William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

“And Bob?”

“I let her in the Hall. She already knows the number of your room. When she goes in, I stay at my end and make sure nobody enters until she gets to your room and goes in. And . . .. that’s pretty much it.”

“Right. Neither of you will be needed again until four, when she leaves. And the process will be just reversed, with the two of you at either end of the Hall making sure the coast is clear. Then she’ll come out and mingle with the crowd that’s leaving at the end of visiting hours. And that’s it.”

They arrived at Mitchell’s room. Neither Koesler nor Groendal made any move to enter. After all, it was against the rules for any student to be in any other student’s room.

Oddly, it did not seem strange to either of them that they were observing a rule that they would help smash to smithereens in just a few days.

“By the way,” Groendal said, “now that all the plans are made, what are you going to do in here for two whole hours on Sunday?”

Mitchell looked at Groendal in amazement. “You mean you actually don’t know?”

The superior tone did it. Groendal dissolved in embarrassment.

Mitchell looked knowingly at Koesler, who had a blank expression.

Mitchell shook his head. Neither of his confederates had any real idea why they were putting their careers at risk. If truth be known, even Mitchell had no practical knowledge of what might follow necking and petting. But he was more than willing to find out.

In any case, there was nothing more to say. All plans had been made and checked. Everything was prepared. Each was ready to go to his own room.

“By the way. Rid, how did your play go?”

The question took Groendal by surprise.

“My play? Oh, you mean for the arts contest. Okay, I guess.”

“I would have helped you with it,” Mitchell said, “but I was entered in the same contest. Somehow it just didn’t seem kosher.”

Groendal recoiled. “I don’t need any help from you or anybody.”

“Sorry.” Mitchell knew he was the better playwright. He also knew he had touched a nerve. “Anyway, it’s all over except for the judging. You make a copy of yours?”

“Sure.”

“So did I. Let’s trade off. We can read each other’s play.”

“Why?”

“No reason. I’d just like to read your work and I’d like you to read mine. I mean we both really like the stage. It’d be fun to read each other’s work. Unless a miracle happens, one of our plays is going to win. Then the school year’ll be over and we’ll never get to read each other’s stuff.”

“I don’t know . . .” Groendal seemed most reluctant.

“Hey, it’s okay, Rid. Just a thought. Forget it.”

Groendal’s expression changed. “Okay. It might be fun. I’ll go get it now and we’ll trade.”

In the ensuing couple of days, Mitchell found little time for anything other than cramming for final exams. He was able even to keep from thinking about “Cherchez la Femme.” On Saturday afternoon, he found a little spare time. He also found Groendal’s manuscript and decided, since the exchange had been his idea, he’d better read it.

Mitchell studied the title. “The Biggest Miracle.” He smiled. How like Rid to write a religious play. Appropriate too, since the judges would all be priests of the seminary faculty.

Mitchell began to read. As he turned the pages, a frown appeared. The more he read, the deeper the furrows. Several times he put the manuscript aside and sat lost in thought. When he finally finished reading, he went immediately to the library, where he spent nearly an hour in the reserve stacks until he found what he was seeking. He checked out a small black book. Then he went to the recreation rooms in the basement of St. Thomas Hall where, as he had expected, he found Ridley Groendal listening to classical records and smoking a cigarette. There was no one else in the room, so Mitchell took a chair next to Ridley.

Mitchell gazed intently but wordlessly at his classmate.

Groendal finally broke the ice. “Good play. I finished it last night. Sort of a downer, though . . . I didn’t think you tied up all the loose ends at the conclusion.”

“They weren’t supposed to be tied, Rid.” Mitchell paused. “Rid, why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” But Groendal’s eyes betrayed awareness; he knew.

“You’re a creative person, Rid. I know that. You’ve done some pretty good stuff in the past. You didn’t have to steal a play!”

“What?” Groendal did a bad job of stubbing out his cigarette. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your play.” Mitchell tapped the manuscript in his lap. “It’s about a seminary faculty composed of very educated men—as a matter of fact, it’s an all-male cast.”

“It was written to be performed by a seminary. And they’re always looking for all-male casts.”

“One faculty member is deathly ill,” Mitchell continued as if he’d never been interrupted, “and one is having serious problems with his faith. And there’s an agnostic doctor who is taking special care of the sick priest.”

Groendal nervously lit another cigarette.

“So there’s a miracle. Or at least it seems like a miraculous cure of the sick priest. And this partially restores the faith of the doubting priest. Until the doctor goes to confession and tells the doubter that the cure wasn’t a miracle. The sick priest simply responded to the medication. So the doubter is torn up by a knowledge he can share with no one because of the ‘seal’ of confession. And then at the end there’s a real miracle that restores the faith of the doubting priest.”

Groendal anxiously tapped a long cigarette ash into a tray. “Sounds like a pretty good plot to me.”

“It seemed like a pretty good plot to Emmet Lavery, too.” From beneath Groendal’s manuscript, Mitchell extracted the small black book he had checked out of the library. “Except that Lavery called it ‘The First Legion.’”

“A coincidence,” Groendal murmured.

“Coincidence! Change your seminary faculty to his small Jesuit seminary and everything is pretty much the same. Oh, I’ll give you credit for rewriting the ending . . . and I think yours is better, more believable. But the rest of it you stole.”

“Oh, come on, Mitch!”

“Sometimes word for word. Look at this . . .” Mitchell indicated parallel passages in the bound play and in Groendal’s manuscript. In both versions a character says, ‘I . . . begin to see . . . the biggest miracle . . . is faith . . . and to have faith is the miracle!’ To which another character responds, ‘I have prayed for faith like yours, but it won’t come.’

“And that,” Mitchell continued, “is only one example, Rid. They’re all over the place. And what’s more, you know it! You have to know it! You copied them!”

Groendal lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the previous one. Ordinarily, he did not chain-smoke.

“This is why you were reluctant to exchange manuscripts with me, wasn’t it?”

“At first, yes,” Groendal admitted. “But then I wanted to see if it could get by you. Obviously, it didn’t.

“I knew I was taking a chance—with you and, to a lesser degree, with the faculty.” He shrugged. “I figured it was worth the gamble.” He looked at Mitchell. “What are you going to do about it?”

“The question, Rid, is what are you going to do about it?”

Groendal exhaled a long stream of smoke. “Nothing.”

“Nothing! Rid, don’t you understand? This is plagiarism. It’s a crime!”

“There’s no guarantee that it will be performed even if it wins.”

“You submitted it in a contest as if it were yours. And you stole it. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”