War of the Encyclopaedists (13 page)

The obvious solution was to retcon the whole thing. Retcon, short for retroactive continuity, was a tactic Corderoy had great familiarity with. Long-running comic books—often written by dozens of writers over the years—would sometimes manipulate history in order to make future story lines possible. Or, say, halfway through a
Dungeons & Dragons
adventure, the assembled nerds might rewind after getting killed by skeletons—we put on our armor
before
opening that door. Soap operas used this technique with abandon, inserting characters into the past, bringing the dead back to life.

It would be no easy feat to rewrite the history of his contact with
Sylvie
, to remember her as whimsical instead of puerile, as witty, not superficial. Her absence would allow him to forget her flaws, but only if he could keep himself distracted. He needed to focus on things outside of his personal life. Fortunately, a distraction had just entered his peripheral vision: there was a criminal to oust from the White House. So when Tricia invited him to canvass with her in Ohio the weekend before the election, he found himself readily agreeing. After years on college campuses, he'd finally succumbed to an incipient form of political idealism. All it took was a shameful attraction to run from. Suddenly he cared. Maybe, just maybe, they could change the world.

John Kerry lost. And oddly, it was not Tricia who was staring at the post-election coverage on MSNBC, shocked in disbelief, glugging another tumbler of whiskey, Tricia who had cast her vote early that morning and then volunteered the rest of the day at a polling location in an Allston high school to provide oversight against voter fraud.

It was Corderoy who stared at the TV in disbelief. Corderoy who had voted for the first time that day, experiencing an unexpected sense of civic pride. Corderoy who had felt, as he pulled the lever (though the parallels to a slot machine were hard to avoid), that he was a part of something larger, that he mattered, if only a little. It was Corderoy who kept shaking his head in exasperated confusion, Corderoy who had dreamed of sending Bush packing and welcoming Montauk home.

Tricia had seen the exit polls coming in Bush, and though she, too, had begun numbing herself with whiskey in preparation for Kerry's concession speech, she had quietly stepped out the back door of her mind when it finally happened, leaving the cloistered world of the American political show and entering the wings of the grand stage of the world, where real risks had real consequences. Last week she'd sent her résumé to Luc, along with an essay she'd written about her time on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, expressing formal interest in accompanying him and William to Baghdad as part of their survey team. He'd written her back that same day, saying that he was “greatly impressed” by her experience, her enthusiasm, and the quality of her writing. But there
were several interested parties, he said, and he needed a little more time to sort through his options. And then six days of unbearable silence in which she'd checked her e-mail compulsively, fighting off the urge to call him and ask. Somehow, with Kerry's loss, her potential future with Luc in Baghdad became more of a certainty in her mind.

Tricia emerged from her room, after checking her e-mail yet again, and stared at her group of friends. Jenny Yi had been on the verge of tears when Florida was called for Bush, and she'd burst out crying when Ohio had gone red; though she'd quickly retreated to the bathroom to wash her face, it hadn't done much good. She still looked glum. Tricia's friend Heather, whom she'd met on the campaign, was doing her best to present an indomitable spirit. “Tomorrow,” she was telling them. “We get right back to it tomorrow, keep the momentum.” Heather's enthusiasm, Jenny's gloominess, they both seemed silly to Tricia. It was Corderoy she felt sorry for. He'd gotten so excited in a week's time. And now he looked like he'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The party began to disperse and Jenny, Heather, and the others gave each other long parting embraces. When they had trickled out the door, Tricia sat down on the couch next to Corderoy. “Not the end of the world,” she said.

“I know. But still. Sucks.”

“It's the whole system. Even if we didn't vote, Massachusetts would have gone blue.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

It didn't change the fact that his best friend was still in Iraq. He'd never told Tricia that. He thought about doing so now, but he didn't have the energy for the conversation that would follow. Corderoy rubbed his eyelids. Thinking about Montauk inevitably meant thinking about Mani, which was the last thing he wanted to do. Where the hell was
Sylvie
when he needed her. “I have to go read,” he said, and he retreated to his room.

Tricia picked up the mostly empty bottle of Johnnie Walker and drained it. And as the last of the whiskey trickled into her mouth, the decision solidified. She would call Luc. Right now.

His phone rang six times before he picked up. “Hallo?”

“Hi . . . it's me. Tricia.”

“Ah, Tricia . . . it's the middle of the night.”

“It is?”

“It is in London.”

“Oh, I'm so stupid.”

“No, no. It's okay. Did Kerry win?”

Tricia sighed. “No.”

“I'm so sorry—” Luc began to say.

“I'm just wondering about this winter,” Tricia said. “Going to Baghdad.”

“Ah. Well. Nothing is finalized . . .”

“It's less than two months away. I need to start making arrangements.”

“Tricia.”

“Yes?”

“I know how eager you are. I was just like you. And I think you have what it takes to do this kind of work. But . . .”

There it was.

“The grant came through, Tricia. But not as much as we'd hoped. It's only enough to support one photographer and one writer. We can't afford a survey team.”

“Yes, of course, yes. I understand.”

“We'll get a coffee next I'm in Boston, okay? Tricia?”

“Yeah. Good night. Sorry I woke you.”

She hung up the phone, limped to her room, and collapsed onto her bed. She felt useless. And now the Kerry defeat, which she'd pushed aside with dreams of Baghdad, came back to sock her in the gut. She'd failed to win Meigs County, she'd failed to win Ohio, and she'd failed her country. Now, for the first time in Tricia Burnham's life, she had not an ounce of confidence. She wept into her pillow as the crushing futility of a generation descended on her. It was worse than the morning of 9/11. This time, she wasn't late to arrive, a willing but unneeded blood donor, a bystander watching the medics at work. This time, she'd been the medic, and the patient had died.

14

Corderoy was nearing the end of
Ulysses
when class started. His OCD tendencies usually led him to pause at a chapter break or at least the end of a paragraph. But the sentences in the final chapter went on for pages, so he was forced to set the book down midsentence.

He'd sat through the lecture only dimly aware of what they were discussing. Stanley Fish's idea of interpretive communities. Wolfgang Iser's implied reader. When Professor Flannigan made reference to Joyce, Corderoy's mind rose out of the book on his lap and into the cloud of discussion above the table.

“As Iser puts it,” Professor Flannigan said, “the implied reader ‘embodies those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect.' Joyce famously said that the ideal reader of
Finnegans Wake
would have ideal forgetfulness and ideal insomnia, that he would read until the end of the book and go right back to page one and continue as if for the first time.”

Corderoy soon drifted back to a sort of mental hand-wringing until class was over. Sandy, Ray, Maria, and even old Gary were going out for a pint. They invited Corderoy, but he declined, pushing himself further out of the nascent social group. As they left, he felt like the weird kid on the playground the other kids made fun of.

“You seemed distracted today,” Professor Flannigan said.

Corderoy held up
Ulysses
in his right hand, his index finger stuck between pages 761 and 762.

Professor Flannigan smiled. “Ah. Carry on, then.”

Corderoy was walking on River Street, several blocks from home, when he finished the book. He stopped on the sidewalk. He reread the final lines a second time:
I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes
. The gray October sky provided a dull backdrop to the golden-red leaves of the maple trees. A chill breeze worked its way into his unbuttoned coat. But he felt so warm, or bright, or everything did. No. That wasn't right. Everything, he included, felt big. His soul—he wasn't accustomed to thinking in terms of souls, in fact, he consciously railed against that sort of thinking, but he did so now, with no qualms—his soul was magnitudinous, it was a powerful vector with no directional component. He wasn't happy or cathartic. He was charged.

When he walked up the stairs to his apartment, he found Tricia in the living room. She was petting Smokey and holding a book she wasn't reading. She looked at him and said, “Hey.”

He went into the kitchen for a beer, then sat on the couch opposite her. “What's up,” he said. “You look glum.”

“I'm fine,” Tricia said. Earlier today, her classmate Jeff Alessi had asked her to go see
Super Size Me
at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and she'd turned him down. She didn't feel like doing that. Or doing anything with Jeff. Or doing anything with anyone.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Just mad at myself,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“For liking this guy. It's stupid.”

“That human rights guy? Why's that stupid?”

“Because. I don't know. It was a career thing. It should have been.”

“So what, you're upset that you have a crush—”

“It's not a crush.”

“—that you're attracted to this worldly, older guy who's doing the shit you want to be doing. Seems pretty standard.”

Tricia looked at Corderoy as if he were a dog that had slipped into English.

“Though I did always assume that stuff wasn't too high on your priority list.”

Tricia scoffed. “I'm busy, sure, but.”

But maybe Hal was right? She had never had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. There were numerous reasons why, she told herself. Her standards were high. She'd consistently made decisions not conducive to sustaining relationships: she'd gone to Barnard, an all-women's college, she'd studied abroad in Bolivia her junior year, she'd interned with the documentary team on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She'd had plenty of hookups and a few flings, but these had been the exception rather than the rule.

“I mean, who doesn't want that?” she said.

“What?”

“You know.”

“No.”

“You're gonna make me say it?”

Corderoy smirked and took a swig of High Life.

“Looove,” Tricia said dramatically, as if that would neuter the word.

But Corderoy nodded thoughtfully, and the word seemed to take on the mantle of a Zen koan. “How's that book?” he asked.

Tricia held up the book on her lap, Noam Chomsky's
Hegemony or Survival
. “It's great,” she said. “The world would be an immeasurably better place if everyone read this book.”

Hal was looking at her curiously, with a smile, and it made Tricia self-conscious of her word choice.
Everyone
. That would never happen, so why even say it. And why was Hal being so nice? So interested. They'd gone through the routine, and it hadn't ended in sex—their social dynamic had been established—they tolerated each other. Was he making a move?

“Wow. Okay. I'll read it.”

“No you won't.”

“Sure I will. Why not?”

“Just— Don't read it on my account.”

“Of course not,” he said. Was that what she thought, that he was trying to impress her? Why would she think that unless . . . unless she wanted him. He suddenly remembered that she was a sexual creature, like all humans, and as such, she had sexual desires. He wondered if she was as dirty, as deliciously dirty, as Molly Bloom. He wanted
to know her, but not in the biblical sense—he wanted to see into her brain, he wanted to watch the gear teeth bite into each other with the strangely orchestrated precision of human consciousness. And from the relenting look on her face, it seemed like she was going to open the gates freely.

Tricia sighed. “I think I intimidate guys my age. You know how many times I've been called a bitch? Just for saying something halfway intelligent?” She thought of herself as kind enough. Social nicety wasn't at the top of her list of priorities. She could be abrasive, yes. But that didn't stop her from thinking that it was somehow her fault if others perceived her as a bitch. Which was crazy. And she knew it. But it never occurred to her that men often misinterpreted her self-­sufficiency as a lack of interest. It was an unfortunate psychological consequence of her three greatest virtues: her desire to better the world, her willingness to take responsibility where others wouldn't, and her ruthless self-discipline.

“This guy didn't call you a bitch, did he?”

“No, no. He's great. Passes all my criteria.”

“Criteria?” Corderoy leaned forward.

“Intelligence, morality. Being hot. But the biggest one is—I don't know how else to say it—enlightenment. Understanding what the world is, what's at stake, what's important.”

“So this enlightened guy. He know you like him?”

Smokey had been purring contentedly in Tricia's lap, but she stopped, as if sensing Tricia's apprehension.

Tricia's voice caught in her throat. “I thought he did. But then he turned me down for this opportunity—I mean, I guess it was a funding thing—it's all muddled up. That's why I'm angry, that I let it get muddled.”

As Tricia lowered her gaze and stared at Smokey, Corderoy's sense of magnitude that Molly Bloom's monologue had lent him, his sense of bigness, his realm of mental apprehension that had been slowly expanding, it passed some invisible threshold and he saw Tricia. Tricia with her face off. She told herself she wanted an enlightened guy, but enlightened guys weren't manly, and manly men were so rarely enlightened. As much as she domineered most social situations, when
it came to romance, Tricia Burnham fit the stereotype: she wanted a man to sweep her away. Worse was the paradoxical situation she had placed herself in: she wanted to be conquered by a pacifist. But before his expanding soul could wrap itself around that thought, she said, “What about you, Hal? Any girls you're after?” And his expanded soul became a rigid shell, creaking like a submarine under pressure.

“I.” He was too embarrassed to mention
Sylvie
.

“You had a girlfriend back in Seattle, right?”

Bolts were breaking and crossbeams buckling. A hull breach was imminent.

“Hal?”

The USS
Halifax Corderoy
imploded.

As Tricia dredged through the wreckage of the submarine, she extracted a name, Mani, and a hasty apology to the effect that there was an essay, the writing of which could no longer be postponed, and the wreckage slid off the sloping seafloor to the abyss of its room.