Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  “You could do worse,” Gianelli said affably. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Sorry,” Strand said. “By all means.”

  They both sat.

  “Eleanor said she’d just be a minute,” Strand said. “You know what a woman’s minute is when she’s getting dressed to go out.”

  “Eleanor’s pretty good about being on time,” Gianelli said. “Five minutes here and there. I have no complaints on that score.”

  He talks as if he owns her, Strand thought resentfully. He was careful not to show his resentment. If she was prompt with Giuseppe Gianelli, she was behaving unusually. She was notorious in the family for her tardiness. You’re in for some surprises later on, young man, Strand thought, meanly. If there is going to be a later on.

  “Has Eleanor told you anything about me?” Gianelli asked, turning his deep green eyes on Strand, looking frank and candid, man-to-man. This lad has been around, Strand thought. “I mean, anything of any interest?”

  “She said you wrote poetry,” Strand said. “Then she told me not to look aghast, the poetry was poor and you had a regular job.”

  Gianelli chuckled. It was hard for Strand not to be warmed by the soft, agreeable sound. “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Something,” Strand agreed. “She didn’t recite any of the poetry to me.”

  “This is your lucky day, Mr. Strand,” Gianelli said.

  “She didn’t tell me what your job was, either.” Good God, Strand thought, I’m sounding like an old-fashioned father inquiring into the qualifications of a suitor to his daughter’s hand in marriage. “She knows a great variety of young men and they all seem to have peculiar occupations.”

  “Mine isn’t so peculiar.” Gianelli sighed. “I wish it was. I work for my father. He’s a building contractor. I deal in cement, bricks, labor relations, trucks. I consider it a temporary aberration on my part. My father doesn’t have a high regard for my poetry, either. He thinks I came under the influence of Communist faggots at the Wharton School of Economics.” He laughed, dismissing his father.

  The middle generation, Strand thought. Father in shirtsleeves, sonny in white slacks in the Hamptons. Gianelli. Contractor. Reader of newspapers, moviegoer who had seen The Godfather, Strand wondered about connections with the Mafia. Cosa Nostra. In the movie the son was a college graduate, too. Ashamed of himself for the thought, he switched the subject “Eleanor did tell me you were thinking of going to a Greek island on her vacation this summer.” He looked searchingly at Gianelli to see if there was any reaction. There was none.

  “Spétsai,” Gianelli said carelessly. “I have some friends there who have a house on the water. It’s within invitation distance of Onassis’s former place. Dead now. The idea came up late one night, the way ideas like that do.”

  The idea of spending three weeks on an island with a woman who was not his wife, within invitation distance of a Greek shipping tycoon, had never come up in Strand’s life, at any hour of the day or night, but he didn’t think it was necessary to tell Gianelli that. “By the way,” he said, “where did you meet Eleanor?”

  “Oh, it was just one of those evenings at Bobby’s saloon,” Gianelli said easily. “Last summer. We were at the bar and we fell to talking.”

  Fell to talking, Strand thought, remembering how he had carefully found out Leslie’s address and telephone number, had waited a year before daring to call, had sweated under the glares of her father and mother when he had finally appeared in her family’s living room to take her to dinner and the theater. Fell to talking and then an island in the Aegean and after that, what? This was a generation, he thought, discomforted by nothing. In principle, he approved. But he wasn’t sure of what he felt sitting there in the sunshine waiting for the young man to take his daughter to a lit’ry lunch and then where?

  “We found out we had interests in common,” Gianelli was saying.

  “Like what?” Strand asked.

  “Nondrinking.” Gianelli grinned. “Wallace Stevens. What we like about New York and what we hate about it.”

  “That should have kept the conversation going for a while,” Strand said dryly.

  “Till about three a.m.”

  “Aside from writing poetry, what would you want to do?”

  “Do you really want to know?” Gianelli looked at him seriously.

  “Of course.”

  “I was the editor of the newspaper at Brown. That’s where I went to college. I liked that. Maybe it was just because I liked seeing my name in the newspaper. Vanity. But I think it was more than that. I’d hoped my father would finance me into a small-town newspaper somewhere. Where I’d live in a house with some grounds around it and be my own boss, small crusades and all that—putting the rascals in jail, keeping the unions honest, blowing the whistle on the deals, getting a decent congressman elected, cleaning up the library board and the zoning regulations, no more Vietnams or Watergates, little things like that. Romantic, idealistic, rich boy American dreams. Putting my imprint on the age, within my modest abilities. My father said, ‘Be quixotic with your own money.’ End of interview.”

  How willing the new generation was to talk—about themselves, Strand thought. But admirable in its way. “Have you told Eleanor any of this?”

  “All.”

  “What does she think?”

  “Thumbs down,” Gianelli said. “You’re on your own, baby! She’s climbing to the seat of power over the prostrate bodies of graduates of the Harvard School of Business and the idea of putting on a green eyeshade and editing an article on a high school graduation in a little backwater town has no charms for her. Do you think I’m a fool, too?”

  “Not necessarily.” Gianelli’s idea was more than a little attractive to Strand, but there were also the dreadful statistics of the annual bankruptcies of small businesses in America and the gobbling up of frail independent newspapers to be considered. “You won’t have much time for Greece, though.”

  “There’re better things than Greece,” Gianelli said. “Well, now you know the worst about me.” He grinned again. “Should I leave now and let you tell Eleanor you kicked me out of the house?”

  “Stay where you are.” Strand stood up. “I’ll see what’s keeping her.”

  But as he was going toward the house, Eleanor came out, looking crisp and haughty, nose short and straight and in the air, a bright scarf tied around her head. “Hi,” she said. “You’re early.”

  “On time,” Gianelli said, standing. “Never no mind. I filled in your father on my faults and virtues. Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be. Don’t I look ready?”

  “You look glorious,” Gianelli said.

  “That will have to do,” Eleanor said. “See you later, Dad.”

  “Later when?” Strand asked.

  “Just later.” She smiled at him and took Gianelli’s arm.

  They went off. Together, Strand had to admit to himself, they did look glorious. Being a father had its ups and downs.

  After they had gone, Leslie came on to the terrace, dressed for lunch in the long cotton skirt and her hair piled up on her head in the fashion that always gave Strand a sensation that was somewhere between adoration and anguish. “How do I look?” Leslie asked, uncertainly.

  “Glorious,” he said.

  Strand didn’t enjoy his lunch, although there were perfect cold lobsters and paté and cold wine and avocado salad on the buffet arranged on the terrace, now shaded with a huge awning. And the sea was blue and calm and the two teachers from Southampton College and their wives were amiable enough and moderately intelligent. He kept looking at Caroline, or, more accurately, at her nose. It certainly wasn’t disfiguring, he thought, angry with Eleanor for having made such a fuss about it; in another age it might even have been considered handsome on a woman. But he couldn’t help but notice that while the three young tennis players and two other girls who had been invited were all eating together in a high register of conversation and laughter
, Caroline had chosen to eat off to one side with her mother and the wife of the history professor.

  Goddamnit, he thought, Eleanor was right. Geriatric fatherliness. He wanted to go over to Caroline and take her in his arms and say, “My darling, you’re beautiful,” and weep into her soft blond hair.

  Instead, he turned to the history professor beside him and said, “I’m sorry, sir, what was that you were saying?”

  The professor, who looked a little like Einstein and knew it and had let his hair grow into a mane like the scientist’s, stared at him queerly for a moment. “I was asking you how you treated the subject of Vietnam in your classes. In the public school system, I mean.”

  “We don’t teach modern history.”

  “Vietnam isn’t so modern,” the professor said. “After all, our problem with it goes all the way back to World War II. History is a seamless web after all. Boys went directly from our halls into the armed forces. We had a crisis of conscience that nearly split our department in two.”

  Strand decided that the man was not to be taken seriously. “It was not included in our curriculum,” Strand said, knowing he was being rude, knowing that it wasn’t because of anything the man had said, but because of his conversations with Hazen and Eleanor that morning and seeing Caroline eating at her mother’s side. His department hadn’t been split and neither had he. He had deplored the war, had written his congressman, signed petitions at the risk of his job, had said at his dinner table, with Jimmy listening, that he approved of the boys who had fled to Sweden or had registered as conscientious objectors. But he couldn’t say that over cold lobster and paté de foie gras in the sunny picnic atmosphere on the edge of the sea.

  Luckily, at that moment, sparing further conversation with Einstein, Hazen came over. “Excuse me, Mr. Strand,” he said, “may I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Of course,” Strand said and stood up. He followed Hazen into the house.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Hazen said in a low voice in the empty living room, “but I have to leave for the city now. That telephone call at breakfast this morning. I’m just going to slip away. I don’t want to break up the party with a lot of farewells and explanations. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Make my apologies to your wife. Even though we’ve spent so little time together this weekend,” Hazen said, “I’ve enjoyed having you all here. All of you,” he said emphatically. “The next time I’ll cut the telephone wires.”

  “It’s been a memorable holiday already,” Strand said. If Jimmy had been there, and had known what had happened the night before and had overheard the conversations of the morning, he would have said, “You can say that again, brother.”

  “You’ll call me during the week, won’t you?” Hazen said as the two men shook hands. Conroy was waiting in the hallway, patient charioteer, dressed in a dark business suit, and he and Hazen went quickly out the door to the waiting Mercedes.

  6

  YOUR NAME HONORED ON the shelves of libraries…. Did he know his own name? There was this other man, using his name, leading another life. Vigorous, not lying in a strange bed, with the sound of surf or blood in his ears…

  “How was the weekend?” Judith Quinlan asked.

  “Conspicuous consumption,” Strand said. “In the best sense.”

  Judith laughed. “I can guess what you mean.” It was a raw afternoon, with gusts of rain, and they were seated by the streaked window of the coffee shop after school, glad to be out of the weather for a quarter of an hour with the day’s work done. Strand had told Judith a little about Hazen and, trying not to boast, had described Caroline’s adventure in the park. He sipped his coffee gratefully. He was in no hurry to get home. He had had a trying night with Leslie on Sunday after Conroy had deposited them in front of their apartment building. The traffic coming in from the Island had been bad and the trip had taken a long time and his face was burning from the two days of sun and he knew that Leslie had noticed he was brooding about something and would get after him about it as soon as they were home. He was not in the habit of hiding things from her and had no practice at it and he knew that he would sound either foolish or sullen when she started on him.

  And, for the first time in their married lives, when he had tried to make love to her on Saturday night, he had been impotent. Leslie had pretended that it was nothing and had fallen peacefully asleep next to him, but he had tossed uneasily all night and when he did sleep had vague, ominous dreams. And then, on Sunday, she had said she had a slight headache and had kept to her room all day. He had not wanted to have the whole thing out with her until he had decided what position he was going to take about Hazen’s offer for Caroline, so his only refuge was silence. Since he was not ordinarily silent with Leslie, he sensed her growing disquietude and was aware of the searching looks she kept giving him in the car, although she didn’t say anything with Jimmy and Caroline seated beside her.

  Eleanor had driven into town with Gianelli. Leslie had been a little sharp with Eleanor, too, because although she had told Strand that she would be present for dinner Saturday, she had called at the last minute and said the gang (whoever that might be) had decided to go to Montauk for dinner. She hadn’t come back by the time they had gone to bed and there was no telling what hour she had finally come in. Then on Sunday she had packed her bag in the morning and gone off with Gianelli, saying there was an all-day party on at a movie director’s beach house in Westhampton and there wouldn’t be any sense in coming all the way back just to ride in with them in the evening.

  Jimmy, too, had found a girl in the bar in Bridgehampton and missed lunch and dinner to go to her place and had arrived at Hazen’s house just in time to get into the car with them.

  Only Caroline, who had played ten sets of tennis during the two days, and who now, exhausted, was sleeping with her head on her mother’s shoulder, seemed to have enjoyed the weekend completely, saying, just before she dozed off, “What a dreamy way to live.” Strand wondered if she would have been so content if she had heard what her sister had said about her in those few minutes at the pool. Finally, he knew, he would have to tell Leslie all the things that were bothering him, but he had to sort them out for himself first. Without asking Leslie if she wanted to listen to the radio, he had turned it on in the car to make conversation difficult, and he knew Leslie was going to ask him about that, too.

  The memory of the night before made him frown as he stirred his coffee and looked out at the rain beating at the window.

  “You don’t look as though the weekend did you much good,” Judith said.

  Strand touched his face, which was beginning to peel. “I’m not used to the sun,” he said.

  “I don’t mean that,” Judith said. “Did anything bad happen in school today?”

  “No. Nothing happened. Neither good nor bad.”

  Romero had slouched into his office, surly, with the familiar mocking grin on his face and said, “I consulted with myself like you said I should and I decided, What the hell, what have I got to lose, just carfare, I might as well see the man and see what he’s selling.”

  “He’s not selling anything.” Strand wrote Hazen’s office address on a piece of paper and gave it to Romero. “Write him a letter saying you’re interested. That way you won’t even be out carfare.”

  “Ain’t you going to go there with me?” Romero sounded almost frightened.

  “I think Mr. Hazen would prefer to handle this just between the two of you.”

  Romero looked at the address uncertainly, then squashed the piece of paper into his jeans pocket. “Write a letter, for Christ’s sake,” he said aggrievedly. “I ain’t never written a letter in my life.”

  “I have one suggestion to make, Romero,” Strand said. “If you do write the letter, make it sound like the papers you give me, not the way you talk.”

  Romero grinned. “I got dual nationality, don’t I?” And slouched out of the office.

  St
rand had not told Judith about Romero and now, in the coffee shop, he was tempted to speak about him, perhaps get her to help tame the boy. But he knew Romero had never been in any of her classes and it would be no favor to her to expose her to that mocking smile, that impenetrable insolence.

  “No, as Mondays go,” Strand said, “it was even a little above average. But I do have a couple of problems.”

  “Animal, vegetable or mineral?”

  Strand laughed. “All three. The weekend actually passed off quite well…quite well.” This was technically almost true, if you did not consider the last weary hours of Sunday night, with the prospect of a week’s labor looming darkly over the spirit.

  Or if you didn’t include Hazen’s drunken tirade or the argument in the bedroom.

  Strand and Leslie rarely argued. He had always told her she was a serene woman and that that was one of the things he loved most about her. But there was nothing serene about her as she sat on the edge of the bed, her mouth grim, her eyes scanning him like weapons, while he fiddled, hanging up his jacket, taking off his tie.

  “What is it, Allen?”

  “What is what?” he said.

  “You know. You’re hiding something from me. What is it?”

  “Nothing. I’m tired.” He yawned, almost convincingly. “I had a long talk with Hazen about the fate of Romero—that’s the young boy who…”

  “I know who he is,” Leslie said shortly. “I also know that isn’t what’s bothering you.”

  “I’m tired,” Strand said weakly. “I have a hard day ahead of me tomorrow. Why don’t we just postpone it until…?”

  “I will not be left out of things. I’m your partner or I’m nothing.”

  “Of course you’re my…”

  “It has something to do with the family,” Leslie said harshly. “Something you know and I don’t. Is it that young man who came to pick up Eleanor? You talked to him. Did he worry you? I saw him from the window. He looked perfectly all right to me. It’s not because he’s Italian, is it?”