The Book Borrower (23 page)

How could Ruben live if Deborah died? Of course it was partly Ruben's fault. She hadn't driven the car that slammed into Deborah's, but she'd delayed Deborah with anger, the sunset, and kisses. Worse, Ruben had been pummeling Deborah's life for years and years. Everything in it had been at least slightly changed by obnoxious, ever present Ruben. Deborah was her only work of genius, whom she had never appreciated and whom she had made incorrectly anyway. She'd made Deborah wrong, after all, and now Deborah had been hurt, prob-ably for want of right making, and Ruben didn't know what to do.

Her students, many of them mothers, understood sorrow. It was the kind of group that could be told, but telling would probably be a bad idea.

The class was three hours long. That was always scary, but ordinarily Ruben planned it in sections, so it seemed shorter. First, while the students were sleepy and silent, she taught them about apostrophes or run-on sentences. Next she teased and scolded about the papers she was returning. Then came the assignment; then, invariably, an argument about the poem of the week . . .

It was a long walk. She should have gone home from Deborah's and taken the car, but it hadn't occurred to her and now she was too far along. She walked past silent houses, wondering whether people in them were sobbing with grief for someone sick or hurt.

—God, she said, in the quiet street, and screamed a little. God didn't care. She stopped and pressed her face into the hard, rough bark of a tree, but only for a moment.

When she reached the college, a little place, she saw no one. The dorms were elsewhere, the residential students asleep. Some years, hers was the only Saturday morning class. She was ten minutes late. In the ladies' room she washed her face again. Her shoulders hurt. She didn't know why, then remembered the window falling on her. She hoped nobody would break into the house through the broken window. Deborah would be proud of her, not angry, for breaking it. They'd joke about Mac's trials of conscience and bladder control. Or maybe Deborah would tease. They'd walk in the woods again, years from now. You were hysterical, Deborah would say, still making fun of her years later. All I needed was a collar for whiplash. And you're breaking windows!

The classroom was plain, with harsh lights and metal chairs, but it had become dear. Ruben liked it, as she had come to love the rolls of colored ribbon and the cranky cash register at the pottery store. The green chalkboard had an aluminum sill shaped in channels so the chalk would not roll. Years of chalk dust had softened the look of the metal so it looked like pewter. She liked resting her fingers in the channels when she stood at the chalkboard. She wrote happily on the green chalkboard and each year was teased for bad handwriting. The students' writing was always better.

Another comfort was a lectern made of oak, which sat on the teacher's desk. Ruben, when she sat, used a student's desk. When she talked, she stood and walked. She couldn't stand still long enough to lean on the lectern. Each Saturday she moved it from the desk to the floor beside it so she could dump out her briefcase on the desk. The lectern was the room's only wooden object, and she appreciated its weight and grain. Today it had already been moved. The students were waiting, their chairs in a semicircle. Maddy looked annoyed.

—I'm sorry, said Ruben. She counted them. Who's missing? Rosemary and Chris were missing. One day Maddy had said, If you had a list. . .

But Ruben liked names. She liked learning and saying their names, and knowing them so well she knew who was missing. Somewhere was a stack of cards. She said, I want to talk about
its.

—I always get it wrong. Did I get it wrong? said small grayhaired Lillian, from the last chair.

—You all get it wrong constantly, said Ruben. The jokey tone felt phony at first, and her voice was unsteady, as if the joke might turn to a sob, but then she was all right.

—So maybe we're right and you're wrong, said June. Majority rules.

—A likely idea, Lynne said. She was younger, fat, and cynical.

Ruben babbled about “its,” half remembering. She said, The poet Milton used the word
its
twice in
Paradise Lost.
Before that, people wrote “his.” June's thoughts, she wrote. She said, They used to write June his thoughts. Was that true? How was it relevant?

—Why not June her thoughts?

—I don't have any thoughts.

—This is a little elementary, said Louise, a friend of Maddy's.

—But Toby says we get it wrong, said Lillian, calling across the room to Louise.

Most of them called her Toby. A few said Ms. Ruben and one or two said Mrs. Ruben. Norma, the oldest, who left her coat on, called her Mrs. Ruben and she said it now. Mrs. Ruben, can you explain something else I never understand?

—Of course, said Ruben. Or maybe I can't. Maybe I don't understand either.

—I'm sure you do. You know, your glasses are unusually smudged today. I can see that from here.

—Thank you, said Ruben. She reached into her pocket, but she had no eyeglass cleaner. She said, I'll wash them at the break.

—We can wait, if you want to clean them.

—Her pants look dusty, too, said someone.

Someone else produced eyeglass cleaner.

—What I don't understand, said Norma, is advertising. I mean the writing in advertising. Why writing like that is allowed.

—You mean mistaken uses of
its,
with or without an apostrophe? said Ruben.

—I just mean the writing. I'm diabetic. I could die from sugar. But some of those ads! Each of the students' statements seized Ruben's attention for one second, so she forgot Deborah, and then she'd fall through the floor of the remark and be in a howling place where Deborah might die.

—Mouthwatering, someone said. Luscious chocolate . . .

—Or cigarettes. Or beer.

—Sex! someone said.

—Sex? said another voice.

—What about willpower? said Maddy. The ad isn't making you.

But someone else was almost screaming—and it was Lynne, her tiny features cramped in her big face. Legal! You listen to lawyers? They shouldn't be allowed to use words that hurt.

—Wait, said Ruben. The First Amendment?

Lynne's young, skeptical voice was ugly. When people talked that way, Ruben wanted Granny, who didn't talk. But the thought of Granny was connected to Mac and Mac was connected to Deborah. Are words so dangerous? Ruben said. What if Deborah could hear her? What would she say about hurting with words?

Ruben wrote on the blackboard, You have taught me language and my reward is I have learned to curse. She said, But I think I've got it wrong. It's from
The Tempest.
Caliban says it. She told them about Caliban, the monster captured by Prospero. Prospero is a magician, she said, but he uses words. She wondered what she was getting at.

Frieda—almost as old as Norma, tall and proud—spoke, bellowing:
You taught me language, and my profit on't is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you for learning me your language.

Everyone laughed with fright and then quieted.

—Nigger, said Lynne, in the silence.

—I hate that word, said Deirdre, who was black.

—Grounds for arrest, said Norma.

They fought until the break and past the time they usually took a break.

Maddy shouted, Can you stop and think for a minute? screaming at them all, including Ruben. Ruben was writing on the chalkboard, nothing sensible or legible. Maddy said, If this class had a few rules! The words I want to hear are Ms. Ruben explaining what's wrong with our papers.

—I think maybe this discussion matters, Ruben said wearily.

—It's not appropriate, said Maddy. She had medium-length light brown hair and a thin face. Ruben thought she looked something like a donkey, with brown ears hanging down on each side of her face. All my life, Maddy said, I have never used commas correctly.

—What about pornography? said Louise, Maddy's friend, who wanted to keep fighting. But commas, she added. Commas also matter.

Ruben looked at her watch. I'll give you your papers, she said. We'll take a break and you can look them over. She was exhausted. Suddenly Deborah, once again, was dying. Ruben took the papers and began walking around the room, inefficiently handing Lynne's to Lynne, Norma's to Norma, too tired to call anybody's name. She had not read Lillian's. She would explain to Lillian at the break. Lillian, dumb but kind, would tell Ruben not to worry about her paper. Maddy stood and snatched half the papers away, and for a second Ruben thought she was the victim of an assault.

—June, called Maddy, and June, who had a craggy, good-humored face, patted Ruben's shoulder as she reached past her to Maddy for her paper. Frieda.

Ruben fled to the faculty lounge, out of breath, sobbed, gave that up. She could call Harry. Maybe he'd had news. She didn't. She looked at her mail. Everything claimed importance. She threw away the papers and went for coffee, though she'd meet the students near the coffee machine. She put her coins in and, just as she had described it to Deborah, the coffee came out before the cup. She watched the coffee go by. Ruben so badly wanted the moment when she had told Deborah about the coffee, she reached out her arms for it.

Maddy watched her. Could I ask you a question?

—Sure.

—Would you read a poem I wrote?

—I'd like to. So Deborah was right. Maddy would be hers by April.

Together they walked back to class. Maddy said, Some Saturdays, it's hard to come. I think it will just be a waste of time.

—It's not a waste of time, said Ruben. She walked into the classroom and thumped her briefcase on the teacher's desk like an exclamation point.

The poem she'd given them was “To His Coy Mistress.”

—I didn't get it, said Deirdre.

—I think I got it, said June, who was good-natured with poems, as always, but brisk, as if she and the poems were opponents in a casual softball game.

—A masterpiece, said Frieda.

Ruben read aloud, “Had we but world enough, and time,/ This coyness, Lady, were no crime . . .”

—Love poem, somebody said.

—Yes. But Ruben was reciting for Deborah.

—Trying to seduce somebody.

—Words to get a woman into bed.

—Sneaky.

Ruben said, “But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity . . .” and suddenly instead of emphasizing the wonderful
ahs
and
ars,
she was sitting at the teacher's desk after all, in a chair she didn't remember, her head down on her arms, sobbing loudly, her tears splashing the paper on which the poem had been photocopied.

Arms held Ruben. Well, it was the most embarrassing moment ever. Someone knelt and held her. She looked up: little old Lillian. She said, I forgot to tell you. I didn't have a chance to read your paper . . .

—It doesn't matter, said Lillian, who had graying curls all over her head. Someone offered Ruben a tissue.

—A friend is in the hospital, Ruben said. Someone I love. The group was quiet. Lynne said, I am bisexual. Whereupon everybody laughed.

—I just mean, said Lynne, it's a love poem.

—Yes, said Ruben. Yes, it's about a woman. Yes, my friend, who is hurt, is a woman. I don't know how badly hurt. It just happened. Ruben stopped. But my dears, she continued, when she could next speak. I think everything is sexual, everyone is sexual. We are all—

—You're not going to tell us that we're all bisexual? said Norma.

—Multisexual, Ruben said, with new wisdom. We can love trees. We can love anything. Fire hydrants.

June said, At least they're phallic.

—I don't have a poem for next time, Ruben said.

—We'll forgive you, June said. But what about an assignment? No assignment? June's craggy, wide-awake face with its long nose smiled at her with astonishing sweetness.

—Shhh, said several women. Couldn't you let her forget?

—I like the assignments, said June.

—All right, said Ruben. For next week, write whatever you want. Write something you've always wanted to write.

—What makes you think—?

—There must be something. Something you've always wanted to say but never said.

She thrust her papers into her briefcase, and the students crowded around her to hand in the papers they'd written.

—I'm sorry you have to read these when you're worried about your friend, said Norma.

And Ruben left the room. Embarrassment caught up to her at the door but dissipated by the staircase. She went down the stairs. But she let the metal door smack her in the forehead when she left the stairwell.

She started for home. Students waved from the parking lot: offering rides. She started up the hill and along the street alone.