“I found it at an antique shop in Montpelier,” Greg said. “Look at the title page.”
Inside he had written, SIXTEEN ON THE SIXTEENTH. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE REAL DIRECTOR.
“What do you mean, ‘the real director’?” Thomas said.
“You helped me a lot,” Greg said. “With the play. With other stuff.”
It was corny but nice.
Afterward he walked downstairs to check his mail. Inside his post office box he found Time magazine and five letters, all birthday cards: one from Mom and Dad and Jeff, who hadn’t known, of course, that he’d be getting home early; one from Barbara; one from Aunt Lynne and Uncle Rick; one from his father’s life insurance agent; one from Hesta.
He opened the one from Hesta first.
It was one of those Snoopy cards. He didn’t even bother to check the printed message. She’d written her own letter all down the inside of the card, both sides, and on the back. A lot of it was just ordinary news about school. It was the last paragraph that made it a birthday gift:
I’ve been thinking that maybe we should have a talk. My parents are having a Christmas party on the 22nd and said I could invite a few friends. Would you like to come? Maybe you could drive over, if you have your license by then.
She signed it, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HESTA. It didn’t say LOVE, but it said enough.
Life had the craziest plot Thomas had ever seen.
Epilogue
Thomas Boatwright stood in the wings and watched the stage before him. It was 10:30 P.M. on Saturday, March 5, the final night of the run of Othello, and they were doing the last scene of the play. His parents had come for the previous night’s performance, had brought Barbara and Jeff and Hesta, and they had returned to Washington after taking him out for a pizza and giving him good reviews.
It had been Benjamin Warden who insisted that they go ahead with the production after all. Montpelier School had been savaged by the events of the previous December, but it was an old school, a resilient school, and even the scandal of having a series of deaths on the campus was not enough to close it down. A dozen parents withdrew their sons before the Christmas holidays, and of those, eight reenrolled their children when school started again in January. Daniel Farnham returned with reputation unblemished to continue to teach and to direct the play. Thomas Boatwright returned to act in it. Benjamin Warden continued to write poetry and to head the English department, but he submitted his resignation as of the end of the academic year. He had accepted a position as writer-in-residence at Columbia University for the coming fall term, and he had recommended Daniel Farnham as his replacement.
The JV basketball team finished the season under their new coach, Kemper Carella, with seven wins and ten losses, including victories in their last four games. Thomas Boatwright had not participated. He was never going to play basketball again.
Greg Lipscomb and Horace Somerville had been fascinated to learn that the southern wall of Patrick McPhee’s apartment had been the old cooking fireplace for the kitchen, now sealed off, its chimney removed and rebuilt on the eastern part of the building.
Tonight Thomas was long dead as Roderigo, and he had retired to a seat backstage from which he could watch the actors without being seen by the audience. He felt old and grand in his satin Venetian costume and his false mustache. Mrs. Kaufman had died as Desdemona and Greg had just wounded Nathan Somerville as Iago.
Greg was magnificent as Othello. He was wearing a long white African robe and was barefoot. His voice was strong and limber as it easily ascended all the way to the light booth.
It was a tribute to his performance that every boy in the audience was listening quietly.
Now Othello pulls a knife from inside one of his sleeves and stops those arresting him from departing.
“Soft you,” he says, “a word or two before you go.”
It was all so familiar, and yet each performance was different from the one before. Tonight had been their best, Thomas thought.
“Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,” Othello says. As he speaks, his voice catches. He almost breaks down, but then he recovers, “. . . of one who loved not wisely, but too well. . . .”
Greg had never read the line that way before. He feels it, Thomas realized. He’s experiencing Othello’s anguish firsthand. And before he could stop himself, Thomas was weeping. It was so terribly sad to see what had happened, to see this great man undone by his own emotions.
Thomas understood passion now. Cupid’s arrow was not a dainty decoration for a Hallmark card, but a vicious, steely shaft that could penetrate any armor. It was a wonderful, horrible force that drove human beings to reproduce and to murder.
“I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but this, killing myself, to die upon a kiss,” and Othello puts his lips full on those of Desdemona as he stabs himself
Thomas walked to the exit door upstage. He slipped out into the hallway and dodged around to the lobby, which should have been empty. You can’t let your friends see you crying at Shakespeare.
But the darkened lobby was not empty. Mr. Warden was there, sitting on one of the sofas, and he was red-eyed, too.
Thomas did not run away from Mr. Warden. He sat with him.
“I thought I could watch it, but I couldn’t,” said Mr. Warden.
“I know,” said Thomas. “It got to me tonight.”
“You should be backstage for a curtain call, shouldn’t you?” said Mr. Warden.
But Thomas was not thinking of taking bows. “I’ve decided to stay here,” he said. “Will you?”
“I think not,” said Mr. Warden. “Too many reminders, too many distractions. Maybe I’ll come back someday.”
They heard the audience inside break into roars of applause. The play was over.
“He was a good man,” said Thomas, “wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Warden. “That’s what makes it a tragedy.”
Author’s Postscript
When this novel first appeared in the spring of 1990, both Times Square and boarding schools were quite different from their modern-day incarnations. Where we now see Disney and candy shops and tourists along West 42nd Street, thirty years ago we had seedy peep shows, porn, and prostitution. Back then, boarding schools were pre-cell phone, pre-laptop, pre-email, pre-social media, pre-WiFi, pre-iPad, and pre-Netflix. Most important, they were also pre-Columbine High School massacre. Believe it or not, thirty years ago crime fiction remained the only conceivable location for multiple deaths on a school campus. We have sadly learned in the intervening years just how devastating a violent death on a campus can be. Readers who wonder at the callousness of the Montpelier School for Boys in this novel must remember that they’re reading a best guess about how a school might react to the unthinkable. My 2018 self has been tempted to overhaul the writing of my 1988 self, but I have resisted that temptation on the grounds that my younger voice deserves to speak without the interference of an aging pedant.
My thanks to Claiborne Hancock of Pegasus Books for proposing this resurrection for Passion Play and to Maria Fernandez for her sterling editorial assistance. I should also thank E. Stacy Creamer, editor of the earlier edition, and the agent who sold the book to Stacy, the late Nancy Love. Readers of the original draft, Nat Jobe and Johanna Smethurst, remain reliably blunt in their assessments, and Ann Glover, who designed the map of the campus, is still making beautiful art. Thanks to family and friends for indulging an indulgent writer. Finally, I salute gratefully my colleagues and students at Woodberry Forest School, past and present, for providing me with infinite inspiration, support, and joy.
W. Edward Blain
April, 2018
ALSO BY W. EDWARD BLAIN
Love Cools
passion play
Pegasus Books Ltd.
148 W 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by W. Edward Blain
First Pegasus Books edition April 2018
Interior design
by Maria Fernandez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978-1-68177-650-7
ISBN: 978-1-68177-723-8 (e-book)
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
www.pegasusbooks.us
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