Giles Goat Boy (83 page)

Anastasia listened with glowing eyes. “You’re
sweet
,” she murmured, and rising impulsively on tiptoes, bussed my cheek. “I’ve
needed
a brother to straighten me out, from the beginning!”

The prospect which had so alarmed her only a few moments previously seemed now to delight her quite as much as that of Dr. Sear’s connubial husbandry. “I can’t
wait
to see Mom!” she exclaimed. “I’ll
make
her ’fess up this time!” Her face was alight. “I know what! Friday’s her night to work: I’ll go with you to the Library, and we’ll kill two birds with one stone!” Her mother, she reminded me, was an assistant director of filing and cataloguing in the Central Library: an office she’d attained on her own merits before the misfortune of her illegitimate pregnancy and subsequent instability, and held since as a kind of sinecure thanks to the influence of her father, the ex-Chancellor. Thus it was she whom I’d be applying to in any case for authorization to re-place the Founder’s Scroll. Anastasia proposed to accompany me there and take the opportunity to “get to the bottom of this
sister
-thing,” as she put it. Already she was a-bubble with questions and conjectures: if we were twins, or even just siblings, she couldn’t
imagine
why I hadn’t been raised along with herself; how could
anybody
not want their own little baby? On the other hand, if
something had “taken me away” at birth (of one thing Anastasia was certain: it could never have been our mother’s wish), that circumstance went far, she thought, to explain Virginia Hector’s subsequent lapses of reason, and even her rejection of Anastasia—by what mechanism of psychology I did not grasp. But why had “Uncle Ira” and “Grandpa Reg” never mentioned a brother? And if, as it now appeared, neither Dr. Spielman nor Dr. Eierkopf was our father, who on
campus
did I suppose was? And whatever could have happened to spirit me away?

“Let’s hurry, George! Aren’t you thrilled to
pieces?
Oh,
darn …
” She snapped her fingers. “I really must call Maurice. Only take a sec.”

She hurried off to telephone the Powerhouse from the receptionist’s desk, and I availed myself of the respite to herd my scattered thoughts and address them to the work at hand—more important by far, to my mind, than the details of my genealogy. Mother or no mother, sister or no sister, I had Finals to pass, an impostor to rout, and studentdom to tutor from its error.
Re-place the Founder’s Scroll
. With humble pride, not unmixed with awe, I remarked how clearly each new task, so far from exhausting me, left me stronger for the next; how, for the man of sure vocation, nothing is gratuitous, and the merest happenstance is fraught with meaning. Dr. Sear’s observation about the Library’s classification-problem, now I considered it, pointed clearly to the sense of my task—a sense altogether harmonious (as Sear could never have guessed) with the rest of the Assignment. What had my day’s work proved, if not the necessity of clear distinction? And what were my labors but a series of paradigms, or emblems of this necessity? To distinguish Tick from Tock, East Campus from West, Grand Tutor from goat, appearance from reality (or whatever contraries were involved in seeing through My Ladyship)—all these tasks, like my sundry concomitant advisings, were but ways of saying, “Passage is Passage, Failure Failure: let none confuse them.” All that was wanted to put the Founder’s Scroll in its place was sharper definition, I was confident—and eager to tackle the problem, I grew impatient at the little delay, for it began to seem not impossible that I might request Examination that same evening, and thus complete my Assignment in a single day—as close to “no time,” surely, as anyone could demand!

After a few minutes Anastasia reported, with some concern, that Stoker had not appeared at the Powerhouse all day, nor had his new secretary at Main Detention seen him since mid-morning; the former office was particularly alarmed because of some threatening situation in the Furnace Room—I trembled to imagine it—that required his management. At least,
however, she was free to go with me; we left the Infirmary after a brief dispute with the orderlies (who wanted proof of my discharge from custody and only reluctantly accepted my Clean Bill of Health and Anastasia’s endorsement in lieu of the regular form), and as we rode Librarywards in a double-sidecar taxi, Anastasia explained what had disturbed her at luncheon.

“Maurice has never done anything
like
it before!” she said. “Coming right to the Infirmary and taking me out to eat! He’d even shaved, and bought a necktie!” Moreover—what I agreed was unimaginable—he had treated her with courtesy; had opened doors for her, praised her coiffure (as she reported this she touched her hair, still incredulous), dined with her in almost gentlemanly fashion, and finally announced that he wanted her advice: Didn’t she agree that he should drop in at the Light House and publicly deny kinship with Lucky Rexford?

“I swear that’s what he said, George—and so
mildly!
” Any moment, she declared, she had expected him to end the cruel pretense and become his normal self again. Had he but smashed even a
little
porcelain, called out a few obscenities, or pinched the waitress’s behind, she might have dined with some small appetite despite the novelty of the occasion. As it was, she could eat nothing, and trembled with worry that she had displeased him in some way. His question she could scarcely comprehend; not until they rose from table did she venture to say, “Whatever
you
think, dear”—and that only to terminate the suspense, for she was certain that as soon as she took the bait of his polite inquiry he’d perpetrate some characteristic outrage in the tea-room. He had been drawing out her chair as she replied, and when he took her elbows then she’d closed her eyes and waited, almost with relief, to be assaulted upon the table or otherwise indignified—but he had gently ushered her out, expressing his pleasure in her company and his hope that they might have lunch together more often.

“Did he go to the Chancellor’s Mansion then?” I asked.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I was so rattled, I can’t remember
what
he said after that.” Seeing my sharp interest, she asked whether I knew what might have “come over” her husband.

“I have an idea,” I admitted. “He and I had a little conversation this morning …” I considered whether to tell her that Maurice Stoker’s apparent good behavior, if it was the result of our talk in Main Detention, was more flunkèd in its way than his former immoderacies; but I wasn’t certain I could rehearse that difficult argument clearly, and so I simply
cautioned her instead not to be seduced, by his new gentleness, out of her new chastity.

She frowned. “But suppose he … wants me for something, George? Or asks me to … 
do
something for somebody? I
am
his wife …”

Upon consideration I agreed that she might permit him a limited amount of dignified sexual converse with her person, so long as it was with her express consent and involved no force, degradation, perversion, or other abuse. “But not with anyone else, Anastasia,” I repeated firmly. “And not just to please
him
. If you’re in heat, or want to breed a child, then okay.”

“I don’t seem able to have children,” she reminded me. “I guess it’s lucky, considering.” But the thought—of either her barrenness or her past promiscuity—so saddened her that for the rest of the ride she fiddled with a strand of her hair and contemplated the evening traffic. The lights along the boulevards were less bright than they’d been the night before; they appeared at times even to flicker. As we passed the Light House I saw people gathered along the iron fence, some bearing placards whose messages I couldn’t make out in the poor light. A black wedge of motorcycles roared from one of the entrance-drives and sped by us; I was almost certain that the leader was Stoker himself—but bare-chinned, and wearing a light-colored suit! Anastasia happened to be staring glumly in the opposite direction, and I said nothing lest at sight of him she change her mind about going with me.

On the esplanade before Tower Hall was another crowd, standing about as if in expectation; one could hear a common buzz of displeasure every time the streetlights winked.

“
Something
screwy going on,” our driver ventured. He took us around to the rear of the building; Anastasia put by her melancholy reverie to pay our fare (which I’d not understood was required) and brightened a little as we approached the enormous wing that housed New Tammany’s Central Library stacks and offices.

“I can hardly
wait
for you to meet Mom after all these terms!” she said, taking my arm. We went through an entrance-door over which was engraved T
HE
T
RUE
U
NIVERSITY
I
S A
C
OLLECTION OF
B
OOKS
, and made our way through vast high-ceilinged reading rooms, sparsely peopled by reason of the uncertain light.

“I
know
something’s wrong at the Powerhouse,” Anastasia fretted. A lone student rushed past us in the corridor which led to the Cataloguing Office; as we looked behind to see where he might be going in such haste, he caught himself up for a second and glanced back at me with an
expression of indignant disbelief, as if angry at having to credit his eyes. I blushed, not knowing why I should, and gave Anastasia’s hand a brotherly pat.

At the end of the corridor was a large domed room entirely given over to rows of catalogue-files laid out like the spokes of a wheel. In its hub, beneath a suspended sign which declared T
HE
F
INAL
S
CIENCE
I
S
L
IBRARY
S
CIENCE
, a large metal-cornered glass case stood empty but for its black-velvet bed. Anastasia gasped.

“It
is
gone!”

She meant the Scroll, ordinarily exhibited there. I twinged with distress: if it had been lost or stolen, to restore it to its place could take Founder knew how long! I insisted we learn what happened to it before pursuing our private business—which might have to be put aside anyhow if duty called.

“Maybe that’s what the excitement’s about,” I suggested unhappily.

There being however no one in the room except ourselves, Anastasia pointed out that her mother was in the best position to answer this question as well as the other, since her office was adjacent to the card-files; she proposed we go to her at once, before she too should join the apparent exodus from Tower Hall; Anastasia would introduce me merely as the new Candidate for Grand-Tutorhood, and I could interview our mother undistracted on the matter of the Scroll before we disclosed our other concerns. I saw no alternative and so agreed, though with some misgivings; the gossip one had heard about Virginia Hector’s unhappy condition inspired no confidence in her as an accurate reporter.

“Wait.” I caught her arm. “Here comes someone else.” A door from the corridor had opened and shut, and sharp heels clicked down the aisle next to ours. The lights blinked out entirely for two seconds; in the pause one heard a surge from the crowd outside. The clicking hesitated also, then resumed with the light. But I laid a finger to my lips and drew Anastasia two steps back into our aisle, because while the sound bespoke a woman’s tread, it called to my mind the clickish voice of Harold Bray, and I wanted a moment to consider a half-formed notion that accompanied his hateful image: the texts of his false Certificates were cited by their bearers as coming not simply from the Old or New Syllabus, but specifically from the Founder’s Scroll; assuredly there were transcriptions of the document which he might have consulted, but my antipathy put nothing past him. If one began with the assumption that he was a fraud and then looked for the motive of his imposture, it seemed far from unimaginable to me that he might make use of his position to deliver
secret information to the Nikolayans, for example, or to steal a priceless treasure like the Founder’s Scroll …

The interloper—in fact a female person of a certain age—emerged now into the center; Anastasia left off regarding me quizzically and smiled.

“Come on: it’s Mom.”

She would have hailed or gone to her, but when the elder woman paused beside the case at sound of us and peered to see who we were, adjusting a pencil in her silver hair, light flashed from the point-cornered lenses of her eyeglasses. I gripped Anastasia’s arm and very nearly swooned.

“Founder Omniscient!” I groaned, and ran with chill perspiration; was obliged to squat and feign interest in a low drawer of cards until I mastered my shivering. No mistaking her: it was Lady Creamhair, however drawn and silvered by unhappy terms!

Anastasia bent to me, frightened. “What
is
it, George?”

I shook my head. Lady Creamhair’s eyes—
Virginia Hector’s
, it staggered me to understand!—had evidently not improved since our dim dear days in the hemlock-grove; seeing nothing familiar about us or untoward, she went on to her office.

“You’re sure that’s Virginia Hector, Anastasia?”

“Of course it is! What on campus—”

“And … she’s your mother?” I leaned against the card-file for support.

“
Our
mother, I hope!” She drew me hubwards. “Let’s find out for sure, before she goes off somewhere.”

But I held back yet a moment, flabbergast with memory and surprise. Poor dear Creamie! How I understood now your unwillingness to meet my keeper, or tell me your name; how I trembled at your old interest in me, your yen to pluck me from the herd, and—Founder, Founder!—your appall at my lust to Be, that drove you watchless from the grove!

“Anastasia …” I could scarcely speak. It was the empty Scroll-case now I leaned on, and drew her to me. Dutifully she resisted—until assured that it was a brotherly embrace. “I won’t explain now, but … I’ve known that lady before, and I—I really think that you and I
might
be twins.”

She hugged me enthusiastically—confounding my poor blood, which knew no longer what permissibly might rouse it. I suggested then that the shock of seeing me after so many terms might do her mother—
our
mother!—more harm than good unless properly prepared for; we agreed that Anastasia would go to her at first alone, draw her out upon the matters of our twinship and paternity while I listened from the doorway, and gently then introduce the facts of our acquaintance and my presence in the College proper. If Miss Hector found the news too distressing, I
could present myself another time; if not, Anastasia would summon and introduce me. I stationed myself outside the door, and Anastasia knocked.