Rodin's Debutante (16 page)

He does his best, the headmaster said loyally.

Yes, he certainly does, the boy said with a wisp of a smile.

Remind me again about Hopkins, the headmaster said.

He's been everywhere before he got here. Eastern schools, at least three of them. Is there a school called Groton?

It's pronounced Grah-ton, the headmaster said, not Grow-ton.

Well, that was one of them. I can't keep them straight. Hopkins's family has plenty of money but he doesn't want to ask them. He and his father are on the outs. They barely speak because his father disapproves of his girlfriend, Willa. She's twenty. Hopkins says she wants him to marry her, but he doesn't think he will. A lot of boys are on the outs with their fathers.

But not you, the headmaster said.

We get along fine most of the time.

Are you planning to become a lawyer?

Never, the boy said. Sitting in an office all day long reading case law, it's not for me. My father is a judge and his father was a judge and that's enough law for one family, don't you think? Maybe you have an idea, sir. Everyone else does.

Sailing ships, the headmaster said.

I get seasick, the boy said.

You can get over seasickness, Lee. What's it you want to do?

The boy moved his head back and forth and didn't say anything for a moment. Sculpting, he said finally. I like to sculpt. I like abstract work. I'm working on a head now of Coach Birney. He doesn't know it's him. It doesn't look like him. But it's him.

I wish I'd had a chance to see it.

You can see it, sir. It's in the art room. Look through the big window, you can't miss it. The head's shaped like a football.

The headmaster laughed, rising to shake hands. It occurred to him that this was probably the last time he would meet with a student. Maybe this one would amount to something and become the face of Ogden Hall—Ogden Hall's Apollo or Bogart or Roosevelt or Bix Beiderbecke or Ahab. He said, Good luck, Lee. I'll see that you get your money.

Thank you, the boy said. He looked out the window and added, Isn't that Miss Anjelica?

Yes, it is. In person.

Everyone likes her, the boy said.

I'm glad to hear it, the headmaster said.

May I ask you a question?

Sure, the headmaster said.

Are you and Miss Anjelica married?

No, Lee. We are not. What made you ask?

Gosh, the boy said.

A
FTER THE GAME
had ended, after the cheering, after Hopkins had carried him around the field on his shoulders, after the stands had emptied and the team had retreated to the locker room, Lee Goodell stayed behind to savor what there was to savor in the emptiness and silence of the field of battle. The sun was low in the November sky. He needed a few moments alone to allow his emotions to settle, this final game and the glorious Wisconsin August and the opening game and the following six games, all victories, the first undefeated season in any sport in the school's history. There was even a photographer and reporter from the
Chicago Daily News
present to record the finale of the Cinderella Season. Mr. Svenson had driven down from Fish Creek and was given an honorary place on the bench, a courtesy the coach seemed to resent. After the game Mr. Svenson had shaken hands with the entire team and then slipped away for the long drive back to Fish Creek. The old man had tears in his eyes. Most everyone did. By then the mood was subdued, as if the players could not quite believe what was in front of their eyes. That, and the knowledge that the game was over. The season was history. Tomorrow was any ordinary Sunday.

Now Lee stood alone on the sidelines near the bench, replaying the game. Hopkins's two touchdown runs, his own plunge over right tackle, leaning left as Mr. Svenson had told him to do and at the last moment pivoting right, arms pulling at his legs and body, pulling at the ball, and at last the arms falling away and he was free between the goalposts, on his feet. He had looked up into the stands to see Willa, Hopkins's girlfriend, dressed in a bright yellow sweater under a short mink jacket, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes while she jumped and jumped again, her hair flying. Point after touchdown wide, but it didn't matter because they were two scores ahead with only a minute or so to play, and still Willa cheered and cheered. The other team lost heart as they themselves had lost heart the year before, glum faces and bickering between the line and the backfield. Their coach was infuriated. The other team became timid and you could almost smell the discouragement. Lee sat on the bench trying, and mostly succeeding, to remember every play in every series and the moment before the game when a messenger from Western Union knocked on the door of the locker room to deliver a yellow envelope addressed to Lee Goodell but meant for the whole team, a florid Melvillean exhortation ending with the last few words of
Omoo—
"...and all before us was the wide Pacific"—and signed simply "Gus." Everyone cheered and then sent up a full-throated chant:
Gus Gus Gus.
That would stay with him, along with his own score and the cheering and mink-jacketed Willa, her hair flying as she jumped.

Lee knew he should join the others but was happy being alone in the chill of autumn, the season ended. He was filthy, his jersey caked with dirt. His elbows were skinned and his arms smeared here and there with blood. One of his shoes was missing a cleat and his feet hurt. But he felt clean and wondered how many times in his life he would set out to achieve an impossible thing and actually succeed. Probably not very many times. Maybe never again, the approximate probability of being struck twice by lightning. Everyone had a ration card with only so many stamps for impossible things. All the same, today proved you could do it at least once in your lifetime and once was never enough. He did like the idea of twenty-year-old mink-jacketed Willa in her seat on the home-team side of the field. He remembered reading somewhere that men went to war because the women were watching. He saw Hopkins look often into the stands and after each touchdown essay a little strut. But it would be a mistake to make too much of a football game, four downs to a series, four quarters of fifteen minutes each—iron-bound requirements, the opposite of life itself. If such a day ever happened again in his life it would not take the same form. That thought took the edge off. Lee felt his elation age as a tree ages, branches bare except for brittle leaves. He wondered if all shooting stars took the same form and decided they did not, except to the naked eye from earth.

He took a last look around, not thinking of anything much except the tree branches stark against the darkening sky. What, he wondered, would he remember of Ogden Hall in the years to come? Gus Allprice certainly, and
Omoo
and Hopkins and his Oldsmobile and the school nurse who smelled of disinfectant that the older boys insisted was whiskey, and indeed the nurse often laughed for no reason at all and was clumsy with the thermometer. He supposed that the memory that would stay with him forever was afternoon study hall in the vast library. He arrived early to take the same seat each time, the one in the front row opposite the alcove next to the fireplace, Marie Ogden as Maître Auguste Rodin saw her. Her hair was piled atop her head, luxurious, promiscuous, immodest. She wore a half smile and no matter how many times Lee sketched the smile he could not duplicate what was in front of his eyes. Her nose was slightly turned up, indisputably the turned-up nose of a young girl caught in a moment of intense reverie. Lee thought Rodin found an entire life in his bust of Marie Ogden, what had gone before, what was present now, and what would be in the future. She had a conscience, but it was her own conscience. Lee wondered what she would be like to know intimately. But he knew the answer to that. The figure changed as the days lengthened, the bust in deep shadow in the fall and winter, coming to light again in the spring and early summer. In the darkest days of January and February Marie Ogden looked almost matronly, but the years fell away again in April and May. Often the study hall proctor asked him what he was doing, so deep in thought, and Lee replied he was puzzling over a math problem, differential calculus, and since his grades were always honors the proctor did not press the point. Lee suspected that Marie Ogden would be with him for the rest of his days and in that supposition he was not wrong.

Lee noticed a long black car idling well back of the far goalpost, hard to see in the shadows of the trees. The old railroad trestle was in the distance. Lee had seen the car parked there before the game and then forgot about it, an open Cadillac of the sort that carried President Roosevelt on his political campaigns. The occupant of the rear seat was smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder as the late president did, his arm draped casually over the door. The Cadillac's headlights winked on as Lee looked at them. He picked up his helmet and walked the fifty yards downfield, kicking at the torn-up clods of earth as he went. He watched a chauffeur alight from the front seat and stroll to one of the nearby oaks and stand there as if on guard duty. The passenger in the rear seat was an enormous man with a leonine head, mostly bald. He was wrapped in a raccoon coat. He was bigger even than Mr. Svenson. His face was deeply lined, pink in the chill of late afternoon. Dusk was coming on fast. The passenger held a silver flask in his hand. The hand shook a little when he poured whiskey into a cup resting on the attaché case next to him. The old man paused a moment, then drank it off and smiled crookedly. His teeth were long and yellow from nicotine. The smile came and went in an instant, replaced by a grimace as if he felt sudden pain.

He said, Congratulations.

Lee said, Thank you.

What's your name?

Lee Goodell, sir.

You run well.

Thank you. I had good protection.

A team effort, is that it?

Yes, sir, it is. Lee heard belligerence in the man's voice, an undertone of casual menace. His voice was thick.

An unexpected season, wasn't it?

Yes, sir, yes it was.

The best kind, the man said.

It feels pretty good now, Lee said.

It'll feel even better tomorrow.

Do you think so?

Know so. This sort of thing ages well. Keep it to yourself, though. Don't tell the world. The world doesn't give a shit. He poured another shot of whiskey and drank half. Do you know who I am?

No, Lee said. He heard the belligerence again.

I used to live here.

Lee looked again, the ravaged face suddenly familiar. He had seen it before but could not recall where.

I'm Ogden.

Lee could only nod but his eyes were wide as if he had seen a ghost. Mr. Tommy Ogden had never been observed on campus, though it was known that he paid occasional visits. According to school lore he never spoke to anyone. He never called ahead. If he was displeased with anything, the condition of the library or the tennis courts or the formal garden, he made his displeasure known by letter, registered mail. Lee remembered the portrait in the headmaster's office, Tommy Ogden as a much younger man. Gus Allprice had pointed at it and said with deep sarcasm, Our founder.

I used to hunt these fields.

Hunt?

Shotguns, Tommy Ogden said. Before that an air rifle. Deer used to gather right here on your football field, a herd of fifteen, twenty deer, big ones. Ducks too. Mallards all over the place. Do you ever see deer?

Not very often, Lee said.

Place used to be filled with deer.

I think they've gone away, Lee said.

I suppose they have. The damned suburbs crowding everything out, even the animals. Where do you come from, Lee Goodell?

New Jesper, Lee said. But we live on the North Shore now.

Plenty of North Shore boys here, aren't there?

Yes, sir.

But I suppose none of them are on your football team.

Lee thought a moment. A few, he said.

Too bad, Ogden said. It's good early in life to experience success. It puts you on the right track for later on, when it counts. You don't learn a god damned thing from defeat. That's the wrong track and defeat stays with you and becomes the expected thing. It's a chain around your neck. Remember that.

Yes, sir, the boy said.

It's why I like shooting.

I can see that, the boy said, but the truth was he didn't know what Mr. Tommy Ogden was driving at. His voice was thick and his teeth clicked when he spoke. Rememberclick thatclick, as if he had something stuck in his throat. His eyes moved warily left and right as Lee imagined a gambler's would. Lee had never met anyone like Tommy Ogden, even the fathers of the rich boys at school, the ones who seemed so—preoccupied. Of course Mr. Ogden was much older and widely experienced in the world. He did not wear his years lightly. Apparently he had gone from success to success in his own life and the successes had marked him. Lee took a step closer to the car and saw that the old man had a wool blanket around his waist and legs. The air grew colder as the light failed.

You see that, do you?

I'm trying, Lee said.

Do you shoot?

No, Lee said.

Learn. Learn at once.

I owned an air rifle, Lee said. I haven't used it in a long time.

It's a skill that lasts your whole life. Start with birds and work up to animals, deer and the like. I killed my first tiger when I was twenty-two. I have killed many since. Beautiful beasts.

That's dangerous, isn't it?

It can be. You can't lose your nerve.

My father gave it away, my air rifle.

Why would he do that?

He didn't want it around the house. I think that was the reason.

Ogden grunted. What does he do?

My father? He's a judge.

Ogden nodded, giving a long sigh. Apparently that explained the disappearance of the air rifle.

I didn't mind, the boy said.

You should have, Ogden said, moving his shoulders in irritation. After a moment he said, I paid for your training camp.

Lee smiled broadly. You did? We would never have had our undefeated season without the training camp and Mr. Svenson. Thank you. If you'd like to meet some of the guys I can get them out here. They'd be honored to meet you. It wouldn't take a minute—