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Chapter 41
I awoke with a start and Cuauhtémoc was looking down at me from his perch on the backrest of a chair. He looked first with one eye, then cocked his head to the other side and looked at me with the other. On the periphery of my vision I glimpsed Chayo, or I thought I did. When I turned my head to look, it was just a coat draped over another chair.
I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to eight. This was morning, obviously; sunlight was filtering in through a window. MacClayne's cot was empty. Where was he? Then I looked down on the other side of my cot. There was Wendy, asleep on that huge mattress.
How did she get here? It took me some long, dreadful seconds to recollect the events of the previous evening. Then I got up and went to the bathroom to shave and wash up. My trousers were still hanging from a hook. They felt chillingly damp as I put them on
"Good morning!" she greeted me cheerfully when I emerged. She was sitting cross-legged on her mattress, wrapped in her beach towel and sipping a beer.
"Good morning," I said. "How did you sleep?"
"Wonderfully. Are you ready to go out and have some breakfast?"
"Sure," I said, not knowing what else to reply. While she went to wash up, I put some oats in a dish for Cuauhtémoc, then dug out my journal. As I wrote I kept wishing MacClayne would show up; I felt uncomfortable being alone with this woman. Where was MacClayne when I needed him? Had he considered it sagacious to move out so that Wendy and I could have a fling? Who could guess what wild assumptions he might've made.
I glanced at the bird. "¿Cómo ves?" I said. His neck feathers rose slightly.
When Wendy came out of the bathroom she was wearing blue jeans and a denim jacket with embroidered flowers on the collar and sleeves. Very discreet, I thought, but then it was probably for the chilly weather outside.
She looked at the damp clothes I was wearing. "Haven't you got anything dry?" she asked, and, without waiting for my answer, "You can't go out like that. You'll catch pneumonia. Here, I have another pair of jeans." She took them out of her suitcase and gave them to me.
"I think they're too small for me," I objected. I felt terribly embarrassed at the thought of wearing Wendy's jeans. I could only imagine what Chayo might say.
"Try them on anyway."
"No, they're definitely too small." I held them up to across my waist to confirm the fact. "Anyway, the ones I'm wearing will dry soon enough. I'm used to it by now."
"Yes, too bad about that," she said. "First let's go see if the Hispaniola's still here."
"The what?" I said.
"The schooner."
My jaw must have dropped slightly, for an instant I thought we must have had the same dream.
"Ready to go?" she said. We headed out the door and through the gate. The maroon jeep was parked at one side. The sky was overcast as on the previous day, and the street was wet and muddy. It had rained a lot during the night. Water was still dripping from the eaves of houses as we passed. Cuauhtémoc rode on my arm. Wendy was talking about the schooner and its crew. "They're Americans," she said. "From California. I told you about them last night."
"Yes, now I remember," I said as it came tumbling back into my conscious memory. "I think I saw the ship there yesterday. There was also a schooner in the bay back at Maruata. It might be the same one."
"Yes, they told me they were at Maruata, but it was hard to get ashore."
"So it's the Hispaniola," I said. "There wouldn't be a Long John Silver aboard?"
"There is."
"You're kidding."
"It's a nickname," she said.
We'd reached the edge of the bluff where we stood high on the cliff overlooking the bay. Gusts of cold wind tore at my jacket and buffeted a nopal cactus that grew out of the rock.
"There it is!" Wendy exclaimed.
A two-masted ship rode at anchor below us, a few hundred meters away. It was pitching slightly, even in the relative calm of the harbor. Nobody appeared to be on deck.
"I guess they must all be ashore," I said.
"Probably sleeping off their hangovers," Wendy quipped.
The pale sun, the gray sky, and the barren rocks among the white caps seemed more appropriate to the coast of Greenland than to a tropical scene. Instinctively, I pulled my jacket tighter about me and buttoned it up.
"Do you think this awful weather will ever end?" Wendy said.
"I sure hope so," I said. Normally this is the dry season, and I'm told it's usually pretty hot at this time of year."
"If the weather clears, we could go aboard and pay a visit. I'd like to see them again," she said.
My stomach turned a slight flip. I wanted very much to go aboard and see the schooner, but I felt some reservations about doing it with Wendy. But it might not be so bad if I could include MacClayne and make it a threesome.
"Sure," I said. "MacClayne might like to go with us. He loves ships, and he's an old sea dog himself."
"Really?" her eyes lit up. We'd left the cliff and were now heading back to find a restaurant.
"He's an ex-seaman. Sailed both the north and south Atlantic. Sailed along what they used to call the Spanish Main. During the war . . ." I gave a brief summary of MacClayne's voyages, and Wendy appeared impressed.
"But don't tell him I said anything about him being in the war," I added.
"I promise not to. But is there any particular reason?"
"He doesn't like to talk about it," I said; I didn't want to tell her I thought he was traumatized by the loss of his shipmates. "He is in some ways a very modest person. But he's also a world-class bullshit artist. Can you imagine that? A modest bullshit artist?"
Wendy laughed.
"And he's a poet," I said. "He's composed some good stuff."
"How long have you two known each other?"
"Three years now. But it seems much longer. It's as if I've known him all my life. He's the older brother I never had."
"You don't have any siblings?" she said.
"No. Well, as I say, there's MacClayne."
"You two seem to get along very well," she said. "I wish I could travel and do things together with my sisters and brothers. But it seems like there always have to be fights and hassles."
We'd come to a restaurant that Wendy said was quite good. Having been here several days, she apparently knew them all well. We seated ourselves at a table, with Cuauhtémoc perched in his usual position on the backrest of a chair.
"So," Wendy said as we seated ourselves. "What were you doing before you set out on this trip?"
"I was in school then. I just finished in June."
"You never told me what you studied," she said. "No, don't tell me! Let me guess." She paused for a moment, then, "Geology, right? You seem like a guy who'd major in geology."
"Yes, that's true," I said. I wondered how she possibly could've guessed.
Wendy ran her tongue around her lips as though savoring the success of her conjecture, and I had to admit to myself that I was impressed with her insight. Perhaps that too was part of being a competent real estate salesperson. Still, knowing her for the trickster that she was, I suspected it was more than a lucky guess.
Then the waitress came.
"Una cerveza, por favor," Wendy said, and to me, "They have good chile verde here. That's what I'm going to have. Or would you prefer something else? I'm treating."
"I'll have the same," I said, I didn't know how to refuse without sounding rude. She placed the orders.
Then a thought came to me, and I said, "MacClayne told you, didn't he?"
"Told me what?"
"About my studying geology," I said. "He told you."
Wendy grinned and shook her head. "You told me yourself," she said. "Remember?"
"I did?" I tried to think back. Maybe I had, but I wasn't sure. I recalled discussing Jeff being a geologist, but I hadn't told her about myself. But maybe I'd revealed enough that she was able to guess.
Wendy ran her hand across my arm. She was in a sparkling mood this morning. For a distraught woman whose husband had just walked off and left her, she was taking it very well. Or maybe this was her way of dealing with it.
The beer arrived and she took a sip. "Did you work while you went through school?"
"Part time. For a land surveyor."
"That's excellent background. Not many geologists have such experience."
I nodded and tried to think of some way to change the subject, but nothing came to mind.
"Have you finished school and received your degree?"
"I guess I could say I did."
She looked at me quizzically, but said nothing. Then our food arrived. Only minutes before, I'd been starving; now my appetite was gone. I forced myself to take a bite.
"Olaf, is something the matter?"
I sighed. "My degree is fraudulent."
"Fraudulent? You bought it from a diploma mill?"
"No," I said. "But I might as well have."
"I don't get it."
I looked down at my plate. The food looked delicious, but at this moment I had no appetite. "My professor ghostwrote my thesis paper," I told her reluctantly.
"That's one I don't hear too often," she said. "But I take it he wasn't doing you any favor."
"No, it wasn't a favor."
She touched my arm gently. "Maybe you'd like to tell me about it."
"It's pretty complicated. A long story."
Wendy leaned her head back and glanced upwards. "Do you hear the rain starting to patter on the roof? The storm's not over. The river's going to be rising again, and we are not getting out of this town soon. So tell me your long story."
It was something I didn't enjoy talking about, and it must've shown on my face.
"Sometimes it helps to share these things," she said, taking my hand in hers.
The patter of rain on the roof began to intensify. Finally I pushed my plate to one side and took a deep breath. "For my thesis I attempted to do a mineral evaluation of a mining property," I said, beginning my explanation. "The mine belonged to my boss."
I told her how I'd first seen it while working for my boss on his land survey party. We were staking a claim on an old mine that he was in the process of acquiring. Eventually, when it came time for my thesis, I opted to do a study on that mine. My professor approved the idea, and so did my boss, who paid my expenses and even loaned me a vehicle.
"What kind of a mine was it?"
"Pumice."
She raised her eyebrows, and I went on to tell her that it was a deposit of white, silicious, volcanic ash that could be used as a filler in tooth paste, paint and even in light-weight concrete.
Wendy was a good listener. Now and then she asked a question or made a comment, but mostly she just listened.
Empty beer cans piled up on our table. I drank many cups of coffee. Cuauhtémoc sat at his perch with an ear turned towards our conversation and fortunately showing no interest in the beer.
"Olaf, I can clearly see you had a passion for geology and for the project you undertook. Most students just take what's handed to them and do what they have to do. They wake up one morning to find it's time to begin their thesis, and they just pull something out of a hat. That's how most people are, and that's how they get through life. But you had your project lined up years ahead of time. You must've been a very good student and your professor should have considered himself fortunate to have someone come to him with such a project. Tell me about the professor, what kind of guy was he?"
"He seemed like a very responsible person."
"You trusted him."
"I did. That's why I chose him as my thesis advisor."
Wendy nodded. "A person you respected and admired."
"He was great in the classroom. Extremely knowledgeable."
"And out in the field?"
"Well, I assumed . . ."
"What kind of job experience did he have? Outside of academia," she said. "Had he ever worked for a mining company?"
"Not that I know of," I told her. "I think he went straight from being a student to being a teacher."
"So he went from one side of the teacher's desk to the other. He was a teacher of geology--not a geologist." She finished her beer and called to the waitress. "Otra cerveza y mas café, por favor."
I sat there absorbing what she had said. I had never considered my professor's lack of field experience before.
"Did the professor warn you that this was going to be difficult? Did he suggest that you consider something less demanding?"
"No, he was extremely enthusiastic about it. At first, that is. He promised to meet with me each week to review my progress and give me feedback and pointers."
"And did he?"
"It turned out he didn't have time. There was always somewhere else he had to be, something else he had to do."
"Do you think he was avoiding something he himself didn't know how to do?"
"It didn't occur to me at the time, but now that you suggest it, I guess it's possible."
"Anyway, so what happened?"
"I went out in the desert and did a lot of field work, made maps and stratigraphic columns. Took notes. Collected rock samples. But on my own I was unable to evaluate the information and put it all together to produce the final paper."
"It was your professor's job to show you how."
I nodded.
"So what did you do?"
"After doing a certain amount of field work, I found myself going in circles, not knowing what to do next, what direction to take."
"No, you wouldn't. On a thesis project, your destiny is in the hands of your professor. Even Captain Bligh had less control over the lives of his men than a university professor has." Wendy paused for a long sip of her beer. "Please continue. I didn't mean to interrupt you."
"Well, my project didn't get done. As you can imagine, this was becoming a major embarrassment for everyone. The worst was that my boss had financed my project and even loaned me a vehicle."
"It always complicates things when an employer's involved. But did you go and talk with him? Tell him there was going to be a delay?"
"Yes. I did, and at first he seemed to understand. But the delay went on and on. At last he lost patience and fired me. Then, finally, when it was really too late, my professor decided he'd found time for my project."
"Your getting fired made the professor look bad. He realized he had to do something."
"I guess so," I said. "But, instead of showing me how to complete the paper, he simply took over and wrote the whole thing himself. In fact, he wrote and rewrote it many times. And each time he rewrote it, I had to retype it, one draft after another. I was reduced to being a clerk typist, nothing more."
"But they gave you a degree."
"They did," I said. "For going along with it. For my participation in a cover-up. To make the school look good. To make the professor look good. It was a bribe. Thinly disguised. Of course I knew it at the time, but I refused to see it. I guess I was in some sort of denial."
"You seem like the most honest guy I've ever met, and to think that you of all people should wind up with a ghostwritten thesis."
"Yeah, party to academic fraud."
"And your professor. What became of him? Is he still there?"
"Shortly afterwards he became department chair."
"Oh lord!"
"Yeah."
"I've known people like that," she said. "They lie, cheat and steal their way through life. They screw people over, leave people hanging, and don't give a damn who they hurt. And then they get promoted."
I nodded.
"However," she said, "A degree is still a degree."
I shrugged.
"You must know that a good many students buy their term papers and even their thesis papers," she said. "Producing and supplying students with ghostwritten papers is a multi-million-dollar industry."
"Yeah, I know."
"I bought a few myself," she said. "I hope that doesn't shock you too much?"
I suddenly found myself grinning. I pictured Wendy purchasing armloads of term papers, passing them off as her own and getting good grades. Her casual attitude about such things was part of her charm.
We both started laughing. A moment later we were again looking at each other in dead seriousness.
"You wanted to earn your degree," she said.
"Yes."
"I understand," she said in a solemn voice. "There are times when even I wouldn't want to cheat."
At that moment I felt that Wendy was one of the very few persons who'd ever really understood me, and I also felt that I understood her. We sat there, looking each other in the eye, not speaking. The rain was now pounding fiercely on the roof, and water could be heard pouring down off the eaves. Cuauhtémoc gazed at Wendy with a look of newfound respect.
"Your professor let you down," Wendy said at last.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said.
"You guess so? That's the gist of your whole story."
I shrugged.
"And afterwards, I bet he put the blame on you."
"Yeah, sort of," I said.
"He screwed you over."
Wendy's voice seemed rather distant. Her face had slipped out of focus and my eyes were scanning the far wall. A dim electric light illuminated a print of the ubiquitous Virgin of Guadalupe, dust-covered and discolored from age. I momentarily felt as if I were back in that drippy dungeon.
"Olaf, did you hear me? Your professor left you hanging."
I felt her hand pinching my arm. I blinked my eyes and looked at Wendy.
"I understand what you're feeling," she said softly. "It's painful when people you trust let you down. But you have to deal with it. Otherwise your career in geology would be over."
"My geology career is over."
"Olaf!" she snapped, almost angrily. "I don't want to hear you say that again!"
"What else can I say?"
"I'm sorry I have to be hard-nosed with you," she said. "We're talking about your career--"
"I--"
"Listen to me!" She looked at me sternly.
I glanced at Cuauhtémoc. Even he seemed to be glaring at me in support of Wendy.
"A career is a real-world thing," Wendy resumed, speaking slowly and patiently. "You've got to deal with reality. That's not only in real estate, it's the same in geology. Even poetry has its business side."
I nodded.
"How do you think I got to play the princess in that Hamlet production?"
"I'm sure you were the best woman for the part. Was it produced by a women's group?"
"Wrong and wrong! It was not a women's production. They were looking for a guy to play Hamlet, and they'd never even thought of casting a woman for the part. But I got it anyway, because I wanted it, and I didn't give up till I got it." Wendy paused. "In reality of course, I'm not the Hamlet type."
"Why not?"
"I wouldn't have gone through all that trauma and soul searching that Hamlet did. Had it been me, I would've just killed the bastard at the first opportunity. So, you see, I was playing a role that wasn't really me. But an actress has to be able to fit herself into such roles. That's part of being an actress. I did well enough, and I made up for it by doing a part that really is me: that stabbing scene at the end, and that's what made the role work for me."
I couldn't help smiling at the way she said it.
Wendy took a long draught of her beer. "Have you ever seen it performed on stage?" she asked.
"I saw the movie version, and of course I've read the play."
"What did you see in the protagonist?"
"A guy who couldn't make up his mind," I said.
Wendy gave me a sour, disappointed look. "Is that what you really saw? Just that and nothing more?"
"Well. . ., it was some years ago. I don't remember it that well."
"Okay. But if you were to watch it now, I think you'd see a lot more," she said.
"Like what?"
"The trauma we experience when we awaken to find ourselves buying into another person's lie, like Hamlet buying into his uncle's innocence." She paused to empty her glass, and asked the waitress for another beer. "Where was I? Yes. When we find ourselves living someone else's lie it's because we respected that person's judgment, and though we sense something is very wrong, the betrayer is such a trusted figure that we can't bring ourselves to see they're cheating us out of our self respect. But we know it's happening, and even though we refuse to see it, it goes on and on and drives us to the edge of insanity."
I nodded slowly, trying to digest it all.
Wendy's beer arrived and she took a sip. "How well did you know your teacher? Outside of class, I mean."
"I didn't, really. A couple of times a small group of students and I had pizza with him. Naturally we went on numerous field trips together as a class."
"So you only saw the public side of him. I bet he was charismatic and politically adept. And, in addition, a real bastard."
It took me a while before I said 'yes.'
"'Yes' to what?" Wendy pursued.
"To all of the above," I said. Then I told her about an incident at the university. Another teacher was pushed out of the department, blackmailed into resigning. To get the information to use against him, the faculty interrogated my classmates.
"They used students as informers? That's really playing dirty, you know. What was your professor's role in that?"
"I can't say for certain. It was another professor who did the questioning."
"But shortly afterwards, your professor became chair. Can you doubt his involvement? Low profile, behind the scenes."
"It' possible," I said. "At the time I couldn't imagine him having anything to do with such a thing. But there were hints." I told her of a couple minor things I knew of, like the time he'd boasted to me of screwing up a student's records to get back at him for some minor thing.
"I've known people like that. Their ship is always on course, even when they're heading in the wrong direction. They leave a wake of chaos, but nobody seems to notice, and their victims are conned into blaming themselves." She paused to take several deep gulps, nearly emptying her glass. "Do you see my point? You're not alone in feeling confused and angry when your trust is betrayed. It's a universal feeling, a theme in literature, a topic of our greatest playwrights."
I didn't know what to say.
"But of course not everyone would have a problem with living another person's lie. A lot of people don't seem to mind. Hamlet's mother is one of those, and she's not really a bad person, she's basically a kind, loving mother to her son--to her daughter in our production. But there she is, involved in another person's lie and not aware of it, not wanting to be aware of it.
"Princess Hamlet was different. Maybe even unique in this world. But if she'd been less honorable, more willing to play the game, she could've inherited the crown and become the next queen of Denmark. Society often rewards us for being immoral, and just as often it castigates and ridicules morality."
The rain was still pounding fiercely on the roof.
"So you see, I do understand how you feel about that fraud," she said. "I think it's very noble of you, and I want to help you with this. Will you let me?"
"How?" I said cautiously. I pictured a certain professor lying in a pool of blood. Newspaper headlines a few days later: 'Alumnus sought . . .'
"We're going to do an exercise in fixing blame," she said. "It's kind of like what the Catholic Church calls an exorcism. The idea is to rid you of the guilt demon. We're going to put the blame for this fraud where it belongs and fix it there."
Wendy lifted her glass to her lips and took a deep draught, then took another and finished it off. "Otra cerveza, por favor," she said to the waitress, and then, turning back to me, said, "Why don't you have one too? Señorita! Dos cervezas."
I reluctantly decided one beer wouldn't hurt me.
"Here's what we're going to do," Wendy said. "I want you to write down what happened, the gist of what you told me. We'll do it together. Okay?"
The next two hours were spent on that essay. Beer cans, one of which was mine, continued to pile up on our table. The bird would have had easy access to Wendy's beer, had he been so inclined, but on this day he was not. From his teetotaling demeanor, one might have taken him for a reformed alcoholic.
The resulting piece was a 400-word statement of the facts and details of the situation. It ended with the line: "I chose Dr. Knudsen as my thesis advisor because he had impressed me with his excellent classroom lectures, but I learned to know him as a person who lived a lie and involved me in it."
"Great!" said Wendy. "Now type it up, sign it, Xerox off about forty copies, and send one to every geology department in California, Arizona and Nevada."
I sucked in my breath. "You think that'll bring him down?"
"No."
"No?"
"The administration will cover for him. They always do. This essay won't get him fired or even prevent him from getting additional promotions. He might even some day make it all the way up to becoming university president. You see, Olaf, administration's a pretty deep hole, and he can hide in it till the day he retires--however, it's not dignified for a department chair to hide, and the very people who cover for him will despise him most."
"You think so?" I said.
"Believe me! Take my word on it!"
I looked over the essay once again. I said, "It seems pretty drastic."
"This is an exorcism," she said with a malicious smile. "The blame demon's got to go somewhere."
"Were you raised Catholic?" I said.
"Congregationalist--a denomination which descends from the Puritans. An ancestor of mine came over on the Mayflower, and a later ancestor barely escaped hanging at the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Obviously she knew how to cast spells that worked. I'm sure she was the only accredited sorceress in the bunch."
I inhaled a deep breath of air. I'd been locked into an airless room since the day I got that degree, and now at last I could breath again. I saw a certain humor to this whole thing; I grinned and said, "Wendy, you do work a charm."
"I can tell you feel a lot better," she said. "Maybe now you're ready to finish your meal. I hope it isn't too cold. Let me order something else for you."
continued in Chapter 42
I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to eight. This was morning, obviously; sunlight was filtering in through a window. MacClayne's cot was empty. Where was he? Then I looked down on the other side of my cot. There was Wendy, asleep on that huge mattress.
How did she get here? It took me some long, dreadful seconds to recollect the events of the previous evening. Then I got up and went to the bathroom to shave and wash up. My trousers were still hanging from a hook. They felt chillingly damp as I put them on
"Good morning!" she greeted me cheerfully when I emerged. She was sitting cross-legged on her mattress, wrapped in her beach towel and sipping a beer.
"Good morning," I said. "How did you sleep?"
"Wonderfully. Are you ready to go out and have some breakfast?"
"Sure," I said, not knowing what else to reply. While she went to wash up, I put some oats in a dish for Cuauhtémoc, then dug out my journal. As I wrote I kept wishing MacClayne would show up; I felt uncomfortable being alone with this woman. Where was MacClayne when I needed him? Had he considered it sagacious to move out so that Wendy and I could have a fling? Who could guess what wild assumptions he might've made.
I glanced at the bird. "¿Cómo ves?" I said. His neck feathers rose slightly.
When Wendy came out of the bathroom she was wearing blue jeans and a denim jacket with embroidered flowers on the collar and sleeves. Very discreet, I thought, but then it was probably for the chilly weather outside.
She looked at the damp clothes I was wearing. "Haven't you got anything dry?" she asked, and, without waiting for my answer, "You can't go out like that. You'll catch pneumonia. Here, I have another pair of jeans." She took them out of her suitcase and gave them to me.
"I think they're too small for me," I objected. I felt terribly embarrassed at the thought of wearing Wendy's jeans. I could only imagine what Chayo might say.
"Try them on anyway."
"No, they're definitely too small." I held them up to across my waist to confirm the fact. "Anyway, the ones I'm wearing will dry soon enough. I'm used to it by now."
"Yes, too bad about that," she said. "First let's go see if the Hispaniola's still here."
"The what?" I said.
"The schooner."
My jaw must have dropped slightly, for an instant I thought we must have had the same dream.
"Ready to go?" she said. We headed out the door and through the gate. The maroon jeep was parked at one side. The sky was overcast as on the previous day, and the street was wet and muddy. It had rained a lot during the night. Water was still dripping from the eaves of houses as we passed. Cuauhtémoc rode on my arm. Wendy was talking about the schooner and its crew. "They're Americans," she said. "From California. I told you about them last night."
"Yes, now I remember," I said as it came tumbling back into my conscious memory. "I think I saw the ship there yesterday. There was also a schooner in the bay back at Maruata. It might be the same one."
"Yes, they told me they were at Maruata, but it was hard to get ashore."
"So it's the Hispaniola," I said. "There wouldn't be a Long John Silver aboard?"
"There is."
"You're kidding."
"It's a nickname," she said.
We'd reached the edge of the bluff where we stood high on the cliff overlooking the bay. Gusts of cold wind tore at my jacket and buffeted a nopal cactus that grew out of the rock.
"There it is!" Wendy exclaimed.
A two-masted ship rode at anchor below us, a few hundred meters away. It was pitching slightly, even in the relative calm of the harbor. Nobody appeared to be on deck.
"I guess they must all be ashore," I said.
"Probably sleeping off their hangovers," Wendy quipped.
The pale sun, the gray sky, and the barren rocks among the white caps seemed more appropriate to the coast of Greenland than to a tropical scene. Instinctively, I pulled my jacket tighter about me and buttoned it up.
"Do you think this awful weather will ever end?" Wendy said.
"I sure hope so," I said. Normally this is the dry season, and I'm told it's usually pretty hot at this time of year."
"If the weather clears, we could go aboard and pay a visit. I'd like to see them again," she said.
My stomach turned a slight flip. I wanted very much to go aboard and see the schooner, but I felt some reservations about doing it with Wendy. But it might not be so bad if I could include MacClayne and make it a threesome.
"Sure," I said. "MacClayne might like to go with us. He loves ships, and he's an old sea dog himself."
"Really?" her eyes lit up. We'd left the cliff and were now heading back to find a restaurant.
"He's an ex-seaman. Sailed both the north and south Atlantic. Sailed along what they used to call the Spanish Main. During the war . . ." I gave a brief summary of MacClayne's voyages, and Wendy appeared impressed.
"But don't tell him I said anything about him being in the war," I added.
"I promise not to. But is there any particular reason?"
"He doesn't like to talk about it," I said; I didn't want to tell her I thought he was traumatized by the loss of his shipmates. "He is in some ways a very modest person. But he's also a world-class bullshit artist. Can you imagine that? A modest bullshit artist?"
Wendy laughed.
"And he's a poet," I said. "He's composed some good stuff."
"How long have you two known each other?"
"Three years now. But it seems much longer. It's as if I've known him all my life. He's the older brother I never had."
"You don't have any siblings?" she said.
"No. Well, as I say, there's MacClayne."
"You two seem to get along very well," she said. "I wish I could travel and do things together with my sisters and brothers. But it seems like there always have to be fights and hassles."
We'd come to a restaurant that Wendy said was quite good. Having been here several days, she apparently knew them all well. We seated ourselves at a table, with Cuauhtémoc perched in his usual position on the backrest of a chair.
"So," Wendy said as we seated ourselves. "What were you doing before you set out on this trip?"
"I was in school then. I just finished in June."
"You never told me what you studied," she said. "No, don't tell me! Let me guess." She paused for a moment, then, "Geology, right? You seem like a guy who'd major in geology."
"Yes, that's true," I said. I wondered how she possibly could've guessed.
Wendy ran her tongue around her lips as though savoring the success of her conjecture, and I had to admit to myself that I was impressed with her insight. Perhaps that too was part of being a competent real estate salesperson. Still, knowing her for the trickster that she was, I suspected it was more than a lucky guess.
Then the waitress came.
"Una cerveza, por favor," Wendy said, and to me, "They have good chile verde here. That's what I'm going to have. Or would you prefer something else? I'm treating."
"I'll have the same," I said, I didn't know how to refuse without sounding rude. She placed the orders.
Then a thought came to me, and I said, "MacClayne told you, didn't he?"
"Told me what?"
"About my studying geology," I said. "He told you."
Wendy grinned and shook her head. "You told me yourself," she said. "Remember?"
"I did?" I tried to think back. Maybe I had, but I wasn't sure. I recalled discussing Jeff being a geologist, but I hadn't told her about myself. But maybe I'd revealed enough that she was able to guess.
Wendy ran her hand across my arm. She was in a sparkling mood this morning. For a distraught woman whose husband had just walked off and left her, she was taking it very well. Or maybe this was her way of dealing with it.
The beer arrived and she took a sip. "Did you work while you went through school?"
"Part time. For a land surveyor."
"That's excellent background. Not many geologists have such experience."
I nodded and tried to think of some way to change the subject, but nothing came to mind.
"Have you finished school and received your degree?"
"I guess I could say I did."
She looked at me quizzically, but said nothing. Then our food arrived. Only minutes before, I'd been starving; now my appetite was gone. I forced myself to take a bite.
"Olaf, is something the matter?"
I sighed. "My degree is fraudulent."
"Fraudulent? You bought it from a diploma mill?"
"No," I said. "But I might as well have."
"I don't get it."
I looked down at my plate. The food looked delicious, but at this moment I had no appetite. "My professor ghostwrote my thesis paper," I told her reluctantly.
"That's one I don't hear too often," she said. "But I take it he wasn't doing you any favor."
"No, it wasn't a favor."
She touched my arm gently. "Maybe you'd like to tell me about it."
"It's pretty complicated. A long story."
Wendy leaned her head back and glanced upwards. "Do you hear the rain starting to patter on the roof? The storm's not over. The river's going to be rising again, and we are not getting out of this town soon. So tell me your long story."
It was something I didn't enjoy talking about, and it must've shown on my face.
"Sometimes it helps to share these things," she said, taking my hand in hers.
The patter of rain on the roof began to intensify. Finally I pushed my plate to one side and took a deep breath. "For my thesis I attempted to do a mineral evaluation of a mining property," I said, beginning my explanation. "The mine belonged to my boss."
I told her how I'd first seen it while working for my boss on his land survey party. We were staking a claim on an old mine that he was in the process of acquiring. Eventually, when it came time for my thesis, I opted to do a study on that mine. My professor approved the idea, and so did my boss, who paid my expenses and even loaned me a vehicle.
"What kind of a mine was it?"
"Pumice."
She raised her eyebrows, and I went on to tell her that it was a deposit of white, silicious, volcanic ash that could be used as a filler in tooth paste, paint and even in light-weight concrete.
Wendy was a good listener. Now and then she asked a question or made a comment, but mostly she just listened.
Empty beer cans piled up on our table. I drank many cups of coffee. Cuauhtémoc sat at his perch with an ear turned towards our conversation and fortunately showing no interest in the beer.
"Olaf, I can clearly see you had a passion for geology and for the project you undertook. Most students just take what's handed to them and do what they have to do. They wake up one morning to find it's time to begin their thesis, and they just pull something out of a hat. That's how most people are, and that's how they get through life. But you had your project lined up years ahead of time. You must've been a very good student and your professor should have considered himself fortunate to have someone come to him with such a project. Tell me about the professor, what kind of guy was he?"
"He seemed like a very responsible person."
"You trusted him."
"I did. That's why I chose him as my thesis advisor."
Wendy nodded. "A person you respected and admired."
"He was great in the classroom. Extremely knowledgeable."
"And out in the field?"
"Well, I assumed . . ."
"What kind of job experience did he have? Outside of academia," she said. "Had he ever worked for a mining company?"
"Not that I know of," I told her. "I think he went straight from being a student to being a teacher."
"So he went from one side of the teacher's desk to the other. He was a teacher of geology--not a geologist." She finished her beer and called to the waitress. "Otra cerveza y mas café, por favor."
I sat there absorbing what she had said. I had never considered my professor's lack of field experience before.
"Did the professor warn you that this was going to be difficult? Did he suggest that you consider something less demanding?"
"No, he was extremely enthusiastic about it. At first, that is. He promised to meet with me each week to review my progress and give me feedback and pointers."
"And did he?"
"It turned out he didn't have time. There was always somewhere else he had to be, something else he had to do."
"Do you think he was avoiding something he himself didn't know how to do?"
"It didn't occur to me at the time, but now that you suggest it, I guess it's possible."
"Anyway, so what happened?"
"I went out in the desert and did a lot of field work, made maps and stratigraphic columns. Took notes. Collected rock samples. But on my own I was unable to evaluate the information and put it all together to produce the final paper."
"It was your professor's job to show you how."
I nodded.
"So what did you do?"
"After doing a certain amount of field work, I found myself going in circles, not knowing what to do next, what direction to take."
"No, you wouldn't. On a thesis project, your destiny is in the hands of your professor. Even Captain Bligh had less control over the lives of his men than a university professor has." Wendy paused for a long sip of her beer. "Please continue. I didn't mean to interrupt you."
"Well, my project didn't get done. As you can imagine, this was becoming a major embarrassment for everyone. The worst was that my boss had financed my project and even loaned me a vehicle."
"It always complicates things when an employer's involved. But did you go and talk with him? Tell him there was going to be a delay?"
"Yes. I did, and at first he seemed to understand. But the delay went on and on. At last he lost patience and fired me. Then, finally, when it was really too late, my professor decided he'd found time for my project."
"Your getting fired made the professor look bad. He realized he had to do something."
"I guess so," I said. "But, instead of showing me how to complete the paper, he simply took over and wrote the whole thing himself. In fact, he wrote and rewrote it many times. And each time he rewrote it, I had to retype it, one draft after another. I was reduced to being a clerk typist, nothing more."
"But they gave you a degree."
"They did," I said. "For going along with it. For my participation in a cover-up. To make the school look good. To make the professor look good. It was a bribe. Thinly disguised. Of course I knew it at the time, but I refused to see it. I guess I was in some sort of denial."
"You seem like the most honest guy I've ever met, and to think that you of all people should wind up with a ghostwritten thesis."
"Yeah, party to academic fraud."
"And your professor. What became of him? Is he still there?"
"Shortly afterwards he became department chair."
"Oh lord!"
"Yeah."
"I've known people like that," she said. "They lie, cheat and steal their way through life. They screw people over, leave people hanging, and don't give a damn who they hurt. And then they get promoted."
I nodded.
"However," she said, "A degree is still a degree."
I shrugged.
"You must know that a good many students buy their term papers and even their thesis papers," she said. "Producing and supplying students with ghostwritten papers is a multi-million-dollar industry."
"Yeah, I know."
"I bought a few myself," she said. "I hope that doesn't shock you too much?"
I suddenly found myself grinning. I pictured Wendy purchasing armloads of term papers, passing them off as her own and getting good grades. Her casual attitude about such things was part of her charm.
We both started laughing. A moment later we were again looking at each other in dead seriousness.
"You wanted to earn your degree," she said.
"Yes."
"I understand," she said in a solemn voice. "There are times when even I wouldn't want to cheat."
At that moment I felt that Wendy was one of the very few persons who'd ever really understood me, and I also felt that I understood her. We sat there, looking each other in the eye, not speaking. The rain was now pounding fiercely on the roof, and water could be heard pouring down off the eaves. Cuauhtémoc gazed at Wendy with a look of newfound respect.
"Your professor let you down," Wendy said at last.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said.
"You guess so? That's the gist of your whole story."
I shrugged.
"And afterwards, I bet he put the blame on you."
"Yeah, sort of," I said.
"He screwed you over."
Wendy's voice seemed rather distant. Her face had slipped out of focus and my eyes were scanning the far wall. A dim electric light illuminated a print of the ubiquitous Virgin of Guadalupe, dust-covered and discolored from age. I momentarily felt as if I were back in that drippy dungeon.
"Olaf, did you hear me? Your professor left you hanging."
I felt her hand pinching my arm. I blinked my eyes and looked at Wendy.
"I understand what you're feeling," she said softly. "It's painful when people you trust let you down. But you have to deal with it. Otherwise your career in geology would be over."
"My geology career is over."
"Olaf!" she snapped, almost angrily. "I don't want to hear you say that again!"
"What else can I say?"
"I'm sorry I have to be hard-nosed with you," she said. "We're talking about your career--"
"I--"
"Listen to me!" She looked at me sternly.
I glanced at Cuauhtémoc. Even he seemed to be glaring at me in support of Wendy.
"A career is a real-world thing," Wendy resumed, speaking slowly and patiently. "You've got to deal with reality. That's not only in real estate, it's the same in geology. Even poetry has its business side."
I nodded.
"How do you think I got to play the princess in that Hamlet production?"
"I'm sure you were the best woman for the part. Was it produced by a women's group?"
"Wrong and wrong! It was not a women's production. They were looking for a guy to play Hamlet, and they'd never even thought of casting a woman for the part. But I got it anyway, because I wanted it, and I didn't give up till I got it." Wendy paused. "In reality of course, I'm not the Hamlet type."
"Why not?"
"I wouldn't have gone through all that trauma and soul searching that Hamlet did. Had it been me, I would've just killed the bastard at the first opportunity. So, you see, I was playing a role that wasn't really me. But an actress has to be able to fit herself into such roles. That's part of being an actress. I did well enough, and I made up for it by doing a part that really is me: that stabbing scene at the end, and that's what made the role work for me."
I couldn't help smiling at the way she said it.
Wendy took a long draught of her beer. "Have you ever seen it performed on stage?" she asked.
"I saw the movie version, and of course I've read the play."
"What did you see in the protagonist?"
"A guy who couldn't make up his mind," I said.
Wendy gave me a sour, disappointed look. "Is that what you really saw? Just that and nothing more?"
"Well. . ., it was some years ago. I don't remember it that well."
"Okay. But if you were to watch it now, I think you'd see a lot more," she said.
"Like what?"
"The trauma we experience when we awaken to find ourselves buying into another person's lie, like Hamlet buying into his uncle's innocence." She paused to empty her glass, and asked the waitress for another beer. "Where was I? Yes. When we find ourselves living someone else's lie it's because we respected that person's judgment, and though we sense something is very wrong, the betrayer is such a trusted figure that we can't bring ourselves to see they're cheating us out of our self respect. But we know it's happening, and even though we refuse to see it, it goes on and on and drives us to the edge of insanity."
I nodded slowly, trying to digest it all.
Wendy's beer arrived and she took a sip. "How well did you know your teacher? Outside of class, I mean."
"I didn't, really. A couple of times a small group of students and I had pizza with him. Naturally we went on numerous field trips together as a class."
"So you only saw the public side of him. I bet he was charismatic and politically adept. And, in addition, a real bastard."
It took me a while before I said 'yes.'
"'Yes' to what?" Wendy pursued.
"To all of the above," I said. Then I told her about an incident at the university. Another teacher was pushed out of the department, blackmailed into resigning. To get the information to use against him, the faculty interrogated my classmates.
"They used students as informers? That's really playing dirty, you know. What was your professor's role in that?"
"I can't say for certain. It was another professor who did the questioning."
"But shortly afterwards, your professor became chair. Can you doubt his involvement? Low profile, behind the scenes."
"It' possible," I said. "At the time I couldn't imagine him having anything to do with such a thing. But there were hints." I told her of a couple minor things I knew of, like the time he'd boasted to me of screwing up a student's records to get back at him for some minor thing.
"I've known people like that. Their ship is always on course, even when they're heading in the wrong direction. They leave a wake of chaos, but nobody seems to notice, and their victims are conned into blaming themselves." She paused to take several deep gulps, nearly emptying her glass. "Do you see my point? You're not alone in feeling confused and angry when your trust is betrayed. It's a universal feeling, a theme in literature, a topic of our greatest playwrights."
I didn't know what to say.
"But of course not everyone would have a problem with living another person's lie. A lot of people don't seem to mind. Hamlet's mother is one of those, and she's not really a bad person, she's basically a kind, loving mother to her son--to her daughter in our production. But there she is, involved in another person's lie and not aware of it, not wanting to be aware of it.
"Princess Hamlet was different. Maybe even unique in this world. But if she'd been less honorable, more willing to play the game, she could've inherited the crown and become the next queen of Denmark. Society often rewards us for being immoral, and just as often it castigates and ridicules morality."
The rain was still pounding fiercely on the roof.
"So you see, I do understand how you feel about that fraud," she said. "I think it's very noble of you, and I want to help you with this. Will you let me?"
"How?" I said cautiously. I pictured a certain professor lying in a pool of blood. Newspaper headlines a few days later: 'Alumnus sought . . .'
"We're going to do an exercise in fixing blame," she said. "It's kind of like what the Catholic Church calls an exorcism. The idea is to rid you of the guilt demon. We're going to put the blame for this fraud where it belongs and fix it there."
Wendy lifted her glass to her lips and took a deep draught, then took another and finished it off. "Otra cerveza, por favor," she said to the waitress, and then, turning back to me, said, "Why don't you have one too? Señorita! Dos cervezas."
I reluctantly decided one beer wouldn't hurt me.
"Here's what we're going to do," Wendy said. "I want you to write down what happened, the gist of what you told me. We'll do it together. Okay?"
The next two hours were spent on that essay. Beer cans, one of which was mine, continued to pile up on our table. The bird would have had easy access to Wendy's beer, had he been so inclined, but on this day he was not. From his teetotaling demeanor, one might have taken him for a reformed alcoholic.
The resulting piece was a 400-word statement of the facts and details of the situation. It ended with the line: "I chose Dr. Knudsen as my thesis advisor because he had impressed me with his excellent classroom lectures, but I learned to know him as a person who lived a lie and involved me in it."
"Great!" said Wendy. "Now type it up, sign it, Xerox off about forty copies, and send one to every geology department in California, Arizona and Nevada."
I sucked in my breath. "You think that'll bring him down?"
"No."
"No?"
"The administration will cover for him. They always do. This essay won't get him fired or even prevent him from getting additional promotions. He might even some day make it all the way up to becoming university president. You see, Olaf, administration's a pretty deep hole, and he can hide in it till the day he retires--however, it's not dignified for a department chair to hide, and the very people who cover for him will despise him most."
"You think so?" I said.
"Believe me! Take my word on it!"
I looked over the essay once again. I said, "It seems pretty drastic."
"This is an exorcism," she said with a malicious smile. "The blame demon's got to go somewhere."
"Were you raised Catholic?" I said.
"Congregationalist--a denomination which descends from the Puritans. An ancestor of mine came over on the Mayflower, and a later ancestor barely escaped hanging at the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Obviously she knew how to cast spells that worked. I'm sure she was the only accredited sorceress in the bunch."
I inhaled a deep breath of air. I'd been locked into an airless room since the day I got that degree, and now at last I could breath again. I saw a certain humor to this whole thing; I grinned and said, "Wendy, you do work a charm."
"I can tell you feel a lot better," she said. "Maybe now you're ready to finish your meal. I hope it isn't too cold. Let me order something else for you."
continued in Chapter 42
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