The Secret History - Donna Tartt [154]
“Anyway. The crowd parted when I came in and the Dean of Studies handed me the telephone. Mr. Corcoran calmed down when he realized who I was. Got all confidential and asked me if this wasn’t some type of frat stunt.”
“Oh, God,” said Francis.
Charles looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “He asked about you. ‘Where’s the old Carrot-Top,’ he said.”
“What else did he say?”
“He was very nice. Asked about you all, really. Said to tell everybody that he said hi.”
There was a long, uncomfortable pause.
Henry bit his lower lip and went to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a drink. “Did anything,” he said, “come up about that bank business?”
“Yes. Marion gave them the girl’s name. By the way—” when he looked up, his eyes were distracted, blank—“I forgot to tell you earlier, but Marion gave your name to the police. Yours too, Francis.”
“Why?” said Francis, alarmed. “What for?”
“Who were his friends? They wanted to know.”
“But why me?”
“Calm down, Francis.”
The light in the room was gone. The skies were lilac-colored and the snowy streets had a surreal, lunar glow. Henry turned on the lamp. “Do you think they’ll start looking tonight?”
“They’ll look for him, certainly. Whether they’ll look in the right place is something else.”
No one said anything for a moment. Charles, thoughtfully, rattled the ice in his glass. “You know,” he said, “we’ve done a terrible thing.”
“We had to, Charles, as we have all discussed.”
“I know, but I can’t stop thinking about Mr. Corcoran. The holidays we’ve spent at his house. And he was so sweet on the telephone.”
“We’re all a lot better off.”
“Some of us are, you mean.”
Henry smiled acidly. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “”
This was something to the effect that, in the Underworld, a great ox costs only a penny, but I knew what he meant and in spite of myself I laughed. There was a tradition among the ancients that things were very cheap in Hell.
When Henry left, he offered to drive me back to school. It was late, and when we pulled up behind the dormitory I asked him if he wanted to come to Commons and have some dinner.
We stopped in the post office so Henry could check his mail. He went to his mailbox only about every three weeks so there was quite a stack waiting for him; he stood by the trash can, going through it indifferently, throwing half the envelopes away unopened. Then he stopped.
“What is it?”
He laughed. “Look in your mailbox. It’s a faculty questionnaire. Julian’s up for review.”
They were closing the dining hall by the time we arrived, and the janitors had already started to mop the floor. The kitchen was closed, too, so I went to ask for some peanut butter and bread while Henry made himself a cup of tea. The main dining room was deserted. We sat at a table in the corner, our reflections mirrored in the black of the plate-glass windows. Henry took out a pen and began to fill out Julian’s evaluation.
I looked at my own copy while I ate my sandwich. The questions were ranked from one—poor to five—excellent: Is this faculty member prompt? Well-prepared? Ready to offer help outside the classroom? Henry, without the slightest pause, had gone down the list and circled all fives. Now I saw him writing the number 19 in a blank.
“What’s that for?”
“The number of classes I’ve taken with Julian,” he said, without looking up.
“You’ve taken nineteen classes with Julian?”
“Well, that’s tutorials and everything,” he said, irritated.
For a moment there was no sound except the scratching of Henry’s pen and the distant crash of dish racks in the kitchen.
“Does everybody get these, or just us?” I said.
“Just us.”
“I wonder why they even bother.”
“For their records, I suppose.” He had turned to the last page, which was mostly blank. Please elaborate here on any additional compliments or criticisms you may have of this teacher. Extra sheets of paper may be attached if