An Imperfect Past

By Ben Sternberg

It is September 1967. Paul Dennis returns to his position on the faculty at Bedford College after a week in Paris shared with Kate Roberts, also on the Bedford faculty. Over the following two weeks, Paul struggles with his feelings for Kate, his rocky marriage to Anna, and the deteriorating relationship with his son, Billy. Events play out in the growing shadow cast by the war in Vietenam and Paul's own haunted past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Sternberg
• Release date: Dec 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465883940

Ben Sternberg

Ben's earliest published fiction appeared in his college magazine. Most of his writing efforts since then have involved textbooks, speeches, and corporate communications. He has returned to fiction after extended careers in the military and the accounting profession with the e-publication of his first novella. Ben resides in Greensboro, NC with his spouse, Meg.

Book preview

An Imperfect Past

by Ben Sternberg

Copyright 2011 by Ben Sternberg

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Monday, September 11

Tuesday, September 12

Wednesday, September 13

Thursday, September 14

Friday, September 15

Saturday, September 16

Sunday, September 17

Monday, September 18

Tuesday, September 19

Wednesday, September 20

Thursday, September 21

Friday, September 22

Saturday, September 23

Monday, September 11

Paul Dennis climbed the wide stone steps at the front of the Faculty Club. Steps were always more of a challenge for his game right leg than level ground. He pushed open the heavy oak door, crossed the foyer to the reading room, and took his usual seat in an overstuffed chair by the newspaper rack. Paul enjoyed the ambiance of the room, with its dark wood paneling and book-filled shelves. He selected the New York Times from the rack and scanned the front page, noting that U.S. aircraft had bombed a North Vietnamese port for the first time and that Israel had refused to participate in indirect peace talks with the Arabs. He had just begun reading the first article when he was joined by Bob Masters, who eased himself into the chair next to him.

Morning, Paul. How was the trip?

"How was the trip?" Paul paused before answering, his mind filled with a succession of images of the week in Paris – the river, the parks, the restaurants, the conference, and Kate.

Remarkable. Another pause. Lots of ideas to work into this semester’s class.

Bob feigned a slight look of incredulity. You’d better get a move on. Need I remind you that classes start tomorrow?

Bob Masters was an associate professor of history, responsible for the introductory course in European history required of all entering freshmen. He had been using the same outline for ten of the fifteen years he had been on the faculty of Bedford College and Paul sometimes, but not often, envied the fact that his content was so nearly immutable. His own offering, the oxymoronic Contemporary History, was hostage to the vagaries of current events. Bedford, a small private college in the hustings of south central Pennsylvania, fancied itself a bastion of liberal arts and took special pride in its history department. Paul had been hired four years earlier and assigned the task of spicing up the department’s course offerings.

I do have a vague recollection of that fact, but I like to keep my options open.

Actually, what I meant by my question was how did things go with Kate?

Paul looked around the room, confirming that they were alone. Bob was his best friend in the department or on the faculty, for that matter. Except for Kate, of course. In that capacity, Bob was well aware of Paul’s developing relationship with Kate Roberts, an assistant professor of French literature in the foreign languages department. Paul liked to think that the relationship was a secret, to the extent that any secret could be preserved in the highly scrutinized world of the college faculty.

Kate had been in France for the summer, doing research for a planned book on Flaubert, Baudelaire, and the Paris of the 1850s, which she hoped would lead to a tenured position for her at Bedford. Paul had been in Paris for a week-long conference on European politics sponsored by the Institute of Political Studies. It was not entirely by accident that their paths crossed, since their friendship of the past two years was beginning to take on a different character.

To tell you the truth, Bob, it’s raised a lot of questions. We’ll talk about it another time, when alcohol is available.

Bottled courage, eh Paul?

Bottled courage, for sure.

His mind wrestling with the concept of courage, Paul played with the idea of the courage of one’s convictions. Which required more courage, sticking to convictions or abandoning them? On the one hand, he felt a basic commitment to his marriage, consistent with his larger commitment to institutions in general. On the other, Kate provided an entirely different experience, her inquisitive mind often inspiring more adventurous patterns of thought in his own. In most ways, she was better suited as a partner than Anna, his wife of twenty-two years. He often mused about life’s paths, including the one that had led him to Bedford, and how everything would have been different had he arrived here alone, not encumbered by a wife and son.

Bob interrupted the reverie. So we’ll talk about that later. What else is new? What did Billy decide?

He’s not great at deciding, a little bit like his old man, but he has enrolled here for his senior year.

Has he declared a major yet?

I said he’s not good at deciding. No major, just general studies. Anything to keep his student deferment. Paul spoke the last with a hint of scorn in his voice.

That’s not too far out of line.

I suppose not. We are, after all, in a hotbed of liberalism here at Bedford.

Well, at least a warm bed. Sometimes I wonder how you ended up here yourself.

It’s the only place that would have me. Paul was only half-joking with that remark. His academic credentials were not impressive, not on a par with Bob’s or Kate’s, or with most of the rest of the faculty. Drew Atkins, the head of the history department, had taken a liking to him, perhaps because of their shared military background, and it didn’t hurt that Anna’s father, Dan Matthews, was a major benefactor of the college. Among other things, he had donated the money to build the swim center on campus, with its Olympic-sized pool, which was named after his late wife. When Paul began interviewing for the position, he knew of Anna’s attachment to the college, but was unaware of the extensive nature of his father-in-law’s connection. Anna had since set him straight about that, and on numerous occasions.

Anna. What a metamorphosis had taken place in her over the years. Or perhaps what had happened was that, as the years went by, more veils of her true personality had been lifted. Her visits to him in the hospital where he was recovering from his war wounds were the origins of their relationship. That was the summer of 1945, and for some unknown reason she had taken him on as a kind of project. He had known her in high school, of course. Who didn’t? She was firmly ensconced in the elite – beautiful, rich, popular, a cheerleader, and queen of her senior prom. She graduated two years before he did and went away to college. As it happened, she had attended Bedford. When he graduated, in 1943, he enlisted in the Army.

Recovering in the local VA hospital two years later, he was stunned to see her show up at his bedside one day and stunned was putting it mildly. Over the course of the next several months, she seemed to have nothing else to do but spend time by his side, assisting him as he learned how to walk again. And walk he did, although his limp was a constant reminder of his time in the service, the limp and the collection of scars. Immediately upon his release from the hospital, they were married. The war over, he accepted a job at her father’s company. Soon afterward, Billy was born. It had all happened so fast that he felt swept up by events.

Anna was content to take her place in the suburban society that she considered her natural habitat. Paul did not share the contentment, however, and being dependent on the largesse of Anna’s father had its drawbacks. Dan Matthews was an ego-maniac, dominating his family and his employees alike. After a few years, Paul left the company to attend college on the GI Bill. Anna’s adjustment to the life of a student’s wife, with its transition from a suburban cottage to a walk-up city apartment, was not an easy one. When Paul decided to go on to graduate school, her malcontent was amplified. A move to Washington and ten years in government followed, further keeping Anna out of her chosen element. The final straw was his accepting a teaching position at Bedford, and the role of faculty wife that was thrust upon her.

There were many times over the years that Anna threatened to go back home, and Paul had reached a point years ago where he no longer argued against the idea. Yet Anna stayed, for reasons that Paul did not understand, thinking perhaps that she must have shared his respect for marriage as an institution, if not as a bed of roses.

Well, Paul, I’ve got to go and put the finishing touches on my introductory lecture, and I suggest you do the same.

Good idea. Paul stood up, pausing a moment to be sure of his stability, and headed for his office.

The history department offices were housed in Smith Hall, just across the quadrangle from the Faculty Club. The foreign languages department offices were located there as well. Paul walked slowly toward the building, enjoying the shade of the large oaks, whose leaves would soon wither and fall. The footpaths were in heavy use by the returning students, focused on last-minute arrangements before the start of classes. It was easy to spot the freshmen; they were the only ones looking around at their surroundings, the upper-class members inured to the sights and just chatting among themselves. A few students smiled at Paul as he crossed their paths; others nodded or muttered a greeting. The enrollment for Paul’s course was small, so he did not recognize most of them.

Paul’s office was in a rear corner of the building’s second floor. There was an elevator, but Paul always used the stairs, claiming a small triumph over his disability each time. The office was small, befitting his status on the faculty, but it had a large measure of privacy, which had proven beneficial over the past few years.

He unlocked his office door to find Kate sitting in the chair next to the window. She looked up from the book she was holding, smiled, and rose to greet him.

I wondered when I might run into you, Paul said as they embraced.

You can’t hide, you know.

I’m not trying. That’s why I gave you a key to my office. Paul turned to the door and locked it. Turning back toward Kate, he gazed at her studiously, taking in every element. Kate was not a conventional beauty, but had an intriguing attractiveness. She was tall, with well-defined features. With her shoulder-length brown hair in a ponytail, her academic-looking glasses, and her trim figure concealed within a warm-up suit, she could have been any of a million women. Her marriage of several years had ended when her husband couldn’t come to grips with the idea that she was working on her doctorate while he was selling insurance. It was the intensity of her intellect that had first attracted Paul to her, and he was secure enough in his own identity to accept her superior intelligence and to be nourished by it. The sexual attraction had followed the intellectual, well afterward.

How was your trip back? I missed you and don’t know if I can forgive you for leaving before I did. She pouted playfully.

My budget was a lot lower than yours. I only went for a conference, not the entire summer.

You could have saved your department some money by not checking into your hotel. You didn’t use the room.

Oh, that wouldn’t raise any questions, would it?

You know, Paul, these constant games and cover stories are beginning to take a toll on me. Our week in Paris was the first time we were truly free to be together since we started this whole thing. In Kate’s mind, this thing was as undefined as the word itself. Her divorce was finalized at about the time she completed her doctoral degree. Since then, she had become immersed in her teaching and research, and not paid much attention to her social life. There had been dates, and even some brief romances, but until she had met Paul all of that had taken a back seat to her work. The result was that she was clearly identified as an up and coming member of the foreign languages faculty, with a bright future. There was a certain risk in becoming romantically entangled with a married faculty member, at least there would be if it became common knowledge. Kate had initially been attracted to Paul’s unconventional views about higher education and life in general. As time went by, she had come to depend on him as a sounding board and source of counsel on many matters, including the aftermath of her divorce and her academic aspirations. There had been months of casual conversations and lunchtime meetings before anything remotely romantic had infused their relationship. And even that transformation had been of necessity episodic, more of a high-grade flirtation than an actual affair – a few hours of quiet conversation in Paul’s office every now and then, a very occasional late-night movie in a nearby town