Bread Upon the Waters by Irwin Shaw Page B

aspired to be a Prescott. The life of a man like Morison, he admitted sadly to himself, would have been beyond him.
    When he was young he had hoped to make his name as a historian, but when his father died during Strand’s last year in college, leaving behind him a derelict electric appliance repair shop and an ailing wife and a pitifully small amount of insurance, Strand had to give up whatever plans he had had for continuing in graduate school. The next best thing, he had made himself believe, was to get a license to teach history in high school, where he would at least be working in a field he was devoted to and could make a living for himself and his mother at the same time. By the time his mother died he was already married and Eleanor had been born, so now he read history and taught it but did not write it. If he had his moments of regret, he had his compensating moments of contentment. Rereading a well-loved book on a quiet Saturday morning was just such a moment.
    He had had breakfast early with Leslie and Caroline, half-listening to their chatter as he scanned the Times over his coffee. Caroline reported that she had heard Jimmy come in about three. Jimmy’s door was still closed and Caroline guessed that her brother would make an appearance around noon. Caroline seemed none the worse for her experience of the night before. She had been dressed for tennis at the breakfast table, and had gone off to play with an old wooden racquet and had promised to come home before dark.
    On Saturday mornings Mrs. Curtis came to clean and answer the doorbell and let the children in as they arrived for their lessons. Occasionally, Leslie would ask Strand to come into the living room and listen to a little boy or girl who had suddenly become a pianist. But this morning he had not been invited to one of these impromptu concerts, so Strand understood that no particular talent was on display and that Leslie would be edgy by lunchtime.
    He was reading, for the fifteenth time, the account of Cortez’s battle on the causeway leading to the city of Mexico when the telephone rang. He went down the hallway and picked it up. It was Eleanor. “How’s Caroline?” she asked.
    “No visible damage,” Strand said.
    “I’ve been doing some homework,” Eleanor said. “On Mr. Russell Wrenn Hazen. I looked in Who’s Who. Caroline brought home a whale last night.”
    “What do you mean, a whale?”
    “A big one,” said Eleanor. “He’s the head man of one of the largest law firms in Wall Street, founded by his father, now dead. He’s on the boards of about a dozen giant corporations, starting with oil and going down to agrobusiness and chemicals, he’s a trustee of his old school, he has one of the biggest collections of Impressionist and modern art in America, begun by his father and added to by sonny boy, he is mentioned for his connections with museums and the opera and is noted for his philanthropic interests. He played hockey for Yale back in the dark ages, is on the National Olympic Committee and belongs to a lot of clubs, including the Racquet and Century and Union Club. Married to a Social Register lady, nee Katherine Woodbine. Three children, grown, two daughters and a son. Want any more?”
    “That will do,” Strand said.
    “ Who’s Who doesn’t mention his bicycle riding,” Eleanor said. “I suppose that’ll be in the next edition. At dinner I thought he wasn’t just one of the run-of-the-mill Central Park exercise nuts.”
    “I gathered he was a man of some importance,” Strand said. “Still, to his credit, he didn’t advertise.”
    “He doesn’t have to. Do you know anybody else in Who’s Who ?”
    “Not offhand,” Strand said. “Well, there’s an old professor of your mother’s at Juilliard…. That’s about it. Did he say anything to you in the taxi?”
    “He wanted to know why I said I slaved when he was putting us all through the third degree.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I said it was