The tension between them was almost palpable because of course Marya hadn’t known until now whether . . . whether, crudely put, it was thumbs-up or thumbs-down: one more year and then termination, or three more years with a possibility (for there was always the possibility) of a future. So it was a relief, wasn’t it, to be told good news. To be chatting companionably with the chairman of the department, talking for a while of general matters, as if they were equals. It was all right. She was all right. She hadn’t failed this time, she hadn’t been stopped.

By degrees the strain lessened; when Marya rose to leave she had quite enjoyed their talk, she could see why her chairman was so well-liked, even by persons whose careers he had (always reluctantly, with a pose of helplessness) destroyed. He asked her whether she had any requests, any complaints, and Marya said, as they shook hands, “No, of course not.”

MARYA UNLOCKS THE door to her office, senses at once Sylvester’s presence—the ghostly contour, that is, of his absence—the stale stink of cigarette smoke, the sour tinge to the air. Again the window has been shut tight though it is a mild morning in late April and Marya had the window open, propped up with a book, just the evening before.

And what else? The brass floor lamp is in an odd corner of the room, unplugged. The Cézanne print is just perceptibly crooked. As for the things on her desk—they’ve been shuffled about but so far as she can see nothing is missing. He isn’t a thief, after all; he’s careful about that.

Marya shuts the door behind her and locks it. She doesn’t want to be interrupted.

Sylvester with his blood-threaded gaze, his puckered smile, the caressing lilt to his voice. Marya’s colleagues, Marya’s many students. She feels how they are watching her, observing closely, waiting. For she was a woman, she must weaken under the strain. . . .

She goes to the little lavatory. As soon as she opens the door she is assaulted by the commingled smell of cigarette smoke and urine.

She sees, in the unflushed toilet bowl, a cigarette butt floating, the tobacco unraveling, the paper nearly dissolved, turning slowly—quivering—vibrating—trembling—in response to a celestial tide too subtle for her to sense—riding the deep amber of Sylvester’s urine.

Nine

NINE

It might be said that their lives—their professional futures—were being decided for them that very day: so weren’t they free? blameless? innocent as children?