Blue Angel (32 page)

“Fine, then,” says Bentham. “Let's begin. We all know why we're here, to investigate the charges of…er…sexual harassment”—he speaks rapidly, somehow communicating both his Old World sophistication and his willingness to take this seriously enough to throw Swenson out of Euston—“brought by Miss Angela Argo against Professor Theodore Swenson.”

So now it's Theodore. After all these years of Ted.

“The committee has already taken a number of depositions under advisement.” What number? And where has Swenson been while all this was going on? Oh, right, watching German videos, returning Angela's poems, drinking eggnog, and somehow forgetting to find one single person willing to vouch for his character.

“Do you have any questions, Ted?”

“No,” says Swenson. In fact, he has plenty of questions, none of which, he's quite certain, the committee plans to ask.

“And you, Miss Argo?”

Angela turns to scan the room. The pivoting beacon of her pale scrubbed face sweeps right over Swenson. “I'm fine with it,” she says.

“Well, good,” says Lauren. “Is Dave ready?”

“I believe so,” Bentham says.

Bentham gives a tiny nod, and everyone looks up as the door opens and Dave Sterret walks purposefully downstairs. In his neat chinos and sneakers, his slightly too small navy blazer, Dave's the very model of a certain kind of gay man, circa 1960: a guy you could imagine as a friend of Frank O'Hara's. What is Dave here to say about him? And who is Dave to say it? Dave, who used to have affairs with every handsome kid in the Gay Students Alliance, has come to testify against Swenson for making a pass at Angela Argo. But Dave did all that before it was wrong, before anyone thought twice about it. Bentham shakes Dave Sterret's hand and ushers him to the empty seat at the end of the committee table.

Lauren says, “Thanks for coming in, Dave. We appreciate your time.”

“That's okay,” says Dave. “Though I can't say I'm glad to be here.”

Lauren bites her lip and nods. Amelia and the two men grimace mournfully. Magda leafs through her papers. Why won't
she
look at Swenson? Where's the wave, the wink?

“Dave,” says Lauren, “why don't you tell us in your own words what happened at Dean Bentham's house on the evening of October eighteenth?”

“Well, it was a perfectly normal evening,” says Dave. “A perfectly pleasant dinner. Most of the evening was flawless. There'd been a little accident with the dean's new stove—”

“Oh, my good man,” says Bentham flirtatiously. “Don't tell them
that
, please—”

Dave smiles. “And Marjorie performed the most marvelous rescue, some kind of shepherd's pie with mashed potatoes, pure British-nanny comfort food, if one
had
a British nanny…and then this extravagant dessert, positively Dickensian, flat-out British sugar with all the bells and whistles.” Dave forgot to mention the Marmite!

“Professor Swenson was there?” asks Carl Fenley. Lauren and Magda and the dean—half the panel—know that.

“Ted was there. With Sherrie.”

Silence. No one wants to touch this.

“And how did Professor Swenson behave?” says Bill.

“Fine,” says Dave. “Really. For most of the evening…impeccably.”

“For the whole evening?” prompts Lauren, who knows very well what happened. But this is not for Lauren. It's for the record, the committee.

“For almost the whole evening. It was late, we were tired, we'd all been teaching hard. A good deal of wine was consumed.” Dave smiles again. “Any one of us could have acted badly. It just happened to be Ted.”

What a stand-up guy Dave Sterret is! Dave doesn't want to do this. He's working hard to let Swenson off easy. It was late. The wine was flowing. But what Dave wants doesn't matter. Who knows what dirt Bentham has on Dave? Years of dalliance, for starters.

“We all understand how these things happen.” Lauren understands nothing of the sort. She doesn't believe that any substance could trounce
her
superego.

“And what did Professor Swenson do that you think the committee should know about?” asks Amelia. Swenson searches his conscience. What did he do to her? Those few failed conversations at faculty gatherings couldn't have ignited the flicker of rage glinting in her anthracite eyes. Amelia's only doing her job, playing by the rules of this cult to which she's surrendered her life.

“Well, the odd thing,” says Dave, “given what's happened since, the truly ironic thing is that the trouble occurred during a conversation about sexual harassment. I remember because later…I recall telling Jamie that Ted's behavior was so extreme it made me wonder if Ted might not have some sexual harassment issues.”

A volcanic rage boils in Swenson, fueled by the idea of Jamie and Dave gassily discussing his
issues
. Anyway, he would like to object to this whole line of inquiry. A dinner party is private time. Let's stick to the classroom, the hostile workplace environment.

Dave says, “We were sharing experiences we'd had in class around gender issues. Tensions. Rough moments. We all know how things are lately.” The committee nods. It knows. “And suddenly, Ted began to use the most disturbing language….”

“What language?” asks Lauren gently. “Can you remember?”

“I would prefer not to,” says Dave. Lauren, Magda, and Francis smile at Dave's “Bartleby the Scrivener” reference. The chemistry and the anthro guys merely look perplexed.

“We understand,” says Magda. Magda's first contribution to all this could hardly be more benevolent, assisting Dave off the hot seat, ending this part of the hearing. Still, Swenson's disturbed to hear her use the plural.

“Thank you, Dave,” Lauren says. The committee concurs. Yes, thank you thank you thank you. Bentham shakes Dave's hand once more, and as Dave walks past Swenson, he winks and says, “Good luck, man.”

Everyone watches Dave ascend the stairs. Oh, how they wish
they
were free to leave! The door at the top of the steps slams shut. Are lectures here interrupted every time someone exits? Bentham should be nagging Buildings and Grounds instead of persecuting Swenson.

“Who's next?” Bentham asks Lauren. Lauren checks her notes.

“Betty Hester,” says Lauren.

As Betty makes her way downstairs, her full skirt parachutes out. How tiny Betty's feet are! How could Swenson never have noticed? All at once he sees in Betty the chunky girl heading bravely off to the torment of ballet lessons. Every cell in Betty's body wishes it were back behind the library desk and not here, exposed to the committee watching her navigate this challenging descent, mined with potential stumbles. Betty stops and shakes Swenson's hand. Her soft face swims before him. Enragingly, the tears in her eyes almost bring tears to Swenson's.

“Ted,” she says. “How are you?”

He wants to fling himself on her pillowy breast. He wants to kill her for asking.

“I'm fine,” he says. Jim Dandy, Betty. Frankly, I've never been better.

Betty pauses, then impulsively leans down and whispers, “I wish this weren't happening!”

“Me, too,” says Swenson. “Believe me.”

Betty smiles and sighs, then goes over and shakes Bentham's hand, carefully maintaining that fragile smile as she sinks down into the hot seat. Come on. This isn't Betty's fault. She's got a job. Kids to support.

“Thank you for coming in, Betty,” says Lauren.

Betty sighs dramatically. “I think it's a shame,” she says.

Shame! What does she think the shame
is
? Swenson having sex with an—allegedly—innocent student? Or Swenson's life being ruined by the not-so-innocent student? The panel members study their folders again.

“All right, then, Betty,” says Lauren. “What you agreed to tell the panel concerns the book that Professor Swenson checked out of the Euston library on the afternoon of November first.”

“That's right,” Betty says.

Lauren settles back into herself, signaling her fellow panelists that someone else has got to take over. After a stall, Amelia says, “And what book did Professor Swenson borrow?”

Magda can't hold out any more and looks searchingly at Swenson, her taut pretty face drawn several notches tighter than normal. Strung-out attractive Magda now just looks a mess. Magda loves him, sort of. And they alone in this room know how this book borrowing came about, the intense lunch
à deux
at which Magda told him that Angela's book was shelved in the poetry section. Shouldn't Magda confess that she told Swenson about it? Why did Magda mention the book? Just to have something to say, to make herself more
interesting
? Swenson knows that's cruel. They were talking about a student. He detaches his gaze from Magda's. If he looks at her too long the committee might think he's sleeping with her, too.

“Can you describe the book?” Lauren prompts Betty.

“Well…,” says Betty. “It's a book of poems. A pamphlet, really. Self-published.”

“What kind of poems?” Lauren asks.

“Well…,” says Betty. “I'd say they have a fairly strong…sexual content.”

“Excuse me!” Bill Grissom clears his throat. “Maybe I'm just a simple literal-minded Joe from the social sciences, but I don't get exactly what this book of student poems is doing on the shelves of the Euston College Library.”

Bill, that's a very good question! Why doesn't Magda tell them? She explained the whole thing so well to Swenson. The last thing Magda wanted was trouble—trouble exactly like this—about work that Angela did for her class.

“It was a gift to the library,” says Betty. “She wanted us to have it so badly. Out of politeness, I couldn't refuse. And it's certainly not the only racy book we have….”

Politeness. Swenson knows all about that. Politeness has got him sitting here and not punching out Francis Bentham. And as always, the impolite are winning. Angela's strong-arming poor Betty Hester into putting her dirty poems in the library should tell them something about Angela, a pornographer and careerist terrorist, an ambitious maniac blackmailing her way into those hallowed stacks. Naturally, a snake like that would wriggle her way into Swenson's heart and convince him to peddle her novel. And is that what Angela did? Swenson wishes he knew.

“I have the book here with me.” Betty produces the bound manuscript from her voluminous eggplant-colored tote. Holding it at arm's length, she gives it to Lauren, who, sniffing with distaste, passes it down the line. Swenson shouldn't have returned it. But wouldn't it be worse if the book were still charged out to him and they subpoenaed it for the hearing? He waits for Lauren to ask some brave committee member to read Angela's verse into the minutes. But she won't do that to her colleagues.

“For the record,” says Lauren, “Ms. Argo's manuscript has been introduced as evidence.”

Evidence? Against
Swenson
? Naturally. Who else? By definition, a nineteen-year-old student sex poet is innocent compared with a forty-seven-year-old professor using her poems to get off. But why is Swenson complaining? He should be thanking his lucky stars that no one's reading Angela's poems aloud, or sending them down the table for the group's appalled inspection. Actually, if he could distance himself, that could be entertaining, watching each committee member gingerly leaf through the book, deciding how much smut to peruse before passing it on. Magda wouldn't have to look. She knows what's inside. Lauren slips the book into a folder as if it were a used condom. And the book disappears. How conveniently all this has worked out for everyone concerned. It's the ideal solution to Betty's pesky little problem of how to spirit Angela's book off the Euston library shelf. Why couldn't she have let Swenson steal it when he tried?

Then Lauren says, “Betty, can you tell the committee…for the record…in a bit more detail…what these poems were like?”

What is Lauren thinking? Doesn't she know how this looks? This heartless interrogation that keeps bringing fresh tears to Betty's eyes? Is Lauren suggesting that Betty Hester rattle off the hottest moments of Angela's raunchy sex poems?

Desperation saves Betty. She says, “Well, really, I just got a chance to skim through them. I believe that Professor Moynahan was working with the student and probably would know….”Betty falters, and her silence bullies Lauren into looking at Magda.

“Magda?” Lauren says.

Sure. Magda's the perfect choice. Dear Magda can just barrel through this with no agony and no bullshit, just say what the goddamn poems are about, and let this circus resume.

Magda says, “They're a related series of poems about a young woman who works in the phone-sex industry, with subthemes of child abuse, incest….”

Child abuse. Incest. Swenson sees a fine glaze come over the male committee members' faces. Strangely, he wants to defend the poems, and he's annoyed at Magda for leaving out the fact that the poems have a certain…intensity. Intensity. God help him.

Meanwhile, Lauren's not about to let the committee imagine that Angela's poems are just ordinary expressions of romantic undergraduate angst.

“Professor Moynahan, would you describe these poems as graphic?”

“Graphic?” Magda smiles. No one smiles back. “I'd say they were fairly out there.”

Fairly out there
is apparently a signal for them all to stare at Swenson. Why aren't they watching Angela and her parents to see how they're absorbing the information that she's written a collection of lurid verse about incest and child abuse? How could the esteemed committee manage to look Angela's way when it's practically inspecting Swenson for a bulge in his pants? Well, sorry. It's not there. Not today.

Lauren says, “Thank you, Magda. And thank you, Betty. Is there anything else you would like to tell the committee?”