Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

After a moment she said, “Susquehanna seems like such a peaceful place.” She smiled, but tears had welled up in her eyes.

He could only study her, uncertain what she meant.

“I mean,” she said, blinking, then touching first one eye then the other with the knuckle of her right index finger, “he was working on something here, you know. Looking into something.”

Mickelsson nodded. “I’d heard that. Scientific project?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so,” she said, and glanced at Mickelsson timidly. “Something much more …” She searched for the word.

Gently, faintly ashamed of his prying, he asked, “You have no idea what?”

She shook her head, briefly smiled, touched her eyes again. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t be, for heaven’s sakes. Please!”

As if she’d been carefully watching it all, Gretchen Blickstein drifted over to them, sat down beside the young woman, and took an hors d’oeuvre. “Lovely party, Peter,” she said. She was built like a pigeon and had the same alert, unsentimental eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, and began to straighten up.

The young woman said, “I know what he was afraid of down here. I overheard him talking on the telephone one night—he stopped right away when I came in. I don’t know who he was talking to. He said something about a fat man.”

“You mentioned this to the police?” Mickelsson asked, no longer meeting her eyes.

“I did, and they went to talk with the fat man, I think. It seems nothing came of it. But I know—I know for certain—”

“Agnes, dear,” Gretchen Blickstein said, “don’t! Please don’t do this to yourself.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She bowed her head, then put her hand over her eyes. Gretchen and Mickelsson exchanged looks; then Mickelsson straightened up.

Turning, Mickelsson said to Jessie, whom he found at his elbow, “Holding up all right, Jess?”

“Don’t I always?” she asked with a small laugh. Her eyes looked tired, and the high cheekbones seemed sharper, more Indian, than usual. She took an hors d’oeuvre. The Tillsons and Mabel Garret hovered just beyond Jessie, timidly eavesdropping, like people not sure they were really invited. Tillson must have followed Mickelsson from the kitchen. Still trying to make friends.

“You do bear up, I must admit,” he said. The grief in his voice startled him.

She gave him a look—angry?—then glanced at Agnes Warren. With the two smallest fingers of her right hand—in the others she held her hors d’oeuvre, and in her left hand her glass—she touched Mickelsson’s arm, drawing him away. “Have you seen any more of the Spragues?” she asked.

He floundered, then remembered. The old people. Still he hesitated, trying to think what made her bring it up. Small talk, because she’d overheard Blickstein’s dire predictions? Was she trying to make him look good in front of his department chairman? (Tillson was slinking off toward the Christmas tree to make some adjustment.)

“I haven’t been back,” Mickelsson said. “I suppose I should.”

“I feel I ought to have done something,” she said. “I hate it that he has to walk to town for groceries.”

“Except when he flies,” Mickelsson said.

“Oh, come off it, Pete.” She looked smaller, like someone who’s been scolded.

He touched her hand, trying to make out what was the matter. “You’re right, I should figure out a way to help him.”

“Perhaps he’ll be too proud to take it,” Ruth Tillson said eagerly, hoping it might be so.

Mickelsson looked at her, surprised to discover that she was stupid. “Perhaps,” he said, and, with a glance of farewell to Jessie, still baffled by what she might be up to, what the devil she was feeling, he moved toward the circle where Blassenheim was holding forth. The boy was taller and broader of shoulder than everyone around him, his hair and features more burnished and alive, as if he were a visitor from some younger, healthier planet.

“Hors d’oeuvres?” Mickelsson asked, edging between Brenda Winburn and Phil Bryant. Both of them reached to the plate. Brenda’s eyes were stormy, though she smiled as Mickelsson leaned near.

“I’ll tell you the problem with that,” Garret was saying, wagging his finger at Blassenheim and grinning, then taking a step toward him, unconsciously invading his space. “It’s an admirable aim—know thyself, and so on—and in theory it’s the only way to figure out values: look inside yourself and figure out what you are, what’s possible and what isn’t, then think out the necessary ideals for human beings.” He was talking excitedly, a gesture for every phrase. Mostly he seemed to be arranging imaginary pots on imaginary shelves. Edie Bryant watched him with a fixed smile and widened eyes, pretending to think all he said was far, far beyond her.

Mickelsson shifted away a little. At times, especially when he held forth at parties, Garret allowed himself a surprisingly amateurish sloppiness, a Nietzchean “Let’s try it!” that could look a little like a parody of Mickelsson’s own method. It was silly that Mickelsson should permit himself annoyance, fond as he was of Garret. Yet he couldn’t easily miss the fact that what he felt, watching Tom flail in, was undoubtedly similar to what a man like Geoffrey Tillson must feel, given his cool certainties, when listening to Mickelsson himself. If there was a difference, it wouldn’t be evident at a glance to Tillson. That was what made Tillson so infuriating—that and the honor he somehow wrung out of the philosophy Establishment. Bookless as a jaybird, he’d nevertheless served on all the important A.P.A. committees. Somewhere on all the journal mastheads you’d find E. G. Tillson’s name. He was on all the right sides, the sides that had won the day. For all one said, he knew the demolishing opposition in advance, opposition arguments one would never get time to isolate and, with careful, steady tweezers, unpack. One could always buttress one’s ego with one’s books, of course. But as Mickelsson often said when drunk—but by God he meant it—the first principle of Establishment philosophy was, “Never, never look carefully at another man’s book!” Tillson, of course, had even less interest