Erich Segal - The Class

At about four o’clock they would join the exodus of jocks who were on their way to practice. Only their field of play was in Andrew’s new room.

And yet, since they had returned to Harvard for their senior year, they were both increasingly aware that their entire idyll, like the halcyon days of college, had eventually to reach its conclusion. Or perhaps some sort of consummation.

Ted had applied to Harvard Graduate School in Classics, and Sara was toying with doing the same, although her parents had indicated that they might be willing to subsidize a year of European study.

This was by no means an expression of disapproval of her relationship with Ted. For they had never met him and knew little, if anything, about him.

Sara, on the other hand, had become a regular weekly guest at the Lambros’s Sunday dinners and felt almost a part of the family — which was what Mama Lambros prayed each week she would become.

They were not ambivalent about the future, these passionate lovers of the classics and each other. They never discussed marriage. Not because either of them doubted the other’s will to wed, but simply because they both took it for granted that their commitment to each other was for life. The ceremony would be just a formality.

They both knew that the Greek words for man and woman also meant husband and wife. And thus semantically, as well as spiritually, they were already married.

George returned to Eliot House for his senior year feeling as much or more American and Harvardian than his classmates.

Since his need for study was so great, he had amicably separated from his preppie roommates and moved into a single.

“Now you can keep yourself up all night,” Newall had jested.

George felt like an artillery officer. He had spent his junior year at Harvard getting his bearings. He had passed the summer taking aim — selecting an ideal senior thesis. After all, who was better suited to write on “The Hungarian Revolution as Portrayed by the Soviet Press”? As Dr. K. strongly hinted, it could be publishable.

He was now ready to use his newly acquired ammunition to eliminate all barriers in his path to political triumph.

But what, in fact, was he after? This was the question Kissinger asked him the afternoon the seminar ended, as they sat in his air-conditioned office sharing congratulatory glasses of iced tea.

“You could be a professor at Harvard,” Henry assured him.

“I know.” George smiled. “But is that where your ambitions stop, Henry?”

With the tables turned, his mentor laughed uneasily and tried to answer with deflecting jocularity.

“Well,” he laughed, “I of course would not mind becoming the emperor. Would you?”

“I would not even mind being President,” George smiled, “but even you are ineligible for that. There, Henry, we must share similar disappointments. We are fated both of us never to reach the top.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Keller,” Kissinger said, his index finger raised. “You seem to be under the mistaken illusion that the men in the White House actually run the country. Let me quickly disabuse you. They are mostly quarterbacks who rely heavily on their coach’s advice. You and I, George, are both in a position to become indispensable advisers. That would be exciting, don’t you think?”

“You mean what attracts you is sort of the power behind the throne?”

“Not exactly. What interests me is what one can achieve with power. Splendid things, believe me.”

George nodded, with a grin. He raised his glass and toasted, “More power to you, Henry.”

Jason Gilbert returned to Cambridge from a summer of Marine Corps training tanned and fit. More muscular than ever.

As soon as he arrived, he headed over to see Eliot and Newall in their new double, free from the mad Hungarian. There was ice-cold beer and tales of love and war to tell. Newall, in the naval ROTC program, had spent the summer touring the Pacific on an aircraft carrier. Before returning home he went, as he put it, “totally berserk” for a week in Honolulu. Which he gleefully recounted in minute detail.

Jason’s summer in the blazing southern sun bad been a little different. First there was the drill sergeant who really had it in for all the Ivy League boys.

At one point, for some petty infraction, the guy had made him jog around the base in combat boots and full pack for a whole hour in the blazing sun.

“That must have killed you,” Eliot remarked while opening a second beer.

“It wasn’t all that bad,” Jason said casually. “I was in shape, remember. But, of course, I acted like I was about to have a heart attack.”

“Good ploy,” said Newall. “I hear those Marine types can be sadists anyway.”

“I actually felt sorry for the guy,” Jason said unexpectedly.

“How come?” Newall asked.

“I kind of understand why he was riding us so hard in camp,” he explained, somewhat subdued, “ ’cause off the base, life in Virginia isn’t all that great if you’re not white.

“One Saturday when we were off, the guys went into town to gorge ourselves on ice cream. We were sitting there in Howard Johnson’s when this sergeant happened to pass by. And, asshole that I am, I waved to him to come and join us.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Andrew.

“You won’t believe this, but he just stood out there and gave us all the finger. And on Monday we were doing so damn many push-ups we were almost living on the ground.”

“I don’t get it,” Andrew said. “I mean, you guys were only being friendly, weren’t you?”

“Of course, but naive Jason Gilbert hadn’t clicked that off the base, the town of Quantico is segregated like before the Civil War. Can you believe this member of the U.S. military was not allowed to have an ice cream in that place with us? That’s why he was so pissed off. He thought that we were mocking him.”

“No shit,” said Newall. “That’s amazing in this day and age. Christ, Gilbert, bet that made you happy that you’re only Jewish.”

Jason, staring at his teammate and supposed friend, deflected the unwitting insult like a skillful boxer. “Newall, I’ll forgive that last remark because I know you’re congenitally stupid.”

The eternal mediator, Andrew Eliot, deftly changed the subject. “Hey, listen, guys, I’ve got the latest Freshman Register . Why don’t we check out the new crop and get our bids in early, huh?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Newall, happy to move back to neutral ground. “What do you say, old Gilbert? Shall we cast our eyes upon the lovelies of the Class of ’61?”

Jason smiled. “At least you’re consistent, Newall,” he jibed, “always last man off the mark. I did my homework yesterday. The pick of the new talent is Maureen McCabe. And I’m taking her to Norumbega Park tonight.”

We start our college lives, symbolically as well as literally, in the ignominy of the End Zone. But our progress brings us to the happy culmination. In senior year, we get to sit right on the fifty-yard line near the President and the most distinguished alumni, whom the college honors with this pride of place.

Ironically of course, as first-year grads we’ll be back in the End Zone come next fall. So a gang of us decided to make this year’s Harvard-Yale game into a gigantic farewell blast.

Newall and I contacted some of our old prep school buddies down in New Haven and arranged for floors and couches for us all to sack out on.

We even got a place for Gilbert, who reciprocated by having his sister Julie fix us up with some of her more desirable (and we hoped pliable) girlfriends from Briarcliff.