Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  “That will do,” Strand said.

  “Who’s Who doesn’t mention his bicycle riding,” Eleanor said. “I suppose that’ll be in the next edition. At dinner I thought he wasn’t just one of the run-of-the-mill Central Park exercise nuts.”

  “I gathered he was a man of some importance,” Strand said. “Still, to his credit, he didn’t advertise.”

  “He doesn’t have to. Do you know anybody else in Who’s Who?”

  “Not offhand,” Strand said. “Well, there’s an old professor of your mother’s at Juilliard…. That’s about it. Did he say anything to you in the taxi?”

  “He wanted to know why I said I slaved when he was putting us all through the third degree.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said it was just a figure of speech. He said he hoped to see more of us. He struck me as being a lonely man, although after reading about him it doesn’t seem possible.”

  “I had the impression,” Strand said, “that you didn’t like him very much.”

  “It wasn’t that, exactly,” Eleanor said. She sounded uncertain, as though she still hadn’t made up her mind about Hazen. “I just sensed a gap between him and us. No, not a gap. An abyss. Didn’t you?”

  Strand laughed. “I’m not really an abyss man,” he said. “No. Are we going to see you over the weekend?”

  “Sorry, I’m off to Connecticut for a spot of rural luxury. I’ll call on Monday.”

  “Have a good time,” Strand said, as he hung up. He wondered where Eleanor had found a copy of Who’s Who. She hadn’t sounded as though she was in a library and he knew she didn’t have one in her apartment. Probably she had been calling from her young man’s place. He tried not to think of what she had been doing the night before, after she had dropped Hazen. He shook his head. Her life.

  As he went back to the bedroom and picked up Prescott again he wondered, without envy, how a man could divide himself into as many parts as Hazen, by Eleanor’s report, must manage, and why he did so.

  He started reading again, but there was a knock on the door. It was Mrs. Curtis. “The man who had dinner here last night is here,” she said. “He looks something awful, all the colors of the rainbow, but he has some flowers for Mrs. Strand and he said if you weren’t busy he’d like to see you for a minute. He wants his bicycle but Alexander’s not around this morning.”

  “When will Alexander be back?” Strand asked, as he put on a worn old tweed jacket, his Saturday costume, and slipped his feet into moccasins.

  “Not for an hour. He had to go downtown for a piece for the boiler.”

  Strand went along the long dark hallway past Jimmy’s closed door to the foyer. There were some prints on the walls, and some old posters for one-man shows, as well as a flower piece of Leslie’s. Not mentioned in Who’s Who, Strand thought. Hazen was standing holding a big bouquet of flowers wrapped in paper. Another long paper-wrapped package was lying on the table in the foyer.

  “Good morning, sir,” Hazen said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Good morning,” Strand said as they shook hands. “Nobody disturbs me on Saturday morning. It’s my time for doing nothing.” Hazen did look awful, as Mrs. Curtis had said. He had a wool ski hat pulled over the bandage on his head, making his head look grotesquely large, and his face was swollen and misshapen, the skin below the pad of bandage on his cheek a sickly mixture of yellow, purple and green. His eyes, though, were clear and bright and he was neatly dressed in a beautifully fitting dark gray suit, his shoes glittering in a mahogany shine.

  “How did the night go?” Strand asked.

  “It passed.” Hazen shrugged. “And your daughter?”

  “Off playing tennis. She was gay as a bird at breakfast.”

  “The resilience of youth,” Hazen said.

  He says the most banal things, Strand thought, as though they are pearly-new gems of observation.

  “I bought a few flowers for your wife,” Hazen said, moving the bouquet with a little rustling of paper. “For her kind ministrations.”

  “She’s busy now with a lesson,” Strand said.

  “I hear,” Hazen said. He made no comment on the quality of what he heard.

  “She’ll be most pleased. Mrs. Curtis,” Strand said, “would you please put Mr. Hazen’s flowers in water.”

  Mrs. Curtis took the bouquet from Hazen and went back into the kitchen.

  “I have something for Caroline.” Hazen indicated the paper-wrapped package on the table. “A new racquet. Made by the Head people. I noticed that the racquet she demolished in my defense was a Head.”

  “It wasn’t necessary,” Strand said, “but I’m sure she’ll be delighted.”

  “The gut is in the package,” Hazen said. “I wasn’t sure just how tight she would like it strung. All she has to do is take it into the tennis shop at Saks and they’ll do it for her.”

  “You’ve had a busy morning, Mr. Hazen,” Strand said. “It’s not yet eleven o’clock and you’ve already been to Saks and the florist’s.”

  “I’m an early riser,” Hazen said. “Another thing I inherited from my father.”

  “I know something about your father,” Strand said.

  “Oh, you do,” said Hazen, flatly. “I’m not surprised.”

  “My daughter, Eleanor, just called. She looked you up in Who’s Who.”

  “Oh, she did? I didn’t think she was that interested in me.”

  “She said there wasn’t anything in it about your bicycle riding.”

  Hazen smiled. “We’ll keep that part of my biography to ourselves, shall we? I’m not particularly proud of last night.”

  “I don’t see anything much that you could have done about it,” Strand said.

  “I could have stayed home,” Hazen said. “I was foolish, considering the lateness of the hour. Still…” His face brightened. “It gave me the opportunity of meeting you and your charming family. I really am taking too much of your time. I had just planned to leave the racquet and the flowers here in the hall and pick up my bicycle. But the superintendent’s door didn’t answer and I…”

  “He’s away,” Strand said. “If you wait here for a moment I’ll ask Mrs. Curtis where the key for the cellar is.”

  “Thank you,” Hazen said, “if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Mrs. Curtis was putting the bouquet into a big vase in the kitchen.

  “Pretty, aren’t they?” Strand said. He had only the vaguest notion about flowers. He was sure about roses and chrysanthemums but after that he was usually at a loss for floral identification.

  “For what they cost,” Mrs. Curtis said, jabbing harshly at the blossoms, “you could feed your family for a week.”

  “Mr. Hazen would like to get his bicycle out of the cellar,” Strand said, ignoring Mrs. Curtis’s comment on the household’s economic situation. “Do you know where Alexander keeps the key?”

  “You go into the boiler room,” Mrs. Curtis said, “it’s open and there’s a shelf on the right-hand side, high up. At the near corner you’ll find the key. That man going to ride his machine through the park in his state?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “He’ll scare the animals in the zoo right out of their cages.” Mrs. Curtis jabbed again at the flowers. “Mind, put the key back when you’re finished with it.”

  “I will,” Strand said. He went back into the foyer, where Hazen was still standing, a small frown on his face as he listened to a scale that was being played with considerable inaccuracy in the living room. Strand smiled. “Usually, it’s better than that,” he said. “That obviously is not one of Leslie’s star pupils.”

  “Still, it must be rewarding,” Hazen said, correcting his frown. “All those young people…” His voice trailed off.

  “I know where the key is in the cellar,” Strand said. “I’ll take you down…”

  “No need,” Hazen said. “I’ve bothered you enough. I have my man downstairs. If you’ll just tell me where the
key is…”

  “I was just going down to take a little walk, anyway,” Strand said, although the idea hadn’t occurred to him until that moment. He opened the door and followed Hazen to the elevator. On the ground floor, there was a tall man of about thirty-five dressed in corduroy pants and a sweater. Hazen introduced him as one of his secretaries, Mr. Conroy. He was an unathletic-looking man, with a gray complexion, the color, Strand thought, of ashes leeched by years of acid rain. The clothes he was wearing seemed incongruously informal on him. Strand wondered what Hazen’s other secretaries looked like and how many he had and whether they made up in beauty and charm for Conroy’s depressing appearance.

  They went down the steps to the boiler room and Strand found the key. He opened the cellar door and Conroy, with quick, efficient movements, took hold of the bicycle. Strand offered to help get it up the stairs, but Hazen said, impatiently, “Conroy can handle it himself, can’t you, Conroy?”

  “Of course, sir,” Conroy said.

  Strand locked the door and put the key back in the boiler room. Conroy was waiting for the two men when they came out of the building into the sunlight.

  “Just leave it with the doorman,” Hazen said.

  “Yes, sir,” Conroy said and mounted the bicycle.

  “Until Monday morning,” Hazen said.

  “Yes, sir,” Conroy said. “If you need me over the weekend, my answering service will get me.”

  “If I need you,” Hazen said.

  He and Strand watched the man ride off. “I don’t imagine he belongs to any union,” Strand said, “your Mr. Conroy. On tap for work on the weekends.”

  “Able fellow,” Hazen said. “He’s paid enough to put in an extra hour here and there. And he’s not married. That helps.” He chuckled. “If you don’t mind, perhaps we could go a little way on your walk together.”

  “Which way would you like to go?” Strand asked. “Into the park?”

  Hazen shook his head, smiling. “Not just yet, please. The memories are still rather fresh. Perhaps toward Lincoln Center…?”

  “Fine,” Strand said, as they began to walk. “I always like to look at it. It gives me some hope that in the long run the city will not be totally destroyed.”

  They walked comfortably in silence for a while. “I’ve been wondering about your name,” Strand said.

  “Why?”

  “There’s a William Hazen whose name is a footnote to American military history.”

  “Really?” Hazen sounded interested. “What did he do?”

  “He went to West Point, then fought the Indians and during the Civil War he was a colonel under Sherman in Georgia at the head of a regiment of Ohio volunteers and captured Fort McAllister.”

  “Good Lord, man,” Hazen said, “how do you know all that?”

  “A history teacher is a mine of useless information.”

  “What else did he do? If he was important enough, maybe I’ll claim him.”

  “He became a general and started the Signal Corps.”

  Hazen laughed. “The Signal Corps. I have an old friend who was an infantryman in World War Two and he wasn’t very fond of the Signal Corps. According to him, in the infantry they said, ‘Take the star out of the window, Mother, your son’s in the Signal Corps.’ I guess I won’t claim him after all. Anyway, my family came to New York in 1706 and never got to Ohio. What about your ancestors?”

  “I don’t know much about them,” Strand said, sorry he had brought the subject up. “My parents came to New York in 1920, from Lancashire. My father had been gassed on the Somme and he said he’d had enough of England. When I asked him about his and my mother’s family, he said they weren’t worth talking about.” He shrugged. “I took his word for it.”

  Now the silence between them was a little strained and when Hazen spoke again, it was on a different subject. “I’ve been thinking about something you said last night,” he said. “About that Puerto Rican boy in your history class.”

  “His name is Romero, Jesus Romero.”

  “You know,” Hazen went on, “scholarships are quite easily arranged for promising young people these days. Especially for those in minority groups. In the best colleges. Do you think the boy would be interested?”

  Strand considered for a moment. “I’m afraid on the basis of his marks, he wouldn’t be considered promising. I understand from other teachers that he’s practically useless in their classes. I doubt that he’ll pass enough subjects even to graduate.”

  “Too bad,” Hazen said. “Do you think he’s intelligent enough so that if he applied himself for a year or so he could pull up his grades?”

  “Not in River High School, no. It’s not an atmosphere conducive to application.”

  “What if he could get a scholarship for a year, even two—one of the good preparatory schools—where the—ah—influences are healthier? Could he be improved to a point where a college would be ready to give him a chance?”

  Strand shrugged. “That would depend upon his attitude, of course. Right now, except for the fact that he’s done a surprising amount of reading on his own—more often than not in fields that have very little relation to the courses he’s taking—he’s just about like the other students in the school. That is to say he’s scornful of authority, immune to discipline, suspicious of the intentions of his teachers…”

  “Your intentions, too?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Strand said. “He delights in provoking me. When I lecture, following the curriculum, as I have to do, he often just gets up and walks out of the room.”

  Hazen shook his head sadly. “All that money, all that effort, all that good will going into our schools,” he said, “and what do we get for it?”

  “Rebellion,” Strand said. “Sometimes concealed, very often open.”

  “I can imagine the difficulties,” Hazen said. He shook his head. “Still, we can’t just wash our hands of the whole thing, can we?”

  Strand wasn’t sure just which “we” Hazen meant and by what process he, Allen Strand, might be included in the plural.

  Hazen stared soberly ahead of him as he walked, seemingly oblivious of the curious stares of the passersby at his ski cap and battered face. “We can’t just abandon a whole generation or a good part of a whole generation to nihilism—that’s the only word for it—nihilism,” Hazen said, an oratorical gravity in his voice. “The best of them have to be saved—and I don’t care where they come from, the slums, farms, great estates, ghettos, anywhere. This country is in for some terrible times and if our leaders are going to be ignorant, uneducated, we are heading for catastrophe.”

  Strand wondered if Hazen was voicing long-held beliefs or had suddenly seen some handwriting on the wall that had been hidden from him before his scalp had been opened by a piece of pipe. He himself, involved in the daily struggle with the young, found it more comfortable not to look far ahead, and he felt that the present state of the nation could hardly be worsened, regardless of the education or lack of it of its leaders.

  “Ah, well.” Hazen spoke in his normal tone. “We’ll do what little we can. If you think it would be of use to talk to the boy, do so. And let me know what he says.”

  “I’ll give it a try.”

  Almost as though he knew what Strand was thinking as they walked side by side, Hazen said, “Have you ever thought of getting out of the public school system? It must be dispiriting, to say the least—year after year. Perhaps teaching somewhere out of the city, in a small private school where the rewards, anyway intellectually, would be more commensurate with the effort you put in?”

  “My wife talks about it from time to time,” Strand said. “I’ve thought about it, yes. But I was born in New York. I like the city. I’m a little old to tear up roots.”

  “What degrees do you hold?”

  “M.A.,” Strand said. “I took it at night in New York University, while I was teaching during the day.”

  “Any writing in the field?”

  “Not really
,” Strand said. “I’m more of a reader than a writer.”

  “You know,” Hazen said, “if I were a trained historian some of the things you were talking about last night—the theory of randomness, especially—would tempt me to examine various periods in that perspective. It could lead to some amusing speculation on how differently great events could have turned out with just the smallest alteration of the elements involved…”

  “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,” Strand said, “for want of a shoe, the horse was lost, for want of a horse, the kingdom was lost. That sort of thing?”

  “More or less. Although perhaps not quite so primitively.”

  “I’ll suggest it to Romero,” Strand said lightly, “and give you the credit for the inspiration.”

  “No, seriously,” Hazen said, “I think the reconsideration of American history, especially along those lines, would make a good deal of sense. I’m not an expert, of course, but it seems to me that America—the United States—blundered into greatness; there was nothing foreordained about it. And we’re blundering into decline, back toward Europe, terrorism, factionalism, cynicism in private and public life, and I hope there’s nothing foreordained about that, either.”

  “You’re a pessimistic man, aren’t you, Mr. Hazen?”

  “Perhaps less so than I sound. I’ve been disappointed. Some hopes have been dashed. Institutions I have worked for have not lived up to expectations. People I thought I loved have not turned out as they might have. Characters have been stunted, careers unrealized. But no, I am not pessimistic to the point of surrender. I believe in struggle, intelligence, essential moral values. A night like last night—your daughter’s instant coming to the aid of a stranger in trouble at considerable peril to herself, your family’s unhesitating solicitude, the easy affection I felt flowing from one to the other around the table, the sense of unity without constraint, the absence of any signs of that mortal disease, loneliness—I don’t want to make too much of it, but a night like that in this day and age is a strong remedy for pessimism.”

  “I’m afraid you’re laying a very heavy burden of meaning on a simple family dinner,” Strand said, uneasy with all that praise. “You’re going to make me self-conscious each time I take out my key to unlock my front door.”