The Secret History (97 page)

Somebody told me that Bram Guernsey was in the Green Berets, though I tend to think this is untrue.

Georges Laforgue is still on the Literature and Languages faculty at Hampden, where his enemies have still not managed to supplant him.

Dr. Roland is retired from active teaching. He lives in Hampden town, and has published a book of photographs of the college through the years, which has made him much sought-after as an after-dinner speaker at the various clubs in town. He was almost the cause of my not being admitted to graduate school by writing me a recommendation which—though it was a glowing one—repeatedly referred to me as “Jerry.”

The feral cat that Charles found turned out, surprisingly, to be a rather good pet. He took up with Francis’s cousin Mildred over the summer and in the fall made the move with her to Boston, where he now lives, quite contentedly, in a ten-room apartment on Exeter Street under the name of “Princess.”

Marion is married now, to Brady Corcoran. They live in Tarrytown, New York—an easy commute for Brady into the city—and the two of them have a baby now, a girl. She has the distinction of being the first female born into the Corcoran clan for no one even knows how many generations. According to Francis, Mr. Corcoran is absolutely wild about her, to the exclusion of all his other children, grandchildren, and pets. She was christened Mary Katherine, a name which has fallen more and more into disuse, as—for reasons best known to themselves—the Corcorans have chosen to give her the nickname “Bunny.”

Sophie I hear from now and again. She injured her leg and was out of commission with the dance company for a while, but recently she was given a big role in a new piece. We go out to dinner sometimes. Mostly when she calls it’s late at night, and she wants to talk about her boyfriend problems. I like Sophie. I
guess you could say she’s my best friend here. But somehow I never really forgave her for making me move back to this godforsaken place.

I have not laid eyes on Julian since that last afternoon with Henry, in his office. Francis—with extraordinary difficulty—managed to get in touch with him a couple of days before Henry’s funeral. He said that Julian greeted him cordially; listened politely to the news of Henry’s demise; then said: “I appreciate it, Francis. But I’m afraid there’s really nothing more that I can do.”

About a year ago Francis repeated to me a rumor—which we subsequently found was complete romance—that Julian had been appointed royal tutor to the little crown prince of Suaoriland, somewhere in East Africa. But this story, though false, took on a curious life in my imagination. What better fate for Julian than someday being the power behind the Suaori throne, than transforming his pupil into a philosopher-king? (The prince in the fiction was only eight. I wonder what I should be now if Julian had got hold of me when I was only eight years old.) I like to think that maybe he—as Aristotle did—would bring up a man who would conquer the world.

But then, as Francis said, maybe not.

I don’t know what happened to Agent Davenport—I expect he’s still living in Nashua, New Hampshire—but Detective Sciola is dead. He died of lung cancer maybe three years ago. I discovered this from a public service announcement that I saw late one night on television. It shows Sciola standing, gaunt and Dantesque, against a black backdrop. “By the time you see this announcement,” he says, “I will be dead.” He goes on to say that it wasn’t a career in law enforcement that killed him but two packs of cigarettes a day. I saw this about at three o’clock in the morning, alone in my apartment, on a black-and-white set with lots of interference. White noise and snow. He seemed to be speaking directly at me, right out of the television set. For a moment I was disoriented, seized by panic; could a ghost embody itself through wavelengths, electronic dots, a picture tube? What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?

That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian’s. I remember it from a lecture of his on the
Iliad
, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles–overjoyed at the sight of the apparition—tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes.
The dead
appear to us in dreams
, said Julian,
because that’s the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star …

Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago.

I found myself in a strange deserted city—an old city, like London—underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly—past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble.

I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors. There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below.

I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple … click click click … the Pyramids … the Parthenon. History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said a voice at my elbow.

It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple.

I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. “You know,” I said to him, “everybody is saying that you’re dead.”

He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum … click click click … the Pantheon. “I’m not dead,” he said. “I’m only having a bit of trouble with my passport.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “My movements are restricted,” he said. “I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.”

Hagia Sophia. St. Mark’s, in Venice. “What is this place?” I asked him.

“That information is classified, I’m afraid.”

I looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor. “Is it open to the public?” I said.

“Not generally, no.”

I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn’t time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.

“Are you happy here?” I said at last.

He considered this for moment. “Not particularly,” he said. “But you’re not very happy where you are, either.”

St. Basil’s, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch.

“I hope you’ll excuse me,” he said, “but I’m late for an appointment.”

He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.