You Deserve Nothing (19 page)

“Yes, Colin,” Silver said, cold, “but what does it have to do with me?”

Ariel had been watching Colin with renewed interest.

“I guess I’m just wondering if all this courage you want us to have, I just wonder, sir, if it’s the kind of courage you have yourself. I mean if I can ask that, without being rude.”

Silver glanced away from Colin and out to the field where a light fog had filled the space between the bare poplar trees and the low buildings of the school. He seemed to contemplate the question and then, turning back, he said, “I’ve never pretended to be an example, or to have more courage than anyone else. I’ve never claimed to be braver or stronger or more capable of action than anyone else. But then, that doesn’t really answer your question does it? Do I have the kind of courage Sartre had? That’s the question, right?”

Silver said this quietly. He seemed deflated, melancholy. The anger and icy cadence gone.

“Yes, sir.”

“No, I don’t think I do. Why, Colin? Why the question?”

After a long pause he shook his head. “Nothing, sir. I was just wondering.”

“How can you say that?” Hala asked, staring at Silver incredulous.

“What? Say what, Hala?”

“How can you claim you’re not an example?”

“Hala, I didn’t say that, I didn’t say that I wasn’t an example. I just never
argued
that I was. Or should be.”

“Mr. Silver,” Jane said exasperated, her cheeks red. “As a teacher, I mean, as a teacher you
are
an example. I mean, even if you never said it, even if you never explicitly said it.”

“That’s the point, in your role, you have an a priori responsibility, a priori as Sartre says.” Hala went on, nodding at her allusion. “You may not
claim
to be an example, but you
are
nonetheless. You are anyway. You don’t get to decide how people see you. And you know, right? That you
are
an example to a lot of the students at this school, Mr. Silver? I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you don’t get to choose.”

Silver took a deep, slow breath. “Well, Hala, I don’t know. I don’t know how many people really see me as an example. But that’s for another discussion. I
do
play a role in how I’m perceived. The clothes I wear, the things I say, the way I say them. I, as we all do, cultivate an image. I’m no more pure than anyone else. What is far more important is that all of these people who supposedly consider me an example, they also make a choice don’t they? They decide to see me one way or another, right?”

I watched Silver carefully as he spoke. As I studied his eyes and watched his mouth move, the way he picked at the dead skin on his thumb, my heart beat faster and harder. I felt something rising in me and when he came to the end of his question, I let out an exasperated breath.

He turned to me, his eyes sad. He seemed so tired.

“Gilad? Something you want to say?”

I glanced at Colin. He was looking at me.

“Mr. Silver, I just, I wonder if you believe all of that.” I felt nauseated and my face was hot. I wiped my hands on my jeans. He narrowed his eyes. He seemed surprised by my question.

“What do you mean, Gilad? Believe what?”

“I mean, do you actually expect that a tenth grader, someone fifteen or sixteen, you expect that they make this decision? That they’re capable of deciding how to see you? Of really, fairly judging you, judging your, I don’t know, your authenticity? They make a decision to see you one way or another? That you, I don’t know, share the responsibility of the thing? You and the student? That it’s equal?”

We all looked at him and waited for an answer. We barely moved, all of us unified in our anticipation. Silver looked at me, and this time I held his gaze. He turned to Colin. The tension was terrible.

Abdul coughed. Silver turned to him. “What do you think, Abdul?”

Then I was angry, I felt a surge of rage. How dare he rely on Abdul.

Abdul rocked back and forth, his nervous nod taking over his whole body. “I don’t know. I’m not really sure.”

“About what, Abdul?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, you’re a teacher. So you’re responsible, yeah. You have this job. It’s your job.”

Silver nodded impatiently, his slight gesture bordering on the ironic. “Anyone else?” he asked.

I raised my hand now. It was a formality I’d long ago abandoned. My own ironic gesture. Silver turned to me. He’d walked to the window and opened it and was leaning with his elbow resting on the frame, looking away from us. I felt the cold air chill the sweat on my neck. I was grateful for the cold, thankful that he’d opened the window and again, I felt sympathy for him, warmth, and I wondered briefly if perhaps he’d opened the window for me, seen my face flushed, the sweat on my forehead. I wished for it. And again I felt as if I were betraying him.

But I kept my hand raised.

“You don’t have to,” he began still looking away from us. Then he turned back to the room, shook his head and said, “Yes, Gilad,” in the same tone he might have used with Ariel.

I was holding my notebook open. “Can I read you something? It’s Sartre.”

He nodded and I read, “‘What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterward.’”

Again, there was nothing. No response. No noise. No shuffling of papers, or the sound of pen pushing across paper, no whispering. I looked at Silver, who raised his eyes at me and said nothing.

“‘Encounters himself.’ You said that to encounter yourself, it’s the point when you suddenly understand, when you begin, when you no longer can pretend that life is otherwise, when you realize the truth of the world. That’s more or less what you said, I think. That’s how I have it.” Again, I spoke with the faintest edge of irony and in false deference.

“Yes,” Silver replied. “I think that’s right. Yes.”

“And you think that your students, not to mention all the other kids here who you don’t teach, but who know you, who see you around, who
hear
about you. You think they’ve
encountered
themselves?”

When he didn’t answer, I returned to my notebook and read aloud the Camus passage I’d read on Saturday in the Square Laurent Prache:

It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm—this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.

I read slowly with a confidence and strength of voice I’d never possessed in his class, or, perhaps, ever in my life. I expected to hear noise, Ariel whispering to Aldo, Lily giggling, but no one made a noise.

“You think, Mr. Silver, that those sophomores you teach, that they’re weary? That for them the why has arisen?”

I was sweating again despite the cold air filling the room.

Silver nodded slowly, watching me carefully, as if confirming something to himself. He smiled and this time it was something else, pride perhaps. And in that smile I felt satisfaction, pleasure, happiness, all because he’d been impressed, because he was pleased with me. He smiled and nodded and closed the window and returned to his desk, to his usual place.

“I do,” he said. “Yes. However, you clearly disagree, Gilad. You’ve certainly done your homework.”

I shook my head. I was no longer angry. He’d disarmed me.

“We have, sir, we’ve done our homework, Gilad, and I,” Colin said.

And then Ariel began: “What crap. What total crap. What a cop out. You think you can do what you want to do? That the responsibility is on us? On the students? You claim, like, what? That it’s all just equal? That you have no more power than we do? No advantage?”

Silver had pushed himself off the desk and was standing facing her. She had gone so red it seemed the blood was seeping into her eyes.

“Ariel, watch the way you speak to me, I—”

“Why? Because you’re the teacher? And I’m the student? You can do as you like, right? And then you make it all O.K., justify it all with this bullshit?” She flipped her copy of
The Stranger
onto the floor where it landed with a dull thump on the worn brown carpet.

Silver took a step closer to her desk. His face revealed, along with anger, panic and perhaps even fear. “Ariel,” he said, his voice falling an octave, “close your mouth.”

She stood up and stuffed her notebook into her bag. She fastened the straps, dramatically wrapped her long white scarf around her neck and then, when she was prepared to leave, she raised her eyes to him. At her full height and in her winter boots, she was taller than he was. She looked powerful, full of conviction, so certain of herself, not a hint of hesitation.

“You’re a fake, Mr. Silver. Pathetic,” she said looking directly at him. “I know, Mr. Silver. I’ve known for a long time.”

She came out from behind her desk and stepped forward so that they were, for an instant, very close to each other. And as she left the room she passed by him so closely that a strand of her hair trailed across his shoulder.

I
thought I might be inspired, get caught up in the whole thing. All that chanting. Angry slogans. It was a gorgeous day. Sunshine. Cold. People everywhere. It felt good to be out in the city. But the spirit of the crowd felt wrong. Too many people out for blood. It got uglier and uglier as the protesters came to a stop, filling the Place de la République. The girls, faces painted with peace signs, had all gone home. The students singing “Imagine” had left. There were Stars of David and swastikas side-by-side on the same banners: “
Sionisme = Nazisme
.”

I stumbled into a crowd gathered near a group of stands selling
merguez
. I bought one and stood watching a group of Jewish students being harassed by some drunken kids. I looked on along with the rest of the crowd. I stared at the kid who was conducting the whole thing. I wanted to kill him. The people standing in front of me left and I found myself on the edge of the curb, on the same level as the students, and I continued to watch from behind my sunglasses. Then I saw Gilad and Colin. They looked frightened, boxed in by a growing crowd. I knew they were there because of me. Participate in the world, I told them. That tired speech. And here they were participating.

Stand up and show your students what it is to be brave, what it is to act. I’d do it for them the way I might someday do it for my own children. In spite of fear, I’d protect them. I’d be the one to step out of the crowd.

I didn’t think they’d seen me. I stood motionless, pretending to focus my energy on that belligerent kid. And when he hit the student with his bar and he raised it again, I stepped off the curb and told him to stop. “
Arrête!
” I said. And there I was in the middle, with quiet all around, and I could see him, every detail. I said nothing else. He saw instantly that I
had
nothing else.

Gilad and Colin saw it too. Their hypocrite teacher standing alone in the street, praying that “stop” was enough and knowing it wouldn’t be.

* * *

Saturday night had come and gone. It was nearly one in the morning. I got out of bed, dressed and went out.

I walked toward the Seine away from the noise of the rue de Buci and farther down the darkening street. I turned through the small arch and stepped out onto the cobblestones in front of the Institut de France. I couldn’t bring myself to walk onto the Pont des Arts. Lights on the water. Drunken students playing their guitars. Instead, I sat on the steps at the edge of the
place,
cast in a mean orange light.

There was nothing to think about. There was nothing to do. Nothing was next.

Couples walked along the
quai
. Some turned to look up at that golden dome, snapping photographs as they passed.

Somewhere in a bound album, I thought, I’ll be the shadow in the corner.

I walked home, up the dark street where I passed a couple pressed together against a wall. When I arrived in front of my building, her message came.

It was the beginning of November. There were six people in Bar du Marché next door. A local drunk was sitting alone in the entryway of an apartment building across the street. He cracked his head against the door. Over and over again he snapped his head back. As hard as he tried he couldn’t seem to knock himself out. I was holding the telephone.

I watched him fling his head back one last time. His skull thudded against the wood and he fell forward, where he stayed.

I thought of walking over to him, of taking his head in my hands, of sitting next to him, allowing him to rest against me. Maybe later, I’d tell him. Maybe some other time.

The light in the stairwell was out. I turned upwards in the dark.

From my window, I could see Pauline in her kitchen washing dishes.

The wind had picked up and was blowing through my apartment. I was grateful for the cold. I watched as Sébastien wandered in wearing a pair of jeans. He wrapped his arms around her as she moved a sponge methodically around a plate. Soon they switched off the lights.

I saw myself moving away through the crowd.

And then in the dark waiting for Marie.

“O.K.,” I wrote. “
Viens
.”

* * *

By then, the mornings were dark. I arrived at school earlier than usual. First one in, I made a pot of coffee and then stared out the window while the machine choked to life. It was November and still the sky was clear, the sun just coming up over the trees. The grass was white with frost.

When Mia arrived, I poured her a cup of coffee. A small boy in an orange parka ran out into the middle of the field. His were the only tracks. Together we watched him lie on his back, spread his arms and legs, and beat a snow angel into the frost.

Then he stood and ran back into the school.

* * *

That afternoon we ate lunch together on one of the benches outside the cafeteria. The air kept its morning bite. She shivered and wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck.

“How was your weekend?”

“Pretty horrible really.”

“Did you get my messages?” She looked away and watched some students playing basketball.

“I did. I’m sorry.”

“You could have called me back. I thought we were supposed to see a movie.”

“I should have called.”

She sighed and shook her head. She began to speak. But I stopped her, saying sharply, “Mia, I’m sorry. I said that. I should have called. Let it die, O.K.?”

“Why was it such a hard weekend, then?”

I tried to describe a widening darkness, the sensation of something collapsing. It was a relief to say it.

“Hang on,” she whispered and looked over my shoulder.

“Hi, Ms. Keller. I’m so sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you have time to go over my essay this afternoon. I looked for you in the office but this is the first time I found you, so I’m really sorry but . . . ”

“It’s fine, Marie. Calm down. This afternoon, I’m free the last two periods.”

She was standing very close to me, her hip inches from my arm. I kept my eyes forward.

“Yeah. Thank you
so
much. That’s great. I’ll come last period because I have History the period before but I’ll be there as soon as I’m out. I know you’re busy, so thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Mia laughed. “Relax, Marie.”

“Hey, Ms. Keller, remember in
Gatsby
what Daisy said about her daughter, ‘The best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’”

“And what, now you
agree?”

“Please. O.K., I’ve got to go. Thank you, again. See you later.”

As she turned from the table her arm brushed against my shoulder. I could smell her as she went, and that touch went through me.

“Sorry,” Mia said. “That girl’s great, I adore her, but she never stops. You know her?”

“I’ve seen her around.”

“Marie de Cléry.”

“‘The Flea
.
’
”

“She’s great.”

Kids were spilling out of the cafeteria doors on their way to class. They carried half-eaten bags of chips, candy bars, cans of Coke.

“So, how was
your
weekend?”

“It was nice, actually. I had dinner with Séb and Pauline. I love them. They asked about you. You should have come.”

“I’m glad you’ve become friends.”

“They want to set me up with some guy. A lawyer. Olivier.”

“Olivier, the lawyer.” I met her eyes and then looked away. I felt hollow and sick.

She sighed. “Anyway, I have class. I should get back.”

“I’ll take the trays in.”

“Thanks.” She stood up and touched my shoulder. “William,” she said, and walked away toward the main building.

As I was returning from the cafeteria I saw Mazin reading on the grass in front of the upper school.

“What’s up Maz?”

“Hey,” he said and went back to his book.

“You doing O.K.?”

He nodded, keeping his eyes on the page.

“What’s wrong, Maz?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Just work.”

“Is there something bothering you?”

“Nope.”

“O.K.,” I said, looking down at him. But he ignored me and I left.

* * *

Later, when I returned to the English department Mia was sitting at her desk with Steven Connor.

“Hi guys.”

“What up, Silver?”

Mia smiled at me.

“What’d you do this time?” I asked.

“Nothing, man. Have some faith. I’m trying to improve myself. Ms. Keller’s almost as hard as you were.”

I sat down at my desk. “Oh, I promise you she’s much harder, Esteban. Much harder. She actually knows what she’s talking about. She has lesson plans. I don’t even read half the books I teach. Pay attention. This year you could actually learn something.”

“O.K., O.K., Steven, back to work.” She rolled her eyes at me and tapped the paper with her pen.

I pulled an essay from a pile and began to read.

“You need to focus your thesis, Steven. Make it more precise. ‘Stephen Dedalus and Hamlet are similar for several reasons’ is too vague.”

“You think?” I said not looking up.

“Dude, you would have loved this essay.”

“Not with
that
thesis, Esteban. Please.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ignore him. How can we focus this? Are you sure you believe it?
Are
they really similar?”

“Well, he makes a bunch of references to Hamlet in the book.”

“The novel. O.K. Are you sure? And do those references immediately make the two characters similar? And what’s another word for reference? Something a bit more literary?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what she means, Esteban.” I turned in my chair and looked at him. “If you can’t answer Ms. Keller’s question I’m jumping out the window. And I have more willpower than that candy-ass Hamlet.”

“He’ll do it, Steven,” Mia said, looking at me and laughing.

I opened the window.

Steven held his head in his hands. “References. References.”

I pulled myself up and sat on the edge of the window frame. “I’m going. After all the work we did last year?
This
is how I’m repaid? With references?
References
, Esteban? Why don’t you just spit in my face?”

“Allusions!” He yelled.

“Good,” Mia said.

I dropped down to the floor and went back to my desk.

“Allusions, Mr. Silver, allusions!”

“Indeed, Steven. And thank you for saving Mr. Silver’s life. Let’s take a look at those allusions and try to develop a precise and focused thesis, O.K.? Maybe now, Mr. Silver will allow us to get some work done.”

“I doubt it,” Steven said laughing.

I went back to my essays but from time to time turned to watch them working together. Mia was so good with him, explaining the same ideas over and over again, keeping them new, approaching from different angles, never losing her patience, letting him make his arguments regardless of their quality.

“See here,” Steven said, quoting Joyce, ‘He came to the woman, the weaker vessel, and poured the poison of his eloquence into her ear.’ It’s just like what Claudius did to his brother.”

“O.K., but is that enough?” She asked, looking at him seriously, giving him the time to work it out on his own.

“Put the novel down, Steven. Look at me. Forget about the essay.”

Steven crossed his arms and looked up at her.

“Let’s just have a conversation. Do you think that Dedalus and Hamlet are really similar characters?”

“I think so. I don’t know.”

“Of course you know. Stop being a student who has to write a paper for a moment. Just tell me what you think. Are they similar? I’d like to know what you think.”

After a while he nodded his head. “Yes.”

“O.K.” Mia smiled at him. “Now tell me how.”

I loved her there. Sitting in the office with the door closed, listening to Steven and Mia, I became sharply aware of how soon it would all be gone. I’d miss the shabby office, the coffee maker, my desk, the view from the window. I watched Mia leaning in, scribbling across his page, lost in teaching, and thought, Good-bye.