Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  Leslie looked at him strangely for a moment, then put down the can opener she had in her hand. “Of course,” she said softly. “Can you wait till I wash my hair?”

  “I’m not hungry,” he said. “I can wait.” Whenever Leslie was troubled, she washed her hair. Her serenity, he realized, was a mask that she had put on for his sake. But he hated the sound of her hair dryer. It was like the sound of ominous engines he heard in the background of his dreams. “I’ll wait for you at O’Connor’s.” O’Connor’s was the bar on the corner of their street. He only went into it two or three times a year, when he had unpleasant news to break at home and wanted to postpone the moment.

  Leslie came over to him and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be melancholy, please, darling,” she said.

  But all he said was “I could use a drink. And there’s nothing in the house. Jimmy must have had some uproarious parties while we were gone.”

  “They couldn’t have been so uproarious,” Leslie said. “We didn’t leave more than half a bottle of Scotch when we left for Europe.”

  “Even so,” Strand said, knowing he was being unreasonable. As he left, he heard the water running in the bathroom. When Leslie met him at O’Connor’s an hour later he still had most of his first Scotch in his glass as he sat by himself at the deserted bar.

  They had dinner in a nearby restaurant they had used to like. There were only two other couples in the restaurant and the owner, who knew them, said, “Next August I am shutting down. August is a plague month in New York.”

  After the meals they had eaten in France the food seemed tasteless, and Leslie found a long hair in her salad. “This is the last time I’m going to set foot in this restaurant,” Leslie said.

  Last, Strand thought, is becoming the most common word in our vocabulary.

  When they opened the door to the apartment, the telephone was ringing. When the next war starts, Strand thought, as he hurried to pick it up, it will be announced to me by that nerve-rasping clanging. Disaster, courtesy of A.T. and T. But it was Eleanor. “I’ve been frantic,” Eleanor said. “I’ve been calling all night. Then I called Russell out on the Island thinking you might be there and he told me about Caroline. Where’ve you been? Is she all right?”

  “Fine, fine,” Strand said, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice. “Where are you?”

  “My apartment. I just got in this evening. I want to come over.”

  “What for?” Strand asked, meanly.

  “Don’t be angry, please, Daddy. All I’ve done is get married. Can I come over?”

  “I’ll ask your mother.” He turned to Leslie. “It’s Eleanor. Do you want to see her tonight?”

  “Of course. Ask her if she’s eaten dinner. I can fix her something.”

  “We’ll be waiting for you,” Strand said. “But your mother wants to know if you’ve had your dinner. If you haven’t she’ll rustle up something for you here.”

  Eleanor laughed. “Good old Mummy. Feed the beasts first and ask questions later. Tell her not to worry, I’ve put on three pounds since the wedding day.” Strand hung up. “She’s eaten,” he said to Leslie.

  “Promise me you won’t yell at her,” Leslie said.

  “Let her husband yell at her,” Strand said. “I don’t have the energy.” He picked up a magazine and went into the kitchen, which had the last light in the apartment by which you could read, and sat at the table and stared at cartoons that did not seem funny in the harsh glare of the neon fixtures, which Leslie had installed when she found that she needed glasses to sew and read.

  “Now,” said Leslie, “from the beginning.”

  They were all sitting in the living room, which was mostly in shadow since all but one of the room’s lamps had already been packed. Eleanor had asked about her sister’s morale. “Disturbingly high,” Strand had said glumly, but Leslie had been reassuring.

  Now Eleanor sat on the edge of a hard chair, looking younger and more beautiful than ever, Strand thought, at ease, unrepentant. “The beginning, of course,” Eleanor said, “was last summer, not this one, when I clapped eyes on him in somebody’s house in Bridgehampton and decided then and there that there was a man I must have.”

  Leslie looked uneasily over at Strand. He knew that his face showed what he thought of a daughter of his talking in terms like that, married or not.

  “After a week, he asked me to marry him,” Eleanor went on, a little note of triumph in her voice. “But he told me that sooner or later he was going to get out of New York and go work as a newspaperman in some little town that might be thousands of miles away from the city and he didn’t believe that marriages ever worked if the husband lived in one place and the wife in another and I said, ‘No, thank you, friend,’ and we just—well—we just went on seeing each other. He introduced me to his family and most of them were as nice as could be, but his mother smoldered when she saw me. She was born in Italy and she’s Catholic as they come and she goes to Mass Sundays and holidays and whenever there’s an excuse in between and while it was all right for her darling son to spend an occasional sneaky weekend with a Protestant temptress, the idea of marriage would send her on her knees, holding a candle, to the nearest statue of the Virgin. Can you imagine it? In this day and age?”

  Yes, Strand thought, I can imagine it. In this day and age oceans of blood have been shed because of a belief in one god or another. And the blood of children as yet unborn will flow for the same reasons. In that respect the devout mother of Giuseppe Gianelli was more up to date than his daughter.

  “The old lady would get over it, Giuseppe said,” Eleanor went on, “and as long as I didn’t have to see her it was okay with me and we went our merry way until”—she stopped and her tone became grave—“until he went down to Georgia and the man said he could come and start in on the paper immediately. He called me from Georgia, I suppose Russell has told you about that part….”

  “He told us,” Strand said.

  “He said he was taking the job,” Eleanor said, serious now, “and that if I ever wanted to see him again I would have to marry him pronto.” She sighed. “It was seven o’clock in the evening when he called me from Georgia. I told him I had to think about it. He gave me until the next morning. I can’t pretend that I slept well that night. Mummy,” she cried, “I can’t live without him. What would you have done if Daddy had given you an ultimatum like that—and you knew he meant it?”

  Leslie leaned over and touched Strand’s hand. “I’d have done exactly what you did, dear,” she said.

  “You’d have been a damn fool,” Strand said.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Leslie said softly.

  “When I called Giuseppe back in the morning, I told him yes,” Eleanor said, her voice so low that Strand nearly couldn’t make out the words.

  “But Las Vegas,” Strand said angrily. “What was the rush?”

  “What would you have preferred?” Eleanor got up and paced around the room. “A big wedding with a priest and the relatives singing ‘O Sole Mio’ and the Mama looking dark Italian curses at the whole family? Frankly, if you must know, neither Giuseppe nor I wanted to give ourselves time to change our minds. What difference does it make? Anyway, Las Vegas was fast—instantaneous marriages—and it was fun. Giuseppe won twelve hundred dollars at blackjack. It paid for the ring. And the hotel. Please, Mummy, Daddy, don’t be angry with me. I’m happy and I mean to remain happy. Would you feel better if I stayed in New York and went from one singles bar to another and got my name on the door as Assistant Vice President to the Assistant Vice President of the Overcharge and Complaint Division of the hundred and twentieth biggest computer company in America?”

  “Stop raving,” Leslie said crisply. She stood up and put her arms around Eleanor and kissed her on the forehead. “If you’re happy, we’re happy.”

  Eleanor looked over her mother’s shoulder at Strand. “Does that go for you, too, Daddy?”

  “I suppose so,” Strand said wearily. “Where’s your husban
d now?”

  “In Graham, Georgia,” Eleanor said. “The fastest growing, greatest little old town in the Sun Belt of the U.S. of A., Rotary Club meetings every Tuesday.”

  Strand couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. “Isn’t he coming up here at all?”

  “Only under cover of night. He’s a brave man, but not brave enough to face Mama for a year or two. Do I have your blessing?” She broke away from Leslie and stood challengingly in front of him.

  “I’m not the Pope. Blessings aren’t in my line.” Strand stood up and embraced her. “But I’ll kiss you.”

  She hugged him fiercely. “Don’t you think you ought to offer a toast to the newlyweds now?”

  “There’s nothing in the house,” Strand said crossly. “Jimmy drank it all.”

  Eleanor laughed and Leslie said, “Oh, Allen.”

  “Now,” Eleanor said, as she sat down comfortably, “the night’s still young. Tell me about your holiday.”

  “It was glorious,” Strand said, “but I’m sure you two ladies have a lot to talk about. I’ve had a big day and I’m going to bed.”

  Eleanor and Jimmy and Linda Roberts were already in the waiting room of the hospital early the next morning when Strand and Leslie arrived. Jimmy was wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater and had some sort of gold ornament hanging on a chain around his neck. His working clothes, Strand thought. But for once, at least, Jimmy looked grave. Caroline had just been wheeled up to the operating room, Eleanor said. She had already been under sedation but had waved sleepily once as she was wheeled past in the hall. Strand tried not to think of what was going on upstairs at the moment. The hospital smell was familiar, comforting, to him. He had been through it and had emerged. He had dreamed a great deal while he had been in the hospital, but had not remembered what the dreams were about, except that they had not been unpleasant. He hoped that in his daughter’s dreams she won races, accepted trophies, danced in the arms of handsome young men.

  Leslie had brought along some knitting and the sound of the needles clicked in the silence. She was knitting a sweater for him, he knew. The last time he remembered her knitting was when she sat beside him in the intensive care room. She was strictly a hospital knitter, he thought. The sweater, he hoped, would not be ready to wear until he was ninety.

  The first time Leslie had gone to the hospital—to have Eleanor—he had started reading a Raymond Chandler mystery. As a rule he never read mystery stories, but it had been lying on a table in the hallway and he had picked it up. Leslie’s confinement had been short and he had only managed to read a few pages before the doctor had come in to tell him he was the father of a daughter. Later, he hadn’t remembered what was in the pages he had read and then when Leslie had to be rushed to the hospital when Jimmy was being born, he had taken along the same book, out of superstition. He had started the book all over again and again had only gotten through a few pages. He had kept the book in a safe place, to be ready for future births, and had taken it along when Caroline was born. But now, in the confusion of their preparing to move out of the apartment, he didn’t know where the book was. He would have to find it before Eleanor had her first baby. Maybe then he would finally find out who had killed whom.

  Hazen came in after they had been waiting almost an hour. He was tanned and healthy looking out of place, Strand thought, in a hospital, although he had a bandage on his right hand. He had jammed it in a car door, he explained. He had also talked to Dr. Laird the day before and Laird had said the operation shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half, at most, and that there was nothing to worry about. Caroline would be ready to go home after twenty-four hours.

  Leslie was knitting faster and faster and the clicking was getting on Strand’s nerves. He got up and went out into the corridor and began walking up and down, trying not to look into the open rooms in which people were lying with plastic bags on stands above their beds and tubes in their arms. The laughter of nurses at the end of the corridor offended him.

  Hazen came out of the waiting room and paced silently beside him. Hazen cleared his throat, as though to gain Strand’s attention. “Allen,” he said, “this is as good a time as any to tell you. I don’t want to talk in front of the others. First of all, Caroline wasn’t in any automobile accident.”

  Strand stopped walking and stared at Hazen. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Remember when Laird asked me to come into his office when he got through examining Caroline?”

  “Yes. When he told you he could change the shape of Caroline’s nose.”

  “That wasn’t all he said. He didn’t just examine Caroline. He quizzed her about what had happened. He told her it couldn’t possibly have happened the way she said it had and that as her doctor he had to know the truth. She told him. The truth was that that boy, George, beat her up.”

  “What?” Strand’s knees suddenly felt watery.

  “They were sitting in a car all right,” Hazen said soberly, “but not on any road. Near the beach. Alone. He tried to undress her and she fought him and he hit her.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “Filthy little swine. He’ll never try anything like that again,” Hazen said grimly. “Yesterday I gave him the thrashing of his life.” He raised his bandaged hand. “I dislocated two knuckles. It was well worth it. And I went to his father and told him that if I ever saw his son around the Hamptons again, I’d ruin him. And the miserable old man knows I can do it. What’s more, he’s paying for the hospital and the operation.” Hazen smiled grimly at this triumph of negotiation. Then his face grew serious again. “I’ve been debating with myself whether to tell you or not and finally I came to the conclusion you ought to know.”

  “Thank you,” Strand said dully. “Of course.”

  “I don’t think you ought to tell anybody else. Especially not Jimmy. Jimmy might think he would have to do something about it and God knows what that might lead to. The matter of young Master George is settled and it’s best to leave it as it is. I’m afraid it was my responsibility. I invited the little shit to my house and he met Caroline there and it was up to me to take the necessary steps and they’ve been taken. I apologize to you and to your whole family.”

  “There’s no need for apologies.” Finally, Strand found a chair outside a closed door and sank into it, trembling, feeling waves of helpless fury sweep over him. If the boy had been standing in front of him at that moment he would have flung himself at him and tried to murder him, although he had never fought in his life and he wasn’t strong enough yet to harm a kitten. But even knowing this he felt dishonored and ashamed that the punishment that should have rightly been his prerogative had been taken out of his hands.

  “Are you all right?” Hazen asked anxiously, bending over him. “You’re white as a sheet.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Strand said thickly. “Just leave me alone for a minute, please.”

  Hazen took a long look at him, then went back into the waiting room. Strand was still sitting there, trying to keep his hands from shaking, when Dr. Laird came striding down the corridor. The doctor stopped when he saw him. “It’s all over, Mr. Strand,” the doctor said. “It came out perfectly. Your daughter will be down any minute now.”

  “Thank you,” Strand said, without rising from the chair. “The others are in the waiting room. Please tell them.”

  The doctor patted him once on the shoulder, the gesture above and beyond the call of duty of the best-man-in-the-business, and went into the waiting room.

  Strand was still there when they wheeled Caroline past him toward her room. He stood up and looked down at her. What he could see of her face which was half covered with bandages looked peaceful and like that of a sleeping and happy child.

  He wept without knowing that he was weeping.

  4

  HE WAS SITTING ALONE in the light of a student lamp with a green glass shade at the big desk in the parlor of the Malson Residence, the house on the campus of Dunberr
y School for which the registrar had given him the keys. Jimmy had driven him down from New York in a car that he had borrowed from a friend. Jimmy had not been favorably impressed by the creaky old wooden house which, as far as could be foreseen, would be his parents’ home for the remaining years of his father’s working life. The housemaster’s apartment, separated from the boys’ quarters in the rest of the house by a long dark hall, was spacious enough, but the furniture was sparse and nondescript and showed signs of long hard use.

  “It sure isn’t the lap of luxury, is it, Pops?” Jimmy had said after he had carried Strand’s bags in.

  “We’ll throw out most of the stuff,” Strand had said. “Your mother’s sending down a lot of our things and when she gets here I’m sure she’ll make the place comfortable.” Leslie had stayed in town because they couldn’t leave Caroline alone while her head was still swathed in bandages. Dr. Laird had guaranteed that Caroline would be presentable and ready to travel in two weeks, when she had to go to Arizona for the beginning of her school term, and Leslie had decided to make the trip with her.

  “I wish I could stay and keep you company, Pops,” Jimmy said. “I hate the idea of you rattling around in this barn all by yourself for two weeks.”

  “I won’t be alone,” Strand said. “The boys are due to check in the day after tomorrow.”

  “How many kids do you have to be den mother to?”

  “Only nine.”

  “God be with you, Pops.”

  “If I could handle you,” Strand said, “I can handle any nine brats they wish on me. We’re lucky. Some of the teachers in the big dorms have as many as sixty.”

  Jimmy laughed. “If any of them give you trouble, call on me. I’ll blackmail Solomon into giving me another day off and I’ll come down and beat up on them.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I’ve got to be going. I’ve promised to get the car back before the office closes.” Uncharacteristically, he came over and put his arms around his father and hugged him. “Please be serious. Kids can wear a saint down to the marrow.”