8.
A marvelous purity descended upon Raul as he spent the days in his high-ceilinged scholarly room after the play was over. For the first time in quite a while he was not seized by intense longings for an answer, to create. He could — and he was amazed — find joy in simple occupation.
He slept peacefully, at a regular hour, eating well and spending his days reading and listening to music.
What are you doing? he was asked. I’m on vacation. The words were wondrously simple and true.
The two-week spring vacation had begun the day after the last performance. Alec had gone off somewhere, so the two didn’t see each other.
Alec called after a week or so.
“Where are you?” Raul asked.
“Skiing.”
“Ah, your first love. Well, not really. After theater and fucking.”
“I’m only without one.”
“Ah-hah! Who is she?”
“A blonde named Carol.”
“A blonde nymphomaniac, or just occasionally horny?”
“Can’t tell. Has quite a talent, though.”
“In what area?”
“Blowing.”
Raul laughed. “A very rare area.”
“Oh, that was awful.” Alec laughed loudly. “You’re obscene.”
“I do it just to see how shocked people are. Any particular trait that is endearing, besides her body?”
“Her free use of it.”
“Naturally.”
“And an affection for lying naked and smoking grass.”
“Hey, that’s very charming.”
“In a hotel room.”
“The atmosphere is superb.” Raul paused thoughtfully. “Quite good, really quite marvelous — I like the image.”
“I knew you’d approve. What have you been doing?”
“Relaxing. I’ve never been so relaxed in my life.”
“Good.”
“I’ve been writing poetry.”
“Really? Anything good?”
“My style’s changed. It has become very simple. I mean that in a good sense — direct and charming. Yes, if I had to describe it, my poetry has become charming.”
“I shall read it when I get home. What else?”
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. And I started reading Henry James.”
“You’re making me feel ashamed.”
“What? You mean by my productivity?”
“Yes.”
“That’s silly. What you’ve done, you’ve done. Your activities’ worth is concrete. Mine can only be judged by time, and even then the verdict will probably be ambiguous. I’ll burn my poetry in a few months, and in a week or so I’ll be criticizing James from head to foot and never read him again. As it is, I’ve become wary of him. This is the third short story I’ve read that ends in a female suicide.”
“Well, I must hang up — it’s long distance.”
“When will you be back?”
“In time for school. I’ll see you in the theater Monday.”
“Say hello to Carol, will you?”
School. For Raul, an important time of the year. The question of who was to get Iago for next year’s production of Othello was paramount. What was paramount in the administration’s mind was his making up of work. Unless Raul got rid of some of his incompletes, he would have to go to summer school. In an effort to keep promises, Miller directed Raul to Mr. Alexander. If Raul wanted to get in, he would have to make an appointment.
Raul was wary of a creative writing course, and he felt investigation was needed. Questioning Alec, he got a forceful response. “He’s a brilliant man,” Alec said. “Brilliant. I’ll give you an example of how different he is from other teachers. He said to our class once that there were three beautiful things in life: poetry, love, and grass.”
“I can’t believe it. The middle one sounds too much like a love child. But the last one! In this school! I can’t believe it.”
“So you see what I mean?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t prove his brilliance.”
Alec spoke on. How the class was unstructured: students read their writings and other students commented on them; of the man’s gentleness and poetic nature; of his brilliance.
Raul’s English teacher, Mr. Bowden, who, while teaching Catcher in the Rye, passed Raul’s poetry around to the class, showed it to Mr. Alexander. Bowden reported back to Raul that Alexander was impressed by it.
“Maybe,” Raul said to Alec about this, “I now have proof of his brilliance.”
It was all very attractive to Raul. An informal class, group, of poets exchanging and discussing their work; and, despite his sarcasm, it seemed that he had the security of knowing that Alexander respected his talents.
Among the senior class there were no limits to the deference shown to this man. In his presence, one faced all that was immortal and poetic in this world. His room was hushed from the burden of his compassion for all of man’s sufferings.
“He sounds a lot like Beckett,” Raul commented to Alec. All this made the prospect of seeing him awesome. Raul decided he would put it off for a month or so.
And then Henderson resigned. He had been asked to serve, he explained to the students, in a manner that seemed false. It was preventing him from having what he both wished and felt necessary: greater contact with the student body.
The school was in an uproar. Over eighty per cent of the student body signed a petition to the trustees asking them to retain Henderson. It was clear, the petition read, that pressure had been put on Henderson to resign; it asked that such pressure be alleviated.
A representative group of students went down to the Board itself to present their views. In a week, the trustees and Henderson had come to an understanding. He was to remain, and another man would act for him in those duties that conflicted with his function at the school. Students breathed a sigh of relief.
Raul, after it was over, surprised Alec by saying, “It was a power play.”
“You mean you think Henderson isn’t sincere?”
“No, no. You have such a limited view of human affairs. I think Henderson got some sort of an ultimatum from the trustees. In order to show them the extent of his influence, he jumped the gun. Henderson knew the student response would be forceful, and he knew such a response would get him what he wanted much more quickly than any other means. He’s sincere, but he’s not averse to the reflected glory.”
“I thought you were an idealist.”
“Not about the bourgeoisie.”
“You’re middle class yourself.”
“So much the more do I understand them.”
“Touché!”
“My problem isn’t that I’m middle class but that I’m a coward.”
“Coward? What about?”
“I know exactly what bullshit this school is, but I’m scared to death of leaving it. My cutting is a half-assed way of doing it. My courage goes only so far as giving the school the initiative of getting me out of here.”
“You keep changing your mind. I thought you wanted to stay.”
Raul sighed. “Yes. I do want to stay.”
Alec, as part of his Senior Project, took on the direction of the second-form play and became the stage manager for Iolanthe. Raul showed up at all the rehearsals and joined the stage crew to work on the production. He and Alec tried to remain inseparable, but it was hopeless to recreate the situation.
With Anita, Alec’s mother, back, Raul went through the process of acceptance. She already credited him with being a remarkable talent in the theater, but Alec, eager to show him off, made Raul show her his poetry.
Impressed, and aware that this was a powerful influence on her son, she tried to feel out this unharnessed intelligence. Raul’s peculiar communism ran up against the usual clichés. Her efforts in the thirties and forties, the progress made with blacks, her friends, and the wanton, superfluous violence of S.D.S. and the Panthers.