John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Now you claim to be a Grand Tutor too, and got through the Turnstile somehow, and you tell me Bray's a fake!" It made no difference to him personally one way or the other, Rexford declared; his business was to run the College and do what he could to strengthen the West-Campus academic complex. To these ends he thought it most prudent to acknowledge my claim to Candidacy, not to shake the public's faith in WESCAC; should I manage somehow to pass through Scrapegoat Grate (which had never been penetrated and was now strictly scanned by WESCAC), he would give me free run of the campus and top clearance as a Special Student, and Tower Hall would defray my expenses for the term of my Assignment. In return, he trusted I would do nothing to subvert New Tammany in general and his administration in particular; he hoped he might count further upon my being prudent enough not to alarm the College with accusations of fraud against Bray unless I was prepared to make them stick — but of course it was a free college. If beyond this I felt inclined actually to support Administration policies, intramural or varsity, he guaranteed reciprocal support for me of any kind that Tower Hall could in good conscience offer.

"What do you say, George?"

His manner quite pleased me. There was no suggestion of bribery in his proposition, merely an open, cheerful request to cooperate in the common weal, which inspired me to reply in the same spirit.

"Let's wait until I've passed Scrapegoat Grate," I proposed. "Maybe you won't have to do business with me at all."

This answer was well received: one aide admitted that the same thing had occurred to him, another praised my grasp of "the political facts of life — the flunkèd realities," and the Chancellor himself smilingly confessed that he'd assumed I was some sort of charlatanical pedagogue, whether hypocritical or sincerely fanatic, of the sort that always appeared in turbulent semesters, and with which the most idealistic chancellors had sometimes to come to terms if the college was to be administered.

"Of course, you might be yet!" He grinned. "But at least Dr. Spielman brought you up to play on the first string. Very pleased to've met you."

We shook hands as might two athletes before a match. I was invited to call at the Chancellory on Max's behalf — if and when I'd passed the Grate — as the Hermann case had serious implications for public opinion towards Siegfrieder College, an important member of the West-Campus complex. The Chancellor then excused himself to return to the urgent business of his office and left through a side door with a phalanx of his aides — one of whom, however, he deputed on the spot to follow my fortunes at the Grate and report to him directly afterwards. I was escorted down a short dark hall behind the Assembly-stage to a door whereon my flashlight showed the word GRATEWAY; it opened of itself at our approach. From the dim interior beyond, a clicking voice said "Prospective Candidates only, please," and a second — familiar also, but huskily, womanly human — added, "It's all right, George; He means you."

"I'll wait for you out here," said my forelocked escort. But now my eyes had accommodated to the flickering instrument-panels and Telerama screens of the Grateway antechamber, I saw not only Harold Bray and Anastasia, perched on twin stools at a massive console, but behind them Scrapegoat Grate itself, a thick portcullis let into the chamber wall. Beyond it, squared by that iron weft and strangely dark, Great Mall's elmed colonnade stretched out of sight.

"I won't be coming back," I told him.

He clucked his tongue. "Well. We'll see."

I stepped in, and the door closed at once. Like the Powerhouse Control Room, and to some extent Eierkopf's Observatory, the Grateway antechamber was walled with dials, reels, and switches, that quietly hummed and clicked. There was a subtle fetid odor about, not describable but distinctly unpleasant. My rival's appearance was not exactly as I recalled it — his skin seemed paler, his mustache smaller, his face less round, his pate more bald — but his eyes, unmistakable, gave back my flashlight-beam as if they too were lit.

"No lights necessary," he said.

I braced my back against the panel opposite the console and raised my stick, still holding in my left hand the flashlight and my watch with its broken chain. My plan had been to move straight to the Grate, ignoring Bray utterly if I could and striking him down if he tried to stop me. But it was bitter to see him perched in white-frocked authority with Anastasia reverent beside him. I left the light on.

"Don't be upset, George," Anastasia begged. "Dr. Bray's not a bit jealous. He says He'll program an Assignment for you and let you try the Grate. We saw your Trial-by-Turnstile on Telerama, and you were wonderful!"

It stung me to hear as it were the capital letters in which she spoke of him. "He says!" I burst out. "You're fickle, Anastasia!" And to Bray I cried, "You know very well you aren't what you say you are! You're an impostor!"

Anastasia started off her stool. "George…" But Bray restrained her, with a hand long-fingered for one so heavy.

"No matter, my dear," he said. I loathed the bony sight of his hand on her arm; was moved almost to strike it.

"You'd understand if you'd seen what I've seen," Anastasia protested: "WESCAC didn't do a thing when He went down in the Belly, and Scrapegoat Grate opens right up for Him! It's really wonderful, George…"

"Nothing at all," Bray said. His face never changed expression, nor did his voice, yet I imagined him much flattered by her awe. Her defense was vain: I'd not forgotten the sight of her kneeling in Bray's presence before he'd done these alleged wonders, and it enraged me to suppose he lusted for her too.

"Don't you dare let him service you!" I warned her.

"George!"

"You're too affectionate," I scolded. "You let everybody service you, whether they deserve to or not. Men take advantage of you."

"Mrs. Stoker is Certified," Bray said. "The Founder's Scroll says Love thy classmate as thyself, or flunkèd be."

"Certified!" I scoffed, and declared to Anastasia that whomever else she mated with, she must not let Bray climb her; if she did I would regard as proved what in any case I half suspected: Stoker's charge that beneath her charity was simple carnal appetite and a contemptible want of faith. How else explain her protestation of belief in me, her receipt of my Memorial Service for G. Herrold in the Living Room, her aspiration to Commencement at my hands — and then her apostasy with the first pretender to come by?

"You don't understand, George!" But her eyes were tearful in the flashlight. "You make me feel awful!" From a large black drawstring purse on the console she took a tissue.

"No need to abuse her," Bray said. "Perhaps the dear girl was simply being hospitable to both of us. Look here, young man, I don't ask you to believe in me; call me an impostor all you like! Let's suppose you're the real Grand Tutor — a real one, anyhow…"

His conciliatory tone surprised me; my first suspicion was that he meant to ingratiate himself with me in hopes of protecting his fraud. "I am the Grand Tutor," I said coldly.

"Very well, suppose you are, and I'm an impostor, and my success at the Belly and the Grate is some kind of trick, or a malfunction in WESCAC."

I asserted that such exactly was my conviction — and was pleased to make it so, for that excellent last possibility had not occurred to me.

"Even so," he went on, "you don't claim you're a Graduate yet, do you? Enos Enoch Himself didn't claim so much at your age. So, no matter who the Grand Tutor is, you're indisputably matriculating as a Special Student in New Tammany College, who wants a Graduation Assignment. And I'm undeniably the Keeper of the Grate, by the Chancellor's appointment. Don't you agree?"