Chapter 21 In the Hot Seat
IN THE HOT SEAT
Life became easier after that. The bookstore was always interesting—I was only cataloging and shelving new purchases, but they were books!
And talking to the customers about books was the best of all.
Most of the other employees were students, but some were as avid as me.
I learned a new word: “bookworm.” Perhaps because one would like to crawl between the pages of a favorite book and live there?
My cooking grew a little better, too, and we did begin entertaining, although in most homely fashion.
A dish called “hamburger casserole” was particularly well received.
It consisted merely of macaroni, hamburger, rather a lot of Cheddar cheese, a few vegetables, and a can of tomatoes, all baked together in one dish.
It was not in the least elegant, but Joe’s friends were former GIs, and grateful for any hot meal “that doesn’t come from a can.
” When I heard this, I always smiled a little inside, thinking of how we in Germany had coveted those cans of Spam and beans and peaches after the endless bread and potatoes of our daily fare.
Susie began seeing a man named Fred whom she met at one of these evenings.
He looked, she insisted, “so much” like Jimmy Stewart.
Other than being very tall and somewhat loose-limbed, I didn’t see the resemblance, but he told the most amusing stories about his terrible fear of heights—he’d been drafted into the Army Air Corps, and had spent most of his time there, he swore, being sick in a bucket.
Our parties were rather noisy when the two of them were included, but also very gay.
Fred was a most enthusiastic and rather ungainly dancer, and when he was in full flow, Joe danced me carefully into a corner to avoid bruises.
I’d never really been a young person, at least not in the way many young people in America acted and seemed to feel.
Carefree. Uninhibited. So sure that life was a wonderful adventure, riding their bicycles miles just to have a picnic, playing noisy games of cards, and lolling about in chairs as it grew late, talking freely about the world without the slightest fear of being overheard.
Isn’t it funny that it was only after being married that I was sometimes able to feel young?
Joe teased that I was “aging backwards,” and it often felt that way.
My best times, though, came when I was alone with Joe.
Attending a concert at the university—they were free!
—to hear the masterworks of the composers we both loved best, or, even better, listening to him playing the cello in the evening.
Bach, Beethoven, Dvo?ák, and more; his hands on the bow and strings expressing all that he struggled to put into words, the pain and the joy of living in the world with too much heart, a tender conscience, and one skin too few.
I was determined not to wish for anything when I had so much, but oh, how I longed at such times for a piano, so we could play together! But even sitting alone with him in the evening, drinking tea and reading quietly in our cozy apartment, was joy unimaginable to my former self.
And then there was the class on Human Heredity.
To my great pleasure, Professor Jacobson did allow me to take the exams, and marked them, too.
I baked him a loaf of challah each time as a thank-you, as even Mrs. Stark had been pleased by that gift.
He accepted it in a most grave and courtly manner, so he appreciated the gesture at least. It was too little, but what else did I have to give?
I was surprised and not a little alarmed, then, during Joe’s break period after the final exams in March—he’d had only two nightmares during that final week, which was better—to receive a call from Professor Jacobson at the house.
Joe answered, and when he turned to me and held out the telephone, he looked puzzled.
“Mrs. Stark,” the professor said. “Good afternoon. I wonder, would it be convenient for you to come to my office on Thursday morning to discuss an academic matter?”
“Oh!” I said. “Yes, certainly. At eleven? Yes, I can do that.” I needed to be at the bookstore at noon, but how long could this take? But an academic matter?
“Bring your husband, if you like,” he said. “In fact, it would probably be best.” This sent a chill through me. Was I to be reprimanded? For what?
I didn’t sleep well the night before the meeting.
Might he think I’d cheated on the exam? This was the word: “cheating.” But I wouldn’t receive a grade in the class and hadn’t been required to take the exam at all; why should I cheat?
I could think of no other reason for this summons, and when Joe and I presented ourselves at the office door and saw not only Professor Jacobson but another man there whom I didn’t know, I quailed inside.
They’re not the Gestapo, I told myself. You’ve faced much harder things than this.
It’s strange how quickly one adjusts to one’s circumstances.
I had so much now—love, a clean home of my own with both a kitchen and bathroom, enough money to eat well and to clothe myself, work that I enjoyed—how could such a small issue, of no real concern to my future, have such power to unsettle me?
Any such accusation seemed ridiculous anyway, but I couldn’t quite convince my galloping heart.
“Ah,” Professor Jacobson said when Joe and I appeared. “Here you are. May I introduce Professor Webster of the History Department, who’s also Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences? Professor Webster, Mr. and Mrs. Stark.”
I remembered Barbara’s etiquette advice and offered my hand for shaking. Professor Jacobson, at least, wasn’t surprised, but then, he was German. He merely said, “Shall we go down the hall to the conference room?”
He led the way, and behind him, Joe and I exchanged puzzled and rather worried glances. My palms were sweating now; thank goodness the handshake was over!
The conference room contained a large table and many chairs, and very little else.
Joe and I sat together on one side, the two professors on the other.
I wasn’t sure what an “Associate Dean” was, but it sounded important.
It all seemed rather like a tribunal, and I knew the sweat must be standing out on my upper lip.
I felt guilty, and I didn’t even know what I could have done!
When Professor Jacobson took a pipe from his rather untidy jacket pocket, though, and began to fill it, I felt a tiny bit better. Would one smoke a pipe while dismissing a student?
Wait. Was it Joe they wanted to dismiss for my faults? My hands turned even clammier at the thought, and I had trouble with my breathing. This would truly be a calamity. Oh, please, let it not be that!
What Professor Jacobson said, though, was, “How do you find Stanford, Mrs. Stark? It’s a rather fine campus, I think. Very spacious.”
“Yes,” I said. “I enjoy the buildings made of sandstone, as my home city is also—or it was. I come from Dresden, you see. Of course, the style here is Romanesque rather than Rococo, stately and heavy rather than frivolous and light, but the sandstone is familiar.” I was chattering again, but then, he had asked.
“Dresden was a little like Vienna, when I knew it,” the Professor said. “A more lighthearted city than most, full of art and music. Although still German, so not precisely like Vienna. Did the bombings destroy as much as we’re told?”
“Yes,” I said. He was a Jew and could have little love for his homeland; was this some sort of test? “Yes, the bombings were very bad. I left the city very soon afterward, though, so I can’t say what was left once the fires were extinguished.”
“Your home?” he asked.
I swallowed. “My home, my family and friends—they were all destroyed, yes. Except for one friend, my family’s doctor, and his children, with whom I escaped, as I think Joe has told you. Because of the Gestapo, you know, and the Red Army, and … and other things.”
He’d finished filling his pipe, and now came the ritual of lighting it.
Once it was drawing, he shook out the match and said, “Your husband spoke of your escape, yes, and of your companions. You were well educated, I think. You take a great many notes in class, and you achieved the highest grade in the class on the final exam. Higher even than your husband’s last quarter. ”
I was flushing now as well as sweating. Did he think Joe had given me the answers? “Thank you,” I said desperately. “I greatly appreciate the chance to learn from you.” Professor Webster had said nothing. Why was he here?
“But you never ask questions,” Professor Jacobson said, “even when one can clearly see the urgency in you to do so, and your relief when another student asks instead.”
“I’m very sorry if I’ve disturbed you,” I said. “Joe has told me that I mustn’t disrupt the class in any way, as I haven’t paid the fees. But the subject is very interesting, you know, and I would wish to learn more about it.”
“Oh?” he said. “And have you learned more about it?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “I’ve borrowed Mr. Darwin’s book from the library.
He was a very great man, I think. My father always said that one must cultivate a quiet place in one’s mind that would allow the weighing-up of ideas, so one would not merely accept blindly the teachings of others.
Surely Darwin had this quality in great … great …”
“In great measure?”
“Yes. That’s what I meant. Like Galileo, you know. But I apologize for being too … too …”
“Conspicuous,” Joe said quietly. Not as a reprimand; as a vocabulary word.
“Too conspicuous,” I said. The Americans had a saying for this. In the hot seat. I was most definitely in that seat now. Witness the sweating.
“My dear Mrs. Stark,” Professor Jacobson said, “We wish to invite you to learn. Conspicuous or not.”