T. Boyle - The Inner Circle

The room was cold that night, Prok having turned down the thermostat in the expectation that the aggregate body heat of his guests would be sufficient to warm the place up — that and the coloration of the music. There was a small fire going in the hearth, but it was dying because Prok didn’t like to fuss with tending a fire when a record was on the turntable, and who could blame him? So we were cold, and I suppose I must have felt a bit sorry for the first-time guests who hadn’t dressed for what might as well have been an outdoor concert, as Iris, Corcoran and I had. For all that, Prok was his usual warm and outgoing self, entertaining us with a brief lecture on the composer’s career and the piece we were about to hear. He talked of Sibelius’s love of his native Finland and the charm of his sylvan settings and how the majority of his symphonic poems were based on Finland’s great epic, the Kalevala.

Then the room hushed as he retreated to the gramophone, sharpened the needle and let it fall. We heard “The Swan of Tuonela” that night and selections from “Pohjola’s Daughter,” and, as I say, I simply closed my eyes and let the music carry me away. There was an intermission, during which Mac served refreshments — non-alcoholic — and the guests got up and mingled, and then there were a few songs (“Was It a Dream?” and “The Maid Came from Her Lovers’ Tryst,” both of which I remember distinctly because as soon as I was able I went out and purchased a recording of them, which I treasure to this day), and then the party broke up. The reason I mention all of this, is because of what happened during the intermission — or what might have happened, because I can’t say for sure that that was the beginning of it, though I have my suspicions.

In any case, I was doing my best with a fistful of stale crackers and a cup of tepid punch while Prok pinned me in the corner along with President Wells, expatiating on the music we’d just heard (and on the research, of course), when I looked across the room and saw that Iris was alone with Corcoran, just as she had been on the last occasion — back in the fall — when we’d all three gathered for a musical evening. I wouldn’t have paid it any attention really if it weren’t for what she’d said that night over the wire while I sank miserably into the glass crevice of the phone booth: He was on me like a bird dog. Prok was informing President Wells and me (though I’d heard it before) that he liked to study the faces of the audience during musical performances for signs of sensual transport — one professor emeritus in his seventies had actually become physically aroused one night over Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde —but I was watching Iris, watching her face, watching Corcoran and how he seemed to anticipate her every movement, as if they were dancing to an imaginary orchestra. “Prok,” I said, cutting him off, “President Wells, I, just, well, if you’ll excuse me, please, and I’ll be right back—”

Prok gave me a wondering look, but he didn’t miss a beat. As I wandered off, making sure to head in the direction of the lavatory, I heard him say, “Of course, I would never name that gentleman, for fear of embarrassing him, but really, there’s absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about—”

I came up on Corcoran and my wife from behind, having made a detour past the lavatory in the event that Prok and Wells were watching, and I seemed to have startled them. Whatever they’d been talking about so intently just a moment before fell off a conversational cliff and the two of them looked up at me in confusion. I wanted to say something blithe like, “Am I interrupting anything here?” but when I saw the looks on their faces the words died in my throat. “Hello,” was the best I could manage.

Corcoran treated me to a smile. “Oh, hi, John. We were just discussing the way Prok seems to have taken charge of our president.” He gave a sidelong glance to where the two of them stood in the corner still, Prok lecturing, Wells stifling a yawn.

Iris said, “He never misses an opportunity, does he?”

I was angry suddenly, or testy, I suppose — testy would be a better word. “He has every right,” I said, staring her in the face, and I wasn’t smiling, wasn’t keeping it blithe and light. “Because you’d be amazed how much each department has to fight for funding. And we’ve got the prospect of expanding our grant base, which in turn should help convince Wells — or the university, I mean — to give us more for salary, materials, travel expenses and the like.”

Iris was wearing a little smile of amusement. “So?” she said.

“So don’t go accusing Prok, of, of— pandering —or whatever you want to call it, because if it weren’t for him we’d be—”

“Up shit’s creek without a paddle,” Corcoran said, expanding his smile. He had a glass of mauve-colored punch in his hand and he was rotating it against his palm as if he were about to snatch up three or four others and start juggling them to break the ice and get the party rolling, irrespective of Prok and Wells and the high tone of the evening. But then he laid a hand on my arm. “It’s okay, John,” he said, and Iris warmed up her smile too, “we’re on your side. We’re all in this together, aren’t we?”

I suppose that was when I first began to have my suspicions — Corcoran, the sexual Olympian on the loose, and Iris, the love of my life, stinging still over what I’d done in bed with Mac and with Prok — but I was paralyzed. I wanted to believe that there was nothing between them beyond the usual goodwill that existed between one colleague and the spouse of another, and I was afraid of any sort of confrontation with Iris, because I knew she’d throw it back at me, every phrase, every excuse and rationale, every occasion on which I’d ever spoken of our animal nature and sex as a function divorced from emotion of any kind, no different from hunger or thirst. Of course, I dropped hints. Put out probes, as it were. I came home from work, complimented the aroma of whatever was cooking, poured a drink, sat with her and reviewed my day, and of course my day included Corcoran — I dropped his name whenever I could, scanning her face for a reaction. There was nothing there. But what did she think of him? I pressed. Oh, he was nice enough, she said. Better than she’d thought. She really did think he was going to work out, and she was sorry if at first she’d seemed negative about him. “Yes,” I said, “I told you, didn’t I?” And then a smile, as if it were all a joke, “And what about his bird dog propensities?”

She was busy suddenly — a pot was boiling over on the stove, there was an onion to be peeled. It was a joke, sure it was, and she just laughed. “He’s like that with all women,” she said. “And men too. But you would know better than I, John.”

If I were a turtle — one of Darwin’s Galápagos tortoises Prok was always talking about — I could have pulled all my exposed parts back into my shell, and I suppose, in a metaphorical way, that was what I did do. We went to Indianapolis, the three of us, colleagues on a mission, and Corcoran and I sat across the table from each other exchanging our own private signals while Prok informed us that we were going to do something illegal, if not immoral, despite the testimonial letters from Dean Briscoe, President Henry B. Wells and Robert M. Yerkes: for this night, anyway, we were going to be Peeping Toms.

The idea of it, I have to admit, made my blood race. I think we all have the capacity for voyeurism, we all burn to see how other people live through their private moments so that we can hold them up against our own and thrill with a feeling of superiority, or perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum, feel the sharp awakening slap of inadequacy. So that’s how it’s done, we think. I could do it that way. Or could I? Yes, sure I could, and I could do it better too. I’d like to be doing it right now — but look at her, look how she clings to him, how she rises to meet him, how —