Bill Smithback sat in a heavy chair, watching the sharp, angular figure of Lavinia Rickman behind her birchwood veneer desk, reading his rumpled manuscript. Two bright red fingernails tapped on the glossy finish. Smithback knew that the fingernail ditty did not bode well. A very gray Tuesday morning sat outside the windows.
The room was not a typical Museum office. The untidy stacks of papers, journals, and books that seemed a fixture in other offices were missing. Instead, the shelves and desk were decorated with knickknacks from around the world: a storyteller doll from New Mexico, a brass Buddha from Tibet, several puppets from Indonesia. The walls were painted light institutional green, and the room smelled of pine air freshener.
Additional curios were arranged on both sides of her desk, as formal and symmetrical as shrubs in a French garden: an agate paperweight, a bone letter opener, a Japanese netsuke. And in the center of the motif hovered Rickman herself, bent primly over the manuscript. The swirled stiff orange hair, Smithback thought, didn’t go well with the green walls.
The tapping speeded, then slowed as Rickman turned the pages. Finally she flicked over the last page, gathered the loose sheets together, and squared them in the precise center of the desk.
“Well,” she said, looking up with a bright smile. “I have a few small suggestions.”
“Oh,” said Smithback.
“This section on Aztec human sacrifice, for example. It’s much too controversial.” She licked her finger daintily and found the page. “Here.”
“Yes, but in the exhibition—“
“Mr. Smithback, the exhibition deals with the subject tastefully. This, on the other hand, is not tasteful. It’s far too graphic.” She zipped a Magic Marker across his work.
“But it’s entirely accurate,” Smithback said, wincing inwardly.
“I am concerned with emphasis, not accuracy. Something can be entirely accurate but have the wrong emphasis, and thus give the wrong impression. Allow me to remind you that we have a large Hispanic population here in New York.”
“Yes, but how is this going to offend—”
“Moving on, this section on Gilborg simply must go.” She zipped another line across another page.
“But why—?”
She leaned back in her chair. “Mr. Smithback, the Gilborg expedition was a grotesque failure. They were looking for an island that did not exist. One of them, as you are so zealous in pointing out, raped a native woman. We were careful to keep all mention of Gilborg out of the exhibition. Now, is it really necessary to document the Museum’s failures?”
“But his collections were superb!” Smithback protested feebly.
“Mr. Smithback, I am not convinced that you understand the nature of this assignment.” There was a long silence. The tapping began again. “Do you really think that the Museum hired you, and is paying you, to document failure and controversy?”
“But failure and controversy are part of science, and who’s going to read a book that—”
“There are many corporations that give money to the Museum, corporations that might very well be disturbed by some of this,” Mrs. Rickman interrupted. “And there are volatile ethnic groups out there, ready to attack, that might take strong exception.”
“But we’re talking about things that happened a hundred years ago, while—”
“Mr. Smithback!” Mrs. Rickman had only raised her voice a little, but the effect was startling. A silence fell. “Mr. Smithback, I must tell you quite frankly …” She paused, then stood up briskly and walked around the desk until she was standing directly behind the writer.
“I must tell you,” Mrs. Rickman continued, “that it seems to be taking you longer than I thought to come around to our point of view. You are not writing a book for a commercial publisher. To put it bluntly, we’re looking for the kind of favorable treatment you gave the Boston Aquarium in your previous—ahem—assignment.” She moved in front of Smithback, perching stiffly on the edge of the desk. “There are certain things we expect, and indeed, that we have a right to expect. They are—” she ticked them off on bony fingers.
“One: No controversy.
“Two: Nothing that might offend ethnic groups.
“Three: Nothing that might harm the Museum’s reputation.
“Now, is that so unreasonable?” She lowered her voice and, leaning forward, squeezed Smithback’s hand with her dry one.
“I ... no.” Smithback struggled with an almost overwhelming urge to withdraw his hand.
“Well, then, that’s settled.” She moved behind the desk, and slid the manuscript over to him.
“Now, there’s one small matter we need to discuss.” She enunciated very precisely. “There were a few spots in the manuscript where you quoted some interesting comments by people ‘close to the exhibition,’ but neglected to identify the exact sources. Nothing important, you understand, but I’d like a list of those sources—for my files, nothing more.” She smiled expectantly.