Bread Upon the Waters

by Irwin Shaw

  It was Caroline who answered the phone. “Oh, Daddy,” she said, “I’m so glad you called. Dr. Laird has turned out to be Santa Claus. He looked at my nose and took some more X rays and he said in a week I can take off all the bandages and I’ll look like a human being again. Mummy says we’ll have time to come and visit you for a couple of days before we go west. Isn’t that something?”

  “Santa Claus is right,” Strand said. “The next time you see him tell him it’s Christmas for me, too. And when you come wear the ugliest long dress you own. There’ll be four hundred boys here from tomorrow on.”

  Caroline giggled. “Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be that startling. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was?”

  “No,” Strand said. “Now let me talk to your mother.”

  Leslie’s voice, too, was cheerful. “Caroline told you,” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful? And how are you doing?”

  “As well as can be expected. The people are nice and while the house is an old barn, a woman’s touch will do marvels for the place. And you’re the woman whose touch is needed.”

  “All in due time, dear.” But she sounded pleased. “Is there anything special you need that we can bring when we come down?”

  “Only our bed.”

  “Incorrigible.” But she sounded even more pleased. “By the way, your young friend, Romero, came by just a few minutes ago for his clothes. He said he thought he’d come down today instead of tomorrow. He seemed very eager. I think you’re wrong about that boy. His manners were perfect.”

  “He’s a consummate actor. What did Caroline think of him?”

  “She didn’t see him. You know how she is these days. When she heard the bell ring she locked herself in her room. He asked if he could get dressed in his new clothes in the bathroom. When he came out he looked quite handsome in his small way. He made a strange request. He said he’d left all his clothes in the bathroom and he asked me to burn them.”

  “If he was dressed the way he usually is, it’s not so strange. Enough about him. How are you?”

  “Fine.” She hesitated. “I have a confession to make to you. Mrs. Ferris, you remember her, she’s the headmistress of Caroline’s school, called last week and asked me if I could arrange to come in one day a week and give private lessons to the students. She said I could use the music room. There won’t be many. I’d only keep the best of my students.”

  “Why is that a confession?”

  “Because I didn’t tell you. You had enough on your mind as it was.”

  “Do you want to do it?”

  Leslie hesitated again. “Yes,” she said. “Do you think the people at Dunberry would mind?”

  “I’m sure it could be fitted into your schedule. I’ll ask today.”

  “Don’t do it if it’s any trouble, dear.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.”

  “It would mean I’d have to stay over in New York someplace for the night.”

  “I guess I can survive one night.”

  “Are you taking things easy?”

  “I’m not doing anything. I drank tea with the faculty members yesterday and the boys don’t arrive till tomorrow. And I’ve already found a big hulk of a football player who volunteered to move the piano around for us. I think we’re going to love the place,” he said with all the sincerity he could muster.

  “I’m sure we will.” Leslie didn’t sound absolutely convincing, “It’s beautiful in New York today. Indian summer.” She didn’t say why she thought it was necessary to report on the city’s weather.

  “Have you heard from Jimmy or Eleanor?”

  “Out of sight, out of mind. But I’ll try to get Jimmy to come down to the school with us. This call must be costing a fortune. We’ll save all the news for when we see each other. Good-bye, dear.”

  “Good-bye, my love,” he whispered. One night a week, he remembered, as he hung up.

  There was a knock on the door and he called, “Come in.”

  A plump woman dressed in baggy black slacks and a sweater stretched tight over an enormous, pillowy bosom entered. She was carrying a large shopping bag and had a rosy complexion and dyed blond hair. “Good morning, Mr. Strand,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Schiller. I’m your housekeeper here. I hope you found everything in order.”

  “Fine, fine.” Strand shook her hand. It was soft, but strong. “You only have to make up one of the beds. My wife won’t be coming along for some days. And two of the boys will be arriving today. Their names are Rollins and Romero and they’re assigned to room three.”

  “The boys take care of their own rooms,” Mrs. Schiller said. Her voice was gruff, as though she smoked too many cigarettes. “I occasionally straighten up the common room for them when the disorder reaches a certain point. And once in a while I take a peek upstairs to see if any of the walls have been torn down.” She smiled. She had a warm, motherly smile. “I passed through the dining room this morning and noticed you weren’t there for breakfast. My husband works in the kitchen, he’s a baker, and I help out until the full staff is on duty. Would you like me to buy some things to put in the refrigerator? Snacks, fruit, things like that? Until your wife arrives?”

  “That would be very kind of you.”

  “If you’d like to make up a list…”

  “Anything you think I should have will do perfectly,” Strand said. He didn’t mention the fact that he would like a bottle of whiskey in the house. He would do the shopping for that himself. He didn’t know how discreet the woman was, and he didn’t want to take the chance that she would spread the word that the new history teacher was a solitary drinker.

  “Is there anything special you want to tell me?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Oh—one thing. Please don’t touch anything on the desk, no matter how jumbled it looks.”

  She smiled again. “In a school, where everybody lives on paper, you learn that lesson right away,” she said. “I’ve seen some desks that mice could have lived on among the books and papers and magazines for years without being discovered. If there’s anything you and your wife disapprove of, please let me know right off. The couple who were here until the summer were too shy to tell me the way they liked things and I was constantly catching the lady rearranging furniture and moving plants from one place to another and looking guilty when she saw me in the room. I want you and the missus to enjoy living here.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Schiller. I fully expect to.”

  “One last thing, Mr. Strand,” she said, as she opened the bag she was carrying and took out an apron, which she tied around her ample waist, “if ever you want anything special in the way of baked goods—canapés for a party or a birthday cake—just let me know. My husband likes to do little odd jobs for the faculty and the boys. It breaks the routine, he says.”

  “I’ll remember that. I have three children—they’re grown and they won’t be living with us but we may be lucky and have them for visits from time to time and they’re all fiends for chocolate cake.” He found that it gave him pleasure to talk to this nice and helpful woman about his children. “Do you have any children?”

  “God has not seen fit to bless us,” Mrs. Schiller said solemnly. “But with four hundred boys storming around the place, it almost makes up for it. Oh, I nearly forgot—be careful about the pilot light on the stove. It’s ancient and it has a habit of going out and the gas collects.”

  “I promise to watch the pilot light like a hawk.”

  “The house nearly blew up last February. The couple was as nice as could be, but they were a little vague, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do, indeed. I might be a little vague myself, but my wife is a demon of responsibility.”

  “Just tell me when you expect her to arrive and I’ll cut some flowers and put them around to welcome her. It’s a wonder what a few flowers can do for this old house. And I’ll have some wood brought in for a fire. Some of the boys make a little extra money clearing branches and cutting down dead trees and
sawing them up for firewood. The nights get nippy around here and a fire’s a comfort. Well, I won’t disturb you anymore. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of work to do preparing for the invasion. And if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you ought to take a little time off and take some walks. It would help your complexion.” She sounded more like a nurse who had been in the family for years than a cleaning woman he had just met a few minutes ago. As she went out of the room, Strand felt he had something on the plus side to report in his next conversation with Leslie.

  He looked in the mirror over the fireplace. The tan of the summer had vanished from his face and he decided he did look a little greenish. He went out. He would heed Mrs. Schiller’s admonition and take a long walk to town, improving his complexion and finding a shop where he could buy a bottle of whiskey.

  Romero arrived in the dark, after dinner, which Strand had eaten in town, still postponing the moment when he would have to make small talk over food with the men and women of the faculty. If Leslie had been there he knew that she would have been calling at least half a dozen of them by their first names and would have made estimates of their various characters that later would turn out to be mysteriously accurate. He did not have that quick talent and depended upon time and slowly growing familiarity to develop his judgment of people. It saved him, he told Leslie, from unpleasant surprises.

  He was standing at the entrance of the Malson Residence, looking up at the stars, a little reluctant to go into the empty house, when he saw a small figure, carrying a bag much too large for him, toiling across the campus from the direction of the main building. Under the light of the lamps along the asphalt paths he saw that Romero was wearing some of the clothes from Brooks Brothers, slacks and a tweed jacket and a collar and tie.

  “Good evening, Romero,” he said as the boy came up to him. “I’d just about given up hope of seeing you here today. What happened? You get lost?”

  “I never get lost,” Romero said, letting the heavy bag down on the lawn and rubbing his shoulder. “Nobody has to send out search parties for me. I met a girl on the train, she was on her way to New London for a job as a waitress and we got into a conversation and she seemed okay, she used to be a stripper, she told me, and we decided to stop off and have an afternoon in New Haven. I never had anything to do with a striptease artist before and I thought this might be the last chance in a long while and I bought her lunch and we saw the sights of New Haven and then I put her on the train again and I grabbed the bus and here I am, ready for further education.” He looked around him with distaste. “This place sure is dead. What do they do—shoot everybody who’s out on the street after dark?”

  “Wait until tomorrow,” Strand said. “You’ll need a traffic cop to get across to the dining room. Have you eaten? There are some things in the refrigerator.”

  “I’m not hungry. But I sure could use a drink. Got any beer in the joint?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Strand said coldly. He didn’t mention that in one of the kitchen cupboards there was a bottle of whiskey still in the plain brown paper bag in which he had carried it back from town. “I believe that there’s a rule here that the students are not permitted to drink.”

  “Beer is drink!” Romero said incredulously. “What is this, a convent?”

  “This is a boys’ school,” Strand said. “Notice I said boys. Here, let me help you with that bag. It looks awfully heavy. I’ll show you to your room.” He bent to pick up the bag and had trouble lifting it from the ground. “What have you got in here—bricks?”

  Romero grinned. “Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In seven volumes.”

  As they climbed the stairs to the top floor, with both of them taking turns carrying the bag, Strand said, “Your roommate’s already here. He’s the only one besides you until tomorrow. He’s on the football team.”

  “I would have brought my football jersey that you liked so much, Professor,” Romero said, “but they’re retiring my number and putting it in a glass case in the high school gymnasium.”

  “You’ll find, Romero,” Strand said, “that your sense of humor will not be admired as much here as it was in New York.”

  As they neared the top floor they heard rock music, being played very loudly.

  “What’ve they got up there—a disco?” Romero said. “By the way, what’s the policy on girls, Professor?”

  “I don’t believe your striptease artist will be welcomed here,” Strand said. “Dunberry is connected to a sister school. But it’s five miles from here.”

  “Love will find a way,” Romero said airily.

  The door to the room was open and the light from it poured into the corridor. Rollins was lying on his bed with his shoes off and was reading a book. A cassette machine was blaring on a table just a few inches from his ear. But he stood up quickly when he saw Strand and Romero and turned off the machine.

  “This is your roommate, Rollins—Jesus Romero.”

  “My name is pronounced, Haysooss,” Romero said.

  “Sorry,” Strand said. He never had had the occasion to use the Christian names of his students at the high school and he was afraid that his mispronunciation of Romero’s name was a bad start for his relations with the boy at Dunberry. “I’ll remember from now on.”

  Rollins put out his hand and after a suspicious glance Romero shook it. “Welcome, Haysooss,” Rollins said. “I hope you like music.”

  “Some music,” Romero said.

  Rollins laughed, a deep, rumbling, good-natured sound. “At least you won’t take up much space, brother,” he said. “That’s right considerate of Mr. Strand, considering my size and the size of the room.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Strand said quickly. “It’s all done alphabetically. Well, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Lights’re supposed to be out by ten thirty.”

  “I haven’t gone to bed by ten thirty since I was two,” Romero said.

  “I didn’t say you had to sleep. Just that the lights have to be out.” Strand knew he sounded testy and regretted it. “Good night.”

  He went out of the room, but stopped a few feet from the door to listen. What he heard came as no surprise to him. “Well, black brother,” Romero was saying, in an exaggerated Southern accent, “I see they’ve got slave quarters and everything on this good ole plantation.”

  As quietly as possible Strand went down the stairs to his apartment. He looked at the bottle of whiskey in its brown paper bag on the cupboard shelf, but didn’t open it. He had the feeling he would need it more on other nights.

  5

  IT WOULD BE SELF-DELUSION on my part to pretend that what I am doing is actually keeping a diary. The school term is now one week old and I am too tired at the end of each day to do more than glance over notes for the next day’s classes or nod over a newspaper or magazine. The first day, when the boys arrived, was pure bedlam—greeting parents who either had special praise or special requests for their offspring or who took me aside to confide that a son had to be watched to make sure he took a certain medicine for anemia every night, or that another had a masturbation problem, or still another daydreamed in class and needed constant vigilance in respect to his studies to help keep up with his grades.

  The boys, when I finally managed to sort one out from the other, seemed like an average group of well brought up young people, polite with their elders, if somewhat condescending, and boisterous with each other. I see no particular difficulties in the future with them. Romero and Rollins seem to be getting along splendidly and in fact Rollins has persuaded Romero to go out for the football team, although Romero cannot weigh more than a hundred and forty pounds and Rollins must weigh at least two hundred and ten. But in an impromptu game of touch football the first day on the campus grounds, Romero, who had been standing to one side watching, had been impressed to fill a side which had lost one of the players because of a slightly sprained ankle and ran for a touchdown the first time he got his hands on the ball. I watched h
im with amazement, since I had never heard him express interest in any sport, as he sprinted and wheeled and cut back and squirmed away from the arms of boys twice his size. He seemed as unpredictable as a wood dove in flight and his sudden twisting runs left his pursuers panting helplessly behind him. Perhaps, I thought, half-joking to myself, it was just this gift that had kept him from being caught and arrested by the New York City police.

  That night Rollins talked to him seriously and took him down to see the football coach and somehow the next afternoon they had found a uniform small enough for him and he was on the football squad. Although I feared what the result would be when he was hit in a real scrimmage by a mass of brutes who all towered over him, it boded well for his acceptance by the other students.

  A few days after the beginning of the term a message was left for Strand that the headmaster would like to see him at his convenience. When he went to Babcock’s office he was greeted warmly but nervously. “We have a little problem,” Babcock said. “It’s about Jesus Romero.”

  “Ah,” Strand said.

  “Exactly,” Babcock said. “Ah. It seems that Romero has been skipping chapel. As you may know, we have to abide by certain terms which we accepted when we were bequeathed the endowment fund which kept this school going when it looked as though it was going to founder in the 1960s. It was a most generous gift—most generous. The new field house is a result of it; our library, which is one of the finest in any school in the East; many other amenities…. The old lady who left us the money in her will happened to be an extremely religious woman with a strong mind of her own and one condition laid down in her will was that every student attend chapel every school day. She also added the condition that all boys wear jackets and ties in the dining room. Other schools have moved away from these customs. We can’t. I wonder if you can reason with Romero before I have to take official action against him.”