An American Tune: A Novel

2 “Blowin’ in the Wind”

27 “Blowin’ in the Wind” She had watched them on campus in the fall, secretly fascinated by theirintensity:long-hairedgirls;thin,scraggly-beardedboysinwirerimmedglasses ,wearingblackturtlenecksweatersandjeans,fatigue jackets,orbatteredtweeds.GreenArmyknapsacksheavywithbooks flung over their shoulders. “Greenbaggers,” Tom and Pete called them. “Baggers” sometimes. They made fun of them when they saw them in the Commons, gathered around one of the big tables arguing about books or politics. Every time they walked past the Students for a Democratic Society’s table in the Union, they grabbed a handful of anti-war pamphlets, tore them up and threw them in the trash. “Goddamn pinkos,” they’d say. But Jane thought they were more like beatniks. She’d read about beatniks,fantasizedaboutvisitingGreenwichVillagesomeday,with its clubs and coffeehouses. Imagining college life, she had thought it might be rather like that and, though she loved the life she had walked into the moment she met Tom, sometimes, walking through the Commons, she peered down the stairs leading to the Kiva, the campus coffeehouse where Baggers hung out, talking, listening to folkmusicorreadingpoetryinahazeofcigarettesmoke,withasmall, secret measure of longing. 2 28 An American Tune She was surprised and a little nonplussed to walk into her honors lit seminar on the first day of the second semester and find a half-dozen Baggers in the classroom, along with the serious, neatly dressed,eager-to-pleasestudentslikeherself.Theprofessorregarded the way the students had divided themselves on the two sides of the room with an expression of wry amusement and made them pull their chairs into a circle. “There,”shesaid.“Atleastthiswayyouhavetolookatoneanother.” There were just twelve of them, small classes being the greatest advantage of the honors program, Professor Berkovitz had explained to Jane when he recommended her for the seminar. He’d been impressed by her comments during the semester, he said. Her writing skills were excellent. She was clearly capable of a greater challenge. Back from semester break, she’d gone to the English section in the bookstore and found the shelf where the books for the class were listed: English 103 Honors. The sign alone had made her smile, and she’d taken the books from the shelf one by one and leafed through them feeling connected to the students who had used them before andleftevidenceoftheirthoughtsandideasincrabbedmarginnotes and highlighted passages. She felt proud to have been recognized by her favorite professor, eager to begin the class, which she imagined would be like his class–but even better because everyone in it would care about what they were reading and think about it. Everyone would have something interesting and important to say. This new professor would sit on the edge of his desk, smoking while they talked, as Professor Berkowitz had, commenting now and then, directing the discussion to deeper, more satisfying levels that at the same time made students feel eager to learn, curious–and smarter than they really were. She hadn’t expected a woman, especially one like Professor Farlow . She was tall and stern, her long, dark hair streaked with silver. She was dressed in black, with a colorful, gypsy-like shawl draped over her shoulders; she wore a man’s gold watch on one wrist and, on the other, what must have been a dozen thin gold bracelets that jangledwhenevershemoved.Sheworenomakeup;herthinlipswere colorless, her black eyes snapping with intelligence. 29 “Blowin’ in the Wind” “Well,” she said, with no introduction other than having written her name and office hours on the blackboard. “Let’s see what you know about Emily Dickinson.” She peered at her class list. “John Sargent?” A boy wearing a Sigma Nu pin sat straight up in his seat. “You are John Sargent?” Professor Farlow asked. He nodded. “Emily Dickinson?” she prodded. “Um. She wrote poems. She never got married,” he said. Professor Farlow nodded. “Caroline Swayzee?” “She always dressed in white,” a mousy girl responded. “She kept her poems in a dresser drawer and never showed them to anybody.” “She was a recluse,” Cathy Crowe, a bagger girl, said. “Kind of crazy.” Professor Farlow raised an eyebrow. “Jane Barth, can you add anything more–literary?” “Her rhymes–” Jane wracked her brain for the term her high school English teacher had used to describe them. “Well, they don’t rhyme exactly? They . . .” “Aha,” Professor Farlow said. “A piece of information about the poems of Emily Dickinson. As opposed to the myth of Emily Dickinson . Words on the page. That is what we’ll be considering for...