Donna Tartt: The Secret History

Not to imply that 1 was overly preoccupied with any of this. I was settling in at school by this time; classes had begun and I was busy with my work. My interest in Julian Morrow and his Greek pupils, though still keen, was starting to wane when a curious coincidence happened.

It happened the Wednesday morning of my second week, when I was in the library making some Xeroxes for Dr Roland before my eleven o'clock class. After about thirty minutes, spots of light swimming in front of my eyes, I went back to the front desk to give the Xerox key to the librarian and as I turned to leave I saw them, Bunny and the twins, sitting at a table that was spread with papers and pens and bottles of ink. The bottles of ink I remember particularly, because I was very charmed by them, and by the long black straight pens, which looked incredibly archaic and troublesome. Charles was wearing a white tennis sweater, and Camilla a sun dress with a sailor collar, and a straw hat. Bunny's tweed jacket was slung across the back of his chair, exposing several large rips and stains in the lining. He was leaning his elbows on the table, hair in eyes, his rumpled shirtsleeves held up with striped garters. Their heads were close together and they were talking quietly.

I suddenly wanted to know what they were saying. I went to the bookshelf behind their table – the long way, as if I wasn't sure what 1 was looking for – all the way down until I was so close I could've reached out and touched Bunny's arm. My back to them, I picked a book at random – a ridiculous sociological text, as it happened – and pretended to study the index. Secondary Analysis. Secondary Deviance. Secondary Groups. Secondary Schools.

'I don't know about that,' Camilla was saying. 'If the Greeksi are sailing to Carthage, it should be accusative. Remember? Place J whither? That's the rule.'

'Can't be.' This was Bunny. His voice was nasal, garrulous,, W. C. Fields with a bad case of Long Island lockjaw. 'It's not' place whither, it's place to. I put my money on the ablative case.'

There was a confused rattling of papers.

'Wait,' said Charles. His voice was a lot like his sister's **| hoarse, slightly southern. 'Look at this. They're not just sailing! to Carthage, they're sailing to attack it.'

'You're crazy.'

'No, they are. Look at the next sentence. We need a dative.'

'Are you sure?'

More rustling of papers.

'Absolutely. Epi to karchidona.'

'I don't see how,' said Bunny. He sounded like Thurstc Ho well on 'Gilligan's Island.'

'Ablative's the ticket. The hard on are always ablative.'

A slight pause. 'Bunny,' said Charles, 'you're mixed up. Tb S ablative is in Latin.'

'Well, of course, I know that,' said Bunny irritably, after confused pause which seemed to indicate the contrary, 'but ye know what I mean. Aorist, ablative, all the same thing, really…1 'Look, Charles,' said Camilla. 'This dative won't work.'

'Yes it will. They're sailing to attack, aren't they?'

'Yes, but the Greeks sailed over the sea to Carthage.'

'But 1 put that epi in front of it.'

'Well, we can attack and still use epi, but we have to use an accusative because of the first rules.'

Segregation. Self. Self-concept. I looked down at the index and racked my brains for the case they were looking for. The Greeks sailed over the sea to Carthage. To Carthage. Place whither, place whence. Carthage.

Suddenly something occurred to me. I closed the book and put it on the shelf and turned around. 'Excuse me?' I said.

Immediately they stopped talking, startled, and turned to stare at me.

Tm sorry, but would the locative case do?'

Nobody said anything for a long moment.

'Locative?' said Charles.

'Just add zde to karchido,' I said. 'I think it's zde. If you use that, you won't need a preposition, except the epi if they're going to war. It implies "Carthage-ward," so you won't have to worry about a case, either.'

Charles looked at his paper, then at me. 'Locative?' he said.

'That's pretty obscure.'

'Are you sure it exists for Carthage?' said Camilla.

I hadn't thought of this. 'Maybe not,' I said. 'I know it does for Athens.'

Charles reached over and hauled the lexicon towards him over the table and began to leaf through it.

'Oh, hell, don't bother,' said Bunny stridently. 'If you don't have to decline it and it doesn't need a preposition it sounds good to me.' He reared back in his chair and looked up at me. 'I'd like to shake your hand, stranger.' I offered it to him; he clasped and shook it firmly, almost knocking an ink bottle over with his elbow as he did so. 'Glad to meet you, yes, yes,' he said, reaching up with the other hand to brush the hair from his eyes.

I was confused by this sudden glare of attention; it was as if the characters in a favorite painting, absorbed in their own concerns, had looked up out of the canvas and spoken to me.

Only the day before Francis, in a swish of black cashmere and cigarette smoke, had brushed past me in a corridor. For a moment, as his arm touched mine, he was a creature of flesh and blood, but the next he was a hallucination again, a figment of the imagination stalking down the hallway as heedless of me as ghosts, in their shadowy rounds, are said to be heedless of the living.

Charles, still fumbling with the lexicon, rose and offered his hand. 'My name is Charles Macaulay.'

'Richard Papen.'

'Oh, you're the one,' said Camilla suddenly.

'What?'

'You. You came by to ask about the Greek class.'

'This is my sister,' said Charles, 'and this is – Bun, did you tell him your name already?'

'No, no, don't think so. You've made me a happy man, sir.

We had ten more like this to do and five minutes to do them in.

Edmund Corcoran's the name,' said Bunny, grasping my hand again.

'How long have you studied Greek?' said Camilla.

'Two years,' 'You're rather good at it,' 'Pity you aren't in our class,' said Bunny.

A strained silence.

'Well,' said Charles uncomfortably, 'Julian is funny about things like that,' 'Go see him again, why don't you,' Bunny said. 'Take him some flowers and tell him you love Plato and he'll be eating out of your hand,' Another silence, this one more disagreeable than the first.

Camilla smiled, not exactly at me – a sweet, unfocused smile, quite impersonal, as if I were a waiter or a clerk in a store. Beside her Charles, who was still standing, smiled too and raised a polite eyebrow – a gesture which might have been nervous, might have meant anything, really, but which I took to mean Is that all?

I mumbled something and was about to turn away when Bunny – who was staring in the opposite direction – shot out an arm and grabbed me by the wrist. 'Wait,' he said.

Startled, I looked up. Henry had just come in the door – dark suit, umbrella, and all.

When he got to the table he pretended not to see me. 'Hello,' he said to them. 'Are you finished?'

Bunny tossed his head at me. 'Look here, Henry, we've got someone to meet you,' he said.

Henry glanced up. His expression did not change. He shut his eyes and then reopened them, as if he found it extraordinary that someone such as myself should stand in his path of vision.

'Yes, yes,' said Bunny. 'This man's name is Richard – Richard what?'

'Papen.'

'Yes, yes. Richard Papen. Studies Greek.'

Henry brought his head up to look at me. 'Not here, surely,' he said.

'No,' I said, meeting his gaze, but his stare was so rude I was forced to cut my eyes away.

'Oh, Henry, look at this, would you,' said Charles hastily, rustling through the papers again. 'We were going to use a dative or an accusative here but he suggested locative?'

Henry leaned over his shoulder and inspected the page. 'Hmm, archaic locative,' he said. 'Very Homeric. Of course, it would be grammatically correct but perhaps a bit off contextually.' He brought his head back up to scrutinize me. The light was at an angle that glinted off his tiny spectacles, and I couldn't see his eyes behind them. 'Very interesting. You're a Homeric scholar?'