Regina Neumann had always loved the serenity of her redbrick house, which sat on St. Ronan, a quiet, tree-lined street of affluent homes that belonged to lawyers and businessmen, and a few lucky senior professors. Hers was the smallest house on the block, surrounded by high, thick evergreens trimmed into perfect rectangles by an old gardener who spoke only Spanish. She didn’t know her neighbors, and only the gardener interacted with them, and he had been instructed to say only a Yale professor lived in the house. But that was all. She was content to be a recluse. She didn’t bother anyone, and she didn’t want anyone to bother her, and her yard and garden were just about the best on the block.
Inside the house every morning, the sun streamed into the bedroom on the second floor. It struck the varnished wooden floors and reflected on the glass doors of the bookshelf next to the bed. Inside her bookshelf were rare first editions in English, German, French and Spanish, mostly poetry, but also a few novels, and even two rare manuscripts purchased at an auction in London. A small Japanese alarm clock was next to her bed, but no radio or television was nearby. In fact, her house did not have a TV set. The four walls of the spacious living room were lined with books, journals, literary reviews and several bound collections of rare newspapers and magazines. The house itself was always warm despite the bitter cold outside. Invisible infra-red beams crisscrossed the first floor. Any interruption of the beams would trigger an ear-splitting alarm immediately notifying a private security service and the police. The alarm system could only be turned off from the second floor, if she was waking up, or from inside the garage, if she was coming home. On every first floor window, and perfectly parallel to it, was a small blue sticker from the First Federal Security Company. The on-light of the second-floor alarm panel pulsed without interruption like a tiny red star.
Under the blue down comforter, Regina Neumann lay warm and naked. In the morning light, her face seemed more ephemeral than ever, like glistening mist. Although her eyelids were shut, you could almost see the outline of her black coal eyes through her gauzy skin. The phone rang, and those eyes popped open, immediately looking fierce.
“Hello.”
“Professor Neumann, hello. This is Ariane, from the department office.”
“Ariane. Give me just one second,” Neumann said and put the cordless phone down and rubbed her face. She stood up and put on a thick, red robe and picked up the phone again and walked to the alarm panel in the hallway. She punched in the code. She glanced at the grandfather clock in the hallway. It was a few minutes past 9:00 a.m.
“Okay. Please go ahead,” she said.
“I’m sorry to bother you at home, Professor Neumann, but I have some, well, terrible news. Professor Hopfgartner was murdered last night, on Whitney Avenue.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Hopfgartner called me this morning. I’m calling the senior faculty first, whoever is still in New Haven. I’ve left messages for Professor Otto at the conference in Berlin.”
“Werner Hopfgartner is dead?” Neumann gasped. Her heart fluttered inside her chest. She sat down on her bed.
“Yes. It’s horrible. It happened on Whitney Avenue. A robbery. The police have already been asking questions.”
“I, I don’t, I’m stunned, Ariane. That’s unbelievable! Thank you very much for calling me. You say it happened last night? You mean, after the faculty meeting?”
“Yes, I think so. He was walking home.”
“That’s simply astonishing! Please call me if you need anything. I’ll be at home most of the day. My goodness, that is terrible news.”
“Okay. Goodbye.”
As soon as the phone’s red light turned off, Regina Neumann shrieked like a bobcat. She dashed downstairs and into the kitchen, grabbed a steak knife and rushed into the living room. She found Werner Hopfgartner’s book on Goethe. She opened it, took the knife in one tremulous hand and began to slice out page after page until the floor was littered with paper. When she stabbed the near-empty binding, the knife wrenched free and cut her robe, just missing her ribs. She dropped the knife, and her tears gushed out. The fucked-up piece of shit—she mourned to the heavens—had gotten away with everything!
In the world revolving around the Yale campus, the news had spread like a new atmosphere. In Harkness Hall, Ariane Sassolini was barely in control of her emotions. She had reached the senior faculty who were still in New Haven. Victor Otto had called back from Berlin and said he would notify everyone there. The president’s office had instructed her to refer all inquiries from reporters to them. Under no circumstances was she to give any details to the media.
A few minutes before 11:00 a.m., Helmut walked into the office. Ariane jumped into his arms and told him in gasps what had happened to Professor Hopfgartner. Tears streamed down her face. She was terrified, and he hugged her so she would not collapse on the floor. Finally, he staggered to an empty chair and slumped into it as if he had been shot. Helmut felt crushed by this pain around him. For a moment he felt sick to his stomach about what he had done. One thought overwhelmed him. Not that he had caused random or abstract pain, but her pain and her anguish. Ariane’s grief seemed unbearable, and that was what made his eyes well up with tears.
Ariane told him Frau Hopfgartner had, at first, seemed remarkably composed, even cold, when she had informed the office early that morning. But later, one of Werner Hopfgartner’s neighbors was at the house, a professor from the School of Architecture. He called the German department, too. Ariane asked him about Mrs. Hopfgartner, and he said she was resting. The professor had already phoned the three Hopfgartner children, none of whom lived on the East Coast. They were on their way to New York. The family doctor was there too, apparently sedating the poor woman. The police had stopped by to ask a few questions and said they’d return after Mrs. Hopfgartner had rested for a while.
Ariane and the other secretaries had been able to piece together this much: The professor had been murdered last night on Whitney Avenue; a jogger had discovered his body in the predawn hours. Helmut felt cold. He sat down in a chair and buried his face in his arms. For a moment he thought he would black out. Ariane came over and rubbed his shoulders to comfort him. He heard her crying behind him. What on earth had he done?
After a few minutes, Helmut staggered back to his office. Not in front of Ariane’s desperate eyes, he felt calmer, more rational. Why had he not stopped himself before he was trapped inside the shadows of Whitney Avenue? Why hadn’t he walked away? Yet, after the fact, he felt little remorse for what he had done. He knew in his heart he had done the right thing. It did unnerve him to think of Werner Hopfgartner as suddenly a husband and a father and even a victim of murder. Helmut had never expected to feel anything for the old man. Last night, he had at first felt only a rage inside him, and then a fear of what he was about to do. At the last moment, he had been overcome by weakness, by these incessant waves about who he was and who he was not. The night had unfolded as a series of unexpected catastrophes. As Hopfgartner choked him, a wild and desperate anger had consumed Helmut, an anger not to pass out, an anger not to give up, a rage not to allow a repeat of Anja Litvak’s murder. But now after the deed was done, the morality of his act seemed murkier, even questionable. What had he done?
How could he ever reveal his secret to Ariane? Helmut asked himself. He loved her with all his heart. How could he shatter her, and his own self, by telling her about his murderous act? He sensed a dreadful pall over his life. What, dear God, had he done?
He clicked on his computer, retrieved the files of the Compilation and the sequel to the Compilation. What was the point of working on these lies now? Did he even have a job anymore? He had killed his own boss!
Helmut replayed the events of the night before. Had he overlooked any detail that could lead back to him? The police might even question him about his relationship with Werner Hopfgartner. They would no doubt question the professors who had been at the faculty meeting. No one from the department had seen him.
What would he say if the police interrogated him? Would his face betray his guilt? More than anything else, he had to act like someone in shock, fearful. How could he pretend not to know when his head exploded with every detail from last night, with every reason behind it?
That morning he wanted only one thing: to keep existing. Nothing else mattered. He wanted to let the world carry him along for a while. He wanted time to pass. He wanted to be far away from what he had done.
The phone rang. It was Jonathan Atwater. He had just heard the news. Incredibly enough, Mr. Atwater was even more distraught than Ariane. Helmut offered to have lunch with him, and then asked if Ariane could join them.
“Of course,” Mr. Atwater gushed. “My God, of course! We need each other now.” Helmut called Ariane, who thought lunch with Mr. Atwater was a good idea. She had received more calls from the president’s office. A memorial service for Professor Hopfgartner would be scheduled after the Christmas holidays.
Helmut introduced Ariane to Mr. Atwater and then clasped her hand as they walked briskly down College Street to Claire’s Cornucopia. Mr. Atwater and Ariane were chatting about Professor Hopfgartner and the details of the morning’s disastrous news. Helmut stared at them, amazed at their easy rapport. Why was he the one who searched obsessively for a reality behind every face and every surface?
The restaurant was nearly empty. The bone-chilling cold had probably kept most Yalies inside.
They sat down next to the windows facing the Taft Hotel. Mr. Atwater’s mood was gloomy and disturbed. Ariane told him what she knew about the murder. The librarian’s face turned white. For a second, Helmut thought Jonathan Atwater might faint. He seemed stricken to the core. Helmut asked him, gently, how well he had known the professor. What Mr. Atwater revealed, first in bits and pieces, then in an emotional outpouring, was remarkable.
“Oh, dear Lord, where should I begin? I met Werner Hopfgartner at a Heidegger symposium about five years ago,” Mr. Atwater said. “But that’s not really the beginning, my dear Helmut. I had seen him in the library before. Werner came to the reading room on Fridays. A handsome man, mysterious. Don’t remember exactly what caught my eye. … You know what it was? Oh, this sounds so superficial. Promise you’ll forgive me?”
Helmut said they would.
“His birthmark, right over his lip. Just like my mother’s birthmark,” he said. “But Werner never talked to anybody in the library. That’s so infuriating to me! These eggheads are like ghosts! He’d sit in his corner and read European newspapers. After a while, he’d eat a granola bar. Like a squirrel. Once I almost told him he wasn’t supposed to eat in the library, but I stopped myself. Why should I be the library policeman? He wasn’t bothering anyone and he was most certainly neat. I’m a compulsive Felix myself.
“Our paths truly crossed at the Heidegger symposium. These lectures are so exciting. You hear people from all around the world. I asked a question—I’ve read some Heidegger—but I don’t know that much. This claptrap about being-in-the-world makes me dizzy. But I thought the speaker was being too hard on poor Heidegger. The fellow struck me as an arrogant dolt. He was French. Need I say more? I asked him why he was connecting Heidegger’s flirtation with Nazism to his political philosophy. I’d just been to “Amadeus”—wasn’t that F. Murray Abraham fantastic?—and in my mind, the point of it was that despicable people often create wonderful things. Why should we attack the great music or literature or theory of a worm because he was a worm? I didn’t put it quite like that. But the French professor answered with a flourish I didn’t understand. Werner Hopfgartner asked the next question and, like a bulldog, wouldn’t let the French bastard waltz free! Werner was terrific! Much more sophisticated and precise than I ever could be. It was a wonder to watch him press Mr. Europa with points about ‘the nature of philosophical truth’ and its flying free of its originator to stand on its own. It was truly exciting. They went at it for a while, quoting arguments and philosophers as if they were flinging arrows at each other.
“Anyway, after the lecture, I was picking at my chicken salad in front of the buffet table at the Whitney Humanities Center. Werner came over and introduced himself. Oh, I tell you, I was shocked! Absolutely shocked he would even notice me. He told me I had asked an ‘excellent’ question, which had not really been answered. We sat together on the stone staircase, munching on our food. I was trying not to say anything too stupid. Why ruin his good impression of me?
“I saw Werner again at Sterling, in front of the copy machines. He was marching down the hallway. And he remembered me! I tell you, I was thrilled! Now he would say hello. We first had lunch together. Very first time I asked him out, when I spotted him on Wall Street. You know what the best part was?”
Ariane shook her head, almost in a trance. Helmut rubbed his forehead and glanced around nervously. “Werner never treated me like a child. It’s true. I’m not a graduate student, a professor, nor even an undergraduate. I work in the libraries, for God’s sake! I read because I love to read, not because I’m trying to parrot some mentor.
“Werner would tell me about the latest works on German Romanticism and the critique of Deconstruction. He hated Deconstruction. It was literary anarchy to him. I loved his stories. He’d tell me about the real personalities behind these critics. He knew most of them. It was simply grand for me! My personal lecture over lunch. He never became annoyed with me, even when I asked the stupidest questions. He’d bring me books of exciting new German writers and poets whenever he went overseas for a lecture. Soon I started stopping by his office. One thing led to another. Oh, it happened so fast! You know how it is, my dear. Soon we were deeply in love.”
Helmut turned to Ariane and gulped. She reached across the table and clasped Jonathan Atwater’s hand.
“We got along so well,” he said. “We’d spend hours talking about books, art, politics, opinions. Nonstop. Suddenly we’d realize it was late, time to go home. Oh, it seems like a dream now. Maybe I make everything into a dream, with time. We couldn’t be without each other for more than a few days. Like teenagers! It was ridiculous. We attended foreign film festivals in Manhattan, hiked up Sleeping Giant State Park. On different weekends, we drove to Bar Harbor, Northhampton and Gloucester, to explore old bookshops and antique stores.
“But you know, my dear, it wasn’t a dream at all. There were awful things too,” Jonathan continued, his gaze transfixed on the New Haven green. “I, I don’t know if I should talk about this now. But it’s true! He always said, ‘Never run away from the truth!’ Werner had a bad temper. He wasn’t an easy man to be with. God, I don’t know how I let it happen! Maybe I was just blind, I don’t know. You lose perspective. You forget what’s right and wrong. You become confused. Werner would explode with rage,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “He’d hit me, he wouldn’t mean to do it, I know that in my heart. But sometimes he’d hurt me. God, was I an idiot? I don’t know what I was thinking. But I loved him! I know that. I loved his intellect, his wit. I loved him because when he was happy and inquisitive he filled my soul with absolute joy. That’s also the truth! I don’t want you to have the wrong impression of him. At one point, he hadn’t had an outburst for months. We started talking about being together permanently. He was nearing retirement. I told him we could move to Boston, to Pembroke Street. I have many friends in that neighborhood. Werner said he couldn’t leave his wife. Of course, he didn’t love her, but he still couldn’t abandon her in New Haven. He felt guilty for dragging her here, from her precious Vienna. But later Werner seemed to be changing his mind. Maybe he finally got sick of these dreary streets. We would argue about it constantly. I finally challenged him. Why was he caving in to the expectations of society, his children, his colleagues at Yale? Was that the truth? Who cared about what he did after retirement? He’d still receive his Yale checks in the mail. Thank goodness it’s not yet illegal to be gay in the Ivy League!”
Jonathan Atwater wiped his eyes, took a deep breath and finished his story.
“We were so close to escaping. We almost made it out. Then, disaster! I don’t know what happened. He said he didn’t want to see me anymore, didn’t even want to talk to me. I imagined it was someone else. Oh, it seemed so final! I deserved an explanation. The best two and a half years of my life were ending in a nightmare. And from him, nothing. Suddenly I was a leper! Finally I went to his office. I wanted an explanation. He told me to calm down. He told me to stop screaming at him, that he would explain everything. He could hardly look me in the eyes! He was hurting too! I told him I would leave him alone as soon as he gave me an explanation. I just wanted the truth. Sure, we had had fights. But we always worked them out. We were on the verge of leaving for Boston! Then he told me. That miserable bitch! His wife had found out. She had always known his many ‘conferences’ and ‘lectures’ were nothing more than escapes with his latest mistress. Werner had been cheating on her for years! This mean creature. Werner hadn’t touched her for aeons. She hated him for bringing her to New Haven. She blamed him for destroying her life in Vienna. She had accepted his ‘disgusting animalism’ or overlooked it or resigned herself to it, I don’t know. She had overlooked his affairs as long as they were unimportant. How can love be unimportant? She’d compare Werner to their German shepherd in heat. She’d say he was like the dog humping the cast iron stable boy next to the front door. What a witch!
“But Frau Hopfgartner became suspicious. About me! She had absolutely no idea. She must’ve noticed something different this time around. Werner was spending too much time with his latest ‘mistress’ and she knew it. Werner was falling in love. Oh God, how cursed love is! One weekend, she followed us to North-hampton. She finally saw my face. She found a hotel room, spied on our ‘wanton immorality,’ she was aghast to see her husband happy and affectionate with a homosexual.
“‘My Lord! What kind of degradation is this!’ she screamed at Werner when he returned to Hamden. She demanded he cut off all ties with me immediately. She threatened to obliterate his life. How was she going to ruin him? Werner never told me. But I understood it was something so utterly important, beyond simply cheating on her or being bisexual. It scared Werner to pieces. I’d never seen him like that. It was an impenetrable wall. Werner would not give me one clue. He just told me it was over. He told me to leave him alone, to please leave him alone or I would cause him incalculable pain. It frightened me! What could I do? I loved him, so I left.
“This happened about two years ago,” Jonathan said, his chest heaving, still in tears. “Ever since that day, I have never been whole.”
Ariane scooted her chair next to Mr. Atwater and hugged him. Helmut covered his face with his hands and closed his eyes. The world was spinning out of control.