The Headmaster's Wife(114)

“Mark?”

“Oh, yes,” Marta said. “I can’t believe you’ve never noticed it. People don’t like to admit they’ve noticed it, but they must have in this case. It couldn’t have started here. He lies about everything. He lies about his work and why he hasn’t done it. We put a lot of emphasis on trust in this school. He isn’t trustworthy.”

“I see. I thought you said it was his roommate who was the ‘evil’ kid.”

“Oh, I did. I didn’t mean I thought Mark was evil. He isn’t evil. It’s not that. Michael was different. He was frightening, really, and violent. When we talked about the decimation of the Native Americans and that kind of thing, Michael liked to talk about torture. To dwell on it. He wasn’t all that bright, but he had a very vivid imagination. He could make you just see it: the pain, the blood. And he loved it. It was terrible to see. I didn’t mean Mark was anything like that. He really isn’t.”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“But he isn’t trustworthy,” Marta insisted. She had turned to face him. Now she turned again. The catwalk was verynarrow. Turning wasn’t easy. Gregor wished he were out in front. He thought it would be easier, less frightening, if he could see the nook ahead of them and concentrate on that, instead of having his attention constantly pulled toward the empty space under his feet.

“Oh, dear,” Marta said. “That’s Edith up ahead. I hope she doesn’t start coming this way without checking the walk. It’s awful when that happens. There isn’t room for two people to pass, and there isn’t supposed to be more than one person on the walk at a time. Those are the rules. More safety concerns, I think.”

They were apparently nearing the end of the catwalk and the nook. Marta suddenly moved a little to the side, and Gregor could see past her into a small, high-ceilinged space just big enough for one person to sit on the floor or stand to look out the window. The older woman who took up most of that space was standing, more or less. She had her hands against the stone sides of the arched window and was bent at the waist, breathing heavily.

Gregor knew something was wrong before Marta did. Marta put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder and said, “Edith? It’s Marta, and I’ve got Gregor—”

She never got farther than that. The older woman named Edith straightened only slightly, then wheeled around on the heels of her shoes. Marta’s smile was prepared and stayed on her face, frozen, for many seconds after Edith had turned fully around and begun to lurch toward them both. Gregor assessed the signs immediately: the flushed face, the labored breathing that suddenly became much worse, frantic and out of control. Gregor knew that the most important thing at this moment was to keep this woman from getting past them onto the catwalk, and he put out his arm to stop her as she swayed. He was a second too late, and she was a hair too panicked.

“Edith?” Marta said again.

Gregor’s arm was in the air. Edith knocked it away from her with a single wide sweep of her right arm. Before they knew it, she was past them and out onto the narrow ledge.

Gregor had no sooner turned to follow her than she went over the side, breaking the railing as she fell.

The catwalk was immediately over a set of low bookshelves. Edith hit the top of those face first, rolled sideways, and then plummeted the rest of the way to the floor.





Part Three



Exile accepted as a destiny, in the way we accept an inscrutable illness, should help us see through our self-delusions.

—Czeslaw Milosz




The easiest person to deceive is yourself.

—Richard Feynman




Boring others is a form of aggression …

—P. J. O’Rourke





Chapter One



1


Gregor Demarkian knew who she was as soon as she walked into the main reading room of Ridenour Library, even though he had never heard a physical description of her. Somebody should have mentioned the red hair, he thought. It was far and away the most notable thing about her, so notable that, after a split second spent admiring it, it grated on him. This was a woman who not only expected to occupy center stage, but expended a lot of energy securing her place in it. Everything about her was theatrical: the head-to-toe black of the leather trousers and cashmere sweater; the sweeping exaggeration of the hooded black cashmere cape; the hair, surely dyed at her time of life; the walk. She walked like a woman determined to command, not only attention, but obedience. And it worked. Gregor had always thought that human beings were essentially lazy. They took other people at their own word unless something significant happened to make them question it. Here they sensed her presence in the room as soon as she walked through the door and parted quickly to let her through.