Carl was a tall, thin guy with blond hair. Alex, who was stocky and dark, was wearing earphones connected to a small tape player.
“Something illegal going on in here?” Carl asked slyly, making his eyebrows bounce up and down.
“You made me waste a perfectly good cigarette,” Amy complained.
“Tisk, tisk,” Alex said, looking on disapprovingly.
“So how is the paper coming?” Carl asked.
“What do you mean?” Laurie asked in exasperation. “Neither of you has handed in your assignments for this issue.”
“Oh-oh.” Alex was suddenly looking at his watch and backing away towards the door. “I just remembered I have to catch a plane to Argentina.”
“I'll drive you to the airport!” Carl said, following him out the door.
Laurie looked at Amy and shook her head wearily. “Those two,” she mumbled, making a fist.
4
Something bothered Ben Ross. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was intrigued by the questions the kids in his history class had asked him after the film that day. It made him wonder. Why hadn't he been able to give the students adequate answers to their questions? Was the behaviour of the majority of Germans during the Nazi regime really so inexplicable?
That afternoon before he left school, Ross had stopped at the library and taken out an armful of books. His wife, Christy, would be playing tennis that evening with some friends, so he knew he would have a long period of uninterrupted time to pursue his thoughts. Now, several hours later, after reading through a number of books, Ben suspected that he would not find the real answer written anywhere. It made him wonder. Was this something historians knew words could not explain? Was it something one could only understand by being there? Or, if possible, by recreating a similar situation?
The idea intrigued Ross. Suppose, he thought, just suppose he took a period, perhaps two periods, and tried an experiment. Just tried to give his students a sampling, a taste of what life in Nazi Germany might have been like. If he could just figure out how it could be done, how the experiment could be run, he was certain it would make far more of an impression on the students than any book explanation could ever make. It certainly was worth a try.
Christy Ross didn't get in that night until after eleven o'clock. She'd played tennis and then had dinner with a friend. She got home to find her husband sitting at their kitchen table surrounded by books.
“Doing your homework?”
“In a way, yes,” Ben Ross replied without looking up from his books.
On top of one of the books Christy noticed an empty glass and an empty plate with a few crumbs from what once must have been a sandwich.
“Well, at least you remembered to feed yourself,” she said, picking up the dish and placing it in the sink.
Her husband didn't answer. His nose was still stuck in the book.
I bet you're just dying to find out how badly I beat Betty Lewis tonight,” she said, kidding him.
Ben looked up. “What?”
“I said I beat Betty Lewis tonight,” Christy told him.
Her husband had a blank look on his face.
Christy laughed. “Betty Lewis, you know, the Betty Lewis who I've never won more than two games in a set from. I beat her tonight. In two sets. Six-four; seven-five.”
“Oh, uh, that's very good,” Ben said absently. He looked back down at the book and started reading again.
Someone else might have been offended by his apparent rudeness, but Christy wasn't. She knew Ben was the kind of person who got involved with things. Not just involved, but utterly absorbed in them to the point where he tended to forget that the rest of the world existed. She'd never forget the time in graduate school when he got interested in American Indians. For months he was so wrapped up in Indians that he forgot about the rest of his life. On weekends he'd visit Indian reservations or spend hours looking for old books in dusty libraries. He even started bringing Indians home for dinner! And wearing deerskin moccasins! Christy used to get up some mornings wondering if he was going to put on war paint.
But that was the way Ben was. One summer she'd taught him to play bridge, and within a month not only was he a better bridge player than she, but he was driving her crazy, insisting that they play bridge every minute of the day. He only calmed down after he won a local bridge tournament and ran out of worthy competitors. It was almost frightening, the way he lost himself in each new adventure.
Christy looked at the books scattered about the kitchen table and sighed. “What is it this time?” she asked. “The Indians again? Astronomy? The behavioural characteristics of killer whales?”
When her husband didn't answer, she picked up some of the books. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich? Hitler's Youth?” She frowned. “What are you doing, cramming for a degree in dictatorship?”
“Not funny,” Ben muttered without looking up.
“You're right,” Christy admitted.
Ben Ross sat back and looked at his wife. “One of my students asked me a question today that I couldn't answer.”
“So what else is new?” Christy asked.
“But I don't think I ever saw the answer written anywhere,” Ben told her. “It just may be an answer they have to learn for themselves.”
Christy Ross nodded. “Well, I can see what kind of night this is going to be,” she said. “Just remember, tomorrow you have to be awake enough to teach an entire day of classes.”
Her husband nodded. “I know, I know.”
Christy Ross bent down and kissed him on his forehead. “Try not to wake me. If you come to sleep tonight.”
5
The next day the students drifted in slowly as usual. Some took their seats, others stood around talking. Robert Billings was by the windows, tying knots in the blind cords. While he was doing that, Brad, his incessant tormentor, walked past and patted him on the back, sticking a small sign that said “kick me” to his shirt.
It looked like just another typical day in history class until the kids noticed that their teacher had written in large letters across the blackboard: STRENGTH THROUGH DISCIPLINE.
“What's that supposed to mean?” someone asked.
“I'll tell you just as soon as you're all seated,” Ben Ross answered. When the kids were all in their places, he began to lecture. “Today I am going to talk to you about discipline.”
A collective groan went up from the seated students. There were some teachers whose classes you knew would be a drag, but most of the students expected Ross's history class to be pretty good — which meant no dumb lectures on stuff like discipline.
“Hold it,” Ben told them. “Before you make a judgement, give this a chance. It could be exciting.”
“Oh sure,” someone said.
“Oh sure is right,” Ben told his students. “Now when I talk about discipline, I'm talking about power,” he said, making a fist to accentuate the point. “And I'm talking about success. Success through discipline. Is there anyone here who isn't interested in power and success?”
“Probably Robert,” Brad said. A bunch of kids snickered.
“Now wait,” Ben told them. “David, Brian, Eric, you play football. You already know it takes discipline to win.”
“That must be why we haven't won a game in two years,” Eric said, and the class laughed.
It took their teacher a few moments to calm them down again. “Listen,” he said, gesturing towards a pretty, red-haired student who appeared to be sitting taller in her chair than those around her. “Andrea, you're a ballet dancer. Doesn't it take ballet dancers long, hard hours of work to develop their skills?”
She nodded, and Ross turned to the rest of the class. “It's the same with every art. Painting, writing, music — all of them take years of hard work, discipline, and control.”