The Class

by Erich Segal

  “Yessir. Sorry, mother dear.”

  As laughter echoed even from the shower room, a graying academic type in suit and tie appeared and asked to have a few words with the coach.

  “Who is that guy?” Jason whispered to Newall, who was drying himself at an adjacent locker.

  “Probably an FBI man after you, Gilbert,” he quipped. “I think you’ve violated the Mann Act four or five times so far this week.”

  Before Jason could reply, the coach was calling for the team’s attention.

  A dozen players in varying states of undress obediently assembled.

  Coach Oliver addressed them. “Guys, this gentleman is Rabbi Yavetz, the director of the U.N.C. Hillel Society. He tells me that this evening is the first night of the Passover holiday. And all Jewish players on the team are welcome to attend his service.”

  “It will be short and festive,” the rabbi added in a southern accent. “Just a simple seder with some pretty good food and the songs I hope your granddads taught you.”

  “Any takers?” asked the coach.

  “I’ll be glad to come,” said sophomore Larry Wexler, new to the team at number seven. “That’ll smooth things over with my parents, who were sort of disappointed that I won’t be home.”

  “Anybody else?” Oliver inquired, glancing at Jason Gilbert.

  He looked back blandly and replied, “Thanks a lot, but I’m not really … interested.”

  “You’re always welcome if you change your mind,” the rabbi said. And then turned to Larry Wexler. “I’ll send one of our members to the dorm where y’all are staying about half past six.”

  When the clergyman departed, Newall asked with casual curiosity, “Say, Wexler, what’s this holiday for, anyway?”

  “It’s kind of neat,” replied the sophomore. “It celebrates the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. You know, when Moses said, ‘Let my people go.’ ”

  “Sounds like a colored folks’ jamboree,” Newall commented.

  “Listen,” Wexler retorted, “as Disraeli once told an English bigot, ‘When my ancestors were reading the Bible yours were still swinging from trees.’ ”

  An hour later, as he was carefully adjusting the knot in his Varsity Club tie, Larry Wexler noticed a reflection in the mirror.

  It was Jason—dressed, with uncharacteristic formality, in a sedate blue blazer.

  “Hey, Wexler,” he said uneasily, “if I go to this thing, will I look like a total asshole? I mean, I don’t know what to do.”

  “No sweat, Gilbert. All you’ve got to do is sit, listen, and then eat. I’ll even turn the pages for you.”

  They were about four dozen, seated at long tables in a private dining room of the Student Union.

  Rabbi Yavetz made some brief introductory remarks.

  “In a real sense, Passover is the cardinal holiday on the Jewish calendar. For it fulfills the central commandment of our faith, as put forth in Exodus, Chapter Thirteen—that of reminding our children in every generation that the Lord delivered us from oppression in Egypt.”

  Jason listened mutely as the celebrants took turns reading from the biblical account and singing psalms of praise. At one point he whispered to Larry, “How come you all know the same tunes?”

  “They’re from the Top Ten of 5000 B.C. Your ancestors must have been on a very slow camel.”

  Jason was relieved when the dinner was served. For then the conversation became very much twentieth-century collegiate and he did not feel like an odd man out.

  During the meal Larry whispered, “Did any of it mean anything to you—you know, culturally?”

  “Sort of,” Jason replied, with politeness if not much conviction. For in truth he had not really understood what this ritual had to do with him in 1957.

  And yet, before the evening ended, he did.

  When the service continued, the rabbi bade everyone rise to pray for the coming of the Messiah. At this point he added a note of more recent history:

  “We are all, of course, aware that the ancient Egyptians were far from the last to try to destroy our people. As recently as Passover 1943, the brave Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, starved and almost without arms, began their last heroic stand against the Nazis who were besieging them.

  “This did not happen to our forefathers, it happened to our very own relatives. Uncles, aunts, grandparents—and for some of us, brothers and sisters. It is of them—and the six million others murdered by Hitler—that we think at this moment.”

  There was a sudden hush.

  Jason saw a young man at the first table lower his head and begin to weep silently.

  “Did you lose any relatives—over there?” Jason whispered.

  Larry Wexler looked at his teammate and answered somberly, “Didn’t we all?”

  A moment later they were again seated, singing festive songs.

  The formalities concluded not long after. They were followed by some unofficial socializing with the attractive coeds, who, enjoined by a double code of hospitality, flocked to welcome the two visitors from Harvard.

  At a little before eleven, Larry and Jason were walking through the darkened campus back to their dorm.

  “I don’t know about you, Gilbert,” Larry commented, “but I’m really glad I went. I mean, don’t you think it’s good to know about our roots?”

  “I guess so,” Jason Gilbert answered half-aloud. And thought, My own roots seem just to go back to a courthouse twenty years ago. When some accommodating judge gave my father a new, non-Jewish name.

  And to secure our future, he mortgaged all our past.

  As they walked on, he mused further. I wonder why Dad had to do it. I mean, this guy Wexler’s no worse off than I. In fact, he’s better. He’s got an identity.

  Jason returned from the spring tour changed in one official way. After their match against a group of former college all-stars now serving with the Marines in Quantico, Virginia, he had succumbed to the blandishments of a persuasive recruiting officer and signed up for the Platoon Leaders Class.

  He had decided that this would be a great way to discharge his military obligation since, unlike the ROTC program, it would meet only during the next two summers. Then, after graduation, he’d go straight into the Marines and serve a two-year stint as an officer. There were even heavy hints that after basic training he might be transferred to Special Services and could spend his tour of duty hitting tennis balls.

  But first another battle lay before him. There was Yale to face in May. And the New Haven hordes were out to get revenge.

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “No!”

  Maria Pastore sat bolt upright, her face flushed.

  “Please, Danny, for God’s sake, do we have to go through this all the time?”

  “Maria, you’re being unreasonable.”

  “No, Danny, you’re being cruel and insensitive. Can’t you understand I have my principles?”

  Danny Rossi could get nowhere with Maria.

  Though for the first few weeks they had lived in a kind of paradise for two, alone amid the crowds of Cambridge, they soon encountered serious ethical differences.

  Maria was the nicest, kindest, brightest, and most beautiful young woman he had ever met. And she adored him. But the problem was—for reasons he refused to understand, or at any rate accept—she would not sleep with him. In fact, she would permit considerably less than that.

  They would embrace and kiss each other passionately while lying on his couch, but whenever he so much as slipped his hand beneath her sweater, all her ardor suddenly turned to rigid panic.

  “Please, Danny. Please don’t.”

  “Maria,” he reasoned with her patiently, “this is not a fly-by-night affair. We really care for each other. I only want to touch you because I love you.”

  She stood up, and pulling down her sweater pleaded with him to appreciate her feelings.

  “Danny, we’re both Catholic. Can’t you understand it’s wrong to do this sort of thing b
efore you’re married?”

  “What sort of thing?” he said exasperatedly. “Where is it written in the Bible that a man can’t touch a woman’s breasts? In fact, the Song of Songs—”

  “Please, Danny,” she said quietly, but with obvious inward agony, “you know it isn’t that. It would never stop there.”

  “But I swear to you I won’t ask for more.”

  Maria looked at him, her cheeks red, and said candidly, “Hey look, maybe you think you could break off right in the middle. But I know myself. I know that once we reached that point, I couldn’t stop.”

  For a moment this confession elated Danny. “Then in your heart you do want to go all the way?”

  She nodded, with a look of shame.

  “Danny, I’m a woman. I’m in love with you. And I’ve got a lot of passion bottled up inside me. But I’m also a religious Catholic. The sisters taught us that to do this is a mortal sin.”

  “Hey look,” he now persisted as if in a university debate. “Can you, an enlightened Radcliffe girl in 1957, tell me you really think you’ll burn in hell if you go to bed with someone you love?”

  “Before I’m married, yes,” she answered without hesitation.

  “God, I don’t believe this,” he responded, running out of patience. And of arguments.

  Overcome with dizzying desire to convince this sensual conservative, he said impetuously, “Look, Maria, we’ll be married someday. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  Perhaps she was too upset to notice that he had actually mentioned matrimony. In any case she answered, “Danny, please believe, by everything that’s holy, I simply can’t forget the way I’ve been brought up. My priest, my parents, no—I won’t evade responsibility and put the blame on them—it’s my belief. I want to give my husband my virginity.”

  “Jesus, that’s so antiquated. Haven’t you read Kinsey? Maybe ten percent of women do that nowadays.”

  “Danny, I don’t care if I’m the last girl on this earth. I’m going to be chaste until my wedding night.”

  To which, having reached the end of his rhetorical tether, Danny could but answer with a near-involuntary, “Shit.”

  Then, trying to rein in his own passion, he said, “Okay, okay, let’s forget this whole thing and have some dinner.”

  As he started to put on his tie, he was surprised to hear her answer, “No.”

  He whirled and barked, “Now what?”

  “Danny, let’s be honest. Neither of us can go on like this. Because we’re starting to get angry with each other. And that means all our tender feelings will inevitably dissipate.”

  She stood up. As if to put him at a physical as well as moral disadvantage.

  “Danny, I really care for you a lot,” she said. “But I don’t want to see you—”

  “Anymore?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, “but for a while anyway. Look, you’ve got Tanglewood this summer. I’ll be working back in Cleveland. Maybe the separation will do us good. We’ll both have time to think.”

  “But didn’t you hear me say I want to marry you?”

  She nodded. And then answered softly, “Yes. But I’m not sure you know if you really mean it. That’s why we need time apart.”

  “At least can we write to each other?” Danny asked.

  “Please, let’s.”

  Maria then walked to the door and turned. She looked at him silently for a moment and then murmured, “You’ll never know how much this hurts me, Danny.”

  Then she left.

  By the spring of 1957 George Keller was as intellectually prepared as anyone in The Class to take courses in the normal language of instruction at Harvard College.

  Not unexpectedly, he had chosen to major in government. For Brzezinski had explained how, with his fluent Russian and firsthand knowledge of Iron Curtain politics, he’d be indispensable in Washington.

  Among the courses he selected for the spring was Government 180, Principles of International Politics, even though the name of the professor had evoked in him some of his original feelings of paranoia. For the instructor was one William Palmer Eliot—yet another (alleged) relative of his roommate, Andrew.

  Still, it was a fateful choice. For Eliot’s assistant was a chubby young instructor who spoke English with a foreign accent heavier than George’s. His name was Henry Kissinger. And by some uncanny mutual telepathy they gravitated toward each other.

  Kissinger, a refugee like George, albeit from wartime Germany, had also been a Harvard undergraduate (and likewise anglicized his first name). He had acquired an uncanny grasp of politics—both in theory and practice. Dr. K. (as he was affectionately known) already directed something called the Harvard International Seminar. And was on the board of what was probably the world’s most important political journal, Foreign Affairs.

  George thought his own cleverness had gotten him Kissinger as section man, only to discover that the teacher had made all the necessary efforts to win him for his discussion group. Neither man was disappointed.

  Among other things, Kissinger was impressed by George’s command of the Russian language. But it was his own burning ambition to be number one at Harvard (and, by extension, in the world) that most made him want to enlist the young Hungarian for his team. For he knew how much his archrival Zbig Brzezinski desperately desired to keep George in his own sphere of influence.

  After a section meeting early in the term, he stopped George and said, “Mr. Keller, may I see you for a moment? I would like to add a word or two about your recent essay.”

  “Certainly,” George said politely, suddenly afraid his paper had been less than the original and perceptive analysis he himself considered it.

  “Was it all right, Professor?” George asked when the last student had departed. Keen academic strategist, he had astutely bestowed on Kissinger the title of Professor when he knew full well he was a mere instructor. The honoree was clearly flattered. Or at least he smiled broadly.

  “Your paper, Mr. Keller, was not just ‘all right.’ It was absolutely first rate. I’ve never seen an essay that so perceptively distinguished all the subtleties of the various East European philosophies.”

  “Thank you, Professor,” George replied elatedly.

  “I know you are one of our new imports from Hungary. What were you studying in Budapest?”

  “Law. Soviet law, of course. Pretty useless, eh?”

  “Depends to whom. Personally, for my researches I would welcome someone who was expert in this area and could read Russian easily.”

  “Well, sir, to be quite above the boards,” George replied, “I didn’t finish my degree. So you could hardly say I was an expert.”

  Kissinger’s eyes twinkled behind his thick, black-rimmed glasses.

  “Perhaps in Hungary you would not qualify as such, but in Cambridge people even with your experience are as rare as hen’s teeth—”

  “Or snowflakes in July perhaps?” suggested George, to demonstrate his range of English idioms.

  “Indeed,” Dr. K. replied. “So if you have time, I would like to hire you as a research assistant. The European Study Center pays two dollars an hour, which is pretty good. And there would be the additional incentive of our possibly finding a senior-thesis topic in the work you will be doing.”

  “Are you intimating that you might personally direct my dissertation?”

  “Young man, I’d be insulted if you didn’t ask me,” Kissinger responded with seductive affability. “So do I take it then that you accept my offer, George? Or do you want to think about it? Maybe talk it over with your faculty adviser? Who is it, that young Polish fellow Brzezinski?”

  “It’s all right, I’ll explain things to Zbig. When shall I start working, Dr. Kissinger?”

  “Come to my office after lunch today. And, George, from now on, when we’re not in class, please call me Henry.”

  And thus Junior Year concluded.

  While in the outside world, Eisenhower had been reelected President by hi
s loving U.S. family, one of The Class had been chosen as the minister of millions to the Lord himself. For when the reigning Aga Khan was dying, he unexpectedly chose his grandson, Prince Karim ’58, to succeed him as spiritual leader of the millions of Ismaili Moslems.

  Many members of The Class saw this as an augury that they too would be blessed by heaven.

  George Keller had traveled farthest—both geographically and mentally. After barely seven months, he had truly conquered the English language. Sentence structure bent to his will. Words had become mere pawns in a power play to breach the walls of argument and capture minds.

  He now was free to climb the academic mountain. And here he had a magisterial mentor. For if Harvard served him no other purpose, it had brought him close to Henry Kissinger, with whom his mind worked in uncanny synchronicity.

  Thus, he was rewarded with the enviable summer job of acting as Dr. K.’s special assistant in organizing the International Seminar and editing its journal, Confluence.

  The program had gathered several dozen government officials and important intellectuals from both sides of the Iron Curtain for a series of colloquia and public lectures, to make them more sensitive to the new postwar configurations of the global family.

  Part of George’s duties was to fraternize among the representatives from the Eastern bloc countries and find out what they really thought of Harvard, the seminar—and even Kissinger himself.

  Despite their initial wariness, they all ultimately succumbed to George’s European charm and, at one point or another, spoke far more candidly than they had ever imagined they would in the alien confines of a Western capitalist university.

  Of course, nothing in Henry’s brief to George suggested that he need go as far as to become physically intimate with any of the participants. This he did on his own initiative.

  Perhaps it was something about the sultry Cambridge weather, the sudden stimulation of seeing bevies of non-Radcliffe girls stroll through the Yard in the shortest of shorts and the tightest of T-shirts.

  Or perhaps the guilt that had inspired George’s self-induced chastity—a kind of subliminal penance—had been absolved by time.