A Princess of The Linear Jungle

Right now, I just want to soak up as much knowledge as I can. Professor Scoria offers me that opportunity. I hope I won’t have to abandon all the wisdom you offer either, just because of my, ah, closeness to one of your respected colleagues.”
    Professor Vinnagar sat back in his chair and sighed. “As Emil Fourcade says in Patchen’s Last Horizon , ‘Against youth and heart follies, Vasuki Himself contends in vain.’ No, Miss Abraham, you may rest assured of my continued respect and guidance. But mark my words, Scoria is going to lead you into trouble—and quite soon, if my spies speak the truth.”
    More than this vague warning, Merritt could not pry from the man.

5.
    CAMPUS BUZZ

    WHARTON CELEBRATED A HOLIDAY IN MID-OCTOBER THAT Stagwitz did not: the Festival of Amrita. The holiday marked the arrival by Train each year of the lone shipment of a certain seasonal liquor obtained from the Borough of Tocktock, some fifty thousand Blocks Uptown, well beyond any facile travel. The liquor—four thousand jeroboams, no more, no less—had been arriving each year during the same week for the past two centuries, as a tribute to Swazeycape University. No one had any notion of the origin of the arrangement, even such antiquarians as Chambless and Vinnagar.
    But the uncertain basis of the tradition did not hinder the Borough’s enjoyment of the fresh and limited amrita. The sweet golden liquor, priced minimally by University fiat to make it available to all classes, owed like the Lavender Family’s happy tears at the conclusion of Diego Patchen’s late-period masterpiece Glints from a Hidden Hearth . The tipple provided a particularly serene yet potent buzz, non-impairing and non-conducive to combativeness, melancholy or despair. For four days, until the rare booze was all consumed, business closed their doors and classes were suspended, with only clubs and restaurants still operating, as the entire population embarked on a joyous long weekend.
    Merritt relished the chance to be together with Art for this whole lazy stretch. What with his duties and hers, their assignations, although exciting, had been hasty and brief. She had seldom even stayed the night at his digs, and he had never yet been to her apartment. But now they’d raise their affair to new heights through constant companionship.
    Art appeared at first to accept this plan of Merritt’s with enthusiasm. “Wonderful! We’ll play Sermak and Gretchen, in our impoverished cold-water flat!” Merritt hugged and kissed him, relieved that he had accepted her attempt at deepening and strengthening their affair.
    On Thursday they hung out at Tupelo Park. A Block devoid of buildings and devoted to raising a manicured crop of grass still summer-green, Tupelo Park hosted live music, ball-playing and en plein air snogging in private gazebos. On Friday they went clubbing, with Merritt carefully avoiding any venues featuring Cady Rachis/Loona Poole.
    But by Saturday morning, Art seemed itchy and irritable with Merritt. He poked at his breakfast of buckwheat flapjacks with lingonberry syrup (lovingly cooked and served by Merritt); vented dramatic sighs without apparent provocation; refused to speculate on future polypolisological expeditions; and cursed disproportionately when he couldn’t find a certain book on his well-stocked shelves. Even knocking back a shot of amrita failed to mellow him out.
    Merritt felt nervous. Was she being too possessive? Did she perhaps not offer enough depth to captivate her man? After all, Arturo Scoria was a veteran of a hundred exotic milieus and encounters. How could her sole companionship hold a candle to associating with, say, the Jumblies of Jingly Hall?
    Desperate for some entertainment that would appeal to Art and reveal her own sophistication, Merritt hit upon the weekly medstudent party held at the meatpacking-district establishment district establishment of Yun and Adams.
    Her lover’s excited response to her proposal was both heartening and dismaying. “Excellent! It sounds like a stimulatingly louche affair among a vibrant subculture!”
    Merritt had no trouble finding the place. And with Art on her arm, she experienced no apprehension at shadowy alleyways.
    She half-expected to confront Yun’s unnervingly self-composed features upon the opening of the warehouse door. But instead, rather more disconcertingly, Merritt faced her one-off bed partner of weeks ago, the gracile, tat-patterned, coal-haired young woman. The