The Class

by Erich Segal

  Two further hours passed without a single reference to a Greek or Latin author. Ted was trying desperately to comprehend it all. But he remembered Sara’s words: “It’s a club, you’re being judged to join a club.”

  “Do you play tennis, Lambros?” Bunting of the thousand ships inquired.

  “Oh,” Ted lied, “a bit. Actually, I’m trying to improve my game.” And made a mental note that if he ever got this job, he’d have one of Sara’s brothers give him lessons.

  “Old Bunting here’s the glory of our whole department,” piped Digby the historian. “He was IC4A runner-up in fifty-six. In fact, he had a big match today—against a new instructor from the Government Department.” And then turning to his semichampion colleague he inquired, “Didya whip him, Ken?”

  Professor Bunting nodded modestly. “Six-four, five-seven, six-three, six-one. It took so long it almost made me late for dinner.”

  “Whoopee,” Digby trumpeted, “we’ll drink to that.”

  But as they toasted Kenneth Bunting for this minor tennis triumph, Sara brooded, You pompous jock. Couldn’t you have put your match off to come hear my husband’s lecture?

  Later when they were alone, Ted finally allowed himself to say what they had both been thinking all through dinner.

  “Christ, what shits they are.”

  “Hey, look, Ted,” Sara answered, slightly giddy from the whole experience, “there are shits at Harvard too. But these were such a bunch of little shits.”

  She woke at dawn to find her husband staring out the window.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” Sara asked solicitously. “Did it all get to you?”

  “No,” he answered quietly, still staring at the town green, “it’s just the opposite.”

  “You mean you’re pleased at how they mauled you yesterday?”

  “No, it’s this place. It takes my breath away. I think we could be really happy here.”

  “Who are we going to talk to?” she asked plaintively. “The trees? The babbling brooks say more than that autistic archaeologist!”

  He lowered his head. “Those student questions yesterday were pretty good.”

  She did not react.

  “The library’s fantastic.…”

  She still did not respond.

  “This place has got some really fine departments. French, for instance. And that Lipton guy in Physics worked on the atomic bomb—”

  “Hey, Ted,” she interrupted gently, “you don’t have to use sophistry with me. This place does have a sense of history. And I know something in you still can’t face the world without the epaulets of ‘Ivy League’ on your shoulders. It’s something I can’t understand, but I’ll have to accept.”

  “It’s a nice location, Sara.”

  “Yeah, just a three-hour drive from Harvard …”

  “Two and a half,” he said softly.

  The breakfast room looked like an orange grove. At every table, couples varying from middle-age to old sat monochromatically garbed. The gentlemen wore orange blazers, their ladies all had Canterbury scarves.

  “Is this some kind of reunion?” Ted asked Tony Thatcher as he sat down to breakfast with the dean.

  “No,” Thatcher answered, “it’s like this all year ’round. The old grads don’t just come up for the football games—they’re always making ‘sentimental journeys.’ ”

  “I can appreciate their feelings,” Ted remarked.

  “I’m glad,” the dean replied, “because I’d like to see you here at Canterbury.”

  “I take it from your use of the first-person singular that there isn’t unanimity in the department.”

  “I don’t think they’d even vote unanimously on a raise in salary. Frankly, what we need is a cohesive force—a solid academic who has both feet on the ground. I want Canterbury to be the number-one small college in the country. Even better than Dartmouth or Amherst. And we can’t accomplish that without attracting men of your caliber. So I have the provost’s authority to offer you an associate professorship on tenure-track.”

  “What’s tenure-track?”

  “It means after a year the job is permanent. How does that sound to you?”

  “To be honest, the thought of a probationary period is a bit unsettling.”

  “It’s really a formality.” the dean replied in reassuring tones. “Besides, the men who count up here know what we’ve got in you.”

  “Ted, I’ll make the best of it. I really will.”

  As they were driving home Sara reiterated in so many words that she had married him for better or worse. And having said for the last time that Berkeley was better and Canterbury worse, she would learn to love the great outdoors.

  “Sara,” Ted replied, to reassure himself as much as her, “we’re going to return in triumph someday. I’m going to use the peace and quiet to write a Euripides book that’s so damn good that Harvard’ll come begging on its knees to ask me back. Remember how the Romans groveled to Coriolanus after kicking him out.”

  “Yeah,” she retorted. “But the guy still ended up with a knife in his back.”

  “Touché.” Ted smiled. “Why did I marry such a clever woman?”

  “Because you wanted clever children,” she said, smiling back.

  But inwardly she brooded, If you really respected my intelligence, you’d be taking my advice.

  Jason Gilbert made two important decisions that were to effect the rest of his life. He had come to realize that everything he had done in the previous two and a half years signified a commitment to defend the land of his forefathers. This meant he would stay there and grow roots.

  And yet his loneliness weighed heavily on him. Watching the young kibbutz children playing made him long to be a father. But he was not sure that he had a whole heart to offer. He was still angry. And still mourning.

  Nonetheless, whenever he was back on leave, he and Eva would sit in the huge, empty dining hall and talk until the early hours of the morning. These were the times when Jason felt most human.

  Late one evening he confessed to her, “I don’t know what I’ll do when you get married. Who’ll stay up and listen to me bitch about the world?”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she answered shyly. “Since you’ve been here, I’ve had, as you might say, a shoulder to cry on.”

  “But you never actually cry.”

  “It was just a manner of speaking.”

  “Sure. Like my saying, ‘You’re the one person in this place who holds my hand.’ Just a metaphor.”

  “Yes. We are both … metaphors.”

  Their glances met.

  “I’d like to really hold your hand,” he said.

  “And I would like really to cry on your shoulder.”

  They put their arms around each other.

  “Eva, I really care for you. I want to say I love you. But I honestly don’t know if I’m still capable of love.”

  “I feel the same, Jason. But we could try.”

  Then they kissed.

  The ceremony took place at Vered Ha-Galil at the beginning of a one-month leave granted Jason upon his reenlistment. The kibbutzniks rejoiced that the couple had chosen to remain among them, even though for long periods of time Jason would be involved in army duty at various—mostly secret—areas of the country.

  For Jason the kibbutz had replaced his family. His estrangement from his parents was now almost complete. Eva asked him to invite them to their wedding. But he refused. Instead, the night before, he sat up in their new quarters—a two-room srif with the added luxuries of a small fridge, hot plate, and black-and-white television—and wrote his parents a letter.

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  I am getting married tomorrow. To Eva Goudsmit, the girl hidden by Fanny’s family during the Holocaust. It’s to her I owe my understanding of what Israel means.

  Under normal circumstances I would have invited you. But I know how deeply you disapprove of the direction my life has taken, and tomorrow’s vows only sanc
tify what I suppose you regard as a rebellion.

  I followed your game plan for the first twenty-four years of my life, barely noticing the little compromises I had to make along the way, as I’m sure you barely notice yours. I know you meant well. You wanted your children not to suffer from the stigma of being Jewish.

  And that’s exactly what I want for my children.

  Here, being a Jew is an honor and not a handicap. My children may grow up in some danger, but they will never grow up in shame.

  I will always appreciate everything you gave me while I was growing up. Now that I have grown up, even if you don’t agree with my beliefs, please respect my right to live by them.

  Your loving son,

  Jason

  Their honeymoon, subsidized by the kibbutz, was spent in Eilat, the southernmost point of Israel, at the tip of the Negev. The Red Sea port was founded by King Solomon to ship out the ore from his mines. And was where he welcomed the Queen of Sheba.

  Jason taught Eva how to skin-dive. And they spent the mornings among the multicolored underwater coral.

  At night they walked hand in hand from the cheap (but expensive) shish kebab joints to the tinsel (and even more expensive) discotheques.

  But they were both happy.

  “This must be what the French Riviera is like,” Eva said one night as they were walking on the shore.

  “More or less,” Jason replied, not wanting to shatter his bride’s illusions. “The only difference is here, if you go for too long a swim you can end up in Saudi Arabia.”

  “Yes,” she acknowledged, “the Arabs are kind of close, aren’t they?”

  “They must think the same about us. But their children and ours will probably play together.”

  “I hope so,” Eva said tenderly. “I mean, I hope we have a lot of children.”

  It would be a good marriage and a strong one. Because it was without any illusions. They cared about the same things. About the same people. About each other. Their love was anointed with tears of abiding grief. And, at the same time, strengthened by a common loss.

  During the following year, the Arab guns on the mountains of the Golan Heights incessantly shelled the kibbutzim in northern Israel. From the Jordanian and Lebanese borders, terrorist infiltrators were increasingly successful in crossing over, striking at non-military targets, and murdering civilians. Women in a crowded marketplace on Friday morning. Children in a school playground.

  The outraged Israeli population was demanding action, not merely reaction. If they couldn’t keep the Fedayeen out, let them do something to stop them before they got in. Orders came down for an elite group of paratroopers to begin acts of reprisal.

  Jason Gilbert was part of an operation that spent weeks rehearsing for the strike across the border.

  The night before, they slept in a field a few hundred yards from the Jordanian frontier. At first light they jumped into their vehicles and sped toward the hilltop village of Samua, which Intelligence informed them was a base for El-Fatah commandos. A quarter of a mile from the village, they dismounted and continued the rest of the climb on foot, rifles in hand.

  Israeli aircraft appeared overhead. They flew beyond Samua to bomb and distract the Jordanian regulars and keep them away from the operation.

  When they were less than a hundred yards from the village, Jason broke into a run and signaled his men to begin shooting to create confusion. As they worked their way up the steep slope, guns appeared at the windows and began returning the fire.

  The soldier at Jason’s immediate right was struck in the chest and fell backward. For a moment Jason was frozen, watching the red blood stain the shirt of the man he knew merely as Avi.

  It was the first time he had ever seen someone wounded in battle. He continued to stare. It was only when the medical officer rushing toward them waved him on that Jason turned and started up the hill again, his anger inflamed.

  As he charged, he pulled a grenade from his belt, withdrew the pin, and hurled it toward the center of the village. It exploded on a rooftop.

  By the time the paratroops entered Samua, the terrorists had fled, leaving behind them a few aged and confused inhabitants. The Israelis quickly searched the houses and herded the frightened villagers down the slopes.

  A flare was set off to signal that Samua was now empty. With lightning speed, Jason and the explosives experts began to set charges to the houses. Ten minutes later, the Israeli raiding party had regrouped 250 yards below. One of the engineers detonated the first charge. In quick succession the stone houses were blown into the air.

  Seventeen minutes later, they were all back across the border. Jason was riding in a half-track with Yoram Zahavi, their chief in command.

  “Well,” said Yoram, “Operation Samua is a total success.”

  Jason turned to him and said bitterly, “Try telling that to Avi’s parents.”

  The officer nodded, shook his head, and answered Jason softly, “Listen, saba, war isn’t like a football match. You can never win by a shutout.”

  There were more operations like Samua, but the Israelis still could not stem the rising tide of terrorist infiltrations.

  In fact, from early 1967 onward, the guerrilla strikes became bolder and more savage. The shelling from the Golan Heights of the kibbutzim in the Huleh Valley grew more intense than ever.

  On the southern front, Cairo Radio was broadcasting the voice of Egyptian leader Nasser shrieking, “A hundred million Arabs are living for the day when the imperialist Israelis will be driven into the sea.”

  At the end of May 1967, Captain Jason Gilbert was home with Eva celebrating the birth of their first child—a son they named Joshua in memory of her father—when the radio announced a general mobilization. All reserve troops were being called up.

  During the next twenty-four hours, the Voice of Israel poured forth an endless flow of seeming nonsense, like, “Chocolate ice cream must go on the birthday cake,” “Giraffes like watermelon,” “Mickey Mouse can’t swim.” These were the code signals telling the citizen-soldiers where to report with their weapons.

  Nasser had massed a hundred thousand men armed with Soviet equipment, as well as a thousand tanks, in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel’s southern border.

  War was inevitable. The only question was whether Israel could survive it.

  Since 1956, Egypt and Israel had been separated by small token units of the United Nations Emergency Force, scattered along the frontier. Nasser ordered the UNEF units out of his way. When they withdrew, nothing but sand stood between the two countries.

  The King of Jordan put his own army under the Egyptian high command and contingents arrived from other Arab countries.

  Israel was now confronted by over a quarter of a million troops, two thousand tanks, and seven hundred aircraft. The country was menaced on three borders. Its fourth frontier was the sea. And that was where the Arabs intended to drive them.

  With the odds so heavily stacked against them and all the nations of the world preaching restraint but doing nothing to enforce it, they were totally on their own.

  Jason Gilbert’s platoon of the 54th Paratroop Battalion had been mobilized for over a week, camping in an olive grove near Tel Shahar.

  On the order of Battalion Command, they did endless stretcher training to practice the rapid evacuation of the wounded. This was hardly an encouraging exercise. Nor was the fact that so many of his men had portable radios and could keep abreast of the worsening situation. The British and American Embassies advised their staffs to leave Israel.

  As darkness fell each evening, Jason would try to lift the morale of his soldiers. But as the days drew on and the tension mounted, he was less and less convincing. Especially since he himself knew so little of what was happening.

  Finally, on the evening of June 4, he received a communiqué: Prepare to move men tomorrow at 0600. It did not say where.

  When he told this to his platoon, they were actually heartened. At last they would be doing somethin
g other than waiting to be bombed out of existence.

  “Try and get some sleep, guys,” Jason said. “We’re going to have a job to do tomorrow.”

  As the men disbanded and started toward their sleeping bags, a young reservist in a skullcap approached Jason and, withdrawing a small blue leather book from his breast pocket, asked politely, “Saba, would it be all right if I prayed instead of sleeping?”

  “Okay, Baruch,” Jason said. “Maybe God is listening tonight. But what prayers can you say the night before—before an attack?”

  “The Psalms are always appropriate, saba. You know, ‘Out of the depths I cried unto Thee, Thou answered me with great deliverance.’ ”

  “Yeah,” Jason smiled wanly, “just be sure you ask for a three-pronged deliverance.”

  The young soldier nodded and walked off to a quiet corner where he would not disturb his sleeping comrades. And began to chant the Psalms very softly. Over and over.

  Jason lay down in his sleeping bag and wondered if he would ever see his wife and son again.

  At dawn on Monday, June 5, the buses arrived. They were the same rickety vehicles on which some of these men rode to work in Tel Aviv. Today they were taking them down toward the Sinai. To an air base deep in the Negev where a fleet of Sikorsky helicopters was waiting.

  As they left the buses, the soldiers glanced nervously toward the sky, instinctively sensing that hostilities had begun. And, being so close to the border, fearing an attack by the Egyptian Air Force.

  Jason was in the midst of reassembling his men and dividing them into groups of eight for each chopper, when a senior officer called him over for a moment. He came sprinting back, his face beaming.

  “I’ve got a pretty interesting announcement, guys,” he called out. “It appears that at 0745 hours this morning, our planes undertook a preemptive strike against enemy airfields. There is no longer such a thing as the Egyptian Air Force. The skies belong to Israel. Now it’s up to us to take the ground.”

  Before the men could cheer, a young soldier raised his hand. It was Baruch. Pointing to his little prayer book, he shouted exultantly, “You see, saba, God was listening!”