and his paperback Mishima onto his lap. “I’m late,” he said, although he had nowhere to go and Whitehead probably knew this.
Whitehead also stood up. “I’ll walk with you.”
“That’s okay. I really need to get going. I’ll see you sometime,” Lee dismissed him, staring at the deepening blush on the other man’s face.
His rudeness might have embarrassed him equally, if his desire to escape hadn’t shouldered past everything else.
“Don’t forget about Japanese lessons,” Whitehead said, almost meekly. “As I confessed, it would have to be barter, but I have decent German, if you’re interested.”
“I’ll see,” Lee said, turning away.
“Lee!” Whitehead called. Of course he had to have the last word—
his persistence in the face of repulse was its own kind of rudeness. Lee looked at him with undisguised impatience.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Love is even less rational than religion. You can’t mix it with serious math. And you’re serious, aren’t you? You’ve always seemed so to me.”
He’d had nothing to say to this. He couldn’t guess what the comment implied: jealousy? condescension? He’d only known that in confessing his feelings for Aileen to Whitehead, he’d handed a stranger a powerful weapon. Departing brusquely, without a gesture of farewell, he’d felt Whitehead’s gaze, whether contemptuous or baffled or longing, like a fire at his back. When he finally passed between the bell tower and the library, leaving the quad, he glanced over his shoulder, but Whitehead was no longer in sight.
A P E R S O N O F I N T E R E S T 37
5.
WHEN AILEEN HAD DIED, THE YEAR THAT ESTHER
turned fourteen and that Aileen, given two more months, would have turned forty, Lee had imagined that it would be not just painful but perhaps impossible for him to ever revisit all those places indelibly hers. Then, as now, he’d still lived in the town of their domesticity and parenthood, if not their greatest happiness, and for a short time it seemed he could not set foot outside his home. Five minutes in the car and here was Klaussen’s deli, looking seedy and dilapidated now, where she’d loyally shopped; once it had been the only place in town she could find decent lunch meat, sour pickles, and bread that had not been presliced. Turn a corner and there was the Y, where she’d insisted on teaching Esther to swim in a class for toddlers who couldn’t even yet walk. To this day as uneasy in open water as at towering heights, Lee saluted her wisdom, although at the time he’d accused her of the callous desire to expose their child to certain death by drowning. The farmers’ market in summer, the A&P all year round; Aileen had left Lee, and the town, years before she’d died, but only after her death did she threaten to haunt all those places she’d been while alive. And yet Lee instead found that his town’s very smallness, which he’d feared would press unwanted memory on him, somehow gave him relief from the past at those very same sites where the past would seem most concentrated. This was the freedom of severe limitation, like passing a lifetime in one set of rooms; no single scent could remain in the air; no single occasion could claim the backdrop. The A&P was Aileen’s at inexplicable moments, but for the most part it remained the drab store where Lee purchased his dinner.
It was the same with the shell-shocked campus, in the fi rst days after Hendley was bombed. Lee knew that for many of those who’d spent less time on campus than he, the bomb blew a permanent hole in their sense of the place. The bomb had arrived just two days before the start of spring break, and the excuse to abscond had been seized with relief by everybody who could. But Lee felt he had long since 38 S U S A N C H O I
grown used to his palimpsest world. Bomb or no, spring break or no, he drove to campus again, as was his decades-old habit.
Aileen’s ghost had once made him want to avoid the old
Whitehead also stood up. “I’ll walk with you.”
“That’s okay. I really need to get going. I’ll see you sometime,” Lee dismissed him, staring at the deepening blush on the other man’s face.
His rudeness might have embarrassed him equally, if his desire to escape hadn’t shouldered past everything else.
“Don’t forget about Japanese lessons,” Whitehead said, almost meekly. “As I confessed, it would have to be barter, but I have decent German, if you’re interested.”
“I’ll see,” Lee said, turning away.
“Lee!” Whitehead called. Of course he had to have the last word—
his persistence in the face of repulse was its own kind of rudeness. Lee looked at him with undisguised impatience.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Love is even less rational than religion. You can’t mix it with serious math. And you’re serious, aren’t you? You’ve always seemed so to me.”
He’d had nothing to say to this. He couldn’t guess what the comment implied: jealousy? condescension? He’d only known that in confessing his feelings for Aileen to Whitehead, he’d handed a stranger a powerful weapon. Departing brusquely, without a gesture of farewell, he’d felt Whitehead’s gaze, whether contemptuous or baffled or longing, like a fire at his back. When he finally passed between the bell tower and the library, leaving the quad, he glanced over his shoulder, but Whitehead was no longer in sight.
A P E R S O N O F I N T E R E S T 37
5.
WHEN AILEEN HAD DIED, THE YEAR THAT ESTHER
turned fourteen and that Aileen, given two more months, would have turned forty, Lee had imagined that it would be not just painful but perhaps impossible for him to ever revisit all those places indelibly hers. Then, as now, he’d still lived in the town of their domesticity and parenthood, if not their greatest happiness, and for a short time it seemed he could not set foot outside his home. Five minutes in the car and here was Klaussen’s deli, looking seedy and dilapidated now, where she’d loyally shopped; once it had been the only place in town she could find decent lunch meat, sour pickles, and bread that had not been presliced. Turn a corner and there was the Y, where she’d insisted on teaching Esther to swim in a class for toddlers who couldn’t even yet walk. To this day as uneasy in open water as at towering heights, Lee saluted her wisdom, although at the time he’d accused her of the callous desire to expose their child to certain death by drowning. The farmers’ market in summer, the A&P all year round; Aileen had left Lee, and the town, years before she’d died, but only after her death did she threaten to haunt all those places she’d been while alive. And yet Lee instead found that his town’s very smallness, which he’d feared would press unwanted memory on him, somehow gave him relief from the past at those very same sites where the past would seem most concentrated. This was the freedom of severe limitation, like passing a lifetime in one set of rooms; no single scent could remain in the air; no single occasion could claim the backdrop. The A&P was Aileen’s at inexplicable moments, but for the most part it remained the drab store where Lee purchased his dinner.
It was the same with the shell-shocked campus, in the fi rst days after Hendley was bombed. Lee knew that for many of those who’d spent less time on campus than he, the bomb blew a permanent hole in their sense of the place. The bomb had arrived just two days before the start of spring break, and the excuse to abscond had been seized with relief by everybody who could. But Lee felt he had long since 38 S U S A N C H O I
grown used to his palimpsest world. Bomb or no, spring break or no, he drove to campus again, as was his decades-old habit.
Aileen’s ghost had once made him want to avoid the old
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