Grand Forks, December 1969
To get a written note from Eric Monsanto was itself something of a rebuke. Why mail a note to a classmate and close collaborator instead of just calling him on the telephone? Besides, Reuben’s dorm was exactly five minutes’ drive from the house where Rico lived with his family. There had to be a reason for posting a letter. Reuben opened it sensing that it would not be a routine communication.
“I know you have other concerns in life,” the letter was typed single-spaced, “like, the welfare of the whole fucking college. But you were elected editor of the Dakota Student on the understanding that you’d give the office the time it needs. You were absent from the meeting on Thursday to plan the Friday issue, and absent on Monday from the meeting to plan the Tuesday issue. Maybe you should have been elected business manager instead of editor. Forget that. The business manager couldn’t get away with neglecting the paper.” It was signed, simply, “Eric.”
Reuben showed the note to Henri when he picked her up at the library, where they regularly met at noon, going on to the Memorial Union for lunch. “Hardly the kind of letter one expects from one’s best friend.”
“Honey, does it occur to you that maybe Rico has a legitimate complaint?”
“Well, sure. But you know why I couldn’t be at the Student on Thursday, don’t you?”
“No.”
The reproachful tone of her reply warranted reprisal. “Oh, you didn’t know? I was busy fixing up a duck blind.”
She swatted him lightly on the head with her book. “Eric can fix his own duck blind.”
“Hmm. Yes. Anyway, dear Henri, the duck blinds are off-limits. Duck-hunting season is still on. No, listen, it wasn’t the duck blinds. I’ve got about the best excuse possible. Thursday was the university trustees’ meeting, and I am required to stand by, in case a student-body question comes up. It’s a duty of the chairman of the Student Council—that’s me, your—”
“My what?”
Reuben’s pause was freighted. But then quickly, “Your servant and lover. Who shares a big secret with you.”
“Pass the mustard.”
“Okay, if you ask me in French.”
Henrietta broke into one of her radiant smiles. “Don’t make fun of the French language, honey. You’ll get onto it.”
Reuben had taken a Living French record album from the library, promising to practice a half hour every morning before breakfast. That promise was made a month ago, on the solemn drive back from Letellier. Every now and then, though only when he asked her to do so, she would test him on his progress. When he wanted her to drill him, he would always use the identical prompt, the line from the ditty sung by French children of kindergarten age: Savez-vous planter les choux?—“Do you know how to plant cabbages?” She would grin, and pursue the drill for fifteen minutes. But today what he wanted was to talk about Eric’s note, and this conversation would be in English.
The note had clearly upset him.
“So what are you going to do? Which reminds me—you dodgy old politico—you explained why you couldn’t make the Thursday meeting at the Student. What about the Monday meeting? Were you picketing the draft board?—Never mind. But you will swear by your wife and child to attend future editorial meetings. Right, Reuben?”
“I promise.”
“How’m I going to check on you when I’m in Paris?”
“Don’t even mention Paris.”
“I don’t intend to give birth to our child in the Burtness Theater.”
“I know, I know, but let’s not go into it. Though you know something? I’ve been trying to figure out a way to visit you in Paris, maybe during the Easter break.”
“Visiting me while I’m living with my father will take, well, a little planning.”
It was hard to do what he felt like doing, the student dining hall offering no cozy little corners for private affectionate exchanges; so he reached into his pocket for something to write on, and came up with the note from Eric. He turned it over and wrote on the back: “Je t’adore.” He signed it with a flourish, “Reuben Hardwick Castle.”