Crying Wolf

18

Nat worked.

He worked on his bio experiment, the effects of trichloroethane and trichloroethylene on Palemontes vulgaris; he worked on his “Faith and Hypocrisy in The Scarlet Letter ” essay for English 104; he worked on the Apollonian/Dionysian paper for Philosophy 322; he worked overtime in the Alumni Office; he worked out at the gym. He didn’t socialize, didn’t see anyone, let all his calls, not many, go through voice mail, answered all except the one from Izzie and the one from Grace. There was none from Patti.

Nat worked, without enjoyment, involvement, or even interest. But only for a while: after two days, he began to feel more like himself, at first guilty about it, then less so, finally working the way he always worked, time forgotten. He couldn’t help it.

One of the phone calls he returned was from Professor Uzig, inviting Nat to the traditional Philosophy 322 dinner at his house, Saturday at seven.

“Thanks, but-” said Nat.

“It’s a requirement, actually,” said Professor Uzig. “And you might even win the prize.”

“The prize?”

“In the cake. There’s always a prize in the cake.”

“Is this alcoholic?” said the quiet girl who’d tried to connect Nietzsche and domestic violence.

“Kir?” said the hired waiter, passing out drinks in the great room of Professor Uzig’s house. “Yes, ma’am.”

She put her glass back on his tray.

Professor Uzig had a big brick house on College Hill, surprisingly big, surprisingly luxurious, inside and out. A fire blazed on a stone hearth brought from Provence, a portrait of the professor by a famous painter Nat thought he’d heard of hung on the wall, and there were other similar details, pointed out by the host. Professor Uzig was wearing one of those silk things-ascot? foulard? — around his neck, the first time Nat had seen one off the movie screen. Now, having witnessed the scene between the waiter and the girl, the professor, his back to the fire and his students around him, was telling a story about a recent faculty party where some new TA had thought that in loco parentis meant “like a crazy parent.”

Everyone laughed, some more confidently than others. The whole class was there, all dressed up except the Kurt Cobain fan, probably making a statement, and Nat, who hadn’t known. The two of them, in their jeans, stood together next to the shrimp. “What’s this kir shit?” said the Kurt Cobain fan.

“Wine and something else.”

“Think it would be all right to ask for a beer?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I get an F and lose my scholarship.”

Nat laughed.

“You on scholarship too?” asked the Kurt Cobain fan.

“Yeah.”

“Went to a public high school?”

“Yeah.”

“Been to Europe?”

“No.”

“I’m Ferg.”

“Nat.”

“I know,” said Ferg. “Want to see something?”

“Sure.”

He led Nat out of the great room, into the library. Books from floor to ceiling, a table covered with papers, periodicals, correspondence, and on a pedestal a bust of Nietzsche, his walrus mustache resembling, in bronze, the armament of an unusual animal. Ferg took a book off a shelf, leafed through, handed it to Nat.

An Inverness course catalog, twenty-five years old, opened to the philosophy section. Philosophy 322, Professor Uzig. Nothing had changed but the name of the course: Superman and Man: Friedrich Nietzsche and Bob Dylan.

“Can you believe it?” said Ferg.

“Pretty funny,” said Nat.

“Funny? You call bait-and-switch funny? He’s been perpetrating a consumer fraud for twenty-five years. I’m seriously thinking of filing a formal complaint to the academic dean.”

“Ask for the beer instead,” Nat said.

Ferg glared at him. “I won’t stop there,” he said, and left the room.

Nat saw more catalogs on a higher shelf, wondered whether there were any from a really long time ago, say, 1919. He was reaching up when he felt someone in the room behind him, knew it was Izzie even before he turned.

“I brought you this,” she said; a glass of beer. Izzie wore black pants, black turtleneck, black headband. Walks in beauty like the night: that was the phrase that popped into his mind. It now made perfect sense.

“I don’t want anything, thanks.” He hadn’t touched alcohol since Patti left, didn’t want to.

She nodded, as though he’d confirmed some impression. “You’re mad.”

“No.”

Nat saw that the beer was trembling in its glass. Izzie put it down. “You blame me for… Patti.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I didn’t even know she existed.”

“Grace didn’t tell you?”

“You told Grace about Patti?”

More than that, and worse, if his memory of that drunken and stoned night in New York was accurate: he’d used Patti as a shield. “I did,” Nat said. “The thing is-”

Izzie held up her hand. “You don’t have to explain anything,” she said.

“There’s nothing to explain. It was over. I just didn’t do it right.” Couldn’t have done it worse.

“And us?” Izzie said. “Are we over too?”

A door, not to the great room, but another one, opened and Grace came in, carrying a framed photograph. “Hey, Izzie,” she said, then saw Nat. “Oh. Nat.”

“Hi.”

“Still speaking to us?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re not returning calls.”

He was silent.

“Maybe you misinterpreted what went on,” Grace said.

“Which was?”

Grace paused. Her gaze went to Izzie, back to Nat. “Didn’t Patti explain at the airport?”

That raised several questions in Nat’s mind. He voiced the simplest. “How do you know I saw her at the airport?”

“She called me the next morning.”

“She did?”

Grace nodded. “Didn’t have to. No thanks were necessary. But she’s so… sweet. Worried about the money and everything.”

Let me guess-she spells it with an i. “I’m paying,” Nat said. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier?

“Don’t be silly,” Grace said.

“I’m not being silly.”

“No need to get angry. The amount’s inconsequential.”

“That’s not the point. I’m paying.”

Grace laughed.

“What’s funny? I can pay.” But not right away-it would probably have to be in installments drawn from coming Alumni Office checks; should he also start looking for a second job, down in the town? How he wished he could just whip out his wallet and hand over whatever the amount was on the spot.

“It’s not that,” Grace said. “Don’t be so touchy.”

“Then what’s funny?”

“I just don’t want this to degenerate into farce, that’s all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Farce. The maid under the bed, someone else in the closet, British accents, you getting stuck with the bill.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

Izzie shook her head at Grace, almost imperceptibly, but Nat caught it from the corner of his eye.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Grace said. “Look what I found.” She set the photograph down on the table. Nat took it in at a glance: Professor Uzig when he was young, not much older than they were. Took in that, and the resemblance to the bust of Nietzsche-not the features, Uzig’s being much sharper-but the similar thinking poses, and the fact that the professor when young had worn a mustache much like Nietzsche’s. He stood in front of that place at the bottom of the hill, the Glass Onion, its sign unfaded.

Nat waved his hand in the air, waving away distraction. He clipped the edge of the frame by accident, knocking the photograph over. “Spell it out, whatever it is.”

“No, Grace,” said Izzie.

“Why not?” said Grace. “He’ll feel better in the end.”

“Say it,” said Nat.

Grace said it: “You may not be-you may not have been-the father.”

Nat felt sick, didn’t want to hear another word.

“Something about too much to drink, homecoming weekend at Pismo State or whatever it is, a football player. She wasn’t really too clear. But the kind of thing that goes on here every weekend. A moment of weakness, in this case followed by another-coming here. Her words, not mine. Call her if you don’t believe me.”

“You think I’d do that?”

“I apologize,” Grace said, laying her hand briefly on his. Her fingers were icy; it was cold in Professor Uzig’s library, snow blowing by the leaded windows. Nat sat down, resisted the impulse to put his hands over his face.

“What did that accomplish?” Izzie said.

Grace turned to her, eyes narrowing. Before she could reply, Professor Uzig stuck his head in the room and said, “Dinner, young people.”

“Ah, dessert,” said Professor Uzig when the cake appeared. “The course America likes best.”

“Where are you from, anyway?” said Ferg; he’d built a little palisade of empty beer bottles around his place setting. Everyone else, except for the domestic-violence girl and Nat, was drinking wine.

“Brooklyn,” said Professor Uzig. “Your native soil as well, if I recall.”

Ferg’s mouth opened but no words came.

A startling revelation: Nat had expected some answer like Prague, Munich, Trieste. Startling and with a lesson that applied to him, cut through his misery about Patti, not making it go away, but showing why it must: he was in the right place, doing the right thing. And therefore while he might return to his hometown, would for sure, he would never live there again. As for Patti, who wasn’t in this place: as for Patti-but he hadn’t completed that thought before Izzie, sitting across the table, caught his eye. She smiled, a hesitant smile, as though asking if he was okay; at least, that was his interpretation. He smiled back and started pouring himself a glass of wine. Why not, after all? Then he remembered: He’ll feel better in the end. Feeling better so soon? He stopped pouring, the glass half full.

“With the question of origins out of the way,” said Professor Uzig, rubbing his hands together-white hands, long and hairless, the fingernails gleaming as though coated with some colorless polish-“who wants to play the future game?”

No one said they didn’t. Professor Uzig passed out three-by-five file cards. “Simply write in a sentence or less what you imagine you’ll be doing in twenty years.”

Everyone wrote. Professor Uzig collected the cards, read them silently to himself, his face expressionless. “First card,” he said: “Inner-city doctor.”

That was easy-the domestic-violence girl.

“Record producer.”

Ferg.

“Dead.”

“Not funny, Grace,” said Izzie.

“A writer.”

A writer. Everyone guessed the smart girl from English 103, promoted by the English department beyond Nat and Izzie’s 104 to some sophomore-level course.

“I confess,” said the smart girl.

The funny thing, known only to Nat, was that writer had been his thought too, but, not wanting to jinx it, he’d written teacher instead.

“Teacher,” said Professor Uzig, looking around the table. His expression changed abruptly; he went still. Everyone followed his gaze. A woman had appeared between the open French doors to the dining room, an old woman with a ring of white hair. She wore a quilted white housecoat, a white tissue sticking out of one sleeve, and white slippers.

“I thought the department meeting was next week, Leo,” she said; an old person’s voice, all the bottom sounds missing.

The note cards slipped from Professor’s Uzig’s hand. “Correct,” he said. “This is Phil three twenty-two.”

“Phil three twenty-two?” she said. “That’s still going on?” She scanned the faces around the table. “What a bushy-tailed bunch, Leo. I’d forgotten how bushy-tailed these bunches can be. What’s the craze this year? Aboriginal rights? Prescription drugs? Ritual baths?”

Ferg laughed; a loud laugh, choked off almost at once.

The old woman advanced into the room. “What are we drinking?” she said.

“I understood you weren’t feeling too well,” said Professor Uzig.

“You understood right, Leo, as always. I feel like Marie Antoinette after the guillotine, like Cleopatra after the asp, like…” She couldn’t think what else. One of her eyes was tearing; she dabbed at it with the tissue, had trouble sticking it back in her sleeve.

A nurse entered, straightening her cap. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I went to relieve my-I went to the rest room, and the next thing I knew Mrs. Uzig had…” She took the old woman’s elbow.

“Like Anne Boleyn after the… after…”

“Then why not go back to bed?” said Professor Uzig, his voice much gentler than Nat had ever heard it. He hadn’t imagined certain things about Professor Uzig, that he could have been born in Brooklyn, that he’d be caring for an aged mother.

“Come, dear,” said the nurse.

“Come, dear,” mimicked the old woman. “Why should I, when all the fun’s down here?” She picked up Nat’s glass. “How’s the wine?”

“I haven’t actually tried it yet,” said Nat.

“Proving youth is wasted on the young. Are you familiar with that expression?”

“I’ve heard it,” Nat said.

“A careful reply.” She took a sip. “Can’t taste a thing, of course. But I’m sure it’s good-I taught him everything he knows about wine, paying for it in the bargain.”

The nurse tugged a little harder at her elbow.

“You don’t mind sharing your wine, do you, young man?”

“No,” said Nat.

“What’s your name?”

Nat told her.

“Enchantee,” she said, extending her hand as though she expected him to kiss it. “I am Helen Uzig.” Nat shook her hand: skin like paper, green veins almost on the surface, pulsing light and fast against his fingers. “Enchantee,” she repeated, “accent aigu on the second e.”

“Please, dear,” said the nurse, pulling now.

“Keep your panties on,” said Helen Uzig. She looked right at Professor Uzig and repeated the remark. The nurse pulled again, a little harder, and this time the old woman gave way, half walking, half in tow, toward the doorway. “Good night, my bushy-tailed friends,” she said, as the nurse got her out of the room. “And never forget that Nietzsche is something one must grow out of,” she added from down the hall.

There was a silence. Ferg, on his sixth or seventh beer, broke it. “Your mother’s pretty cool.”

“My mother is dead,” said Professor Uzig.

“Huh?” said Ferg.

But Nat got it.

The prize in the cake was a well-preserved piece of eight, found by Professor Uzig himself off Jost van Dyke, pierced to make it wearable as a pendant. It turned up in Grace’s portion.

Once, in Boulder after a high-school student government conference, Nat had found himself in a pickup basketball game that included a few CU players. It was the only basketball he’d ever played where everything had happened too fast. Now, leaving Professor Uzig’s house, snow falling but the moon somehow shining at the same time, an effect-black snow streaks over the disk of the moon-that he’d never seen before, he had that feeling again. He needed to slow things down, to go back to his room, to do nothing. The three of them went down to the cave instead. They were college freshmen. It was Saturday night.