Rich Man, Poor Man

Rudolph sat motionless. No gesture seemed worthwhile at the moment. There was fury in Miss Lenaut’s dark, mascaraed eyes and she was biting the lipstick off her lips. She reached out her hand, silently. Rudolph picked up the piece of paper and gave it to her. Miss Lenaut turned on her heel and walked back to her desk, rolling the paper in her hands so that no one could see what was on it.

Just before the bell rang to end the class, she called out, “Jordache.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rudolph said. He was proud of the ordinary tone he managed to use.

“May I see you for a moment after class?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

The bell rang. The usual chatter broke out. The students hurried out of the room to rush for their next classes. Rudolph, with great deliberation, put his books into his briefcase. When all the other students had quit the room, he walked up to Miss Lenaut’s desk.

She was seated like a judge. Her tone was icy. “Monsieur l’artiste,” she said. “You have neglected an important feature of your chef d’oeuvre.” She opened the drawer of her desk and took out the sheet of paper with the drawing on it and smoothed it with a rasping noise on the blotter of the desk top. “It is lacking a signature. Works of art are notoriously more valuable when they are signed authentically by the artist. It would be deplorable if there were any doubts as to the origin of a work of such richness.” She pushed the drawing across the desk toward Rudolph. “I will be much indebted to you, Monsieur,” she said, “if you would have the kindness to affix your name. Legibly.”

Rudolph took out his pen and signed his name on the lower right hand corner of the drawing. He did it slowly and deliberately and he made sure that Miss Lenaut saw that he was studying the drawing at the same time. He was not going to act like a frightened kid in front of her. Love has its own requirements. Man enough to draw her naked, he was man enough to stand up to her wrath. He underlined his signature with a little flourish.

Miss Lenaut reached over and snatched the drawing to her side of the desk. She was breathing hard now. “Monsieur,” she said shrilly, “you will go get one of your parents immediately after school is over today and you will bring it back for a conversation with me speedily.” When she was excited, there were little, queer mistakes in Miss Lenaut’s English. “I have some important things to reveal to them about the son they have reared in their house. I will be waiting here. If you are not here with a representative of your family by four o’clock the consequences will be of the gravest. Is it understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. Good afternoon, Miss Lenaut.” The “good afternoon” took courage. He went out of the room, neither more quickly nor more slowly than he usually did. He remembered his gliding motion. Miss Lenaut sounded as though she had just run up two flights of stairs.

When he reached home after school was over, he avoided going into the store where his mother was serving some customers and went up to the apartment, hoping to find his father. Whatever happened, he didn’t want his mother to see that drawing. His father might whack him, but that was to be preferred to the expression that he was sure would be in his mother’s eyes for the rest of her life if she saw that picture.

His father was not in the house. Gretchen was at work and Tom never came home until five minutes before supper. Rudolph washed his hands and face and combed his hair. He was going to meet his fate like a gentleman.

He went downstairs and into the shop. His mother was putting a dozen rolls into a bag for an old woman who smelled like a wet dog. He waited until the old woman had left, then went and kissed his mother.

“How were things at school today?” she asked, touching his hair.

“Okay,” he said. “The usual. Pa around anywhere?” “He’s probably down at the river. Why?” The “Why?” was suspicious. It was unusual for anyone in the family to seek out her husband u

“No reason,” Rudolph said carelessly.

“Isn’t there track practice today?” she probed.

“No.” Two customers came into the shop, the little bell over the door tingling, and he didn’t have to lie any more. He waved and went out as his mother was greeting the customers.

When he was out of sight of the shop he began to walk quickly down toward the river. His father kept his shell in the corner of a ramshackle warehouse on the waterfront and usually spent one or two afternoons a week working on the boat there. Rudolph prayed that this was one of those afternoons.

When he reached the warehouse he saw his father out in front of it, sandpapering the hull of the one-man shell, which was propped, upside down, on two sawhorses. His father had his sleeves rolled up and was working with great care on the smooth wood. As Rudolph approached, he could see the ropy muscles of his father’s forearms hardening and relaxing with his rhythmic movements. It was a warm day, and even with the wind that came off the river his father was sweating.

“Hi, Pa,” Rudolph said.

His father looked up and grunted, then went back to his work. He had bought the shell in a half-ruined condition for practically nothing from a boys’ school nearby that had gone bankrupt. Some river memory of youth and health from his boyhood on the Rhine was behind the purchase and he had reconstructed the shell and varnished it over and over again. It was spotless and the mechanism of the sliding seat gleamed with its coating of oil. After he had gotten out of the hospital in Germany, with one leg almost useless and his big frame gaunt and weak, Jordache had exercised fanatically to recover his strength. His work on the Lake boats had given him the strength of a giant and the grueling miles he imposed on himself sweeping methodically up and down the river had kept him forbiddingly powerful. With his bad leg he couldn’t catch anybody, but he gave the impression of being able to crush a grown man in those hairy arms.

“Pa …” Rudolph began, trying to conquer his nervousness. His father had never hit him, but Rudolph had seen him knock Thomas unconscious with one blow of his fist just last year.

“What’s the matter?” Jordache tested the smoothness of the wood, with broad, spatulate fingers. The back of his hands and his fingers were bristling with black hairs.

“It’s about school,” Rudolph said.

“You in trouble? You?” Jordache looked over at his son with genuine surprise.

“Trouble might be too strong a word,” Rudolph said. “A situation has come up.”

“What kind of situation?”

“Well,” Rudolph said, “there’s this French woman who teaches French. I’m in her class. She says she wants to see you this afternoon. Now.”

“Me?”

“Well,” Rudolph admitted, “she said one of my parents.”

“What about your mother?” Jordache asked. “You tell her about this?”

“It’s something I think it’s better she doesn’t know about,” Rudolph said.

Jordache looked across the hull of the shell at him speculatively. “French,” he said. “I thought that was one of your good subjects.”

“It is,” Rudolph said. “Pa, there’s no sense in talking about it, you’ve got to see her.”

Jordache flicked a spot off the wood. Then he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and began rolling down his sleeves. He swung his windjacket over his shoulder, like a workingman, and picked up his cloth cap and put it on his head, and started walking. Rudolph followed him, not daring to suggest that perhaps it would be a good idea if his father went home and put on a suit before the conversation with Miss Lenaut.

Miss Lenaut was seated at her desk correcting papers when Rudolph led his father into the room. The school building was empty, but there were shouts from the athletic field below the classroom windows. Miss Lenaut had put lipstick on at least three more times since Rudolph’s class. For the first time, he realized that she had thin lips and plumped them out artificially. She looked up when they came into the room and her mouth set. Jordache had put his windjacket on before entering the school and had taken off his cap, but he still looked like a workman.