by Irwin Shaw
Caroline opened her eyes, her face rigid with fear. “Oh, Daddy,” she cried and clung to him.
“You’ve just been having a bad dream,” he said. “I’m here. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, Daddy,” she wept, “they were going at you, with knives, they were laughing, I couldn’t do anything about it, I tried and tried…”
“Sssh, sssh.”
“I’m so frightened.” She held him tight.
“There’s nothing to be frightened about. Anybody’s likely to have a crazy dream once in a while.”
“Don’t go away. Please don’t go away.”
“I won’t go away. You just go back to sleep.”
“I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come in.” Suddenly she laughed. “Your beard’s scratchy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I love it,” she said sleepily and in a moment she was asleep again.
He sat holding her in his arms for a long time. When he was sure that she was sleeping peacefully, he put her down gently and covered her and went out of the room, closing the door behind him. He heard steps on the stairs and saw Jimmy coming up, carrying his guitar.
“Hi, Pops,” Jimmy said. “What’re you doing prowling around at this hour?”
“What time is it?”
“After three,” Jimmy said. “It was a big night. Anything wrong?”
“Caroline had a nightmare, that’s all.”
“My music.” Jimmy grinned. “I didn’t know it was that powerful. Is she okay now?”
“Fine.”
“Poor kid,” Jimmy said. “Well, good night. Sleep well.”
But it was a long time before Strand could fall asleep again. The sound of the ocean seemed ominous now and Leslie’s even breathing seemed frail and precarious and heartbreakingly dear to him in the quiet strange room where they had made love but which was no longer secure from invasion.
He woke late and alone in the morning, feeling tired and unrefreshed. When he went downstairs, Mr. Ketley told him everybody had gone to the tennis court. He wasn’t hungry, so he just had a cup of coffee. The day was muggy and he decided to take advantage of everybody’s absence to take a dip in the ocean and wake himself up.
When he came down in his swimming trunks and robe, the terrace and the beach were still deserted. The sea wasn’t too rough, just small waves curling over and breaking about ten yards from shore. Strand dropped his robe and trotted across the fine white sand into the water. He walked out toward where the waves were breaking, the water cold and up to about his waist. He was thoroughly awake now and enjoying himself as he stood, letting the waves wash over him. He swam a little, thinking, I should join the Y and swim at least three times a week, it would do me good.
When his arms began to feel a little tired he put his feet down on the smooth sand and started to walk in. But he found he couldn’t move an inch toward the beach. The water was swirling around him and he had difficulty remaining standing. Then, suddenly, his feet were swept out from under him and slowly and inexorably the tide began to take him out. He tried not to panic, but thrashed wildly with his arms to fight the current. He had never felt so tired in his life and he was swallowing water. Shouting would do no good; there was no one to hear. He looked at the big house, so close to him and with no sign of life in it.
Then he saw Conroy come out on the terrace, a newspaper in his hand. Conroy sat down and unfolded his paper, not looking toward the beach.
“Conroy!” Strand managed to call. “Conroy!” He saw Conroy look around him puzzledly, as though he couldn’t make out where the call came from. Then he saw Strand, who waved frantically, unable to shout anymore and fighting to keep his head above water.
Conroy turned and waved toward the house, then ran down to the beach, stripping off his sweater as he ran. He was in Bermuda shorts and barefooted. He plunged in and swam toward Strand. As he reached him, he said, “Easy does it, Mr. Strand,” in a flat, surprisingly calm voice. “Just turn over on your back and let yourself float. I’ll take hold.” His lank hair was plastered against his head and his arms were thin and pale.
Strand turned over on his back. The sun glittered in his eyes through a haze of foam. He felt Conroy’s hand under his chin, supporting him. Conroy swam with his free arm, slowly, slowly, not toward shore, but trying to keep parallel with the beach. The current pulled them farther out to sea. Strand was gasping, short painful intakes of air and water. The land kept receding, far, far off.
He raised his head and glimpsed someone running toward the water, carrying something. After a moment, he realized it was Linda Roberts and that what she was carrying was a coil of rope. He saw her plunge into the waves, lost sight of her.
Then, suddenly, the current released the two men. Conroy gasped. “Okay,” he said, “we’re out of it now. Just keep calm.” He started to tow Strand slowly toward the beach, panting painfully with each stroke. We’re not going to make it, Strand thought, we’re both going to go under. He wanted to say something to Conroy but he couldn’t talk. Then something hit the water near them with a splash and Conroy reached out. It was a rope that Mrs. Roberts, now up to her waist in the water, had thrown to them. Strand was sure he had been in the water for hours and the beach didn’t seem to be getting any closer, but at least it wasn’t slipping away anymore.
“We’ll make it now,” Conroy said, grasping the rope. His arm holding Strand took on a new strength. Slowly, Mrs. Roberts strained on the rope. Foot by foot, inch by inch, they approached where she was standing. When they reached her, she and Conroy dragged Strand through the surf and finally he was lying on the rough sand of the beach, trying to smile up at Mrs. Roberts, whose flimsy dress clung wetly to her bony frame. But his face seemed to have frozen and he couldn’t smile.
Conroy dropped down beside him, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.
“You got caught in a sea pussy,” Mrs. Roberts said, pushing her wet hair away from her eyes, her voice sounding as if it were over a telephone far away, on a bad connection. “They’re freak eddies, one of the main attractions of this coast.”
Then he blacked out. When he came to he felt a face above him, lips clamped against his, a warm breath blowing into his mouth. The kiss of life. The phrase wandered foolishly through his mind. Mrs. Roberts stood up. She seemed to be floating above him, somewhere between land and sky, in a red mist.
Now Conroy was floating above him, too, in a red mist of his own. “He’s alive,” Strand heard Conroy say, still on the bad telephone connection.
The worst pain he had ever felt in his life was tearing at his chest and shoulders and he could not breathe. “Conroy,” he said faintly, “it hurts. It hurts here…” He managed to touch his chest. “I’m afraid I…”
A half hour later he was in the intensive care room of the Southampton Hospital, with Dr. Caldwell leaning over him, saying to someone whom Strand couldn’t see, “Heart…”
“A man exactly your age,” Dr. Prinz had said.
After that he didn’t hear or remember anything for a long time.
8
VOICES BECAME CLEARER. SHE sounds foolish at times, but I assure you she’s not foolish. The kiss of life. He recognized faces. Identities merged. He recognized himself. The world moved closer.
It was two weeks before he was out of the hospital. Dr. Caldwell had proved efficient. Dr. Prinz had come down from New York and looked grave. A great heart specialist, called by Hazen, had flown down from the city by helicopter and had been encouraging. The doctors had tested and probed and whispered together in the corridor. Conroy, ashen-faced navigator of the deeps, had been helpful in matters of transportation. Eleanor had canceled her trip to Greece and was staying at Hazen’s house with Jimmy. Leslie had started driving back and forth from New York when the worst was over, so that she could continue with her lessons and be with Caroline while she took her final exams.
The pain was gone now, but Strand still felt so weak it took a great effort to
lift his arms. Hazen had driven him to the big house on the beach, where he and Mr. Ketley had carried him up to the bedroom.
He had been told by all the doctors that he needed rest, a long rest. He had let himself be handled like an infant, allowing others to make decisions about him. He did not think of the future, but accepted what was told him, what was given him to eat, the medicines they gave him to take, the installation in the big bedroom overlooking the sea on the second floor where he could look at the Renoir drawing. He was wearily grateful to everyone and didn’t take the trouble to speak.
He could live to be a hundred, the doctors told him, if he took care of himself. He had always thought that he did take care of himself. Nobody had told him about sea pussies or the malevolent power of the ocean. There was a letter on his bedside table from Judith Quinlan. He hadn’t opened it. He wondered if he had yet thanked Conroy or Linda Roberts for saving his life. Time enough when his strength came back. He was not used to illness, but relapsed into it with dreamlike pleasure. His body was for the time being no longer his responsibility.
People talked to him, Leslie, the doctors, Eleanor, Jimmy, Caroline, Hazen, Mr. and Mrs. Ketley. A moment after they had spoken he didn’t remember what they had said. He smiled benignly at everyone, believing that his smile was reassuring. He was not interested in reading or what was happening to the country or anybody else’s problems, or the weather. It was the most beautiful summer in years, someone said, he couldn’t remember who, but the climate in the big, luxurious room was always the same.
The principal of the high school came to visit him and told him not to worry about the department. “I know you’re going to be better,” the principal said. “Just take your time and when you’re ready to come back just give me a call on the telephone. Your place will be open.” He was not in the mood for telephones and he did not worry about the department.
There were always flowers in the room during the day but he never knew their names and didn’t ask.
A cot had been put in his room for Leslie and he did not question why, after so many years of their sleeping together, she now spent her nights in a different bed.
He slept more than he had ever slept in his life.
One evening, when he began to feel better, he told Leslie that everybody should have at least one heart attack.
She laughed. She was thinner and there were lines in her face that he had never seen before.
Herbert Solomon sent over a cassette machine, with selections from Beethoven, Brahms, Cesar Franck and songs by Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and a man named Cohen. Strand didn’t ask for the machine to be turned on.
Linda Roberts sent a big book about the Midi, with handsome photographs. He didn’t open the book.
Caroline told him she thought she had done well on her exams. He was involved in other examinations and didn’t ask her what tests she had taken. He did ask her, though, about the man from Truscott.
“It seemed to go all right,” Caroline said, without enthusiasm. “He timed me twice and said he thought they’d accept me. He said he’d talk to Mr. Hazen.” She shrugged. “It’s not important.”
Her face, too, had grown thinner, he noticed, and she looked as though she cried often. He would have liked to comfort her, but the effort was too great. She said Alexander and Mrs. Curtis sent their best wishes and Mrs. Curtis a box of cookies she had baked herself. He told Caroline to eat the cookies.
Giuseppe Gianelli sent him an enlarged photograph of Eleanor, standing on a dune, in a blowing denim dress, laughing against the sky, with spikes of grass around her bare legs. With it, there was a note that, Leslie read to him. “Something beautiful to look at in the dark hours. And a tonic for all hearts.” He had signed the note, “Your poor poet contractor friend, Giuseppe.”
“He’s a fine young man,” Leslie said, as she put the photograph on the bureau, where Strand could see it from the bed. “We’ve had some long talks together. He’s crazy about Eleanor.”
From time to time, idly, Strand looked at the photograph. He wondered what Giuseppe Gianelli had said to his daughter to make her laugh like that against the open sky.
Sometimes, late at night, he heard Leslie playing on the piano downstairs, softly. He didn’t know if she was playing for herself or if there was anybody else listening. He meant to ask, but then when she came up to bed, forgot.
Hazen came into the room from time to time and stared at him soberly. “I must remember,” Strand said to Hazen, “only to visit people who include strong swimmers in the guest list. I must also remember to thank Conroy and Linda. Above and beyond the call of duty, wouldn’t you say?”
Hazen didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “I’ve already thanked them in your behalf. I gave a thousand dollars to Conroy—money means everything to him, he saves like a pack rat—and a little gold bracelet to Linda. A bauble.”
“Now,” said Strand, uncomfortable with the information, “now I know what my life is worth. A thousand dollars and a bauble.”
Hazen looked at him curiously. “Everything has its price,” he said curtly. “Which does not necessarily correspond with its value. I would advise you not to be embarrassed by money. Which brings up another question. Are you well enough to talk?”
“Just,” said Strand.
“Did you know that after the first ten days the doctors said you were going to pull through and be able to lead a normal, although fairly quiet life?” Hazen said.
“I don’t know. But it’s good news.”
“It certainly is. But it means that you will have to think about the rest of your life. If you take what they say seriously.” Hazen sounded almost accusing. “Which would not mean going back to your job in September as though nothing has happened.”
Strand suppressed a sigh. He had known that one day, not too far in the future, he would have to face this, but he had used the invalid’s prerogative of postponement.
“I don’t suppose,” Hazen went on, “that a New York City high school disability pension would go very far, especially in these days of inflation.”
“Subway fare,” Strand said.
“Exactly. I hadn’t wanted to talk to you about this so soon, but there are other considerations…” He waved vaguely. “I have taken the liberty of talking to the headmaster of a small school in Connecticut about you. Dunberry. It’s about two hours from New York, north of New Haven. My father endowed the school handsomely both during his life and in his will. He had known at college the man who became its headmaster and admired him. The son is the present headmaster and is inclined to think kindly of whatever suggestions I happen to make. It’s a small school—just about four hundred boys—and run on old-fashioned lines, which I approve. It might be just the place for your friend Jesus Romero, too. You could keep an eye on him.”
“You never forget anything, do you, Russell?” Strand said in honest admiration.
Hazen shrugged the compliment off impatiently. “The classes are small and your work load would be moderate,” he said. “About twelve hours a week, at least the first term, the headmaster told me. And a comfortable old apartment comes with the job, which in these days is better than income—considerably better. And when I told the headmaster—Babcock is his name, by the way, an excellent fellow, I’m sure you’ll like him—about your wife, he said he has long been wanting to institute a music appreciation course and he was sure she would be most valuable. And the strain of living in a quiet little school town is infinitely less taxing than fighting the battle of New York. Am I tiring you?”
“A little,” Strand admitted.
“It’s just that there really isn’t much time to lose,” Hazen said apologetically. “The school session is just two months off and the faculty has to be confirmed. Another thing, Babcock will be visiting friends at Montauk next week and he could drop over and have a talk with you, which would save you a trip to Connecticut.”
“It all sounds very promising,” Strand said wearily. “Of course, I’d have t
o discuss it with Leslie first.”
“I’ve already told her about it,” Hazen said. “She approves wholeheartedly.”
“She hasn’t said anything to me about it,” Strand said. “Or maybe she did and I don’t remember. I don’t remember a lot of things these days, you know.”
“That’ll change,” Hazen said confidently. “Anyway, she wanted me to talk to you about it first. She didn’t want to influence you unduly, she said.”
Strand nodded. “Ever since I got out of the hospital she’s treated me as though I’m made out of old china.”
Hazen laughed. “I noticed,” he said. “That will change, like everything else, as you grow stronger. Once you’re able to get out of bed and can walk around you’ll be surprised how different everything will look.”
“I don’t want any more surprises, thank you,” Strand said.
When Hazen left the room he allowed himself the luxury of the sigh that he had suppressed while the man was there. He would have to think about the rest of his life, Hazen had said. Among other things that meant money. Always and persistently—money. He had known that what was happening to him was expensive, but for the first time in more than thirty years he had not asked what anything cost. But soon the bill would be presented and it would have to be paid. He sighed again.
He closed his eyes and dozed. When he awoke he remembered vaguely that Hazen had been in the room and had spoken about a school. But he didn’t remember the name of the school or where it was or the name of the man who was coming to interview him or if Hazen had mentioned anything about salary. He lay back and dozed again.
The morning Dr. Caldwell said he could go downstairs he insisted upon dressing, although Leslie tried to convince him it would be easier just to put a robe on over his pajamas. “I will not have Russell Hazen’s terrace look like the front porch of an old folks’ home,” he said. He also shaved himself. It was the first time he had looked at himself in a mirror since the accident, as he described the event to himself. He was pale and very thin and his eyes looked enormous in the gaunt face, like two question marks in dark ink. While he was in bed, Mr. Ketley had shaved him every other day and he had been spared mirrors.
