impressive. More corporations were interested in atomic clusters than you might suspect. Garcia wasn’t far behind Cates, because he sometimes studied corporate life, and corporations loved to be found interesting and worthy of study. He glanced at Bell. An unknown quantity, and he was a little afraid of black women, anyway. So he said, “Helen? How about taking notes today.”
Professor Levy lifted toward him her coldest smile, and said, “Lionel, forget it.”
They stared at each other until Dr. Garcia, with a sigh of resignation, took out a pen and a yellow pad.
8
The First Memo
F OR MANY YEARS , the chairman of the horticulture department, known to himself as “Chairman X,” had lobbied to change the start date of the fall semester to September 10, the average first frost date for the university’s climatic region. Chairman X was an observant man, and he had noticed that one day every year, right around the first frost date, everyone on the campus woke up refreshed, the local news media referred to “good sleeping weather,” and the work of the semester moved into high gear. For the horticulture department, of course, this sense of new beginnings was mixed with the end of the growing season. The plant succession that had begun in March with snowdrops and early crocuses would soon flicker out in a blaze of orange chrysanthemums and show its last pinpoints of color in bittersweet and ash berries hanging like embers in the general misty brown of the world.
That
was the time to be sitting indoors and reading books, the time to be glancing out windows and reflecting, and even if the university population at large didn’t know that, their bodies felt it. Nevertheless, Chairman X had let his efforts in this direction slide. The task of putting thirty-two thousand people in touch with their senses was finally beyond him.
It was, in fact, September 10, always an important date to him, as was May 20, at the other end of the season, when he noticed that something was going on in Old Meats. There were, of course, no lighted windows, no vehicular activity. There was only the sight of a student entering the door beside the loading dock, using a key. When Chairman X tried the lock a few minutes later, the door did not budge. Chairman X resumed his inspection of the perennial border, which was still blooming vigorously because the first frost was later than average this year, but he did not move on to the experimental beds, instead returning to the beginning of the perennial border. His inspection had now become a pretense, and he self-consciously fingered leaves and stems and blossoms, looking for signs of parasites or disease. He had already decided, for example, that planting delphiniumsannually was becoming too much trouble, and that perhaps delphiniums referred too cravenly to eastern and English gardens. Perhaps it was time to break away more decisively from that model. Taking up the delphiniums once and for all would constitute a statement about where this garden was, what that meant. He straightened up. A boy in a blue shirt, certainly the same student who had gone into Old Meats, was walking away from the building, already a good fifty paces off. Chairman X called, “Hey!” but the boy didn’t hear him, or at least didn’t stop, and Chairman X decided not to run after him, only to note him, and to resolve that he would get to the bottom of this mystery. Actually, Chairman X was surprised to discover in himself this sense of jealous proprietorship over Old Meats, but that’s the way it was, wasn’t it? Even the ugliest and most worthless pieces of property had the power to set your feet upon the capitalist road.
When most people thought of the campus, they thought of the buildings and their distinctive features—the bell tower of Lafayette Hall across the quad from the complementary dome of Columbus Hall, one housing higher administration, the other housing the school of agriculture. Other buildings ranged
Professor Levy lifted toward him her coldest smile, and said, “Lionel, forget it.”
They stared at each other until Dr. Garcia, with a sigh of resignation, took out a pen and a yellow pad.
8
The First Memo
F OR MANY YEARS , the chairman of the horticulture department, known to himself as “Chairman X,” had lobbied to change the start date of the fall semester to September 10, the average first frost date for the university’s climatic region. Chairman X was an observant man, and he had noticed that one day every year, right around the first frost date, everyone on the campus woke up refreshed, the local news media referred to “good sleeping weather,” and the work of the semester moved into high gear. For the horticulture department, of course, this sense of new beginnings was mixed with the end of the growing season. The plant succession that had begun in March with snowdrops and early crocuses would soon flicker out in a blaze of orange chrysanthemums and show its last pinpoints of color in bittersweet and ash berries hanging like embers in the general misty brown of the world.
That
was the time to be sitting indoors and reading books, the time to be glancing out windows and reflecting, and even if the university population at large didn’t know that, their bodies felt it. Nevertheless, Chairman X had let his efforts in this direction slide. The task of putting thirty-two thousand people in touch with their senses was finally beyond him.
It was, in fact, September 10, always an important date to him, as was May 20, at the other end of the season, when he noticed that something was going on in Old Meats. There were, of course, no lighted windows, no vehicular activity. There was only the sight of a student entering the door beside the loading dock, using a key. When Chairman X tried the lock a few minutes later, the door did not budge. Chairman X resumed his inspection of the perennial border, which was still blooming vigorously because the first frost was later than average this year, but he did not move on to the experimental beds, instead returning to the beginning of the perennial border. His inspection had now become a pretense, and he self-consciously fingered leaves and stems and blossoms, looking for signs of parasites or disease. He had already decided, for example, that planting delphiniumsannually was becoming too much trouble, and that perhaps delphiniums referred too cravenly to eastern and English gardens. Perhaps it was time to break away more decisively from that model. Taking up the delphiniums once and for all would constitute a statement about where this garden was, what that meant. He straightened up. A boy in a blue shirt, certainly the same student who had gone into Old Meats, was walking away from the building, already a good fifty paces off. Chairman X called, “Hey!” but the boy didn’t hear him, or at least didn’t stop, and Chairman X decided not to run after him, only to note him, and to resolve that he would get to the bottom of this mystery. Actually, Chairman X was surprised to discover in himself this sense of jealous proprietorship over Old Meats, but that’s the way it was, wasn’t it? Even the ugliest and most worthless pieces of property had the power to set your feet upon the capitalist road.
When most people thought of the campus, they thought of the buildings and their distinctive features—the bell tower of Lafayette Hall across the quad from the complementary dome of Columbus Hall, one housing higher administration, the other housing the school of agriculture. Other buildings ranged
Similar Books
