Hello, Doctor,” Mickelsson began.

Before he could say more, Dr. Benton called out, “Far as I know Dr. Bauer's down in Florida. If she wasn't, I feel pretty sure she'd've rung me. We used to be partners here. Is it something somebody else could help with?”

“No,” Mickelsson said, and glanced at Jessica. “Is there anybody else she'd get in touch with if she came up?” He gave a little chuckle. “Actually, the reason I'm so persistent—I thought maybe I saw her.”

There was a pause, three heartbeats. “If she was here, I'd be the first one to know.”

“I see. Well, I'm sorry to have troubled you.”

“No trouble, no trouble a-tall,” Dr. Benton said.

Jessica sat frowning thoughtfully, eyes evasive, the side of her index finger pressing into her cheek, like a professor listening to a not very carefully prepared seminar report, as Mickelsson told her how he'd nearly been killed, driving home last night, then explained to her the theory that was beginning to take shape in his mind. When he finished, she went on staring for a time at nothing in particular—the pipe on the great stack of mail on his desk—then gave her head a little shake. She had a wonderfully sharp jaw-line, the handsome, sharp nose and Near-Eastern slanted eyes of the warriors of Darius—if one could believe the ancient polychrome brick frieze. He wondered if the ancient Persians had been a tall people.

“Strange,” she said. Mechanically, making a comb of her fingers, she pushed a falling sweep of hair back from her temple. After a moment she asked, “But why would she have gone there without telling anyone? Her friends, I mean.”

“I won't know that for sure until I've talked to her,” Mickelsson said. “Or talked to the Spragues.” He leaned back in his chair, looking at the door above Jessica's head, aware that she was watching him more sharply now, surprised and displeased by his suggestion. “According to my theory,” he said, “she couldn't very well tell her lawyer what she was doing, your friend what's-his-name—”

“Bob Ceslik.”

“That's it. If she told him she wanted to make a visit to the Spragues, try to persuade them to settle the thing privately, he'd have insisted on going with her, or more likely he'd have advised her not to go. You know lawyers. As for Benton or any other friends she may have—” He paused, casting about. “Maybe she was in too much of a hurry to see them, so she decided not to tell them she was coming. That's possible, she may have flown up and rented a car at the airport. The one she was driving was new and clean, the kind you'd be likely to get at a Hertz or Avis.” He shrugged. “Or maybe, doing what she was trying to do, she felt uneasy—secretive. I don't know; I haven't thought that part out yet.”

Jessica mused. “What I don't understand is why she was going so fast. No matter where she'd been—at the Spragues' place or at yours—it makes no sense.”

Mickelsson smiled. “It would make sense if she'd been up at my place and seen the ghosts.”

She shook her head. “I don't think so.” She leaned forward in the chair, her head almost level with Mickelsson's. “I know you're not even considering the possibility. But just for the sake of argument, suppose that's what happened.” With a quick, impatient movement of one hand, she waved away objections. “Suppose she went to your place, maybe because for some reason she wanted to talk to you; she found the place dark, or maybe one light on somewhere, up in the upstairs bathroom, say—doesn't matter—something that made her think you might be home. So she got out of the car and went to the door and looked in, right? And saw something. We don't have to say it was a ghost. But we know she must have heard the same stories you've heard. Say she believed them—for whatever reason.” She shrugged and again waved away objections. “The point is, no matter what she saw—make it the worst thing your mind can conceive … I don't know, some old woman in the kitchen, sawing the body of some old man into pieces—” Jessica laughed, startled by the image that had come to her, then hurried on: “She runs back to the car and gets the hell out of there. Flying, right? But after half a mile, would she
still
be flying?”

Mickelsson studied her, distracted from thought about what she was saying by the image of her earnest face thrown forward toward him, her hands palms up under her chin, level with her collarbone. He imagined her as a schoolgirl, straightening out her drama teacher.

“I
wouldn't,” she said, and poked the desktop with her index finger. “I'd drive like crazy until I knew I was safe, and then I'd slow down. And if she'd driven all the way from Spragues' when she met you—
whatever
it may have been that happened at Spragues'—”

Mickelsson nodded. “Interesting,” he said. “But if something was chasing her—”

Jessica glanced at him, unpersuaded but willing to think about it. Then something else occurred to her. She asked, “Why is it you want to talk to her—or to the Spragues? What good will it do? You want damages for an accident that didn't happen?”

“I'd like to know what's going on, that's all,” Mickelsson said.

“You feel threatened?” She leaned toward him again. “Look, why don't you just forget it? Write it off.”

He smiled, ironic, unwilling to be bullied. “Maybe that's it. I feel threatened.”

“You feel something weird, Peter. I realize you're Superman and nothing scares you. …” Again her look sharpened. “Is it the coincidence of the names—the Spragues who lived at your house, the Spragues up on the mountain?” A smile began to form at one side of her mouth. “Some kind of problem in ontology—if that's the word?”

“Maybe,” he said, dismissive, and reached for his pipe.

She watched him pick it up, feel into the bowl with his grimy index finger, then put it to his lips. Still with her legs crossed at the knees, she began to swing one leg slowly, as if purposely to bother him. “You feel threatened right now, that's for sure.” She smiled.

“You're a scary lady,” he said, covertly sly, like a poker player.

“Maybe all women are.” She shrugged.

Foul blow! Ambushed! He held a match to the pipebowl to evade her eyes. He decided on frankness, the old nothing-to-hide play. “All right,” he said, “I feel threatened. God knows why. I like order.”

“Hmmm,” she said. He could feel her drawing back, preparing a new tack, less like a gambler than like an oral examiner briefly letting up on a student in trouble. “It
is
interesting that the names are the same,” she said. “I doubt that it means anything, but it's interesting. I guess I know how I'd feel, if I were you. Here's this mystery of ghosts—even if you don't believe in ghosts, it must make you feel odd—and then you run into this second mystery, the mystery of coincidence. I think it would make me feel”—she shrugged—“as if something were creeping up on me. Make me feel vulnerable. And if I were feeling a little vulnerable already …”

“That could be it,” he said.

She laughed. “Bullshit.” Then abruptly she lowered her gaze. “So you still mean to talk with the Spragues.”

He nodded, drawing in smoke, then letting it out with his words. “You want to come?”

Like sunlight breaking through dark clouds, Jessica smiled. “Not on your life!” After a moment she asked, “When do you mean to do it?”

“Right away.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I'm sure you're right about why I have to do it—the feeling that something's … out of control. I suppose if I were sensible, understanding that fact would be enough.” He looked at her soberly. “You're sure you don't want to come?”

“I couldn't, Pete,” she said. She caught a corner of her lip between her teeth, weighing the question in her mind. “I have appointments and meetings all day long, and anyway, if I went with you, how would I get back? It's an hour out to your place, so if you drove me back it would be an hour in to town and an hour home again, for you, I mean.” She shook her head. “It would make no sense.”

“I don't know.” He shrugged. “You could spend the night at my place. I have a guest room—of sorts. I have to come in again tomorrow.”

She met his eyes, then seemed embarrassed at having done so. “I don't think so,” she said.

“All right.” He stood up. “I'll let you know how it turns out.”

“Do!” she said, rising, then turned to the door. As she opened it she looked back at him. “Be careful?”

“Certainly.” Like a Prussian officer, Mickelsson clicked his heels and bowed.

“Oy,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

After she was gone he put on his light overcoat, walked out to the parking lot, and drove to the parking-lot gate. As he was about to pull onto Campus Drive he saw her coming across the lawn, running with surprisingly long strides, waving. She was tall and broad-shouldered, like a man, but ran with a woman's special grace—ran, he thought, like a warrior-goddess out of Homer. He rolled down his window. When she reached him she laughed, out of breath, and called, “Hey, I changed my mind. Is that all right?”

“Hop in!” he called back, and laughed with her. Jessica hurried around the front of the Jeep, still smiling as if delighted and also dismayed by what she was doing. He reached across to the passenger-side door and unlocked it. She swung herself in.