Read Murder in the English Department for Free Online Page B

day and night. The lines outside the male professors’ offices were far shorter than these refugee processions to her door. What could she do about it? She didn’t want to cut herself off. This year, two students came to her after they were raped. Where else could they have gone? How could she have refused to sponsor the Feminist Caucus? Women students needed a forum to coordinate political action, a community in which to share personal problems. How different her work, her life, would have been if she had had a Feminist Caucus in which to discuss Professor Eastman’s advances or the advisability of marrying Charles Woodward.
    She would enjoy all this personal work with the students if the university wasn’t making its own extra-curricular demands. She belonged to department committees and Academic Senate committees. They all wanted women faculty to be visible, so visible that one might imagine there were three or four times as many as there were. Sometimes she was nostalgic for that arcane, 1950s attitude that academia had something to do with books.
    Remembering the letter in her hand, Nan opened the blue vellum envelope.
    Dear Professor Weaver:
    I hope you had an enjoyable Christmas.
    This is to confirm our appointment at 1 p.m. today.
    Best regards,
    Marjorie Adams
    A courteous, responsible note, considered Nan, miserable at the thought of how she had become so suspicious.
    Nan plugged in her electric kettle, made herself a cup of tea and sat down with Marjorie’s recent chapter about the tension between power and love in The Severed Head . Fascinating stuff, and exquisitely written. Perhaps Marjorie revealed too much sympathy for the dour Honour Klein. How appropriate that Marjorie would select Iris Murdoch to study. What strong, determined, upper-class women they both were. How cold and detached they could appear.
    Now this slander was quite uncalled for. Where was her sisterly feeling? Marjorie always tried to be respectful of Nan. She disagreed with Nan’s politics, but then it was a free world. Or getting there.
    As the Campanile chimed one o’clock, Marjorie rapped on the door. Nan wondered what version of Marjorie would walk in. What was featured in Vogue this month, Lolita stovepipe jeans or Dietrich slinky black velvets? When Nan had complained to Matt about Marjorie’s excessive wardrobe, he had chastised Nan for being a prim, parochial schoolgirl. Matt admired Marjorie’s flair. Besides, Nan thought, Matt was a much nicer person than Nan would ever be.
    In walked Myrna Loy, no, maybe Joan Crawford. Marjorie’s blonde hair was braided on top of her head. She wore a loose black and red forties dress, complete with shoulder pads and patent belt. Her lipstick might be called ‘Crimson Passion’ or ‘Eve’s Desire’. Her shoes were old-fashioned patent platforms, open at the toes. Nan didn’t usually notice fashions, but Marjorie practically wore a sign saying, ‘Annotate me.’
    â€˜Professor Weaver?’ Marjorie asked politely, as if she were waking her adviser, ‘I hope I’m not disturbing anything.’
    â€˜Oh, no, no,’ said Nan, embarrassed at being caught in her stare. ‘I was expecting you, Marjorie. Please sit down.’
    The younger woman sat on the edge of a wooden chair with the tentativeness of a tanager settling on a eucalyptus branch, wary of her surroundings, unsure of proper camouflage.
    Within ten minutes, both of them were submerged in the dissertation. Marjorie was sitting back more comfortably, waving her long, graceful hands as she defended her arguments. Nan enjoyed Marjorie’s originality and enthusiasm. At moments like this she could see through the camp masquerades to Marjorie’s complexity and tough intelligence. Perhaps, after all, she had been unfair to the young woman. Perhaps Nan was too conscious of class. She knew she was defensive about being the working-class kid from the cannery.