Hell hath no fury like a lover horned, and I was not going to take Lucy's betrayal lightly. Pacing my room like a TV lawyer, I marshalled my arguments against Lucy and found her guilty on all counts. She had led me on and then misled me. But what most distressed me was the contrast between my ever dimmer impressions of our night together and an all too vivid memory of her romp with Xox. Yet the weakness of my case made me angrier still; confrontation makes me ill but I felt it better than meekly swallowing my bile.
And so I bravely decided to avoid dinner. I would stay in my room and starve. That would show her. I sucked in my cheeks and stared in the mirror. Tears rose in my eyes at the sight of my piteous countenance and I felt better by the minute. But then the hunger pangs started. I lurched around the room, desperately searching for the key to the minibar. But I had already gobbled up all the peanuts and pretzels while guzzling whisky earlier. There was nothing for it. The choice between starvation and humiliation was no choice at all: I pulled on my shoes and made for the door.
Just then there was a knock on the door. Hastily I kicked off my shoes and jumped into bed. "Come in!" I called out crossly, and buried my head under the covers.
"What's the matter?" Lucy inquired tenderly. "Aren't you well?"
"No."
"Aren't you taking your vitamins?"
"Yes. I mean, no."
"Why did you stop? Didn't they make you feel good?"
"Don't want to feel good."
"Why?"
"I hate you. Go away."
"Okay. I'm next door if you need me."
"I know."
The covers were raised from my cowering head. I looked up into Lucy's face. She was smiling scarily at me. "Now just how would you happen to know that I'm next door?"
"Uh… I don't know. Intuition?"
"Not good enough." She brought out a shard of glass and held it up before me. I saw my fractured face reflected in the broken mirror. "Security found these fragments all over the road this afternoon. Along with a coat hanger. Computer simulations of the distribution of broken glass show that it probably fell from this floor. Don't you have something to tell me?"
"Don't you have something to tell me?" I blustered back. "What were you doing with that hairy ape Xox this afternoon?"
"You saw what we were doing," Lucy replied coldly. "And it's Mister Xox to you."
"Whatever. So how come you were picking his fleas?"
"That's none of your business. How dare you spy on me?"
"I thought you were being attacked. I could hear you yelling down in the library. Besides, I wasn’t the only one spying."
Lucy stiffened. "What are you talking about?"
"None of your business." I folded my arms across my chest and stared at her.
"Why are you being like this?"
"I guess I'm feeling jealous," I said honestly.
"Jealous." Lucy seemed amazed. "What is that?"
"I thought you spoke six languages besides English. Isn't jealousy in your vocabulary?"
"I am familiar with the concept," Lucy said primly. "But I do not comprehend the emotion. Could you explain?"
"Haven't you ever been jealous? How can I explain what it's like?"
"Here." Lucy gave me a vitamin and a glass of water. She scrambled into bed with me. "Take this first. Good. Now tell me exactly what you felt when Mister Xox was making love to me."
"Well, I was miserable at first when I saw what you were doing…"
"What were we doing?"
"You know, making love…"
"Show me."
"You mean…"
"Exactly. Yes, there. No, further down. Oh, yes, that's it. Slower. Oh, yes… Go on…"
And later, so much later, as we cuddled in the darkness, her silky hair caressing my bare shoulder, I told Lucy about Terence Killjoy-Yuck and his fancy periscope. She said nothing and I felt uneasy, but how should I have foreseen the dark and twisted path my disclosure would entail? Consequences appear around hairpin bends and collisions are always inevitable in retrospect.
We overslept and the next morning was a mad rush, gasps of shock and hasty turns at the washbasin, much slopping and slipping in bathroom puddles, ties awry and blood on collars, and popping vitamins in each other's mouth like bon-bons. Xox was off to see the President that day, and Lucy had to arrange the logistics. As she flew out of my room, one arm groping for an elusive jacket sleeve, a ladder in her stocking begin to run, but I resolved not to notice. It was probably the only wise thing I had done since arriving in Prague.
Lucy had arranged for me to creep along in the wake of Xox's entourage, provided that I was a good little mouse. I got to ride in one of the innumerable black Jeeps escorting the great man through Prague's winding streets, blowing aside sullen bystanders with splitting siren calls. It was all great fun and at the end of it all, in the grand square in front of Prague Castle, I was treated to the spectacle of Xox's limousine sweeping up to the Castle gates. The motionless toy soldiers in their brightly colored uniforms remained still as ever in their sentry boxes on either side of the great gates while a whole detachment of olive-uniformed palace guards opened the gates ceremoniously and brought the convoy in, even until the very heart of the Castle, under the sprawling shadow of the Cathedral. A solitary grey suit in an olive sea, Xox was taken to see Good King Wenceslas in his private quarters, while the rest of us waited in monotonously gilded anterooms and tried to make polite conversation in broken German with the President's courtiers. A half hour passed and we squinted discreetly up our sleeves; at the hour we looked with open perplexity at our watches; three hours later, we were all slumped in our seats, snoring. Eventually, noisily clearing their throats, the two great men roused us. At the subsequent press conference neither Xox nor the President would reveal what had kept them closeted together so long but they had clearly had fun: Good King Wenceslas looked marginally less morose than he had ever done since his glory days as Wenceslas the Dissident, writing surrealist verse in communist dungeons and Xox had on his usual cat-slurped-cream grin. I wondered idly what the wire dangling out of his right trouser pocket led to. What was that object in Xox's pocket weighing down his trousers on the right hand side? About the size of a remote control…
I was writing a letter next morning to Flossie, proudly retailing the whole experience (and filling in some details: I hadn't really seen Good King Wenceslas show Xox the cyanide-filled tooth which had given him courage in the face of all interrogation, but I was sure he must have had one and I thought Floss should learn from his experience for when she was next held captive and tortured), when Lucy marched in. I reached around to give her a kiss and a squeeze, but she would have none of that. She was all business that day, and I sighed and prepared myself to follow orders.
"Professor Masaryk will see you. Now."
I jumped out of my chair in fright. "You said he couldn't see me for the next five days!"
"He can. I made time."
"Okay. When?"
"In five minutes."
"Five…" I looked speechlessly at myself, unshaven, sockless, in tattered jeans and sweatshirt. "Can I go like this?"
"No. Be in my office on the twentieth floor in five minutes." Lucy marched away. At the door she turned and with heartless calm told me to clip my fingernails. I stared at the door in outrage but did what she said.
"Come in, come in," a rich baritone boomed. Lucy fixed my collar and smiled at me with fond encouragement, like an experienced mother smiling at her littlest one going back to school after a holiday. I took a deep breath and walked into a large room panelled in gleaming walnut wood and lined with glass-fronted bookshelves. At the far end of the room, a tall distinguished-looking elderly gentleman rose from behind an enormous mahogany desk covered with papers and files, and advanced rapidly towards me, arm outstretched. At last he reached me, shook my hand vigorously, stared probingly into my left eye, nodded (I hoped approvingly), smiled, took my arm, and led me to a long couch flanked by two fat armchairs.
"Sit down, sit down, my dear boy! I am sorry I have not been able to see you before now, but you understand, I have been so busy..."
He took off his thick glasses and rubbed them ineffectually against the knife-edge crease of his trousers with a veined and mottled hand. After some time, he looked up with reddened eyes, their pale grey centers pathetic without the protection of the thick lenses. A sigh emanated from the depths of his soul.
"I have so many tasks to perform and so little help. It is all very difficult. Hadzhooo..." I thought he was sneezing but then I gladly realized that he too was just having difficulty pronouncing Xox's name. "Hdzoosh expects his men to do their duty. It is too much to expect! At times I feel... very alone."
"But Lucy..." I ventured timidly.
"Ah, Lucy!" Professor Masaryk beamed. "Lucy is invaluable. She remembers everything. She knows when I am supposed to meet someone. Where I should be. She brings me letters to sign." His voice took on a note of hushed awe. " She even gives me vitamins. Lucy is a treasure. But she cannot do everything. There are so many decisions which only I can take at the moment. This is why we need a Rector. Why we need you."
I stared at him blankly. "You want me to be the Rector?"
Professor Masaryk threw back his head and laughed richly for several minutes. "Ah, no, that is not what I meant, that is not what I meant at all," he said at last, spluttering a fine spray of saliva in my face, obviously still overwhelmed by the humor of the thought. I smiled uncertainly. "No, no, I merely meant that we need able-bodied young men like you to assist us. And we need a Rector."
"But aren't you the Rector, sir?"
"No," Professor Masaryk said, waving his hands in limp self-deprecation. "I am merely the Director of the Czech college of the University of Truth and Justice. But there are other colleges as well. In Hungary, for instance." His brow darkened momentarily. He was about to say something but then he restrained himself. "And the Poles. The Slovenes. Ksoosh wants a college in every country of Central Europe. And why stop there?" The Professor waved a hand through the air. "There are so many parts of the world deprived of truth and justice. Why not a College of the University of Truth and Justice in every benighted country of the world?"
"How many students does the university have, sir?"
Professor Masaryk sighed. "None. At the moment. For several years now we have been studying the possibility of having students. We have held curriculum conferences. We have authorized task forces, commissions, and research projects headed by distinguished academics to investigate the requisite pre-conditions. To establish the necessary infrastructure. It is not easy to set up a University, you know. Even if you have unlimited money."
He shook his head and finger at me. "As an old academic, I know how difficult it is to have students. Students place an intolerable strain on any institution. They have to be taught. Supervised. Examined. And then they always whine and complain about everything. Institutions have to be strong to survive students. They have to be stable. They have to put down roots first. And we are so young!" The Director smiled engagingly. "At this stage the University is like a... like a fragile plant. So easily trampled by the impatient footsteps of students. The young can be so cruel." He looked around for inspiration. It came to him. He snapped his fingers in triumph. "Or again, the University can be likened to a pure young girl. Like Lucy. Brought up by caring parents in an atmosphere of gentleness and love. Peace and love," he added, involuntarily crossing himself before resuming his analogy. "Would you like this sheltered young girl, the University, to be given to some brutal rapist, to be seduced, ravished, violated?" He looked at me accusingly. There were tears in his watery grey eyes.
"No, sir. I suppose you're right."
"Well, Hadzooosh does," the Director said, moodily. "He wants students. Now. This year. This month! He doesn't seem to care about the University. Oh, he's paying for it and I suppose he thinks that gives him the right to impose students on us. The problem with him is that he is so decisive. He is a billionaire and he may even be a genius but he is not after all an academic. He should listen to us. We have said it in the Senate and in the committees. We have said it in every meeting and in every report. It is no use. He listens, politely enough, and then he just asks `So when will the University have students?' Oh well. Maybe the Rector can make him understand."
"So is there a Rector, sir?"
Professor Masaryk looked at me suspiciously and then relaxed. "It is supposed to be a top secret. No one must know. But I suppose I can tell you. After all, you will be his Special Assistant." I gaped at him. He nodded and smiled at me. "Yes, that is what we have decided. Killjoy-Yuck recommended you in the highest possible terms. He said that you were discreet. Responsible. Level headed. Trustworthy. Intelligent. Hard working." My jaw dropped open again. I closed my mouth quickly. No doubt Terence had his reasons for this shameless lie. And I was, after all, supposed to be working for him. Wasn't I?
"So I can tell you. But you must not divulge this information to anyone until the formal announcement is made. It will be in every newspaper in the world tomorrow!" He chuckled and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "It will put this University on the map! It will shock the world! It will make History!"
"Who is it, sir?" I asked eagerly.
"Hell," Professor Masaryk breathed.
"Professor Hell?"
"Lord Hades, Brigadier-General Sir Otto Hell, K.B.C, F.A.B, F.A.E., Professor Emeritus of Harvard, Yale, and the Universities of Chicago, California, and Cambridge," Professor Masaryk intoned, rolling the syllables around as though he were savoring thick glutinous mouthfuls of Christmas cake. "The most influential intellectual in the world. A living legend. He has consented at last to be our Rector. It took months of cajolery, coaxing, wheedling. But at last we bribed, I mean, persuaded him to accept the position."
"I would be proud to work for Professor Hell, sir," I said sincerely.
"Anybody would," Masaryk snapped impatiently. "That's the point. Can you begin to imagine how difficult it was to find someone so eminent that none of the Directors of the different Colleges simply could not object? Ugh..." the Director snarled. "Ugh, for instance. Attila Ugh, the Director of the Budapest college. A megalomaniac," he explained. "Would Ugh work under some obscure non-entity? Ugh wants to run the whole University himself, you see," Masaryk sighed, "like the rest of us." He corrected himself. "Not me, of course. I am a humble man. All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air, where I can talk to some students now and again, to suggest a few books for them to read, to build them up in their careers. Perhaps, one day, when I am long since dead, they will remember me as an older colleague who helped them a little." He frowned at me impressively. "It is the only reason why I have come out of my modest retirement to help Shoosh with this University. And my task will be much lighter now. I won't have to deal with Ugh any more. Hell can handle him. Hell can handle anyone. Perhaps he can even handle Shoodzh."
"Do you know Professor Hell well, sir?"
"We were schoolboys together," Masaryk said, a faraway look in his eyes. "After that I lost touch with him for many years. There was the war and then the Communists took over and Hell escaped yet again from Czechoslovakia and I was not allowed to leave. But I have known him for almost seventy years now."
"That's a long time."
"Yes. That is why I am so happy that Hell will be here. He will be on my side. We are supposed to have lunch together today."
"Is he already here, sir?"
"Yes. He will officially start work tomorrow. And you will work for him." Professor Masaryk stared at me appraisingly. I was wearing my best black suit and flowery tie. My nails were clipped and clean. I had taken one of Lucy's vitamins. I was fresh-faced and full of vim. "Why don't you join us?" the Director invited me hesitantly. "Zoosh has left and so have Ugh and Piknik, so there will only be Killjoy-Yuck and Monica Bigglesworth-Fume and Hell and I. I suppose I might as well introduce you to Hell. No time like the present! Let me ask Lucy..." At that moment Lucy entered the room. "Speak of the devil!" Professor Masaryk ejaculated, looking at me proudly. I smiled admiringly since he seemed a tad vain about his idiomatic English and I like to please.
"Lucy, my dear, should I invite this young man to lunch?"
"Yes, sir," Lucy replied demurely, the perfect secretary. "Lord Hades is already here. He said he likes to be punctual."
"Is he waiting outside?" Professor Masaryk exclaimed. He looked flustered. He smoothed his hair and straightened his tie and retreated behind his desk. "Show him in, show him in! It won't do, it won't do at all to keep Hell waiting!"
