That Day the Rabbi Left Town (10 page)

“Not if it's so unlikely.” He rose. “Well, thank you for taking the time.”

“It's what I'm here for.”

He was at the door when she called out. “Oh, Mr. Kent, I just remembered something.”

He turned expectantly.

“I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago and met the dean of Windermere College, a Millicent Hanbury. She mentioned that enrollment seemed to be going up sharply and they might have to get another instructor for Freshman English. Windermere is not a client of mine, and she didn't ask me to find one for her. I'm not sure that she knew I ran a teachers' agency. But there's a chance. It used to be a ladies' finishing school, a sort of junior college. It had a very small regular faculty. Most of the courses were given by local high school teachers who'd come to teach a class or two and then go back to their regular schools. Then it became a four-year women's college, and I guess their standards went up some. Then it became coeducational and their enrollment began to climb. It's in the city on Clark Road near Kenmore Square.”

“Should I call for an appointment first?”

“If you call, her secretary is apt to put you off. Why don't you just go over there.”

“All right, I will.”

“Oh, and if you should get the job, Mr. Kent, our fee is ten percent of the first year's salary.”

“I'll be more than happy to pay it.”

“And of course, the ten-dollar registration fee.”

The possibility, much less the likelihood, of his getting a job, he reasoned, was remote, else Ada Williams would have required him to register and pay the ten-dollar fee. But the day was warm and pleasant, so he thought he might as well walk to Kenmore Square; he had nothing else to do.

As he walked along, he thought about the interview. If there was a job, and if he did have a chance, he would no doubt be asked about his college and what degree he held. So much was certain if for no other reason than that it had to appear beside his name in the catalog. So he decided he would lie.

It was fairly safe, he felt. If he was asked for his diploma or certificate of graduation, he would say it was in his trunk that was being shipped from England. Would they phone or cable the university? Most unlikely, but they might write. It would be a week before the letter would arrive in England, and weeks, perhaps months, before the university would reply. Even then, if confronted with the letter from the university, he would explain that he had changed his name from Michael Canty to Malcolm Kent and that the degree had been granted to the former. More correspondence, and by the time it was over, it would be so far into the semester that they wouldn't dare drop him.

Clark Street was a short, tree-lined street with a row of three-story brownstone-front houses on either side. All were of much the same size except for one house on the corner that seemed almost twice as large as any of the other houses. But it was the building marked “Administration” several doors down that commanded his interest and to which he headed.

He could see right away that Millicent Hanbury found his British accent attractive. “Miss Eastland is head of the English Department,” she said, “and normally she'd be the one you'd see, but she's away and won't be back until the day before school starts, so she asked me to pick someone. It's only for Freshman English, and of course, there's no tenure.”

“I'll take it if I can get it,” he said.

“And your degree is from …?”

“London Polytech.”

“Oh. A.B. or B.S.?”

“A.B., but my master's is from University of Liverpool,” he added to complicate things.

Freshman English instructors—there were no professors—had an office apart from the rest of the English faculty since the course involved conferences with students on their themes, the writing of which was the principal function of the course. Naturally, there was considerable fraternizing among the Freshman English instructors since they shared an office. There was a good deal of talk among them about their respective schools, about the professors under whom they had studied, about the various requirements for graduate study.

Kent, however, tended to keep apart from his colleagues. When asked a direct question, he would answer with a monosyllable. And he did not hang around the office unless he was waiting for a student. Instead, he would go to the school library and read, or wander through the stacks, picking a book off the shelves that looked interesting. His colleagues attributed his unfriendliness to the fact that he was a bit older—they had got their degrees only the year before—or perhaps because he was British. Some thought he was a natural grouch, and others that he spent so much time in the library because he was engaged in research. His real reason, however, for not engaging in their chitchat was that he was afraid he might say something that would indicate that he had never gone to college. It was hard for him since he was by nature sociable and talkative. So he did as he had done in London: he went to lectures and concerts and evening services at local churches.

After a few years he was promoted from instructor to assistant professor. Now, as Professor Kent, he taught several sections of the Survey of English Literature course as well as a section of the Freshman English course.

Over the years, the status of the school had improved, steadily although almost imperceptibly. The doctorate became required of most appointees to the faculty, and after a while, in several departments, publication in learned journals as proof of scholarship was also required. The status of the school, which formerly had been on a par with one of the local junior colleges, was now thought to be equal to the state four-year college.

Then the president, Allen Treadwell Chisholm, retired, and Donald Macomber, a historian of some repute, was installed in his place. Although still regarded as a fallback school for the prestigious Ivy League colleges of the area, it was also attracting students for whom it was the first choice, in part because tuition fees were considerably lower than those of the Ivy League colleges, and in part because admission standards were more liberal.

But as the status of the college increased, Kent's status with his colleagues diminished correspondingly. When he had first joined the faculty, academically he had been thought to be more or less on a par with the other members of the faculty, who had been high school teachers or instructors in local colleges. There had been no Ph.D.s in the English Department; the president had been a high school principal; and Dean Millicent Hanbury had been head of the Physical Education Department.

But now, almost all professors had Ph.D.s, and most of them had published in learned journals. There were even some who were held in esteem by their colleagues in other colleges. And Professor Kent? He stayed on because there was no reason to dismiss him.

And then he met Matilda Clark. She was the great-granddaughter of Ezra Clark, who had built the row of brown-stone fronts on the street that was named for him and who was not only one of the founders of Windermere, but the donor of one of the houses on Clark Street, the first building of the college. She was a spinster of fifty, five or six years older than he, and lived in the big corner house, where she had been born.

On a cold, blustery winter's day, as he was walking along Clark Street, leaning forward against the buffeting of the wind, he had caught sight of her clinging to the iron railing on the steps of her house. He hurried toward her and asked if he could help her. She nodded gratefully and he helped her up the steps. She handed him her key and he opened the door. Then, inside, in gratitude she offered him tea.

“I get sort of short-winded sometimes,” she explained as she led him to a small, nondescript room off the entrance hall.

“Everyone does sometimes,” he assured her.

“Oh, is that so? This was my study when I was going to school,” she said, “and I like to eat in here because it's near the kitchen. If you'll wait here, I'll bring the tea things. I won't be long.”

He looked about him when she left. There were a couple of chairs and a table, the one she used to study at, presumably. There was a small bookcase against the wall, and he walked over to examine the books it contained. They were the books she had used in grammar school and perhaps high school. He picked up a copy of
Macbeth
, and was leafing through it, trying to read the penciled notes in the margins, when she returned carrying a tray, with two cups, each containing a tea bag, and a plate of cookies.

“You don't use a teapot?” he asked.

“Too much work,” she answered.

“You don't have any help?”

“No. I like to do for myself. If I didn't keep house, and cook, what would I do all day?” She noticed the book in his hand and said, “That's Shakespeare. Would you like to borrow it?”

It occurred to him that if he borrowed a book from her, it would be an excuse to come again to return it, so he said, “Yes. I'm not familiar with this edition.”

“So take it.”

“I'll bring it back tomorrow.”

“All right.”

“Look, I have a class that ends at four o'clock. Why don't I come tomorrow and I'll make tea for you, English tea, in a teapot with milk.”

“Oh, that would be nice.”

As they talked over their tea, he could see that she was not very bright, and he began to realize the enormous possibilities her simplicity offered.

The very next day, shortly after four, he presented himself at the Clark house with the book he had borrowed under his arm, and in a bag, a tin of English breakfast tea and a ceramic teapot. When she opened the door in response to his ring, he said, “I've come to return your book and to make you a cup of real English tea. You have milk, haven't you?”

“Yes, I have milk. Come in.”

She stayed by his side in the kitchen as he explained, “The water must be bubbling furiously. That's important. And then it must steep for seven minutes. Then you just add a dash of milk to the cup. That absorbs the tannin, you understand. Now, if you'll go into the study, I'll serve you your tea.”

She sipped cautiously at the cup he set before her. “Oh, that's good,” she exclaimed.

“It's the way tea should be made,” he said.

As they drank their tea, she prattled about friends she had grown up with and what they were doing now, about charitable organizations she supported because they had always been supported by her father and grandfather. And he listened, every now and then throwing in a sentence or two to encourage her to go on. He stayed until almost six and then left for a bite of supper, after which he went to a singles bar and picked up a woman whom he induced to come home with him.

He came almost every day and occasionally stayed for supper. She expected to see him every day, and on one occasion when he explained that he would not be able to come for tea since there was an important departmental meeting that he had to attend, she said, “Then come for lunch. I'll expect you.”

It was while he was having lunch that he heard the postman push the mail through the slot. He went to the front door and picked it off the floor, then brought it back to the table. It consisted mostly of advertisements, of course, but there was one envelope that looked important and he remarked on it.

She opened it and said, “It's an invitation. I get them quite often.”

“And don't you go?”

“Sometimes. Oh, this one is from the Sloans. He was a partner of my father in some deal. This is for the evening of the twenty-fourth.”

“Are you going?”

“He's just been appointed chairman of the Arts Commission. I don't like to go without an escort, especially in the evening.”

“I could take you.”

“It's formal.”

“Well, I have a dinner jacket, you know, a tuxedo.”

“All right, if you don't mind. We were awfully close to the Sloans at one time. I'll be able to see a lot of people I used to know, but it might be awfully dull for you; there'll be a lot of speeches.”

“I don't mind, if you think you'll enjoy it.”

Although the time of his visits to the Clark house was after most of the faculty had gone home, nevertheless, he had been observed, and some who taught extension classes had seen him leaving. In a curious way, he sensed that it had given him a new importance. When he talked about some of the people he had met—for after the Sloan party, he had squired Matilda Clark to other affairs—his colleagues were inclined to listen. For example, when the press reported on the changes Harvey Challenger was planning for the public library system and his colleagues in the English Department were discussing them, he was able to say, “The man is an idiot.”

“You know him?”

“I met him at a party.”

But it was more than that. Seemingly, it was not the important people he met through Matilda Clark, but his friendship with the lady herself, that was giving him importance. It occurred to him that perhaps it was assumed that she had influence with the Board of Trustees. He decided to test it.

At his next meeting with her, he remarked that he had been offered a job in the Midwest, and that he was thinking of taking it.

“Oh, you mustn't do that. You mustn't leave Windermere.”

“I'm not doing very well here. I'm only an assistant professor, and I don't even have tenure after all the years I've been here.”

“Why, that's terrible. I'll tell you what: I'll speak to Charlie Dobson.”

“Charlie Dobson? Who's he?”

“He has that big Cadillac agency on Commonwealth Avenue, and he's on the Board of Trustees.” She reflected for a moment and then said, “The next quarterly meeting of the Board is in a couple of weeks, so I'll go to see him tomorrow. He'll need a little time to contact the others, you know.”

Among the many announcements that were made following the meeting of the Board was one that Assistant Professor Malcolm Kent had been promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.