Page 48 of Katabasis
“Oh no, I was at Oxford.” Belinda squinted at Alice. “And you’re from—somewhere stateside?”
“The hotel school,” Alice joked, then regretted it. No one here understood the reference; truly, no one back in America understood the reference. “That is, um, Cornell.”
“I’ve heard good things about that program! Did you work with Zohar?”
“No, he went emeritus a few years ago. His wife had a stroke, and he stays home to take care of her—”
“That’s just awful. I was wondering why he’d pulled out of that edited volume. How’s she doing?”
“Much better now, I’m told. They got a dog, which helps—um, with the depression—”
“Oh, very good—my own advisor had a bout of cancer a while back, and they got a cat. Supposedly an animal companionreallyhelps—”
She and Belinda carried on like this for a little bit. Alice thought she was doing quite well. She recognized all the names Belinda dropped, she’d mentioned the right connections for Belinda to take her seriously, and she hadn’t managed to make a mess of her tea or her biscuit. Except Belinda’s eyes kept trailing to a spot over Alice’s shoulder, as if seeking someone to rescue her from this conversation. The third time she did this, Alice wilted.
“Sorry,” said Belinda. “I don’t mean to be rude—I’m just wondering where Peter is.”
“Who’s Peter?”
“He’s the sixth,” said Belinda. “In the cohort. We were undergraduates together.”
“Are you talking about Peter Murdoch?” the Frenchman piped up. Felix? Philip? “That’s the Oxford prodigy?”
“I heard he’s the only advisee Jacob Grimes’s taken on in years,” said the Italian, whose name Alice thought was either Paolo or Lorenzo.
“That’s right,” Belinda said proudly.
“I’m working with Jacob Grimes,” Alice said, but no one heard her. The conversation drifted on to Professor Grimes’s reputation, Peter’s reputation, and the way Peter had supposedly impressed Professor Grimes by inventing a new pentagram, a twist on the Liar Paradox, on the spot during his entrance interview. Did they know that Peter Murdoch was the youngest person ever to publish inArcana? Did they know Harvard had written to Peter Murdoch with a job offer after hisArcanapaper came out, and that Peter had responded politely that he needed to finish his A-levels first?
“Does he have scholars for parents?” asked the Frenchman. “He must have.”
“I think his mother does biology,” said the Italian. “And the father—mathematics, isn’t that right?”
“I wish I had academic parents,” said the Frenchman.
“It’s a terrible advantage,” said the Italian. “He’s a magician made in a bottle.”
“Thereyou are.” Belinda shouted toward the garden gate, where stood a lanky young man who’d either forgotten or decided against wearing the requisite black gown. “Late as usual. Peter Murdoch, everyone.”
The famous Peter Murdoch had overlong arms, overlong legs, and a wild bird’s nest of light brown hair under which sat a massive pair of wire spectacles. The lenses were very thick, which had the effect of making his brown eyes appear owlishly huge against his face. When he smiled his whole face split apart, revealing slightly uneven teeth. He looked like someone who wore a retainer. The overall effect was not unpleasant. He was decidedly no Greek god, and yet Alice could not stop staring at him. She kept looking him up and down, trying to determine if he was a real person.
They all made their introductions. Peter was a cheerful, easy interlocutor. You got the sense, watching him nod and smile, that everything in the world was interesting to him. He kept asking everyone about their research, then asking follow-up questions about particular methods, but because everybody wanted to impress him and because the Italian (his name was Michele, Alice finally learned) went on and on so long about his work on rational choice theory, it was an eternity before Peter’s eyes alighted finally on Alice.
“Hello,” said Alice. “We’re advisee siblings.”
“Oh, we are?” Peter enthusiastically shook her hand. “I didn’t know he took on another one.”
She chose not to take this as a slight. “Right, well, that’s me.”
“I suppose we’ll be working together a lot. I do logic, by the way.”
“Linguistics and wordplay. And, um, some archival work.”
“A wordsmith!”
Alice’s cheeks felt very hot; she wondered if anyone could see. “Well, you know, Americans are only good for the weird, experimental stuff.”
“I love it,” he said. “I love Americans. So unconventional.”
