Brad and Afra laughed together. “Nabbed you that time, Harold, you old conniver,” Brad said.
“I’ll be happy to play second,” Groton said mildly. “Suppose we start with a simple two-dot game, to get the feel of it?”
“That’s a win for the second player.”
Groton glanced at him speculatively. “You sure you never played this game before?”
“It’s not a game. There’s no element of chance or skill.”
“Very well. You open a three-spot game, and I’ll take my luck with that nonexistent chance or skill.”
Ivo shrugged. He marked a triangle of dots
and drew a line between the top and the left, adding a spot to the center.
Groton connected the center spot to the isolated one.
Ivo made a loop over the top of the figure.
Groton shrugged and added to it.
Two more moves put an eye inside and a base below.
Ivo finished it off with an arc across the bottom, leaving Groton with two points but no way to connect them, since one was inside and the other outside.
“Now,” Groton said, “how about trying it for higher stakes? Say, five or six spots?”
“Five is the first player’s win, six—” he paused for a moment — “six is the second’s. It’s still no game.”
“How can you know that?”
Brad broke in. “Ivo’s special that way. He knows — and he can beat us all at sprouts, right now, I’m sure.”
“Even Kovonov?”
“Could be.”
Groton shook his head dubiously. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Ivo looked up and caught Afra looking at him intently. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I thought I explained about that. It’s nothing. Just a trick of reasoning. I’ve had it as long as I can remember.”
“You interest me,” Groton said. “Would you mind telling me when you were born?”
“Don’t do it, Ivo!” Brad said. “You’ll be giving away all your life secrets.”
“He will not!” Afra cried. “Why be ridiculous?”
Ivo looked at each of them, trying not to linger too long on Afra’s face, so lovely in its animation. “Have I missed something?” Again? he added internally.
“Harold is an astrologer,” Brad explained. “Give him your birthday to the nearest minute and he will draw up a horoscope that really has your number.”
Groton looked complacently pained. “Astrology is a hobby of mine. You may consider it a parlor game, but I’ll stand by its validity when properly applied.”
Ivo regretted his involvement in this dialogue, not because he was at all concerned with the subject but because he saw that he was being used to tease the man. He could not decide that he liked Groton, but cruelty, even this mild, was not in his nature. Brad sometimes seemed to be insensitive to the foibles of those less intelligent than he. “March 29th, 1955,” he said.
Groton noted it on a little pad. “Do you happen to know the exact time?”
“Yes. I saw it on the record, once. 6:20 a.m.”
Groton noted that too. “And I believe you mentioned that you were born in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania or Mississippi?”
Ivo tried to remember when he could have mentioned such a fact. “Pennsylvania. Does it make a difference?”
“Everything makes a difference. I could explain if you’re interested.”
“Let’s not make this a classroom session,” Afra said impatiently. Ivo could see that there were parameters of insensitivity about her, too; or perhaps it was merely impulsive emotion. She was like a race-horse, fretful, impatient to be moving, and unappreciative of the more devious concerns of others.
Why had Brad desired a race-horse?
Why did Ivo?
“Interesting figure of speech,” Groton said, seemingly unperturbed. “Astrology might well be taught in the classroom. I wish I had been exposed to it a dozen years earlier.”
“I don’t understand,” Afra said with measured frustration, “how a competent engineer like you can take up with a common superstition like that. I mean, really — !”
“Didn’t you teach in the classroom once, Harold?” Beatryx inquired, breaking in so gently that it took Ivo a moment to realize that she was intercepting a developing argument. Afra and Groton must have been through a similar dialogue before, and the good wife knew the signs. Ivo could read them himself: the stolid man replying seriously to facetious questions, never losing his temper, while the excitable girl worked herself into a frenzy. Perhaps Groton defended astrology merely because it was ludicrous, subtly or not-so-subtly baiting her.
Had he been sympathizing with the wrong person? Afra was beautiful and brilliant, but her temperament betrayed her. She might actually be at a disadvantage in this type of encounter.
No — Brad would have broken up any such contest. Groton had said something, and Afra had pounced on it, while his mind drifted, and now somehow Groton was launched into a narration of his teaching experience. This had, it developed, predated his marriage to Beatryx. Ivo listened, finding to his surprise that he was interested. There was much more to Groton than he had thought.
“…volunteered. I suppose quite a number of professional people were as naïve as I was. But the company I worked for then — remember, this was back in ’67 or ’68 — had no sympathy with the striking teachers, and offered time off with full pay for any employee who was willing to give it a try. And of course the temporary salary from the school system was extra. So a number of us engineers set out to show the dissident teachers that we valued a functioning school system, even if they didn’t, and that we were ready and able to preserve it, no matter how long they threw their collective tantrum. After all, we were as qualified as they were, since we all had BA’s, MA’s or doctorates in our field, and plenty of practical experience too. That’s the way it looked to me at the age of twenty-seven, at any rate.”
He paused, and Afra did not break in with any irate remark this time. She was interested too. Beatryx had succeeded in pacifying things.
Twenty-seven. Two years older than Ivo was now. He could picture himself in that situation readily enough, however, assigned to fill in at a school where about half the regular teachers were out on their illegal strike. Technically, it was a mass resignation subject to withdrawal upon satisfaction… a transparent veil.
He dressed in a careful suit, trying to appear composed though his pulse raced with stage fright at the coming confrontation with a juvenile audience. Would he remember what to say? Would he be able to present clearly what was so well-defined in his own mind? It was so important that the material be properly covered.
This particular high school had not been able to keep all the classes going, and some of the lower grades were home, but there seemed to be kids everywhere. Boys were running down the halls and screaming, throwing books on the floor and collecting in noisy huddles: there seemed to be nobody with the authority to bring order. As Ivo waited with the other volunteers for briefing and specific assignments he observed some pretty heavy petting going on in a doorway, but the passing teachers ignored it. He had forgotten how mature, physically, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls were. Two boys broke out in a fight directly in sight of the principal’s office; the harried executive simply stuck his head out. yelled “Break it up!” and glared until they ran off. The lovers were also startled out of their preoccupation, and sidled to a more distant doorway before resuming their courtship. Otherwise, chaos reigned.