Erich Segal - The Class

As soon as he could free himself from paperwork, he would go back to Marlborough House, wolf down a defrosted dinner of dubious nutritional value, and immediately head for his desk.

After the initial hours of intense concentration, he would pour himself a little retsina. Gradually the ingestion of modern Greece’s national drink began to illuminate ancient Greece’s greatest playwright. Ted’s research on Euripides took on a Dionysian cast. And he was determined to uncover all the enigmatic author’s secrets.

He had no social life to speak of. In fact, he refused all invitations, except if he was fairly certain that a high administrator might attend. For the rumor had it that when Tony Thatcher’s term was up, Ted Lambros would be his successor.

In his persistent anger, he still avoided women. That is, emotionally. There were the biological necessities — which now were easier to satisfy at Canterbury. In addition to the usual supply of cast-off first wives, and the young, attractive Europeans whom the college brought over to teach elementary languages, the seventies saw a new influx of mature women.

The government was making a lot of noise about Affirmative Action hiring at senior-faculty levels. And so the administration diligently searched for such rare females lest they risk losing federal subsidies.

Among the bevy of these new profs were several who were not loath to engage in a liaison without sentiment. Especially with Ted Lambros. And not merely because he was attractive. No, these women were just as ambitious as their male counterparts. And just as eager to advance their careers.

Lambros was important. Lambros sat on many a committee. And, one fine spring day — as predicted — Theodore Lambros was named Dean of Canterbury College.

When Ted got back home after receiving the big news, a voice within him suddenly wanted to call out, “Hey, Sara, I’m the goddamn Dean!”

But, of course, no one was there. He lived alone. Determinedly alone. And thought he had convinced himself that he liked it better that way.

Yet, he now had a strangely hollow feeling. Sara had always been there when things were bad, to help him share the hurt. Now he realized that he needed her to share the joy as well. For otherwise it had no meaning in this empty room.

The Dean of Canterbury College is saluted everywhere on campus. But once at home, he loses both his scepter and his crown and becomes an ordinary human being. With ordinary needs.

He’d been a husband and a father once. And now, in this moment of triumph, he realized how he missed the flesh-and-blood dimensions of his life.

One Saturday, two or three weeks earlier, Rob and his wife had forced Ted to go ice skating with them, hoping that the exercise would lift his mood. They had not imagined it would have the opposite effect.

For all Ted saw around him at the rink were fathers and their skating children. Fathers and their children holding hands. Fathers picking up and comforting little ones who’d fallen on the ice.

He longed to put his arms around his son again. And, painful to admit, he also longed for Sara.

Sometimes, late in the night, he’d wake with pangs of loneliness. His only cure was to get up, sit at his desk, and dull the ache with work. He was emotionally dead.

The only part of him he kept alive — by intravenous shots of research — was his intellect. He was close to finishing that goddamn book that would be his academic-passport to a brave new world.

So, if the price of this was solitude, then he would make the most of it.

Only once during this entire time did he succumb to emotion. One evening in the second term that he was dean, his brother, Alex, called to tell him that their father had just died.

He stood there in the cemetery, his arms around his mother and his sister, And he wept.

From across the grave, Alex whispered, “You made him very proud, Teddie. You were the glory of his life,”

Ted could only nod.

That night he returned to Canterbury, sat down at his desk, and started working again.

The telephone rang. It was Sara.

“Ted,” she said softly, “why didn’t you call me? I would have flown over for the funeral.”

“How did you find out?” he asked numbly.

“Someone from the Harvard Department rang me. I’m very sorry. He was a wonderful man.”

“He loved you, too,” Ted answered. And then, taking advantage of this moment, added, “It’s a pity he saw so little of his eldest grandchild.”

“He saw him just this Christmas,” Sara countered gently, “and you know I write your parents every month. And send them pictures. Anyway, if you’d only called I would have taken little Ted to the funeral. I think it would have been important for him.”

“How is he?”

“Pretty upset by the news, but otherwise okay. He’s top of the class in Latin.”

Ted felt a desperate need to keep her talking on the phone. “How’s your own work coming?”

“Not bad. I’ve had my first article accepted by HSCP .”

“Congratulations. What’s it on?”

“Apollonius. Sort of a distillation of my senior essay.”

“Good. I look forward to reading it. How’s your thesis coming?”

“Well, with any luck I’ll finish it by the end of spring. Cameron is reading the first chapter and Francis James the second.”

“You mean the new tutor at Balliol? Tell him I liked his book on Propertius. What are you writing on, anyway?”

“I really bit off more than I could chew.” Sara laughed. “My topic is nothing less than ‘Callimachus and Latin Poetry.’ ”

“Well,” Ted joked, “that’s sent many a strong man to an early grave. Uh — no antifeminism implied. I guess I should have said ‘person.’ I still have trouble getting used to the new terminology.”

He ransacked his mind for topics that would keep the conversation going.

“Then you think you’ll get your degree in June?”

“I hope so.”

“Then I guess you’ll be coming home, huh?”

“I’m not really sure, Ted. Anyway, I think this is something we should discuss face to face when you come over next month.”

“I’m really looking forward to it,” he replied.

“So is Teddie,” she replied softly. “If it fits my schedule, we’ll try to meet you at the airport.”

“Thanks for calling, Sara. It was really good to hear your voice.”

He hung up and thought, I only wish I could see your face.

“I can’t believe it,” Ted remarked, “the kid talks with an English accent.”

“What do you expect?” Sara asked. “He’s lived here most of his life.”

They were sitting in the (now redecorated) living room in Addison Crescent, drinking iced coffee.

“He also didn’t seem very friendly to me,” Ted commented. “I mean, all I got was a fleeting ‘hello, Daddy.’ And then he disappeared.”

“Your son has priorities.” Sara smiled. “And this afternoon is a crucial cricket match against Saint George’s School.”

Ted had to laugh. “The son of a Cambridge townie is playing cricket? The next thing I’ll hear is that he’s got a knighthood.”

“Oh, I doubt if that’ll be for a few years.”

He took a swig of coffee. “Have you decided when you’re moving back, yet?”

“Not for another year at least.”

“Shit.”

“Please, Ted. I’ve got several good reasons, I assure you.”

“Give me one.”

“I want Teddie to finish his education here. He’s doing so well the headmaster is certain if we let him go the whole route here, he’ll breeze into any college in the world.”

“Come on, Sara. I thought the one thing we still agreed on was that he would go to Harvard.”