Old School (8 page)

I couldn’t shake the flu. My nose was red and swollen from uncontrollable fits of honking, my eyes weepy, my upper lip chapped. I dozed off constantly. Two days before Ayn Rand’s visit I was nudged awake by my Latin master and told, not unkindly, to check myself back into the infirmary until I got well enough to keep my eyes open in class.

Ayn Rand gave her talk in the afternoon. I’d thought of sneaking out for it, but the nurse kept fussing through my room and then I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until Bill White dropped by after it was over. He meant to cheer me up, of course, but instead left me desolate for everything I’d missed.

He said that a bunch of Ayn Rand’s followers had driven up from Boston and waited over an hour in the snow—smoking like chimneys, dropping their butts everywhere—so they could grab the front seats. They looked like a bunch of undertakers, Bill said, even the women, all of them silent and unsmiling in their dark clothes. During the talk they applauded at odd times and generally made a stir.

But not as much as Ayn Rand. Right away she tore into our school motto—
Give All
—and urged everyone to ignore such drivel and live for themselves alone. Then she rebuked Hiram Dufresne for calling her a conservative in his introduction. She said that she was a
radical,
not a conservative, and that people should attach meaning to the words they speak. Toward the end some students actually walked out when she attacked President Kennedy for inviting us to consider what we might do for our country. Her talk went on too long for questions, but when the headmaster suggested a follow-up meeting in Blaine Hall after dinner, she agreed on the condition that only her
true readers
would be welcome—those who had read all her novels. She was willing to have a serious discussion, she said, but not to answer ignorant questions or be gawked at by tourists.

I came in at the last minute to give the masters less time to notice me and send me back to bed. There weren’t many, as it happened—a young science master, another from history, the football coach, and Mr. Ramsey, who was officiating at the punch bowl, probably as penance for getting mouthy with the headmaster. Mrs. Ramsey stood beside him, talking to Big Jeff. Some fifteen boys were scattered around on folding chairs and an equal number of darkly dressed men and women—Bill’s undertakers, no doubt—sat somberly in front of the fireplace. One of the women, a skinny thing with cropped blond hair, lit a cigarette, and when the football coach asked her to put it out she took another long drag and flicked it into the fire without even looking at him. The logs popped and hissed. Otherwise the room was eerily quiet.

Then Ayn Rand came in, accompanied by the headmaster and Hiram Dufresne and a tall, grave young guy with a pompadour. That she was short and blocky surprised me—I’d been expecting Dominique. Her dark hair was cut close, shaped like a helmet. She shrugged off her cape, handed it without a glance to the tall guy, and headed for the Morris chair that had been drawn up for her by the fireplace.

Mr. Dufresne began to follow but she turned toward him and said, quite distinctly, No further introduction will be necessary, thank you. Her voice was deep and richly accented. Mr. Dufresne stopped and blinked at her, then retreated to the side of the room.

Ayn Rand settled into the Morris chair and took a cigarette from her bag and twisted it into a long black holder. One of the men in the front row leaned forward with a lighter. She bent toward the flame, then leaned back and looked us over, her wide red mouth fixed in a skeptical wince. She wore a black suit with a short skirt that rode up her thighs. She had nice legs for a woman so squarely built. A gold pin glittered on her lapel. The smoke from her cigarette drifted up past the picture of the Blaine Boys.

So, she said. How many writers have we among you boys?

The undertakers turned and looked at us. Not a single hand went up.

Come, come, she said. I know we have at least one, the estimable Mr. Jeffrey Purcell, whom I look forward to meeting. There must be others. No? Ah, your meek little hearts are afraid to show themselves. Shame on you! You must never be meek, the meek shall inherit nothing but a boot on the neck. You must be bold! My heroes have been ridiculed for refusing fear and compromise. My critics say such people do not exist. But allow me to inform you that
I
am such a person, and I most assuredly do exist!

She drew fiercely on her cigarette and leaned toward us. The light glanced off her gold lapel pin, which I now saw was a dollar sign.

In Russia, she said, as a student in Petrograd University, I studied by candlelight. There was no firewood, the ink froze in our pens. Mr. Lenin’s altruists shot so many of us we had to
rent
the coffins in which we carried our teachers and friends to their graves. But I am still here. And why? Not because I kissed the rings of our new Russian popes, I assure you. Not because I gave in to fear. Never. To give in to fear is to be already dead. I refused fear, I refused defeat. Did you know that
The Fountainhead
was rejected twelve times? Imagine! But I did not accept defeat. That is why I am here, for that reason and no other. So please do not tell me that characters such as mine do not exist! No! She slapped the arm of her chair.

No! And please do not tell me that my characters are unreal because they live out their ideals. Of course the second-handers will tell you that the ideal is impossible, that a real story can only be a story of the folks next door, those frustrated imbeciles—a story of toad-eaters and mediocrities—a story of compromise and failure.

At that moment the sneeze I’d been trying to hold back exploded wetly. Ayn Rand fixed me with her dark, deep-set eyes as I wiped my raw lip and gave my nose a final clearing blast. She looked away only when a log collapsed heavily in the fireplace, sending up a flourish of sparks.

She contemplated the fire. Yes, she said. The folks next door. If you are not prepared to be vilified as I have been, you must take those drab little lives as your subject. The lives of
the people.
Of your
brother.
Remember this: when someone calls himself your brother, he does so with one desire—that you will become his
keeper,
a slave to his own incapacity and idleness. Above all, save yourselves from your brother.

Now, boys, here is a question for you. What does your value derive from? She watched us as she put another cigarette in her holder and accepted the flame from an outstretched hand. She let the silence grow. I noticed that her florid red lipstick was smeared at both corners of her mouth, and that a run in one of her stockings cut a long white scar across her knee.

Very well, she finally said. Let me tell you what your value does
not
derive from. It does not derive from the self-sacrifice demanded by some party, or state, or from the church of some ludicrous god. It does not proceed from the people. In exchange for your reason and your freedom they may give you a certificate of virtue, even some power, but this is worthless. It is less than worthless—it is bondage. When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves—never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than a common murderer, who at least cuts your throat himself, without persuading
you
to do it. You must revere yourselves. To revere yourself is to live truly. And as I know only too well, to live truly is to live at war. Yes, at war—with the
people
and the
party
and the guilt-peddling Jesus industry!

Hear, hear! barked a man in the front row.

Ayn Rand dipped her head in acknowledgment and gave a bitter smile. My heroes are impossible, they say. Unreal. And why do they say that? Because they want you to believe that heroism itself is unreal! They want you to despise yourselves before you discover what you’re capable of. Boys! Please! You are born to be giants, not sacrifices to some tribal deity or some idiot fantasy of earthly paradise, or some brainless slattern worrying about the next payment on the refrigerator. What do other writers present as life? Little men and little women with little worries being held hostage by snot-nosed brats. They would have you think only this is real, that you must settle for this. The worst of lies! I say that what other writers present as life is nothing more than an alibi for cowardice and treason—treason against yourselves, against the John Galt in each of you.

I sneezed again. It had come on, strangely enough, at the mention of snot-nosed brats, and there was no stopping it. Ayn Rand stiffened visibly but didn’t look at me.

Miss Rand?

She turned to face the headmaster. He was standing against the back wall, arms across his chest.

Miss Rand, you take a pretty dim view of your fellow writers.

She stared at him as if transfixed, perhaps by the wen on his forehead, which was glowing like a coal. Finally she said, Yes. What other view do they offer?

A good many, I think. But let me ask you this. If you had to name the single greatest work by an American author, what would it be?

Atlas Shrugged.

Your own novel.

Is there another?

And after that?

The Fountainhead.

Is there really no other American writer whose work you admire?

The ash on her cigarette, having grown to an improbable length, fell into her lap. She brushed it away, then glared at the gray smudge it left on her black skirt. There is one, she said. I am interested in the novels of Mr. Mickey Spillane. His metaphysic is perhaps rather instinctive but quite sound nevertheless.

Mickey Spillane? The mystery writer?

I would particularly recommend
I, the Jury.
In Mike Hammer he has created a true hero, one who doesn’t torture himself in the current fashion with decadent niceties. Mike knows evil from good and destroys it without hesitation or regret. Most unusual. Most satisfying. I might also mention
Kiss Me, Deadly,
though Mr. Spillane leaves us hanging somewhat at the end. What will happen with Mike and the beautiful Velda? I believe he owes us a sequel.

I thought, What about Ernest Hemingway? and blurted the question in just those words.

Hemingway again! Hemingway with the beard! Please! What you find in Hemingway is everything that is wrong with the so-called literature of this country. Weak premises. Weak, defeated people. A completely malevolent sense of life. Why should that nurse, what’s her name,
Catherine
—why should Catherine have to die at the end? No reason. Only to give the lieutenant a tragedy to excuse his self-pity. Unreadable mush! And I understand that the other novels are even worse. Indeed, I’m told that one of them has a hero with no—how shall we say this—no
manhood.
How fitting! And what shall we learn from this wretched eunuch to whom the great bearded Ernest Hemingway has devoted an entire novel? The superior virtue of impotence? No thank you!

At this she looked from me to the headmaster, ignoring the laughter and applause from her chorus.

But it was Hiram Dufresne who spoke next. I read that book, he said. A long time ago, but I still remember it. That’s a war injury you’re talking about.

I don’t claim to know, she said.

Well, my point is, Miss Rand, you were talking about heroism here, and to my way of thinking a war injury is more likely a sign of heroism than weakness.

She shrugged. That depends. If the wound is received through an action undertaken for the happiness of the man himself, it might be heroic. If for the sake of others, as self-sacrifice, I would call it weakness.

I don’t know that any man is glad to die in a war.

Then he should choose not to. He has a sovereign right to seek his own happiness in his own way, short of violating the rights of another man. You’ve read John Galt’s speech, I assume. It’s all there.

That
sounds
fine, Miss Rand, but the truth is you only get to say it because so many good men died fighting. I knew some of them.

Please—you’re confusing the question. The question is, what was their motive? If they died fighting for their own happiness, they have my respect. If they sacrificed themselves for mine, they died weakly and, I should add, irrationally, even immorally. If to
die
for the so-called public interest is good, if the public interest is the moral validation of an act, then it must also be good to bully and rob and sacrifice others for the public interest. Then you have justified the fascism of a Hitler or a Kennedy. Yes, Kennedy! Now, sir—you are an industrialist, are you not?

Mr. Dufresne was slow to answer. Though looking at her, he appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. Yes, he said, I have a number of concerns here and abroad.

I trust you do business for your own benefit, not as a public service.

Actually, Miss Rand, I do think of my work as benefiting others. It’s what keeps me going. This’ll sound pretty corny, but I want to give back what I’ve been given. I’ve been given a lot, as I’m sure you have.

Then you are sure of an untruth. I’ve been given nothing. And I have no doubt that you exaggerate your own debt, as you’ve been so carefully taught to do. I have always said that the only thing wrong with the American industrialist is his innocence. He has no idea what this country owes him. On the contrary, he accepts the shame forced on him by the very parasites who would suck him dry. Poor baby, he even seeks their blessing! But here . . .

She uncrossed her legs and drew herself erect. Here, she said, is a true blessing for you, in the name of the Individual, Capitalism, and the Spirit of John Galt. And with her cigarette holder she traced a figure in the air—a dollar sign.

Hiram Dufresne started to reply but broke off when a man in the front began clapping. His companions joined in. The skinny blonde stood and, when the applause died down, said in a trembling voice, Miss Rand, I just want you to know that your books have completely changed my life.

As they should, dear, as they should. Ah, I see my guardian angel pointing at his watch. Is there a last question?