He stood at the window for some time before hanging his clothes in the miserly closet. Stretching out on the bed, he locked his hands behind his head, the click of the train wheels still resounding in his ears. His journey had ended, though it felt unsettled, as if he’d missed his connection and wound up in the wrong place.

  Surely there was little of value to be discovered here, to be formally written and cataloged for future generations. What discoveries could possibly be made, or mysteries solved, or beauty revealed? It was no doubt limited in vision, a place as predictable as a thousand others just like it.

  He turned on his side and closed his eyes. And what was he so superior about? There was precious little evidence of that being the case. He was here for a handout, for money he desperately needed. In the end, he was just another loser in a federal giveaway scheme, an unemployed bum standing in a bread line without a visible line.

  From his suitcase, he retrieved the paperwork that had been given him by the Project, a list of suggestions to be considered and rules to follow The reports were to be case histories, dialogues with people, to include such things as their physical appearance, family mores and traditions, education, and income, the nature of their work, their religious and political views, even their attitudes about death, marriage, and love.

  He wondered at the likelihood of getting much information from anyone, particularly since those suffering the interview would not be receiving anything in return. What would be their incentive, aside from a moment’s attention, to share their secrets with anyone, much less with a stranger?

  Turning over, he struggled to fall asleep. A radio played in the room above him, and someone coughed in the hallway. It was as if he’d been cut loose from everything and everyone he’d known and cast into the darkness. All that he’d planned, all that had been within his reach, had suddenly and irretrievably been snatched away. Even his personal items had been sold or discarded. There was nothing behind but memories and nothing ahead but uncertainty.

  He’d nearly dozed off when there was a knock at the door. He opened it to find Willie Stone standing there with an old typewriter in his arms.

  “It was still there,” he said. “Fred didn’t want the damn thing anyway. It’s a Royal. Hell, you could write anything on this ol’ clunker.”

  “Thank you, Willie,” he said, taking it from him. “It’s damn nice of you.”

  “And I stopped at the stationery place and got you a ribbon,” he said, dropping it on top of the typewriter. “I guess you’re all set now.”

  “Yes,” Liam said. “I’m all set.”

  chapter 3

  The train whistle woke Liam with a start. Turning over, he took a moment to collect his thoughts. He’d altogether forgotten where he was and what he was doing there. Water was running somewhere in the building, and a door closed in the distance. He sat up and rubbed his face. The weariness of the trip was still in his bones.

  He got out of bed, stumbled over to the window, and gently nursed the blind up. Sunlight bolted over the horizon, and he held his hand up against its brilliance. The castle was there, just as he remembered, stunning, remote, medieval.

  He showered with water considerably less hot than touted by the Pribble sign. After that, he spent thirty minutes threading the ribbon on his newly acquired Royal before heading downstairs for breakfast. A common table had been arranged close to the kitchen pass-through window to accommodate hotel guests.

  A man sat alone at the far end of the table sipping his coffee and studying what appeared to be a map. At the other end was a young woman, her hair in a bun and her blouse buttoned to the neck. Despite her rather formal attire, she held herself in a graceful and warm way. She glanced up at him and nodded.

  He took up a seat two chairs down and studied one of the menus that was left on the table. Having decided on an egg over easy and bacon, he waited for someone to come and take his order. Ten minutes in, no one had shown the least interest in his presence.

  The lady at the end of the table dabbed her mouth with her napkin and said, “Excuse me, sir, but you have to place your order with the cook at the window. There is no waitress.”

  “Oh,” he said, getting up. “Thanks for telling me. I might have sat here all day.”

  He went to the window and placed his order with the cook, an old guy with a milky eye, who grumbled something about it getting late for breakfast orders.

  After he’d sat back down, the lady said, “Pay him no mind. He’s always that way. He’ll ring the bell when your order is up, and it’s worth the wait.”

  “Thanks. My name’s Liam,” he said. “Liam Walker.”

  “Hattie Cooper,” she said. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Have you been at the hotel long?” he asked.

  “A year,” she said. “I’m the college president’s assistant, temporary assistant actually. I came in from the city to help out.”

  “You’re at the Castle on the Hill then?”

  “Quite striking, isn’t it?” she said.

  The cook rang the bell, and Liam retrieved his bacon and egg.

  Sitting back down, he said, “Such a structure is so unexpected out here in the middle of nowhere. Extraordinary, really.”

  “We hope to soon have more buildings on campus,” she said. “We are quite a young state, you see, and this area is the last to fully develop its state college.”

  He sampled his egg, which was perfectly cooked. A flaky biscuit had been provided, with strawberry jam on the side.

  “You’re right about the food,” he said. “This breakfast is definitely worth the wait.”

  “The food is good, though the menu is limited,” she said. “Are you just passing through?”

  “Not exactly. I’m participating in the Federal Writers’ Project. I’ll be interviewing some of the local people and writing up their histories.”

  She opened her purse, took out a small mirror, and examined her face, first one angle and then the other. Her makeup was perfectly presented, what with merlot-colored lips and dark-shadowed eyes. She put her mirror back into her purse and clicked the purse shut. Pushing her plate aside, she dropped her chin in her hand and looked at him.

  “How interesting,” she said. “I think I’ve read something about that. And what are they to do with these case histories?”

  “Not entirely clear to me,” he said. “They are to be archived in the Library of Congress, for research and the like, I assume. I’m just to find the people, do the interviews, and write them up. That’s about the only details I have at the present.”

  “You are a writer by profession, then?”

  “Not exactly. Actually, I just completed my master’s degree in advertising.”

  “Bad timing, I suppose, and you are a long way from home now.”

  “Yes,” he said. “A long way. Pennsylvania, actually.”

  “What did your people do there?”

  “My father was a lawyer, business, quite a successful one, I might add. That was before the Depression. It had little mercy on any of us, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, I was in the process of graduating just as jobs dried up, and I now find myself doing interviews with strangers.”

  “We’ve suffered here as well,” she said. “The college has been unable to keep but a fraction of the faculty it needs.”

  He picked up his plate and took it to the window. The cook was cleaning the stove, and there was a wet triangle between his shoulders.

  “Hey,” Liam said.

  The cook looked back over his shoulder with his good eye. “What?” he said.

  “That was a damn good breakfast.”

  He cracked a smile and turned back to his stove. When Liam returned to the table, Hattie was gathering up her purse.

  “Got to run,” she said. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  She hung her purse over her arm, pausing. “About those interviews. The community has a number of success stories, more than you might think. There are the roller mills, for example, and the broom factory. Quite successful companies, actually.”

  “That’s appreciated, Hattie. Unfortunately, that’s apparently not what the Project is looking for.”

  “What are they looking for?”

  “Local flavor, I guess you’d say. Those who represent the community as a whole, the common man as it were.”

  “I see. Well, we have plenty of those too,” she said. “This is the land of Will Rogers, after all.”

  “There is something,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d love to see that castle sometime.”

  She smiled. “I get off at four. Come to the president’s office, and I’ll give you a tour.”

  When Liam came out from the breakfast area, Willie Stone was still at his place behind the check-in desk.

  “Morning, Willie,” he said. “Thought you were on nights?”

  Willie looked up and nodded. “The day clerk is out sick, so I’m substitute. You sleep OK?”

  “Fair,” Liam said. “New place and all that.”

  “I can sleep anyplace,” Willie said. “I can even sleep with my eyes open.”

  “That’s quite a feat. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that before.”

  “Learned it in school,” he said. “You get that Royal up and running?”

  “I’m all set,” he said. “All I need now are folks to interview and the right questions to ask.”

  “Think it will rain?” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s the likeliest question to ask around here if you want an answer.”

  “Have a good day, Willie,” he said. “I’ve got to get my interviews in order. I’ll give your question some thought.”

  Liam spent the day doing just that, posing questions in the most direct and narrow way possible. The suggested interview questions were on the vague side at best, providing only general guidelines, giving too many options for any direct comparisons from one person to the next, while he personally was interested in seeing if the same questions might solicit widely different responses. These folks shared the same physical environment and culture as well. Did they share the same philosophies as a result, or did that arise from something else? He wasn’t sure if the Library of Congress gave a damn, but it would at least provide him something to think about.

  After he’d finished with the questions, he typed up his notes on the Royal, which worked rather well for a machine of its age and miles. And by the end of the session, their relationship was sealed.

  He ate lunch at a small café downtown, which was within walking distance of the hotel. The fare was not memorable, simple and a little greasy, but at the right price. Once back at his room, he lay down for a short rest and fell sound asleep.

  He awakened with a start, uncertain as to how long he may have been out. He checked his watch, two thirty, and with plenty of time to get to his tour. Atlas was rural, and the distances would be considerable. If he were to get a good sampling of people to interview, he would need to figure out transportation at some point.

  Striking out afoot, he headed south toward the campus. Though not entirely clear why he was drawn to it, he admitted to a certain excitement in seeing the Castle on the Hill up close. That his tour was to be conducted by the lovely Hattie Cooper was a nice bonus.

  chapter 4

  The wind, which had not ceased since his arrival, was hot and void of moisture; however, the street leading to the college had been heavily planted with elms, providing welcome relief from the sun. The shady tunnel of trees offered a pleasant prelude to the castle sitting triumphantly at its end.

  The homes on each side of the street, likely inspired by the flamboyance of the castle, were large and extravagant. Had he not seen the harshness of the countryside from the window of his train on the way in, he could easily now imagine himself in an Austrian hamlet.

  The front doors to the castle were imposing, brass and fine oak. He stood for a moment looking up into the towers, larger even than he’d thought, with their sandstone walls and marbled windows. The sheer mass was itself an indestructible force, a place built by the gods.

  He stood in the hallway, the president’s office within striking distance of the front door, and could smell the books, and chalk, and the stuffiness of academia. He had tapped his foot throughout his college days, impatient to graduate and get on with life. Like everyone else, prosperity and success were what he needed. To pretend otherwise was hypocrisy.

  He’d spent enough time in college dorm rooms listening to pseudo-intellectuals to understand pretense when he heard it, but he was a realist, some said a cynic, and he knew what he wanted. It was no different than what everyone wanted, had he the courage to admit it. To have it in abundance was for Liam both logical and justifiable.

  The only thing that mattered in the real world was the degree itself and the name of the institution from which it was granted. He’d walked away with the best of both. He hadn’t planned on the world coming apart at the seams, but the lesson he’d come to the hard way was first to survive, then to succeed.

  Liam was sitting outside of the president’s office at exactly four o’clock when Hattie came out.

  “Liam,” she said, smiling. “You made it.”

  “You did mention a tour, but I don’t want to interfere with your work.”

  “My official day is over,” she said. “Follow me.”

  For the next hour, she led him from room to room, explaining each, and pointing out where the different departments were located, who the instructors were, and plans for the future.

  “This is our library,” she said. “It’s still a bit small, but we’ve only a few hundred students as of now. We were growing exponentially before the Depression. Plans are in the works for a new library building some day, but they’ve been put on hold.”

  Liam walked into the library and looked around. It was nice, well organized, but not much bigger than some private libraries he’d seen. He spotted a book titled Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man’s Hunger in His Youth by Thomas Wolfe. He’d read it as an undergraduate, a required assignment. Though momentarily taken with its grandiosity, he’d soon enough been jolted back into the real world, a world he embraced with more conviction.

  “Is the library open to the public?” he asked.

  “Technically no, but for now, we make exceptions,” she said. “There’s nothing else available to the community, you see. Let’s head upstairs to the turret. It’s quite a view actually.”

  He followed her up the staircase, stopping at each floor as she explained how the space was used. A few students still ambled about, most of whom knew Hattie and smiled at her by way of greeting.

  At the top, seven stories high, the stairs opened onto a small room, stoic in design save for the arrow loops that opened onto the vista on all four sides. The room was empty, except for a few boxes that had been stored in the corner.

  “Here,” she said, taking his arm. He could smell her perfume, faint at day’s end, and feel the warmth of her hand. “Check the view.”

  He looked out through one of the arrow loops to take in the vastness of the prairie that surrounded them. It was like an ocean, immense and singular.

  “It’s quite amazing,” he said.

  “It never ceases to give me pleasure,” she said.

  “But what is this room used for?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Well, a few supplies are kept up here. That’s about it. It’s far too small for a classroom. It can be rather warm in the summer and cold in the winter as well. It was built to please the architect’s vision, I suppose, and impress the masses below—frosting on the cake, as it were.”

  “Not to mention pleasing the architect’s wallet,” Liam said.

  “A skeptic, are we?” she said. “Would you like to see the basement?”

  “Lead the way.”

  The basement held the art department at one end and the English department at the other. It had the feel of a bunker, a place removed from the distractions and dangers of the outside world. In the art department were easels with paintings, and the smell of turpentine, and risers holding half-finished clay sculptures.

  A young man sat behind a desk, an empty coffee cup at his elbow. He looked up when they came in.

  Hattie said, “This is Carl Martin, our studio assistant in the art department. He is teaching a few of our intro classes as well. I understand that he is a talented artist in his own right.”

  Carl stood and ducked his chin at Liam. He was tall and thin and had his sleeves rolled up. The veins in his arms and hands were roped. He had glass eyes like frozen water, clear, cold, shallow.

  Liam offered his hand, which Carl took. His grip was strong but impatient.

  “Nice meeting you,” Liam said.

  “Are you new to the faculty?” he asked.

  “I’m not faculty. I’m with the Federal Writers’ Project.”

  “Ah,” he said. “The government. It’s a hard time everywhere, I suppose.”

  Hattie said, “Carl gives private lessons as well. Oh, there’s Dr. Houston, our department chair.” She directed Liam to the back, where an older woman was working at an easel. She greeted them with a smile. “This is Dr. Houston,” Hattie said. “We are lucky to have her. She’s quite popular among our students.”

  “Are you joining us?” Dr. Houston asked.

  “No, I’m with the Federal Writers’ Project,” he said.

  “You’re a writer?”

  “Advertising,” he said. “Or had intended to be. The FWP is temporary. We are orphans of the WPA, actually.”

  “Well, nice meeting you. Feel free to come and visit us anytime.”

 

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