Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  “My daughter is on an athletic scholarship to a little college in Arizona,” Strand said, suddenly and for the first time proud of that fact. “She’s a runner.”

  “That’s more than can be said for me,” Rollins said. “I’m a defensive tackle. Mostly I just try to stand my ground.” He laughed. “I’ll bet your daughter could beat me down under a punt every time. Girls these days…” He shook his head humorously.

  “I hope she stands her ground, too,” Strand said. “In other ways.”

  Rollins looked at him very seriously. “I hope so, too,” he said. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time, sir. I’ll just move in my stuff after the morning practice session.”

  “I’ll leave the door open for you.”

  “There’s no need to worry. Nobody steals anything around here.”

  “I come from New York,” Strand said. “Everybody steals everything there.”

  “So I’ve heard.” The boy shook his head. “Waterbury is bad enough and it ain’t a pimple compared to the size of New York. I hope you’re happy here, Mr. Strand. Everybody says this is a right nice friendly place and I hope it turns out that way for both of us. If you and your wife ever need some heavy pushing and hauling, furniture and stuff like that, please call on me. I may not be smart”—he grinned again—“but I’ve got a strong back. Now I have to get over to the field and run my poor sagging butt off.” He moved off with an athlete’s easy walk, his close-cropped head looking too small on the great trunk of neck which jutted up out of his sweater.

  Strand went into the house, thinking about the two R’s—Rollins and Romero. A black boy and a Puerto Rican. Would Romero, with his street cynicism, think “Of course, keep the black brother and the not quite white brother segregated in their nice genteel way”? Would he accept that it was just an accident of the alphabet? The registrar had told him that if any of the boys wanted to change rooms and nobody objected it could be done. But what if all the other boys were satisfied with the arrangement as it was and no changes could be made? He didn’t know how many blacks were included in the student body or how they were selected. Rollins because he could play football, although Strand was a little shocked that a school with the reputation of Dunberry would recruit its teams so openly. After all, Dunberry wasn’t Notre Dame or Alabama. And Romero because, by a fluke of random conversation, a powerful man had become interested in him. What of the others? He would have to ask around discreetly what the school’s policy actually was.

  He went into the big common room, where there was a radio and a television set and some bookcases with volumes stacked haphazardly on the shelves. He started putting them in order and realized he was looking for a copy of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. If he was going to have to argue for a year with Jesus Romero he would have to start by rereading Gibbon and very carefully, indeed. But the only books he found whose authors began with G were Inside Africa, by John Gunther, and The Affluent Society, by John Kenneth Galbraith, neither of which he felt would be of much use to him in a debate with Romero. He could imagine the hoots of laughter if by chance the boy, with a mother on welfare, picked up the Galbraith book. He took the book off the shelf and carried it into his apartment and put it on the table in the bedroom. If he had found The Conquest of Mexico and The Conquest of Peru, although they were two of his favorite volumes of history, he would have hidden them, too, as additional fuel to Romero’s smoldering assortment of resentments.

  He knew that Caroline had an appointment that morning at eight o’clock with Dr. Laird; before he began his day’s operations, and while he didn’t expect there would be any important developments to report in her condition, he decided to telephone, admitting to himself that he was doing it more to hear Leslie’s voice than for information about his daughter. As he dialed he told himself that he would have to ration his calls. At his salary long distance telephoning was a dangerous luxury.

  It was Caroline who answered the phone. “Oh, Daddy,” she said, “I’m so glad you called. Dr. Laird has turned out to be Santa Claus. He looked at my nose and took some more X rays and he said in a week I can take off all the bandages and I’ll look like a human being again. Mummy says we’ll have time to come and visit you for a couple of days before we go west. Isn’t that something?”

  “Santa Claus is right,” Strand said. “The next time you see him tell him it’s Christmas for me, too. And when you come wear the ugliest long dress you own. There’ll be four hundred boys here from tomorrow on.”

  Caroline giggled. “Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be that startling. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was?”

  “No,” Strand said. “Now let me talk to your mother.”

  Leslie’s voice, too, was cheerful. “Caroline told you,” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful? And how are you doing?”

  “As well as can be expected. The people are nice and while the house is an old barn, a woman’s touch will do marvels for the place. And you’re the woman whose touch is needed.”

  “All in due time, dear.” But she sounded pleased. “Is there anything special you need that we can bring when we come down?”

  “Only our bed.”

  “Incorrigible.” But she sounded even more pleased. “By the way, your young friend, Romero, came by just a few minutes ago for his clothes. He said he thought he’d come down today instead of tomorrow. He seemed very eager. I think you’re wrong about that boy. His manners were perfect.”

  “He’s a consummate actor. What did Caroline think of him?”

  “She didn’t see him. You know how she is these days. When she heard the bell ring she locked herself in her room. He asked if he could get dressed in his new clothes in the bathroom. When he came out he looked quite handsome in his small way. He made a strange request. He said he’d left all his clothes in the bathroom and he asked me to burn them.”

  “If he was dressed the way he usually is, it’s not so strange. Enough about him. How are you?”

  “Fine.” She hesitated. “I have a confession to make to you. Mrs. Ferris, you remember her, she’s the headmistress of Caroline’s school, called last week and asked me if I could arrange to come in one day a week and give private lessons to the students. She said I could use the music room. There won’t be many. I’d only keep the best of my students.”

  “Why is that a confession?”

  “Because I didn’t tell you. You had enough on your mind as it was.”

  “Do you want to do it?”

  Leslie hesitated again. “Yes,” she said. “Do you think the people at Dunberry would mind?”

  “I’m sure it could be fitted into your schedule. I’ll ask today.”

  “Don’t do it if it’s any trouble, dear.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.”

  “It would mean I’d have to stay over in New York someplace for the night.”

  “I guess I can survive one night.”

  “Are you taking things easy?”

  “I’m not doing anything. I drank tea with the faculty members yesterday and the boys don’t arrive till tomorrow. And I’ve already found a big hulk of a football player who volunteered to move the piano around for us. I think we’re going to love the place,” he said with all the sincerity he could muster.

  “I’m sure we will.” Leslie didn’t sound absolutely convincing, “It’s beautiful in New York today. Indian summer.” She didn’t say why she thought it was necessary to report on the city’s weather.

  “Have you heard from Jimmy or Eleanor?”

  “Out of sight, out of mind. But I’ll try to get Jimmy to come down to the school with us. This call must be costing a fortune. We’ll save all the news for when we see each other. Good-bye, dear.”

  “Good-bye, my love,” he whispered. One night a week, he remembered, as he hung up.

  There was a knock on the door and he called, “Come in.”

  A plump woman dressed in baggy black slacks and a sweater stretched tight over an enormous
, pillowy bosom entered. She was carrying a large shopping bag and had a rosy complexion and dyed blond hair. “Good morning, Mr. Strand,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Schiller. I’m your housekeeper here. I hope you found everything in order.”

  “Fine, fine.” Strand shook her hand. It was soft, but strong. “You only have to make up one of the beds. My wife won’t be coming along for some days. And two of the boys will be arriving today. Their names are Rollins and Romero and they’re assigned to room three.”

  “The boys take care of their own rooms,” Mrs. Schiller said. Her voice was gruff, as though she smoked too many cigarettes. “I occasionally straighten up the common room for them when the disorder reaches a certain point. And once in a while I take a peek upstairs to see if any of the walls have been torn down.” She smiled. She had a warm, motherly smile. “I passed through the dining room this morning and noticed you weren’t there for breakfast. My husband works in the kitchen, he’s a baker, and I help out until the full staff is on duty. Would you like me to buy some things to put in the refrigerator? Snacks, fruit, things like that? Until your wife arrives?”

  “That would be very kind of you.”

  “If you’d like to make up a list…”

  “Anything you think I should have will do perfectly,” Strand said. He didn’t mention the fact that he would like a bottle of whiskey in the house. He would do the shopping for that himself. He didn’t know how discreet the woman was, and he didn’t want to take the chance that she would spread the word that the new history teacher was a solitary drinker.

  “Is there anything special you want to tell me?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Oh—one thing. Please don’t touch anything on the desk, no matter how jumbled it looks.”

  She smiled again. “In a school, where everybody lives on paper, you learn that lesson right away,” she said. “I’ve seen some desks that mice could have lived on among the books and papers and magazines for years without being discovered. If there’s anything you and your wife disapprove of, please let me know right off. The couple who were here until the summer were too shy to tell me the way they liked things and I was constantly catching the lady rearranging furniture and moving plants from one place to another and looking guilty when she saw me in the room. I want you and the missus to enjoy living here.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Schiller. I fully expect to.”

  “One last thing, Mr. Strand,” she said, as she opened the bag she was carrying and took out an apron, which she tied around her ample waist, “if ever you want anything special in the way of baked goods—canapés for a party or a birthday cake—just let me know. My husband likes to do little odd jobs for the faculty and the boys. It breaks the routine, he says.”

  “I’ll remember that. I have three children—they’re grown and they won’t be living with us but we may be lucky and have them for visits from time to time and they’re all fiends for chocolate cake.” He found that it gave him pleasure to talk to this nice and helpful woman about his children. “Do you have any children?”

  “God has not seen fit to bless us,” Mrs. Schiller said solemnly. “But with four hundred boys storming around the place, it almost makes up for it. Oh, I nearly forgot—be careful about the pilot light on the stove. It’s ancient and it has a habit of going out and the gas collects.”

  “I promise to watch the pilot light like a hawk.”

  “The house nearly blew up last February. The couple was as nice as could be, but they were a little vague, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do, indeed. I might be a little vague myself, but my wife is a demon of responsibility.”

  “Just tell me when you expect her to arrive and I’ll cut some flowers and put them around to welcome her. It’s a wonder what a few flowers can do for this old house. And I’ll have some wood brought in for a fire. Some of the boys make a little extra money clearing branches and cutting down dead trees and sawing them up for firewood. The nights get nippy around here and a fire’s a comfort. Well, I won’t disturb you anymore. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of work to do preparing for the invasion. And if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you ought to take a little time off and take some walks. It would help your complexion.” She sounded more like a nurse who had been in the family for years than a cleaning woman he had just met a few minutes ago. As she went out of the room, Strand felt he had something on the plus side to report in his next conversation with Leslie.

  He looked in the mirror over the fireplace. The tan of the summer had vanished from his face and he decided he did look a little greenish. He went out. He would heed Mrs. Schiller’s admonition and take a long walk to town, improving his complexion and finding a shop where he could buy a bottle of whiskey.

  Romero arrived in the dark, after dinner, which Strand had eaten in town, still postponing the moment when he would have to make small talk over food with the men and women of the faculty. If Leslie had been there he knew that she would have been calling at least half a dozen of them by their first names and would have made estimates of their various characters that later would turn out to be mysteriously accurate. He did not have that quick talent and depended upon time and slowly growing familiarity to develop his judgment of people. It saved him, he told Leslie, from unpleasant surprises.

  He was standing at the entrance of the Malson Residence, looking up at the stars, a little reluctant to go into the empty house, when he saw a small figure, carrying a bag much too large for him, toiling across the campus from the direction of the main building. Under the light of the lamps along the asphalt paths he saw that Romero was wearing some of the clothes from Brooks Brothers, slacks and a tweed jacket and a collar and tie.

  “Good evening, Romero,” he said as the boy came up to him. “I’d just about given up hope of seeing you here today. What happened? You get lost?”

  “I never get lost,” Romero said, letting the heavy bag down on the lawn and rubbing his shoulder. “Nobody has to send out search parties for me. I met a girl on the train, she was on her way to New London for a job as a waitress and we got into a conversation and she seemed okay, she used to be a stripper, she told me, and we decided to stop off and have an afternoon in New Haven. I never had anything to do with a striptease artist before and I thought this might be the last chance in a long while and I bought her lunch and we saw the sights of New Haven and then I put her on the train again and I grabbed the bus and here I am, ready for further education.” He looked around him with distaste. “This place sure is dead. What do they do—shoot everybody who’s out on the street after dark?”

  “Wait until tomorrow,” Strand said. “You’ll need a traffic cop to get across to the dining room. Have you eaten? There are some things in the refrigerator.”

  “I’m not hungry. But I sure could use a drink. Got any beer in the joint?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Strand said coldly. He didn’t mention that in one of the kitchen cupboards there was a bottle of whiskey still in the plain brown paper bag in which he had carried it back from town. “I believe that there’s a rule here that the students are not permitted to drink.”

  “Beer is drink!” Romero said incredulously. “What is this, a convent?”

  “This is a boys’ school,” Strand said. “Notice I said boys. Here, let me help you with that bag. It looks awfully heavy. I’ll show you to your room.” He bent to pick up the bag and had trouble lifting it from the ground. “What have you got in here—bricks?”

  Romero grinned. “Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In seven volumes.”

  As they climbed the stairs to the top floor, with both of them taking turns carrying the bag, Strand said, “Your roommate’s already here. He’s the only one besides you until tomorrow. He’s on the football team.”

  “I would have brought my football jersey that you liked so much, Professor,” Romero said, “but they’re retiring my number and putting it in a glass case in the high school gymnasium.”

  “You’ll
find, Romero,” Strand said, “that your sense of humor will not be admired as much here as it was in New York.”

  As they neared the top floor they heard rock music, being played very loudly.

  “What’ve they got up there—a disco?” Romero said. “By the way, what’s the policy on girls, Professor?”

  “I don’t believe your striptease artist will be welcomed here,” Strand said. “Dunberry is connected to a sister school. But it’s five miles from here.”

  “Love will find a way,” Romero said airily.

  The door to the room was open and the light from it poured into the corridor. Rollins was lying on his bed with his shoes off and was reading a book. A cassette machine was blaring on a table just a few inches from his ear. But he stood up quickly when he saw Strand and Romero and turned off the machine.

  “This is your roommate, Rollins—Jesus Romero.”

  “My name is pronounced, Haysooss,” Romero said.

  “Sorry,” Strand said. He never had had the occasion to use the Christian names of his students at the high school and he was afraid that his mispronunciation of Romero’s name was a bad start for his relations with the boy at Dunberry. “I’ll remember from now on.”

  Rollins put out his hand and after a suspicious glance Romero shook it. “Welcome, Haysooss,” Rollins said. “I hope you like music.”

  “Some music,” Romero said.

  Rollins laughed, a deep, rumbling, good-natured sound. “At least you won’t take up much space, brother,” he said. “That’s right considerate of Mr. Strand, considering my size and the size of the room.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Strand said quickly. “It’s all done alphabetically. Well, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Lights’re supposed to be out by ten thirty.”

  “I haven’t gone to bed by ten thirty since I was two,” Romero said.