55: Haunted Memory

When Alex and Valandur entered the office, Felicity was not there, though there was evidence of her presence.

“I think she has a class right about now,” Alex explained as he put down his messenger bag and hung his coat on the coat tree that sat in the corner of the office. “She’ll be back later. Help yourself to coffee or tea if you want.” He went to his desk and turned on the computer, pulling out a thumbdrive from a pants pocket and inserting it into a USB slot.

“So what will you do if none of your students show up looking for help?” Valandur asked.

“Well, I’ve got two essays to write for Monday,” Alex replied. “I figured now’s as good a time to start on them as any.”

“And what are your assignments?” Valandur wandered around the office examining the potted plants on the window sill, checking the soil in them and shaking his head. He went over to where the coffee was and found some water in a bottle and went back to the plants and began watering them. While he was doing that he glanced out the windows, apparently admiring the view as far as Alex was concerned.

“Well, in my Intro to Linguistics class I have to write an essay about the different types of linguistic approaches and how they relate to one another and for Narratology, I have some poetry that I have to analyze for structure, you know, their layout, the metre, rhyming scheme if there is one, genre, that sort of thing. Eventually, we’ll move into fiction.”

Valandur turned around to survey the office. “Which poems?” he said in a distracted tone, as if he wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation.

Alex looked up from the computer. “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” he replied.

Valandur nodded, turning back to look out the window. “I am not familiar with that one. Should you not be analyzing something by your William Shakespeare?”

“Val, what are you doing?” Alex demanded.

Valandur turned around again. “This office is poorly structured. No matter where you move your desk you are in full view of anyone on the roof of the building across from us.”

Alex got up to join him at the window and looked out, gauging the distance and then taking a look at the room around them. “We can close the blinds,” he suggested. “Then anyone on the roof won’t be able to see in and won’t be able to tell who is there.”

“And how do you explain that to Ms Cohen?” Valandur asked.

“Explain what?”

They looked up to see the object of their conversation entering the room, going to her desk and putting down her books and purse. Alex smiled. “Guten Tag.Wie geht’s?”

“Guten Tag. Mir geht es gut und selbst?”

“Gut. Felicity, this is Val Landry. Felicity Cohen.”

“Oh! You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Felicity said, looking a bit flustered as Valandur dutifully put his hand out to shake. Belatedly, she realized this and put her own hand out, but he merely held it, bending over to kiss her knuckles before straightening, giving her a smile.

“If by that, you mean one of the Elves, I am. My name is Valandur and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Uh, likewise,” Felicity replied, taking back her hand and giving Alex a bewildered look.

“Val is a linguist in his own right,” Alex explained. “He was interested in seeing the office. He’ll probably be sitting in on a couple of my classes next week.”

“Oh, I see,” Felicity said. “Well, I hope you enjoy yourself, er, Mr. Landry.”

“Val, please. I am sure I will.”

“So what were you going to explain to me?” Felicity asked, looking at Alex.

“Huh? Ah, oh, um…”

Felicity lifted an eyebrow and Valandur smiled in amusement at Alex’s discomfort. “We were discussing rearranging the furniture to make it less difficult for someone on the roof over there to take a shot at anyone here, but it does not seem that any one spot is less dangerous than another.”

“Why on earth would anyone want to…. You mean, that guy who’s escaped from prison?”

Alex nodded. “He already tried once yesterday.”

“Wait, I think I heard something about that on the news last night, something about the café. That was you?”

“Yes, and I only managed to survive because I’d been given a warning seconds before the shooting. Anyway, the only way I see to avoid getting shot again is to close the blinds so we can’t be seen.”

“Well, wouldn’t we notice someone up on the roof anyway?” Felicity asked.

“How often do you bother to look out the window to specifically see if anyone is on the roof, Ms Cohen?” Valandur asked.

“Please call me Felicity,” she said and then shrugged. “I guess you’re right. I don’t think I’ve even noticed that the roof is directly across from us until you pointed it out to me. It was just sort of there.”

“Exactly,” Valandur said giving her a bright smile, as if she had said something intelligent.

Felicity gave them a worried look. “Do you really think this guy would try something here? How would he get on the roof without anyone taking note?”

“How often do you notice repairmen, Felicity?” Alex asked with a knowing grin. “For that matter, how often do you even acknowledge the presence of the cleaning people who come and empty your trash can?”

She gave them a rueful look. “I see your point.”

Alex nodded. “Well, if you’re okay with it, we’ll just put the blinds three-quarters down so we can still get some natural lighting in here.”

“For how long?” she asked.

Alex shrugged. “That depends on Farrell. We’re working on tracking him down. Eventually he’ll get caught but in the meantime we need to take precautions. I don’t want you or anyone else getting hurt on my account.”

Felicity nodded. “Okay. I can live with that.” She glanced at the clock. “I’d better get going. I have to supervise the language lab. It was nice meeting you, Val.” She put out her hand and this time he shook it.

“And you, Felicity. I hope we will meet again. I am interested in learning about this German you teach.”

“And she speaks Hebrew, too,” Alex interjected. “Now that’s an interesting language and one of the oldest that is still being spoken.”

“I’d be glad to speak to you about both languages,” Felicity said. “Okay, I’m out of here. You’re here until two?”

“Yes. I’ll see you later?”

She nodded and grabbed one of the textbooks and a notebook sitting on her desk, slung her purse over a shoulder and left. For a few moments the two men did not speak. Alex busied himself with pulling down the blinds.

“So you are to analyze this… um… ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ poem,” Valandur said after a moment.

“Huh? Oh, ah, actually no,” Alex replied, looking sheepish. “I just said that to see if you were actually listening.”

“Ah,” Valandur replied with a grin. “But I was listening, Alex. Do not think that because I appear distracted that I am not completely aware of my surroundings. If I needed to, I could give you a verbatim account of every conversation I’ve had with others for the last week.”

“I find that hard to believe, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“So what poems are you to analyze?”

“We have to do three,” he went over to his desk and rifled through a notebook. “Let’s see, one is some lines in the middle of Beowulf, that’s an anonymous poem in Old English written sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries. The instructor said it wasn’t necessary to actually know what the poem said, only to be able to analyze its structure. The second poem is, as you guessed, one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, sonnet fifty, actually, ‘How heavy do I journey on the way’. Shakespeare’s English is considered Early Modern. It’s still readable by most educated people today but even so, you sometimes need a translation of some of the words and phrases that have changed their meanings over time or are no longer in use.”

“And the third poem?”

“One of Robert Frost’s poems, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’. He’s a modern poet. Dead now, but he was writing in the last century. My mom always liked his poetry.”

“So, you have three poems written across three different time periods stretching back anywhere from nine to twelve hundred years, depending on when this Beowulf was written. Will you be comparing them?”

“Hmm… the instructor didn’t say to do that, just to analyze each one using the same criteria.”

“And that is fine as far as it goes, but what then is the point? Do as your instructor has told you but when you are finished examining each poem separately, compare your results to see if there is any commonality as well as differences between them. These poems are all written by those who have spoken some form of English, are they not?”

Alex nodded.

“Then there is a hereditary link between them and you should look for it. It may not be what your instructor is looking for from you but I think it will prove interesting in itself.”

“I guess,” Alex said a little dubiously.

Valandur smiled. “Alex, if you wish to be successful as a linguist, you must think beyond the surface of things. You should be asking yourself why did the instructor choose these particular poems? Was it random choice? Could he have chosen others and obtained the same result? There is a purpose behind the poems that have been selected.”

“What purpose, other than needing examples for us to work on?”

Valandur shrugged. “It could be something as simple as these three poems happen to be your instructor’s favorite poems, or it could be something deeper. It doesn’t matter. You only need to acknowledge that there is a reason for this particular selection and not another. Therefore, it behooves you to look at these poems organically. Robert Frost could not have written his poetry if whoever wrote Beowulf had not put pen to paper and that person could not have done that unless someone further back in time had done so. Do you see what I am saying?”

“I think so,” Alex allowed.

“Let us do this,” Valandur suggested. “Give me a copy of the poems along with the list of criteria you are to look for and I will do the assignment as well and we will compare notes and after that we will discuss their commonalities and differences. You need not include them in the assignment itself but I think it will help you in the long run.”

“Fine by me,” Alex said. “Here, I have each of the poems on my computer. I’ll print you out copies, and here’s a legal pad and a pen. I guess you can use Felicity’s desk. I don’t think she’ll mind.” His hands flew over the keyboard and then the printer in the corner turned on and three sheets came out. Valandur went over and picked them up, reading them.

“Ah, most interesting.”

“With Beowulf we only have to analyze the lines beginning at line thirteen-fifty-seven where a new sentence begins and going to thirteen-eighty-two. This section, according to the instructor, gives a description of a haunted mere where Grendel and his mother live. Grendel was the monster who had been ravaging the Danes. Beowulf, who’s from Sweden, comes to help the king of the Danes and he kills Grendel. Now mom’s out for revenge and Beowulf goes after her, following her into the mere.” He cast a sly grin Valandur’s way and the ellon chuckled.

“One must always be wary of vengeful mothers,” he said as he sat at Felicity’s desk. “So, to work, and if you are called upon to attend to other duties, do so. Perhaps before we leave you will show me this language lab Felicity mentioned.”

“Sure, not a problem.”

The two fell silent as each went to work. Alex had printed out copies of the poems for himself, meaning to transfer his notes to the computer later. He decided to work backwards, starting with Frost’s poem, figuring that would be easier. He recalled that this particular one was a favorite of his mother and he liked it as well.

“You are humming.”

Alex looked over at Valandur in bemusement. “Huh?”

The Elf grinned. “You are humming.”

“Oh, sorry,” Alex said, feeling embarrassed. “Bad habit. I used to drive my colleagues crazy back in the Agency. I was always humming whenever I was doing translations. Ron says it’s a sign of contentment. I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”

Valandur nodded. “I see. Please do not let me stop you. By all means, continue humming.”

“No, I’ll try not to…”

“Alex, do not change yourself for me or anyone else. Be yourself. If humming is something you do to show your contentment, then do it. I do not mind. I was merely commenting.”

“Uh, okay,” Alex said, now feeling self-conscious. He went back to his study, having moved to Shakespeare’s sonnet. At first, he focused on not humming but as he lost himself in the task of analyzing the sonnet, he forgot himself. So far, the first two poems had not been too difficult for him to analyze. He kept in mind what Valandur had said and had tried to see the connection between Frost and Shakespeare, other than the fact that they both spoke a form of English that was recognizable to him.

“Boy, this sonnet is pretty depressing,” he commented to Valandur. “Sounds like the guy is going to his own funeral. This last line, ‘My grief lies onward, and my joy behind’ is pretty bleak.”

“Yes, it does appear that way,” Valandur replied but he made no other comment and Alex went back to studying the texts.

When he got to Beowulf he just stared at the page. None of the words made any sense and he wasn’t even sure how one pronounced some of them. As far as he could see, Beowulf had nothing to do with Shakespeare. Maybe he had to examine some of the poetry in between, like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, to see the connection.

He must have made some kind of noise of dismay, for Valandur asked, “What is the problem?”

Alex looked up. “Uh, oh, nothing really. I just can’t seem to relate to Beowulf. It’s too… alien or something. I can’t believe that today’s English is derived from it.”

“And yet, it is. Even I can see it.”

“I’m not even sure how to analyze it. Where do you start?”

“Look at the poem as a series of patterns,” Valandur suggested. He stood and went over to Alex. “There are two obvious differences between this poem and the other two. Can you see them?”

“Well, the other two have end rhymes though their patterns are not the same and Beowulf doesn’t. It has what we call alliteration, where beginning consonant sounds are the same, like warigeað, wulfhleoþu, and windige on this line here.” He pointed to the poem.

Valandur nodded. “And what is the other difference?”

“Uh, the lines are broken in the middle so there are two half-lines. That seems to be a characteristic of Old English poetry.”

“I think the rhyming scheme and the line patterning go together,” Valandur offered. “What about stress? Where do you think it lies?”

“Hmm… I think where the alliteration is. I mean, I’m not sure how to actually sound the words out but it seems to me that the stress would fall on the alliterated words. Hmm…”

“What?”

“Oh, I just realized that you never have the same alliterative sound being repeated on any two consecutive lines. See? And there doesn’t seem to be a regular pattern of the number of words with the same beginning sound. Also, the last stressed word never seems to alliterate with the others in the line.”

“So you see, you have already determined something of the structure of the poem on a cursory examination,” Valandur said. “I think with further examination you will discover more. I know your instructor would prefer you not to read a translation of the text, but I am curious to know what it actually says.”

“Ah, I can find you a translation online,” Alex said, turning to his computer. “Let’s see. Here we go… um… ‘They dwell apart among wolves on the hills, on windswept crags and treacherous keshes…’ I think that’s a causeway or something. Hmm… this is interesting. Listen. ‘A few miles from here a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch above a mere; the overhanging bank is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.’ And further on: ‘And the mere bottom has never been sounded by the sons of men’.”

“And why do you find that interesting?” Valandur asked.

“Oh, even though it’s not the same, the description sort of reminds me of Winterdark Tarn. You’ve been there, haven’t you?”

Valandur nodded, looking troubled. “Glorfindel took us there not long ago. Something sleeps there that should never waken.”

Alex shivered. “I… I died there, did you know?” he whispered, staring at the computer screen but not really seeing it. It had been weeks since he had even thought about that day, but now he felt a sudden need to speak of the experience. “It was so cold… and dark… and I couldn’t see the surface. My lungs were burning and… and I was so afraid… Caleb was somewhere and I had to find him but I couldn’t and I needed to breathe and….”

He could feel himself panicking, his breathing becoming rapid and his pulse jumping. He tried to stop speaking, get himself under control again, but it was as if a floodgate had opened and the words just stumbled out in a rush.

“It was so bloody cold and dark and my lungs burned and then I couldn’t go on and… oh God, I died… I died and….”

He was weeping now and felt rather than saw Valandur reaching out and pulling him from his seat, holding him in his arms. The Elf fumbled a hand in one of Alex’s pants pockets, pulling out Alex’s phone. Alex was only vaguely aware of any of this, too lost in the horror of the memory that had overtaken him, but he heard the ellon speaking into the phone in Quenya to someone and the only words he recognized were his own name and Vorondur’s. He assumed Val was speaking to Ron.

“Hey! What’s the matter?”

Alex looked up through tear-drenched eyes to see Felicity entering the office, looking concerned. He tried to pull himself together, forcing the tears to stop. He started to move away from Valandur, but the Elf still had one arm around him and his hold tightened as he continued speaking into the phone for a few more seconds before putting it down on the desk and addressing Felicity.

“Alex has had a bad reaction to a recent memory,” he explained to her and then turned his attention to Alex. “I have spoken with Vorondur. He is expecting us.”

“My appointment’s not until four,” Alex said.

“It is now whenever we get there,” Valandur countered.

“But I can’t leave yet,” Alex protested, wiping the tears from his cheeks and sitting back down.

“You might as well leave,” Felicity said. “It’s doubtful that you’re going to get any students and you look like you’re ready to collapse.”

“I do not think Alex is capable of driving, and I have not yet mastered the art,” Valandur said. “Perhaps we can acquire a… a taxi, I believe you call them.”

“Where are you taking him?” Felicity asked.

“Evergreen Drive,” Valandur replied and she nodded.

“I know where that is,” she said. “Look, I was going to leave soon myself. Why don’t I drive you? I assume you can have someone retrieve Alex’s car later?”

“Yes, that would not be a problem, but we don’t want to impose on you….”

“It’s not an imposition. I have to go in that direction anyway. C’mon. Grab your things and let’s go.”

“What about the office?”

“Forget the office. I’ll stick a sign up on the door saying it’s closed due to illness. That will cover us,” Felicity said.

“Come, Alex,” Valandur said solicitously, pulling him back up. “Vorondur is waiting for us.”

Alex nodded, sighing and feeling tired all of a sudden and there was a sense of defeat as he took a few moments to close down the computer and retrieve the thumbdrive. He gathered up his books and notes, shoving them into the messenger bag, then pulled on his coat. Felicity, meanwhile, taped up a note to the office door and then they were leaving.

****

Words are German:

Guten tag. Wie geht’s?: ‘Good day. How are you?’ (familiar form)

Mir geht es gut und selbst?: ‘I’m well and yourself?’

Note: Alex reads from Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, lines 1357b -1359a, 1361b-1364 and 1366-1367.