The Committee. Sterling Watson

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      NINE

      Stall arrived early for the meeting with Jack Leaf’s class in Murphree Hall armed with the copy of Leaf’s syllabus he had obtained from Helen Markham. The syllabus called for a final exam and a research paper to be turned in on the last day of class. Stall had also used the department’s passkey to unlock Jack Leaf’s office and search for his grade book. The book now lay open on the desk in front of Stall as the first students drifted into the classroom with looks of apprehension and even fear on their faces. It was just human nature, Stall supposed, that these ambitious boys (the Grinds of Summer, he called them) should worry more about their grades than about the death of a professor. There were only five of them, and when they were all seated (all on time, as he had expected), Stall called the roll.

      As was his practice when he called a roll, he looked at each face as though memorizing its features. He had found that this pleased the students. He wants to know me. The roll finished, he composed his own face in sadness for Jack Leaf and concern for the apprehensions of these students. “Well, I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard about what happened to Professor Leaf.” He waited while some nodded solemnly and a few mumbled, “Yes.” A boy in the back said, “Can you tell us any more than what we’ve read in the papers?” The boy’s tone was not solemn.

      Stall had come here planning to make short work of this penultimate class of a dreary summer term. To tell them how they’d finish their academic work and then get back to his own more pressing business. “Sorry, what’s your name, young man?” Stall looked down at the grade book while the boy said, “Martin Levy.” In the book, a row of As flowed from the name. Stall raised his eyes to the class again. “Thank you for the question, Mr. Levy. I don’t know any more than what has been reported in the papers. It was either an accident or it was intentional. The medical examiner will make his decision based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, all students.”

      Stall thought it right to leave the best possible impression of Jack Leaf in the minds of these students. They had spent a summer with the man, and Stall assumed they liked him. Most people did. He said, “Now, let me tell you how I think we should go about finishing this term in the most efficient and equitable way. I’m going to cancel the final.” He waited for what he was sure would be expressions of approval—muted, of course, given the circumstances. Canceling the final was the efficient part of his plan. Next came the equitable part. “I will grade your research papers. I’ve taught this course a number of times, and I believe I’m qualified to evaluate them carefully and fairly. I will—”

      “What about the two men who were seen leaving the building just before Professor Leaf jumped?” It was Martin Levy again.

      Stall didn’t like to be interrupted by anyone and certainly not by a student. He took a long breath to master the annoyance that had lit up his chest. “I’ve told you all I know, and everything I know has been in the papers. Students reported seeing the two men. Who may or may not have had anything to do with Professor Leaf and what happened.”

      “I’ve heard that the English Department knows more about this than the papers are reporting.”

      Stall was angry now and sure that his face showed it. “Heard from whom? Give me a name, and I’ll speak to this person and let you know what I find out. Will that satisfy you, Mr. Levy?”

      One or two students turned and peered back at Martin Levy as though they thought his questions might complicate the very good deal they were getting with a canceled final exam. Levy looked at his classmates and raised his chin an inch. The gesture said, Make something of it.

      Stall said, “Mr. Levy, may I continue to explain how we will finish our work?”

      “By all means, sir. Pardon my interruption.”

      “As I was saying, I’ll grade your research papers, and I’ll weight them to offset the elimination of the final. I’ve checked Professor Leaf’s grade book, and it seems you’re all doing very good work, so I don’t foresee any problems . . .” Stall tried for some levity: “Unless you bomb the paper.”

      A few chuckles, but mostly grim silence.

      “These are unusual circumstances, so I want to know now if any of you think this arrangement is unfair.”

      Stall’s authority in this matter was absolute. There was nothing any boy could do if he considered the thing unfair, but Stall thought it best to make the statement anyway. He’d have to work with these boys later on. He waited. No one spoke. “All right,” he said, “I’ll take questions about research methodologies if you have any.”

      There were no questions.

      “Good, then. Show up here next week with your papers in hand and we’ll consider the term finished. I’ll be available during regular office hours if you think of anything you need to discuss with me. And again, I’m very sorry about Professor Leaf, as I know you are too.”

      The students filed out, more or less satisfied, Stall thought. He waited as he always did for any double-backs, students who did not want to speak to him in front of their fellows. He was putting on his new coat when Martin Levy came back into the room. Levy was tall and still had some of a boy’s adolescent looseness in his joints. His brown hair was curly and close-cropped, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses that made him look a bit like pictures Stall had seen of Leon Trotsky. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt and tan slacks, and carried books under one arm. He was a good-looking boy in an attenuated, ascetic way. His dark-brown eyes burned at Stall.

      “Mr. Levy?” Stall expected the boy to apologize again. It did no student any good to get off on the wrong foot with the assistant chairman of the English Department.

      “I’m sorry, Dr. Stall . . .”

      “Don’t worry about—”

      “. . . but I don’t think you were straight with us about what happened to Professor Leaf.”

      Another interruption. And now an accusation. Are you calling me a liar? Stall started for the door. “I’m going to forget you said that, Levy, and I think before we talk again, you’d better reconsider your attitude.”

      “I only meant—”

      “Keep talking, and you’ll talk yourself right out of this department.”

      Stall left Martin Levy standing in the classroom.

      * * *

      The politics of Florida were simple, as Stall understood them. The state was halved, north and south. The north was called pork chop country because the counties there were small and their populations were sparse. Pork, of course, carried additional connotations, all of them apt. The state capital was in the north, in Tallahassee, and much of the political power was concentrated among the porkchoppers. The north was conservative, often radically so, and the south was liberal. Miami, with its Jewish population, retirees from the big Northeastern cities, many of them former members of trade unions, was the center of liberal politics. To say that there was warfare between north and south was to understate the case. Unfortunately (at least from Stall’s moderately liberal point of view), the north had won elections and had controlled the governor’s mansion and the legislature for most of the twentieth century. If any group with any clout would stand against the Johns Committee and for academic freedom and letting the universities govern themselves within reasonable limits, it would be the lambchoppers, the Jewish community of Miami. They, and sometimes the Miami Herald, would be the strongest voice against СКАЧАТЬ