by Irwin Shaw
“It’s natural to try to protect the young.”
“And the old,” Strand said. “Christmas, before I got lost in the fog, I had a talk with Caroline. She said there was a conspiracy in the family to protect me, too, keep things from me. You were in it, too, she said.”
“So I was,” Leslie said calmly.
“She intimated that there were things you hid from me.”
“What things?”
“That you put Caroline on the pill on her sixteenth birthday.”
Surprisingly, Leslie laughed. “How dreadful,” she said. “In this day and age.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“I guess I didn’t think you were in this day and age,” Leslie said. “Are you so anxious to join your contemporaries, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see…” Leslie squinted, as though searching the distance for further revelations. “What other sins have I committed that I’ve hidden from you to keep you happy in your illusions? Oh, yes. Of course. I arranged for Eleanor to have an abortion when she was seventeen. Would you like the details?”
“Not really.”
“Wise old husband and father,” Leslie said. “I also knew that she had a lover twice her age, a married man with three children, when she was in college. And she didn’t work to save the money for that car she drove in. He gave it to her. Transportation, too, can be a sin, can’t it? And while we’re at it, I conspired with our dear Jimmy to hide it from you that he was stoned out of his mind on marijuana almost every night and rather than have him leave our apartment once and for all I let him keep the stuff under my brassieres in my bureau. Would you have been happier if I had let him wander the streets?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“More news from the front,” Leslie said. “Russell called yesterday with some happy information. He asked me not to tell you. But you’ll probably hear soon enough and it’s better if you find out from me than if you read it in the papers. If he can’t shut her up somehow—and soon—his wife is going to name me, among quite a few other ladies, as a correspondent in her action for divorce.”
“That bitch.”
“She says she has proof. Conroy swears he saw me go into Russell’s apartment one day when I was in New York for my weekly lessons. He says I stayed two hours.”
“Russell said he’d seen you. I wondered why you didn’t tell me.” Strand spoke calmly, waiting for the explanation.
“They’re both right. I went to his apartment and Russell did see me and the lunch took two hours. The reason I went was that I was worried about you. I don’t think you can stand another year of living in the same house with all those boys and I asked Russell if he could persuade Babcock to let us live off the campus by ourselves. I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t want you to think I was fighting your battles for you. Do you think I’m lying?”
“You’re not in the habit of lying.”
“Thank you,” Leslie said. “But Conroy wasn’t wrong by much. It was the first time I’d been alone with Russell and suddenly I remembered certain dreams I’d had about him and I realized that I thought about him a great deal of the time and that I wanted him.” She spoke flatly, as though going through a speech she had memorized. “And I’m still enough of a woman to know when a man wants me. And I knew Russell wanted me. But he didn’t say anything and neither did I and we ate our lunch and he said he’d talk to Babcock and I went back across town for my three o’clock lesson. Are you disgusted with me?”
“Of course not,” Strand said gently. “If you must know, I’ve come closer than that. Considerably closer. If a certain lady had been at home when I telephoned her from Grand Central Station…” He left the sentence unfinished. “Secret sinners all,” Leslie said. “It’s about time we unburdened ourselves. Our imperfections are the bonds that hold us together. We might as well recognize them. While we’re at it,” Leslie said, intoning, rocking gently back and forth, like a child crooning to itself, with the oceanic sunlight streaming through the window shaking her long blond hair glitter, “did you know about Caroline’s biology teacher?”
“I got a letter from the biology teacher’s wife.”
“I heard from a more accurate source. Caroline. She told me she was crazy about him but he was so awful in bed she dropped him. Girl talk. The sexes mingle, but they’re short on communication. Do you love Caroline—or me—or Eleanor—any the less for all this?”
“No,” he said. “Maybe I’ll love you in a different way. But no less.”
“While on the subject of sex,” Leslie went on, “there’s Nellie Solomon. Did you know she’s having an affair with Jimmy?”
“Who told you?” For the first time since he had come into the room Strand was shocked. “She did.”
“I had lunch with Solomon. He didn’t say anything about it.”
“For a very good reason,” Leslie said. “He doesn’t know. Yet. But he will soon. She’s going to follow Jimmy to California. They’re going to get married. That’s why she told me the whole story. I guess she wanted my blessing. If she did I’m afraid she’s in for a disappointment.”
“When did she tell you all this?”
“When I was staying with Linda, right before we left for Paris. I tried to get hold of Jimmy, but he wasn’t in town.”
“What about that dreadful Dyer woman?”
“Oh, you know about her, too?” Leslie wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“I met her.”
“Jimmy seems to be able to handle them both.” Leslie smiled ironically. “Do you think we ought to be proud?”
“I think he’s acting disgracefully all around.”
“He is. And in the long run he’ll suffer for it. But in a case like this, a young boy and a woman maybe fifteen years older than he, you have to put most of the blame on her.”
“She’s not a member of my family.”
“She will be. Unless they come to their senses before it’s too late. Oh, dearest, dearest Allen, please don’t take it so hard. They’re grown-up people, our children, and they have to lead their own lives.”
“They’re doing it damn badly.”
“Forget them for a few years. Let’s concentrate on leading our own lives—well.” She stood up and put her arms around him and kissed him. “As long as I know you’re all right, I can be happy, no matter what else happens. If we make their lives miserable with our disapproval, we’ll be miserable too and they’ll fly from us. Permanently. Let’s be gentle with them. And most of all, let’s be gentle with ourselves. Let’s hold our peace and wait for them to come back. As Eleanor said, we’ll have to learn to live with it. Whatever it is. Now I think the confessional box is closed for the day and it’s time for breakfast. Will you join me in a second cup of coffee?”
He kissed her, then followed her downstairs, a wiser although not necessarily a happier man than he had been a few minutes before when he had climbed the same stairs.
It was snowing the next morning. Strand was sitting in the living room looking out over the dunes as the snow drifted down, powdering the spikes of grass, drifting into the gray sea. It was nearly noon and he was alone. Leslie had gone into the village with Mr. Ketley in the pickup truck to do some shopping. Caroline had come down late for her black coffee and had gone back to her room saying that she had some letters to write. There was a slight hum of machinery off in the servants’ wing which meant that Mrs. Ketley was working there. Strand had a book in his hands but he allowed himself to be lulled by the slow rhythm of the falling snow outside the window. The front doorbell rang and he knew Mrs. Ketley couldn’t hear it over the noise in the laundry room, so he heaved himself to his feet and went to the door. He opened it and Romero was standing there. A taxi from the village stood in the driveway, its motor going.
Romero was dressed in a bright green oversized parka, faded jeans and a red wool ski cap and pointed scuffed boots. He had started to grow a moustache, a thin black line over his lip that
made him look like a child made up for Halloween. At Dunberry he had always dressed carefully in his Brooks Brothers clothes.
“Romero,” Strand said, “what are you doing here?” He knew there was no welcome in his voice.
“I told Caroline I would come,” Romero said, unsmiling. “Is she here?”
“She’s upstairs. I’ll call her. Come in.” Strand held the door open.
“Will you tell her I’m waiting for her?”
“Come in and get warm.”
“I’m warm enough. I’d rather not come in. I’ll wait here.”
“I’d rather you didn’t see her, Romero,” Strand said.
“She invited me.”
“I still would prefer that you didn’t see her.”
Romero put his head back and shouted, loudly, “Caroline! Caroline!”
Strand closed the door. He heard Romero still shouting over and over again, “Caroline!” Strand went slowly up the stairs and knocked on Caroline’s door. It opened immediately. Caroline had her coat on and a scarf tied around her head.
“Please, Caroline,” Strand said, “stay where you are.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Caroline brushed past him and ran swiftly down the stairs. From an upstairs window in the hallway Strand looked down. Romero was holding the door of the taxi open and Caroline was getting in. Romero followed her. The door slammed shut and the taxi drove off, making wet tire marks in the new snow.
Strand went downstairs and sat down again in front of the window that gave onto the dunes and the sea and watched the snow falling from the gray skies into the gray Atlantic. He remembered what Caroline had said over breakfast the day before. “This is an unlucky house. We ought to get away before it’s too late.”
When Leslie got back he told her about Romero. Her face was pale and strained. She was having her period, always a painful time for her. “Did she take a bag with her?” Leslie asked.
“No.”
“What time will she be back?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Do you know where they’ve gone?”
“No.”
“It’s not much of a day for sightseeing,” she said. “I’m sorry, Allen, do you mind having lunch by yourself? I’ve got to go up and lie down.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Shoot Romero. Forgive me.”
He watched her slowly mount the stairs, gripping the banister.
It was already dark, although it was just past four o’clock, when he heard the car drive up. He went to the door and threw it open. The snow was coming down more thickly than ever. He saw the taxi door swing open and Romero get out. Then Caroline jumped out and ran through the snow toward the door. She pushed past Strand without saying anything, her head bent so that he couldn’t see her face, and ran up the stairs. Romero stood near the taxi looking at Strand. He started to get back into the cab, then stopped, slowly closed the door and came toward Strand.
“I delivered her safely, Mr. Strand,” he said. “In case you were worried.” His tone was polite, but his dark eyes were sardonic under the bright red wool ski cap.
“I wasn’t worried.”
“You should have been,” Romero said. “She wanted to go back to Waterbury with me. Tonight. I hope you’re happy that I said no.”
“I’m very happy.”
“I don’t take charity from people like you,” Romero said. “Any kind of charity. And I don’t hire myself out to be a stud to flighty little rich white girls.”
Strand laughed mirthlessly. “Rich,” he said. “There’s a description of the Strand family.”
“From where I stand,” Romero said, “that’s exactly the word. I took one look at this house this morning and I decided I wouldn’t touch anybody who even spent one night of her life in a house like this. You’ve got a problem on your hands with that little girl of yours, but it ain’t my problem. I won’t bother you anymore. If you ever hear of me again it will be because my name’s in the papers.” He started to turn away.
“Romero,” Strand said, “you’re a lost soul.”
“I was born a lost soul,” Romero said, stopping. “At least I didn’t go out and lose mine on purpose. I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Strand—I like you. Only we got nothing to say to each other that makes any sense anymore. Not one word. You better go in now. I wouldn’t want you to stand out here and catch a cold on my account, Professor.” He wheeled and jumped into the cab.
Strand watched as the lights of the cab disappeared in the flurries of snow. Then he went in and closed the door behind him, shivering a little and grateful for the warmth of the house. He thought of going up and knocking on Caroline’s door, but decided against it. This was a night, he was sure, that his daughter would want to be alone.
“Is there anything more you’ll be wanting tonight, Mr. Strand?” Mr. Ketley was saying.
“No, thank you.” He was sitting alone in the living room. He had had an early dinner by himself. Before dinner he had gone upstairs to see how Leslie was. She had taken some pills and was drowsing and didn’t want to move. She had asked if Caroline was in yet and then didn’t ask any more questions when Strand had said that Caroline had come in shortly after four o’clock. He had tried Caroline’s door, but it was locked. When he knocked Caroline had called, “Please leave me alone, Daddy.”
He wished he was someplace else. A wave of homesickness overtook him. Not for Dunberry, never for Dunberry. For the apartment in New York, with Leslie’s paintings on the walls, the sound of Leslie’s piano, Jimmy’s guitar, Eleanor’s bright voice as she talked to one of her beaux over the telephone, Caroline murmuring as she tried to memorize a speech from A Winter’s Tale for an English course the next day. He missed sitting in the kitchen watching Leslie prepare a meal, missed the quiet dinners on the kitchen table when the children were out, missed the Friday nights when they were all together, missed Alexander Curtis, in his old combat jacket, glaring at the city from his post next to the front door of the building, missed walking down to Lincoln Center, missed Central Park. What changes a year, not even a year, had made, what uprootings, blows, sad discoveries, defections.
The rumble of the ocean oppressed him, the waves rolling in implacably, eroding beaches, undermining foundations, menacing, changing the contours of the land with each new season. Old harbors silted over, once thriving seaports lay deserted, the cries of gulls over the shifting waters plaintive, melancholy, complaining harshly of hunger and flight and the wreckage of time.
An unlucky house. Tomorrow he would tell Leslie and Caroline to pack, the holiday which had been no holiday was over, it was time to leave.
He tried to read, but the words on the page made no sense to him. He went into the library and tried to choose another book, but none of the titles on the shelves appealed to him. He sat down in front of the television set and turned it on. He pushed button after button at random. As the screen brightened he saw Russell Hazen’s image on the tube and heard a voice saying, “We regret that Senator Blackstone, who was to be on this panel tonight, was unable to leave Washington. We have been fortunate in finding Mr. Russell Hazen, the distinguished lawyer, well known for his expertise on tonight’s subject, international law, who has graciously agreed to take the senator’s place on our program.”
Hazen, impeccably dressed and imperially grave, bowed his head slightly in the direction of the camera. Then the camera switched to a full shot of the table, with three other middle-aged, professorial-looking men and the gray-haired moderator seated in a circle.
Strand wondered if Hazen’s story about having to go to New York to see his wife had been a lie and if the call he had answered in the library had actually been from the broadcasting studio. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to let Strand know that he was abandoning his guests for what Strand might think was a frivolous reason.
Strand listened without interest as the other three participants gave their intelligent, well modulated, reasonable views on foreign affairs and inter
national law. There was nothing in what they said that Strand hadn’t heard a hundred times before. If he hadn’t been waiting to hear what Hazen was going to say he would have gone back into the living room and tried his book again.
But Hazen’s first words made him listen very carefully. “Gentlemen,” Hazen said, his voice strong and confident, “I’m afraid we’re confusing two entirely separate things—foreign affairs and international law. True, whether we like it or not, we do have foreign affairs. But international law has become a fiction. We have international piracy, international assassination, international terrorism, international bribery and bartering, international drama, international anarchy. Our national law perhaps is not quite fiction, but the most generous description of it that we can accept is that it is at best semi-fiction. With our legal codes, under our adversary system, in any important matter, he who can afford to hire the most expensive counsel is the one who walks out of the courtroom with the decision. Of course, there are occasional exceptions which only go to prove the rule.
“When I first went into the practice of law I believed that at least generally, justice was served. Unhappily, after many years of service, I can no longer cling to this belief…”
Good Lord, Strand thought, what does he think he’s doing?
“The corruption of the judiciary, the regional and racial prejudices of the men who sit on the bench have too often been exposed on the front pages of our newspapers to warrant further comment here; the buying of posts through political contributions is a time-honored custom; the suborning of testimony, the coaching of witnesses, the concealment of evidence has even reached into the highest office in the land; the venality of the police has entered our folklore and legal evasion by men in my own profession who have sworn to act as officers of the law is taught in all our universities.”
The moderator of the program, who had been shifting uncomfortably in his chair, tried to break in. “Mr. Hazen…” he said, “I don’t think that…”
Hazen stopped him with a magisterial wave of the hand and went on. “To get back to the international conception of law…on certain small matters, like fishing rights and overflights by airlines, agreements can be reached and observed. But on crucial concerns, such as human rights, the inviolability of the frontiers of sovereign states, the safeguarding or destruction of nations, we have progressed no farther than in the period of warring and nomadic tribes. We have instituted theft and calumny in the United Nations, where on the territory of the United States, in a forum supported in great part by our own taxes, a cabal of all but a few of our so-called and infinitely fickle friends daily mocks and insults us and with impunity does all it can to damage us. I am a so-called expert on international law, but I tell you, gentlemen, there is no such thing and the sooner we realize that and remove ourselves from that parliament of enemies on the bank of the East River, the healthier it will be for us in years to come. Thank you for listening to me and forgive me for not being able to stay for the end of this interesting discussion. I have an appointment elsewhere.”