Raul spoke. “I’m Raul Sabas and this is Bill Daily.”
“Yes,” Alexander said in a whisper, “Mr. Bowden spoke to me about you and showed me some of your poetry. You both want to be in my class next year?”
They nodded.
“I see. Well, we take some fourth formers on, occasionally. It’s an informal course. We just hand the writings about and discuss them.” He paused. “We’re very serious here. I don’t like flippancy or jealousy. Unless you know something of the pain and diligence that goes into writing, you won’t be likely to stay here.” He looked at them. “Do you have any writings with you?” he asked Bill.
Bill said yes, giving him a folder. He glanced at it, setting it aside. “Do you mind if I keep them?”
“I have copies.”
“Good. I don’t know the schedule setup yet, so I can’t tell you anything definite. I may not have any room, but I’ll keep you in mind.”
Raul was surprised at his finalizing tone. Alexander got up, Raul and Bill following his lead. He extended his hand. They shook it and left.
They walked to a common smoking ground in silence. It was a beautiful spring day. The grounds of the school were flourishing. The sun spread luxuriously over the grass, a light breeze setting all in peace and solitude.
“What do you think?” Bill asked, worried.
“I expected more,” Raul said.
After the play Raul had been surprised at the lack of harassment he was getting from his teachers. He wasn’t pushed by annoying questions. There were no urgings to make up tests or to get homework in. It was logical. Henderson had told them to lay off. If, Raul thought, I am playing this school ruthlessly, it is because they play me ruthlessly.
However, the pressure was on again. Not from one teacher, but all. The day after he spoke to Alexander, he was forced to commit himself to nine make-up tests. The teachers complained of his not doing homework but excused him nevertheless. Raul came home, his useless rage collapsing into humiliation.
There hadn’t been peace in the Sabas home for over a year, because of Raul’s cutting. The open and violent exhibition of passion was routine. And when Rafael Sabas, Raul’s father, told him that warnings had been received in all subjects but English, the scene seemed set again.
Rafael Sabas was six feet three, and he weighed nearly two hundred pounds. He had a loud booming voice that suited both his boisterous sarcasm and the sonorous expression of his more uncompromising views. Nevertheless, he had to be pushed to evidence real anger; he would suppress irritation, allowing it to grow like a cancer within him, the visible sign being a certain tension about the temples. It was in this manner that he spoke about the warnings.
He’s at his best like this, Raul thought. When he pleads his love, the whining is intolerable. “I know,” Raul said, his face burrowed into his plate. He cleared his throat.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
Raul could walk with all the arrogance of an actor and speak in a powerful and threatening voice. Anywhere but before his father’s voice, he was a man. He cringed at its tone. “Today,” he said, obviously exhausted, “I was hounded into nine make-up tests. Is that enough?”
“Are you going to study for them?” Rafael asked.
Raul sighed. No, he was not. He would never waste the time, the energy. He had talents to be cultivated. He would not bow before the petty, flatulent arrogance of school. “Yes. I’ll study for them.”
Rafael’s puffed, red face flared briefly. “You had better, young man.”
Raul’s mind felt as if it were unbearably constricted; something white hot had been isolated, yelling to get out. He felt blinded as it exploded. “Why? What are ya gonna do?”
“Never mind. I just wanted to know that you are going to do it.”
In a moment, after Raul had declared that he would work when and where he wanted to, Rafael was dragging him across the living-room floor, slapping both sides of his head. Raul was screaming, in a high, tense whine, that he was a son of a bitch, a fucker, a bastard. Raul’s mother ran to her room, crying.
Despite Raul’s curses, while he was being beaten he only felt weary, desperate to escape. And he was more angered by his mother’s pointless tears than by his father’s hands. It was only when he shut himself in his room that he discovered an uncontrollable rage.
He trembled and cried, his frame torn by his impotence. The memory of the scene returned to him again and again, his furor pitched to near insanity. And there was no release, no counter to this insult. The fight between his parents and him had always been waged along specific strategic lines. If they took away his money, he stole from them. The more they insisted he go to school, the less likely he was to do so. Not out of obstinacy, but out of a natural, deeply rooted dislike for doing anything their way.
When Raul had discovered that his father’s ego had overwhelmed his, he refused to grant even the most superficial acknowledgment of the likeness. Raul was struggling against the ideal that was forced on him, creating others. Beneath his father’s acquired sophistication was a passion for the family unit; his son must inherit his ambience, his values, his life style. To Rafael, no idea or emotion that Raul developed was unpredictable — after all, as a boy, he had gone through that; in the same way any accomplishment became a reflection on his merits. The idea that everything he did was either a natural phase of adolescence or a result of his father’s teachings was repulsive to Raul. He even shied away from sex on that basis: he wouldn’t give Rafael the pleasure of observing the typical, clumsy beginnings of love: much less allow him to search his face for the beaming smile of a boy who had just lost his virginity.
In a demented state, Raul opened his penknife. He walked out into the living room where his mother was reading and sat next to her. His father was washing dishes in the kitchen. She looked at him sorrowfully, obviously about to say something consoling. Raul cut her off. “I’m going to ask him to apologize.”
“You’ll just get hit again,” she said.
Raul drew his knife out, smiling. “I don’t think so.” He put it away. “If he tries, I’ll have to fight him.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, mocking yet worried.
“Dad,” Raul called.
“Yes,” he said, coming into the living room.
“I want you to apologize.” Raul was arrogant. The scene was written. He had lines and could be secure in them. This was a struggle that he had set up.
Rafael laughed. A loud, mocking, sure laugh. He returned to the kitchen.
Here, in essence, was Raul’s humiliation. How neatly he fit into the would-be rebel. Put me in a cubbyhole, I fit so neatly. Now my image is comfortable.
His mother looked at him. A look mixed with confidence, sympathy, and rebuke.
“Well, he didn’t fight me, did he?” And he left.
Raul avoided speaking with Miller on the subject of Iago, though the other candidates, John Henderson and Michael Sussbaum, had been doing so. They were so obvious in their attempts to feel him out on the subject, so ridiculously greedy for the part, that Raul thought he’d maintain his dignity by not speaking of it. But he was desperate to play Shakespeare. God, he thought, would that be a reason to stay!
It wasn’t long before he abandoned that decision. He thought that if he didn’t seem eager Miller might not give it to him.
Of all the actors in the theater, Miller loved him the most. He saw Raul every day for more than an hour, constantly giving him advice and encouragement. Raul never took, for a moment, any of that advice seriously, but he appreciated the man’s love for him.
In the theater Raul was God — with Alec the only other. This was his domain, perhaps his only one. Here, his walk was consistently important. So when it was heard that Raul had decided to speak to Miller about Iago, a small panic was set off.