and the tortoise. Achilles was chasing the tortoise, it seemed, but accordingto Zeno he would never catch it. The space between them was divisible into aninfinite number of parts; therefore it would take Achilles an infinite periodof time to traverse it. By that time the tortoise would be somewhere else.

The young man nodded. "I seethat."

"But it isn't so," the girlcried. "The infinite divisibility of space is merely theoretical. Itdoesn't affect actual movement across space."

"I don't get it, Heidi."

"Of course you do. Imagine yourselfon the football field. You're on the twenty-yard line and there's a tortoisecrawling away from you toward the thirty-yard line."

I stopped listening. Dolly was coming upthe outside steps toward the glass door, a dark-haired girl in a plaid skirtand a cardigan. She leaned on the door for a moment before she pushed it open.She seemed to have gone to pieces to some extent since Fargo had taken herpicture. Her skin was sallow, her hair not recently brushed. Her dark uncertainglance slid over me without appearing to take me in.

She stopped short before she reached DeanSutherland's office. Turning in a sudden movement, she started for the frontdoor. She stopped again, between me and the two philosophers, and stoodconsidering. I was struck by her faintly sullen beauty, her eyes dark and blindwith thought. She turned around once more and trudged back along the hallway tomeet her fate.

The office door closed behind her. Istrolled past it after a while and heard the murmur of female voices inside,but nothing intelligible. From Dean Bradshaw's office across the hall the headsof departments emerged in a body. In spite of their glasses and their foreheadsand their scholars' stoops, they looked a little like schoolboys let out forrecess.

A woman with a short razorblade haircutcame into the building and drew all their eyes. Her ash-blonde hair shoneagainst the deep tan of her face. She attached herself to a man standing byhimself in the doorway of the Dean's office.

He seemed less interested in her than shewas in him. His good looks were rather gentle and melancholy, the kind thatexcite maternal passions in women. Though his brown wavy hair was graying atthe temples, he looked rather like a college boy who twenty years aftergraduation glanced up from his books and found himself middle-aged.

Dean Sutherland opened the door of heroffice and made a sign to him. "Can you spare me a minute, Dr. Bradshaw?Something serious has come up." She was pale and grim, like a reluctantexecutioner.

He excused himself. The two Deans shutthemselves up with Dolly. The woman with the short and shining haircut frownedat the closed door. Then she gave me an appraising glance, as if she waslooking for a substitute for Bradshaw. She had a promising mouth and good legsand a restless predatory air. Her clothes had style.

"Looking for someone?" she said.

"Just waiting."

"For Lefty or for Godot? It makes adifference."

"For Lefty Godot. The pitcher."

"The pitcher in the rye?"

"He prefers bourbon."

"So do I," she said. "You sound like ananti-intellectual to me, Mr. —"

"Archer. Didn't I pass the test?"

"It depends on who does the grading."

"I've been thinking maybe I ought togo back to school. You make it seem attractive, and besides I feel so out ofthings when my intellectual friends are talking about Jack Kerouac and EugeneBurdick and other great writers, and I can't read. Seriously, if I werethinking of going back to college, would you recommend this place?"

She gave me another of her appraisinglooks. "Not for you, Mr. Archer. I think you'd feel more at home in somelarger urban university, like Berkeley or Chicago. I went to Chicago myself.This college presents quite a contrast."

"In what way?"

"Innumerable ways. The quotient ofsophistication here is very low, for one thing. This used to be adenominational college, and the moral atmosphere is still in Victorianstays." As if to demonstrate that she was not, she shifted her pelvis."They tell me when Dylan Thomas visited here—but perhaps we'd better notgo into that. De mortuis nil nisi bonum."

"Do you teach Latin?"

"No, I have small Latin and lessGreek. I try to teach modern languages. My name is Helen Haggerty, by the way.As I was saying, I wouldn't really recommend Pacific Point to you. Thestandards are improving every year, but there's still a great deal of dead woodaround. You can see some of it from here."

She cast a sardonic glance toward theentrance, where five or six of her fellow professors were conducting apost-mortem of their conference with the Dean.

"That was Dean Bradshaw you were talking to,wasn't it?"

"Yes. Is he the one you want to see?"

"Among others."

"Don't be put off by his ratherforbidding exterior. He's a fine scholar—the only Harvard doctor on thefaculty—and he can advise you better than I ever could. But tell me honestly,are you really serious about going back to college? Aren't you kidding me alittle?"

"Maybe a little."

"You could kid me more effectivelyover a drink. And I could use a drink, preferably bourbon."

"It's a handsome offer." And asudden one, I thought. "Give me a rain check, will you? Right now I have

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009