The Motion of Puppets(33)
Theo set down his pen and wondered about that year away. Did Muybridge grieve for his dead wife on the wide blue Pacific? Or did he throw himself headlong into the work, setting up the huge negative plates, the portable processing tent? He liked to imagine old Muybridge among the natives, the strange Englishman with the wild white beard, so thoroughly eccentric to the men and women of the coffee plantations, the half-naked children clambering over the ruined Spanish colonial churches abandoned to the relentless fecund vines. And though the plates were in black-and-white, Theo could feel the greenness of the landscape, hear the birdcall, see the lizards and insects wither beneath the heat bearing down.
Through his office window, he could see the approach of autumn in the reds and golds of the trees lining the rolling lawns on campus. It would be getting cold soon. How Kay hated these first frosty nights, the time it took for her body to acclimate to the new season. Perhaps I should take a leave of absence, he thought, and go somewhere tropical for the winter. He could picture himself with Muybridge in the jungle, and then returning home next April and there she would be, waiting for him, wondering why his skin was so dark, his hair so light. Wondering where he had been all this time.
And where are you now, Kay? What fills your day? Who do you talk with now that we are apart? He held a running conversation with her, as though she were across the room instead of inside his head, and he knew that what she said in these imaginary dialogues was just the sound of his own voice talking to himself, but it was the best he could do, it was all he had. A kinder, more sympathetic version of the woman he loved.
“Why did you leave me?” he asked.
“But I haven’t left you. It wasn’t a matter of choice.”
“Where are you now?”
“Just beyond reach.”
Just beyond actually being there, an illusion shattered by harsh reality a hundred times each day, like a forest of memories chopped down to stumps.
The knock at the door was so soft that he could not be sure if anyone was behind it. The hinges creaked slowly, and from the edge Dr. Mitchell’s face appeared, already contrite for the interruption. Theo waved him in.
“Dr. Harper? Theo? I thought you might be here today. I’m not disturbing your meditations?”
“Have a seat.” Theo smiled. “To what do I owe this rare pleasure?”
Taking a chair across from him, Mitchell considered his opening gambit. He ran his fingers through his hair and drummed his fingers on the desk. Theo studied him, suddenly aware of how little he knew of the man’s private life after working together these past five years, whether Mitchell was married or single, straight or gay, as some had speculated. Despite their long acquaintance, they had spent no more than a few moments alone together. Aside from the faculty meetings when he spoke only to defend the classics, Mitchell kept to his office and classes. He was an enigma, a scholar so deeply serious that he seemed to exist in a world apart. Behind his glasses, his eyes shone clear and strikingly blue. As usual, he paused before speaking, gathering his thoughts from the confluence of memories and languages, faces and stories milling about his brain.
“I’ve come to talk with you about your wife.”
Shifting in his chair, Theo willed the man to go away, but Mitchell stared at him like an owl. “I can understand your reluctance.” Mitchell smiled and continued. “And I certainly respect your privacy and don’t mean to pry, but you’ve no doubt heard? Or then again, maybe you haven’t. Fact is, there’s been some gossip, I’m afraid, and while I don’t believe a word of it, I must speak with you like this. How does Virgil have it? ‘The monster Rumor flourishes by speed, and gains strength as she goes.’ Best to snuff it out quickly, before Rumor gains wings.”
“What is it you want to know exactly?”
Mitchell cleared his throat and searched for a suitable way to broach the subject, but, finding none, he simply began. “There’s a vicious story going about that you and your wife had … been floundering on a rough patch of ice.”
Theo smiled at the delicacy of his metaphor. “Nothing of the kind. We were having an extended honeymoon of sorts, at work but happy as could be.”
“Students get all caught up in what they are reading and impute the lives of fictional characters to real people.”
“Well, we are reading Bovary,” Theo joked.
The allusion escaped Mitchell, who read little that had been written after the birth of Christ. “You said she simply vanished one night. The police have no clues, no theory of the case?”
“I thought—” Theo began, but cut himself off and considered where the story might lead. “The night she disappeared, she was out with a group of performers from the show. There was a man, an older man, who was seen attempting to follow her home after the party.”
“A snake in the grass.”
“Of course, I confronted him, but he denied everything. Said she took off in the wrong direction and he never saw her again. The police questioned him as well, but there wasn’t any evidence. No … body. Not a trace.”
“I am sorry for your troubles, Theo. Gossip can be difficult to strangle. Perhaps you remember when you first joined the faculty, all the stories about that student, that boy who made such astonishing accusations. A more benighted time, it’s true, but still I understand how quickly rumors spread and what a strain you are under.”