The Letter Killeth (7 page)

“You're surprised. I was hired by a Calvinist.”

*   *   *

The fact that Quirk had gone off with Father Carmody gave Tim an excuse to drop in on the old priest at Holy Cross House. Here in the last stage of their religious life were the ancient members of the Congregation. Preparing for death? Most looked just bewildered and frail. They watched the young man warily as he came onto the upper floor and said he had come to see Father Carmody.

“Oh, he wants you to meet him downstairs.”

The nurse offered to show him where, but Tim told her he could find it. It was while he was going downstairs again that it occurred to him that he himself might end up here someday, but the thought was as remote as old age itself.

Father Carmody looked the picture of health after the specters Tim had just seen. The old priest sat in a room where visitors could be entertained. He closed his book on his finger, then flourished it at Tim.

“Dick Sullivan's book on the university. Have you read it?”

Tim asked to see it and leafed through it, not knowing what to say.

“It is a love letter to Notre Dame. Dick signed over all royalties from it to the university. No one found that odd in those days.”

“You knew him?”

“In his last years. A wonderful, gentle man. He taught English and writing. He wrote fiction himself.”

“I'll have to look him up.”

Father Carmody proceeded to give Tim suggestions for other reading he might do on the history of Notre Dame.

“What do they tell you people in the novitiate nowadays?”

No need to go into that. Tim turned the conversation to Quirk.

“I wish those threatening letters hadn't been mentioned in his presence,” Father Carmody said.

“They're just a prank, aren't they?”

“Let's hope so. Phil Knight seems to think so. I asked him to look into it. Do you know the Knight brothers?”

“I've heard of the one who teaches.”

“Roger. A whale of a man, in every sense. As learned as Zahm, and yet he wears it lightly. He only teaches undergraduates. You should get to know him.”

“Tell me about Quirk.”

“He's an alum, of course. Engineering. He made a modest pile and decided to retire while he could put his mind to other things. Not that he has much of a mind. Of course he is disenchanted with what the university has become.”

“In what way?”

The old priest considered for a moment. “There are two schools of thought on that. One holds that we are fashioning a new way to be a Catholic university. The other holds that we are ceasing to be one.”

“Which school do you belong to?”

“Both.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because things are never as simple as any theory demands. The idea of buying that villa in Sorrento isn't a bad one. We're throwing money at everything else. And Quirk thinks that his classmate Fenster might come up with the purchase money. Of course there would be maintenance. Always remember maintenance when a new building is proposed. You can pay off the building, but maintenance is forever.”

“The provost hasn't rejected the idea.”

“If he is smart, and he is, he will wait to see if the money is there.”

“Who is Fenster?”

“He's staying in the Morris Inn at the moment if you want to meet him. He's not at all like Quirk. He has mountains of money and lives like a monk. His son is the editor of
Via Media.
”

Tim frowned. “Did you see the story on the fire in the English professor's office?”

Carmody nodded. “That wasn't the fellow who got the threatening letter, was it?”

“If he were, those threats could be taken as a prank. That was Wack. The fire was in the wastebasket of a professor named Izquierdo. He says Wack set the fire.”

“No.”

“Campus security checked it out.”

“Campus security! Who told them?”

“I don't think those letters are a secret anymore.”

“Ye gods.”

13

His mother worked on the campus cleaning crew, each morning tidying up the rooms of male students—the women looked after themselves—part of the contingent of serfs who were all but invisible elements of the infrastructure of Notre Dame. When she had gone to work there, Mrs. Grabowski might have done better just about anywhere else, but the idea was that her employment would smooth the way for Henry's admission as a student. And he had worked his tail off at St. Joe High, just as he worked his tail off all summer earning his tuition for the year. In high school, he had gone out for freshman football and been all but laughed off the field, but no matter, his sights were ever on the SATs, which together with his mother's employment at Notre Dame would get him admitted to the student body. Mr. Masterson, his advisor, encouraged him and, when the time came, wrote a recommendation.

“Don't put all your eggs in one basket, Henry. Apply at Purdue. Apply at IU. Of course, there is always IUSB.” The South Bend campus of the state university. Henry had smiled away the suggestion. It was Notre Dame or nothing. And nothing is what he got.

He had applied for early admission so he didn't have to wait for the crushing disappointment. He read the bland letter so often it was etched into his memory like the legend over Dante's Inferno. He was devastated. His advisor suggested Holy Cross College, just up the road from St. Joe High, it, too, run by the Brothers of Holy Cross.

“Lots of kids are admitted from there as sophomores, even juniors.”

Henry said he would think about it. But he was filled with a terrible proletarian wrath. He threw out his video of
Rudy.
His whole imagined future was ruined. He was filled with hatred for the university that had rejected him and all his youthful dreams. His mother was philosophical about it.

“You can get a job on campus.” She added, “For now.”

Maintenance, maybe even campus security. She had talked to a young man on traffic patrol, a South Bend native, Larry Douglas. She actually brought him home to tell Henry of the great opportunities to be had in Notre Dame security. So Henry applied but without hope, sure it would go the way of his application to be a student. He had been accepted, to his mother's delight. When he filled out the final forms, Henry felt he was becoming a permanent member of the underclass.

He and Larry became friends, more or less. What could you think of a guy who thought riding around campus on a bicycle dispensing parking tickets made him an integral part of the Notre Dame community?

“Think of the benefits, Henry.” Larry meant hospitalization and retirement. Maybe also wearing the stupid uniform.

Henry's SATs meant that he had been more than qualified for admission. He just hadn't been admitted. As he wheeled around the campus, wearing a helmet and dark glasses, he told himself that he was as at least as smart as any of the carefree students he passed. Those years of study at St. Joe, the reading he had done on his own, now seemed a joke, but he couldn't rid his mind of what he had learned, and he couldn't drop the habits he acquired. He began to collect syllabi of the courses he might have taken, and read the books assigned. He got to know Izquierdo when the professor came up while Henry was writing a ticket for his misparked Corvette.

“I'm about to leave,” Izquierdo said, getting behind the wheel.

“I can't just tear this up.”

“Give it to me.” He took the long slip and tore it into pieces, grinning at Henry. “Now you don't have to.”

“You're a professor.” This was clear from the sticker on his windshield.

“Is that an offense?”

“What do you teach?”

“English.”

“Yeah, but what exactly?”

“A survey of British literature.”

“Do you do
The Vicar of Wakefield
?”

Izquierdo looked at him. “Have you read it?”

“Twice.”

“What are you doing handing out traffic tickets?”

“It's a long story.”

“My office is in Decio. Come see me. But not in that uniform.”

That is how it began. The first time, they talked about Goldsmith's novel, then went on to other things. Henry asked if he could have Izquierdo's syllabus. He had read half the books on the list.

“Where did you go to school?”

“St. Joe High.”

“I meant college.”

“I was turned down.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Geez.”

On Henry's second visit, Izquierdo developed the theory that Henry was better off as he was. “Your problem is you really want to use your mind. That disqualifies you. Students are engaged in job preparation. The degree is a ticket, that's all. So-called higher education has become a fraud. Maybe it always was.”

“So why are you here?”

“To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed. Plus, the pay is great.”

For all that, Izquierdo's negative attitude toward Notre Dame rivaled Henry's own.

“I suppose you're Catholic?” he asked Henry.

“I was baptized.”

“Who wasn't? This is supposed to be the premier Catholic university in the land. Give me a break.”

Izquierdo had put aside the faith of his fathers.

“You're an agnostic?”

“Ha. No halfway measures for Raul. None of that can stand up to what we now know.”

“What's that?”

Izquierdo looked sly. “You think I think that what I just said is true.”

“Don't you?”

He shook his head. “The thing is, it isn't false either. Look, there's no there there. No objective world to underwrite our sentences and make them true or false. The world is part of what we fabricate, not independent of it. Are you following me?”

*   *   *

This was exciting stuff, until Henry thought of the sentence “I was turned down by Notre Dame.” But talking with Izquierdo fed his conviction that he was as smart as any student. Smarter. This wobbled a bit when he found out that Larry Douglas had a secret passion for poetry, but of the obvious sort.

“Why didn't you go to college, Larry?”

“Why didn't you?”

“All it is is job preparation. I've got a job.”

Larry liked that. Why didn't they double-date some weekend?

“I broke up with my girl.” There had never been a girl. All that study in high school had given Henry the reputation of being a nerd.

“My girl will fix you up.”

Why not?

Larry's girl was named Kimberley, a real doll, but Henry got pudgy Laura, who worked in the office of campus security. She kept telling him she hadn't wanted to come, she was only there to give Larry a bad time.

“What for?”

“Her. I was his girl for months, then she came along.”

“Maybe we should trade.”

Larry was driving, and he squirmed at the suggestion, but Kimberley turned and gave Henry a nice smile.

“Larry says you're quite a reader.”

“Oh, a little poetry.”

“Really?” Larry had given him the story about Kimberley's susceptibilities.

“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate,”
he murmured.

“What's that?”

“Dante. No translation really captures the poem.”

Henry knew two or three other phrases from the
Comedy,
but the one did the trick. When they got to the sports bar, Kimberley was as much with Henry as was Laura, who snuggled up to Larry.

“What other poets do you like?”

“I was just going to ask you who your favorites were.”

Larry was following this exchange with a desolate expression. Laura had him pretty well pinned in a corner of the booth, and if Kimberley was just across from him, she had turned to face Henry.

“I suppose you think Emily Dickinson is too feminine.”

“No woman can be too feminine for me.”

“Hey,” Larry said, “how about that fire in the professor's wastebasket?”

“Let's not talk business,” Henry said, but Laura was all for the suggested topic.

“And he didn't even get one of those threatening letters,” she said.

“What threatening letters?” Henry wanted to know.

“That's confidential,” Larry said to Laura.

“Oh pooh. It's all they talk about in the office.”

“Tell me,” Henry urged Laura, and Kimberley turned pouting away.

So he got the official story. The provost, the dean of Arts and Letters, Professor Wack in English, and Charlie Weis, the football coach. Henry listened as if this were all news to him. He would have to tell Izquierdo of the reaction to those messages, if he didn't already know. Izquierdo talked as if he wouldn't mind firebombing Wack's office himself.

“Look,” Larry said, assuming a tone of authority. “They're just a prank.”

“So why the secrecy?”

“It would still be bad publicity. Who wants such a story about Notre Dame to get around?”

Who indeed? Henry pushed closer to Kimberley. “‘I'm nobody, who are you?'”

“‘I'm nobody, too.'” And she squeezed his arm. “I love that poem.”

14

The story in
Via Media
about the fire in the wastebasket of Professor Izquierdo set the Old Bastards' table aroar with excitement. Armitage Shanks felt vindicated. When he had passed on the rumor that threatening letters were circulating on the campus, he had been scorned.

“I told you so,” he said with all the satisfaction the phrase conveyed.

“He probably dropped a cigarette in the wastebasket.”

“You can't smoke in Decio.”

“You mean you're forbidden to,” Goucher corrected. “Prohibitions don't confer incapacity.” Goucher had taught philosophy for forty-two years, without great success.

“He blames a colleague. Some idiot named Wack.”

A wide smile replaced the vague expression on Potts's face. “Remember when we locked the dean in his private john?”