The Rule of Four

Chapter 20

I come to my senses in a bed at Princeton Medical Center several hours after the accident. Paul is sitting beside me, glad to see me awake, and a policeman is standing outside the door. Someone has changed me into a paper gown that crunches like a diaper when I sit up. There is blood beneath my fingernails, dark as dirt, and there's a familiar smell in the air, something I remember from my old hospital past. The smell of sickness mopped over with disinfectant. The smell of medicine.

Tom? Paul says.

I prop myself up to face him, but pain shoots through my arm.

Careful, he says, leaning over. The doctor says you injured your shoulder.

Now, as I'm becoming more aware, I can feel pain beneath the bandage. What happened to you down there?

It was stupid. I just reacted. I couldn't get back to Charlie once the pipe exploded. All of the steam was coming in my direction. I came back through the nearest exit and the police drove me here.

Where's Charlie?

In the emergency room. They won't let anyone see him.

His voice has gone flat. After rubbing at his eye, he glances out the door. An old woman skids past in a wheelchair, nimble as a kid in a go-cart. The cop watches her, but doesn't smile. There's a little yellow sandwich board on the tile floor that says CAUTION: WET SURFACE.

Is he okay? I ask.

Paul keeps his eyes on the door. I don't know. Will said he was right beside the broken pipe when they found him.

Will?

Will Clay, Charlie's friend. Paul places a hand on the rail of the bed. He pulled you out.

I try to think back, but all I remember are silhouettes in the tunnels, lit up around the edges by flashlights.

He and Charlie switched shifts when you guys went looking for me, Paul adds.

There's a great sadness in his voice. He traces this all back to himself.

Do you want me to call Katie and tell her you're here? he asks.

I shake my head, wanting to feel more grounded first. I'll call her later.

The old woman rolls past a second time, and now I spot the cast on her left leg, running from her knee to her toes. Her hair is mussed, and her pants are rolled up above the knee, but there's a twinkle in her eyes, and she gives the officer a defiant smile when she passes by, as if it's a law she's broken, rather than a bone. Charlie told me once that geriatric patients are relieved sometimes to take a little fall, or have a minor illness. Losing a battle reminds them that they're still winning the war. I am struck suddenly by Charlie's absence, by the emptiness where I expect to hear his voice.

He must've lost a lot of blood, I say,

Paul looks at his hands. In the silence, I can hear wheezing across the partition between my bed and the next. Just then, a doctor enters the room. The officer at the door touches the elbow of her white lab coat, and when she stops, the two of them exchange quiet words.

Thomas? she says, coming to the bedside with a clipboard and a frown.

Yes?

I'm Dr. Jansen. She walks to the opposite side of the bed to examine my arm. How are you feeling?

Fine. How's Charlie doing?

She prods my shoulder a little, just enough to make me squirm. I don' know. He's been in the ER since he got here.

I'm not clearheaded enough to know what it means that she recognize: Charlie by his first name.

Will he be okay?

It's too early to tell, she says, without looking up.

When can we see him? Paul asks.

One thing at a time, she says, placing a hand between my back and the pillow, then raising me up. How does this feel?

Fine.

And this?

She presses two fingers over my collarbone.

Fine.

The poking continues across my back, elbow, wrist, and head. She tries the stethoscope for good measure, then finally sits back. Doctors are like gamblers, always looking for the right combinations. Patients are like slot machines: twist their arms long enough and you're bound to hit the jackpot.

You're lucky it wasn't worse, she says. There's no fracture, but the soft tissue is bruised. You'll feel it when the painkiller wears off. Ice it twice a day for a week, then you'll have to come back so we can take another look.

She has an earthy smell to her, like sweat and soap. I wait for her to pull out a prescription pad, remembering the cabinet of drugs I collected after the car accident, but she doesn't.

There's someone outside who'd like to talk to you, she tells me instead.

For a second, because she says it so pleasantly, I imagine a friend out in the hall-Gil maybe, returned from the eating clubs, or even my mother, flown in from Ohio. Suddenly, I'm unsure how much time has passed since they dragged me out of the ground.

But a different face appears in the doorway, one I've never seen before. Another woman, but not a doctor, and definitely not my mother. She's heavyset and short, tucked into a round black skirt down to her calves, and opaque black stockings. A white blouse and red suit-jacket give her a maternal air, but my first thought is that she's a university administrator.

The doctor and the woman exchange a look, then switch places, one leaving as the other comes. The black-stockinged woman stops short of the bed and makes a gesture to Paul, beckoning him over. They have a conversation out of earshot-then, unexpectedly, he asks if I'm okay, waits for me to nod, and walks out with another man standing near the door.

Officer, the woman says, would you close that behind you?

To my surprise he nods and shuts the door, leaving us alone.

The woman waddles over to the bedside, pausing to glance at the bed beyond the curtain.

How are you feeling, Tom? She sits down in the chair where Paul was, making it disappear. She has squirrelly cheeks. When she talks, they seem full of nuts.

Not so good, I say warily. I tilt my right side toward her, showing her the bandage.

Can I get you anything?

No, thanks.

My son was here last month, she says absently, searching for something in her jacket pocket. Appendectomy.

I'm just about to ask who she is, when she pulls a little leather wallet out of her breast pocket. Tom, I'm Detective Gwynn. I'd like to talk to you about what happened today.

She unfolds the wallet to show me her badge, then flips it back in her pocket.

Where's Paul?

Speaking with Detective Martin. I'd like to ask you some questions about William Stein. Do you know who he was?

He died last night.

He was killed. She lets a silence punctuate the last word. Did any of your roommates know him?

Paul did. They worked together at the Institute for Advanced Study.

She pulls a steno pad from her jacket pocket. Do you know Vincent Taft?

Sort of, I say, sensing something bigger on the horizon.

Did you go to his office earlier today?

Pressure is building in my temples. Why?

Did you get into a fight with him?

I wouldn't call it a fight.

She makes a note.

Were you and your roommate in the museum last night? she asks, rummaging through a file in her hand.

The question seems to have a thousand outcomes. I think back. Paul covered his hands with his shirt cuffs when he touched Stein's letters. No one could've seen our faces in the dark.

No.

The detective rolls her lips, the way some women even their lipstick. I can't read her body language. Finally, she produces a sheet of paper from the folder and passes it to me. It's a photocopy of the log-in sheet Pad and I signed for the museum guard. The date and time are stamped beside each entry.

How did you get into the museum library?

Paul had the punch code, I say, giving up. He got it from Bill Stein.

Stein's desk was part of our crime scene. What were you looking for?

I don't know.

The detective gives me a sympathetic look. I think your friend Paul, she says, is getting you into more trouble than you realize.

I wait for her to give it a name, something legal, but she doesn't. Instead she says, It's your name on this security sheet, isn't it? She lifts the paper, taking it back. And you're the one who assaulted Dr. Taft.

I didn't—

Odd, that your friend Charlie was the one who tried to resuscitate William Stein.

Charlie's a medic…

But where was Paul Harris?

For a moment the facade disappears. A curtain rises over her eyes, and the gentle matron is gone.

You need to start looking out for yourself, Tom.

I can't tell if it's a threat or a caution.

Your friend Charlie is in the same boat, she says. If he pulls through this. She waits, letting it sink in. Just tell me the truth.

I did.

Paul Harris left the auditorium before Dr. Taft's lecture was over.

Yes.

He knew where Stein's office was.

They worked together. Yes.

It was his idea to break into the art museum?

He had keys. We didn't break in.

And it was his idea to go through Stein's desk.

I know better than to keep responding. There are no right answers now.

He ran from the campus police outside of Dr. Taft's office, Tom. Why would he do that?

But she wouldn't understand, and doesn't want to. I know where this is heading, but all I can think of is what she said about Charlie.

If he pulls through this.

He's a straight-A student, Tom. That's his identity here. Then Dr. Taft found out about the plagiarism. Who do you suppose told Taft?

Brick by brick, as if it's just a matter of building a wall between friends.

William Stein, she says, knowing I've passed the point of helping her. Imagine how Paul felt. How angry would he have been?

Suddenly a knock comes at the door. Before either of us can say a word, it swings open.

Detective? says another officer.

What is it?

There's someone out here to talk to you.

Who?

He glances down at a card in his hand. A dean from the college,

The detective remains seated for a second, then rises toward the door.

There's a tight silence after she leaves. After long enough, when she doesn't return, I sit up in bed, looking around for my shirt. I've had enough of hospitals, and I'm well enough to nurse this arm myself. I want to see Charlie; I want to know what they've said to Paul. My jacket is hanging from the coatrack, and I begin to shift my weight gingerly to get out of bed.

Just then, the knob shifts and the door swishes open. Detective Gwynn returns.

You're free to go, she says abruptly, The dean's office will be contacting you.

I can only wonder what happened out there. The woman hands me her card and looks at me closely. But I want you to think about what I said, Tom.

I nod.

There seems to be something more she'd like to add, but she holds her tongue. Without another word, she turns around and leaves.

When the door shuts, another hand reaches in to push it open. I freeze, waiting for the dean to enter. But this time it's a friendly face. Gil has arrived, and he's bearing gifts. In his left hand is exactly what I need right now: a clean change of clothes.

You okay? he asks.

Yeah. What's going on?

I got a call from Will Clay. He told me what happened. How's your shoulder?

Fine. Did he say anything about Charlie?

A little bit.

Is he okay?

Better than when he got here.

There's something to the way Gil says it.

What's wrong? I ask.

Nothing, Gil says finally. The cops talked to you?

Yeah. Paul too. Did you see him out there?

He's in the waiting room. Richard Curry's with him.

I fumble out of bed. He is? Why?

Gil shrugs, eyeing the hospital food. Need some help?

With what?

Getting dressed.

I'm not sure if he's kidding. I think I can handle it.

He smiles as I struggle to peel off the hospital gown. Let's check on Charlie, I say, getting used to my own feet again.

But now he hesitates.

What's wrong?

An odd look comes over him, embarrassed and angry at the same time.

He and I got into it pretty deep last night, Tom.

I know.

I mean after you and Paul left. I said some things I shouldn't have.

I remember how clean the room was this morning. This is why Charlie didn't sleep.

It doesn't matter, I say. Let's go see him.

He wouldn't want to see me right now.

Of course he would.

Gil runs a finger beneath his nose, then says, The doctors don't want him disturbed, anyway. I'll come back later.

He pulls his keys out of his pocket and there's something sad in his eyes. Finally, he puts a hand on the doorknob.

Give me a call at Ivy if you need anything, he says, and when the door slides open, silent on its hinges, he steps out into the hallway.

The officer is gone, and even the old woman in her wheelchair is nowhere to be seen. Someone has taken the yellow sandwich board away. I wait for Gil to look back, but he doesn't. Before I can say another word, he turns the corner toward the exit and is gone.

Charlie described to me once what epidemics did to human relationships in past centuries, how diseases made men shun the infected and fear the healthy, until parents and children wouldn't sit at the same table with each other, and the whole body politic began to rot. You don't get sick if you stay to yourself, I told him, sympathizing with those who took to the hills. Then Charlie looked at me, and in ten words made the best argument in favor of doctors that I've ever heard, which I think applies equally well to friendships. Maybe not, he said. But you don't get well that way either.

The feeling I got watching Gil leave-the one that made me think of what Charlie said-is the same one I feel as I walk into the waiting room and find Paul sitting by himself: we are each alone in this now, and for the worse. Paul cuts an odd figure there, solitary in a row of white plastic seats, holding his head as he stares at the floor. It's a pose he always strikes when he's deep in thought, leaning over with his fingers wrapped behind the base of his skull, both elbows on his knees. More nights than I can remember, I've woken up to find him sitting at his desk that way, a pen between his fingers, an old lamp casting light over the pages of his notebook.

My first instinct, thinking of that, is to ask him what he found in the diary. Even after everything that's happened, I want to know; I want to help; I want to remind him of an old partnership so that he doesn't feel alone. But seeing him bent over the way he is, fighting with himself over an idea, I know better. I have to remember how he slaved over his thesis after I left, how many mornings he came to breakfast with red eyes, how many nights we brought him cups of black coffee from the WaWa. If someone could count the sacrifices he made for Colonna's book, put a number to them the way a prisoner scratches marks on a wall, they would dwarf what little sweat of mine I've added to the balance. Partnership is what he wanted months ago, when I refused to give it. All I can offer now is my company.

Hey, I say quietly, walking over to his side.

Tom… he says, standing.

His eyes are bloodshot.

You okay? I ask.

He rubs a sleeve across his face. Yeah. How about you?

I'm okay.

He looks at my arm.

It'll be fine, I say.

Before I can tell him about Gil, a young doctor with a thin beard steps into the waiting room.

Is Charlie okay? Paul asks.

Watching the doctor, I feel a ghost impact, like standing at the tracks as a train hurtles by. He is wearing light green scrubs, the same color as the walls of the hospital where I did my rehabilitation after the accident. A bitter-looking color, like olives mashed with limes. The physical therapist told me to stop looking down, that I would never learn to walk again if I couldn't stop staring at the pins in my leg. Look forward, she said. Always forward. So I stared at the green of the walls.

His condition is stable, says the man in the scrubs.

Stable, I think. A doctor's word. For two days after they stopped the bleeding in my leg, I was stable. It just meant that I was dying less quickly than before.

Can we see him? Paul asks.

No, the man says. Charlie is still unconscious.

Paul hesitates, as if unconscious and stable ought to be mutually exclusive. Is he going to be okay?

The doctor comes up with a look, something gentle but certain, and says, I think the worst is over.

Paul smiles faintly at the man, then thanks him. I don't tell Paul what it really means. In the emergency room they are washing their hands and mopping the floors, waiting for the next gurney off the ambulance. The worst is over, for the doctors. For Charlie, it's just begun.

Thank God, Paul says, almost to himself.

And looking at him now, watching the way relief sets over his face, I realize something. I never believed that Charlie would die from what happened down there. I never believed that he could.

Paul doesn't say much as I check myself out, except to mumble something about the cruelty of what Taft said to me at his office. There's hardly any paperwork to complete, just a form or two to sign, a campus ID to flash, and as I struggle to write my name with my bad hand, I sense that the dean has been here already, smoothing out the wrinkles in advance. I wonder again what she told the detective to get the two of us released.

Then I remember what Gil told me. Curry was here?

He left just before you got out. He didn't look good.

Why not?

He was wearing the same suit he wore last night.

He knew about Bill?

Yeah. It was almost like he thought… Paul lets the thought trail off. He said, 'We understand each other, son.'

What does that mean?

I don't know. I think he was forgiving me.

Forgiving you?

He told me I shouldn't worry. Everything was going to be okay.

I'm floored. How could he think you would do that? What did you say?

I told him I didn't do it. Paul hesitates. I didn't know what else to say, so I told him what I found.

In the diary?

It's all I could think of. He seemed so worked up. He said he couldn't sleep, he was so worried.

Worried about what?

About me.

Look, I tell him, because I'm starting to hear it in his voice, the way Curry has affected him. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

'If I'd known what you were going to do, I would've done, things differently.' That's the last thing he said.

I want to lay into Curry, but I have to remind myself that the man who said these things is the closest thing Paul has to a father.

What did the detective say to you? he asks, changing the subject.

She tried to scare me.

She thought the same thing Richard did?

Yes. Did they try to get you to admit to it?

The dean came in before they could ask and told me not to answer questions.

What are you going to do?

She said I should find a lawyer.

He says it as if it would be easier to find a basilisk or a unicorn.

We'll figure something out, I tell him. Alter I finish up the discharge paperwork, we head out. There's a police officer stationed near the entrance, who eyes us as we begin walking toward him. A cold wind sets over us the second we step from the building.

We begin the short walk back to campus on our own. The streets are empty, the sky is dimming, and now a bicycle passes by on the sidewalk, carrying a delivery man from a pizza shop. He leaves a trail of smells behind him, a cloud of yeast and steam, and as the wind picks up again, kicking snow into the air like dust, my stomach rumbles, a reminder that we're back among the living.

Come with me to the library, Paul says as we approach Nassau Street. I want to show you something.

He stops at the crosswalk. Beyond a white courtyard is Nassau Hall. I think of pant legs flapping from the cupola, of the clapper that wasn't there.

Show me what?

Paul's hands are in his pockets, and he walks with his head down, fighting the wind. We pass through FitzRandolph Gate, not looking back. You can walk through the gate into campus as often as you like, the legend goes, but if you walk out of it just once, you will never graduate.

Vincent told me never to trust friends, Paul says. He said friends were fickle.

A tour guide leads a small group across our path. They look like carolers. Nathaniel FitzRandolph gave the land to build Nassau Hall, the tour guide says. He is buried where Holder Courtyard now stands.

I didn't know what to do when that pipe exploded. I didn't realize Charlie only went into the tunnels to find me.

We cross toward East Pyne, heading for the library. In the distance sit the marble halls of the old debating societies. Whig, James Madison's club, and Cliosophic, Aaron Burr's. The tour guide's voice carries through the air behind us, and I have the growing sensation that I am a visitor here, a tourist, that I have been walking down a tunnel in the dark since the first day I arrived at Princeton, the same way we did through the bowels of Holder Courtyard, surrounded by graves.

Then I heard you go after him. You didn't care what was down there. You just knew he was hurt.

Paul looks at me for the first time.

I could hear you calling for help, but I couldn't see anything. I was too scared to move. All I could think was, what kind of friend am I? I'm the fickle friend.

Paul, I say, stopping short. You don't have to do this.

We're in the courtyard of East Pyne, a building shaped like a cloister, where snow falls through the open quad in the middle. My father has returned to me unexpectedly, like a shadow on the walls, because I realize he walked these paths before I was born, and saw these same buildings. I am walking in his footsteps without even knowing it, because neither of us has made the faintest impression on this place.

Paul turns, seeing me stop, and for a second we are the only living things between these stone walls.

Yes, I do, he says, turning toward me. Because when I tell you what I found in the diary, everything else is going to seem small. And everything else isn't small.

Just tell me if it's as big as we hoped.

Because if it is, then at least the shadow my father cast was a long one.

Look forward, the physical therapist says between my ears. Always forward. But now, as then, I'm surrounded by walls.

Yes, Paul says, knowing exactly what I mean. It is.

There's a spark in his face that brings those three words home, and I am blown back again, struck by the very sensation I'd hoped to find. It's as if my father has pulled through something unthinkable, as if he has come back and been rehabilitated in a single stroke.

I don't know what Paul is about to tell me, but the idea that it could be bigger than I imagined is enough to give me a feeling that's been missing for longer than I knew. It makes me look forward again and actually see something in front of me, something other than a wall. It makes me feel hope.