Back | Next
Contents

THOR'S DAY 

CHAPTER V 

The heart of modern poetry is, at least negatively, very like the heart of the barbarian kind. It is an intriguing thought: we have sacked Rome yet again! 

Why did the Viking chief revere his poet so? If I may say it (please do not misunderstand) the chief needed his skald as he needed his wife, and for much the same reason. 

Listen: when we speak of Siegfried, or Arthur, we speak only tangentially of the heroes themselves. We cannot meet or touch them, can but guess what manner of men they were. 

But, being heroes, they shot out tales, and tales are a kind of seed. They lodge in the poet's mind as in a woman's womb, and when the poet has completed his labor he brings forth the saga. The saga is neither the hero nor the poet, but their mutual child, a child who may live forever, or generate eternal progeny of his own (think how Svipdag's saga lives on even today in the legend of William Tell!). The saga is all that remains of the hero, a greater monument than any son.... 

 

Martell closed the cover of Hrafnsmál, Sigfod Oski's best known work. He had picked it up idly and opened it to the preface while trying to make up his mind to tackle the student papers on his desk. He told himself he ought to brush up his Oski, since he'd be hearing him read tonight. 

His hand hurt, but sleep had helped, and he could write if he went carefully. No reason not to work if he made up his mind to it. But his mind was elsewhere. 

He had dreamed of heroism as a boy, poring over every book he could find in the school library that had anything to do with Vikings. 

He had fantasized himself born in that age, tall and strong and grimly brave. He would have been better than the historical Vikings of course. He wouldn't have robbed, or burned, or taken slaves, or raped (he wasn't sure at that age what rape was, but he was sure it was something he wouldn't have done). He would have fought only for freedom and justice, and the cargoes of booty he brought home in his sleek ship would have been taken from evil kings and oppressors. 

He had loved the Viking gods, even (for a short time) contemplating praying to them: Thor, strongest and kindest, though far from the brightest. Tyr, the swordsman who broke his oath to bind the monster wolf Fenris, then bravely let the beast bite his hand off in recompense. Frey, the fertility god whose special attributes were not explained in books written for children. And Loki the trickster, father of doom yet blood-brother to the greatest of them all — Odin the Allfather. Odin, dark and mysterious, Odin the wanderer, Odin the magician, shape-changer, deceiver, doomed to be eaten by the Wolf Fenris, Loki's child, on the Last Day; a chieftain who gave great gifts when he pleased but promised nothing. Tragic gods, limited gods, beautiful gods. Gods a man could die for, and with, in a simpler time. 

The memories brought that cold regret that haunts every reflective man — the conviction that somehow, somewhere, he has missed the one path that would have led to his proper destiny, a consummation lost now forever. All that remains is the disappointment of friends and the mockery of enemies. Too late

His truth-sickness twisted his gut and bent him over in his chair. Lie

What's happening to me

When he'd gotten his composure he sat with his elbows on the desktop. He picked his letter-opener out of his pencil mug. The opener was a miniature replica of a Viking sword, a souvenir of Oslo. A couple years back he'd snapped its blade prying open a carton. He thought there were two things he could do with it: either locate a miniature anvil and make an Excalibur of it, or find someone to weld it together for him. 

A picture from boyhood came to him. 

His father had stood in the old tool shed, masked like a knight, lighting a welding torch, the gray rod in its grip burning whiter than white at the end. 

"Don't look at it," his father had said. 

The welding machine hummed a hair-standing note, and the smell of sulphur filled his nose as he watched the shadows move on the jars and cans of nails and bolts lined up on the shelves over the bench. 

Afterwards, while the wagon hitch cooled, he had asked, "How does it work?" 

"The welding?" 

"Yeah." 

"All metals want to weld when they meet," his father had said, pulling off his gloves. "The reason they don't is the impurities on the surface. The welding torch burns the impurities away, melts the metal, and it just runs together. Simple." 

The toolshed had been bulldozed and plowed over years ago, and an agribusiness owned the farm. Martell ached for a place and a time lost almost without evidence. How strong his father had been! But then he had had to be, to bear the sadness that had come to stay.... 

Maybe I should have stayed on the farm, he thought. Maybe I owed them that — 

His stomach lurched again. It was another lie, self-pity. 

What's happening to me?  

He thought of last night, of the young man's demand, his own refusal. I can't lie, he thought. Anybody can lie. NOT lying is the problem for normal people. 

Elaine had called him a snob. She said he purposely sought out unpopular positions. 

No, he wouldn't think about Elaine. 

For distraction he turned to the essays. The first one he opened began, I think Charlemagne was one of the greatest Frenchmen in history

Someone knocked at the office door. He put the paper down without regret and said, "Come in." 

His visitor was a student, a girl named Cindy Halstrom. Cindy was a good student, an overweight girl with limp dark hair and a weak chin. She was carrying books and wearing a Norwegian sweater. 

He asked her to sit down and she said, "I want to talk to you about Scandinavian History." 

She was lying.  

"Are you all right, Mr. Martell?" Martell made an effort to relax his face. 

"It's nothing. What were you saying?" 

"I've been having some trouble with Scandinavian History." 

"As I recall you've been doing pretty well, Cindy." 

"I'm used to doing better. I've almost always been a 4.0 student. After all, I can't depend on my looks." She shifted her small blue eyes and laughed a little false laugh. 

Martell looked away too. He would have known what was happening even without the internal lie detector. It was never fun, and it sometimes it got nasty. And the timing couldn't have been worse. 

His glance fell on the books Cindy had set on his desk. The top one was one of the required texts for Women's Studies 201 — "The Myth of Heterosexual Reproduction" and Other Feminist Classics. It seemed so sincere it was soothing. Underneath was another title, this one for a Psychology course: The Psychopathology of Heroism

"I've been having trouble concentrating," Cindy said. "There've been things on my mind." 

"We all have times like that." 

"I've been — something's been bothering me. I guess I'm in love, you know? Only I know I don't have any chance, and it's — it's kind of hard." 

His experience in these situations had given him a long list of things not to say. His list of things he ought to say had no items on it. 

There was a minute of silence. Rats could be heard scuttering in the walls. 

Cindy spoke again. "I've been talking with a lot of my friends — well not a lot, I don't have a lot of friends — and everybody's glad you didn't get into any trouble over Julie Anderson. Everybody knows she's a slut." 

"I suppose she's... unhappy, like so many people. But I appreciate your confidence." 

"I just want you to know that a lot of people always believed in you. You're — you're very special to us." 

"Thank you." Here it comes. 

"Mr. Martell, what do you do when you're in love — really in love — with somebody you can't get near? When you think about them all day long, and lie awake thinking about them at night, and you can't study or even see straight?" 

Martell breathed deeply, avoiding her eyes. "I can tell you some things that are true, but they won't help," he said carefully. "First of all, you will get over it." 

"I've heard you carried a torch for a woman for more than ten years." 

Who had told that story?  

"I'm... a lot older than you." What was that supposed to mean? "But even I got over my first love." 

"I know I'm not pretty." Cindy left the sentence hanging between them, suspended eight inches above the desk top. 

Martell might have comforted her with a lie. 

She tried again. "I've never been able to think of myself as attractive." 

Martell said nothing. He notice that his ankles had crossed themselves, and were hurting each other. 

"Do you think — would it be possible — could somebody like you, maybe, ever love somebody like me?" 

"Cindy —" 

"You think I'm ugly, don't you?" 

"I wouldn't call you that —" 

"But you wouldn't call me pretty?" 

Again he had nothing to say. 

She broke into tears. 

"I can't lie to you, Cindy. I respect you too much to tell you things you know aren't true just to make you feel better." 

Stupid thing to say. She went on crying. 

"I'd be playing games with you — treating you like a child. I don't think you're a child. I think you're a strong, capable young woman — stronger than you know — strong enough to deal with real life. 

"If you feel you've got to be pretty to live, I don't know what to tell you. You don't have to be pretty to be loved. And you don't have to be pretty to me to be pretty to somebody — probably somebody a lot better than me. But you can't escape your own life. You've got to live it and no other." 

"It's a lousy life." Cindy's head was bowed, her hands twisted in her lap. "What do they say? 'Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall never be disappointed'?" 

Martell looked up sharply. "I deny that," he said. "I don't claim to know the meaning of life, but I know it's not that. The Universe is not against people who hope and dream. Dreamers sometimes win and they sometimes lose, but the ones who don't dream never win. I don't know if you're a Christian or not. I'm not, but that's one thing I buy in Christian theology. No cautious bargaining with life, asking nothing and expecting nothing. It's a matter of giving up everything to win everything, for God and Man both. I can't say I live that way, but I feel the truth of it." 

His animation gave her the chance to catch and hold his eye. 

"It's easy to talk," she said. 

"A lot easier than living. The story you heard was true. There's a woman who walked out of my life, and I think about her every day. I wanted to die at first, and I hated her, and I hated myself. 

"But I lived, Cindy. I chose to live with what I couldn't change, and make the best of the life I had. I found I could live with loneliness, with being different from everybody around me. I learned to put my solitude to use. I think it's worthwhile. I'm not sorry to be alive." 

Cindy stood up and collected her books. "I'm sorry I bothered you with something so stupid —" 

"I didn't say —" 

"Just one thing, Mr. Martell. Would you have turned me down if I looked like Julie Anderson?" She fled, leaving a wake of misery behind. 

Martell looked at the door. He felt guilty, but he wasn't worried about her. The Supreme Court's Mortman v. Main decision had guaranteed suicide as a constitutional right, and the attrition among teenagers had become frightening, but he didn't think Cindy would go that route. She had brains and courage. She'd survive. 

Sure she would. 

He called her House Mother to ask her to keep an eye on the girl. He could hear the woman's voice constrict when he said his name, as if she'd smelled something too long in the back of the refrigerator. Not everybody believes in me, he thought. 

He had no appetite at lunchtime so he walked to the library. On the way he met the Dean of Instruction. He stopped her. 

"Oh, hello, Carl." The Dean was a dark-haired, compact woman with thick glasses. "How's the hand?" 

"I'll live. Look, I need to know what happened at the meeting last night." 

"You were vindicated. What more can I say?" 

"Then Julie admitted she was lying? Did she say why?" 

The Dean looked away. "That's... privileged information, I'm afraid." 

"But I'm concerned here! I was accused without warning, now I'm off the hook the same way. I need to make some kind of sense out of the whole thing." 

The Dean laughed and laid a hand on Martell's arm. "Carl, you're a romantic. This is the real world. Things never make sense. You're free and clear — don't push it." She walked away. 

* * *

"You could make money off this," said Roy Corson that afternoon in Martell's office, perched in his usual place on the corner of the desk. 

Martell had been explaining why he hadn't let him cover for him; about his inability to lie. "Does it sound pathological to you?" he asked. "Do you think I need professional help?" He didn't say he could detect lies in other people. It was comforting to know he could still withhold information. 

Roy said that, in Martell's shoes, he would go directly to a psychiatrist, "Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dollars. 

"You could make money off this. You could write a book with the shrink as collaborator. You scribble pretty well for a historian. Call it The George Washington Syndrome. In six weeks half the country would think they had it." Like most English professors Roy was always on the lookout for a bestseller. 

"Does that mean you think I'm crazy or not?" 

"Of course you're crazy, Carl. Celibacy mixed with religion is a worse combination than booze and pills. Any day now you'll be letting that one-legged preacher dunk you in a swimming pool." 

"He's a Lutheran, Roy. They don't do rebaptisms. You teach at a Lutheran school, you ought to know that." 

"Not my department. And don't change the subject. You know what your problem is, and you know Dr. Corson's prescription." 

"Yes...." 

"You need to get laid. Soon and often. Wanton and superficial women, and never the same one twice. Just remember to use protection." 

"Crazy sex isn't what I'm looking for, Roy." 

"That's because you've crammed your head full of ideals. Believe me — between the sheets love and crazy sex are all the same thing. Especially if you're plastered, which I also recommend highly." 

Martell's usual response was, "I have neither the courage nor the stamina." Today he found himself saying, "I don't think I could treat a woman that way." 

Roy looked as if he'd been slapped. Harrassment suits and political incorrectness accusations in the departments had made all educators a little paranoid. Trust was carefully given and quick to evaporate. 

"I'm sorry," Martell rushed to say. "I didn't mean to preach. It's this George Washington thing — it plays hell with my sense of humor. I'm afraid I won't be invited to many parties." 

"I guess not." Martell thought he glimpsed something behind Roy's eyes, some native of a place deeper than a misunderstanding between friends, but he couldn't be sure. 

They shared a few moments of silence, listening to the ever-present rats at play. 

"You're coming to the Oski shindig tonight, I suppose," Roy said at last. 

"Oh sure." Martell was happy to change the subject. "I'm a fan. I wouldn't miss it." 

"I wouldn't call myself a fan," said Roy. "All this Volsungs and Valkyries business leaves me pretty cold. But Oski's hot stuff, especially in a small pond like this. I know I'm mixing my metaphors, you stick to history. Anyway, I'd be a fool to miss the chance to kiss all those important backsides." 

"I'll see you there then." Martell looked at his watch. "Almost showtime." 

Going out Roy turned back at the door. 

"Are you really falling for this Jesus business?" he asked. "I mean, everybody's got a right to be an idiot in their own way, but some ways are more pleasant than others for your peer group." 

"I don't know Roy. That's the truth. Let's say I'm sure I believe in something. I believe life is good. For all the garbage in the world, I'd say the flowers are worth at least as much as the garbage. And I think the people who look at the flowers are better equipped to survive than the ones who only look at the garbage." 

"I could argue that point." 

"It seems as if every time I read a book that speaks to me, that's really satisfying and nourishing, it turns out the author has some kind of religious bent. I guess I believe in whatever it is that makes people hope. What do I lose if I'm wrong?" 

"My son, you'll find that nine times out of ten the truth will turn out to be whatever turns your stomach worst in this toilet world," said Roy. "And even if you're right, I can't see what it has to do with a Jew on a gallows." 

"It gets our attention." 

"Flowers and garbage, my friend. In the end they're all the same organic material. All the same." Roy closed the door behind him. Martell wondered what he wasn't saying. 

Walking to class he saw Julie Anderson sitting by herself on a bench in front of one of the dorms, wrapped in a long coat. She was wearing stereo headphones and her eyes were closed. 

Martell stood and looked at her. I was important that he go over and speak to her. His class could wait a few minutes. 

He went to it anyway. 

Back | Next
Contents
Framed