Jay Painter came out of his classroom feeling hoarse. He fended off an eager student who tried to buttonhole him and escaped down the back flight of concrete stairs and emerged into the July sun to make his way through the flowing student throng.
A pair of handsome girls drew his attention. The big one had golden skin, darker than her unbleached hair-a surf-baby, California goddess, caricature of healthy athletic perfection. He thought wonderingly, She doesn’t get much change from six foot.
The girl’s companion was stouter, her skin pale, almost transparent; she walked pitched backward against the swaying counterweight of her pregnant belly. Associations caromed around in his mind and made him remotely bitter. He crossed the Stanford lawns toward the faculty parking lot and saw Elderslee getting into his car-enormous and shabby and old, a gray eminence crowned by a violent eruption of tangled hair.
Elderslee waved a thick folder of student papers at him as if in accusation. “We’re fast becoming a nation of illiterates. I’ve got a list of flunkees longer than your face. It’s disgusting.”
“The television generation,” Jay Painter said. Elderslee had written two books that had become definitive psychology texts. He loved disputation, hated humanity and loathed students; he loved human beings.
“Can I have ten seconds?”
Elderslee looked at his watch. “Barely. I’m on my way to a consultation.”
“They’ve roped me into testifying on Tuesday.”
“The Boley woman?”
“Yes. Can you arrange to have one of the lecturers take over my classes?”
“Certainly.” The old man unlocked his Volkswagen and tossed the file of papers inside. “Incidentally, what’s your testimony going to be? What are your conclusions?”
“I think she’s feigning it. I think she’s perfectly competent to stand trial.”
“Feigning madness is itself a sort of madness.”
“Not the kind that matters in court,” Jay Painter said.
“Some of the other boys found her convincing enough. Jack Feinberg’s going to testify for the defense, you know.”
“There are a few too many inconsistencies in her performance.”
Elderslee wedged himself into the car. He rolled the window down before he pulled the door shut; he looked up at Jay and squinted in the sunlight. “Doesn’t it ever begin to strike you as a silly childish game of pointmanship? The prosecution parades its battery of friendly expert witnesses and then the defense follows suit.”
“It’s what keeps our art from becoming a science. But it keeps it alive.”
“It’s why I gave up testifying in criminal cases. Legal definitions of insanity are the real insanities.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“I’ll ask Van Alstyne to cover for you Tuesday.” The old man put it in gear and Jay watched him drive away. The car spewed smoke from its tailpipe.
When he approached the station wagon he saw himself reflected in its back window-wavering image of a thin tall man thatched with dark hair, wearing a faint stoop and an aura of melancholy and what he fancied to be the look of confidence that came of knowing one’s way around in the world. As he drew closer he bent down to study his face in reflection. He could find no sign of the uncertainties that bubbled within.
He wasn’t sure whether to be heartened. Was it strength or weakness to wear a cloak of intact assurance over a body secretly racked with inadequacy?
I suppose everybody does it.
He got in the car.
Palo Alto was thick with traffic and he was ready for a drink by the time he got home. He parked the wagon in the driveway under the palm tree because the lawnmower was still scattered in dismantled chaos on the garage floor. Down the street a brown camper-body pickup truck was parked at the curb; he hadn’t seen it before and wondered briefly to whom it belonged.
He heard faint splashings and went around the side of the house and found Shirley floating in the pool on her back, kicking her feet each time her legs started to sink.
“Hey you.”
“Hey yourself.” She stood up in the pool and waded to the edge; he gave her a hand up and kissed her carefully so as not to get his suit wet.
“I want a drink.”
She said, “I haven’t got the nerve to make myself another martini, but if I hope and pray …”
He found her empty glass by the aluminum chaise and went inside. Her papers were strewn across the kitchen table and he paused to glance down at one of them.
… but everyone has their own way of dealing with these problems. According to Dr. Herbert Kalbstein the most unique aspect of the schizoid syndrome is when the therapist first contacts the patiant’s undermind.
The term paper was ever so neatly typed. The page was covered brutally in the red scrawl of Shirley’s pencil. Everyone and their were circled and joined by a red line: “Grammatical agreement.” Most unique was circled: “Tautology.” Is when was circled: “Illiterate.” Contacts was circled: “Not a verb.” Patiant’s was circled: “If you can’t spell, use a dictionary.”
He made the drinks and took them out to the pool. Shirley was on the chaise removing her swimming cap and shaking out her soft rosewood hair. Freshly washed, it shimmered in the sun. “I shouldn’t drink this damn thing. I’ve still got a dozen papers to do.”
“What’s the point? Elderslee was just complaining about our nation of illiterates. We all might as well hang out shingles as remedial writing tutors. I saw your editing job in there.”
“Don’t get me started on that again.”
He stood hipshot with his feet slightly apart, jingling keys in his trouser pocket, regarding her white bikini. “You’re very seductive in that outfit.”
“I know.”
“I’m feeling vaguely shitty.”
“Why?”
“General malaise. I must be regressing to sophomorics. The ‘what-does-it-all-matter’ phase. Like some idiot writing rancid poems in search of the meaning of it all.”
“At SFC we call that the professorial tenure syndrome.”
She taught at San Francisco College because the universities had regulations against husband and wife serving as tenured professors on the same faculty. Privately he felt it was a wise regulation.
“I told Elderslee I’m testifying against Mrs. Boley. He delivered himself of the usual harangue. For some reason I listened this time. And you know he’s got a point-a toss of the coin and I could just as easily be testifying for the other side.”
“So?”
“The rest of the woman’s life could hang on my whim. Maybe I chose to disbelieve her because I had something sour for breakfast. She could be committed on my error. I worry about it.… Did you hear, Calvin Duggai broke out?”
“Come on, Jay, nobody expects omniscience-all they want is our best judgment.” She downed the last of the drink and stood up. “Getting chilly out here.” Then, turning, she said in a musing voice, “Yes, I heard about Duggai. Maybe that’s why I feel cold. I hope they catch him quickly.”
In the house he stripped off his jacket and tie and watched her get into slacks and an old blouse. The swim had left her tight in her skin.
She gave him a sudden look. “Do you want to?”
“Later.”
She buttoned the blouse. “Should we have wine with dinner?”
“Sure.”
She went out of the room ahead of him and he followed her toward the living room. He banged into her when she stopped abruptly.
He looked over her shoulder.
In the center of the room loomed Calvin Duggai, his eyes cold as death.
Sight of the man stunned Jay to silence. Shirley’s shoulders lifted defensively. She backed into him; he gripped her arms.
Duggai stood absolutely still for such a long time that his very motionlessness became menacing. It was a while before Jay noticed the huge revolver in Duggai’s fist.
The silence nearly cracked his nerves before Duggai spoke.
“Come over here.”
The chilly precision of the Navajo’s voice was a terrifying thing.