Page 88 of Katabasis
Still the words would not come. What defense could she offer?
“You—I mean, it’s not true, is it? I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions.” Belinda’s expression softened. “Come on, Alice. You can tell me.”
There were a lot of things Alice could have said then. But why bother? It all seemed so pointless. All words were ineffectual, signifying nonsense. Belinda stared, waiting, but Alice simply turned on her heel and walked away.
Alice unraveled very quickly after that.Her self-esteem plummeted. Her moods grew erratic, her work uneven. She tried everything to get back into Professor Grimes’s good graces, but being a try-hard only intensified his disdain.
At her lowest, she tried again to seduce him. She wore those black tights and short skirts he’d said once that he liked. She kept her blouse tops unbuttoned. She tried every old trick in the toolbox: sitting with her legs suggestively crossed, bending down lower than she needed so the curve of her ass was on full display.
I’m here, she tried to tell him.I’m willing. Have me.
He pretended she did not exist.
Alice fought. She did fight; she had come too far to let her career slide so quickly down the drain. She sought counsel in the office of Helen Murray.
Helen did not particularly like Alice. Not because of anything Alice had ever done, but because she was a Grimes student, and Helen Murray and Jacob Grimes hated each other. He’d once famously called her a cunt in public; she, in turn, forced him to teach the undergraduate survey class every year that she was the department chair. But this morning, Alice thought, perhaps their animosity might count in her favor.
“Hello, Alice.” Helen Murray seemed to be expecting her. In any case, she did not ask why Alice, who was not her advisee and who was not in any of her seminars, had stopped by. “Would you like some tea?”
“Oh, no, I’m all right.”
“Do have some tea.”
Alice sat and accepted a cup.
It was a well-known fact about Helen Murray that she would not entertain work talk until she had gone through the ritual of boiling water in her kettle, measuring out tea leaves, and waiting the full five minutes for it to brew. Until then you were supposed to make small talk. This was supposed to be the most humanizing thing about her. Helen Murraycaredabout you; she cared how your life was going, what extracurriculars you pursued. Her advisees loved her for this. Alice hoped, for this reason, that Helen Murray might hear her out.
Helen clinked a spoon around her cup. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened.”
Haltingly, Alice explained.
When she finished, Helen sat silent for a long while. Then she took off her glasses, looked Alice up and down, and sighed. “Please let’s not be so immature about this.”
“Um. I don’t know what that means.”
“You surprise me, Alice. One would have thought you knew what you were getting into.”
“Getting into?”
“A story as old as time. See Aristotle and Phyllis. Merlin and Morgan le Fay. The boys in our department, they never learn. Hungry beasts. You’re at Cambridge. Didn’t you know?”
Alice could not determine if Helen was joking. She understood the reference; she, too, had seen that woodcut of naked Phyllis, Alexander’s consort, riding Aristotle like a horse. It was very funny, and Aristotle looked ridiculous, but Alice could not see how this was useful guidance for her career going forward.
“But it’s not—I mean, the way they treat women, it’s not fair.”
Helen’s lip curled. “Ah, you’re a feminist now!”
This was a pointed barb—the first inklings of a trap, but Alice was too distressed to see what she had walked into. Helen hosted the annual Women in Magick conference at Cambridge, but Alice had never gone. No one in her cohort bothered to go. Belinda went once her first year, and came back rolling her eyes—Just a bunch of crones, wishing the men would die. No, no one in her cohort was a feminist; they eschewed the label, they thought it would only bring them trouble.
“That’s not what I mean,” said Alice. “It’s just—I don’t know what to do.”
“Of course.” Helen set down her cup. “So why did you come to me?”
That much should be obvious, thought Alice. Why did Helen think she was here, and not in the offices of Caspar Stuart, or Aaron Byrne?
“Because we have so much in common?”
This too was a trick question, but Alice took the bait. She thought solidarity was on offer; she could not help but nod.
