Hide Fox, and All After

by Rafael Yglesias

  If it all boiled down to the boy wanting to leave, Henderson's passionate and uninformed defense of him would seem foolish. He was as anxious to see what Haul would say as Raul was about him.

  On hearing from his secretary that Mr. Miller had made an appointment for Raul, Henderson left immediately for the faculty lounge. He had told his secretary to show Raul into his office, and, finding the lounge empty, rather than remove his pipe, the form in which he told everyone that his old smoking habit had returned, he took out a cigarette. The excitement with which he smoked reminded him of the feelings he had when, as an adolescent, he began.

  Raul surrounded himself in an aura of melancholy. This will be a great turning point of your life, he told himself. Or perhaps an anticlimax. It is a test, certainly. Tell him the truth—I will, I'll see if he can bear it.

  He thought, or rather felt, the enormity that the loss of Cabot's theater would be. Knowing it would leave him weak, he suppressed the thought. But the tremors of its wake could be felt throughout his body. His heart was so contracted with nervousness, he could barely breathe, tears of sweat glistened on his hands.

  He opened the doors into the small wooden shed erected each winter to protect the entrance from draft, opened the two glass doors into Porshe Hall, went up a short flight of stairs, opened the doors leading to the main floor, and was greeted there by Mrs. Beruth, the nurse. In her small compartment, the infirmary, she faced those two doors and with a habitual disinterest gave at most a sour smile to any student. Raul, though he had lately been in close contact with her, had never yet received a hello, but did this time, out of sympathy. He nodded nervously and went down the hall a few steps, entering the large room that served as the office for the secretaries of the head of the Upper School, the assistant headmaster, and the headmaster himself.

  He told Henderson's secretary that he had an appointment with the headmaster. "Oh yes," she said, smiling pleasantly, "you're Raul, aren't you?"

  Raul, huskily, said yes.

  "Well, Mr. Henderson will be along in just a moment. Go right ahead into his office." She pointed to a short passageway on the right leading to a large office. Raul went down this and into the office, seating himself in a corner of the room on a large leather couch.

  The room was sumptuous, with none of the metallic atmosphere of school offices. Along the wall behind Mr. Henderson's desk were mahogany bookcases filled with beautifully bound editions; a massive oak desk dug permanently into the rich carpet; three floor-to-ceiling windows filled the room with gray light, and two leather couches, in the other corner of the room, looked down upon a glass-covered coffee table. Mr. Henderson's high-backed leather swivel chair seemed poised, as if its occupant had hurried out, and his desk was impressively littered with papers.

  Raul calmed considerably on entering the room. The gray light justified the solemnity he felt, and the dignity of the surroundings dispelled his fears of meeting a school bureaucrat.

  Mr. Henderson was also calmed by remembering that Raul had been going to rehearsals every day. He's been cutting classes while going to the theater—he wants to do his own work. He crossed the hall with the brisk step that was so much a part of his image, nodded when his secretary pointed toward his office to indicate that Raul was there, and his hand, even before he crossed the threshold, extended itself involuntarily.

  Raul's latent nervousness leapt into his chest and throat. Unconsciously mimicking Henderson's enterprising handshake, he stood up and shook hands with him, his nervousness subsiding as quickly as it had come. He reseated himself awkwardly. Mr. Henderson, his momentum unbroken, took Raul's folder off his desk and pulled a chair over to face Raul on the couch.

  He sat down, opened the folder, and began glancing through it, from time to time brushing invisible lint off his gray Brooks Brothers suit.

  Raul relaxed. He felt very comfortable on the couch, abstracted from the scene by the continuing folds of gray light playing about the room.

  "Well," Mr. Henderson said, placing the folder on the coffee table.

  Raul looked up.

  "Why have you been doing this?" he said, studying Raul's face. "I don't know. I certainly don't know why you're doing this." He sighed. "There are members of the faculty who say I should… who say I shouldn't care, that I should just throw you out. That doesn't sound very reasonable to you, does it?"

  Raul quietly said no.

  "I didn't think so." He paused. "It doesn't seem very reasonable to me either. I don't know if it's that you don't like Cabot or that, uh, well," he said hurriedly, "is it your parents who are insisting you go here?"

  Raul looked, and was, surprised. "No. No, not at all."

  Mr. Henderson looked down, intently studying his trouser legs. He brushed them casually with his right hand. "It could be," he said, "it could be that you're trying to get away from something, that you're doing this unconsciously…" He looked at Raul and paused.

  Raul smiled. "It's quite conscious."

  "It is," he said, laughing. "All right then, let's find out. Why have you been cutting?"

  Raul looked down, thinking of how he could phrase his reasoning politely. Mr. Henderson waited respectfully.

  "I have," Raul began, his voice tremulous, "I have, though I'm perhaps too young for it to be taken seriously, very specific goals."

  "You want to be an actor."

  "And a writer."

  "Mr. Miller only told me about the acting. I'm sorry, go on."

  "I think he only knows about the acting, that's probably why. But, in any case, I've found that the school, in many ways, interferes with this."

  "In what ways?"

  "Just in a very elemental sense, it consumes eight hours a day and usually leaves me exhausted. But, in another sense, it helps tremendously. The theater, for example."

  "But you haven't been neglecting that," Mr. Henderson said, smiling.

  Raul laughed. "That's true. However, it allows me hardly any reading time, and certainly no time in which to write." Here he stopped rather abruptly, because he was afraid he had said too much, and because there was nothing to add. An uneasy silence followed, while Henderson decided what approach he should take. There were good arguments available to him, none of which he had any faith in. But he knew, from the boy's tone, that it would be fruitless to argue that the school's courses were relevant to his needs. He chose instead to play upon Raul's need for the theater.

  "I can understand," he said solemnly, "your feeling that many of the courses are irrelevant." He shifted in his chair. "It seems to me you're more advanced than most third formers. Usually, boys aren't that sure of -where they wish to direct themselves until they're senor when they reach college."

  "That's true."

  "But the theater is available to you now, and we do have the best theater, as far as I know, that any high school can offer."

  Raul nodded.

  "And as for your interest in literature, do you know about the Colloquium?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "And that wouldn't interest you?"

  "It would."

  "Well, you won't be able to get into it until you're a junior, but you'll have to stick it out. That's the point. I know it's unpopular with your generation to bring up the idea of compromise…"

  Raul smiled.

  "… but it isn't, in this case, a question of compromise so much as it's a question of means and ends. Do you believe the end justifies the means?"

  "It depends upon the end."

  Mr. Henderson smiled in his turn. "That's true, but in this case?"

  Raul hesitated. "Yes," he said.

  "Well then," Mr. Henderson said, still smiling, "you'll have to stop cutting to accomplish your end."

  Raul smiled resignedly.

  "Now I don't think it would be enough to leave it at that," Mr. Henderson said. "But I know from Mr. Miller that he intends to keep you busy for the rest of this year, and I hope that by next year we'll be able to work out a special schedule for you."

>   Raul's face mirrored his satisfaction.

  "And I'd like to make a suggestion," Mr. Henderson continued. "Mr. Alexander, I don't know if you know of him…"

  "Yes. I've heard of him."

  "Mr. Alexander has a creative writing course, a good one, and he sometimes takes on fourth formers. I think it would be a good idea for you to speak to him."

  Raul nodded. "I'll do that."

  "Good. He and Mr. Simpson handle the Colloquium. They're two valuable teachers to have." Mr. Henderson paused, the late afternoon light giving his face a profound sorrow—he looked weary, and his voice, when he spoke, echoed his impotence. "You know, many members of the faculty simply don't think you should be trusted, but Mr. Miller's banking on you, and I am too. You aren't the only student to whom I want to give a special schedule. In many ways, you're a test. There hasn't been a student at Cabot who has been given the chance you're being given now. If you live up to all our hopes, it may mean that leniency becomes the rule, rather than the exception. I want you to remember, also," he said, looking at Raul, "that from now on you'll have a responsibility to the cast of Paul I. I'm sure you understand that."

  Raul, with the seriousness of taking a marriage vow, said, "I do."

  Mr. Henderson rose. "Well, I don't want to keep you from tryouts." Raul got up and shook hands with him, moving toward the door. Mr. Henderson turned and said to him, "You know, of course, that if anything like this happens again I'll be forced to expel you. I can't talk the faculty out of it a third time."

  His words sounded too harsh to him and he continued, "I was glad, in any case, to have a chance to speak to you. And please feel free to come to me with any problem you have."

  "Thank you, sir, I will."

  "Good."

  Raul left.

  Regardless of the bureaucratic phraseology, Raul was overjoyed by the interview, not only by Henderson's promises, but by the sensitivity he communicated with his voice. Both threats and condescension were absent—Henderson pleaded his own impotence as well as showing Raul his. -Raul was all power now. Henderson had accomplished more than his parents or Mr. Miller or any of his teachers had been able to in countless arguments. There was the theater, and, if he could wait, the school would be a haven for his art by next year. An ecstasy seized him as he walked in the gray light of Porshe Hall, his defiant joy expressed by the threatening sky. He howled loudly while the tempestuous wind tangled his hair, and he listened to the stampeding of students as school was let out. He twisted about in another gust of wind, his face distorted by high triumphant laughter, and he cried, " 'Hide fox, and all after!' "

  5

  Raul paused for breath in the lobby of the school auditorium. Though it was only four o'clock, all the lights had been turned on, and outside the sky broke loose in a torrential rain. From this bright, and loud, area, Raul entered a subdued, hushed theater. The stage crew was lining the rear of the stage with collapsible chairs, forming a semicircle. Raul went down the aisle to the far right to reach Miller's office. Going up a short flight of stairs to a platform, he faced Mr. Miller, who was speaking on the same phone he had used to speak to Mr. Henderson's secretary. Raul stopped and smiled. Mr. Miller smiled and nodded, saying into the phone, "He just arrived."

  Raul continued up the stairs, reaching the dressing room and stepping into Miller's office. Alec, who was sitting in Miller's swivel chair, looked anxious on seeing Raul; he ignored a conversation he was having with an important-looking young man and asked Raul, "What happened?"

  Raul gasped, tried to say something, choked, slumped into a chair, and waited until he could catch his breath. Then in a burst of air, he said, "Mr. Henderson's great!"

  Alec was overjoyed. "Isn't he?"

  "The man is incredible. Everything worked out beautifully. It's all settled."

  Alec sat back in his chair, sighed, and said, "Thank God."

  Raul continued heaving for air; Alec, remembering a duty, said very seriously, "Raul, this is John Goldby. He wrote Paul I."

  John Goldby turned to Raul, extending a sturdy hand.

  Raul exhaled and said, "I'm all right now."

  Goldby jerked his hand to reiterate that it was offered, saying, "How do you do?"

  Raul shook hands with him.

  "Your name is Raul?"

  "That's right."

  "Oh yes, Mr. Miller has told me about you. Have you read the play?"

  "Yes, I have."

  "What do you think of it?"

  Alec swung his chair about randomly. He looked at Raul in a way that plainly said, This is not the time to be honest.

  Raul caught his eye and said to Goldby, "It's very interesting."

  John Goldby nodded.

  "I have a question," Raul said. "Did you intend to show a social disintegration as well as the disintegration of Paul's ideals?" He glanced smugly at Alec.

  "What do you mean, specifically?" Goldby asked.

  Raul hesitated briefly. "I suppose that I was wondering whether or not the social disintegration and Paul's inability to rule correspond thematically." Alec tittered, but he suppressed it. "That is to say, were you trying to show that Russia was unprepared, at so early a date, to absorb Paul's liberal policies?"

  Alec said judiciously, "That's a good question."

  "Yes, it is," Goldby said. "However, it's almost that I was trying to point out an idea first expressed by Eric Hoffer, who I think is a remarkable though maligned man. He said that all idealists, who are willing to sacrifice human life for their ideal, can only, ultimately, destroy a nation. And he gives examples— , Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Castro, and so on. That's the central idea of the play."

  "I see," Raul said thoughtfully. "That confirms many of my first impressions. Wouldn't you agree, however," he went on, catching Alec's eye, "that, at first, Paul is in contact with the people, and when he is given the power to implement his ideals, he is then alienated from them?"

  "Absolutely," Goldby said, "absolutely. It is, in fact, the speech directly after Paul's coronation when this becomes apparent."

  Both Raul and Alec nodded. A silence followed until Goldby stood up, saying, "Well!" as if casting off weighty thoughts. He extended a hand first to Raul, then to Alec, saying, "I must speak to Mr. Miller before tryouts begin. It was a pleasure speaking to both of you."

  Raul and Alec smiled at each other, waiting for Goldby's exit to become complete. They waited until the echo from the metal stairway died out before they began laughing.

  Their nervousness overrode everything else, however. Raul looked longingly and apprehensively at the clock. "Do we have time for a cigarette?"

  "Surely," Alec said. "But the question is—do we risk Miller's disfavor at so critical a time?"

  "You have a point. But where is the value of victory without the tension of risk?"

  "True, that's certainly true." They took out cigarettes and lit them. Raul crumpled his empty pack, putting it in his pocket. "A pack since this morning. I shan't live long."

  Alec smiled abstractedly. "If we hear anyone on the steps, hand me your cigarette. I'll hide them under the desk, you go see who it is. That way," he laughed, "we won't be stamping them out and lighting them again." _.

  The air filled with tension as no one spoke. Suddenly Raul laughed aloud. Alec looked up. "I just thought," Raul said, "all day today, two poor boys have been running down to Mike & Gino's, risking being thrown out for leaving the school grounds, their arms loaded with books—Shakespeare and Balzac—looking for a schmuck named Raul, who asked them to do him this favor."

  "Is that true?"

  Raul nodded.

  "You're a naughty boy, Raul."

  "We're both naughty boys, and we're both scared to death about tryouts."

  Alec laughed with relief, Raul joining him. "Oh, it's marvelous," Raul said, "what we will see in a matter of moments are some forty insecure egos playing the nonchalant leads."

  "Tryouts are a drag."

  "There's something to them, though."

/>   "Yes, there is. It's the same nervousness you get at a performance, and it's valuable to survive it."

  They both half sighed. "They're also a lot of bullshit," Raul said, with uncalled-for vehemence.

  "It's time to go," Alec said, "if we want good seats."

  They pressed their cigarettes out, bumping into each other while making a beeline for the bathroom. They laughed at themselves. "What egotists," Alec said. "It's incredible. Go in the other one."

  They were in the bathroom for ten minutes. They came out, faces severely expressionless, went down a flight of stairs and onto the stage.

  They seemed to recognize no one, not even each other, as they converged with the large group that had come for tryouts. Their appearance was noted, because many, besides using the pessimism to camouflage their own hopes, believed they would get the major roles. It was no surety, however, and Miller paid no more attention to their entrance than to anyone else's.

  Ronald Black, the formidable offensive tackle, strutted about, assuring everyone that he would get the lead; John Henderson, the headmaster's son, speaking of a minor role as his hope, though he seemed vehement when another actor was suggested for the Peasant, felt sure that Miller would give him a lead; Barry Davis, cynical of everyone's egoism, despairing openly of his own, hoped for a major role and honestly did not expect to get it; and Al Hinton, the only truly modest candidate there, did not expect much and did not hope for much.

  The others, having no knowledge, no system of rationalization, as to Miller's method of casting, sat, like some thirty-odd virgins, on the collapsible chairs, blinded by the intense area lights. Mr. Miller, John Goldby, and Andy Rapp, the stage manager, sat on three chairs facing the semicircle. Goldby smoked a cigarette with authority, making all, even the most embittered veterans of tryouts, nervous by his untested influence. Mr. Miller, usually a transparent man, surprised Raul by his inscrutable countenance. And Andy Rapp had the pleasure of watching those whom he normally envied, uncomfortable in their testing period. Tryouts combine all the ambiguities of actors: they feel tested by people whose qualifications they deny are legitimate, yet which they cannot help themselves from soliciting. It frustrates and angers them; they are reduced to a foolish, weak state.