Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner Read Free Book Online Page B

idea; but so far his knowledge hadn’t helped him to meet her eyes, much less deal with her rabbinical wit. Only when Mickelsson hadn’t seen her for a while could he confidently deny that she frightened him. Her office (behind her now, the door still open) was dark with books and journals, far more crammed than his own—more books than anyone could possibly read, so it was fair to assume that she kept them for the power they lent, though also, to some extent, for reference. She edited a magazine, Historical Sociology, alleged to be somewhat right-wing (but it was one of her enemies who’d said that, one of the department’s child-faced Marxists: “Slightly to the right of Adolf Hitler” was in fact what he’d said) and she was supposed to be the first woman in her field to have done … something or other. It was all very vague in Mickelsson’s mind. Secretly he suspected that the whole discipline was a magic trick: snap your fingers and it would turn into a quivering white rabbit or an array of silk flags. Nevertheless, only a maniac would dare raise objections in the flame of that quick, tense smile. She seemed to be always in a hurry, at least when he met her in the hallway (at parties she relaxed somewhat, though even then there was something ready-to-spring about her, at once intensely engaged and wary), so when she stopped to talk with him, usually at his instigation, as now, he felt uncomfortable, dutifully saying whatever she seemed to expect till she dismissed him. She stood with her legs apart, braced, long and lean, her feet in engineer’s boots. In his mind her lines were unnaturally firm, for all their softness, like stones in a clear mountain lake.
    â€œYes, it’s really wonderful in Susquehanna,” he said. “Remote.” When she narrowed her dark-circled eyes, he added guiltily, “I need to get someplace quiet, get some work done. It’s like the nineteen forties there. You hardly hear a sound.”
    â€œGood,” she said. “If that’s what you want.” Her smile flashed, vanished. Her right hand went furtively to push a lock of silver-streaked dark hair back from her ear. No doubt what he was doing was part of a dangerous national trend. He was suddenly conscious of his paunch, his rumpled trousers; conscious above all of the widowhood she seemed to carry just out of sight, like a dagger. Nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do, would serve.
    â€œCan you afford it?” she asked. “I know things are cheaper down there—”
    â€œNo problem,” he said, and waved it away.
    â€œWith all your tax troubles, and all that money you pay your wife …” That was the least of what she’d wormed out of him, yawning behind her hand but leaning forward with interest, the night he’d stayed late after her party. They’d talked till nearly 6 a.m. He frowned now, suddenly startled by the notion that she was hinting at offering him money. At once he dismissed the idea and almost laughed.
    She said, “People say there are rattlesnakes in Susquehanna.”
    â€œI doubt it. It’s possible, I suppose.”
    â€œIt doesn’t bother you?” she asked. When she saw that he didn’t intend to tell the truth, she let her smile flash again, not at full voltage. “Well, good luck,” she said. She looked down the corridor, then thoughtfully back at his face, only for a moment. Abruptly—untruthfully, he thought—she said, “I’m sorry I can’t talk longer, Pete. Gotta run.” She reached back and closed her office door. She tried the knob, making sure the door had locked.
    â€œSure. I’m sorry if—”
    â€œYou’ll remember to bring me that book?”
    â€œBook?” he asked.
    She grinned like a woman ten years younger. “I knew you wouldn’t remember. Something by someone named Hare. We talked about it at