548
PARTISAN REVIEW
"To do an independent study, you'd have to have conferences
with me. It's late in the term. They might be hard to arrange. Then
there's all the driving back and forth. You should consider that.
Even with little traffic, it means hours on the highway for you."
Her response was a shrug. She was resigned to suffer the
highway just as she was resigned to sit there shivering. The spasms
became stronger as I talked, as if I were biting her with icy phrases,
but she merely sat there, self-denying, proud. She belonged in the
East, I thought, living a tight exquisite life like Emily Dickinson.
Attractive; handsome clothes; horse owner; but she wanted
tedious hours on the highway, wanted to sit there shivering. The
lavender suit set off her silvery eyes, dark centers like mysterious
planets, and the ghostly hair descending to her shoulders. She'd said
her husband, the weight lifter, hit her. Maybe her soul required trib–
ulation. Her disease wasn't a mere allergy. I had her number, but
felt annoyed at myself for having it. Not my business.
"This is ridiculous. You're freezing."
I rose abruptly and went to the window. Enough of this martyr–
dom. I'd shut the damn window. It was built in an old, luxurious
style, plenty of oak and glass. As I strained to pull it down, I felt bet–
ter about myself, doing this good thing for her, but the window moved
only a little. Measured the truth in my heart? Then it stuck, fused in
its runners.
"I'll move to the other side of the desk," she said.
I ignored her and tried for a better grip, determined to shut the
window. She was looking up at me, her face close to my right hip,
her expression dismayed and apologetic, with a kind of pre–
Raphaelite pathos, sweet, other-worldly, faintly morbid. Her hus–
band didn't blame her for ruining things, she said. I could see why . I
could understand everything in my violent determination to shut the
window; even why he hit her. Dreamy hair, eyes of a snow leopard,
lacerated neck. I felt pity more than blame; anger more than pity.
The window wouldn't move. I was beginning to sweat. My neck and
shoulders burned with strain. Then fingers slid beneath the sash.
Why? To help me. Pull from the bottom. But I had no time to think
this. Delicate, ethereal fingers vanished beneath the sash as sixty
pounds of wood and glass rushed down, smashing them. I screamed,
lunging at the window, shoving it back up instantly; the bitterly ada–
mant resistance gone; a strength of gorillas in my arms. "Oh God," I
said, stepping toward her, leaning down to look, then immediately
backing away in dread of making her pain worse. This close to her,
