The War Between the Tates: A Novel (41 page)

“Where’s Wendy?” Linda asks him, also distrustfully.

“Outside.” Brian pushes forward through the crowd to avoid further questioning, keeping both arms pressed against his body to prevent the rope from unwinding.

“Ten minutes,” Sara warns him.

“He’s not going to listen to you, you know,” Jenny says, touching his arm earnestly. “He’s all freaked out.”

“Could be.”

Brian smiles at her, shrugs, and enters Dibble’s office, shutting the door firmly behind him. Both the room and its occupant look definitely deranged. The drawers of the filing cabinet are pulled open, with papers and files scattered on the desk and floor. There are female boots and coats piled everywhere, and a white, obsessed expression on Dibble’s face as he rises from behind his desk, fixing his eyes on Brian and speaking in a thin, hoarse caricature of his normal voice.

“I know what you’re here for, Tate,” he cries. “I know you’re responsible for this outrage, and let me tell you it doesn’t surprise me, oh no, I’m not at all surprised.” He shakes his head several times. “But it’s no use your coming in here. I’m not going to negotiate with any little rabble-rouser, oh no, oh no.” Again he shakes his head very rapidly, like a wet dog. “I have no interest whatsoever in negotiation. I’ve already made my position, my position quite clear. I expressed myself clearly to Bill Guildenstern, I think. I told him, I said, if you have any slight regard for academic frin—principles of academic freedom, any professional integrity or loyalty—

Brian does not attempt to interrupt, or make the persuasive speech he had thought of as Plan One; he realizes that Jenny was right, and besides there is not enough time. He begins to unbutton Bill’s raincoat, Plan Two.

“—loyalty to your profession, any conscience or any rudimentary conscience, which quite frankly I doubt, and I say the same to you, because you are certainly quite well aware of the legal sanctions which can and should have been imposed at once, several hours ago, at the earliest possible moment, against these disgusting—” Abruptly Dibble ceases speaking. An expression of astonishment, then of panic comes over his face as he observes Brian removing first his jacket, then his sweater. “Wha! Why the hell you doing?” he brays, backing into the corner as Brian approaches.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Brian replies in a low, controlled voice, leaning toward Dibble. “Don’t shout like that, just keep talking normally.” He throws his jacket on a heap of girls’ coats. “Can you climb down a rope?”

“What?”

“A rope,” Brian repeats patiently, feeling behind him for the loose end. “I said, can you climb down a rope?”

Dibble turns, following Brian’s gaze. “You want me to climb out that window?” he asks in a shrill half-whisper.

“That was the plan I suggested to Bill and Chief Beaver.” Brian hauls a rough, heavy loop of knotted rope around his body. It is hard work, and slow—too slow for the time they have. “I told them I thought you’d be able to manage it.” He drops the rope and tries to push down the whole coil at once.

“You told them? I could, I suppose,” Dibble says, with some vanity—he is known to spend several hours a week in the college gym, jogging and at times lifting weights. “But it’s unnecessary. Quite unnecessary. All that’s needed is to alert the Safety Division, they’re quite well equipped for emergencies, they have mace now, since the trouble last year—It would be a very simple matter—Tear gas too I believe. They should have been called in at once.”

“Bill won’t take responsibility for sending in the cops. He’s waiting until Dean Kane gets back tonight,” Brian explains, struggling impatiently with the rope. Though he sucks in his breath and shoves down with all his strength so that the coarse knots dig into his hands, he cannot budge it. “If you want to stay here with those girls until tonight, you can,” he pants angrily.

“No.” Dibble glances rapidly from window to door. “But in my opinion—”

“Then shut up, please, and take hold of this.” Brian throws the free end of the rope across the desk. “We haven’t that much time.” Backing away, he begins to rotate, unwinding the rope. “You’ve got to pull ...Harder ...That’s right.”

He continues to turn: past the bookshelves, the littered desk, the window, the gaping files, the door; past Dibble, who pulls on the rope while continuing to ex pound his opinions, of which Brian catches isolated phrases each time he comes around:

“... moral cowardice ... utter stupidity ... in my view ...

At last the rope is free. Brian halts, breathless; but the room still turns. He is dizzy, almost nauseous. He puts a hand to his head and staggers toward Dibble’s desk, now covered with coarse serpentine loops.

“... feeble-minded administrators ... unprecedented ...

“Just a sec.” Brian blinks, swallows. “All right. Now we’ll fasten this end to—” He pauses, looking around the spinning room. He had planned tying the rope to one leg of the desk, but Dibble’s modernistic desk has no legs. “—to that pipe there,” he improvises, pointing upward.

Unfortunately the ceiling in these old buildings is very high, while Brian is short. To reach the pipe he has to put a chair on the desk and climb up on it.

“Wait. Now, hand me the rope. No, damn it, the end.”

“... impudently reading my private correspondence ... valuable manuscripts ... Dibble continues, automatically handing up the rope. Brian is not listening; he is still very dizzy, conscious of moving slowly, of time passing rapidly, of the door with its two long rectangular panels of opaque glass and the heavy shadows of the crowd waiting behind it in the hall—If they should open that door—

“... utterly intolerable ... legal action ...

Finally the rope is fixed, the knot secure; Brian tests it with his full weight as he climbs down. Four minutes left. Hastily, he clears the sill, knocking books and coats to the floor.

“Okay.” He shoves up the heavy, dusty sash. Cold air enters the stuffy office, clearing his head. The sun shines brilliantly.

“... the admissions office ... responsible alumni ...

Brian hauls the rope toward the window and begins shoving it out, knot after heavy knot; he is feeling better.

“... insulting ... determination ...

There is a shout from below. Glancing down through the still-bare trees, Brian can see people moving, pointing—

“Come on,” he says to Dibble. “You’d better go first.”

“Quick, damn it.” He pushes a chair toward the window. “Before they catch on.”

Reluctantly, Dibble clambers onto the window sill. He squats there, a large, long-faced, pink-complexioned man with a stunned, furious look in his eyes, clinging to the rope with one hand and the raised sash with the other.

“Uh, I don’t exactly—”

“Hurry.” There are more shouts now; laughter; an uneven cheer.

Dibble ducks under the sash and puts his other hand on the rope. His long, pink face appears on the outside, of the glass, the mouth working. “You sure it’ll hold?”

“I tested it,” Brian says impatiently. Below on the quad the cheering grows; he can see figures running toward Burnham Hall across the muddy grass. “Go on. No, wait, damn it, you’ve got to turn around. Face me and get your feet—Okay. Watch out for that branch. Now.”

Slowly, Dibble edges himself down over the broad stone sill. There are people at the windows of the adjoining building now, laughing and calling encouragement; people on the pedestal of the statue below. Some, with cameras, are already recording his faltering and protracted descent.

Now Brian climbs onto the window sill. Holding the rope, he crawls under the sash and stands on the ledge outside, waiting for Dibble to reach ground, for he is not sure the rope or the pipe will bear both their weight. His heart is beating fast; he is exhilarated.

He checks his watch: two minutes left. He has won; he has carried out his plan, and with time to spare.

Tremendous cheering and waving below now, as Dibble nears the ground. Hands stretch up to him; flashbulbs go off. Dibble’s picture—and his!—will be in the local newspaper, perhaps even on television. Brian’s exploit will become part of Corinth history. Smiling, breathing deeply, he takes a few fatal seconds to look over the broad bright quadrangle to the library tower, landmark and symbol of the university; then down at the crowd, in which he recognizes several faces, including those of Wendy and Bill Guildenstern. Moving his arm from the elbow, he gives them a modest wave.

Suddenly, from behind, there is a howling, trampling noise; cries of “No! Stop!” Brian swings around, kneels down on the stone ledge, and starts to lower himself out over it, feeling for the knots with his feet—

But he is too late. Sara, scrambling over Dibble’s desk to the window, catches him by one arm. He wrenches away, but at the same moment two larger girls grab him, the first by his shirt, the other, very painfully, by his hair. Since he is holding the rope, he has only one hand free to push his assailants off, while they each have two; and Sara is clawing at his free arm again.

“That’s it. Hang on to the bastard,” she hisses as still more protesters lay hold of Brian, and all of them together drag him across the sill, into a room full of screaming women and exploding flashbulbs.

“All right, all right!” Brian shouts, feeling for the floor with his feet and pulling his arms free. Someone slams down the window behind him.

“You let him get away! Whadda you do that for?” Pat screeches.

“You cheated us!”

Brian takes a deep breath, reminding himself that though outnumbered, he is superior in age, sex, status and political astuteness to the angry young women surrounding him.

“I can explain,” he says loudly, deliberately. “If you’d all just calm down and listen to me—” He looks around, searching for a sympathetic face, a weak link in the circle; finding one: Jenny, whose expression is less angry than confused.

“Let me explain.” He smiles at Jenny, whose huge eyes are blurred with tears. “I had to get Dibble out of here. He’s a very ill man; something serious could have happened to him,” he insists, putting his hand on Jenny’s soft arm. “You see—”

“Yes?” Jenny turns toward Brian. Seizing his chance, he pushes her aside and makes a break for the open door, the friendly—or at least neutral—male faces beyond in the hall. But his foot catches on a pile of coats, and he stumbles.

“He’s not explaining anything, he’s trying to escape!” squeals Linda Sliski. “Stop him, everybody!” And she takes her own advice, giving Brian a vicious shove sideways.

“No! Damn it, this is ridiculous,” he explains. “You don’t understand—” He is down on one knee now; he tries to rise, but several girls are in the way.”

“Oh no you don’t, you dirty fink.” Sara grabs hold of him again. “Shut that door!” she barks.

“Hey—wait—really—” In a blaze of flashbulbs, shouting, and struggling, Brian is pushed heavily to the floor, knocking his head on the edge of a chair. Three of the protesters, braying, holding him down; and pretty Jenny, in a painful reversal of all his fantasies, sits on him. The door to Dibble’s office is slammed; is locked.

A week later. The crisis is over; Corinth University is back to normal. Brian has in a sense recovered from his captivity: his bruises have healed; the lump on his head is subsiding. In another, more serious sense, he will never recover.

His opinion of women, for instance, has been permanently altered. Previously, generalizing from his mother and Erica—whom he now realizes to be exceptional—he had believed them to be essentially different from men: weaker and less rational, but also gentler, finer, more sensitive. The two hours he spent imprisoned in Dibble’s office were a revelation. It was not only the recriminations and the tears (Jenny’s) which he had to face, though they were bad enough. (“You know what it’s like to be nagged and scolded by one woman for an hour?” he said to Leonard Zimmern on the telephone that evening. “All right, multiply that by two hours and fourteen women.”) Far worse was the aggression, the coarseness, the brutality. The protesters refused to listen to his arguments or explanations, finally even to allow him to speak. (“If you don’t shut your big mouth we’ll gag you,” Pat had threatened.) Also they would not let him see Bill Guildenstern or anyone from the dean’s office, even in their presence; they would not bring him anything to eat or drink; and when he announced a need to visit the washroom they suggested he piss in Dibble’s wastebasket.

While Brian remained a captive a bitter debate was taking place in the department Office. Frightened by the latest turn of events, and the increasing convergence of sightseers and journalists on Burnham Hall, creating the impression of a public demonstration or riot, Bill was trying to negotiate a settlement with Dibble. But Dibble was not feeling conciliatory; indeed his demands had escalated. Instead of the “bumbling campus cops” he was now insisting that the university send in armed state troopers to clear his office and “teach those vicious juvenile delinquents a lesson.” The suggestion that somebody might get hurt in the process seemed to delight him. After two hours of discussion Bill had got nowhere, though he had been joined in his effort by several representatives of the department and the administration, and finally by a long-distance call from Dean Kane, who spoke to Dibble from Austin, Texas, for twenty-five minutes without making any impression on him.

Outside Bill’s window the large crowd was beginning to churn and shout. Several posters had appeared, the red paint not yet dry on some of them; struggles were starting between members of the Safety Division and some students who had brought a ladder, and others armed with water pistols. The mood of the mob was light-hearted, but it might turn nasty at any moment. Bill got back on the line to Dean Kane in Texas and secured his permission to concede to the protesters.

Two hours after he had entered Dibble’s office, Brian was released. He had, and still has, the small satisfaction of having his strategy adopted; and the greater though more private satisfaction of knowing that his old enemy is about to abandon the field—for J. Donald Dibble, overruled and as he thinks betrayed by his chairman and dean, has tendered his resignation from the university.