My Heart Laid Bare Page 31

  At the conclusion of a feverish hour spent mostly in fragments and repetitions (Chopin’s Prelude no. 16, Presto con fuoco) Darian is shaking with exhaustion and Professor Hermann, dabbing at his oily face, gives off an odor of angry excitement, or excited anger. To be equal to such music! To be equal to . . . God! No other pupil is scheduled to follow Darian, for Professor Hermann’s pupils are few, their numbers dwindling, so the lesson continues for another hour . . . or more.

  “A pity, my boy,” Professor Hermann says, wiping his face with a soiled handkerchief, “—that you didn’t come to me until now, when it’s almost too late; you, at your age, with your bad keyboard habits; and civilization itself coming to an end.”

  2.

  In Abraham Licht’s judgment, the world certainly isn’t coming to an end but to a new beginning.

  War began in Europe on 1 August but Abraham Licht, like numerous others, had been shrewdly anticipating it for weeks, reading all the newspapers he could get to seek out confirmation of his sense of a rich, chaotic Destiny. He tells Darian that the past and the future will be divided; the old, the worn-out, the dead, will rapidly fade into extinction; those who live now will have the privilege of being reborn, if they are but strong enough.

  As he himself is strong, and as Darian must be strong.

  “We Lichts have been cheated of our birthright in the past,” Abraham says, vehemently, “—but the future is ours, I vow.”

  YES, IT’S A very good time; an opportune time; many citizens are gazing hypnotized (with dread, with fascination) across the Atlantic Ocean, and have relaxed their vigilance here. It’s an era of plans; almost too many plans; one must narrow one’s focus; one must move slowly, cannily, with care . . . .In the autumn of 1914 as a student at the Vanderpoel Academy, Darian Licht has the opportunity should he wish to cultivate it of befriending the sons, grandsons, nephews and young cousins of such illustrious Americans as F. Augustus Heinze, Edward H. Harriman, Elias Shrikesdale, Stuyvesant Shrikesdale, Rear Admiral Robley “Fighting Bob” Evans, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the Reverend Cornelius Crowan, J. P. Morgan. When Darian protests that he doesn’t like these boys, Abraham Licht replies testily that that hardly matters—“Get them to like you, my boy.”

  Tuition is high at the Academy, despite the grim appearance of its neo-Gothic granite buildings and the notoriously combative atmosphere of its classrooms, dormitories and playing fields, for, as Abraham Licht has explained to Darian, the school is one of the oldest private schools in the United States, founded 1721; it’s closely modeled upon Harrow, though football rather than rugby is played, and boys aren’t required to wear top hats and tails on Sundays; and there are so many distinguished gentlemen (in business, politics, religion) among its graduates, to list them would be exhausting.

  The very name “Vanderpoel” (like “Harvard,” “Princeton,” “Yale”) is invaluable, in the right quarters.

  “So the cost of the school is hardly an object,” Abraham Licht says, “where your education is concerned.”

  Darian hadn’t wanted to leave Muirkirk; he hadn’t wanted to matriculate at Vanderpoel, despite its reputation; the very look of the old, dignified, forbidding buildings dampened his spirits. It was a notion of his that, away from Muirkirk, he would lose his mother forever; he would lose his soul; he would, at the very least, be stricken with homesickness. Yet once at school in his drafty, unadorned third-floor room in the dormitory known familiarly as “Fish” (Marcus Fish Hall, 1844), thrown together with a fourth-form boy named Satterlee who’s sometimes cruel, sometimes condescending, sometimes unexpectedly friendly, even teasing, Darian has discovered that, much of the time, he’s happy after all. For Muirkirk is my music, to be entered at any time. Even silence is a kind of music. His classmates seem to respect him even when they don’t seem to like him; there’s a stubbornness in him that discourages bullies, the banes of such private schools.

  “But you must try to make friends pragmatically, Darian,” Father tells him, “—and not leave things to blind chance. You must make the effort, son, as we all do.” Father raps his fingertips on a tabletop; nicotine-stained fingers with slightly swollen knuckles.

  “Yes, Father. I suppose.”

  “It isn’t always easy, you know: you must swallow your natural Licht pride and your inclination.”

  “Yes, Father. I suppose.”

  “This ‘Satterlee,’ he’s a rather crude, charming sort . . . though only from Baltimore. What of Mr. Morgan’s grandson? What of Mr. Harriman’s grandson? . . . the headmaster tells me he’s quite a football hero. And there’s a chap named Sewall, Roddy Sewall I believe, a nephew of the wife of . . . the late Roland Shrikesdale II of Philadelphia. He, too, they say, is a musically inclined boy, and a bit eccentric. Don’t frown, Darian, and look so worried! Your father will guide you in such waters.” Abraham pauses, studying his son; smiles sympathetically as if seeing, in Darian’s small delicate features, something of his own. “And you must cultivate a personality of your own, and not just drift. You do know what I mean by ‘personality’?”

  “Yes, Father. I think so.”

  “Then tell me: what is a ‘personality’?”

  “A way of—speaking? Laughing? Being happy or sad or . . . ”

  Darian’s voice trails off, baffled. He too taps the tabletop with nervous, unconscious fingers, striking invisible and soundless notes.

  “A ‘personality’ is a ghostly aura one has, rather than something one is,” Father explains. “It’s to be shed as readily as one sheds clothing—warm clothes for a cool day, lighter clothes for a warm day. Your sister Millicent is a very devil at ‘personality’—she could teach her old father a trick or two! No, son,” he says quickly, sensing that Darian is about to ask after Millie, what’s become of Millie, why hasn’t he seen Millie for so long, and where are his brothers he adores, Thurston and ’Lisha?—“Our subject, son, is you. For you’re lacking skills in what’s called human intercourse—social relations—personality. The headmaster, with whom I’ve shared brandy and cigars, and get on with quite comfortably, confides in me that you are a ‘quiet’ boy, a ‘forthright’ boy, a ‘good, polite, intelligent and well-liked’ boy but it’s clear to me that he can’t find anything else to say about you. You are a person, Darian, lacking a personality. To remedy the situation, observe the most popular boys in the upper forms. Note how each has cultivated a certain distinctive way of speaking, of laughing, of smiling, of carrying his body; I know, without being acquainted with them, that each looks others directly in the eye, engaging contact forcefully. This you must cultivate. And not look, as you do, at the floor! As our great American philosopher William James has said, an individual has as many selves as there are individuals whom he knows. There isn’t the slightest hypocrisy in this, but only pragmatic ethics. For not all persons are worthy of our acquaintance, and not all persons require equal time from us. You save your most valuable ‘personality’ for the most valuable persons you know. And you assemble your selves with grace. D’you understand, son?”

  Darian feels an urge to shout. To shout profanities. To bang fists, feet in a wild staccato rhythm against the table and the floor. To overturn his father’s stained-glass lamp, to tear at his father’s papers strewn across his desk. Instead, he bites his lower lip, imagines his outspread fingers crashing chords in both the treble and bass keyboards, music so loud in his ears he wonders his father doesn’t hear. He’s hot-faced and miserable staring blindly at the floor.

  Abraham Licht sighs. Suddenly he’s tired. But lays a warm paternal hand on Darian’s shoulder. “Well, son. Eventually you’ll learn. This is what we mean by ‘life.’”

  3.

  “How do you do, sir. This is an honor.”

  Darian can’t help but inwardly wince at his father’s exuberant public manner: the way he pumps Dr. Meech’s hand, looking the headmaster in the eye as if they were old, dear friends; the way he raises Mrs. Meech’s gloved hand to his lips and almost—but not quite—kisses it,
murmuring “Enchanté, madame!” Yet no one takes offense. No one suspects that Abraham Licht might be insincere or might even be mocking them. For he’s so very interested in everything here at Vanderpoel, and he’s so very charming.

  The Meeches who are usually so dignified and stiff; the assistant headmaster Dunne with his narrow joyless eyes; the chaplain, whose anxiety is that the Vanderpoel boys don’t adequately respect him; the prefect of studies, the instructors, boys whose usual manner is droll, mocking, juvenile, brash—these persons who differ so much from one another are united in falling under the spell of Abraham Licht, and vie with one another for his smiling attention. Darian doesn’t know whether to be dismayed or pleased at the way his father wins over such difficult Vanderpoel personalities as Philbrick, master of Latin; Cowan, master of science, who fancies himself a gentleman; and withered little jaundice-skinned Moseley, master of mathematics, who keeps the boldest boys terrorized with his acidulous wit and his “amusing” comments on man’s sinful nature . . . .These men are dry, dull, dim planets given a temporary radiance by the grace of Abraham Licht’s beaming sun.

  And now, Darian wonders, what will they expect of me?

  For already it seems to him that these people glance smilingly from Abraham Licht to Darian, and back to Abraham Licht again, as if detecting a hidden filial resemblance. Where Darian has been seen to be shy previously, now he’ll be seen as reticent, self-contained, self-reliant. The strength of the father in the son.

  Dr. Meech himself insists upon taking Abraham Licht on a tour of the Academy’s grounds: a look at venerable old Rutledge Hall, and a look at the new (built 1896) chapel; a leisurely stroll about the playing fields (where some of Darian’s classmates are playing an unrefereed, rowdy game of soccer); even a visit to the dour redbrick infirmary where Darian, with his weak chest, spends a fair amount of time and has been allotted “his” bed by the sympathetic school nurse. Abraham marvels at the dignified yet democratic plan of the school, which seems to him, he says, more practical than that of Harrow, which he’d attended for two years, as a boy; he’s appreciative of the newly built Frick Hall, the gift of a wealthy alumnus of his acquaintance from college days at Harvard; he shows a zealous interest in the somewhat shabby dormitories, with a hint of intending to “endow” his son’s dormitory Fish Hall someday in the future; he’s cheerful and funny about Darian’s and Satterlee’s room with its poor lighting, low ceiling and comical beds, or cots, that pull down on springs from the walls—“Not a place, I see, to encourage adolescent self-preoccupation.” He and Satterlee exchange quips; he and Satterlee get along famously; he and Satterlee are, you might say, a natural team. If only such a boy. My son!—so Darian interprets his father’s fond smile, with only a small tinge of jealousy.

  Afterward, Satterlee will say to Darian, “You’re God-damned lucky, Licht, to have a father like that. My father . . . ” His voice fades, his jaws work in mute frustration. Darian murmurs a vague enthusiastic assent. Oh yes! I know.

  Being such a busy man, Abraham Licht had planned to spend only an afternoon at the school; but so deep is his interest in Vanderpoel and its traditions, and so gracious is the welcome he’s receiving on all sides, he’s prevailed upon to remain for high tea in the common room, where he engages the fifth-form boys in talk of soccer, boxing and the “grave historical” situation in Europe; and to stay for dinner with the Meeches in their handsome English Tudor residence; even to stay the night in their guest quarters. And, as the next day is Sunday, perhaps Mr. Licht might agree to take the pulpit for a few minutes? There’s an old Vanderpoel tradition of guest sermons delivered by fathers, occasionally, on any uplifting subject, for the edification of the boys. “A fresh perspective, a father‘s perspective, does wonders for them,” Dr. Meech says. “For you know, some of them—excluding your gifted Darian, of course—lack adequate spiritual guidance from elder relatives. They look to us for what wisdom we can give them in this uncertain world.”

  Abraham Licht hesitates, for he has pressing business after all—in Boston, or is it Manhattan; then, smiling his warm, winning smile, of course he acquiesces. “Though it’s been fifteen years since, as a friend of Archbishop Cockburn of St. John the Divine, Manhattan, I’ve given a guest sermon at the pulpit—and may be a bit rusty!”

  ABRAHAM LICHT’S SUBJECT is “Sacred Values in a Secular World.”

  The substance is that each boy in the chapel that morning, each boy without exception, inhabits both the secular (“America of the present time”) and the sacred (“the world of God and of Eternity”), and each must see himself, if he has but sufficient manliness and courage, as a form of Jesus Christ.

  A masterfully orated sermon. From the very first the assembled boys and their mentors are roused from the customary Sabbath stupor, for Abraham Licht’s appearance at the pulpit contrasts dramatically with that of Headmaster Meech and the chaplain; his voice is subtly modulated, a rich deep baritone now assured, now humorous, now forceful, now quavering with quiet passion. A voice of authority. A voice of genial wisdom. A voice of paternal solicitude. Yet a voice to stir the hairs at the nape. For what does a man possess if his honor, his very soul, is taken from him? Is life, mere animal life, possible without honor? In Europe today, the story is ever and always the same: after the low Serbian insult of 29 June, Austrian honor had to be defended; German pride, German destiny, must fulfill itself; yet there is English honor, and American honor; and that of France, and Russia and the lesser nations. A tragedy to those whose blood is spilled yet it may be a cataclysm directed by God Himself to cleanse the Old World of its decadence, complacency and blindness to progress. For as our savior Jesus Christ declared “I bring not peace but a sword” . . . by which we know that the sword and not mere peace is mankind’s destiny.

  This memorable sermon Abraham Licht delivers from the pulpit of the chapel at Vanderpoel Academy on the morning of Sunday, 11 October 1914, soaring inspiring words Darian scarcely hears in a buzz of musical notes that define themselves as heartbeats, as tiny pinpricks of sweat on his forehead and in his armpits, as invisible compulsive twitchings of his toes, a cascade of notes that will save him. Don’t listen! Don’t believe! Don’t be seduced! Darian would cry to his classmates and their rapt, approving elders. Yet afterward virtually every boy in the school and particularly the boys of the third floor of Fish congratulate Darian on his father’s sermon and assure him he’s “God-damned lucky to have such a father”—which, with a quick, wan smile, Darian says yes I know.

  4.

  So it happens that life in Vanderpoel, which Darian had dreaded, actually passes in a sort of waking dream. The outer grid superimposed upon the inner. Each with its music—in a surprising harmony out of disharmony. Boys’ voices, shouts, stampeding feet, even the flushing of toilets down the corridor—one day, Darian Licht will incorporate such sounds into his collage-compositions, to stun and outrage conventional ears, and intrigue and delight others. My legacy of the years Father sent me into exile.

  He’s an intelligent, capable boy. His taut nerves can be disguised as alertness. His penchant for daydreaming can be disguised as serious thought. He finds that he likes the precisely ordered academic year with its routine of classes, meals, chapel services, assemblies, sports, exams and holidays that moves with the ease of clockwork, like a great metronome. Real enough, yet without spiritual significance.

  For, always, contiguous with this bustling outer world yet not contaminated by it there exists a secret inner world, Darian Licht’s true world. There he’s free to speak with his lost mother Sophie; he sees her more vividly than he sees Satterlee and others close about him; he hears music as it should be played—Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven—and certain compositions of his own yet to be transcribed. Homesick, Darian can drift like a hawk about Muirkirk, seeing the old stone church that’s his home, the churchyard beyond, the marsh, the mist-obscured mountains in the distance. Sometimes he sees Katrina so clearly, he could swear she sees him; and what of Esther, growing into ado
lescence, a plain-pretty, cheerful girl whose hair Katrina still braids, glancing quizzically at him . . . surely Esther is aware of Darian? When he speaks to her, surely she hears?