Big plump kingly Sylvester. Seated there at Marya Knauer’s desk, in her swivel chair. His face burnished and gleaming, his eyes hooded, the usual cigarette slanted in his lips. He must have heard her key in the lock and made the quick decision not to jump to his feet, not to betray any surprise or confusion or guilt. Instead it was Marya who was surprised, Marya who recoiled in alarm. The building had emptied out, they were alone on the floor together, it was past five-thirty and quite dark. . . .

Marya asked him what he was doing, what did he want, and though she was really quite frightened her voice sounded steady enough. Sylvester rose sighing and grunting from the chair, hitching his trousers. He made a last perfunctory swipe at the desk with one of his rags. “Just makin’ things neat,” he muttered, not looking at her.

Marya drew a deep breath and said, “I don’t want you going through my things. You know that. I asked you not to. I asked you. . . .”

Sylvester repeated that he was just making things neat, polishing things up, “just doin’ my job, Professor, how come you always at me?” She caught the little hiccup of merriment in his voice, saw the flash of his wicked gold tooth. When he brushed past her she smelled beer, sweat, tobacco smoke, Sylvester’s special dark odor of ammonia and disinfectant.

It was true, he had been polishing the desk. At least the top. But a pile of her things lay on the carpet where he’d dumped them—memos, papers, pens, a personal letter from a friend in Boston, a two-page letter from the editor of The Meridian saying that he would like to publish her essay but would she consider making certain deletions and adding a few more paragraphs on the subject of . . . Marya’s face burned with shame, that Sylvester could see this; that he should have the opportunity to guess how she might be measured elsewhere, judged, found deficient. (If Sylvester took the time to read. If indeed he could read at all.)

You black bastard, she whispered.

SHE REHEARSED FUTURE confrontations with Sylvester. (“You must stop harassing me or I will be forced to report you to . . .”) She rehearsed an interview with the department’s executive secretary, even with the chairman of the department himself. (“This is a very minor matter but I suppose it might become more serious and so I thought . . . I don’t want to really file a complaint of any official kind but . . .”)