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CHAPTER 1
THERE WAS A BUMPER STICKER Roger Knight saw around the campus on game days when fans flowed in from across the land. GOD MADE NOTRE DAME #1. The claim was theologically impeccable so long as one had in mind the Lady after whom the university was named and not the university itself, still less one of the varsity teams. A statue of the eponymous Notre Dame graced the golden dome, a huge effigy visible for miles around, the emblem of the university named for her: Notre Dame du Lac, to be exact, Our Lady of the Lake. Or rather to be inexact, since there were two campus lakes, Saint Joseph's and Saint Mary's. But if the great golden dome and the statue of the Virgin atop it were visible from the ground, they were even more so from the air. Flights coming into South Bend followed a landing pattern that brought them in low over the campus, and pilots liked to give their passengers an extended view.
"There she is, folks, Notre Dame."
Thus spoke the pilot of the commuter plane Roger and his brother, Phil, were flying in on from Chicago, propeller driven, cramped, a notch or two above a hang glider. Roger was wedged into two seats, the armrest between them raised, with Phil across the aisle. The little plane had headed immediately out over Lake Michigan when it took off from O'Hare and had stayed over the great lake until a few minutes before entering the pattern that took it over the campus.
"That's the stadium!" cried the pilot, and those with window seats dutifully pressed their noses against the glass and looked. "And that's the golden dome. See that statue on top of it? That's Knute Rockne, the famous football coach."
Roger looked at Phil. "He can't be serious, Roger."
But apparently he was serious. Perhaps he thought the statue was of Rockne in academic garb.
The pilot would not be the first one to mistake the athletic excellence of the university for its central purpose. This year God had indeed made Notre Dame #1 in both senses. Its academic ranking had risen into the top ten, a fact featured on the home page of the university web site, to the chagrin of senior faculty computer literate enough to have noticed it.
"What in hell is U.S. News & World Report?"
"A lesser TIME."
"What is time?"
"The measure of motion," broke in a philosopher, and cackled.
Apart from the questionable legitimacy of such academic ranking, the varsity teams had excelled in every sport. The football team, after half a dozen years of drought, had ended its season playing for the national championship. Alas, they lost, but loyal fans attributed this to the outrageous officiating. Whatever wounds the loss inflicted were soon healed by the performance of the basketball teams, women's and men's, both of which were said to be headed for the Final Four. Even hockey, that poor brother of the Joyce Athletic Center, had swept its divisional play-offs, but this success melted away before the ascendancy of the basketball teams.
The two aspects of the university were loved unequally by the Knight brothers. When Roger had been offered the Huneker Chair of Catholic Studies, he had been flattered and delighted. He had not taught after receiving his doctorate from Princeton as a precocious nineteen year old. His enormous weight and eccentric manner had stood in the way of an academic career, and after a stint in the navy, where he ballooned to a size that earned him an early discharge, he lived with Phil and eventually became, like him, a private detective. They had been working out of Rye, New York, whither they had moved after Phil had been mugged in Manhattan for the third time. That one whose investigative services were his bread and butter should himself be unsafe on the streets of the metropolis did not seem a good marketing line. From Rye, Phil began to run an ad in the phone directories of various major cities, giving only an 800 number and accepting only those clients who offered a particular challenge and one that did not pose too great a difficulty for Roger's participation. Their's had been a pleasant life, active and lucrative enough for their purposes, and allowing Roger to pursue his myriad intellectual interests and carry on an enormous E-mail correspondence with kindred souls around the globe. The offer from Notre Dame, a welcome and unlooked for surprise, had meant the end of their life in Rye.
"Of course you'll take it," Philip had cried.
"But the agency?"
"I can work from anywhere, Roger. Clients don't know we live in Rye unless we tell them. South Bend might be even more convenient."
Roger was not deceived. Phil lifted the notion of sports fan to hitherto unknown heights, and he had long followed the fortunes of Notre Dame with a close and biased eye. Moving to South Bend ranked for Phil just below the beatific vision. His enthusiasm removed Roger's hesitation. Roger himself had looked forward to the library and the stimulation of his new colleagues, to say nothing of the prospect of teaching.
And so they had come to Notre Dame. The few years of their residence had rooted them in the university to such a degree that it took an effort of memory to think of a time before this.
Their flight from Chicago touched down, and the passengers straggled into the terminal. Roger took up his vigil by the baggage carousel, while Phil went to fetch the van from long-term parking. The vehicle had been remodeled so as to accommodate Roger's bulk. A rotating chair in the middle of the van, behind Phil in the driver's seat, enabled Roger to maneuver like a swivel gunner in World War II. A laptop was anchored to a table and thus out of use when he turned to the back, but he could easily swing east and west and then forward to chat with Phil. But on the ride from the airport this day, both brothers were quiet.
"I want a nap," Phil murmured.
"You deserve it."
Joseph Primero, a prospective client in Minneapolis, whose collection of rare books was destined for Notre Dame, had wanted to interview Philip, and vice versa, and Roger had gone along in order to see Primero's collection. For the nonce, he too could use some rest. But when they pulled up in front of their apartment, located in one of the buildings making up the graduate student village, a horn sounded and Nancy Beatty hopped out of her car and hurried toward them.
"Where have you two been! I was so worried about you."
Phil looked at Roger. "We've been away."
"That explains why your phone wasn't answered. It just rang and rang with no beep to leave a message. Larry wouldn't let me call Campus Security."
It was a pleasant thought that their absence had caused such concern. It was still a novelty for the Knight brothers to have people who worried about them.
"Where's Larry?"
Her eyes rolled upward. "Studying."
"Would you like to come in?"
She thought about it, then shook her head. "No. You're tired. But after this, let someone know when you're going away. Where have you been?"
"Minneapolis."
"Can I help with those?"
Phil had begun to unload their bags from the van. The thought of this frail girl helping him with the luggage brought a frown.
"It was just a thought." She paused. "I do have something to tell you."
"Come on in."
Again she shook her head. "Not now. I want Larry with me when I tell you."
"Can I guess?"
"Don't you dare."
CHAPTER 2
NANCY BEATTY'S FATHER taught in the History Department and that meant she paid only room and board, her tuition covered as a faculty perk. But after freshman year, there was a proviso that she had to work a number of hours each week in return, so she had found a job in the law library, which is how she had met Larry Morton in her senior year. He was then in his third year of law school. The summer before he had interned in a Minneapolis firm and had been offered a job there after graduation.
"How would you like to live in Minneapolis?" he asked Nancy.
"Why do you ask?"
"Why do you think?"
And so they had become engaged.
"A lawyer?" her father had queried.
"He's a wonderful young man," her mother said.
Her parents met his when they visited campus, and they got along. Mr. Morton was in salt, the kind that is strewn on icy roads in Minnesota during the winter months. There were five Morton children of whom Larry was the oldest; and Mrs. Morton, a still beautiful woman whom childbearing had made more beautiful, decided that Larry had made an excellent choice. But Nancy's father was more grudging in his approval. "I thought you were going to graduate school."
She had been admitted to every program for which she had applied, something that filled her professorial father with pride. He obviously found it difficult to believe that she would turn aside from a promising academic career.
"I can take some courses in Minneapolis."
This did not mollify Professor Beatty. He knew all about part-time students. But Nancy's interest in graduate work had waned. She had heard her father's grumbling over the years and knew that all was not idyllic in the groves of academe. Being Larry's wife was future enough for her. Besides, she could go on with the life of the mind in the way Prof. Roger Knight had done before coming to Notre Dame.
"Roger Knight!" Her father was wary of the hotshots brought in from time to time by the administration, a practice that was not exactly a vote of confidence in the faculty members who had borne the heat of the day in the lean years as well as in the more recent fat ones.
"I wish you would make an effort to get to know him."
"He knows where my office is."
Professor Beatty's office was a warren in Decio, cluttered with books and papers and the mechanical typewriter he had bought years before as a graduate student. When she told him of Roger Knight's devotion to the computer, his brow clouded. "I'm not surprised."
Nancy had read of the Luddites who had tried to stop the Industrial Revolution by destroying machinery. Her father would willingly have taken an axe to all the computers on campus where students spent more time than they did among the books in the library.
"Dad, they're all available on the computer."
He just looked at her. Books and computers did not belong in the same sentence.
Nancy told Roger Knight of her father, and one day the huge Huneker Chair of Catholic Studies knocked on Professor Beatty's door in Decio. A cloud of tobacco smoke emerged when the door opened, and a young female instructor who was passing in the hall coughed dramatically and brought a Kleenex to her face.
"Professor Beatty? Roger Knight."
The meeting became a legend in the family. The two men hit it off immediately. Her father had not known of Roger Knight's book on Baron Corvo and their conversation had centered on the last decade of the nineteenth century, the period of the Yellow Book, when platoons of aesthetes had joined the Catholic Church, not least among them Oscar Wilde. But it was a shared interest in Ronald Firbank that clinched the new friendship. Professor Beatty had despaired of ever having a colleague who knew the work of Firbank.
"He influenced Waugh."
"Powell wrote about him."
"His style is exquisite. His work, like his person, was more style than substance."
"Wodehouse."
And so it had gone on. Nancy was delighted. Of all her professors, Roger Knight was the one who had influenced her most. She had taken every course he offered, getting special permission if they were graduate courses. She was writing her senior essay on F. Marion Crawford, and of course she had brought Larry to meet the overweight genius.
"What kind of law will you practice?"
"Trusts."
"Ah."
Actually, Larry got along better with Philip Knight, with whom he could exchange arcane lore about Notre Dame athletics. When Larry gave Nancy a diamond, Roger Knight was the first one after her parents to be told. They had come to the Knight brothers' apartment the day after the brothers returned from Minneapolis to make the announcement. Neither of the brothers was married, but they approved of the institution and were appropriately congratulatory.
"If it is seemly to congratulate a future bride."
"Just don't commiserate with her," Larry said.
"When is the big date?"
"June 17. I hope you'll be here."
"You'll marry on campus?"
"Of course."
CHAPTER 3
IN HIS SEVENTH YEAR ON campus, Larry Morton was at last emotionally prepared for his departure. He would leave Notre Dame with a new wife and a great job awaiting him in Minneapolis. All the years of study now seemed worthwhile. His father was finally reconciled to the fact that Larry would not take over his business, but at least he was returning to his native state.
"If salt lose its savor," Professor Knight murmured.
Larry said nothing. He had become used to such "gnomic utterances" (Nancy's phrase) from the professor. Often Larry went off with Phil to basketball and hockey games while Nancy visited with Roger. Afterward they would gather in the Knight apartment where Roger would make popcorn while Larry and Phil rehearsed the game and Nancy and her favorite professor would continue with their own conversation. It was clear that Nancy would miss these sessions with Roger Knight, but Minneapolis was not a million miles away and she would be coming back from time to time to see her parents. It was understood that she would model her life, to the degree possible, on the preacademic years of Roger Knight.
"You mustn't confuse learning with education or with being on a campus."
Nancy nodded. Had she ever disagreed with Roger Knight? There had been a time, blessedly brief, when Larry had felt jealous of the huge man's influence on Nancy. But after all, it was Knight's example that had decided her against graduate school, something that would probably have postponed their marriage since she had planned on attending Northwestern.
Nancy had been surprised when Larry told her that they could be married in Sacred Heart.
"Don't they have a waiting list?" "I was lucky."
"You should have taken me with you."
But he did not want to explain to her that he had secured the date years ago and why. He had not seen Dolores Torre since graduation, and Nancy knew nothing of her. There seemed no need to explain the youthful love that he and Dolores had thought would lead to marriage. How different it had been from what he felt for Nancy. Sometimes he missed the uncalculated way in which he and Dolores had plunged into talk of marriage. He had had a cool head when he'd proposed to Nancy, but then he was older now by half a dozen years. He had not as yet spoken with Father Rocca, but he had the copy of the note the priest had given him, assuring him that he could marry in Sacred Heart on June 17, 2002. One day he decided to drop by the Basilica and confirm the reservation.
"The young woman lives elsewhere?" Father Rocca asked, as if explaining to himself why the prospective groom had come alone to his office.
"I just wanted to make sure June 17 is all set."
"This June!"
"Yes."
The priest opened a ledger and began to flip pages. He found what he was looking for and then looked abjectly at Larry.
"June 17 is all booked."
"One of the weddings will be mine."
"But there is no way ..."
That is when Larry showed the priest the note Father Rocca had written years before. Father Rocca read it and then looked uncomfortably at Larry. "What is your fiancée's name?" "Beatty. Nancy Beatty. Her father is in the English Department."
"But this note says Dolores Torre."
"We broke up."
"Larry, Dolores is getting married here on June 17. I remember it now. She showed me this same note when she confirmed the date."
Larry left the rector's office in a daze and wandered toward the lake. How could he explain this to Nancy? Canada geese and ducks provided a sound track for his jumbled thoughts.
Relief came two days later while he was still trying to think of a way to break the news to Nancy that they would not be married in Sacred Heart. The truth was he couldn't accept the loss of that reservation. He had as much right to it as Dolores. And then came the call from the firm in Minneapolis he would join in June. Could he come up for a seminar offered to new lawyers in the firm. Immediately, he left a message for Dolores.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Emerald Aisle"
by .
Copyright © 2001 Ralph McInerny.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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