The Resurrectionist (21 page)

F
OR THE FIRST
time
in weeks, Jacob immerses himself totally in his paperwork, spending more time on each form and press release and e-mail response than is really necessary, trying to smother the aching thoughts in his brain with the mass of administrative minutiae as though his very sanity depended on it. Which he supposes it does: every time he allows his mind to wander, it flashes back to the Ebenezer church or to the image of McMichaels holding out the manila file folder. Or to the thought of a woman left deserted and on her own over a century ago, in this very building. And every time he has glanced up from his desk, his eyes have met the damning smiles of his parents in the snapshot on his bookshelf—or, worse, the group portrait of the class of 1860, from which Frederick Augustus Johnston stares down like an enigma. So when he hears a soft knock on his door he only burrows deeper into the budget form in front of him, hoping the visitor will come back later.

Instead, McMichaels's secretary, Elizabeth, sets a thick manila envelope on his desk, on top of the budget report.

“From Janice Tanaka,” she says.

He picks up the envelope. “This isn't a campus mailer,” he says, peeling a Post-it note from the heavy package.

“Janice delivered it this morning. Herself.”

Jacob realizes he has never thought of Janice outside her warren of filing cabinets at the archives. He imagines her blinking in the sunlight and the open air of the campus on her journey to Administration.

“I think you're growing on her, Jacob.” Elizabeth smiles.

He holds the Post-it note close to his face so that he can make out Janice's tiny, cramped script. “There is a good deal of material here,” it reads. “I hope you'll review it carefully. I've noticed administrators tend to read cursorily at best.” Another schooling from Janice Tanaka. The Completist.

“And Yara Nasir is here to see you,” Elizabeth says.

“What for?”

“For her interview.”

Reluctantly, Jacob looks up. “I thought that was next week.”

For answer, Elizabeth bends over and taps a manicured fingernail on his desk calendar. And there it is: “Yara Nasir” penciled in neatly at his noon slot in Elizabeth's careful hand. “You don't remember, do you?”

Jacob rubs a hand over his eyes. “No. When did you tell me?”

“Wednesday, in the meeting.”

“Right.” Wednesday morning seems like years ago now. He looks up at Elizabeth meekly. “I need to ask a favor. Can you tell her something's come up?”

“And what could be more important than Miss Nasir?”

“Nothing. I just can't talk to her today.”

Her brows knit. “Why not?”

Jacob gives a desperate little laugh. “Do you really want to know?”

He stares at her as her eyes drift toward the window. “No,” she says quietly, “I don't suppose I do.”

He stuffs the envelope from Janice into his portfolio, then rises and steps around the desk, pats Elizabeth gently on the shoulder. “I'll owe you one, Elizabeth,” he says. He glances across the open hallway to the glass-paneled door of the dean's office, where he can see a portion of Yara Nasir's beautiful face as she sits in one of the overstuffed chairs talking to Austin Malloy, who looks as flushed as a frat boy when he speaks to her.

“I'm just going to step out for a while,” he says to Elizabeth, his eyes never leaving Miss Nasir's face as he sidles toward his office door. He wants to slip away unnoticed.

“Jacob?” Elizabeth says. He turns and sees that she is holding out his suit jacket. “Don't forget this.”

She holds it for him as he slips his arms into the sleeves, then pats his back as he steps out the door. He turns to wave to her as he goes down the stairs and sees her shaking her head at him, but not in the usual bantering way. She looks almost sad.

Outside, Jacob breathes the open air gratefully, not certain of his destination but glad to be free of the hush of the administration building. On an impulse, he pulls his cell phone from his pocket and calls Kaye's office, on the off-chance that she might have a rare hour free for lunch. But the phone rings and rings until he hears the line click over from Kaye's direct phone to the firm's receptionist, who tells him that Kaye will be taking a deposition all afternoon. She has left word that she will meet him at the Dean's Mansion tonight for the banquet.

He presses the off button on the phone and stops for a moment. Ahead of him, where the brick walkways terminate on Gervais Street at the gates of the university, he sees Lorenzo Shanks standing at the corner crosswalk. His broad back is turned to the campus, so Jacob waits until the traffic light shifts to green. But Lorenzo does not move with the others across Gervais. Instead he begins pacing in front of the gates, checking his watch once as he walks in nervous circuits in front of the brick pillars and the palmettos planted before them. On his third pass he looks back toward the school. When he sees Jacob, he raises a hand.

For a second Jacob thinks of turning on his heel and heading back in the opposite direction. But he resumes his walk, forcing his stride to look normal. He will speak to Lorenzo, he thinks, then go on across Gervais as soon as the light turns again.

“How about it, Jake?” Lorenzo says when he is within earshot.

“Doing all right. You?”

“Making it,” he says, and holds out a hand. Jacob takes it with an eye on the traffic signal.

“Thought you were down on East Campus.”

“We are,” Lorenzo says, nodding. “But I'm meeting somebody.”

“Great,” Jacob says, looking away.

“Meeting Reverend Greer. He and I are supposed to map out the route for tomorrow.”

“Great,” Jacob says again, idiotically. To his vast relief, the traffic light has turned yellow. He already has a foot on the pavement.

“But he's late.”

Jacob pauses for a moment, even though the signal is now flashing
Walk
, and Lorenzo takes hold of his arm. His grip is like a vise. “I'm sorry it had to go down like it did, Jake. I really am.”

“I'm sorry too.”

“It's nothing personal.”

“I know what you mean.” Because he cannot meet Lorenzo's eyes, he stares at the light. He shuts his eyes for a moment when it shifts again to red.

“Lorenzo, listen,” he is beginning to say when a white pickup truck with the seal of the university on its doors slows in front of them and stops a dozen feet beyond. The driver honks the horn and throws on the flashers, and the truck jerks as its transmission is dropped into park. A second later Bowman's head juts out of the passenger side window, his face red as he glares at Lorenzo. It seems to take him a few seconds to compose himself for speech.

“There you fucking are, Shanks,” he says finally. “Sonny Jesus, boy, you're damn near an hour late. What kind of a lunch are you having?”

Jacob can hear Lorenzo's measured breathing beside him. The two of them stare at Bowman until his face reddens another shade.

“I'll tell you what kind of lunch,” Bowman yells. “Your last fucking lunch on my payroll if you don't get your ass in this truck. I ain't running no drop-in business.” He throws the door open and wriggles across the bench seat behind the steering wheel. After a moment he gives the horn three more taps.

Lorenzo sighs and walks toward the open door. He looks back once at Jacob, his face inscrutable, before he settles into the truck and shuts the door. The flashers cut off and Bowman puts on his left turn signal and pulls back into Gervais, heading east. Jacob watches the two of them through the rear windshield, the white man and his stoic black passenger, until the white tailgate disappears in the lunch-hour traffic.

When they are gone he pulls his phone out again and begins dialing the number for the dean's office, to tell Elizabeth that he will not be back in today. He is hoping that a few hours at the gym might go a long way toward soothing his conscience, the dull ache there. As the phone begins to ring, he thinks that but for his obligatory presence at the banquet tonight, he would be spending the weekend as far away from campus as he can.

R
OSEDALE JUST AFTER
quitting time seems to be breathing a collective sigh of relief. Cars cruise the streets more slowly than usual, with sinewy black arms dangling out of their windows, the front seats pushed back so far the drivers' heads are obscured by the doorframes. While Jacob and Mary wait at the light at Harden and Devine, an old Oldsmobile painted bright blue rumbles past with a primordial thumping of bass blasting out its open windows, the booming noise enveloping the vehicle like a sonic cloud.

“Wonder why they ride around with the windows down in this heat?” Jacob asks.

Mary looks at him askance.

“I'm serious. Do they feel obligated to share that music with the community? Why not just roll up the windows and turn on the AC?”

Mary's head is beginning a slow wobble on her shoulders. “They roll them down because they don't have air conditioning. Boy, you have got above your raising.”

Jacob glances down at the vents on his dashboard, where the German-cooled air is blowing over their legs before it loses the battle with the summer heat coming in from the open top. It's wasteful, but also the only way he can stand putting the top down before dark in August.

“You want me to turn mine off? Does it make you feel pretentious?”

“Don't make me feel nothing but cool.”

The light turns to green and he accelerates through the intersection. Twenty minutes now since he picked her up at his condo, and the conversation has been unusually fitful. He thinks he knows why.

“How's Big Junior?” he asks.

Mary looks away. “Gone north.”

“North?”

“Yeah. He got a girlfriend there he stay with sometimes.”

“Seems like the wrong time of year to head up there.”

Mary shrugs. “Said he's had enough of Carolina for a while.”

Jacob can think of nothing to say. As if to break the uneasy silence, Mary bends down to the floorboard, picks up his portfolio, and fusses with the loose flap of manila envelope that pokes forth from its leather.

“Going to lose something important riding around with this loose,” she says. And sure enough, now that she has lifted them off the floor, the pages flutter and snap in the wind. She gathers them together and opens the clasp on the manila envelope to put them inside. She is stuffing the stack into the envelope when she pauses.

“Who this?”

He sees that she has pulled the copy of Nemo Johnston's portrait from among the other papers.

“That's the guy who ruined my week.”

“What he do to you?”

For an instant he thinks of telling her everything, of filling in the gaps of whatever story Big Junior must have already told her. He looks down again at the man's face in the photocopy. Beneath the almost fierce expression there is a sadness to the eyes, if you look closely enough. “He left a mess behind him,” he says finally. “I got stuck cleaning it up.”

Mary nods, makes a sound of agreement. “Well. Ain't that a switch,” she says. “White man cleaning up after a black man.”

“I guess it is,” Jacob says as he pulls the car to the curb in front of Mary's house. She sets the portfolio on the dashboard with Nemo Johnston's face sticking out of the top of it, his distant eyes staring up at the twilight sky. Mary is opening the door when Jacob puts his hand on her arm.

“Mary,” he says, “that's the guy who put all the bones in the school cellar. The ones Big Junior saw.” He pauses, wishing her eyes would meet his. “Tell me something: why would he do that to his own people?”

Her chestnut eyes fix on his for a moment, then she turns back to the door. She has one foot planted on the asphalt when she looks over her shoulder at him. “What makes you think he had a
choice
?”

The car door shuts heavily behind her and he hears her feet padding across the asphalt. His eyes are still riveted to Nemo Johnston's when he hears her screen porch door swat shut. Slowly he reaches out for the portfolio to tuck the black face out of view. He is stuffing it into the envelope when another photocopy in the packet catches his eye. He pulls it out, glancing at its familiar arrangement of five vertical figures arrayed around the horizontal cadaver.