15
Above the gorge of Oneida Creek a mile from the university campus, north and east of Auburn Heights, there was a footbridge made of raw wooden planks. The footbridge was approximately fifty feet across. The gorge was approximately thirty feet below. To look down into the gorge was to feel a wave of dizziness that seemed to rush up from the folds and creases of rock below. The footbridge was maintained by the city and led to a wilderness area at the crescent of which, approached from the other side of the hill by a lane, was a tall water tower. Often that winter, when I had time, I went for walks on that hill, to clear my head; to clear my head of Vernor Matheius; to lose myself in a dream of Vernor Matheius; to replay in compulsive detail each of our conversations and to see again, more vividly in memory than I'd seen in life, every nuance of expression on Vernor Matheius's face. I would wake from a trance and find myself on the bridge, gripping both railings; gazing down at the creek-bed below. Always on the footbridge I thought of Vernor Matheius, and always on the footbridge I thought of Ida. What linked them was a riddle. What linked them was the terrible loss to the world of their deaths: the one a possibility, the other a fact. On cold mornings thin columns of tendril-like mist rose from the creek like mysterious exhalations of breath. To stare at such vaporous columns was to stare into emptiness. Between one and none there lies an infinity. So Nietzsche had written tenderly of Schopenhauer. It was the most profound statement of love and of the possibility of loss I had ever encountered.
In April, the frozen creek began finally to unlock. Roiling black water rushed below like a furious artery. The artery was narrow but deep; above the creek, leaning on the railing, I couldn't determine in which direction it flowed. I thought I should be facing that direction. Facing the future. If I fell by accident, I should have liked to know in which direction my body would be carried.
16
In the very place of seductive death. A miracle.
One day nearing sunset, a bright balmy April afternoon erratically splotched with rain, I saw, or believed I saw, Vernor Matheius a short distance ahead of me on the dirt path descending to the Oneida Creek footbridge; I was suffused with excitement, and dread; for it was by chance that I was here yet if Vernor Matheius saw me surely he would think I'd been chasing after him-wouldn't he? And I was innocent (I believed I was innocent). It had been eight days since we'd been together in Downy's and I had promised myself that I would not pursue the man further; would not chase after him like an infatuated schoolgirl; though in fact I was an infatuated schoolgirl, and could not perceive a time when I would be anything other than an infatuated schoolgirl. As, in the throes of nausea or the delirious lassitude of fever we are unable to imagine other states of being. I had vowed never again to humiliate my-self and annoy and embarrass Vernor Matheius-telling myself I must wait for him to call me, or approach me; knowing as if it were a death sentence that he would neither call me nor approach me. It was true: I'd returned once or twice to the coffeehouse, relieved to see that Vernor Matheius was not among the chess players; nearly every day I worked in the library and often I found myself on the third floor; but like an early Christian ascetic renouncing all worldly life that gave pleasure I refrained from approaching the graduate students' carrels and did not know whether in fact Vernor Matheius was there in his carrel seventh from the aisle; I may have weakened and passed by the apartment building at 1183 Chambers Street once or twice, but only at such hours when Vernor Matheius couldn't have been there; and I didn't pause to stare openly at the building, still less did I prowl the alley behind it. So it was purely chance that Vernor Matheius and I had come to the gorge at the same time: never had I seen him in the vicinity before, and never had I mentioned to him that I came here. (If I had a life apart from my attentiveness to Vernor Matheius, neither he nor I would have thought it worth mentioning.) I saw him stroll out onto the footbridge; I saw his lips pursed, in a tuneless whistle; he was wearing a rumpled stone-gray sport coat that fitted his shoulders tightly, as if he'd outgrown it, and russet-brown trousers with a crease. He began to slow his pace, as if realizing where he was. High in the air on a wind-rocking footbridge. He shaded his eyes: this view captured his attention. To the north, a small mountain, outcroppings of granite dense and convoluted as if to some mysterious purpose, like folds in the human brain. I saw Vernor Matheius lean against the railing and stare down; lean over the railing and stare down; a thrill of horror touched me-What if he Jails? I was frightened suddenly and stepped out onto the footbridge. I knew this might be a mistake, he'd think I had been following him, but I couldn't resist; I told myself I would pass behind him, as if unaware of him (for his back was to me, I might not have identified him in ordinary circumstances), and maybe he would notice me, and maybe he would not; in that way, our meeting was left to pure chance. But my heart was beating so hard, the very footbridge must have vibrated! I will not, I will not speak. Will not reveal myself. The wind buffeted us on the footbridge as if in mockery. Vernor Matheius, leaning far over the railing, holding his wire-rimmed glasses with both hands as if concerned they might fall off, wasn't going to notice me… except my shadow must have brushed against him; and with the instinctive reflex with which one would glance back at someone or something passing close behind him on a swaying footbridge thirty feet above a gorge, Vernor Matheius glanced back at me; I saw his worried face, his creased forehead; I thought naively He doesn't trust the world! I lacked the insight to realize He doesn't trust the white world. But in the intoxication of the moment neither of us had time for such revelations: our eyes locked, recognition shone in his like a lit match. "Anellia. Again."
My hair was whipping in the wind. I pulled a strand out of my mouth. Vernor Matheius's gaze dropped to my waist, to my hips, legs and ankles and lifted again with masculine ease, lingering on my breasts and face; as if I'd positioned myself on the footbridge, a few feet away, to be so contemplated. Around my waist was the belt of linked silver medallions; I wore a ribbed black cotton-wool top with long sleeves and tight wrists, and a black-and-lavender skirt in a crinkly Indian material that fitted me loosely, like a gown falling to mid-thigh. These were secondhand clothes, costume clothes. "I-I come here sometimes. It's so-" meaning to say beautiful but the obvious, over-used word stuck in my throat. Nor could I explain I wasn't following you, Vernor. Except in my thoughts. How can I be blamed? He seemed bemused by me. Possibly he didn't hate me. Between us was the memory of the last time we'd spoken, on the sidewalk in front of Norwood Hall. Between us, the humiliating memory of when Vernor Matheius had first seen me.
Scavenging in a trash can!
Yet now Vernor was smiling, smiling at me, if still there was an air of reserve and even reproach in his face. We were talking about what?- ordinary things. My heart that had been pounding absurdly now began to ease. My thoughts of death of only a few minutes before had vanished as if blown by the wind. Between one and none there lies an infinity.
It may have occurred to me that in my charmingly funky gypsy-clothes I was pretty again. I would be desired.
It may have occurred to me that whatever the consequences of such costuming, I would accept them.
Thirty feet above the black-rushing artery deep in rock as if suspended in time.
There was a subtle but vital change in Vernor Matheius, in his manner which was animated, alert, even edgy; in the timbre of his voice, which was higher-pitched than usual; in the way his forehead creased almost too urgently as he spoke. That noon at the university there'd been a civil rights demonstration in front of the chapel that would be denounced in local newspapers as the work of "outside agitators" but given extensive, sympathetic coverage in the Daily Orange, the student paper; in the gusty spring day in which a phantom rainbow shimmered in a washed-blue sky there'd been the distraction of amplified voices on the green, disturbing voices where ordinarily there were no voices; these were voices that upset some students and professors; voices that thrilled others; some classes had been canceled so that students could attend but most classes continued; I saw more black faces than I would have believed there were at the university, and individuals who obviously weren't students but organizers. I'd been hurrying from one classroom to another when I heard the speakers, raised voices interrupted by applause, and by some jeers and boos. Of course, I knew of civil rights activism in the South; the arrests and martyrdom of Martin Luther King Jr. and his co-demonstrators during a peaceful march in Birmingham, Alabama; yet if pressed, I could not have said whether the United States government was protecting the rights of the protestors, or the rights of local authorities to arrest them. Two weeks before, there'd been an even more disruptive demonstration on campus, a rowdy gathering of about thirty SANE (STOP ALL NUCLEAR EXPERIMENTATION) pickets of whom all were white, defiantly ill-groomed older students; these pickets, undergraduates had loudly heckled; fraternity men wrested some of their handmade signs from them and broke them into pieces; the SANE demonstrators were denounced as "Communists" or "Communist dupes"; campus police finally routed them off with a threat of arrest. I'd arrived too late; I found a sign in the mud-BAN THE BOMB FOR MANKIND'S SAKE!-and would have carried it away except it was taken from me and torn. The civil rights demonstration had been organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was better attended, and better respected; I looked for Vernor Matheius in the crowd gathered in front of the chapel steps though knowing I wouldn't see him, for such public displays were not compatible with the quieter, more circuitous strategies of philosophy to transform the world. And now on the footbridge above Oneida Creek I sensed how I must not bring up the subject. I must not allude to what had happened, or was happening, back on campus; I wasn't one who knew much about contemporary politics, for I rarely read a newspaper, never saw television; like Vernor Matheius, I was absorbed in the life of the mind; of this indifference, I may have been proud; though that day I'd have liked to carry a picket sign in support of civil rights, for the demonstrators seemed admirable to me, courageous and articulate, and their opponents were embittered and ugly. Vernor wanted to hear nothing about this, I sensed; he was leaning with his back against the railing now, arms outstretched; it was something of a shock to see the man in daylight, in the open air; his youthful-ness, his edginess; the faint yellow tinge of his eyeballs; the smudged lenses of his glasses. He was speaking of his work, a new problem in his research; he was hoping to explore the classic problem of "ontological proof" from a purely linguistic perspective. He'd come under the spell of the early Wittgenstein, the lacerating, revolutionary Tractatus-"It's almost too banal, to be enthralled by Wittgenstein. Yet, just possibly, there's no one quite like him." I shut my eyes and saw the flattened pillow on Vernor Matheius's bed, I could imagine its scent, the smell of his hair; I could not recall whether in fact I'd seen the pillow and the bed or whether Vernor had so quickly changed his mind about me, and herded me out of his apartment, I'd seen nothing; I'd had to imagine. How strong now the impulse to press myself into Vernor Matheius's arms; to press my face against his throat. No: you must not. You will disgust him.
Vernor saw me shivering, and said, "Are you cold, Anellia?" and I admitted, "Yes, I'm cold," for this was true; the sun was obscured by clouds, and about to set; it was spring by the calendar, but high above the gorge the air retained a wintry chill. Vernor Matheius shifted his arm as if to protect me; it was an invitation to move into the crook of his arm; yet I stood paralyzed, uncertain. Oddly he asked, "Is that why you're here?" and I heard myself say, "Yes, that's why." He said, "This seems to me a dangerous place. D' you know, Anellia, this is a dangerous place?" He peered into the gorge below, frowning, yet with satisfaction. I said, weakly, "Yes, it's dangerous. People have jumped." Vernor removed his coat to drape around my shoulders; it was the most intimate gesture that had ever passed between us, and I swallowed hard, I was stricken to the heart. Under the coat Vernor wore one of his white, long-sleeved shirts, rumpled as if he'd been wearing it for days. This is the Platonic idea of a white shirt. This is not an actual shirt. He had no woman to launder and iron and cook for him; he wanted no woman to launder and iron and cook for him; I understood this, for in his place I would not have wanted a woman either. Yet how grateful I was, that Vernor Matheius wasn't married: for at the onset, when I'd gazed at him longingly across rows of strangers, I had seemed to see, glinting on his hand, a wedding band; in fact, there was no wedding band; no rings on his fingers; Vernor Matheius didn't even wear a watch, boasting he was no slave to clock-time. He was saying, "I'm not a nature person. I think nature is overrated. Nature is what you turn to when your brain fails. But I like coming here, when I have time. Because it is a dangerous place. I like the footbridge, seeing through the slats. I like the wind making it sway. I've caught god-awful colds out here. I like being alone here knowing there's an instinct in us to push ourselves over a railing like this; an instinct to die to which I'm never going to succumb. I like the mastery of not succumbing and of knowing I won't succumb. I like knowing what I won't do, and what I will do. If I want to do it." I was gripping the lapels of the coat that was much too large for me; I felt overwhelmed by Vernor Matheius's closeness, and the confiding way in which he spoke. He said, "You're right, people have jumped from this bridge. And it's kept quiet. Because dying, especially to no purpose, is contagious. Every year a number of persons will 'commit suicide' as it's called, as if fulfilling a statistical prophecy, though they know nothing of one another or of the prophecy. I like knowing that I, Vernor Matheius, will never be one of these; I don't behave in any way that others can predict; that's not my nature." I could hardly bear loving him so much, it was all I could do to stammer, "No, V-Vernor, that's not in your nature." Had I ever dared call him "Vernor" before? He stared at me, he framed my face in his hands. I was a puzzle to him and he could not determine whether the puzzle was worth it, to solve. At this moment someone stepped onto the footbridge and began to cross; we could feel his footsteps, his weight; oddly, I understood that this intrusion would not evoke a response in Vernor Matheius, or rather it would not evoke a normal response; Vernor Matheius was not one to be affected by the accidental intrusion of a stranger into his privacy. The stranger approached us, and passed close to us; a man in a bulky sweater, who glanced at us only briefly; Vernor paid no heed to him as if he didn't exist; Vernor kissed me, not on the lips which would have been a warm, moist kiss, a kiss of yearning and of promise, but on the forehead, just below my wind-whipping hair where my skin and his lips were taut with cold.
" 'Anellia.' Is that scavenged, too?"
I am not a man for any woman to count on, I am not a man who wants to be loved.
As it was not in Vernor Matheius's nature to be predicted, so it was not in Vernor Matheius's nature to be held to any promise. Even the vaguest promise. It was not in his nature to fall into any routine, however casual. Such as: meeting "Anellia" when the library closed and walking with me across the campus which was near-deserted at that hour; in the romance of spring, when even a fine feathery rain was fragrant with renewal. Though sometimes he'd grip my hand, my bare hand, squeezing the fingers so that I winced without his noticing, talking of his work, his ideas; always he was on the edge of a "breakthrough" regarding the ontological problem, Wittgenstein, and language. Yet he would not plan such meetings even a day beforehand. They must be accidental, or seeming so. He might telephone to invite me to meet him at the coffeehouse but if I wasn't in, he would not leave a message; he would not leave even his name. Once or twice a week he dropped in at the coffeehouse to play chess, but there could be no pattern here, either. His chess companions could not depend upon him. Sometimes, sighting me, they would ask, "Is Vernor coming?" and I would tell them with a smile I had no idea. "Only Vernor Matheius knows where Vernor Matheius is, and only Vernor Matheius knows where Vernor Matheius is going." Yet, by chance, if we met, Vernor would seem genuinely happy to see me; perhaps I'd become like the footbridge, not dangerous but a possibility of something undefined; he would ask if I "was "free" for a meal, as if, always, I was not "free" for Vernor Matheius; we would enter a darkened Italian restaurant near the hospital, Vernor's hand on my shoulder as if I might need guidance; we might enter Downy's, to sit in a rear, shadowy booth whispering together like any couple; I would reason If in others' eyes we are a couple, then that is what we are. Except in the coffeehouse, among Vernor's friends, there were invariably people observing us, curious and hostile eyes; these were the eyes of whites exclusively. Are they lovers? Those two? Not that there were no interracial couples in Syracuse at that time. Surely there were. (Though I rarely saw them.) But something in Vernor Matheius's manner was too visible, provoking. And maybe I looked too young.
Most days I did not see Vernor. These were days so defined: as an insomniac night is defined by the absence of sleep, so these days of nullity and edginess were defined by the absence of Vernor Matheius.
Didn't I warn you: don't love me. Don't even try to know we.
Because it can't be done. Knowing we.
Because identity is within. A man's self is within where the rest of you can't measure it.
18
Sensuality often grows too fast for love to keep up with. Then love's root remains weak and is easily torn up.
Nietzsche, Aphorisms
Yet: we were crossing a city street late one evening, gripping hands, in a playful mood, and a crazed car, a carload of drunken kids, not university students but local young-male whites, provoked by the sight of us and yelling "Nigger!"-"Nig-ger!"-"Nig-ger's bitch!"-swerved in our direction; a jeering horn, beer cans flung at us spraying beer like urine. I would remember with a thrill of emotion that Vernor didn't release my hand but gripped it tighter. "Don't look at them. Don't turn around. They don't exist." Vernor spoke coldly, furiously; we walked swiftly along the pavement, and turned a corner; the car was gone; the incident was over; even the flung beer hadn't touched us. I was too shocked to have been frightened, but now I began to tremble. Vernor was trembling, too. But he said nothing further until, shortly afterward, climbing the wooden steps outside his apartment building, his hand still gripping mine, he murmured, "Stay with me for a while." It was not a question nor even a commandment but rather a statement of fact. I said yes, I would. Inside his apartment a single lamp was burning. He said, quietly, "Anellia, take off your clothes."
With that air still of quiet, subdued fury he fumbled to remove his trousers, tugging and yanking impatiently at his white shirt, flinging his clothes toward a chair; I was slow to remove my clothing, my lingers numbed and without sensation, so he turned to me, wordless, thumbs digging into my shoulders; he seemed almost to be lifting me, breathing hotly and impatiently into my face, pushing me toward his bed in a darkened corner of the room; a narrow, hastily made-up bed with a flattened mattress sagging in the center, a flattened pillow of which how many times I'd dreamt swooning in absurd yearning, now inhaling the strong scent of Vernor Matheius's oily hair, the scent of his heated body, the dark crook of his neck, his underarms springy with hair, his flat belly, his crotch, and his feet; his mouth was pressed against mine for the first time, as if to silence me; his mouth larger, fuller, fleshier and more demanding than mine; and his tongue forcing itself into my mouth; quickly, before I could open to receive it; Vernor Matheius did not want me to take him, he wanted me to be taken by him; his tongue an agent of his cold, purposeful fury; for the jeering white boys in the careening car were vanished, and only I remained; I was seized with panic, unable to breathe; I couldn't kiss Vernor Matheius because his mouth mauled mine, and his fingers mauled, kneaded, squeezed, and stroked my body; I was limp and unresisting tasting his enormous tongue, the beery-acidic saliva of his mouth that was so hungry, moaning as if in pain, and I thought, dazed Now it will happen, at last: he will love me. I felt his penis swollen and blood-engorged pressed against my belly, it was like a living, groping, demanding thing; I tried to whisper, "Vernor, I I-love you-" as in such erotic fantasies I'd whispered these words, in my fantasies these were magical words, words with the power to transform an urgent, clumsy, graceless act into an act of profound meaning; a prayer with the power to make sacred an act of which crude, callous, and derisory things were said, my brothers saying such things, laughing, secret jokes and signals girls weren't supposed to understand; mustn't allow them to know she understands; but my words were choked, I couldn't draw breath to speak; Vernor didn't hear; Vernor didn't want to hear; this wasn't a time for words, from me. He wants to fuck you. Nothing more. Kneeling over me hunched and tremulous, his narrow rib cage heaving with the effort of breath; the bones defined against the tight, sweat-gleaming skin; skin scintillating with tiny beads of sweat like mica I wanted to lick with my tongue; but I could not, I was pinned to the bed by Vernor's weight, a hand pressing my shoulder to the bed so I was barely able to touch him, to reach for him, to slip an arm around his neck. As he'd removed his clothes hurriedly and tossed them aside, he'd removed his glasses, and his eyes were deep-socketed and glistening; without his glasses he was a man I didn't know; the flying skeins of beer like urine had defiled us both, though not touching us; jeering ugly white-man voices Nig-ger! in this room with us struggling in the dark so Vernor Matheius grunted what sounded like "Nig-ger! who's a nig-ger?" He was touching me between the legs, where no man had ever touched me; my skin contracted at his touch, as if with sudden cold; in panic; his fingers were sharp, prodding, impatient where my body had shut up tight; in helpless physical dread I'd shut up tight; to my dismay I'd shut up tight though I wanted to love Vernor Matheius; though wanting to love him, to open myself to him, I could not; I heard him curse; I heard him laugh; his laughter had the sibilant sound of a curse. "You-!" As if there was no worse curse. "Jesus Christ, girl-you." Vernor Matheius took pity on me, and abandoned me. Damned if he was going to force me. Kneeling above me he held his penis and with quick expedient strokes brought himself wincing to climax; his face contorted like a muscle in spasm, against his will; eyes glazing so he wasn't seeing me, wasn't seeing anything. He collapsed then beside me, nudging my head with his. And still I dared to say, biting my lower lip, "Vernor, I I-love you."
Vernor said nothing. Didn't move. His breath in long erratic shud ders. Through my damp eyelashes I contemplated the length of him, this man lying beside me in a rumpled, sweaty bed, his long hard-muscled legs, and my pale legs beside his; I could not say Forgive me, I knew he would laugh. The fury in his laughter would be devastating. So we lay for some minutes in silence except for Vernor's breathing which by degrees began to slow, yet still a harsh sibilant sound, the despair of the spirit locked inside the body, the spirit that can be defined only through body, and defiled.
"Go wash up. It's through here."
This was a command, not bullying or unkind but forceful. Vernor was on his feet, and again restless. His naked eyes avoided mine. Avoided even my face, my body. That girl's body glimmering pale and insubstantial before him in the twilight of a room that seemed no longer his, or no longer his exclusively. Wordless, like a rebuffed child I took up my clothes, these scattered forlorn things flung down onto bare floorboards; my costume-clothes, which had worked their magic, until the magic ran out. And how abruptly and rudely it ran out. Stooping, I lifted the belt, ornamental silver medallions that tinkled faintly together like coins of small denominations. For the first time I wondered who'd originally owned this beautiful and utterly impractical belt: my lost twin, a girl with a twenty-three-inch waist. She'd be grown up by now. If she was still alive.
I went into Vernor Matheius's cubbyhole of a bathroom. I groped for a light switch: above the sink, an unshaded forty-watt bulb came on. Out leapt a startled white face in the cabinet mirror; a face I didn't recognize at first; a face both wan and radiant in a kind of triumph. He did love me. Wanted to love me. We were naked together. Our bodies. Even if he sent me away forever, such facts couldn't be changed. The bathroom door was made of a cheap warped wood and didn't shut completely. The space contained a sink layered in grime, a toilet and a stall shower with a torn plastic curtain partly mended with adhesive tape. Above the toilet tank was the likeness of a brooding, somber man of young middle age, dark curly hair, a narrow intolerant nose, thin lips. These lips were shut tight with a look of stubborn intensity. I recognized Ludwig Wittgenstein, the "piercing" dark eyes, the military manner; he wore a tweed coat, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. Clutched in both hands at waist level was a bamboo cane. Wittgenstein had not succumbed to madness, nor to suicide; given the fates of others in his tragic family, this alone was a triumph. I understood why the philosopher was a hero to Vernor Matheius: he'd negated the very premises of his apparent destiny, to re-invent himself as pure, disembodied intellect. It took me another beat or two to realize that Vernor had placed Wittgenstein's likeness above the toilet so that, standing to urinate as he would be doing frequently, he could meditate upon his hero in a posture both submissive and blasphemous.
Beside the sink was a towel rack holding two neatly arranged but not very clean towels. And a washcloth stiffened with use. I was thinking Vernor Matheius placed those there, not foreseeing how I would observe them. In my agitated state, this was a consoling thought. Vernor couldn't have foreseen this incident. That I, an intruder, would be in his cubbyhole of a bathroom washing at his sink, taking careful note of the white, chipped-porcelain sink and the soap on the sink rim; the toilet with its ill-fitting tank top and its badly worn plastic seat, the stained bowl within, water quivering as if something had touched it, or the building were vibrating. And there was the pale green plastic shower curtain, a dime-store curtain practicably mended with tape, the mending itself meticulously done, so I could imagine Vernor frowning as he applied himself to the task, with the identical precision and stubbornness with which he applied himself to philosophy. Inside was a stall shower so narrow and foreshortened I wondered how Vernor Matheius could fit inside without stooping. (But of course he'd have had to stoop, if he wanted to take a shower.) None of these could Vernor Matheius have anticipated I would see.
I washed myself quickly, lathering soap in my hands, not wanting to use Vernor's -washcloth or one of the towels. Washing quickly between my legs, and my belly, where his semen was still damp, and sticky; clots of it, transparent and gluey; I felt this in wonder and in dread; how a man's semen leaps from his body, as if it were meant to bridge an abyss; like the clotted seeds of cottonwood trees, meant to be carried through space; I was thrilled at the new intimacy between us, which could not be revoked; though I knew that Vernor might repudiate me as a consequence; and I knew that there was a possibility that I could be impregnated, even if his seed hadn't been shot up into my body. Unlikely, yet I knew it was possible. We are lovers now.
Now that Vernor Matheius had made love to me, however incompletely, I felt a new tenderness for my body. Washing, I cupped my hand lightly between my legs; marveled at the prickly, wiry hairs; how distinct the hairs, and how distinct the flesh they shielded; a part of my body I hadn't cared much to consider; not out of shame so much as indifference, impatience; for what have I to do with my genitals, what identification with my sex? Yet I felt now this tenderness for myself; for Vernor Matheius had wanted to make love to me; he had in fact made love to me; we were bound together forever. I dried myself using toilet paper. Dressing then in the cramped space because I knew I must reappear fully clothed to Vernor Matheius. The silver-medallion belt was tricky to fasten, my hands were shaking. Yet I didn't believe that I was upset any longer, or frightened. And when I returned to the other room, there was Vernor seated at his desk as I'd known he would be; at the desk I so admired, twice the size of my own; beneath the noble, ascetic faces of Socrates and Descartes. Vernor, too, was fully dressed; his white long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the throat. Those shirts were cotton, he'd have had to take them to a dry cleaner's to have them laundered and ironed and so it was an indulgence, clearly a necessity. He must have washed himself quickly at his kitchen sink. Washed away the smells of our bodies. Sweat, semen. My desperation. His face looked burnished as if he'd scrubbed it hard. The round lenses of his glasses gleamed. He was himself again, Vernor Matheius.
To protect himself from me he'd lighted a cigarette. He'd pulled the Olivetti typewriter to him as if I were interrupting him in the midst of work; a sheet of paper cranked into the typewriter, a pile of handwritten notes beside it. There, he's happiest. He won't need you now. Vernor spoke often of working at night, sleeping for an hour or two and waking and returning to work refreshed, with new ideas; invigorated, excited. The thought of such a method made me tired. I didn't approach him, I understood how he wanted me to keep my distance from him. How badly I would have liked to touch him; slide my arms around his neck; as lovers did, so easily; I would have liked to kiss him, his cheek, his fleshy mouth; I would have liked to bury my warm face in his neck, inhale his fragrance another time, the yeasty-almondy-oily scent of Vernor Matheius's body. But I didn't dare touch him of course. Knowing how he'd have recoiled. Even my shadow brushing against him would lacerate his nerves. So quietly I said, "Good night, Vernor," and went to the door unlocking it, opening it myself; not wanting him to feel obliged to escort me back to my residence hall, nor even stir from where he sat; I didn't want him to feel a tinge of guilt; I didn't want him to feel resentment for that guilt; I didn't want him to feel that I was thinking these things, as if I had a right to think such things; I did not want to provoke him, and endanger our love.
My behavior surprised him-did it? He turned to stare at me as I prepared to leave him. At the door murmuring, softly, shyly so that the man might hear or not hear, as he wished, "Vernor, I love you. Good night."
I fled. I was partway down the outdoor stairs when I heard Vernor call after me in an undertone, protesting, "God damn you, girl, you do not love me. You do not know me."
19
The sleeping man. His face wasn't one of repose but of torment, anguish. His forehead knotted, his mouth twisted into a grimace. The eyeballs moving beneath the shut lids. A quivering of his dark lustrous skin like a rippling in water. If I could see him as ugly, unattractive. If I could see him as unloved. I was a child bringing her fingertips to flame, inviting pain; daring pain; disbelieving pain. Trying to imagine my life without Vernor Matheius at its center. My life without loving him.
A hole in the heart through which the bleak cold of the universe might whistle through.
Strange to me, who stared at Vernor Matheius as he slept, on rare occasions when I was privileged to see him sleep, that there were others, Caucasians, a category of individuals to which in theory I belonged, who might gaze at Vernor Matheius in his unfathomable complexity and think merely Negro. And dismiss as Negro. What madness!
I came to believe that the unexamined life, the life that's led without continuous self-scrutiny, and a doubting of all inherited prejudice, bias, "faith," was madness. In our civilized lives we are surrounded by madness while believing ourselves enlightened.
In May of that year in our windswept northerly city there were cold driving rains like nails blown against flesh; the rush of happiness in the morning's sunshine would fade by midday when thunderheads gathered like artillery above Lake Ontario and moved south to spill themselves on our heads. Great bruised clouds swollen to bursting. The tumescence of nature. The bursting of nature. My lover's skin smoldered, infuriated. His eyes glancing away. He said I have no people, no parents, no brothers or sisters; I have no god; I have no home except in the mind. My thoughts are my home. And I asked Isn't it lonely there, Vernor? And he said simply No. It's lonely here.
20
"Anellia! Let's examine this. You've told me that you pledged a 'sorority' "-the very word uttered with bemused disdain-"without knowing it discriminated against certain persons? Jews, 'Negroes'?"
It was an examination rough as sandpaper. Vernor Matheius rubbing sandpaper briskly and gloatingly on my bare skin.
I stared at my feet. At the ground. Brittle gravel mixed with mud. I tried to remember: had I known? What had I known? The individual who'd been myself the previous year, before Vernor Matheius, had become a stranger. I could not respect her, only just pity her in her ignorance. Softly I said, like a guilty child, "I would guess-I hadn't known."
"Hadn't known! How is that possible?"
How was it possible? My impetuous, infatuated, unexamined act.
"I-didn't think to know."
"There! You're approaching it, girl. You didn't think."
And Vernor laughed heartily, shaking his head. A schoolteacher exasperated and delighted by his star pupil. As if his fingers were running over my body, tickling, if hurting; hurting just a little; and my body eager for this attention, as a puppy eager to be touched. This was Vernor Matheius in a playful mood. Vernor Matheius in his Socratic mood. (For all philosophers yearn to be Socrates, even those who dislike Socrates on principle, and have repudiated his bizarre metaphysics.) He loved it that Anellia who, so smart, such a smart little girl, should also be, frequently, so stupid.
Why had I confessed to him. My sordid Kappa past. My piteous Kappa past. Perhaps I'd wanted to amuse him by describing how I'd been voted out of the chapter almost unanimously-a single vote abstaining. (Whose vote? Never would I learn. Oh, that was unfair: unfair for me to be told such an astonishing fact, but no more.) I'd become deactivated from both the chapter and the national sisterhood of Kappa Gamma Pi. Telling Vernor of the experience, I didn't explain that I'd desperately petitioned for release; I'd been instructed how to proceed, sending letters to chapter officers and to the national executive board and to the Dean of Women (a powerful figure in such negotiations) explaining that I wanted to withdraw from the sorority. I could not explain to Vernor that I had never believed it was the fault of my Kappa sisters that I'd been such a failure, and so deeply unhappy, but my own fault; I was a freak in the midst of their stunning, stampeding, blazing female normality; if by magic I might have been transformed into a true Kappa, maybe in my desperation I'd have whispered-"Yes"? Still, they would not have released me for such a trifle as not fitting in. In my ignorance I'd signed documents I hadn't quite understood were legal contracts; I, who'd never signed such documents in my life and had glanced through these with misted-over eyes, scarcely pausing to read a line. To join a national sorority was a bold act binding one to financial obligations; this, I hadn't known. In my letters begging for release I'd explained that I was of Jewish ancestry and had failed to tell the truth about myself. I'd explained that I could not afford the sorority, and was already in debt for nearly three hundred dollars; under the irrefragable bylaws of the sorority I would have continued to be fined for missing meetings, I "would have continued to accumulate interest as a result of this debt, and yet I could not belong to the sorority or even attend the university without working during those hours when meetings were scheduled, and so on ad infinitum unless I was granted a legal release, or died.
Are you threatening suicide, I was asked in alarm.
And so they'd expelled me, unanimously. Except for a single mysterious abstaining vote I wished to think had been Dawn, who'd seduced me into the sorority with the hope (and it wasn't an unreasonable hope) that I would help raise the house's grade-point average.
Mrs. Thayer had been released from her contract, too. With rude expediency, immediately after the alumni reception.
I told Vernor Matheius nothing of Agnes Thayer. No longer did I think of Agnes Thayer.
Not truth but the uses to which we put truth. What is done, in the service of desire.
Walking to the Oneida Creek footbridge. It was a day for such a walk: even Vernor Matheius conceded. A strange mood, Vernor's mood. He'd had some good news, reported in the university newspaper; Vernor Matheius was one of four doctoral students awarded a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, to complete his Ph.D. dissertation the following year; when I congratulated him, he frowned and looked away evasively; of course he was pleased, yet he didn't seem to approve of his pleasure; he had to examine the roots of such a small, craven pleasure; taking delight in mere professional, public "success"-something that had to do solely with "career" and not the pursuit of truth. Especially it embarrassed him that in the philosophy department the professors congratulated him and shook his hand as if such a fluke pleased them, too; and this forced him to reconsider his estimation of them. "Oh, Vernor," I said. "Please stop. This is an infinite regress."
He said, quite seriously, "It is. An infinite regress. Next week I'll be thirty years old."
I could not see the connection here. I could not tell him I'd assumed he was older.
This balmy May afternoon in the hills above the university Vernor had reverted to his playful mood. I'd grown to anticipate his shifts of mood: like the sky above Lake Ontario. He believed himself stable, unvarying, a personality like Kant's you could set a watch by, in his temperament if not in his behavior; he believed he was a man devoted sheerly to the intellect, like Wittgenstein. Yet he was volatile, mercurial as the most capricious of the Kappa girls. I was fearful of him. I adored him.
We were walking with Vernor's arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him; an awkward way of walking; we were laughing, for my Kappa story had been intended to amuse; I would not have told any story of my life to Vernor Matheius that wasn't intended to amuse. In my feverish brief collapse after being expelled from the Kappas, one miserable day and a night in the university infirmary, I'd had a waking dream of the clinic in a Buffalo suburb in which (it had been pointed out to me once, years ago by a relative) my mother had gone for chemotherapy after her cancer operation, and this building had been old, regal and forbidding, with a half-dozen columns at the top of a flight of broad stone steps; the roof of the building had been a wet-looking dark blue slate; much of the building had been covered in ivy that needed trimming: the Kappa house: the original. Of such a revelation, and its impact like a rock tossed into my face, I could not have told Vernor Matheius who, in his buoyant Socrates-mood was saying, "So, Anellia, you of all people admit you hadn't thought." I said, "In fact I did think, Vernor, but mistakenly." "How so?" "I'd wanted-sisters. I was lonely away from home"-though I'd been lonely all my life at home, hadn't I?-"and I thought I wanted sisters, I wanted a family to like me." Vernor said, "But you didn't know these girls, did you?" I admitted, "No." Vernor said, "You wanted to be liked, Anellia, by individuals you didn't know? Why?" I said weakly, "I admired them, at a distance. Some of them." Vernor said, "Out of what did this admiration arise?" Like any dupe of Socrates I saw where I was being herded, but could not escape. "Well-they were attractive. They had personalities. They were so very different from me." Vernor said, "You mean they were good-looking? Sexy?" I was embarrassed and didn't answer at once. Saying finally, "Some of them." Vernor said, "But were they intelligent? Did you respect their intelligence?" and I laughed and said, "No," and he said, "Did they value intelligence?" and I said, uncomfortably warm beneath his heavy arm, "I don't suppose they did, no. Except in some way that might be useful to them." Vernor asked, "Useful how?" and I said, my embarrassment deepening, "Sometimes they asked me, some of them, to help them with their academic work; to revise their papers, or write them-sometimes." Vernor chuckled as if he'd suspected this all along; seen what I'd been too blind to see. "You, Anellia, wanted to be 'liked' by individuals you didn't know. Individuals of no special worth or achievement. Racists and bigots. Tell me why."
Oh, why did he pursue this? His voice low, throaty, seductive; cruel and caressing; the voice of my early dream of an unknown man at the periphery of my vision; the voice of the man who was my first love, the first to penetrate my tight drum of a body. The voice I would hear through my life like the murmur of my blood. Your first love, you'll never outlive. After that first love you will never love another in that way.
I said nothing. Vernor spoke frankly, "Yet you were the one who lied to them, Anellia. You were the hypocrite posing as someone you were not. 'Anellia'-she-who-is-not."
This wasn't an accusation but a statement. I'd told Vernor my true name one evening. Still he called me "Anellia"-I supposed he couldn't be troubled to learn another name.
We were in the park, no longer on the path. There were voices close by but Vernor seemed not to hear. He framed my face in his hands another time; in this way positioning me, "seeing" me; his strong thumbs bracketing my eyes, pulling the skin taut at the corners. My natural reflex was to shrink away, to free myself; what if he shoved his thumbs in my eyes; what if he gouged out my eyes; I knew of course that Vernor Matheius wasn't about to gouge out my eyes, yet there was the panicky wish to push away from him. At the same time I felt sexually aroused. His lightest touch, his closeness, the intimacy of his gaze. The threat of those strong thumbs. It was like standing beside a tall upright flame: you could not withstand the flame by any act of will. "Why'd you come here with me? What's your intention?" Vernor said. His words were teasing but his expression was intense as if every nerve in his face had tightened. Leading me farther off the trail. Still it was a public place, and in bright sunshine. I stumbled as if intoxicated. A wave of apprehension rose in me, what we might do. I felt the distance between us and this place; the natural world; the world beyond the net of human language; beyond the province of philosophy; for here was the puzzlement of which Wittgenstein spoke; puzzlement the inevitable human condition of those who try to think. Vernor Matheius's thumbs tugging at my eyes, the authority in his superior strength. I understood how a predator might run his prey to earth and that prey would go limp in acquiescence, once the jaws had closed about it; once it was clear there could be no escape.
Overhead, a chattering of jays like monkeys in a jungle.