by Irwin Shaw
Dear Mr. Strand,
This is just to thank you for everything that you and Mr. Hazen tried to do for me. I see now that you were wrong to help me and I was wrong to let you do it. Whatever side you and Mr. Hazen and Mr. Babcock and all the others are on, I’m not on it and never could be. I’d come out a fake gentleman and all my people would see the fake and they wouldn’t come near me for the rest of my life. That isn’t what I want, Mr. Strand. Going to prison, if that’s what I have to do, will fit me better to understand my own people and do something with them and for them than ten years of fancy schools and snooty universities could do. I have to educate myself, my own way. I’ll read the books I want and draw my own conclusions and they won’t be the conclusions I’d come away with from Yale or Harvard or anyplace like that. The libraries are open and if I can’t find the book I want in them I can always steal it. When I remember the look on your face when I told you how I got the set of Gibbon I burst out laughing even now.
I know you think I’m sick or something harping on Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican. But you wouldn’t have done what you did for me for any white boy in your class, no matter how smart he was. What you did for me you did because whatever I was, I wasn’t white. At least by your standards. I’m no good at taking handouts and I’m glad I figured out that was what I was doing. Finito.
I know what you’ll say—that Rollins doesn’t mind taking handouts and that he’ll turn out to be a successful citizen, a credit to Dunberry, to his family, his race, and the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Just because we both have dark skins doesn’t mean we’re the same. His family made the big jump upward long ago and all he has to do is climb higher. I’m in the mud at the bottom of the pit and there isn’t a ladder around anywhere in sight.
One thing you deserve to know. The letters Hitz stole were from Caroline. They were love letters. It started as a joke, but then it stopped being a joke. At least for me. I thought she meant what she was saying. It turns out she didn’t. I went out to her college the day after Thanksgiving because she said she’d like to see me and I told her I was coming. She wasn’t there. I was left standing with my suitcase in my hand like an idiot. When you see her tell her she better not play jokes on any other fellows.
For the first time in the letter, which was more clearly written than anything written for his classes all term, Strand saw the hurt, scorned adolescent in the last paragraph. There were only two more lines.
If you’re a friend of Fatso Hitz, you tell him that if I go to prison he better hide when I get out.
Yours sincerely, Jesus Romero
Another battle lost, Strand thought. To be expected. Young as he was, Romero had recognized his predestined role in life—the Goth outside the gates, too proud to conspire from within. History, after all, was on his side. Strand sighed, rubbed his eyes wearily. Then folded the letter neatly, put it back into the envelope and tucked it in his jacket pocket. One day he would show it to Caroline.
8
CHRISTMAS WAS ON A Monday and the holiday began at noon on Friday. Strand and Eleanor could drive down from the school and still be in time to meet Leslie’s TWA plane at Kennedy. Hazen had called during the week and Strand had told him that it wasn’t necessary to send the car to Dunberry. Caroline was flying into Kennedy around one o’clock on TWA and would wait in the terminal and the whole family would drive out to East Hampton together. Hazen had spoken to Romero and said the idiotic kid still insisted on not cooperating when he went into court on January seventh. He had also told Hazen he was satisfied with Mr. Hollingsbee and didn’t want Hazen to waste his time coming out for the trial.
“The kid’s hopeless,” Hazen had said wearily, “and nothing any one of us can do is going to help him. Oh, well—see you on Friday afternoon.”
It had been pleasant having Eleanor around the house although Strand could see that it was only with considerable effort that she maintained an appearance of calm cheerfulness. He knew it was for his sake and was grateful for it. He tried not to notice the way she jumped up and ran to the phone when it rang and the tension in her voice as she said hello. But it was never Giuseppe on the line and she never called Georgia. Late at night, when she thought he was asleep, he could hear her prowling around the house.
Twice when she was out of the house, he had tried calling Giuseppe but Giuseppe had hung up on him each time. Strand didn’t tell Eleanor about his attempts.
She had asked for all the news of Caroline and Jimmy. Leslie had written her a letter, which she had received just before she left Georgia, and she knew of Leslie’s triumph with her two paintings and of her extending her stay in Paris. She said Leslie had sounded like an excited young girl in her letter and that it had been amusing and had touched her. She said she always knew her mother had a real talent and was happy it had finally been recognized, even if it was only for two paintings so far. “You watch,” she told Strand, “she’s going to work like a demon now, you’ll be lucky if she takes enough time off to make you a cup of coffee in the morning.”
Strand had carefully edited the news about Caroline and Jimmy. The burden of waiting and dreading to hear from Giuseppe, or, even worse, from someone else on the paper, was enough for her to bear, Strand thought, without her having to worry about her sister and brother. So he showed her Caroline’s letter in which she wrote about being voted the Homecoming Queen. She laughed as she gave the letter back to Strand. “She’s come out of the cocoon with a bang, my little sister, hasn’t she?”
“You might say that,” Strand said. If he had shown her the letter from the biology teacher’s wife and the letter from Romero, and she discovered just how great the bang was, he doubted that her reaction would have been quite so pleased.
As for Jimmy, Strand merely said that he’d gone to Hollywood on a new job and was making a lot more money than he had been getting on the old one. He also told her that Jimmy had become a fancy dresser and was becoming accustomed to three-martini lunches.
Eleanor made a wry face when she heard this. “Onward and upward, I guess. Winning all hearts and minds on the way. At least he isn’t turning into a complete bum, as he gave every sign of doing when I was in New York. Does he send you any money?”
“We don’t need it,” Strand said shortly.
Eleanor looked at him gravely. “You could stand a couple of good suits, too, you know.” But she left it at that.
The drive into Kennedy from the school in the old station wagon was an agreeable one. The weather was fine, there was very little traffic, Eleanor was a good, careful driver, and they had time enough so that they could stop off and have a leisurely lunch outside Greenwich at a very nice inn whose advertisements Eleanor had seen in The New Yorker. Both she and Strand were amused by the glances they drew from the other diners as they came in—admiring for her and either envious or disapproving for him.
She squeezed his hand and whispered, “They think you’re an irresistible old man sneaking off for a dirty weekend with your secretary.”
“Maybe I’ll try that one day,” Strand said, laughing. “Being irresistible. Only I’ll have to hire a secretary first.” But when she went into the ladies’ room to comb her hair he thought of Judith Quinlan and the girl on the train with the young man in the fur coat and wondered just what a dirty weekend was like and if ever in his life he would have one.
When they went down to the exit from Customs to wait for Leslie and Linda to come out, they saw that Caroline was already there. Caroline squealed as she ran toward them and hugged first her father, then her sister. “Daddy,” she said reproachfully, “you never told me. I thought she was still languishing in Georgia. What a great surprise! Where’s your beautiful husband, Eleanor?”
“Languishing,” Eleanor said. She took a step back. “Let me take a look at you.”
Caroline struck an exaggerated model’s pose, legs apart, one hand on her hip, the other in a dancer’s gesture over her head. “How do you like the
new me?”
“Pretty classy,” Eleanor said. “Now I’m glad my husband’s in Georgia.” As she said it, she glanced warningly at Strand and he knew that she wasn’t going to tell Caroline why Giuseppe was in Georgia and what she feared would happen to him there. “You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?”
“They run me to death every day,” Caroline said.
“It becomes you.”
Actually, Strand thought Eleanor’s “classy” was a sisterly understatement. He was sure it wasn’t merely fatherly indulgence that made him think that Caroline, her face fined down, her eyes bright with health and happiness, her skin a clear, athletic glow, her long legs shapely and firm, was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen in his life. With her new nose and her recently acquired assurance, she no longer bore any resemblance to him, but now looked breathtakingly like Leslie when Leslie was her age. He couldn’t think of a more flattering comparison. Remembering the letters that he would eventually have to talk to her about, he searched for signs of depravity. He found none. She looked untouched, youthfully innocent.
As the travelers came trickling out of Customs, Hazen hurried up. “Hi, everybody,” he said, shaking Strand’s hand and hesitating a second as Caroline came up to him and hugged him and waited to be kissed. Then he kissed her cheek. He hesitated more than a second when Eleanor greeted him, but then kissed her, too. “I was afraid I was late. The traffic out of the city is fierce. Friday night before the big holiday. It’s a good thing Linda’s always the last one off any plane. Between forgetting things and having to go back to look for them and getting her face prepared, the plane’s just about ready to take off again by the time she gets out.”
When Leslie and Linda came out and Leslie saw Eleanor with the others, tears sprang to her eyes and she stopped walking for a moment. Strand was surprised. Leslie usually kept a tight control on her emotions and it wasn’t like her to cry on happy occasions. Then she rushed toward them and kissed them all. Linda kissed everybody, too, amid smiles and laughter and chatter about baggage and who was going to ride in which car and congratulations all around on how well everybody looked.
Once out of the terminal building they decided that Caroline would drive with Linda and Hazen while Strand and Leslie would go with Eleanor in her Volkswagen. The driver, a strongly built youngish man in a chauffeur’s uniform, helped load all the baggage into the back of the Mercedes and on the roof rack.
“Where’s Conroy?” Strand asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” Hazen made a face as though he had tasted something sour and got into the car. Leslie and Strand were left alone on the curb as the Mercedes drove off and Eleanor went to the parking lot to get her car. Strand stared approvingly at his wife. She seemed to have shed ten years and he thought she could easily pass as Eleanor’s prettier older sister. And not much older. Impulsively, he kissed her.
She smiled up at him, still in his arms. “I didn’t know you’ve gone public.”
“I couldn’t resist. Paris has put a new bloom on you.”
“It certainly hasn’t done any harm.” Then her face became grave. “Allen,” she said, “I shouldn’t spring this on you so suddenly, but I’m so full of it I can’t really think of anything else. I was going to write you about it, but I thought I had to see the expression on your face when I told you about it—”
“What are you going to tell me, that you took a lover in Paris?” He hoped he had managed to keep his tone light enough.
“Allen,” she said reproachfully, “you know me better than that.”
“It’s been a long time. A lady might be excused.” But he sighed with relief.
“Not this lady. No, it’s more serious than a lover. What I want to ask is this—do you think there’s any chance that you could get a job in Paris, at least for a year? There’s an American school there and I’m sure Russell knows somebody on the board.”
“There’s the small question of money,” Strand said. “Airplane fares, a place to live. Little things like that.”
“We could swing it,” Leslie said. “I’d be chipping in. The gallery owner promised to finance me, on a very small scale, of course, for a year if I come back and work with the artist who bought my paintings. Working beside him and listening to him has given me a whole new vision of what art can be. I have the feeling that at last I’m finally on the verge of being somebody.”
“You always were somebody, Leslie.” Now he felt bruised and shaken.
“You know what I mean. Do you want us to spend the rest of our lives in a backwater like Dunberry?” She spoke softly, without emphasis, but he could sense the desperation behind the question.
“I haven’t thought much about the rest of our lives. Up to now, I’ve been content to live from week to week.”
“Oh, dear,” Leslie said, “I’ve bothered you. Forget what I said. I won’t say anything more about it. Tell me about Eleanor.” She spoke briskly, as though the idea of Paris was a frivolous one and easily forgotten. “Where’s Giuseppe?”
“I’ll let her tell you about it.”
“There’s trouble.” It was not a question.
He nodded.
“Bad?”
“It might be very bad. I don’t know yet. Get her off to one side. She doesn’t want Caroline or Russell to hear about it. Here she is,” he said, as the Volkswagen drew up to the curb.
He sat in the back to give Eleanor a chance to talk to her mother. Eleanor spoke softly and he couldn’t hear what she was saying over the noise of the old car. From time to time, though, he heard Giuseppe’s name. Although Leslie was not presenting him with an ultimatum as Eleanor had done with Giuseppe, Strand felt that like Giuseppe he was facing a similar choice—go with his wife or stay behind—alone. He had not interfered with his children’s choice of careers and he could hardly be less generous with his wife. He was not facing a bomb as Giuseppe was, but looking at things through Leslie’s eyes he could understand that Dunberry was not much more attractive to her than the Georgia town from which Eleanor had fled was to their daughter. He would see what could be done about Paris.
Once he had reached this decision, the idea of exchanging Dunberry for Paris, if it were possible, began to intrigue him. He closed his eyes, lulled by the motion of the car, and imagined himself sitting at a café table on an open terrace reading a French newspaper in the sunshine and smiled. After all, fifty was not that old. Generals who led armies at that age were considered young men. It would be a challenge, he knew, but there hadn’t been enough real challenges in the last few years, if you could forget the heart attack. And he had emerged from that with a deep feeling of triumph. He knew that both Eleanor and Caroline would approve if they made the move, if only because it would give them an excuse to visit France.
Eleanor’s low murmur stopped. Then he heard Leslie say, loudly, “You did exactly the right thing. It’s monstrous. And if I see him I’m going to tell him so. If he’s foolish and stubborn enough to want to risk his life, that’s his business. Asking you to risk yours is ghoulish.” She turned in the front seat and said, “Allen, I hope you’ve told Eleanor the same thing.”
“In the strongest possible terms,” Strand said.
“Have you tried talking to Giuseppe?”
“I telephoned twice. He hung up as soon as he recognized my voice.”
“Have you told Russell about it?”
“I think this had better just stay in the family.”
“I guess you’re right,” Leslie said, but she sounded dubious.
He wondered if in the low conversation in the front seat Eleanor had told her mother what she had told him—that she was going to try to forget her husband and if she couldn’t she was going back to him. He hoped Eleanor had not gone that far. If she had, Leslie’s anxiety about Eleanor’s possible return to Georgia would destroy all the pleasure she was getting out of her newborn success in France and her plans for the future, pleasure that would be multiplied many times over when he had the chanc
e to tell her that he would see about getting a place on the faculty of the American School in Paris.
It was dark when they reached the house on the beach. The sea could be heard in a low steady rumble and the stars were sparkling in the frozen black crystal of the sky. Strand took a deep breath of the cold salt air and felt his throat and lungs tingle as he inhaled.
Hazen was sitting in one of the twin high-backed leather wing chairs that flanked the fireplace. A driftwood fire sent out sparks of electric blue and green. In a corner was a Christmas tree, its branches adorned with tinsel and colored glass globes that reflected the changing light from the fire. The tree filled the room with a piny forest aroma. Hazen had a drink in his hand and poured a whiskey and soda for Strand while the women went upstairs to unpack.
“I forget how wonderful this place is,” Strand said. “Then, when I come back, it hits me with a rush.” He sat in the chair opposite Hazen, feeling the welcome warmth of the fire on his legs. “I’m going to thank you now—for the whole family—for this holiday and then shut up about it once and for all.”
“Thanks,” Hazen said. “Especially for shutting up about it. It’s too bad Jimmy couldn’t come along.”
“He’s in California.”
“I know,” Hazen said. “Solomon told me.”
“Did he tell you anything else?”
Hazen nodded. “Solomon’s making too much of it. An ambitious young man grabs his chance when he sees it. I’m sure Solomon did worse things when he was Jimmy’s age. And so did I. Don’t be moral about it, Allen.”
“Camelot’s kaput, Jimmy said, when I voiced some objections.”
Hazen laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. It’s been kaput for a long time.”
“How’re things with you?”
“The usual little annoyances.” Hazen shrugged. “I fired Conroy.”
“I wondered why he wasn’t at the airport.”
“I found out my miserable wife was paying him to keep tabs on me. That’s how she knew so much about you and your family in Tours that night. Talk about morality…”