Read Online Death of the Black-Haired Girl by Robert Stone - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Stone
Tags: Fiction, Psychological
Ads: Link
presence on the instrument, he was absolutely certain, was Maud. He heard street noises behind her. The Andean flutes. Traffic. When he replaced the receiver the phone rang once more.
The afflicted man was circling the quad outside. His hair was freshly and neatly trimmed to an old-time crewcut. He had newly rimmed glasses. Brookman had seen the man often enough that these refurbishings were regularly scheduled, seen to by whoever had chosen or been retained to assist his passage through middle age. He always appeared alone; Brookman had never seen him in company with anyone. Time passed, the telephone rang, and the afflicted man made his circuits.
Watching these grim winter circumambulations, breathing to the rhythms of his unrelenting phone, Brookman found himself thinking of an early summer day a few years before. It had been the last week of classes in the spring term. The mild sweet wind carried dogwood and azalea blossoms, mission fulfilled, message delivered. The college was busy with preparations for class reunions, graduations, hushed with the efforts of spring-struck adolescents striving against nature for diligence, getting ready for exam week. One of the professors in the English department was a tall, handsome, prematurely gray daughter of the coast of Maine named Margaret Kemp. Some said of Margaret that she burned with too bright a flame. At some point her comp lit class exploded into an explanation of the unitary systems behind the universe, galaxies beyond nebulae, counterworlds intricately linked. Other instructors wore themselves out waiting for the use of their classrooms, colleagues stopped speaking to her, students mainly complained and fled. Not all.
When the college politely reclaimed its rooms, four students followed her outside. There, they sat down on the cold ground until after dark and Margaret continued to delve into the arcane systems beyond whose mere appearances the heart of the cosmos beat. One of the kids was a general’s daughter. Two were the star horsewoman of the equestrian team and her boyfriend, a scholarship kid from Weed, California. The last was an unusually cultivated, impressive young man, a student from New Orleans.
Deep in the night, when the campus went quiet except for distant drunken yells, Margaret and her company of pilgrims were wandering the fragrant grounds, the four students trailing their cicerone like tourists at an antique tomb site. The campus police watched but did not question; professors had been weird for years. Morning came and another evening, and then the sun rose again on Margaret, hoarsely gesticulating, beautiful as life-in-death in her transfixion, and on the students, dead-eyed, weeping, laughing together, raising their hands in wonder at all that Margaret, once the smartest shipwright’s daughter in Bath, had conjured out of the mornings and the evenings of a few days in May.
A woman from the counseling office named Jo Carr put a stop to it with an arm around Margaret, who seemed ready to slug her. The students wandered in circles. The psychiatrists treating them thought they were on drugs, which some of them may have been, but it made no difference. Two kids dropped out of school for a year, the two others for some months. The college accommodated them. Right after the exercise Margaret made her way to her house on Nantucket.
Margaret Kemp had a close friend at the college, another English professor with an office next to Brookman’s, named Constance Haughy. Constance was an older woman who usually seemed quite sensible, but occasionally surprised. One night Brookman was working late when Constance’s telephone began to ring next door. He concentrated on the piece he was finishing. Then, after two hours, he noticed something strange: the phone was still ringing and, he realized, had been ringing the whole time. When he left his office it was still ringing. Walking home, he knew that it must be Margaret attempting to reach out. The night-shift
The afflicted man was circling the quad outside. His hair was freshly and neatly trimmed to an old-time crewcut. He had newly rimmed glasses. Brookman had seen the man often enough that these refurbishings were regularly scheduled, seen to by whoever had chosen or been retained to assist his passage through middle age. He always appeared alone; Brookman had never seen him in company with anyone. Time passed, the telephone rang, and the afflicted man made his circuits.
Watching these grim winter circumambulations, breathing to the rhythms of his unrelenting phone, Brookman found himself thinking of an early summer day a few years before. It had been the last week of classes in the spring term. The mild sweet wind carried dogwood and azalea blossoms, mission fulfilled, message delivered. The college was busy with preparations for class reunions, graduations, hushed with the efforts of spring-struck adolescents striving against nature for diligence, getting ready for exam week. One of the professors in the English department was a tall, handsome, prematurely gray daughter of the coast of Maine named Margaret Kemp. Some said of Margaret that she burned with too bright a flame. At some point her comp lit class exploded into an explanation of the unitary systems behind the universe, galaxies beyond nebulae, counterworlds intricately linked. Other instructors wore themselves out waiting for the use of their classrooms, colleagues stopped speaking to her, students mainly complained and fled. Not all.
When the college politely reclaimed its rooms, four students followed her outside. There, they sat down on the cold ground until after dark and Margaret continued to delve into the arcane systems beyond whose mere appearances the heart of the cosmos beat. One of the kids was a general’s daughter. Two were the star horsewoman of the equestrian team and her boyfriend, a scholarship kid from Weed, California. The last was an unusually cultivated, impressive young man, a student from New Orleans.
Deep in the night, when the campus went quiet except for distant drunken yells, Margaret and her company of pilgrims were wandering the fragrant grounds, the four students trailing their cicerone like tourists at an antique tomb site. The campus police watched but did not question; professors had been weird for years. Morning came and another evening, and then the sun rose again on Margaret, hoarsely gesticulating, beautiful as life-in-death in her transfixion, and on the students, dead-eyed, weeping, laughing together, raising their hands in wonder at all that Margaret, once the smartest shipwright’s daughter in Bath, had conjured out of the mornings and the evenings of a few days in May.
A woman from the counseling office named Jo Carr put a stop to it with an arm around Margaret, who seemed ready to slug her. The students wandered in circles. The psychiatrists treating them thought they were on drugs, which some of them may have been, but it made no difference. Two kids dropped out of school for a year, the two others for some months. The college accommodated them. Right after the exercise Margaret made her way to her house on Nantucket.
Margaret Kemp had a close friend at the college, another English professor with an office next to Brookman’s, named Constance Haughy. Constance was an older woman who usually seemed quite sensible, but occasionally surprised. One night Brookman was working late when Constance’s telephone began to ring next door. He concentrated on the piece he was finishing. Then, after two hours, he noticed something strange: the phone was still ringing and, he realized, had been ringing the whole time. When he left his office it was still ringing. Walking home, he knew that it must be Margaret attempting to reach out. The night-shift
Similar Books
