The World as I Found It (75 page)

Mrs. Bride told Russell this only after several other incidents had surfaced. One day a teacher had found Rabe in the garden, sticking pins into slugs and singeing them with matches before melting them with salt into bubbling pools of mucous. To the now seasoned headmaster, this cruel behavior, though certainly disturbing, was hardly unprecedented. Russell prided himself on his ability to talk — and listen — to children. He took the boy into his office and asked him why he had tortured the slugs and what he was angry about. After all, Russell said, trying to catch the boy's downcast eyes, one didn't torment innocent creatures because one was happy. There were tears. The boy said he was sorry. He said he was mad at his mother for leaving him, said he was mad about his diet and all the teasing. This much was true. The boy also gave his solemn word that he would come speak to the headmaster if he felt such impulses again. Russell was no sentimentalist about children or the powers of a good old-fashioned talk, but he guardedly thought the session might have done some good. Yes, he thought, with work the boy might turn out all right.

But that good feeling quickly evaporated as the bed-wetting continued, along with the tantrums, fighting and destructive behavior. Then a week later, there was real cause for alarm: one of the smaller boys ran in hysterically one afternoon, saying that Rabe had held him captive for an hour in the bushes as his “nigger slave,” jabbing at him with a sharpened weed fork, forcing him to eat weeds and dirt and threatening to kill him if he told anybody.

Of course Rabe strenuously denied the story, just as he later denied the fire in the shed — that is, until two girls came forth and said they had seen him in there with a cigarette, giggling and showing off as he puffed away. Among the staff there had been considerable debate about what to do with the boy. Professional pride was involved. Beacon Hill was not a school to give up easily on a child, but Rabe soon persuaded them otherwise. The problem now was Mrs. Peck. She seemed to have disappeared. Russell had hired a detective to track her down, but the detective wasn't having much luck either. Three days before, he had sent Russell the following telegram:

TO: Mr. B. Russell STOP

FROM: A. N. Pip

RE: MRs. Peck STOP

1. Peck's imports belly-upSTOP

2. Boy's Farther a fugitive — in Bolivia, biGamy and morals chargesSTOP

3. Boy's legal guardian, Mrs. Peck's mother, a senile lOOney in church HomeSTOP

4. Miss March ran school for DEAF STOP Lives at the Home w/old lady Peck STOP

5. RE: Relatives taking the boy STOP Not on yr. life STOP

6. Request yr. further instructs & prompt remit of $250 bal before proceed further STOP

Beft Regards

DAVIS INVESTIGATIONS

I
N THE AFTERMATH
of Rabe's latest scourge, the Beacon Hill disaster detail was hard at work. The upstairs resounded with the slap of mops and the bang of pails. Russell had one group bailing, another watching Rabe and still another making inquiries into institutions that might take him — and fast. Russell had a hundred things to do, but now he saw it was nearing 3:30. Wittgenstein and the Moores were due at the station in thirty minutes.

Russell was grateful for an excuse to get out of the house. Finding Miss Marmer, he said with his usual daytime formality, Miss Marmer, I have to pick up my guests, and Dora is feeling ill. Would you mind terribly taking over?

But Miss Marmer wasn't having this. Don't you think you ought to stay here? she asked. Why don't you send someone who's not so busy to fetch them? Then, as matter-of-factly as she could, she added, Lily. Lily might go.

The school's egalitarian principles notwithstanding, Miss Marmer was a great believer in the virtues of seniority and dues paying, especially where the Belgian girl was concerned. Lily was pliant and young, and with good cause she feared the brittle Miss Marmer, who was a stickler about what she broadly called “professionalism.” Russell had warned Miss Marmer several times not to be ordering the girl about; for that matter, Russell had told Miss Marmer several times not to be telling him what to do. Still, he saw that his aide-de-camp was right: it wasn't at all a good time for him to be leaving. Mindful of his male sensitivities in this respect, Miss Marmer was careful then to soften her tone, saying in the soothing voice of an efficient secretary, You're busy now. I understand. I can tell her for you.

No, he said pointedly.
I'll
tell her. You stay here.

And on second thought, Russell rather liked the idea of sending Lily. He felt her attractive presence would express something of himself, of the power and dynamism of a man mostly surrounded by women. But of course, on a more practical level, it was an excuse to talk to Lily. Russell needed an excuse now.

Miss Marmer was not the first teacher whom Russell had slept with, not by a long shot. Among his staff, Russell was notorious for making quick and startlingly frank advances to the new teachers. Successful advances, too: it was a point of considerable pride to him that, with the exception of two or three women (who had left the school soon after), all had readily — and, he thought, happily — accepted his attentions.

Miss Marmer knew this, of course, and she knew, as Dora did, that it would be only a matter of time before he approached the girl. Here Miss Marmer was caught between what she regarded as her sovereign duties as the most senior teacher — duties that called for professionalism and objectivity — and those instincts that had once made her such a formidable competitor in ladies' lawn tennis. At the same time, Miss Marmer was objective about herself. She readily acknowledged that she was plain. She said this the very first time Russell had approached her a year ago. It happened one day when they were alone in his office, arguing about what to do with a certain child. There had always been a certain tension between them. So that day Russell told her that he believed the tension was sexual, and then, like a doctor writing out a prescription, he said that, to reduce this tension, they ought to sleep together. He wasn't self-conscious in the least about it. How could he spread the light of sexual freedom if he did not first expunge these tensions from his own life and those around him?

By Beacon Hill standards, Miss Marmer was a bit strait-laced, and he thought (and even faintly hoped) that she would be shocked. But instead Miss Marmer managed to shock him. Standing up and smoothing her hands over her blouse and skirt, she turned, so he could get a better look, and said matter-of-factly, like a job applicant, Well, I am pretty good in the sack, whether or not you know it. Oh, I know my face is nothing special, but at least I was blessed with a pretty good figure — don't you agree?

Her figure was decent enough, especially her legs, but he came to realize that she had rather a thing about it. I know I haven't much up top but … what do you think of my rump? she would ask before lovemaking, hefting it in her hands for his scrutiny. Critical, detached, apprehensive, she was like a woman trying on clothes, holding her body up to herself like an old dress and, with him the mirror, preemptively pointing out her flaws before he had a chance. During sex, it excited her to have him grab at her and praise her body, and she craved this reassurance all the more when the new teacher arrived. Again and again, she would say to him about the girl, Isn't she pretty? Don't you think she's pretty? searching his face for any sign that he thought the girl was more than pretty or, conversely, that she, Miss Marmer, was the plainer in his eyes for the girl's beauty.

Miss Marmer always took it upon herself to orient new teachers, meaning, implicitly, to tell them what was what and who was boss. She liked to think that she was warm and approachable, though with adults — and especially with rival women — she was neither, being more the Girl Guide leader, trying to uphold a code with which she was at once unfamiliar and profoundly uncomfortable. My door is always open, she liked to tell the newcomer, sounding, for that, a bit forlorn since no one had ever taken her invitation.

Miss Marmer gave Lily the obligatory tour. And she did her duty, telling the girl, as though describing the house ghost, not to be shocked if the headmaster made a pass at her. Miss Marmer made it clear, from her tone, that this was an eccentricity to be humored and fended off — certainly not to be accepted. What Miss Marmer did not know was that the other teachers had already given Lily the lowdown on the headmaster and the arrangement he had with his most senior teacher, whom they waved off as a self-important twit, though they did admit she was good with the children. Derisive, gossipy, all holed up together in a room, they had given Miss Marmer a good hiding, calling her Mother Superior and Miss Glorious Excelsior.

Russell, meanwhile, was on tenterhooks, wondering when to make his plea before the girl. He couldn't read her. She seemed so innocent, and such a prize, that he felt he had to exercise extreme caution. He tortured himself for two weeks before he finally called her into his office one morning.

Sensing what was coming, Lily was skittish. Russell paid no attention. He interpreted this as mere shyness, perhaps even the flush of anticipation. As always at such times, he came straight to the point. He said that he liked and admired her, and that, though he knew he was not as young or desirable as he once had been, he was a vigorous lover who had much to offer a girl her age in the way of worldly wisdom and friendship. It was a very nice, even touching, little speech, and she listened carefully. God, but she was a beauty! Her knees were pressed together and her toes were slightly turned in like some ungainly girl's, her breasts huddled protectively between her arms and that randy hay smell wafting off her. His old heart was pounding and his hands were clammy, but he pressed on, telling her how as he grew older he found that the only way he could delve into the psyche of a woman — to really
know
her in the deepest soul sense — was to sleep with her.

She could not have doubted his sincerity in telling her this. He was not old, he seemed to be saying. The mind was eternally young. There was no shame but in dishonesty, he said, nor was there virtue in celibacy. On the contrary, he said as if he had mounted a public podium, prolonged celibacy was harmful for anyone working around children — witness the Victorians and the sadistic, prurient impulses rampant in the public schools, not to mention the fearful legacy of the various celibate church orders. Russell explained these things with the same rapt and passionate plausibility with which he would have explained asteroids or Kant or the need for world disarmament — as a beautiful and time-proven fact of human existence that he had, as it were, identified like a curious shell he had found on an eternal beach. He was honest. In response to her puzzled, somewhat suspect gaze, he acknowledged that this view presented some problems. Certainly, it did not account for how he might ever get to know a woman whom he did not find physically desirable. Nor did it explain why — Socrates and the Greeks notwithstanding — he did not apply the same standard to men.

Russell freely admitted these problems. It was terrifically hard, he seemed to be saying. The times were so new. She had to understand that he was still pioneering this new life, trying to hammer down provisional solutions to these age-old problems until better solutions came along. And then he also told her, lest she think him a humbug, that he and Dora had an understanding. He quickly added that he certainly did not — and could not — expect fidelity from a girl her age. Yes, he said, he would be quite content to share her with younger men, thinking to himself that here again he was being exceedingly generous and realistic.

So saying, Russell beamed her his characteristic wry smile, that irreverent, confident and, it seemed, forever
youthful
smile that had for so long carried him forth, like a carved figurehead plunging into the exhilarating foam of life. He really thought he had carried it off. Very well, then, he said ebulliently, I've had
my
say …

He sat back to hear her answer. And she was
so
shy. Dear, dear child, he thought, the better to let his fundamental goodness shine through, that she might speak up. And why did they even need words? She could respond with a simple embrace, a kiss!

Lily, meanwhile, was staring at her feet and winding a strand of hair around her finger. Playfully, he peeked down at her, hoping to catch her eye, her trust. But then she looked up, and he felt the blood slowly drain from his face as she stuttered and struggled to explain that, while she
liked
and very much
admired
him, she did not …
could not
…

He had told himself she was naive — perhaps a virgin still, intimidated by his candor. Then he'd remembered she was a Catholic, and Catholic educated. Of course! It was the revenge of the celibates, of the frustrated sisters and life-hating Gallic clerics, blocked men suffering from carbuncles and piles!

But predictably enough, his feeble rationalizations bit back at him. He turned dour. He was old and unsightly — a bloody fool to think a girl that beautiful would have him. His self-pity turned to rage, then to jealousy. In his desperation to find a rival, he even found himself casting a baleful eye on poor Mr. Brewer, the music tutor, a pale, spindly youth with dandruff and acne.

For a week these recriminations burned. And then, in spite of all reason, Russell found himself hoping she would have a change of heart. Mooning like a seventeen-year-old, he fantasized confessions, happy coincidences and misunderstandings, a sudden epiphany as they flew into each other's arms. Stuck on his
Parents'
article, he shot an afternoon writing a sweaty story entitled
Her
, which he promptly burned, cursing himself for being such a blasted fool.

This was roughly the point where he found himself that day after Rabe had flooded the house, when he went to ask her if she would go to the station with the old caretaker, Mr. Tillham, to meet his guests. She was upstairs mopping when he found her. It is no trouble, she said, and then she followed him downstairs as he described Wittgenstein to her. In an old album, he even managed to find a twenty-year-old picture of Moore. Lily was more at ease than she'd been in a week.