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

“But isn’t it true,” Blassenheim asked, “that all that really proves is that Plato had a sort of aristocratic bias, like the modern, like, capitalist? He couldn’t believe that a Jew like Einstein or a fifteen-year-old kid might be the real philosopher kings? I mean, some things are right and some things aren’t right, that’s all there is to it. If an evil government survived for a million years, it would still be evil.”

Again Mickelsson nodded. “Of course it would,” he said. “By definition. The problem is—”

Again Nugent had his hand up, furiously waving it.

He realized with a start that Brenda Winburn was staring at him, her large, dark eyes still as gun-barrels. Perhaps it was only that the others were gathering their papers and books, ready for the bell. Her stare was murky with shadows, like that of a child on drugs, though he doubted that it was that. He had an irrational sense that in a moment she would break out of her terrible lethargy of soul and shout at him, or snarl like an animal, expose him as a quibbler, an obscurer, a time-server, a fraud. Along with his fear of her came a sexual stirring. Michael Nugent’s face was white, his hand stretched up, desperately reaching. That instant—fortunately—the bell rang. With the back of the hand that held his pipe he touched his forehead; then he smiled, as if grudgingly, and nodded his dismissal of the class. Most of them, as usual, went out shaking their heads. As usual, he’d fooled only the smart ones.

He was halfway to his mailbox when Alan Blassenheim caught up with him. “Terrific class,” the boy said, grinning crookedly, not meeting his eyes.

“Thank you,” Mickelsson said. Faint panic stirred in him, a minute sickness near his heart.

“I really like that way you do that, make us think for ourselves.” He shook his head, falling into step with Mickelsson, then brushed his rich, dark hair back with his fingers.

“I guess that’s what it’s all about,” Mickelsson said.

“I was wondering,” the boy said. He glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe you could give me a list of books or something.”

Mickelsson smiled, unconsciously checking the hallway for familiar faces. “Fine. Drop by the office sometime.”

“Yeah, sure. OK.” The boy hesitated an instant, knowing he’d been dismissed, then continued beside him. After a moment he said, “I was thinking about that thing you quoted from Collingham that time, how all widespread errors contain some truth. I got to thinking, you know, since there are all these people that believe in God—”

They’d come to the mailroom. Rogers, in history, looked up from his mailbox, saw Mickelsson, and mournfully grinned. “Peter,” he said, “are you invited to Blicksteins’?” He glanced at Blassenheim, politely and sadly registered his existence, then looked back at Mickelsson.

“I’d forgotten all about it.”

Rogers laughed as if wearily, colored light sparking off his silver hair and glasses. “I thought you might have. Or rather, to tell the truth, Jessica thought you might have.”

Without meaning to, Mickelsson frowned.

“See here,” Rogers said, looking up at him more carefully and raising a hand, palm out.

“No, no, that’s fine. I’m glad you reminded me,” Mickelsson said. “It slipped my mind, that’s all.” He smiled, reassuring, then turned his attention to fitting the key into the mailbox.

“Well, see you, then,” Rogers said.

Mickelsson nodded and, with his left hand, waved. It occurred to him that Tillson, his chairman, might be invited; an unpleasant thought. He dismissed it the next instant. It was a dinner party, small; and Blickstein knew a fool when he saw one.

As he glanced over his mail, Mickelsson was aware of Blassenheim awkwardly hovering at his elbow. Consciously, a little guiltily, he blotted the boy out. Bills, ditto sheets, various letters, one from the American Society of Aesthetics. He thought of leaving the student newspaper, then on second thought lifted it from the floor of his box. On the front page he found a picture of his student Brenda Winburn in her swimsuit, poised for a dive.

“It’s funny to think of professors having private lives,” Blassenheim said. Mickelsson half registered something odd in the tone, but his attention was focused on the girl. She was raised up on her toes, her legs chunkily muscular, her breasts much smaller than he’d have imagined. Her expression was intent, unreadable, as if she were deep in meditation. At her back there was a large, inexplicable shadow, as if she had broad, dark wings. When he glanced at Blassenheim, he saw, in the instant before the boy looked away, that Blassenheim had been studying him hungrily. To cover his surprise, Mickelsson tapped at the picture with his pipestem. “Pretty girl,” he said. “Smarter than you’d think.”

Dutifully, Blassenheim looked at the picture.

Mickelsson closed the mailbox and turned to leave. “Stop by any time,” he said, his voice accidentally stern, “we’ll work out that list.”

“Yes sir,” the boy said. Though he did not seem satisfied, he smiled.

Mickelsson felt, suddenly, a physical heaviness, a leadenness of limbs and heart, that it took him a moment to understand. This afternoon at three, he must cope with his graduate seminar in medical ethics. He remembered how he’d been himself, in his days as a graduate student: the hungry ambition, the awful heart’s wail for wisdom and justice, the moral outrage in the presence of soulless pedantry. Not that his freshmen and sophomores were so different, or his children, even when they’d been small, no more than five or six. Maybe one was born with it. One of those infant and childhood diseases, often fatal. He got a sudden painful memory of the Minnesota football team, sitting on glossy, battleship-gray wooden benches in the locker-room at half-time, listening to old Deer-lock’s harangue. Team-spirit, honor, courage, shame. Faint in the distance, the marching band peeped out its snazzy syncopations. After a moment, a faraway crowd roar reached the locker-room, not like something now happening (back then) but like something from a dream, an old, old