Well, it was my fault. I had been trying to make it back up to Columbia, but it was becoming more than clear that that wouldn’t happen. And it seemed as good a time as any to apologize to everyone for my general failure. To my family, who, though they didn’t like the idea of my going back to the city, suffered it because, at least partly, they must have believed that I could make it. That was all done now. I had tried and failed—it happens. The image of my admired senator from New York, Herbert Lehman, and the image of John F. Kennedy—they were being washed away. They had for so long fooled me into thinking that anything was possible. I’d been a very young man then. But I was no longer.
I walked until I stumbled, and when I stumbled it was forward. My hand reached over a ledge, beyond which was the space where the train would arrive. I did not know whether one was arriving at that exact moment, but if it had, my head and shoulders were exposed so completely that I would have been severed in half. It would have been a reasonable way to go—quick and painless. I would be missed, of course, but I would no longer have to fake being a regular guy. And perhaps, lying there on the subway platform, I was already receiving the punishment for what I had done, for not accepting the reality of my situation.
This was Dante’s Eighth Circle, the circle of the fraudulent: those who failed to carve out their own salvation. I wouldn’t have to fake it any longer in front of Sue or my friends, who I knew relied on me for the posturing, for pretending that everything was fine. It gave them comfort to see me behave as if nothing had changed. They expected me to persevere. They had put their money on me and spun the wheel. They didn’t know my burden—or perhaps they did, but appreciated that I didn’t share it with them. Which made me, lying there on the subway platform, suddenly realize that if they relied on me for some sense of stability in their world, then it would be selfish of me to let myself go.
That was followed by a second flash of insight. Sue, Arthur, and the others not only relied on me; they cared for me, cared so much that I had a reciprocal responsibility to them—not to wallow in self-pity or throw myself on the sword of my own self-esteem but to stop trying to camouflage my blindness from those closest to me.
The train was coming. I got up and righted myself. I boarded with the others and gasped a sigh of relief. When my knees pressed against a seat, I sat. I was halfway home. My legs were bleeding, but the bleeding from my head, I think, had stopped. People must have been looking at me very much the way I looked at the ruined man I had seen many years ago near the butcher. The train echoed under the city.
The issue of making it back in time for my appointment had by now fallen completely out of mind. I was simply trying to make it back, which seemed highly unlikely. Then I smelled a familiar odor—something light, pleasant, something that had no place down here. I didn’t know what it was.
Where and when to exit was no challenge. The westbound shuttle made only one stop. Recalling a large gap between the train and the platform, I made sure that I took a giant step out onto the platform at the Times Square station. As I was feeling my way out of the car and onto the platform, I bumped into another man. There was again that sense of something familiar. It was nearer to me this time, like a ghost. I asked him where I could find the platform to catch the train heading north up to Columbia, and he told me. I heard some people snicker at my exaggerated movements, and I felt shamefully conspicuous. Still, I moved along with those leaving the train and managed to get down the stairs to the uptown track.
By my now customary query method, I came to an area that I thought was the right platform for the uptown local. I wasn’t sure, though. The express left from the same platform, but it didn’t stop at Columbia. I turned to ask anyone near me whether this was the uptown local to Columbia at Broadway and 116th. A man’s voice—muffled, as if he were trying not to be heard—responded: “Yes, it’s the right platform.” He added that the local was the track to my left.
The train pulled in and stopped, and the doors opened right in front of me.
I worried, very briefly, that after all this I might get a shoelace caught in the narrow gap between the car and the concrete. It would be a fitting ending. That did not happen. Instead, I got on the train and found a seat. The train pulled out.
I was almost completely exhausted. I felt as though I had lost several quarts of blood. And I was semi-delirious. Was this madness? Why had I engaged in this absurd enterprise? I might instead have foregone the appointment with the reader—recognizing that the importance of that particular meeting was largely a creation of my own imagination. Why had I not simply waited with Arthur while he made his sketch of the Seagram Building? None of this nightmare trip would have happened.
As the train made its way north station by station, the thought of my grandmother and my parents forced itself on me. Nothing—neither poverty nor fear of the unknown future, neither disease nor war—had deterred them from their emigration across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. They would not compromise their hopes or their dignity, whatever the price. So how trivial was my little excursion?
After quite a few stops, the PA system announced mine, and then my weary feet got me to the top of the subway steps at 116th Street. I do not think I was ever happier to find myself back at the university. I felt my way to the iron gates and went through onto College Walk. As I began to make my way, I was stopped by a young man I recognized by smell as Arthur.
“Oops, excuse me, sir,” he said, a slight sardonic emphasis on the last word. Then, in his normal voice, he said abruptly, “I knew you could do it…but I wanted to be sure you knew you could do it.” He had been shadowing me all along. He later admitted that he had in fact not been assigned to sketch the Seagram Building at all.
We were silent for a moment as we stood near the university gates. I wanted to kill him. Then I became euphoric. I grabbed his hands, exultantly raised them, and swung him around me. In sweeping circular motions, we waltzed out onto College Walk.
Jerry Speyer, who was a witness to that subway trial aftermath, recounted it in a speech he gave adjacent to College Walk at the 2008 commencement of the Columbia Business School: “You or I cannot even imagine how Sandy felt at that moment, but he summoned something inside of himself, some untapped courage.… I tell you this story because it has remained with me for forty-six years.”
It has remained with me as well. That moment at the gates of the university, the moment of my triumphant survival of that subway odyssey, was the moment when fear—fear of risk, fear of movement, fear of change—was vanquished within me forever. I don’t know if Arthur had a cathartic moment of his own then. I can say only that I realized something profound—my friends and family had become angels who would be with me and never leave. I was strong because of the strength we gave each other.
12
Moving Forward
Spring of senior year was coming up fast, and I was not looking forward to it. Every day Arthur would go to the mailbox, looking for letters from the graduate schools, and come back empty-handed. I began getting a daily stomachache. Waiting for those responses was like being on death row. I was fairly certain I was not going to be accepted by any of the schools. Yes, I had very good grades, what with all my grinding work, but, well…Greenberg is blind. Nevertheless, I held on to the notion that something was possible. Something like an appeal or a pardon or the arrival of the cavalry in the nick of time. In a word: hope.
The first letter I received was from Princeton—a rejection. I do not recall exactly what it said, but the wording was formal and empty. It had nothing to do with me as an individual. Its text was almost certainly the same sent to many other applicants. Holding the letter as if it were a dead mouse, I took it to my anthropology professor, Margaret Mead, who had written me a recommendation. She was one of my advisers, and I was working for her as a research assistant. She was unpretentious and outspoken, and she had succeeded in a world dominated by men.
As I sat in her office, she picked up the telephone to Princeton. �
��The dean of the graduate school, please,” she said while my heart pounded ever harder. Soon she was bellowing: “What the hell gives you the right to reject Greenberg? He’s met all of your requirements and then some.” A dreadful pause. The man probably responded that Princeton simply did not think I could handle their reading loads because I was blind. (This was before people were able to sue for such comments.)
“Goddamn it,” Mead yelled. “Your reading lists are no tougher than Harvard’s or Yale’s. This is outrageous behavior on your part.” She slammed the phone down. I never really heard the words she then used to console me. I staggered out of her office but had no place to go. I bumped into a concrete bench and sat on it for hours. Hard work and diligence would yield success, wouldn’t they?
The worst part was that I thought the dean at Princeton might be right. I probably could not keep on this way, spending another four or five years earning a master’s degree and then a PhD, all the while listening to tapes and readers. I wasn’t sure if the proper metaphor was Job or Sisyphus, but one of them surely fit.
Meanwhile, I still had my ongoing studies at Columbia to attend to, and the occasional side highlight as well. Ike’s visit, for example. During a cocktail reception for seniors at his palatial residence, John Palfrey, the dean of Columbia College, told me that former president Dwight Eisenhower would soon be visiting the campus where he had served as president before resigning to campaign for the White House and asked if I would like to meet him.
When I told Arthur about the invitation, he approved. “A great opportunity,” he said. “Great fun. But what will you say to him?” Before I had time to respond, he shouted, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it. You want to make a lasting impression, right? Here’s what you do. When you’re introduced, get real close to him, face to face, look him straight in the eye, and say ‘blue mud.’” Typical Arthur.
The day of the meeting arrived. It was a small gathering, men murmuring in the room. I had just entered when a military aide took my arm and escorted me to a back corner. There stood the man who had charted perhaps the greatest victory of the century—the Allied landing at Normandy—and then had led the entire country through a period of relative peace and prosperity. The introduction was formal. “Mr. President, Sandy Greenberg.” At that, his hand was obviously extended toward me. For a moment, I hesitated. Then I thought, “blue mud.” I found and clasped his hand. “Mr. President, it is an honor to meet you.”
“Thank you, Sandy,” he answered. I did not respond, and he broke the silence. “I understand that you have excelled at this university of which I am so proud.” He said he understood I was going through a rough patch at school. I do not know how he knew this. I said I was, to some extent. He then took on a firmer, stiffer tone, perhaps of the same steel he had used to command his troops. He went on to tell me that much of his life was spent fighting the odds. He had been down before, like me, he explained. At one point, he had become the object of ridicule among his friends for having stayed in the military when everyone else left to make money. He had spent sixteen years as a major, he said, before he was promoted to lieutenant general. Sixteen years! That was nearly as many years as I was old. He was no stranger to failure, no stranger to languishing.
“There were many who underestimated me,” he said. “Many of my setbacks were not short-lived, either. Despite them, I never lost confidence in myself.” I told him I was very much aware of his accomplishments but until now did not understand how he had personally approached the enormous challenges he had confronted. It was clear that he was aware I had been moved by his words. I believed, or wanted to believe, that he had faith in me.
The inspiration lingered as I made my way back to my room.Then it was gone. All I could think was: Princeton rejected me.
One day Arthur came back from the mailbox with a whole bundle of letters from the graduate schools to which I had applied. “The results are in. Would you like me to read them to you?” he asked. Although I could hardly bear the thought of being humiliated in front of my friend, I had no choice. His dedication to the process had been unflagging.
“Is there one from Harvard?” I muttered. “Open it, please.”
The sound of him undoing the envelope seemed to go on endlessly. The letter finally unsheathed, Arthur stood up and in an exaggerated British accent read, “It is with great pleasure …”
Harvard wanted me to join its graduate program in government. The letters from the other schools read more or less the same, but we both knew it would be Harvard for me. I fell back on my bed, overwhelmed, as Arthur laughed. A friend brought in a bottle of Scotch. Arthur ran into our bathroom, grabbed a large glass, and poured it full of whiskey. Jerry ran in, and they both towered over me as I drank the entire glass.
There was more good news. First, I was elected president of my class. Then one day Norman Cantor, my professor of British constitutional history and one of my most important advisers, asked me to join him in his office. Cantor, who had been at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, had told me early in my junior year that “you can’t be an educated man without attending Oxford.” To that end, he had wanted me to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship, but Detroit had intervened. Undaunted, he now said that he had another idea for me about Oxford, but first he had a more pressing item to discuss. He leaned back in his chair and said with great satisfaction, “Sandy, you’ll shortly be receiving some very good news which, I might add, is well deserved. You have been elected to Phi Beta Kappa.” He paused, waiting for my response.
“Professor Cantor,” I stammered, “this news is overwhelming.” I held back tears. We often look back on early successes as lesser things, but at the time this meant everything to me. Phi Beta Kappa membership was an honor bestowed by my own faculty. It was as if, having been held underwater, I was finally able to resurface.
Professor Cantor was more set on getting me to Oxford than I had imagined. Because I could no longer apply for a Rhodes Scholarship—it did not permit married students, and I was now planning to marry Sue—he suggested that I apply instead for a Marshall Scholarship. I told him I would have to talk about it with Sue. Also, it seemed premature to talk about Oxford at all; I first had to figure out how I was going to get a doctorate while paying rent in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Even before that, and most immediately, I had to actually graduate from Columbia.
The podium was stationed in front of the statue of Alexander Hamilton. I stood as straight as I could. It was a languid spring day, and the smell of recently cut grass was heavy. The mortarboard sat uncomfortably on my head, tilted to the right, its tassel brushing my face. The graduation gown clung to my ironed shirt. My fellow members of the Class of 1962 and their families sat on lacquered wooden chairs in front of me. Behind me sat the dean of the college.
The audience quieted, but I remained silent for a moment. This spot, sheltered from the city, had been the heart of my college life. I could not avoid thinking of how much my life and I had changed since my high-school graduation four years earlier.
The wooden chairs creaked and clattered. The click of a nearby camera caught my notice; I supposed that Sue’s father was taking a picture. I began to speak …
13
Paying Back
Sue and her parents began making preparations for our wedding in Buffalo, and they asked me to make the arrangements for the music. I got on the phone to the leader of the band we had picked. “Mr. Shiron,” I began, “I want you to know how excited we are about the prospect of your playing at our wedding. I have an idea I’m very excited about.”
“Well, Sandy,” he said, “my band and I are also very much looking forward to it. We’ve known Sue’s parents for many, many years. We’ve seen them at numerous events where we’ve performed, and they’re fine people.”
“Okay, here’s my idea. My college roommate, who is also my best friend, has an absolutely beautiful voice. He would be honored to sing at the wedding.”
“What, are you kidding?” he shot back. “You want a ki
d to sing with my band? My men are pros—we don’t work with amateurs.”
“Mr. Shiron, he’s not just any kid. He has an extraordinary voice that I’m sure you’ll appreciate when you hear him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Arthur Garfunkel,” I said.
“Look,” said Shiron, “I know you think he can sing, but my experience is that whenever someone is put forward like this, he can’t.”
“Well, Mr. Shiron, I believe you’ll feel differently once you hear him, and in any event this is extremely important to me. I’ve been given the task of arranging for the music. I’d really appreciate it if you would accompany him when he sings.”
“What does he have in mind?”
“Well, he’ll be singing a number of songs, but the most important, the one to which Sue and I will be walking down the aisle, is ‘And This Is My Beloved.’”
“It’s a nice song,” he said. “Have the kid give me a call.”
The wedding was held on an August weekend in 1962 at a Reform synagogue that Sue had selected. Her rabbi officiated with my rabbi, who was Orthodox. My brother was best man. I had a number of friends there from college as well as from growing up. My family and some neighbors were there, of course, as were Sue’s family and friends.
It was warm out, but I think not hot. I cannot quite remember the weather, nor do I recall events of the wedding in any particular order. I do remember feeling wonderfully accomplished, even though we were about to embark on a difficult period of life. One of the greatest accomplishments was finally being wedded to the love of my life.
I remember that as the rabbis were reading the religious marriage contract, the ketubah, which they did in Aramaic, I felt anointed and sanctified. I felt that something spiritual was transpiring, something sacred and holy. I felt buoyant, transcendent, filled with color and light. I was probably somewhat worried before and after the wedding. But during the event, I was beyond that. I had my wife by my side.
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend Page 13