room.
The elegant marine officer was, to say the least, disappointed when his father greeted him with a desultory glance and a “Hi, son, you’re just in time.”
He kissed his mother and as he sat down at the table asked, “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Charles and Julie are having a bit of trouble,” she replied.
“Trouble?” his father suddenly bellowed. “The son of a bitch has left her! He just upped and walked out. Abandoning your wife and one-year-old child is hardly what I call adult behavior.”
“Well, I never thought Charlie was much of an adult,” Jason commented. “What was his reason?”
“He said he doesn’t like being married,” Julie wailed. “He said he never wanted to get married.”
“I could have told you that and saved you a lot of grief,” Jason remarked. “You were both too young.”
“Stop being so holier-than-thou, Jason,” his father bristled. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he answered softly. And added, “Hey, Julie, I’m really sorry that you got involved with that preppie idiot.”
She reacted to her brother’s expression of condolence with a fresh burst of tears.
“Well, I can see it’s hardly going to be a very merry Christmas,” Jason commented, getting up and starting to pace the floor.
Just then, Jenny the housekeeper entered the room and, spying the younger Gilbert, exclaimed, “Why, Mr. Jason, don’t you look snazzy!”
The holiday dinner was a pretty grim affair. By now the elder Gilbert had gotten over the initial shock of his daughter’s failure to live up to parental expectations, and had begun to concentrate on the traditional source of his pride.
“You mean to tell me you thought basic training was fun, Jason?” he marveled.
“In a way, but I’m afraid I overdid it. My C.O. wants me to stay on and be in charge of one of the fitness programs.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, I really don’t relish the prospect of another year and a half in Quantico. But still there’s a chance they’ll let me go to a few tennis tournaments. Anyway I’m a lot better off than Andrew who I hear is swabbing decks on a destroyer.”
“I’ll never understand why he didn’t become an officer,” Mr. Gilbert remarked.
“I can. The Eliots have always been big shots in the navy — admirals and stuff. He probably felt he had too much to live up to. That’s why, compared to him, I’m sort of at an advantage when it comes to my career.”
“How so?” inquired his father, who was now president of the second largest electronics corporation in the world.
“Because, unlike Andrew, who’s hanging from a precarious limb of the great family tree, we’re all just one generation out of the ghetto.”
“That’s a rather unattractive way of putting it,” his father remarked. To the best of Jason Gilbert, Sr.’s knowledge, this was the first time the word ghetto had ever been pronounced in their home. It made him uncomfortable and it seemed especially inappropriate at Christmas dinner.
He shifted to a more festive topic. “Have you heard from that Dutch girlfriend of yours recently?”
“Not as recently as I’d like,” Jason answered. “In fact, with your permission, Dad, I’d like to call her up after dinner.”
“By all means,” replied Jason Gilbert, Sr., relieved to be looking forward again, away from the not- sufficiently-distant past.
Jason was mustered early from the Marine Corps in August 1961 so that he could get up north in time to enter Harvard Law School.
He had spent his tour of duty first as an instructor in the Basic School, then, primarily because he looked so perfect in his uniform, as an O.S.O. (officer selection officer). His assignment had been to tour campuses and induce undergraduates to follow his own path to military glory by joining the Platoon Leaders Class — or, failing that, at least the marines.
Jason inwardly likened these recruitment expeditions to a fishing contest. And, competitive as always, he was determined to come home with the biggest catch. He was pleased, if not surprised, to learn from his commanding officer that he had won this challenge as well.
Still, he was relieved to be out of the military and eager to tackle the law.
He was also eager to see Fanny. For their correspondence had continued unabated throughout the nearly twenty-four months that they had not seen each other.
But the marines would not grant him a few extra weeks so he could visit the woman he was certain he wanted to marry. That reunion would have to stand the test of yet another academic year.
More letters. More phone calls. But a lot less patience.
There is an old saying about the experience of Harvard Law School: in the first year they scare you to death. In the second they work you to death. And in the third they bore you to death.
The two years of military service that separated Jason from most of his classmates helped him when it came to confronting the terrifying Law School professors. They were nowhere near as frightening as many drill sergeants. And if he was unable to give a magnificent answer in, say, contracts class, the teacher’s sneer was a lot more benign than having to do a hundred push-ups.
He also benefited from the fact that some of The Class of ’58 who had gotten student deferments were now seniors and more than willing to help their undergraduate hero.
“You should go in for trial law,” advised Gary McVeagh. “With your looks, you could snow the female jurors without opening your mouth. And they’d take care of the men. You’d never lose.”
“Nah,” contradicted Seymour Herscher, “he should go in for divorce law. They’ll all come flocking to him hoping to get Jason as part of the settlement.”
But Jason already had a game plan. He and his dad had discussed it for years.
First, if he could manage to keep up with these superbrains in the Law School, he would try to get a clerkship. From there it would be a few years of general practice with a prestigious New York or Washington firm. All of which would serve as a springboard for his ultimate ambition — politics.
“Jason,” the elder Gilbert had once jested, “I’m so sure you’ll succeed, I’d be willing to invest in a house in Washington right now.”
But these juvenile career fantasies were supplanted by a newer and better dream that sustained Jason through the grim series of practice exams in January, and the spring tension when the real finals were approaching.
It was the thought that, pass or fail, he would at last be reunited with that lovely Dutch girl whose picture smiled at him from his desk.
He had not lived like a total monk in the two-and-a-half-year interval since he had last seen Fanny. But the girls with whom he had casual dates only reminded him of how different his relationship with her was.
And though she never said anything in her letters, he somehow sensed that she too was merely marking time till they could be together again.
For this reason Jason welcomed the advent of exams with enthusiasm. While most of his classmates grew sicker and more panicked with every test, he regarded the filling of each bluebook as another leaf in the passport that would take him through the gates of the Law School. And into the arms of his beloved.
During the long flight to Amsterdam, Jason was nervous about seeing her again. It had been so long. Had he just embellished the wonder of their relationship in the desperate boredom of military routine? Would their meeting at Schiphol Airport be an anticlimax?
He knew when he saw her just beyond the customs gate that it was not. When they kissed, he felt the same stirring.
They spent the first few days at her parents’ farm, where he savored the warmth and closeness of the van der Post family. Her brother, who was studying in The Hague, and her married sister — not to mention assorted
