Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) Read online

  I join the small crowd assembling in the conference room. Faculty and grad students file in slowly, the grad students pooling just inside the entrance—unaccustomed to attending faculty meetings, they lean against the wall, hesitant to claim a professor’s habitual seat.

  Entering, Jeff pauses beside me. “This is going to be fun,” he whispers. “Joanne’s been collecting dirt. I predict a departmental steam cleaning. Alas, I happened to have an unusual number of competent students last term.” His blue eyes pop as he mimes the yank of a noose around his neck. He takes his seat.

  The faculty is nearly assembled: the theorists intermingled with the Romanticists, our two Medievalists seated beside a clutch of postmodernists, who as usual look depressed. I settle between Jeff and Steven Hilliard, a literary theory specialist visiting this year from Oxford. Steven greets me as casually as though there were nothing irregular about the presence of a visiting prof at a faculty meeting. When Grub enters, Steven rises to greet him with a genial hand clasp, making me recall Jeff’s darkly approving commentary upon meeting Steven: You have to be pulling strings somewhere to get that kind of access to the chair. Even with a genuine British accent. Maybe so. But you also have to be either a masochist or an extreme political climber to attend another department’s meetings by choice—even if some well-meaning faculty member has taken the highly unusual step of inviting you.

  The grad students, as sudden and unanimous as birds on a wire, push off from the wall and fill the remaining seats.

  Joanne, greeting the twenty-odd assembled faculty and dozen graduate students with efficient cheer, is passing out single sheets of paper.

  “Let’s see—Tracy . . .” She flips through the pile, extracts a page, and hands it to me. It’s a printout from the registrar’s office. For a moment, my outrage is stalled by wonder at Joanne’s resourcefulness. I have no idea how she persuaded the registrar’s office to do this, but some bushy-tailed computer operator in the bowels of that bureaucracy has compiled a list of the grades issued by each professor over the past year. Joanne—who doubtless pored over the record of each of her colleagues before this meeting—continues distributing printouts until each of us holds evidence of our own handiwork. Then she paces the center of the room, giving us time to digest our sins.

  Scanning my page, I see I’ve given a decent scattering of grades; my average, B, is at least lower than the departmental average, which hovers between B+ and A-. Jeff, however, looks annoyed; clearly he was more generous than he recalled. There’s a deep and unusual silence in the room. Looking around, it’s easy to guess which of my colleagues have matched or topped the already inflated average.

  “I’ve taken the highly unusual step of gathering all of us in one room,” Joanne begins, “because graduate students do so much of this department’s grading, and we need to discuss this together.”

  Silence.

  “Some of you may only now be realizing,” Joanne intones, “that you’ve unwittingly contributed to a problem that’s hit our university, along with most other American universities. Ultimately this is a problem that can be solved best by following your consciences.” So announces Joanne, proud owner of a conscience.

  “Jesse,” she says.

  The room is dead quiet. Jesse Faden glares at her.

  “You might want to look at your record.” She offers an efficient nod, as though she hasn’t just breached a fundamental barrier, chastising a faculty member in front of the graduate students. She continues: “As should most of the faculty.” A few of whom look bemused, most of whom look stunned.

  “Jeff,” Joanne says, “you too.”

  Jeff meets Joanne’s gaze with a look of mild remonstration, then raises his fingers in lazy salute. “Mea culpa,” he says dryly.

  “You too, Elizabeth,” says Joanne.

  Some of the graduate students wear expressions of barely disguised horror. Rather than provoking jealousy among her fellow grad students, Elizabeth’s peculiarities inspire awe and a touch of protectiveness.

  “I believe, Elizabeth, that you’ve been a particularly egregious offender,” says Joanne. “You gave almost sixty percent of your students A’s or A-minuses.”

  Until now, Joanne has always seemed to like Elizabeth. This meeting has started to feel like a declaration of war, though on whom and for what purpose is unclear. Across the table from me, Elizabeth is flushed hot pink and looks as though she might pass out.

  Steven Hilliard raises his hand—actually raises his hand, so Oxford is he—and contributes a question. “What standards do we agree upon for grading? How, for example, shall this department define a C?”

  It’s a question that would be eminently reasonable were he an actual faculty member, rather than a visiting prof who shouldn’t be in this meeting in the first place. For now, though, no one is in a mood to rebuke him. On the faces around the room, irritation at his presence—at the bizarre format of the meeting altogether—is overruled by gratitude for his civil intervention. Surely when Newton penned his law—for every action, an equal and opposite reaction—he had academic politics in mind. And now that Joanne has bared political knuckles, politeness springs up like a force of nature. A recent hire clears his throat and makes a first modest suggestion. A grad student offers another. The definition of a C billows between the walls of the conference room. C means average. C means no ability but some effort. Speakers defer to one another; those who don’t speak wear mainly neutral expressions, in compliance with that basic rule of academia: To survive in the wild, a professor must develop the instincts of a small rock-dwelling animal. When an eagle flies by—or when sniping begins in your presence—freeze. Then camouflage. If you are able to turn translucent, do so immediately.

  Only when the discussion has lulled does Victoria speak up. “I don’t believe it’s necessary to single out individuals,” she says. “This is a departmental problem, one in which we all have a stake.”

  I’ve always respected Victoria, who speaks her mind in a terse New England manner that invites no closeness and allows no bullshit. With her snow-white pageboy and clear blue eyes, cream blouse and tailored gray skirt, Victoria is my definition of unruffleable. There are nods around the table.

  “It is quite clear,” Victoria continues, “that we can all benefit by addressing the grading issue.”

  There is vehement agreement, and the ensuing discussion, moderated by Joanne, rapidly produces a draft of new grading standards and a provision for evaluating our progress as a department. Joanne paces the room’s perimeter restlessly. Pausing to make notes on a pad, she towers over Paleozoic, who sits mummified in his chair with lids at half-mast—his pug nose tilted to the ceiling, emitting a slight whistle so it’s impossible to tell whether he’s sleeping or just listening hard.

  I’m silent during the discussion—unusual for me. Something holds me back. I keep my eye on Joanne. I’ve always found her difficult, but there’s something odd about today’s ferocity. Joanne wears a look of naked, exhausted triumph that makes me think she’s about to crow, or cry.

  As the meeting winds down, the older faculty begin snapping briefcase latches and checking watches. Tuning out Joanne’s closing comments, I find myself wondering what George would be doing if he were here. For an instant I envision the stuffy room flash lit with his humor. And see his expression as he watched me over dinner: curious, expectant, compassionate, as though I were, unwittingly, making some tremulous and unexpected confession. Even in recollection it makes me feel exposed. Only this time, for no discernible reason, discomfort makes way for a sensation like fizzy water. I stroke the back of my hand.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  I glance over my shoulder to see whom she’s addressing.

  “Who, me?” Joanne mocks. Her tone is not gentle. “Don’t be cute, Tracy. What are you smiling about?”

  Holding my smile, I will my face not to become a furnace. “Nothing, Joanne.”

  The briefcase tinkerers fall silent.

&nb
sp; “Why don’t you share the joke?” Joanne booms.

  There’s an uncertain titter from somewhere to my left.

  I keep my voice level. “I’m smiling, Joanne, because I’m happy.”

  Joanne blinks at me, her gaze sharp. “Ha.” She actually says the word, like a cartoon character incapable of a proper laugh. She waits another moment, but I neither speak nor duck her eyes.

  She turns back to the others. “Any questions?”

  Leaving the room I walk apart from my colleagues, a momentary pariah. With visible relief, faculty and grad students break into separate clusters and move off in silence down the hall. Ahead of me, Jeff squeezes Elizabeth’s shoulder before their paths diverge. Paleozoic, newly roused, peers sharply at the two of them. He stares until Jeff turns into his office and Elizabeth vanishes down the hallway. You can see the gears creaking in his mind.

  As I pass Joanne, she taps my shoulder. Her face is pale and expressionless. “Don’t bullshit me,” she whispers.

  We jolt along Varick Street. Adam steers with one hand and with the other fishes at the bottom of a bag of potato chips. The borrowed Civic, evidently shockless, enunciates each pothole with jarring clarity. Frowning, Adam turns from the road to scrutinize the inside of the bag. Someone honks; he looks up with a grunt, swerves back into the lane, and tips the contents of the bag into his mouth.

  Since his return to New York, Adam has been lackadaisically job-hunting—trolling, according to Hannah, for the lowest possible responsibility-to-salary ratio. Last weekend he moved his duffel into an echoing Boerum Hill two-bedroom he plans to share with a college buddy. He’s been eating corn flakes for dinner, sleeping on the floor on a pallet of unfolded laundry topped by a sheet. Convinced that Adam needs a personal shopper in his reluctant pursuit of a futon and other house basics, Hannah promised to shepherd him through the painful acquisition of domesticity. This morning, when Elijah woke with a fever, she phoned me, only half kidding: Could I? Would I? Someone needed to save Adam from himself.

  Knowing I was too restless to do a stitch of work, I agreed to fill in for her. A decision I’m beginning to regret.

  “Hey,” I say. “Could you watch the road? A little bit?” I indicate the looming entrance of the Holland Tunnel, the narrowing lanes of traffic. “Didn’t they have driving laws in Russia?”

  He crunches chips. “None I noticed.”

  In the ghostly illumination of the tunnel, Adam consumes the remaining crumbs. Adam’s always had that tousled, sleepy look that makes some women want to take care of a guy. Personally I’ve never seen the appeal. Big blue eyes don’t compensate, in my view, for a desire to be an adult. But Adam’s got his own brand of magic. In truth I’ve missed him more than I’d realized. As the fluorescent lights flicker over his face, I watch his jawbones work and see he’s lost weight. Most people return from an assignation with Russian cuisine several pounds heftier. But apparently Adam ran himself ragged over there. According to Hannah, between bartending shifts Adam did volunteer work with some of the poorer families. And Gorky had a hard winter.

  “So what was it like?” I say.

  Adam munches. “Shortages. Ghost towns. The country looks like it’s falling to pieces any minute, but it doesn’t, or never all the way.”

  “What did you like?”

  “The people,” he says, now watching the traffic steadily. “One minute neighbors are cheating each other and the next minute they’re bailing each other out. They surprised me every day. I think they surprise themselves.”

  White lozenge-lights escort the unbroken ribbons of traffic beneath the river. The tile walls and roof shimmer with reflections: watery white headlights, inverted red taillights sailing passively overhead as far as the eye can see. Today the tunnel’s mesmerizing length seems merciful, offering the columns of urban drivers a few moments’ reprieve from choice. The traffic snakes submissively ahead of us. I watch it for a long time, thinking.

  “Also the vodka,” says Adam. “I liked the vodka.”

  “How did you manage bartending, anyway?” I ask. “Last I knew you didn’t have a clue how to tend bar.”

  “I bought a book about mixing drinks.”

  “You read a book?”

  Adam pegs me with a long look of contempt. I return the favor. “No,” he says. “I just consulted one. I did all right except the days I forgot to bring it to work. There was this one time I didn’t have it, and this Mafia-looking dude sat down with his buddies and told the waitress to get him a Manhattan. I had no idea what was in one, so I mixed up a stiff blue fruit drink. The waitress took it over, and the guy sent her back in a nanosecond. And she did not look happy. So I had the waitress call him over. He comes over, I swear he’s a goddamn ape, and he points at the drink with this fucking huge finger, and he says, ‘This isn’t a Manhattan.’ And all his friends are listening in and grinning because he’s going to break my face. So I say to him in my very best Russian, ‘Where are you from?’ He says ‘Gorky.’ So I go quiet and confidential, and I say to him, ‘Me? I’m from Manhattan. And I’m telling you, this is a Manhattan.’ The guy thinks. He says, ‘Really?’ And I go“—Adam indicates a solemn nod—“and the guy takes his drink and goes back to his posse. To this day I bet you there’s a Mafioso serving up blue Manhattans in Gorky.” He snorts. Then sighs.

  There’s a new flavor to Adam’s humor. A mournful half-smile that lingers after he’s told a funny story; an abrupt, sun-breaking-through-clouds grin after he’s related something difficult. Shocking as this would have been a few years ago, I find myself learning from him.

  “Did you feel guilty for being able to leave?” I ask.

  “Nope. Everybody in the world who has a chance to live well should jump on it.”

  I watch him. “You know, you should really write an article about what you saw over there.”

  He laughs aloud. “Only you could mean that as a compliment.”

  “It is a compliment.”

  “Why would I want to write about it? That’s like suggesting I go stick my brain in the furnace for a couple weeks. Writing is work.”

  “So forget writing. I’m just saying, you could do all kinds of things. With your experiences. I mean, you’ve got interesting things to say.”

  He smirks. “You mean I have potential?”

  “You do have to be really smart to act so stupid.”

  He looks at me. “At last, a real compliment.”

  In the years I’ve known Adam, our friendship’s highest accolade has been you don’t suck; suddenly, though, it seems imperative not to let him mock away my praise. “It’s true,” I say to him. “You can walk on water when you want to.”

  Adam seems embarrassed by this uncharacteristic earnestness. As am I. Then, slowly, he shakes his head. “You and Hannah. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want ambition? That I’ve seen where it gets people?”

  This silences me. I’ve never before heard Adam criticize his parents’ choices, or Hannah’s picture-perfect life. Hannah and Adam’s parents, both intense professionals, divorced a half-dozen years ago after decades of fearsome battles. Each parent is now independently nearing the highest rung on the professional ladder. Each is consistently miserable. Scrolling back through the years, I’m chagrined by the entertainment Hannah and I found in ribbing Adam for his slothfulness.

  Adam pilots us out of the tunnel. The daylight is blinding. We approach I-95 in silence. Adam shifts into fifth gear. “By the way,” he says, “I give him credit. It’s a classy way out.”

  “You give who credit?” I turn and look emphatically over my left shoulder at the I-95 traffic, hoping Adam will be inspired to follow my example.

  Adam scoots us onto the highway two feet ahead of an eighteen-wheeler. The truck is practically on our bumper. Adam floors it. “Your date. A guy kisses you on the hand when he doesn’t want to kiss you for real.” Having found a foolproof way to change the subject, he whistles contentedly. I hadn’t even mentioned my evening with George. I
glare at him.

  “Shut up,” I say.

  He does, which is unsatisfying.

  “You’re an utter waste of DNA.”

  He tips his baseball cap.

  “And how do you know so much about my date?”

  “NPR. Hannah was on-air taking questions about the hand kiss.” He gives me a long, wicked smile.

  “Jesus! Watch the road!”

  He holds his pose another second, then slowly turns back to the windshield.

  In truth we’re not going fast, and now that we’re ahead of the truck the highway doesn’t look crowded. Still.

  “I don’t remember soliciting your opinion about my date,” I say to him. Adam: whose romantic résumé includes the time Kim, his college girlfriend, insisted after almost two years on knowing what he felt for her—at which point he assured her that she was the shit (end quote) and she broke up with him.

  “You most certainly did. You asked me just after you got into the car whether there’d been any interesting women in Russia. And you were beaming at me.”

  “I was not beaming.”

  Adam reaches across my knees to the glove compartment and pulls out a pair of mirrored sunglasses, which he unfolds and settles on the bridge of his nose. “You’re doing it again. I have to wear protective gear.”

  The Ikea sign appears on the side of the highway ahead of us. When Adam glances my way again, I see my face in the distorted reflection of the lenses: owl-eyed, pale. Hopeful.

  How are you supposed to conduct yourself when you believe you’ve had some kind of soul connection with a stranger, but—being a modern rather than a character in a nineteenth-century play—you still have to suffer the petty indignities of dating? Indignities about which you are, as a habit, skeptical?