Created, the Destroyer

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was easy to get into a room alone with a Briarcliff student, much easier than sneaking into a brothel. Not that Remo had ever sneaked into a brothel. It was just that madames were much shrewder than deans of women. They had to be. They were dealing with more complicated things than the intellectual development of a new generation of women.

Remo merely told the Dean of Women that he was writing an article for a magazine dedicated to the metaphysics of the mind. He wasn't sure what that meant, but the dean, a heavyset, cow-like matron with a strong nose and a hairy chin, agreed to give him the run of the campus until eleven p.m., when, of course, propriety dictated a women's campus should be free of men. At that time, the dean of women said, gently caressing a pencil, Remo could report to her in her quarters and she would help him review the notes for the article.

Thus, Remo found himself in Fayerweather Hall, scribbling notes he would never need on a cheap steno pad he intended to throw away, as a dozen young, obnoxious, loud, enthusiastic young women shouted their opinions on «What is Woman's Relation to the Cosmos?»

They all had opinions. They all crowded the couch on which Remo sat. Hands, smiles, voices assaulted him. And each girl, he asked the same question: «And your name?» And each time, he didn't get the answer he wanted. Finally, he said «Are there any more girls in this dorm?»

They shook their heads. Then one said, «Not unless you count Cinthy.»

Remo perked up. «Cinthy? Cinthy who?»

«Cinthy Felton.» The girl laughed. «The curve-breaker, the grind.»

«That's not nice,» said another student.

«Well, it's true,» the other said defensively.

«And she's where?» Remo asked.

«In her room, where else?»

«I think her opinion is worth hearing, too. If you'll excuse me, girls. What's her room?»

«Second floor, first right,» a chorus responded. «But you can't go up. Rules.»

Remo smiled politely. «But I have permission. Thank you.»

He mounted the steps, polished with a half-century of shine, rubbed by thousands of feet of wives of presidents and ambassadors, glowing in a dusky half-light from cheap old lamps. You could bottle the tradition surrounding Fayerweather Hall, it was that strong.

It was a smell, a feeling. Traditions? Remo smiled. Someone had to start somewhere, had to start a tradition somehow, and if enough years passed between the original stupidity and its ultimate worthlessness, that, sir, was tradition. Where had he heard that definition of tradition? Had he made it up?

The first door on the right was open. He saw a desk, a light splashing on it, and a rather coarse leg sticking from beneath it. An arm, at the end of which were five stubby nail-bitten fingers, moved from behind the high-shelf portion of the desk which concealed its user.

«Hello,» Remo said. «I'm doing a magazine article.» It was a hell of an introduction to a woman he would have to convince to take him home to daddy.

«What are you doing here?» Her voice was a composite of adolescent squeak and matron rasp.

«I'm writing an article.»

«Oh.»

She pushed her chair over so she could see Remo. What she saw was a big, handsome man silhouetted in the doorway. He saw another of the generation of moral crusaders: a girl with a blue skirt and a brown sweater, wearing white tennis shoes. Her face was pleasant, or could have been pleasant if she had worn makeup. But she wore none. Her hair was wildly frizzled, like a wheat field in the wind. She chewed on the point of her pencil. On her sweater was a button, «Freedom Now.»

«I'm interviewing students.»

«Uh-uh.»

«I'd like to interview you.»

«Yes.»

Remo fidgeted. His feet somehow needed shuffling. He attempted to concentrate on her essence, to project his manhood as Chiun had taught, but somehow his mind was up against something not quite a woman. She had breasts, hips, eyes, mouth, ears, nose, but the essence of woman, womanliness, had somehow been bled out of her.

«May I interview you?»

«Certainly. Sit down on the bed.» Coming from any other woman, this might have had the overtones of invitation. Coming from the girl before him, it was a logical suggestion to sit down on the bed because there was only one chair in the room and she was in it.

«What's your name?» Remo asked, displaying the pad.

«Cynthia Felton.»

«Age?»

«Twenty.»

«Home?»

«East Hudson, New Jersey. A gritty town, but Daddy likes it. Sit down.»

«Oh, yes,» Remo said, lowering himself to a bluish blanket. «And let's see, what do you think is the woman's relation to the cosmos?»

«Metaphysically?»

«Of course.»

«Essentially woman is the child bearer in an anthropoidal society, bounded on one hand by the society per se, that is empirically correct, rather to say… are you taking all this down?»

«Of course, of course,» Remo said increasing the pace of his scribbling to keep up with the incomprehensible academic imbecilities of his subject. At the end of the interview, he conceded he did not understand all that he had been told, but would like a further explanation of some of the finer points.

Cynthia was sorry, but she had a full day the next day.

The writer pleaded that only she could help unravel this metaphysical knot.

«No,» was the answer, «definitely not.»

Perhaps then, asked the writer, she would have breakfast with him.

No, was the answer again, she had a full schedule.

Then, perhaps, asked the writer, she would give him a picture of her blue, blue eyes.

Why, was the question, did he want a picture of her blue, blue eyes?

Because, was the answer, they were the bluest, blue eyes the writer had ever seen.

«Nonsense,» was the retort.