A Misunderstanding
“Only a man who badly needed it to be called that could call three years and a detailed complaint by that name.” The dean takes the phone “the way you pick up something that might turn out to be hot.” Confidence leaves him piece by piece — from his shoulders, from the hand on the folder, from his eyes. “We’ll correct this misunderstanding immediately.” He finds the word himself: “Only a man who badly needed it to be called that could call three years and a detailed complaint by that name.” The next day Ashley will hear the sequel: if the paper publishes accusations against a student who has been cleared of all charges, “that will be called defamation.”
Institutions rarely cancel the truth — they rename it. “Misunderstanding” lifts responsibility from everyone at once: from Craig, from the dean, from the university. This is the same man who three days ago was “obliged to open an inquiry” when he feared the paper; now something has appeared beside him that he fears more. Ashley’s diagnosis is exact: “People don’t change their minds that fast. They get bought.” For Simon this is the second institutional betrayal after “She Came With a Folder” — and, as always, no one so much as notified him. A person’s complaint can be closed without him, if he weighs less than the surname over the entrance to the library.