Bridge of Sighs (50 page)

Mr. Berg stepped back and examined what he’d written, then slashed the word “hope” onto the board with such force that the chalk broke. Was that the poem’s title? And what did these lines have to do with hope? Three Mock, who’d plugged in the record player, now turned the power on and placed the arm on its rest, awaiting further instruction.

“Take a seat,” Mr. Berg suggested. When the boy started toward the back of the room, he added, “No, right up here in front. This isn’t a Birmingham bus, Mr. Mock. You can tell, because it’s not yellow and it doesn’t move.”

This, Noonan guessed, must be a joke, because then he smiled, his mouth full of thin, wolfish teeth the same shade of yellow as the inside of his collar and the underarms of his otherwise grayish-white short-sleeved shirt.
This
was Sarah’s father? He searched Mr. Berg’s features for genetic resemblance, half hoping to find some. Meeting a girl’s parents was like getting an unauthorized glimpse of the future. If he looked at Sarah and saw her father, or vice versa, that would be enough to banish her attractions for good—whatever those attractions might be, since he hadn’t figured them out yet.

Three Mock did as he was told, taking a seat near the door. Perry Kozlowski, who apparently expected him to leave once he’d set up the record player, cast a sullen, resentful look in the teacher’s direction. “Mr. Berg?” he said, still staring at the boy.

But the man was shuffling through the stack of records he’d brought, finally slipping one from its sleeve and balancing it on the spindle. When the record dropped onto the turntable and the tone arm lowered gently onto the vinyl, there was a loud hissing. The record had clearly been worn scratchy, a problem Mr. Berg seemed to believe could be remedied by turning the volume up, causing everyone to wince. Spreading his feet wide, he began snapping his fingers to the beat, bobbing his head and grinning his yellow grin. Was this another joke? Nobody seemed to know.

“Mr. Berg?” Perry repeated, still eyeing Three Mock. Noonan assumed he was going to ask why the boy hadn’t left, but he was mistaken. “How come we’re meeting in
here
?” Kozlowski asked instead.

They’d all assumed the room assignment on their printed schedules was a mistake until the office secretary informed them that, no, Mr. Berg had specifically requested the stale, dusty, windowless former storage room, though why he should prefer it to the bright, airy plum of a room set aside for honors classes remained a mystery.

Mr. Berg grinned unpleasantly at Perry Kozlowski. “Which answer would you prefer?” he said finally.

“Which answer?” Perry repeated, glancing around to see if the question made any more sense to his companions than it did to him.

Mr. Berg nodded. “In your other classes you’re used to getting one answer, usually a lie. In this one you’ll get two or more, depending on the question. Among these answers you will search for the truth and mostly not find it.”

“You’re going to lie to us?”

“For instance, I could tell you I’ve selected this room so we could listen to loud jazz without disturbing other classes, and that would be true, though it wouldn’t be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Not so help me God.” He was now fishing around in his jacket pocket, from which he extracted a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a tarnished silver lighter. “It might also be true that I selected a room far from all other classrooms because”—he lit up, inhaled deeply and exhaled into the room—“I like to smoke.” Nan Beverly wrinkled her nose.

“That’s against the rules,” Perry pointed out.

“Yes, it is,” Mr. Berg conceded, filling his lungs a second time, exhaling through his nose. “But I really do enjoy smoking, don’t you?”

“If I get caught with a cigarette, I’m off the football team.”

“And you’re afraid I’ll report you?”

“You’re supposed to. You’re a teacher. Or somebody else could.”

“Who do you imagine might betray you? Mr. Mock, perhaps?”

Perry was clearly startled by this reference to Three Mock, who seemed to register that his name had been spoken, but gave no other indication of following the conversation. “Maybe.” Perry shrugged. “How do I know? Marconi, maybe.”

“You’re suspicious of Mr. Marconi?”

“I said maybe. I don’t know.”

Mr. Berg turned to Noonan. “Do
you
like to smoke, Mr. Marconi?”

“Yes,” said Noonan, whose repeated violations of the prohibition had often gotten him in trouble at the academy, though he saw no reason to volunteer this information. He’d also been written up for drinking and brawling with townies, where he’d again broken his wrist. No reason to volunteer any of that either.

“Here, have one,” Mr. Berg said, tossing him the pack.

“He’s on the team, too,” Perry said.

Noonan surprised himself by taking out a cigarette and lighting it with the lighter Mr. Berg held out to him. He felt Lucy’s amazed eyes on him.

“There,” Mr. Berg said, again addressing Perry. “Now you don’t have to worry about Mr. Marconi. He can’t betray you without betraying himself.”

“Somebody else might, though.”

Mr. Berg leaned forward, lowering his voice in mock confidentiality. “Miss Beverly, for instance?”

Nan started at this suggestion.

“No, not her,” Perry said quickly.

“Why not?”

“She just wouldn’t.”

“She’s too blond?”

Perry grimaced. “What?”

“She’s very blond, isn’t she.”

“So what?”

“It’s dark people who do dark deeds, right?”

Perry looked around the room for an ally. “That’s crazy.”

“Or do you think she’s secretly fond of you?”

Now it was Nan’s turn to grimace.

“No.”

Mr. Berg nodded. “You’re probably right.” Perry’s face darkened and he added, “Right to be suspicious, I mean. Most people
are
up to no good, isn’t that true?

“I guess.”

“I don’t mind telling you,
I’m
worried,” Mr. Berg continued in a tone that made it impossible for Noonan to take anything he said seriously, though most of his fellow students seemed to. This was a game, and the referee was crazy. Which meant there was nothing to do but relax and enjoy it. “I could be fired for giving Mr. Marconi a cigarette, and he could be kicked off the team for smoking it. As you point out, it’s against the rules, so maybe this means the end for Mr. Marconi and me. And yet the fact remains, I love to smoke and so does Mr. Marconi here, I can tell. We’re mighty glad, he and I, that the principal isn’t likely to walk in on us, not all the way over here, which may have been another reason I chose this room. Far away from prying eyes and malicious gossip. My inference is—and you may be interested to hear this, Miss Beverly—that if nobody rats out Mr. Marconi and me for smoking, maybe we’ll break some other rules, too. Does that possibility frighten you?”

“What other rules?” Nan asked warily.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cigarette, Mr. Kozlowski?”

That Perry would have loved one couldn’t have been more obvious as he regarded Noonan with longing and hatred. Who, in return, stretched out and smiled back, exhaling languorously out the side of his mouth.

“I really wish you would,” Mr. Berg said. “Then I’d be less worried about losing my job and getting Mr. Marconi kicked off the football team. Both of those possibilities trouble me greatly.” In actuality, Noonan felt certain he couldn’t care less about either one, though Perry seemed not to grasp this essential fact.

“I better not,” he said glumly.

Mr. Berg shrugged. “Of course the real reason I selected this room may have nothing to do with cigarettes. Maybe I’ve located us all the way over here not so much because we could
do
things as
say
things. Things we might not want to say over there.” He was again talking to Nan Beverly in that same mock-confidential tone. “Things we might not want overheard.”

“Such as?”

“There is no God,” said Mr. Berg, then clapped his hand over his mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that. Wow. If somebody heard me say that, I could be fired. Just like for smoking.”

“Are you saying there
is
no God?” Perry Kozlowski said.

“No, that just slipped out. It was only a thought. But it’s a good thing we’re over here, isn’t it? Not the sort of thing you’d want our principal to overhear. I believe he attends the same church as Miss Beverly, and in faculty meetings I’ve heard him speak about God as if they converse regularly, so I know he’d be very displeased to hear something like I let slip. Which he might just do in that honors room, right next to his office. Have you ever noticed how sneaky he is? How he likes to loiter in the hallways and listen to what’s going on in the classrooms?”

“He could still do that here,” Perry pointed out.

“But he’s also fat and lazy,” Mr. Berg said. “He wouldn’t come all this way. And if he did we’d probably hear him because that’s how fat and lumbering he is, though I probably shouldn’t be saying such things. He
is
our principal, after all. The only reason I mention that he’s fat and lazy is because it’s true, which is different from saying something just to be unkind, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Noonan volunteered.

“Yes,” Mr. Berg repeated. “Mr. Marconi agrees. I expected as much. But Miss Beverly, here’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. It’s about our country. People say it’s great, indeed the greatest country of all. Do you agree?”

“Yes?” she said, herself glancing around for support.

“Why?”

She thought about it for a moment, then said, “Because we’re free? Because we can be whatever we want?”

“Are those statements or questions?”

“Statements?”

Mr. Berg sighed. “Oh. I thought perhaps your lilting inflection suggested a reservation. But maybe by the end of the term you’ll be able to speak in the declarative. Does that strike you as a possibility?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Marconi has his doubts,” Mr. Berg said, responding to the guffaw Noonan wasn’t able to suppress. “Are you an agnostic in general, Mr. Marconi, or only where Miss Beverly is concerned?”

“In general,” Noonan said, careful to sound very certain.

“Are there other agnostics in this class, or is Mr. Noonan our sole practitioner?”

No response.

“How about you, Miss Beverly?”

Nan started again. Having been called on once, she clearly didn’t expect to find herself in the crosshairs again so soon. “I don’t know?”

“What don’t you know?”

“What an agnostic is.” She was looking more alarmed by the moment.

“I don’t understand you at all, Miss Beverly. When you know the answer you make it sound like a question, but when you have an actual question—what is an agnostic?—you don’t ask it. Is it that you don’t want to know what an agnostic is? Or are you afraid you won’t like the answer?”

“How come you’re picking on her?” Perry blurted.

“Now
there’s
a question in its true form,” Mr. Berg replied, as if Kozlowski had offered his comment with no other purpose than to be helpful. After a beat he turned to him again and said, “Which answer would you prefer?”

“I don’t—”

But Mr. Berg had already redirected his attention to Nan. “A doubter, Miss Beverly. An agnostic is a doubter. Someone who questions things, especially authority.” As a visual aid, he now pointed at Noonan, in case anyone had forgotten who was being alluded to. “Mr. Marconi claims to be one, and I believe him. How about you? Is he convincing on this point, or do you think it’s merely a pose?” Again he lowered his voice and leaned forward, as if this were just between the two of them. Nan Beverly leaned back in her seat, while everyone else leaned forward. “People adopt poses, don’t they? Pretend to be what they aren’t?”

“I don’t—”

Then just as quickly he was done with her. “What’s the opposite of an agnostic, Mr. Lynch?”

Noonan looked over at his friend, expecting Lucy to be paralyzed by the sudden spotlight and relieved to discover he wasn’t.

“A believer?”

“Another answer in the form of a question. You and Miss Beverly should marry and have children,” Mr. Berg said, a suggestion that caused Lucy to blush deeply. “And which are you, Mr. Lynch, a doubter or a believer?”

“I guess I’m a little of both,” Lucy said.

“An equivocation, surely,” Mr. Berg replied, then regarded Nan rather pointedly.

It took her a moment to realize what he might be driving at. “What’s an equivocation?” she finally said.

Mr. Berg applauded. “Bravo, Miss Beverly. I take back everything I said about you. Except the part about being blond. You’re very blond.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Perry wanted to know.

“Which answer would you prefer?”

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Because I haven’t yet received a satisfactory answer. Or even an unsatisfactory one, come to that. The good news is that we have the whole semester, so I’m not discouraged by our lack of progress thus far, and I hope you aren’t either. Now, Mr. Lynch.”

“Yes, sir.”