Death With Dostoevsky Read online

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  Emily recalled having invited him, along with other colleagues, to various get-togethers over the years, but he had never deigned to attend.

  ‘Let me take your coat.’ Richard shrugged off his battered parka, and Emily hung it on one of the hooks that lined the foyer. ‘Come in and make yourself comfortable. The others should be here soon.’

  She showed Richard to the living room, then pulled Marguerite into the kitchen and took the baguette from her. ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ she hissed. ‘You know Richard hates me. And it isn’t too far from being mutual.’

  ‘But it is all part of the plan, chérie. We want him to like Oscar, no? So we give him a chance to get to know him socially. Oscar is so charmant, so genuine, he cannot fail to make a good impression.’

  ‘But don’t you see? If Richard knows I’m rooting for Oscar, that will work against him. For God’s sake, don’t let on about him being my brother. That would drive in the final nail.’

  Marguerite shrugged. ‘If you say so. Moi, I think you worry too much. All will be well. You will see.’

  The doorbell rang again. Emily handed Marguerite the bread knife. ‘Here, you finish this.’

  She opened the door to Oscar and Lauren but kept them in the foyer long enough to whisper, ‘Marguerite brought Richard McClintock. Surprise to both of us. Don’t say anything about being my brother – he doesn’t like me much. We’ll just say we met when you came to Windy Corner.’

  Oscar looked baffled but nodded agreement. Lauren’s eyes lit with excitement. ‘How intriguing! What’s the deal? Why does it matter if he likes Oscar?’

  Emily darted a glance at her brother, hoping he wouldn’t take umbrage. ‘We’re trying to get Oscar promoted. I asked Marguerite to soften Richard up, but this dinner was not part of the plan. Well, not my plan, at least. Marguerite obviously has her own ideas.’

  A smile danced over Lauren’s red-painted lips. ‘I think I’m going to like this Marguerite.’

  Emily ushered Oscar and Lauren into the living room. ‘Richard, you know Oscar Lansing.’ Oscar put out his hand with a smile. Richard, who was standing next to the stereo with his hands full of Emily’s CDs, merely raised one eyebrow and nodded. Oscar’s hand hovered a second or two and then dropped, along with his smile.

  ‘And this is Lauren Hsu. From Psychology.’

  Richard turned to face Lauren and instantly became a different man. He put down the CDs and took her proffered hand in both his own. ‘Delighted to meet you, my dear. How is it we haven’t met before? I can’t imagine how you could have escaped my notice.’

  Lauren laughed and extricated her hand. ‘Oh, we psych rats tend to stay in our own little maze. Basement of Eliot, you know. We sneak in and out in the middle of the night and no one ever sees us.’ That might be true of some psych profs, but Emily doubted it was true of Lauren. She was much too vivacious to stay cooped up in the windowless nether regions of the psych labs.

  No doubt casting about for an avenue of escape from Richard, Lauren pounced on the cats, who were sitting in the bay window. ‘Oh, you beauties!’ she gushed. ‘What are their names?’

  ‘Kitty and Levin,’ Emily replied. ‘Levin’s the bigger one, in case that’s not obvious.’

  ‘From Anna Karenina, right? Clever.’ She proceeded to shower the two cats with more attention than they’d received since Emily brought them from Windy Corner.

  Richard turned from the scene with a disgusted sneer. He sniffed dramatically and put a dirty handkerchief to his nose. ‘Can’t stand cats,’ he muttered. Levin shot him a glare that made it clear the feeling was mutual.

  With an interrogatory glance at Emily, Richard held up a CD of Ella Fitzgerald singing Gershwin. The CDs had belonged to Philip, Emily’s late husband; being fond of silence and preferring live music over recorded, she rarely played them. But she did love Ella and Gershwin. She smiled acquiescence, and Richard put the CD in the stereo. At least they had one thing in common.

  As the opening notes of ‘Someone to Watch over Me’ floated out of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet and filled the room, Richard turned to face the others and frowned slightly. ‘How do you two know each other?’ he asked Emily and Oscar. ‘You came after she left, didn’t you, Lansing?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘It is all my fault,’ Marguerite interrupted. ‘Emily was looking for writers to fill her retreat center over Christmas, and Oscar was looking for a quiet place to work on his doctoral thesis. I put them together.’

  ‘Retreat center?’ Now Richard looked truly baffled.

  Emily realized the transformation of her inherited Victorian mansion into a writers’ retreat center was not yet common knowledge at Bede. She’d assumed Marguerite would have talked it up more generally.

  ‘The house my aunt left me is way too big for one person, but I love it too much to let it go. So I decided to turn it into a writers’ retreat center. People can come by invitation for a week or a weekend and donate whatever they can afford toward the food and upkeep.’

  Richard smirked, no doubt searching for some sarcastic remark to make about this inherently altruistic scheme. His eye fell on the dining table. ‘So do you do the cooking and cleaning yourself? Somehow you never struck me as such a domestic type.’

  Emily knew she’d been famous on campus for never bringing homemade food to departmental potlucks. ‘No, I have an assistant who does all that. She’s quite a marvel. Gourmet cook, brilliant manager, immaculate housekeeper, all while taking care of a young baby. I couldn’t do it without her.’

  ‘Nice for some.’ Richard gave a tight smile.

  Oscar took a long sniff of the odors emanating from the kitchen. ‘Something smells delicious. Is that one of Katie’s recipes?’

  ‘Indeed it is. And it should be ready to eat. Shall we?’ She led the way into the dining room and brought the casserole from the oven.

  ‘I forgot to ask if anyone was a vegetarian,’ she said, lifting the lid to reveal the top layer of ground beef bubbling in tomato sauce. By ‘anyone’ she really meant Lauren, as she knew all the others ate meat.

  ‘Not me,’ Lauren said. ‘I’m an omnivore. If it’s free, I’ll eat it.’ She looked ready to dip her fork straight into the casserole dish.

  ‘Pass your plates, everyone. This is too hot to hand around.’ Emily loaded up the plates one at a time as Marguerite passed the salad and bread. Everyone dug in.

  ‘Mmm! This is delicious!’ Lauren gushed after her first bite. ‘This Katie person must be some cook.’

  ‘Oh, she’s amazing,’ Oscar said. ‘You should have seen the stuff she made over Christmas. I couldn’t put a name to half of it, but every bite was to die for.’

  Emily took up her cue. ‘You’ll have to come down at spring break, Lauren, and experience Katie’s cooking firsthand. That is, if you don’t have other plans.’

  ‘I just made plans. I’ll be there with bells on.’

  Oscar gave Emily a significant look, and she said, ‘You, too, Oscar, of course.’ She darted a glance at Richard, hoping he wouldn’t angle to be included in the invitation as well, but he was concentrating on his food. Something about the way he shoveled it in, swallowing so quickly he could hardly be tasting anything, made Emily shudder.

  She took a moment as all were occupied with eating to ponder why her feeling toward Richard bordered on revulsion. As a rule she managed to get along with people, even difficult ones. She tried to remember that everyone had a backstory she knew nothing about and to make allowances accordingly. But Richard touched something visceral in her that was not amenable to reasonable argument. Perhaps on a subconscious level he reminded her of someone or something from her past that held more emotional power than did her actual relationship with Richard himself.

  Emily shook off these unproductive thoughts and turned her mind back to her hostess duties. She’d meant the evening as an opportunity for Oscar to move forward with Lauren, but seeing how comfortable the
two of them were together, she didn’t think they needed her help. Marguerite had turned the dinner into a networking opportunity for Oscar, so they might as well make the most of that.

  ‘How is your thesis coming along, Oscar?’ Emily knew he hadn’t made a lot of progress between Christmas and New Year’s, due to circumstances beyond either of their control, but in the week before that things had seemed to be going well.

  ‘Really well,’ he said. ‘I got so much done at Windy Corner, in spite of’ – he glanced at Richard – ‘in spite of being practically comatose from all that great food. I’ll probably be able to finish over spring break, if all goes well.’

  ‘That’s terrific! So you’ll have your PhD before next fall?’

  He nodded. ‘Finally.’

  ‘And I’ve pretty much decided to retire completely, so there should be an opening in the department.’ That was probably too blatant, but she couldn’t take it back now. Richard still seemed focused on his food, though, so perhaps she hadn’t done any harm.

  ‘And I will definitely be applying for it.’

  ‘I have heard good things about your teaching,’ Marguerite put in. ‘From your students, that is. You seem to have a good rapport with them.’

  ‘That’s probably because he never really grew up,’ Lauren said with a teasing dig of her elbow. ‘He’s one of them.’

  Oscar blushed. ‘Well, I do try to speak their language. While maintaining a reasonable level of authority, of course.’

  Richard finally came up for air and a long sip of Merlot. ‘I expect we’ll have a strong pool of applicants for the new position. I’ve been getting feelers from all over since September.’ He smiled blandly at Emily. ‘No one ever expected you to come back once you’d joined the leisured classes. Why put up with students and long hours and campus politics if you don’t need the paycheck?’

  Emily bit back the answer she would have liked to give, which would have hinted that some teachers were more dedicated than others. ‘There was a time when I would have continued teaching just for the love of it. But I have to confess, I was getting a bit burned out by the end of last year. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to change direction. And finally write my Dostoevsky book.’ She smiled brightly, hoping someone would pick up that topic and run with it.

  Lauren obliged. ‘You’re writing about Dostoevsky? I love Dostoevsky! His novels are like a textbook on abnormal psychology.’

  ‘That’s one way to look at them, I suppose. I’ve always thought of him as simply an acute student of human nature. But his characters do tend toward the extreme, certainly.’

  ‘You bet they do. I mean, look at Raskolnikov – classic paranoid schizophrenic. Dmitri Karamazov – complete lack of impulse control. And Rogozhin from The Idiot? Obsessive attachment. And Dostoevsky predates Freud! Incredible.’

  ‘Well, Dostoevsky didn’t attempt to categorize his characters or put names to their disorders – he simply observed and recorded them. And honestly, there’s fair ground for saying that in most of his characters he took some element of his own personality and exaggerated it. He was an amazingly complex and conflicted man.’

  ‘He was a Russian. Aren’t they all like that?’ Richard said. A glance told Emily he meant that for the conversation-stopper it was.

  ‘Lauren, I’m afraid we’re boring the others. Perhaps you and I should continue this conversation another time. Marguerite, isn’t there something wonderful in that white box you brought in?’

  Marguerite rose with her and they served the dessert – a mocha torte – with coffee in the living room. Conversation drifted to more neutral topics, and soon Richard took his leave. The others relaxed in his absence like Victorian ladies who’d removed their corsets for the night.

  ‘That didn’t seem like a great success in terms of my career prospects,’ Oscar said with a sigh. ‘He as good as said I don’t have a chance for promotion.’

  Marguerite waved an elegant hand. ‘Pas du tout. That is merely Richard’s way. It is against his religion ever to say an encouraging word. You will have as good a chance as anyone when it comes to the point.’

  ‘Though perhaps not better,’ Emily said. ‘We still have work to do.’

  ‘But how is such a man to be worked on?’ Lauren’s place in Emily’s heart was cemented with that obscure reference to Pride and Prejudice. ‘He seems impervious.’

  ‘Oh, he has one weak spot, at least,’ Emily said. ‘Surely you noticed.’ With these words one piece of the puzzle of her feelings toward Richard clicked into place; but there must be more to the picture.

  Lauren dropped her eyes. ‘Yeah, I noticed that.’ She turned to Oscar. ‘If there’s anything I can do through normal channels to further your cause, I’ll be happy to do it. But seducing Richard is too much to ask.’ She shuddered. ‘I’d rather kiss a cobra.’

  Oscar turned beet red. ‘I’d sooner starve than have you so much as flirt with that creep. And after all, Bede isn’t the only school in the world. It isn’t even the only school in Portland.’

  ‘No,’ Emily replied, ‘but it is the best place to work, once you get your foot properly in the door. Don’t worry, Oscar, we’ll manage this somehow. Richard is only one vote, after all.’

  FIVE

  The next morning, Emily was already at work in the library when Daniel appeared – this time without Svetlana in tow. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘No Svetlana today?’

  Daniel’s eyes went black. ‘Her father’s here,’ he grunted.

  No further explanation was necessary. ‘Oh, I see. She didn’t mention he was coming – is this a surprise visit?’

  ‘Totally. He was in Seattle on business and decided to come down before heading back to Boston.’ Daniel snorted. ‘Doesn’t trust Sveta to turn that D around on her own, I guess.’

  ‘I see. But if he thinks he can intimidate Taylor Curzon into changing a grade, I’m afraid he’s in for a rude awakening.’

  ‘Try telling him that. Try telling him anything.’

  Emily had not the least confidence in her own ability to ‘tell him anything’, but she was curious to see this apparent bully for herself. ‘You don’t happen to know where they are?’

  ‘They were heading for the coffee shop a minute ago.’

  She stood and grabbed her coat and purse. ‘I feel a sudden need for a cup of coffee. Can I get you anything?’

  Daniel returned her sly smile. ‘Plain black, thanks. No rush.’

  On her way out of the room, Emily passed Sidney, who greeted her with an ingratiating smile. ‘Good morning, Professor Cavanaugh. I’m on my way to see if Daniel wants to go for coffee.’

  ‘He’s only just started to work. I’m getting coffee for him.’

  Sidney’s smile faded momentarily, then reasserted itself. ‘In that case I’ll say a quick hello and get on with my day.’

  Emily resisted the impulse to turn the young man around and frog-march him out of the library. She wasn’t Daniel’s keeper, after all; she couldn’t save him from every annoyance.

  She entered the Paradox as if focused solely on getting a caffeine fix. Not until she’d placed her order did she look around and spot Svetlana sitting at a table by the window with a balding, pudgy middle-aged man. She caught Svetlana’s eye and waved.

  Svetlana looked like a falling trapeze artist who suddenly realizes she has a net. ‘Professor Cavanaugh! Please, join us.’

  The man who was presumably her father looked around and frowned. No doubt he expected, and preferred, a tête-à-tête with his daughter. But basic social training forced him to make way for Emily at the table.

  ‘I can’t stay long – I’m taking coffee back to Daniel, and I don’t want it to get cold.’

  Svetlana’s face pinched with worry again – whether at the mention of Daniel or at the briefness of Emily’s sojourn, she couldn’t be sure. ‘Professor Cavanaugh, I’d like you to meet my father, Saul Goldstein.’

  Emily extended her hand and put on her brightest smile. ‘I
t’s a pleasure. Svetlana’s told me so much about you.’

  Goldstein’s frown intensified as he gave her hand a cursory shake. ‘She hasn’t mentioned you to me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s because I’ve been gone for a while. I’m on sabbatical this year – just came back for Paideia to do some research. But I did have the pleasure of teaching your daughter in a lit class last year. She’s an excellent student with keen insight.’

  He snorted. ‘That opinion does not appear to be unanimous.’

  ‘Yes, she told me about the difficulty with Professor Curzon. What you need to realize, Mr Goldstein, is that Curzon is notorious for playing favorites. A poor grade from her is not necessarily any reflection on a student’s ability or hard work – it’s only a sign that Curzon has taken against her.’

  Goldstein glowered at his daughter. ‘What did you do to antagonize her?’

  ‘Please, don’t assume it’s Svetlana’s fault. Curzon’s likes and dislikes are entirely capricious. And her favor rarely extends to the women in her class.’

  The glower turned back to Emily. ‘Are you serious? Why is such a person allowed to go on teaching here?’

  Emily gave a rueful shrug. ‘She has tenure. It takes a pretty serious accusation, backed up by solid proof, to get a tenured professor dismissed. And most of the students won’t come forward for fear of retaliation.’

  He pushed to his feet. ‘We’ll see about that. The law is on our side, and the name of Saul Goldstein has struck fear into worse offenders than her before this. Where’s her office?’

  Svetlana touched a tentative hand to his custom-tailored elbow. ‘Papa, please. It’s not that important. You’ll only make things worse.’

  ‘Not important? You know that one grade will keep you from getting into Harvard Law.’

  Emily knew Svetlana’s fear was more for Daniel than for herself. ‘Your daughter may be right, Mr Goldstein. I’m sure you’re well known in Boston, but I don’t think your fame has spread to the West Coast. It takes an awful lot to intimidate Taylor Curzon.’