Burying Ariel

CHAPTER
3

The distance between Ed’s house and the library was an easy five-minute walk; that night it was also a miserable one. Taylor, who usually hurtled headlong into the next adventure, walked quietly between Ed and me, holding our hands tightly. We were not alone. The three of us were part of a sorrowful cortege winding its way up University Drive towards the library. Two young women whom I recognized from the class Ariel had been teaching that morning rushed by, arms linked, faces swollen with grief. I squeezed Taylor’s hand, glad to be connected to her and, through her, to Ed.

In good weather, the library quadrangle was filled with students catching a few rays while they read, gossiped, or just zoned out watching plumes of water arc up from the fountain. That night the gathering crowd was tense, and the air pressed down on us, heavy with uncertainty. A portable podium had been set up in front of the doors leading into the library, but no one was standing behind it.

As I peered into the crowd, trying to see who was in charge, Ann Vogel, who had been a student in my Populist Politics class the year before, broke away from the group she was with and headed towards us. I felt my stomach knot. Ann was a sharp-featured brunette in her late thirties who had returned to school to find answers to the Big Questions. Judging from what I had seen of her, the answers she was finding were not to her liking. She was a sour and perpetually aggrieved woman who had involved herself deeply in the life of our department at a time when we had already far exceeded our quota of the sour and aggrieved. Midway through Populist Politics, she had changed her name from Ann to Naama. Assuming the name of the goddess who gave birth to Eve and Adam without the help of any male, even the serpent, may have connected Ann to the source of female power, but it hadn’t improved her analytical abilities, and she barely scraped through my class. The other class Ann did poorly in that semester had been Kevin Coyle’s International Law. She’d ferreted out the support of two other women whose grades in Kevin’s class failed to meet their expectations and set attitudinal-harassment charges in motion.

Had Kevin shown himself to be attuned to the realities of life at a contemporary university, the charges would have sunk without a trace, but he was a crank and an anachronism who still believed academics were put on earth to point out the shortcomings of lesser beings. He had made enough bone-headed public remarks about both sexes to muddy the waters and, bottom-feeder that she was, Ann Vogel had snapped up a veritable feast of comments he had made that could be construed as sexist. Kevin had responded to the charges with his usual pit-bull intransigence, but his defenders had argued that Kevin was a misanthrope, not a misogynist, and the case was about to sputter out from lack of oxygen when a far more serious incident erupted and fanned the flames.

A fourth-year student named Maryse Bergman accused Kevin Coyle of rape. Her tale was unsettling, in part, because the exposition was a familiar one to many who had dealt with people in positions of power. Maryse said that when she had approached Kevin with a request for a letter of recommendation to graduate school, he had suggested a quid pro quo: a glowing reference in return for sexual favours. Here the narrative took an ugly twist. According to Maryse, when she turned Kevin down, he attempted to rape her.

The alleged assault took place late on a Friday afternoon, when most of us had started our weekends, but there had been witnesses – not to the attack, but to its aftermath. Maryse, obviously distraught, had run down the hall until she found someone in our department ready to believe and, more significantly, verify her tale. Oddly, Maryse had insisted the police not be called. Later that evening, when Ben Jesse called all of us to alert us to the incident, that behaviour alone had made me suspicious. So had the fact that Maryse travelled in the same circles as Ann Vogel.

By Monday morning, the whispering campaign was spreading and Kevin was seething. According to him, Maryse Bergman had appeared in his office without an appointment. They had talked in general terms about graduate school, then, inexplicably, she had screamed and run from his office. When I asked if he had done anything that could be construed as a sexual overture, he erupted. “As if I would need her,” he said. “As if I would need any woman. Or any man for that matter. I don’t need anybody. Sex is of no interest to me. I have my work.” I had been convinced. Unfortunately for Kevin, I was in the minority.

My public explanation for supporting Kevin was that I believed in due process, but like most justifications, mine concealed as much as it revealed. My motivations were far from altruistic. As someone who had taught university for years, I had watched the chill of political correctness freeze spontaneity, creativity, and intellectual daring. A single lapse of caution could ensnare a teacher in a morass of charges that, even if unjust and unproven, could tar her reputation forever. The possibility that one day it would be my turn to be accused was real. This time I had dodged the bullet, but every time I looked at Kevin Coyle, I knew that there, but for the grace of a missing Y chromosome, went I.

The denouement of the Maryse Bergman case was surprising, at least to me. The week after her accusation against Kevin, she left town. There didn’t appear to be anything sinister about her departure. I saw her in the halls a couple of times, returning books or saying goodbye to friends, then she moved on. The day after she left, a deputation headed by Ann Vogel confronted Ben Jesse accusing him of a cover-up. It was Ben’s final battle. After his death, there was a rush to choose an interim department head and make the new appointments. Maryse was forgotten – forgotten, that is, by everyone except Ann Vogel, who kept the rumours on the boil, and by Kevin Coyle, who had to live under the cloud of unproven accusations.

The night of the vigil Ann Vogel wasted no time on pleasantries. “You’re supposed to go inside,” she said. “The plan is for everyone who is part of the program to come out of the library together.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would I be part of the program? There are a lot of people who were closer to Ariel than I was.”

“For once, I agree with you,” Ann Vogel said. “I don’t think you should be included either, but Ariel’s mother wants you. Dr. Warren says that since you knew Ariel as a child and as a colleague, you could bring a special perspective. It’s not a perspective I personally want, but Dr. Warren does, so you’d better get in there.”

I turned to Ed. “Could you and Taylor watch out for each other till I’m done?”

Ann Vogel didn’t give him a chance to answer. “You’ll have to find alternative child care, Joanne. This observance is for women only.”

Taylor regarded Ann with interest. “I noticed that.”

A glance around the crowd revealed that Taylor was right. Mao Zedong once said that women hold up half the sky, but at Ariel Warren’s vigil it appeared that the sky and everything under it was in female hands. With the exception of Ed, there wasn’t a male in sight.

Having discharged her venom, Ann started off. I grabbed her arm. My intent was simply to ask her a question, but my gesture was unintentionally rough, and she peeled off my hand with a look of disdain.

“No need for goon tactics,” she said.

“My point exactly,” I said. “Who made the decision to exclude men?”

“Some of us feel we can’t speak freely if men are present.”

“I thought this was supposed to be about Ariel.”

“She’s emblematic of a larger issue.”

“For God’s sake, Ann,” I said, “listen to yourself.”

“Naama,” she hissed. “My name is Naama.”

“All right, Naama. Now shut up and pay attention. Ariel Warren is not a symbol. She was a warm, gifted young woman, and a lot of us still can’t believe she’s gone.”

Ann took a step towards me. She was so close I could feel her breath on my face.

“Believe it, Joanne. Ariel is dead, and she died for the same reasons a lot of other women die. She lived in a patriarchal society that kills women and children.” She laughed shortly. “Why am I wasting my time trying to raise your consciousness? Stick around. You just might learn something.”

“I don’t think I will stick around,” I said.

Ann shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She wagged her finger at me. “Now, I’m going to walk away, and this time I don’t want to be stopped.”

I turned to Ed. “Let’s get out of here.”

Taylor looked up at me. “What about Ariel?”

Ed and I exchanged glances.

“That’s a good question,” he said.

“And I was pretty close to giving it a rotten answer,” I said. “Damn it, I always let Ann get under my skin. Let’s tough it out.”

Ed frowned. “This isn’t a night for muscle-flexing,” he said. “You were right. This is supposed to be about Ariel.”

I looked down at my daughter. “Do you want to stay?”

But she was concerned about Ed. “Would you be okay going home by yourself?”

“I’d be okay,” he said. “Besides, somebody has to drink those Shirley Temples before they lose their oomph.”

“ Oomph!” Taylor scrunched her face at the cartoon word, then for the first time since we’d set out for the vigil, she smiled.

I reached out and touched Ed’s cheek. “We’ll see you later,” I said. “And take it easy on the Shirley Temples. A good man is hard to find.”

The vigil for Ariel Warren exists in my memory as a series of images, which revealed truths as familiar to the philosopher as they are to the chiaroscurist. The first was that light is fully appreciated only when it is set against an absence of light; the second was that even the most familiar figures can cast lengthy shadows.

As I watched Ed walk towards the Parkway, I was sick at heart. He was heading west, and while I had balked at the suggestion that Ariel Warren was a symbol, I had seen too many old westerns not to feel a twinge at the image of a decent man disappearing into the sunset. It took an act of will not to follow him.

Livia Brook met me by the fountain. She was wearing a black T-shirt dress and strappy patent-leather flats. Draped around her shoulders was an extravagantly fringed antique satin shawl covered with oversized poppies that appeared to be hand-painted. It was a festive accessory for a mourner, but no one looking into Livia’s face could doubt her pain. She had removed the barrettes that usually held her hair in place, and against the cascade of chestnut and grey curls, her face was wan.

“Ariel’s mother wants to talk to you before we start,” she said.

It was a request I couldn’t ignore. Dr. Molly Warren was not a friend, but I liked and respected her. She had been my gynecologist for the past fifteen years, and as far as I was concerned she was just about perfect. She treated my concerns seriously, answered my questions fully, and shepherded me through a difficult menopause with information and brisk good humour. Even when I was sitting on the edge of the table in the examination room, shivering and apprehensive in my blue paper gown, the click of her impossibly high heels coming down the hall reassured me. I knew she wouldn’t talk down; I knew she wouldn’t scare me needlessly; I knew she’d tell the truth. She had been a rock to me and to many other women I knew. Any of us would have done whatever we could to redress the balance.

A group of women had come together just inside the door. To the right of them, standing in front of the glass case that housed displays from the Classics department, were Molly Warren and Solange Levy. Two facts were immediately apparent: Solange was in deep psychological trouble, and Molly was doing what she could to help. Back in her uniform of black jeans, T-shirt and Converse high-tops, Solange was beyond wired; she was blowing out all the circuits. She was talking non-stop. As she spoke, her hands chopped the air, and her feet danced like a boxer’s. Even her black, henna-shined hair seemed charged with manic electricity. Molly listened with an expression I had seen often: capable, concerned, but with her lips tight, insulating herself against the weaknesses of the flesh that beset the rest of us.

The moment must have been one of unimaginable horror for her, but Molly Warren, as she always did, looked as if she had just stepped off the cover of Vogue. If it seemed cruel to notice her appearance, it was also inevitable. I have never known a woman to whom personal appearance mattered more. She was not a beauty – Ariel’s chiselled good looks had come from her father – but Molly took meticulous care of what she had: her skin was deep-cleansed, rehydrated, and dewy; her Diane Sawyer haircut subtly layered and highlighted; her outfits chosen with care and knowledge. Whenever she glided into her Delft-blue outer office to pick up a file or take a phone call, we patients leaned towards one another and whispered about her unerring sense of style.

That night the silk suit she was wearing was soft grey with a mauve undertone like lilacs in the mist, and her simple grey Salvatore Ferragamo pumps and bag glowed as only seven hundred dollars’ worth of calfskin can. I imagined her selecting her ensemble in the morning, holding the bag against the suit, checking the match, not knowing that by day’s end she would be wearing her perfect outfit to a vigil for her daughter.

I pulled Taylor closer. She leaned across me to peer down the hall, then up at the huge expanse of glass at the front of the library. “I’ve been here a million times,” she whispered. “But never at night. It’s different.” Suddenly, Solange caught her attention. “What’s the matter with that girl over there?”

“She was best friends with the woman who died.”

“And she’s acting up?”

“Something like that,” I said.

As we watched, Molly opened her bag, took out a prescription bottle, removed a tablet and handed it to Solange. Meek as a child, Solange took the pill and put it under her tongue. Whether it was from exhaustion, medication, or the power of suggestion, she seemed to calm down. She whispered something to Molly, then walked over and joined Ann Vogel and Rae Colby, the director of the Women’s Centre.

Molly Warren looked as alone as anyone I had ever seen. She was not a person who invited physical contact, but I had no idea how to approach her except through an embrace. Her body was stiff and unresponsive, but she didn’t step away, so I held her, staring uncomprehendingly at the announcement of a lecture on the Eleusinian Mysteries the Hellenic Society was sponsoring and wondering what in the name of God to do next.

Finally, Molly took a step back. Her words surprised me. “I had a battle with myself about coming to this. It seemed wrong to be part of an event at which Ariel’s father wasn’t welcome.”

“Someone told you that?”

“Not in so many words, but Solange hinted that Drew might find the evening uncomfortable. I’m sure her warning was intended as a kindness.” Molly made a gesture of dismissal with her hand. “None of that matters now. I’m glad I came. Joanne, have you heard the rhetoric here tonight? It’s pretty virulently anti-male.”

I shook my head. “We were late.”

“Then you haven’t heard the rumours that are swirling around.”

“No,” I said, “but I can imagine they’re ugly.”

“They are,” she said. “And they’re irresponsible. Until we have the autopsy results, no one will know whether the crime was sexually motivated. But that’s the assumption made by almost everyone who’s talked to me. Suddenly all men are suspect.” Molly raised her fingers to her temples and rubbed in a circular motion. “Joanne, I don’t know what happened to my daughter in that archive room. At the moment, I lack the courage to imagine it. But there’s one thing I do know. I will not allow Ariel’s death to become an excuse for anybody to push a political agenda.”

“Should I talk to the organizers?”

“I already have,” she said. “I hoped I’d be able to say a few words to keep the evening in perspective, but I just can’t seem to form a coherent thought. That’s why I asked the organizing committee to find you. I know I’m putting you on the spot, but you and Solange are the only friends of Ariel’s from the university that I know. You’ve seen the state Solange is in. She’s promised she won’t do anything to make matters worse, but she can’t be counted on to do much beyond that.”

“You’d like me to say something to keep the focus on Ariel,” I said.

Molly gave me the physician’s assessing look. “If I’m asking too much, tell me.”

“You’re not asking too much,” I said.

She seemed to relax. When her eye rested on Taylor, she crouched down so that she could talk to her more easily. “I didn’t mean to ignore you,” she said. “My name is Molly Warren, and…”

“And Ariel was your girl,” Taylor said softly.

Molly’s intake of breath was sharp, the reflex of a woman feeling the probe on an exposed nerve. “Yes,” she said. “Ariel was my girl.”

This time when I reached out to comfort her, she waved me off. “I’m okay,” she said. “I just want to freshen up. Is there a ladies’ room around here?”

I pointed. “Down that hall and to the left,” I said. “Would you like me to go with you?”

She shook her head. “All I need is a little time alone and I’ll be all right.”

As I watched her elegant figure disappear, I thought that it was the first time I’d heard Dr. Molly Warren give a prognosis so far off the mark. I was relieved when Rae Colby joined me.

Rae was a solid, pleasant woman who moved slowly, laughed often, and fought the good fight with a fervour undiminished by thirty years in the women’s movement. She was fond of bright colours and chunky ethnic jewellery, but that night she was in ankle-length black, her only jewellery a heavy silver labrys pendant.

She gave me a slow, sad smile. “I’ve come to ask your daughter a favour, Jo.”

“Ask,” I said. “Taylor makes up her own mind about most things.”

Rae’s broad face creased with pleasure. “A woman after my own heart,” she said. She turned to Taylor. “Here’s the drill. Everyone at the vigil is supposed to have a candle, and I need you to help me hand them out.”

“I can do that,” Taylor said.

“Good.” Rae turned back to me. “The program is pretty informal,” she said in her low, musical voice. “I thought maybe we could all just walk out there together.” She gestured towards a willowy brunette standing close to the door. “You know Kristy Stevenson.”

“We’re on the University Development Committee together,” I said.

“Then you know how proud she is of the work the library does. We’re all sick about Ariel’s death, but Kristy has a double burden. The archives are her responsibility. I think she feels a need to be part of the memorial tonight. Anyway, in her non-university life, Kristy has a trio called Womanswork.”

“I didn’t know she was a singer,” I said.

“She paid her way through university playing in a punk rock band. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? She’s so elegant.”

“People are full of surprises,” I said.

“Aren’t they just? At any rate, the plan is to have Livia speak, then Womanswork sing, and then I thought you could talk. Did you and Dr. Warren agree about what you were going to say?”

“We thought… just some personal memories,” I said.

Rae’s brown eyes misted. “Better you than me,” she said. “I don’t think I could get through anything personal. Anyway, after you’ve finished, Naama has a story she wants to tell. Then Solange wants a few moments to talk. I hope she’ll be okay. Molly Warren is her doctor, and apparently she gave her some kind of medication to bring her down.”

I looked over at Solange. She was gazing at the crowd in the library quadrangle, wholly absorbed in her private reverie. “She seems calm enough,” I said.

“Calm is good,” Rae said. “There’s a lot of emotion out there. We don’t need to add to it.” She fingered the silver labrys at her neck. “After Solange, I guess Womanswork will do another song, and Livia will announce the candle-lighting. Have I left out anything?”

“It sounds as if everything’s taken care of,” I said.

When Molly Warren returned, her lipstick was fresh and her jaw was set. “Let’s go,” she said, and she started for the door. The women in the doorway parted to let her pass; then they followed her outside.

Rae turned to Taylor. “Time to get moving, kiddo,” she said. “Those candles aren’t going to hand themselves around.”

In one of those cosmic ironies that twist the knife of grief, the night into which we stepped burned with beauty. The sun was low in the sky, and the horizon flamed, turning the water of Wascana Lake into molten gold. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” Rae murmured. The sky might have glowed, but the concrete bulk of the library cast a shadow that plunged the mourners waiting for us into darkness.

Rae picked up a wicker basket of candles and handed it to Taylor. Her hand brushed the top of my daughter’s head in a lazy benediction. “It’s good to have someone from the next generation with us.”

Livia stepped to the microphone. We were long-time colleagues, but that night she surprised me. Even during the agonizing last months of her marriage, Livia had been much in demand by organizations wanting an expert on American politics who wouldn’t sabotage their pleasant lunch with dry history or legalisms. The day after her marriage ended, she had asked me to provide moral support at a lunch meeting she’d agreed to address months earlier. She was hungover and heartsick, but she still managed to sparkle her way through her set piece on the relationship between a leader’s character and his or her political policies. Wretched as she must have felt, Livia had come alive in front of the crowd. But the night of the vigil, as she adjusted the microphone, her hands were trembling so badly she had difficulty completing the manoeuvre. When she began to speak, she surprised me again. I was expecting another helping of New Age bilge, but she spoke from the heart.

Pulling her shawl around her, as if she were cold to the marrow, she began. “I would give everything I own not to be here tonight,” she said simply. “Ariel was my student, my colleague, my friend, my hope.” She looked down at the brilliantly coloured shawl as if seeing it for the first time. “Two weeks ago, she gave me this. ‘A thank-you,’ she said, ‘for everything.’ It was too much…”

I was puzzling over the ambiguity of Livia’s sentence when I realized that, although she was still standing in front of the microphone, she’d fallen silent. Ann Vogel was quick to react. She moved swiftly to the podium, draped her arm protectively around Livia’s shoulders, and led her back to the rest of the party. The whole sequence was over in a matter of seconds, but what I saw in the faces of the two women shook me. Livia was expressionless; her eyes had the five-hundred-mile stare of a shock victim. But Ann Vogel was – no other word for it – smirking. Then as quickly as it had appeared, the tableau was gone. Kristy Stevenson and Womanswork came forward quickly and the program continued.

The trio of women who made up Womanswork had a family resemblance: all three wore their dark hair centre-parted and brushed back to frame gentle faces, wide-set blue eyes, and delicately arched brows. They were in tank tops, black slacks, and platforms, and they moved with assurance. Kristy stepped up to the microphone. “We’ve chosen two songs tonight. Neither of them is ours. I wish they were. I wish I could come out here and tell you that we’d written lyrics that spoke to Ariel’s dreams or, even” – Kristy smiled sadly – “just a tune she hummed in the shower. The truth is I didn’t know her very well; she was at a fundraiser we did for the Dunlop Gallery a couple of weeks ago, and afterwards she came up and told me she had really connected with a song we did by Beowulf’s Daughters. It’s called ‘The Sparrow Knows.’ Here it is.”

The voices of Womanswork were strong, and the opening line was a grabber. “The sparrow knows that the meadhall moments are few.” As the trio sang, I followed Rae and Taylor’s passage through the crowd, warmed by the sense of community that enveloped them. Most women smiled; some reached up to Taylor, thanking her, including her. I had worried about bringing her. Now I was glad I had.

Ann Vogel’s tap on my shoulder was the proverbial rude awakening. “You’re next,” she said. My mind went into free fall. The only anchor I had was the song to which Ariel Warren had felt a connection, but as I listened to the words, I knew Womanswork was giving me what I needed. When I stepped forward, the sentences formed themselves.

“I don’t know which words in ‘The Sparrow Knows’ Ariel was drawn to,” I said. “Maybe all of them. But I know the line that resonated for me. ‘Darkness is our womb and destination,/Light, a heartbeat glory, gone too soon.’ My memories of Ariel begin and end with sunlight. The first time I saw her she was six years old. My daughter Mieka invited her to her birthday party. Mieka’s birthday is October 31 – Halloween – and Ariel came dressed as a sunflower. The yellow petals that circled her face were so bright.” I turned to Molly Warren. She smiled, acknowledging the memory. I drew a breath and carried on. “The last time I saw Ariel was this morning. She had taken her class out to that little hill by the Classroom Building.”

“I was there!” The voice that came out of the crowd was very young.

“You were lucky,” I said. “If you were in that class, you were being taught by someone who knew that all learning is an attempt to pass on the heartbeat glory of light. Tonight it may seem as if the darkness is overwhelming, but that doesn’t mean the light isn’t there. Ariel heard the call of lightness all her life. Let your memories of her turn back the darkness.”

Molly stood up and embraced me as I stepped back from the microphone. “That was just right,” she said. “I hope to God it was enough.”

As organizer of the vigil, Ann Vogel had appointed herself spokesperson for the students. I had feared she would lob some feminist firebombs, but all she managed was a wet, self-indulgent fizzle about how blighted her own academic future would be without Ariel Warren. Her narcissism was as sickening as Kevin Coyle’s, but I was relieved that she hadn’t ventured past her obsession with herself. She could have done harm. She didn’t, and I was grateful.

As Ann returned to her place beside Livia Brook, I thought we were home free. Solange had given Molly Warren her word that she would behave well, and she was a principled human being. She was in agony, but she would honour her commitment.

As she came to the microphone, she seemed to be in another time and another space. When she began to speak, I wasn’t surprised that she returned to what was obviously the best moment of her life. “Last New Year’s Ariel and I went to Mount Assiniboine. The air was sharp with the smell of fresh snow and pines. We were very happy: we knew summer would bring wildflowers, and we promised each other we would come back to see them, and that in autumn we’d return to see the larches turn to gold and, in winter, to see the valley fill again with snow.” She fell silent. Then she held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I just wanted you to know that Ariel had many plans. I wanted you to know that she died fully alive.”

It was a stunning oxymoron. When Solange turned from the microphone and walked back towards us, a sob broke the silence. Rae Colby came out of the crowd, handed Taylor back to me, then Womanswork stepped forward to begin their final song. There were tears in Kristy’s voice, but her back was straight, and as she linked hands with the other women of the trio, I could feel their strength.

“This is by the Wyrd Sisters.” Kristy said.

The song was “Warrior,” the story of a girl who, haunted by her failure to respond to a woman’s screams, ultimately transforms herself into a warrior who knows she must fight until “not another woman dies.” From the moment Solange had told me about her epiphany on the night of the massacre at L’Ecole Polytechnique, I had associated that song with her. As the trio’s voices floated high and pure on the still night air, I watched for her reaction. There was none; she had become a woman carved in stone.

When the song ended, Kristy leaned into the microphone. “Never forget Ariel,” she whispered, then she lit the candle in her hand and raised it into the darkness. “Never forget any of our fallen sisters. Never forget.”

I bent to put a match to Taylor’s candle and my own, and when I stood and faced the quadrangle again, the darkness was flickering with scores of tiny flames. Lighted from below, the faces of the mourners seemed alien and frightening. I drew Taylor closer.

Ann Vogel pushed past me towards the microphone. “Never forget,” she shouted. The words were Kristy Stevenson’s, but Ann turned the gentle elegy into an injunction, harsh with hate. “Never forget,” she said, brandishing her lit candle like a club.

As her words echoed over the courtyard, they detonated the rage that lay beneath the grief. The responses exploded in the sweet spring air. “Never forget. Never forget. Never forget!”

“No!” Molly Warren’s anguish was apparent. She started towards the microphone, but when she put her hand on Ann’s arm, Ann turned and locked eyes with Livia.

“Pull her back,” Ann hissed. Without hesitation, Livia stepped forward and obeyed.

“Why won’t you let me stop her?” Molly asked.

“They need to experience this,” Livia said.

“No one needs to experience hysteria,” Molly said witheringly.

“You don’t understand what we’re feeling,” Livia said.

Molly whirled around. “I was her mother,” she said, and she had to shout to be heard above the voices calling for vengeance. For a beat, the two women stared at one another, like combatants.

Finally, Molly shook her head. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t understand what you’re feeling, and I don’t want to.” When her neat figure vanished inside the library, Rae Colby followed her.

Taylor looked up at me. “Is the vigil over?”

“Yes,” I said. “The vigil’s over.” I smoothed her hair. “Taylor, I’m sorry, it was a mistake bringing you tonight.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” she said. “For a while, it was really nice.”

“For a while it was,” I agreed. “But not any more. Let’s go home.”

The library, the Classroom and Lab buildings, and College West were linked by inside walkways. Taylor and I could get back to the Parkway without going through the crowd. The prospect of escaping the ugliness outside was attractive, and as we walked through the cool silent halls, I was grateful my daughter and I had found an easy way out. Like most easy ways out, however, this one came with a price. Just as we were about to turn into the Lab Building, Kevin Coyle appeared.

He was flushed with anger, and one of the lenses in his glasses was missing, so he was glaring at me with one hugely magnified eye and one ordinary eye.

“Your glasses,” I said.

“The goddamn lens fell out while I was leaning out of my office window watching those women. It landed somewhere in the grass out there. But I saw enough. This is going to be my case all over again. That same hysteria. Wombs. The Greeks were right.”

“Kevin, take a hike. I’ve had enough.”

“You’ve had enough. What about me?”

“Hard as it is to believe,” I said, “this isn’t about you.”

“You’re wrong there, Joanne. This is about me. That little council of war just decided that it’s about all men. What do you think the nurturers’ next move is going to be? I’m not without allies among the students, and one of them came and warned me there are rumours about Ariel and me.”

“What kind of rumours?”

“Someone heard an exchange between us and misinterpreted.”

“What was the exchange about?”

“It was about my case. I told you before that Ariel had found out something. I was pressing her to tell what she knew. She was reluctant. It must have sounded worse than it was.”

“I imagine it did,” I said wearily.

“She was on my side, Joanne, and I’m going to go down there and confront those women with the truth before they come up to my office with their tar and feathers.”

“Just go home, Kevin. No one’s making sense tonight. Everything’s too raw. Let it go.”

He stepped forward so he could look straight at me. His mismatched eyes were a grotesque sight, but it was a night for the surreal. “If I let it go, it will destroy us all,” Kevin said. “I have to be vigilant for you, for me and” – he touched his upper arm – “for her.” For the first time, I noticed that he was wearing an old-fashioned black broadcloth mourning band around his upper arm. “Ariel Warren was a good woman, Joanne. So are you. Don’t get swept away.”

He patted Taylor on the head in a gesture that only someone who had never been around children would make. “Do you play Risk?” he asked.

“My brother does,” she said, “but he says I’m too young.”

“You’re never too young to learn the world conquest game,” he said. “When you decide you’re ready to learn, have your mother bring you by my office. I always keep a game set up, and partners have been in short supply of late.” He drew himself up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back outside and look for that lens.”

Taylor and I watched him stomp off into the night, a rumpled, angry man in search of normal vision.

When we got back to Ed’s place, Taylor asked if she could see if Florence was asleep. After she ran inside to check on the nightingale, Ed frowned at me. “I know that porch light isn’t flattering, but are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but, as the jocks say, there is a question about how much I have left in my tank.”

“Would a nightcap help?”

“I’ll take a rain check. Taylor has school tomorrow, and it’s already nine-thirty. Way too late.”

“How was the vigil?”

“Sad,” I said, “and scary – very, very scary.”

“Then we’ll talk about it another time,” he said. “Now, just to prove to you that I can stay on task, here are those keys you came over for.” He handed me the keys and an envelope. “Instructions for everything are in here. All the crankiness and idiosyncrasies of the plumbing explained in full. As Livia would say…”

“No surprises.”

“And,” Ed said, “the cappuccino machine is brand new, so it should be problem-free.”

“A cappuccino machine! Talk about roughing it in the bush. Ed, I hope you know how grateful I am for this.”

He waved his hand in dismissal. “No gratitude necessary. Just come back with a sunburn, a smile, and some new photos of that granddaughter of yours.”

As soon as I pulled into our driveway, I could hear the pounding rhythms of Tool. Taylor and I walked through the front door into what seemed, after the sombre events of the evening, to be a parallel universe. The house smelled of cooking, and the captain’s chest in the hall was heaped with hastily shed jackets and baseball equipment. As I reached over to remove a jockstrap that I didn’t recognize from a branch of our jade plant, laughter erupted in the kitchen. Angus and Eli’s baseball team had stopped by after practice. I walked into the living room and turned down the volume.

The effect was immediate. My son shot into the living room. He was still wearing his ball uniform; he was sweaty, tousled, and very happy. “We kicked ass, Mum. Whupped them totally.”

I held out my arms to him. “Come here and give a needy old woman a kiss.”

He scrunched his face. “The day you’re needy…” But he put his arms around me and hugged me hard. “So where have you been, anyway? I thought you were just going over to Mr. Mariani’s to get the keys.”

“Mission accomplished,” I said, fishing the keys out of my purse and tossing them to him.

“Cool,” he said. “This whole weekend is going to be cool. Pete coming back, and seeing Mieka and Greg and Maddy. As soon as they get to the lake, I’m taking the baby down to the point.”

“Uncle of the year,” I said.

My son winced. “Not really.”

“Why ‘not really’?”

“Because babies are universally acknowledged chick magnets.”

“With smart guys like you in the universe, we chicks don’t stand a chance, do we?”

“Not a chance. Listen, do you and T want a chili dog? We can scrape the pot and get you a couple of spoonfuls.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “What was all that chili for, anyhow?”

Taylor ate her chili dog and went straight to bed. As we talked about the evening, she seemed intrigued rather than disturbed, and I was grateful. She was asleep by the time I closed her bedroom door. I caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror. No queen would need to search for a poisoned apple to get rid of me that night. I looked like hell. I went downstairs, made myself a drink, then walked into the kitchen where Angus and Eli were cleaning up. They had the radio on. Eli turned when he heard my step.

“Is it true that a girl was killed up at the university today?”

At seventeen, Eli had the kind of El Greco good looks you see in Calvin Klein ads. He wore his hair in a single braid in the traditional way of aboriginal men, and his eyes were dark and luminous. His radar for pain was extraordinary, perhaps because he had known so much of it in his short life. Alex Kequahtooway was raising him, and in my opinion he had worked a number of small miracles. Eli was doing well at school, and he was making friends. My son Angus had helped. He was a generous, extroverted kid who had simply enlarged his circle of friends to include Eli. It was good news all the way, except that Eli still seemed obsessed with death in the way that anorexics are often obsessed with cookbooks and food preparation.

I sat down at the kitchen table. “That’s what I came down to talk about. The woman who was killed taught in our department. Her name was Ariel Warren. Mieka and she were friends when they were little, and she and Charlie Dowhanuik were a couple.”

Angus shot a glance at Eli. “You know who Charlie Dowhanuik is, don’t you? Your idol, Charlie D.”

Eli jumped from his chair. “Did Charlie kill her?”

“Why would you think Charlie killed Ariel?” I asked.

Eli’s face was miserable. “I listen to his show every day. I tape his ‘Ramblings’ when I’m at school. Charlie D is so cool. He used to talk about his girlfriend all the time.” He looked puzzled. “Except I thought her name was Beatrice. Anyway, he was always talking about how great Beatrice was; then a couple of weeks ago, he just stopped. I thought they broke up.

Charlie had called his beloved Beatrice. Today’s allusion to The Divine Comedy had been part of a pattern. Unbidden, an image flashed into my mind. Charlie as a little boy on the edge of the crowd; Ariel taking his hand, rescuing him; Dante, at eight, meeting the seven-year-old Beatrice and knowing “bliss made manifest.” Two loves that had lasted a lifetime – or had they? Had something happened to turn Charlie’s bliss to suffering?

My son’s voice brought me back to reality. “Mum, do you think it would be okay to pack the car tonight, or are you worried about our stuff getting stolen?”

“Go ahead, pack,” I said. “I want to get away from here as soon as we can tomorrow evening.”

Angus frowned. “Is everything okay?”

I patted his shoulder. “Everything’s fine. Make sure you lock the garage door. I couldn’t live with myself if someone stole your Tool CDS.”

After the boys went off to get their gear, I walked over to the living-room bookcase. It took me a moment to find what I was looking for. I hadn’t read The Divine Comedy since university, but as soon as I touched the book, I felt a rush of emotion. I had met my husband, Ian, in Classics 300. That period of our lives had glowed with transcendent moments and soaring idealism. Dante had been a good fit for us both, but there had been one passage that Ian had read to me so often he made it my own. I say that when she appeared from any direction, then, in the hope of her wondrous salutation, there was no enemy left to me; rather there smote into me a flame of charity, which made me forgive every person who had ever injured me; and if at that moment anybody had put a question to me about anything whatsoever, my answer would have been simply “Love” with a countenance clothed in humility.

In the margin, Ian had written a single word: “ YES!” By the time he died, my husband would have found the idea that I was the earthly vessel for divine experience as laughable as I would have. Our marriage had been a good one. We had loved and laughed and fought and grown, but somewhere along the line we had revised our definition of love. As I slid The Divine Comedy back into its place on the bookshelf, I found myself wondering how Charlie could endure losing the woman who, from the time he was seven years old, he had believed was his shining path to salvation.