The Class

“You mean, you’ve known a lot?” asked Dotty Bunting, titillated and intrigued.

“No,” Sara answered calmly, “I just mean — you know — they have the same equipment.”

Dotty Bunting turned a vivid crimson.

Sara quickly changed the subject and sought Dotty’s counsel on the “real class” children’s dentists in the area.

One thing was clear. If Mrs. Bunting had a vote, Sara certainly would have it. It remained to be seen what influence she had on her husband. And that could be determined only when the two couples actually met for dinner. Again, consistent with traditional collegiality, the Buntings asked the new arrivals to their home.

The conversation, as anticipated, was tennis-oriented. Bunting jocularly accused Ted of dodging his innumerable invitations to “come and hit a few.” Ted volleyed back that he’d been so involved in setting up the house and starting courses that his game was far too rusty to give Bunting even token competition.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s only being modest, Sara,” Dotty Bunting gushed. “I bet he even played for the varsity.”

“No, no, no,” Ted protested, “I wasn’t nearly good enough. Tennis is one of the few sports Harvard actually is not bad in.

“Yes,” Ken allowed, “it was a Harvard guy who beat me for the IC4A title back in fifty-six.”

Unwittingly, Ted had reopened the most painful wound in Bunting’s sporting memories. Ken now began to hemorrhage verbally.

“I really should have won it. But that Jason Gilbert was such a crafty New York type. He had all sorts of sneaky little shots.”

“I never thought of New York people as particularly ‘crafty,’ ” Sara said ingenuously. “I mean, I’m from Manhattan too.”

“Of course, Sara,” Bunting quickly said apologetically. “But Gilbert — which was probably not his name for very long — was one of those, you know, Jewy characters.”

There was an awkward pause. Sara held back to let her husband speak up in defense of their Harvard classmate.

Then, seeing that Ted was having trouble finding an appropriate response, Sara mentioned casually, “Jason was The Class of ’58, with Ted and me.”

“Oh,” said Dotty Bunting. “Did you know him?”

“Not very well,” Sara replied, “but he dated a few girls from my dorm. He was very good-looking.”

“Oh,” said Dotty, wanting to hear more.

“Say,” Ken interrupted, “whatever happened to old Jason? His name seems to have disappeared from the pages of Tennis World.”

“The last I heard, he’d gone to live in Israel,” Ted answered.

“Indeed?” Bunting smiled. “He should be very happy there.”

Ted looked at Sara, his glance imploring her advice on what to say. This time, she too was at a loss. The best she could come up with was, “This dessert is marvelous. You must give me the recipe.”

Left for last because they seemed the toughest nuts to crack were Foley, the stone-faced archaeologist, and his equally impenetrable wife. Sara made countless attempts to fix a time with them. But they always seemed to have some previous engagement. At last, she verbally threw up her hands and said, “Please, name any night you’re free. It’s fine with us.”

“I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Foley said cheerfully, “we’re busy then.”

Sara hung up politely and turned to Ted. “What the hell, we’ve got three out of four. That ought to do it.”

Collegiality aside, Ted grew more and more to love the Canterbury way of life. He was pleased that Sara seemed to be adapting to rusticity as well as coming to appreciate the rich classics section of Hillier Library. She read all the latest journals from cover to cover and would even brief him over dinner on what was new in the ancient world.

The students were enthusiastic, and he felt the same toward them. And, of course, it didn’t hurt Ted’s ego that his course in Greek drama drew the largest crowd in the department.

Raves for his teaching soon reached the office of the dean. And Tony Thatcher thought it now opportune to sound out all the classicists about Ted’s tenure. He elicited affirmative responses from the Hellenist, the Latinist, and the historian. And from the archaeologist he even got a nod.

All would have come off without the slightest hitch had it not been for the affair with young Chris Jastrow.

In certain circumstances it might have been a touching sight — a muscular Adonis in an orange crew- necked sweater emblazoned with a C, sleeping like a mighty lion in the sun.

Unfortunately, this was in the middle of Ted’s Latin class. And he was anything but touched.

“Wake up, Jastrow!” he snapped.

Christopher Jastrow slowly raised his handsome head and looked at Ted with half-open lids.

“Yes, sir, Professor,” he mumbled with exaggerated deference. And removed his feet from the desk in front of him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your siesta. But would you be kind enough to conjugate voco in the present passive?”

“Voco?”

“Yes, voco,” Ted repeated. “As you may recall, it’s first conjugation. And I’d like to hear you go through it in the present passive.”

There was a slight pause.

“I’m afraid I didn’t get today’s assignment, sir.”

“What you’re saying is that you weren’t here last time and didn’t bother to ask anybody what to prepare.”

“Well —”

“Mr. Jastrow, I want to see you in my office this afternoon between four and five.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t make it, sir,” he answered courteously. “I’ve got practice.”

“Listen,” Ted warned sternly, “I don’t care if you’ve got a meeting with the President of the United States. You show up between four and five today — or else.”

And even though there was some ten minutes remaining, he could not continue teaching.

“Class dismissed,” he said, fuming.

As the students filed slowly toward the front and out the door, sophomore Tom Herman stopped at Ted’s desk and spoke sympathetically.

“Excuse me, Professor Lambros, would you be offended if I said something?”

“Tom,” Ted answered, “nothing you could say could possibly offend me any more than Jastrow’s attitude.”

“Well, that’s just it, sir,” Herman said diffidently. “Maybe you don’t know who he is.”

“I read the college paper,” Ted replied. “I know Jastrow’s our first-string quarterback. But I’m still going to bounce him from the class if he doesn’t start working.”

“Sir, with due respect, you can’t do that. I mean, without him we can’t win the Ivy title.”

Having spoken out bravely, he turned and quickly left the classroom.

Ted sat in his Canterbury office from four till half-past five that afternoon. Several students dropped by, some to question points that genuinely puzzled them. Some merely to gain points with him.

But Chris Jastrow was not one of them.

Ted threw on his (Harvard) scarf and coat and started down the hallway. He noticed that the Classics Department was still open and Leona, the secretary, was typing. He stuck his head inside.

“Hi, Lee, have you got time to do a short note for me?”

“Sure.” She smiled, then quickly rolled a fresh sheet of stationery into the typewriter and said, “Fire