Shortest Day (14 page)

“Did you know,” said Dr. Box, “that Krishna refused to worship the solar image?
I am a God
, he said,
so why should I salute the sun?
”

“A classic case of hubris,” said Mary, shaking her head wisely. “A very dangerous attitude.” Escaping from Dr. Box, she dodged past her to the central patch of grass, where a bunch of jolly students had set up a Christmas tree. They were draping it with lights and singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

Their light voices clashed with the chant of the Hari Krishna, but it didn't matter. The more noise the better. The churchwomen behind the food table smiled as they served hot soup in paper cups, ladling it out of hot pots plugged into Palmer Nifto's immense network of extension cords.

“Oh!” cried everyone as the lights on the Christmas tree went on. Then—
ppppfffft
—there was a small explosion, and the lights went out.

There were gasps, then laughter. Inside his command headquarters Palmer Nifto swore as his computer went down. In all the tents the electric heaters faded to black. The Hari Krishna people stopped singing, then gamely started up again in the dark.

For a moment Mary Kelly had the insane idea that Dr. Box's blasphemy against the sun had blacked out all the lights. Then she tried to think what to do, because it was obvious that these people couldn't sleep out-of-doors without heat. Looking around at the jumble of dark lumpish dwellings and the thick silhouettes of men, women, and children wrapped up against the cold, she saw them once again as a medieval village struggling to endure the winter while the mistral blew from the Alps, and snow piled up to the rooftops, and the wind shrieked across a thousand miles of Siberian steppe.

Her first impulse was to shout,
Make the sun come back! Bang on kettles! Bang on pots!
Her second was to call out, “Gretchen! Has anybody seen Gretchen?”

But Gretchen was half a mile away, far from the dishevelment of Harvard Towers with its blown fuses, far away beyond the cold grass of Cambridge Common and the heavy traffic on Massachusetts Avenue and Garden Street.

Gretchen was experiencing the Christmas season among the beautiful houses on Brattle Street. She was not aware that Thomas Brattle had corresponded with Isaac Newton; she didn't know that George Washington had lived here, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She saw only the splendid picket fences and the great arks of houses, their windows glowing softly. If there was wretchedness inside those walls, Gretchen did not know it. If suicidal sons and anorexic daughters, alcoholic mothers and unemployed fathers lived on Brattle Street, it was unsuspected by Gretchen Milligan. She saw only the glimmer of lighted Christmas trees, and imagined the happy families within.

Heavy as she was with a baby about to be born, Gretchen was wearied by her long walk. But she pushed on to the Divinity School and found her secret passage to Berkeley Street.

Yes, here was the place she loved best. Gretchen stopped and leaned against the fence to stare. The house looked lovelier than ever, with electric candles in the windows and a wreath on the wall of the front porch. If the Cambridge City Council were to say to her, “Gretchen Milligan, this document grants you ownership of any property in the city—take your pick,” she would choose this house on Berkeley Street with its yellow clapboards and tall windows and pretty trees.

From behind the fence Gretchen inspected all the windows in turn, hoping to see the mistress of the house. Sometimes she was visible, striding quickly from room to room, a handsome woman, smartly dressed—but today she was nowhere to be seen. Gretchen walked boldly up the driveway, hoping to see her through the kitchen window, but the woman remained out of sight. Gretchen began moving around to the back.

“May I help you?”

Someone was standing on the porch. It was the master of the house. Indoors he appeared to be a slow-moving man with gray hair and glasses, but outside he seemed different—taller, balder, paler. He was looking at her strangely.

“Oh, no thanks,” said Gretchen. “I was just—I mean, I just moved in down the street. I got mixed up. I thought this was my house.”

“Oh?” the man said gently. “Which house is your house?”

“Oh, wow, like I forget the number. You see, I'm so new.” Gretchen laughed, and started back down the driveway. “Well, I'm glad to meet my new neighbor. We'll be seeing each other often, I'll bet.
Ciao!
”

The owner of the house stared after the odd-looking pregnant girl with the freckled face and bushy hair. He guessed she was homeless, because he had seen her on JFK Street pushing a grocery cart full of her stuff.

Ernest Henshaw went back indoors and hurried to the living room at the front of the house. Edging through a clutter of small tables covered with brass ornaments, he moved to the window to watch Gretchen's retreat.

Longing sprang up in his heart.

CHAPTER 18

I am the dragon, here are my jaws!

I am the dragon, here are my claws!

Saint George and the Dragon

T
he overloading of the wiring system at Harvard Towers resulted in a general power failure all over Harvard University. When Millie from Phillips Brooks House attached the plug of the Christmas-tree lights to an extension cord connected to a labyrinth of other extension cords already supplying power to twenty-two electric heaters, ten television sets, twenty-five lamps, four hot pots, and Palmer Nifto's computer and fax machine, the effect was catastrophic.

The Director of Buildings and Grounds insisted that it couldn't happen, but it did. Harvard University went black.

There were howls of anguish from men and women all over the university when the terminals of their computers were suddenly extinguished. Classrooms went dark. A slide projector in the Fogg Museum paused in its progress through the history of classical architecture with a flashing glimpse of the ruins of Baalbek. Scholars in the depths of Widener Library had to grope their way out of pitch-black stacks, then find the stairs and ascend flight after flight, to stumble into the dimness of the catalogue room at last with pitiful cries. The babel of language instruction in the earphones of students in the basement of Boylston Hall was cut off in mid-syllable. The power tools of workmen rehabbing the Lowell Lecture Hall went dead. The electron microscopes in the Gordon McKay Physics Lab fizzled out. The centrifuges splicing one gene to another stopped working, and a billion genes milled around in confusion. Heat leaked out of all the buildings as the oil feed to a hundred furnaces lost power. The new clocks on the tower of Memorial Hall stopped cold at four-forty-eight. A couple of security guards from the Harvard Police Department rushed off to dormitories in the Radcliffe Yard with batteries for the newfangled locks on the doors, to keep the electronic card keys working.

Only in Harvard Divinity School's Andover Hall did work go on as before. Bundles of candles from the second-floor chapel were passed from hand to hand, and people began moving through the halls like medieval monks.

When the lights went out in Sanders Theatre, Arlo Field was rehearsing the part of Saint George, lying on the floor of the stage playing dead. As the cry went up, “Power's out,” he leaped to his feet.

“It's out all over,” reported Kevin Barnes.

“Jesus,” said Arlo to Tom Cobb, “my camera, the timing will be thrown off.” He looked at his watch, couldn't see it, and held it up to the light from the windows above the mezzanine, which were glimmering with the flicker of headlights moving along Quincy Street. The watch said four-forty-eight. Arlo tore off his Red Cross tunic and jumped off the stage.

“Hey,” said Homer, who was curious about Arlo's camera, “can I come?” He looked at Sarah. “Is it okay? Are we through for the day?”

“Oh, well, hell,” said Tom Cobb, “we might as well quit.”

“Great,” said Jeffery Peck, one of the other Morris dancers. “Let's get out of here.”

Arlo looked at Sarah in the dim light and said boldly, “Would you like to come too? There's a great view up there.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sarah, “yes, I would.” She seemed pleased. But then, to Arlo's chagrin, Kevin, Tom, and Jeff volunteered to come along.

They poured out of the north door of Memorial Hall and headed across the street. The stepped pyramid of the Science Center, normally so brilliant with lighted classrooms and laboratories, was completely dark. Beyond it, blacked-out buildings stretched along Oxford Street as far as the eye could see.

“Oh, God, I forgot,” said Arlo, “we'll have to climb the stairs to the eighth floor. The elevators won't be working.” He glanced at Sarah. “Do you mind climbing all that way?”

“Of course not.” Sarah linked arms with Homer on one side and Tom on the other.
Come on, baby, this will shake you up
.

“Wait, Sarah!” Someone was running after them, shouting.

“Why, Morgan,” said Sarah, “what are you doing here?”

“I just thought I'd come to meet you,” said Morgan defensively. “Anything wrong with that?”

Sarah hurried back to him and took his arm and squeezed it. “Of course not. Come on. Arlo's going to show us something on the eighth floor.”

“But what happened?” said Morgan. “Why is everything so dark?”

“Nobody knows,” said Tom Cobb. “Everything went kapoof.”

Homer waved his arms and explained the whole thing. “Somebody threw this huge enormous switch labeled
Main Fuse, Harvard University
. It must be some diabolical anti-intellectual plot, the end of higher education as we know it.”

They climbed the steps to the east door of the Science Center. Within the glass walls flashlights fumbled in the dark.

Jeffery Peck glanced back at Morgan and Sarah. “Funny guy,” he said to Arlo.

“Famous ornithologist,” said Arlo.

“No kidding? Funny guy just the same.”

“Sarah,” whispered Morgan, “you shouldn't be climbing a lot of stairs, not now.”

“Oh, don't worry,” said Sarah. “I'll take it easy.”

But all of them were worn out by the time they reached Arlo's lab on the eighth floor.

“Oh, hey, hi there.” Giggling, Chickie Pickett loomed out of the shadows. Chickie knew almost everybody, even in the dark. “Hi, Arlo; hi, Morgan; hi, Sarah.” Morgan was surprised to discover that Chickie even knew Kevin Barnes. In fact, he was putting his arms around her. She must know him very well indeed. “Oh, hey, Arlo,” said Chickie, disentangling herself from Kevin, “the camera clock's stopped. And, wow, like I forgot to notice the time.”

“It's okay,” said Arlo, “I looked at my watch. The power went off at four-forty-eight. I hope to God it comes on again soon. There's only one more exposure before the shortest day.”

Kevin and Chickie withdrew to the far side of the room to whisper in the corner. Chickie was shivering in a skintight athletic suit. Morgan watched enviously as Kevin wrapped his jacket around her.