The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
both of us just missed smacking our heads on the windshield. Fearing for her
safety (I told myself), she shut the door, waved, and strode up the driveway to
her house. Another wave from the top of the walk, and I drove off.
by the next morning, the weather had cleared and everything looked
scrubbed and sparkling, the edges of buildings and tops of trees a bit too
sharp to be real, the sky too glassy blue not to be painted. Intricate little frost
fronds snaked across one of my apartment’s windows from opposite corners,
greeted each other, and merged into a white crystal bruise: a Saturdaymorning
gift. It was easily the most beautiful thing in my apartment, and it
would melt by noon. Meanwhile, I pulled a blue button-down shirt—my only
semi-ironed shirt—from where it hung, scrunched into the wall of my closet,
put on a tie and a pair of slacks, and left my minimalist squalor to meet Professor
Jadid for lunch.
On my way to Wickenden, though, I wanted to stop by the Talcott playing
field. I had liked Reverend Makgabo immensely, though I could hardly say
why: we hadn’t really done more than exchange pleasantries. But his quiet
self-possession seemed an antidote to Hampden’s excessively hearty posturing.
More to the point, I wondered whether he knew anything else about
Hannah. I suppose I mumbled something to myself about checking any
potential source, some sort of journalistic rationalization, but, really, I was
just interested in her. As captivating and attractive as she was, there also
seemed something closed and unreadable about her, and not just because of
her reaction to the man at the bar. I did not have high hopes for a priest’s gossiping,
but I figured it was worth at least a greeting.
When I got to the playing field, Reverend Makgabo, dressed in a greenand-white-striped
rugby shirt and shorts, stood in the center of about twenty
seated teenage boys, holding and gesticulating with a rugby ball. “. . . and
you must meet academic standards. This means that if you wish to play with
us, no failing grades, no skipping classes, no fighting, no suspensions. They
say that what you call soccer is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, and
rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen. I shall expect no less. Now,
143