Childish Loves by Benjamin Markovits Read Free Book Online Page B

down just across the glass partition separating faculty and students in the cafeteria. I saw the wires of headphones emerging from her knitted hat; she wore a printed dress over jeans. With a pang, I noticed her pull the earplugs down against her cheeks – a boy had set his backpack beside her. And the feeling returned to me, familiar from my teaching days, that I was on the wrong side of some divide. That what was happening to other people mattered more than what was happening to me. But I also took in a number of other impressions. The noise of two hundred teenagers at feeding time. The really distressing atmosphere of disorder (napkins on floors, being kicked about; spilt drinks, dropped books), which requires months of habituation, and even then becomes only tolerable. Such scenes were once the staple of my daily life. ‘What is it about these kids they wear their wooly hats indoors?’ I said to Heinz, waiting in line with our trays.
    Lunch was taken up with re-introductions. A number of people I once shared a faculty lounge with had stayed put. Even their names revived old sympathies: Peasbody, Beinstock, Bostick. Politely I showed an interest in my old life. Politely they responded with curiosity about my new one. But after lunch Heinz led me on a tour of the new grounds, and we had a chance to talk.
    The board of regents had raised a great deal of money in the past ten years. The school I had taught in was more or less a Victorian jumble of buildings, complete with cracked-tile hallways and steaming pipes. It had since become a modern college campus. A science observatory, built mostly of steel and glass, offered views across Manhattan of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State. Below it, on the steep slope leading to Van Cortlandt, stood the new theater, surrounded by freshly planted woods. From inside the building you could see the architect’s intentions: tall narrow windows let in the silvery birch-light. We might have been anywhere, in the rural wintry depths of a Pushkin story. Even on a warm hazy September day the sunshine came through coldly. Heinz showed more pride in these developments than I would have expected – partly, no doubt, because they contributed to the status of his new position. But, eventually, in the resonant quiet of the theater, he himself brought up the question of the Byron books.
    â€˜So how long you gonna keep this game up with Peter Sullivan? My wife says I shouldn’t ask you, so I’ll ask you.’
    He had pulled two metal folding chairs from the wings of the stage.
    â€˜What game?’
    â€˜Come on. Nobody’s buying this business with the manuscripts. I knew Peter. He couldn’t write an end-of-year report unless you held his hand.’
    â€˜He didn’t like writing end-of-year reports. He liked writing novels.’
    â€˜So you plan to keep a straight face about this whole thing?’
    Heinz had put me in a false position. What I wanted was to find out more about Peter. But people have a bias for certain confessions over others. For a minute I considered telling him about the Society for the Publication of the Dead. ‘Look, these are the people I waste my time with …’ I wanted to make clear that the past few years had been difficult for me, from a professional point of view. What I needed from him was a little information about Peter, and then I could wind up my responsibility towards his literary remains, such as they were, and begin again.
    â€˜I’m telling you, my first novel cured me of any interest in historical fiction,’ I said. ‘The people who matter don’t respect you for it. Besides, you know yourself I’m a lazy bastard and have no head for facts. The kind of book I like to read, the kind of book I have been trying to write, is a straightforward but textured account of a mildly interesting experience. Like Playing Days . What do I care if Byron slept with his sister? I’ll tell