Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  Solomon reached over and touched his hand. “You know what we need?” he said. “A brandy. The best brandy in the house.”

  They had the brandy and then Solomon said he had an appointment with a composer in his office. “He’s a little crazy,” Solomon said. “He will only come to the office on Saturday afternoons. It’s his lucky day, he says. I’ve missed two trips to Palm Springs and a skiing weekend because of the sonofabitch. Want to go into the music business, Allen?” He smiled.

  “No, thank you,” Strand said, and watched the man make his way through the restaurant to the door, the perfect image of success and hearty well-being, waving genially, with a papal gesture of benediction, to friends at the tables he passed.

  He was at Grand Central Station, waiting for the three twenty-one train to Connecticut. A young couple—a tall boy and a pretty, much smaller girl—were kissing goodbye, as though whichever one of them was traveling was going to be gone for a long time. Strand stared at them, amused but a little embarrassed at the public sexuality of the embrace. On the walk across town from the restaurant he had been thinking about Jimmy, embarked on God knew what kind of adventure, on a wave of sex, of Caroline, that improbable home-breaker, tormenting all the men around her, if the anonymous wife of the biology teacher was to be believed, of Eleanor, stuck away in a small town in Georgia because, as she had said, she could not live without the one man she had chosen and who had chosen her. The prospect of spending the rest of the weekend alone on the deserted wintry campus seemed bleaker than ever. The city had revived old juices in him. For the first time he resented Leslie’s absence. Soaring, he remembered from her letter. He, too, could soar if he were in Paris. He turned away from the couple, still locked together, and went to the side of the station where there was a bank of telephones. He looked up the number in the Manhattan directory, hesitated, then put a dime into the slot and dialed. He waited for ten rings. There was no answer. Judith Quinlan was not home. He hung up the phone, fished out his dime, hurried back to the platform gate, which was now open. He got into the last car just before the train glided out of the station. As he looked for an empty seat he saw the small girl who had been kissing the boy at the gate. She was crying, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  Women are lucky, he thought as he sat down in front of her. They can cry.

  For a moment he considered getting up and sitting in the seat next to the girl to console her, perhaps console himself. But he had never picked up a girl in his life and he doubted that he could start now.

  Forlorn and unhappily virtuous, a sinner in intention and already suffering from a sinner’s remorse, without having tasted any of sin’s pleasure, cursing himself for not having had the sense to call when he awoke that morning to announce to Judith Quinlan that he was in New York, he stared morosely out the window as the train rose from the tunnel under Park Avenue and rumbled on the overhead tracks in the failing winter sunlight.

  When the train came to New Haven, where he had to change for the line going north, he saw that the girl had long ago stopped crying, had done her face carefully with fresh powder and rouge and was talking animatedly with a young man in a long fur coat who had boarded the train at Stamford.

  It made him remember Romero and his striptease artist. In essential matters, like speaking to strange young women on trains, Strand thought, Romero was infinitely more learned than his history teacher.

  The weather mocked him. It was a sunny, brisk Sunday morning and the few boys who had stayed on the campus for the weekend were playing touch football, their cries reaching him through the open window, merry and young. He had never had the talent or time to play games when he was their age and the young voices outside his window in the autumnal sunlight made him think sorrowfully of the lost, beautiful days of his youth, days that had passed unappreciated when he was their age.

  He was restless and lonely. During the term he had had tea in the Red Top Inn on fine afternoons when he and Miss Collins had walked into town together. He had enjoyed the quiet melody of her voice, her abstention from school gossip, and her modest explanations of what she was doing in the book she was writing on American novelists of the 1930s. Twice she had brought along papers that Romero had done for her class that she thought were particularly fine and had blushed when Strand had complimented her on getting the best out of the boy. He decided to ask her to lunch, but when he called her number, her old mother, who lived with her, told him that she had gone into New York for the day. I’m having no luck with English teachers this weekend, he thought ironically as he hung up.

  He wanted desperately to talk to Leslie. But it would only spoil her holiday if he told her about Caroline’s letters and Jimmy’s move to California and his reasons for going there. If he called her, he knew she would ask him for news about the children and he would have to lie and she would detect the tone of falsehood in his voice and the conversation would undoubtedly end badly. Besides, transatlantic calls were forbiddingly expensive and he knew he would regret his impulse, even if the conversation with Leslie went smoothly, when the bill came in at the end of the month. The ads of the telephone company in magazines always showed happy parents calling happy children far away, but they did not include a warning that it was a dangerous habit that schoolteachers on small salaries were not encouraged to indulge.

  He did not envy Hazen his house on the beach, his marvelous paintings, his freedom to travel and dine in great restaurants, but he did envy him the unthinking way he could pick up a telephone and have long conversations with people in California, England, France, whomever and wherever. With a touch of malice, brought on by his self-pitying mood, he thought that with all his command of the long distance wires, Hazen hadn’t succeeded all that well in communicating with his own wife and children.

  He remembered that it had been Eleanor who had told him of Hazen’s son’s death from drugs. He hadn’t heard from her for more than a month and decided it was about time he spoke to her to find out if she could make it to the Hamptons for at least part of the Christmas holiday. She was not loquacious on the phone and the call to Georgia might be thought of as a necessary modest expense. He looked in his address book for her number. He had it twice—once under Strand and the other under Gianelli.

  He dialed the number. It was answered on the first ring, as though whoever was there had been impatiently awaiting a call. It was Giuseppe’s voice at the other end of the line. He sounded brusque as he said hello.

  “Giuseppe,” Strand said, “this is Allen. How are you?”

  “Oh…Allen.” Now Giuseppe sounded disappointed. “I’m okay. I guess.”

  “Is Eleanor there?”

  There was silence at the other end and Strand wondered if the line had been cut “Giuseppe,” he said, “are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Giuseppe said, “but Eleanor’s not.” He laughed strangely. It occurred to Strand that perhaps his son-in-law was drunk. It didn’t seem likely, though, at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  “When do you expect her back? I’d like her to call me.”

  “I don’t expect her back.”

  “What?” Strand said loudly. “What are you talking about?”

  “That I don’t expect her back, that’s all.” His tone was hostile now.

  “What’s going on down there?”

  “Nothing. I’m sitting in my goddamned house and it’s raining in Georgia and I don’t expect my wife back.”

  “What’s happened, Giuseppe?” Strand tried to make his voice soothing.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Where to?”

  “Don’t know. Into the blue. Just gone. Her last words were, by a great coincidence, ‘Don’t expect me back.’”

  “Did you have a fight?”

  “Not really. More like a slight difference of opinion.”

  “What’s the story, Giuseppe?”

  “I’ll let her tell you,” Giuseppe said, his voice flat and listless. “I’ve been sitting here f
or five days and nights since she went, going over the whole thing in my head again and again and I’m tired of it. She’s bound to get in touch with you eventually.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “When she left she was sound in mind and body, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “You must have some idea…” Strand stopped. There had been a click at the end of the line and then dead wire. Giuseppe had hung up. Strand stared dazedly at the telephone in his hand.

  Through the window he heard a boy’s voice calling excitedly, “Cut! Cut!” and then a sardonic cheer which meant that the boy who had run out for the pass had dropped it.

  Eleanor had been home for dinner the night that Caroline had brought Hazen, dazed and bloody, back from the park. She had gone off in the taxi with Hazen at the end of the evening, the evening when Hazen had said in parting from Strand, “I must tell you something that perhaps I shouldn’t say—I envy you your family, sir. Beyond all measure.”

  Strand doubted that Hazen would say as much to him on this bright Sunday morning when, if he were asked where his children might be found, he could give the address of only one out of three. And if he, himself, wanted to visit his youngest daughter, he would first make sure that she was in her own room and alone when he arrived.

  There was a battered station wagon with Georgia plates parked in front of the Malson Residence when he came back after the last class the next day. He blinked at it as though it was an apparition, then made himself walk slowly, with dignity, into the house.

  Eleanor was sitting in the common room talking to Rollins. She still had her coat on and there was a large suitcase on the floor beside her chair. She didn’t see him because she was half-turned away from the door. Strand hesitated a moment, feeling a wave of relief surge over him as he saw her looking relaxed and normal, as though it was the most routine thing in the world to come up unannounced, from Georgia, to drop in for a visit with her father.

  “Eleanor,” he said quietly.

  She swung around and jumped up and they met in the middle of the room. The embrace was brief and she kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Dad,” she said, “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “Have you been here long?”

  “Only about fifteen minutes. And Mr. Rollins was kind enough to keep me company.”

  Strand nodded. He found it difficult not to put his arms around his daughter and hold her tight in love and relief. But two boys came clattering down the stairs and then stood there staring curiously at them. “Let’s go into our place,” Strand said. “Is that your bag?”

  “Yes. I hope you won’t mind having me around for a few days.” She smiled. Her smile, which was frank and generous, had always affected him deeply, especially as she grew older and had taken to practicing looking stern and businesslike. “I’ve heard from Mother and know she’s not getting back till Christmas and I thought you might like company.”

  “I certainly do.”

  Rollins picked up Eleanor’s bag and with the three boys at the bottom of the stairs watching them, they went down the hall to the apartment. Rollins put the bag down in the living room and Eleanor said, “Thank you.”

  “Mr. Strand,” Rollins said, “I have a letter for you. From Jesus. I went home for the weekend and he asked me to give it to you.”

  “How’s he doing?” Strand asked as he put the letter down on the table. “Is he behaving himself?”

  “In my family there ain’t no choice. He’s doing fine,” Rollins said. “He’s the new household pet. He’s working in my brother’s garage pumping gas. He got word last week that the trial is set for January seventh, but it doesn’t seem to worry him much. Miss, Mrs. Gianelli, I mean, if there’s anything I can do for you around the school, remember, I’m right here.”

  “I’ll remember.” Eleanor had taken off her coat and was looking around the room critically. “It’s not very grand, is it?” she said when Rollins had left.

  “It looks better when your mother is here.”

  Eleanor laughed and came over and hugged him, this time a real embrace. “You don’t change, do you, Dad? Now,” she said, “what I’d like is a nice, strong cup of tea. Show me where things are in the kitchen and sit down and take it easy. You know”—her tone became serious—“you don’t look as well as you might. You’re not overdoing things, are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Strand said curtly. He led her into the kitchen and sat down while she set about making tea. “Now,” he said, “I think you ought to tell me about yourself. I talked to Giuseppe yesterday.”

  She sighed and turned around from the stove. “What did he tell you?”

  “Just that you had left and he didn’t know where you were and you told him not to expect you back.”

  “That’s all he told you?”

  “He hung up on me.”

  “Well,” Eleanor said, “at least he’s breathing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that they’ve been threatening his life. Our lives.”

  “Good God. Are you serious?”

  “They’re serious. A week ago they planted a bomb on our porch and blew out all the front windows and the door. We were out at the time. Next time, they’ve told us, we’ll be in when they visit.”

  “Who’re they?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “Pillars of the church. The mayor, the police chief, the mayor’s brother-in-law, who runs a construction company that does work for the town, a couple of lawyers who run the judges…You name them, they’re they. Giuseppe came in there and in a couple of months he dug up enough on the whole crowd of them to put them in jail for a century. He got Watergate fever. He sounded as though his so-called investigative reporting was saving the whole nation from an invading army. It was all the usual small-town stuff and it had been going on since the Civil War and people lived with it all right and they just got annoyed with us northerners, and Italian northerners to boot, coming in and starting a fuss. But then he got onto some federal cases and the threatening telephone calls in the middle of the night started to come in. I tried to get him to see that pinning a fine on a man who’s being paid twice over for laying a sewer line wasn’t worth getting killed for, but he’s stone-headed stubborn and now after the bombing he’s out for revenge, too. He’s bought a shotgun and he sits in the living room in the dark with it across his lap. And the sad part of it is that he’s not a particularly good newspaperman and the paper probably could be put out better by a parcel of high school kids. As for me, things I had to do for the paper were demeaning, they were so trivial. We made a mistake, I told him, and I didn’t believe in being party to a double suicide because of it. I gave him one day to think it over after we got the last telephone call. I told him I was going whether he was coming with me or not.” She had been speaking flatly, without emotion, but now her face worked and her voice choked a little. “He said he didn’t need the one day. So I left.”

  “What a rotten story,” Strand said. He stood up and went over to the stove, where Eleanor was pouring water from the kettle into the teapot, and put his arm around her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Marriages break up every day,” she said. “For worse reasons. Where’s the sugar?”

  He took down the sugar and they sat at the kitchen table with their cups in front of them. “Why didn’t you let me know before? Where’ve you been all this time?” he asked.

  “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going back to him before telling everybody the happy news,” Eleanor said. “That took some time. Then I wanted to find a place to live and get a job, so nobody would have to worry about my being a burden on the community up in the frozen North.”

  “Have you found a place to live and a job?”

  She nodded. “My old firm. I start on January second. And they’ve raised my salary. And my name’s on the door. Maiden name. Eleanor Strand, Assistant Vice President.” She grinned boyishly. “In my case absence made the corporate heart grow fonder.”

  They dr
ank their tea in silence.

  “Do you think if I called him and spoke to him it would help?”

  “You can call him,” Eleanor said, “but it won’t do any good. He won’t come back up here with his tail between his legs and have to confess to his brothers that he’s a failure, that he’s lost their money, and have to beg to be taken back in the family business by them. He’d rather come back in a casket.”

  “What are you going to do about him?”

  She looked steadily at him. “I’m going to try to forget him. If I can’t, I’ll go back and get blown up with him.” She stood up. “Now,” she said, “I’d like to freshen up a bit. Which is my room?”

  “Here, I’ll show you.” They went through the living room and Strand picked up the bag and led her toward the bedrooms. On the way along the hall, they passed the small cubbyhole which was Strand’s bedroom.

  “Why can’t I sleep here?” Eleanor said.

  “That’s my room.” He opened the door to the master bedroom. “And this is your mother’s. Yours while you’re here.”

  Eleanor looked at him. He hoped that the look he saw in her eyes was not pity. “Oh, Dad,” she said, throwing her arms around him and weeping on his shoulder, “isn’t everything awful?”

  The little spell of tears was quickly over and she said, “Forgive me,” and he left her unpacking her bag. He went into the living room and saw Romero’s letter lying on the table and picked it up. He gazed at it for a moment, sure that whatever was in it would not add joy to his day. He slit the envelope and took out the two pages. It was written on paper that had Rollins Garage, Repairs and Body Work at the top. The handwriting was small and round and neat and easy to read.