Chapter 68

Looking straight at Veronica Ron said, “Ok, why is Antonio sad?”

Veronica grinned and opened her notebook. She turned back a few pages. “I think that he is sad because he does not love his life and he knows that it is the only one that he has and he is dissatisfied with it.”

Ron was struck first by the simplicity of her insight. He nodded slowly and made a cross on the board, labeling it with a Y and an N.

“How many of you agree with Veronica?”

As he took the poll, he realized that he had made a mistake to do it this way. By identifying the statement as belonging to Veronica, the poll became a referendum on her and it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. It was unanimous in favor of agreement. He stopped. There was no place to go with a vote like this unless he took the opposing point of view. He didn’t want to do that. “What is missing in his life?” he said.

Donna grinned as she raised her hand. “I personally think that he is a little bit too sweet on Bassanio.”

There was a scattering of “Ewws” in the classroom. Ron looked at Donna and said, “Why do you think that?”

Donna answered with a strong and confident voice. “Bassanio is the only one that he wants to see before he thinks that he is going to die, for one thing.”

“That is true,” said Ron. “Anyone else have an idea?”

Veronica’s hand went back up into the air. She began speaking as soon as Ron made eye contact with her. “I think that he has taken his life for granted and that it’s only when he is faced with losing it that he realizes that he has another chance. I think that Shakespeare put him through this so that he could learn that his life was important.”

“Why do you believe that he didn’t understand that his life was important?”

Elena chimed in. “The bond. Who makes that kind of deal about a debt? It had to be that he just didn’t care.”

Ron was stunned. He had read this play at least six times and he had never come to these conclusions, but now they looked real and true and he believed them to be accurate insights. “I think that you may all be correct. And I think that I have never had these thoughts about the play before.” He grinned at them proudly and they grinned back at him just as proud of themselves as he was of them.

“OK,” he said. “Let’s move on to the rings and what Portia does back at Belmont.”

Samantha said, “She’s just having fun with him.”

He exaggerated a face of being aghast and in pain. “That was your idea of fun?”

The girls giggled. Elizabeth said, “Mr. Tuck, do you remember back in freshman year when we read The Odyssey?

Ron smiled. “Yes.”

Elizabeth continued, “Didn’t Penelope do the same thing to Ody?”

They laughed remembering the name that he had given them to use because they had trouble saying Odysseus. “What do you mean?

“At the end of the story, when she tests him and tells her maid to bring their bed so that she can sleep with him,” said Elizabeth.

“Both events are very much related. Except of course that Odysseus was gone for 20 years and she wanted to make sure that it was him.”

Elizabeth blushed but held her ground. “She knew it was him. She wanted to make sure that he hadn’t taken her for granted and Portia is doing the same thing here.”

“Wow,” said Ron. “I should just sit down and let you guys teach the class to yourselves.”

Paula looked at him as if he was serious. “We couldn’t do this without you,” she complained.

Ron smiled. “Yes, you can and you’re gonna.”

He spent the rest of the class reviewing and giving them a pool of quotes from which he would choose his questions. He made the pool huge, including at least thirty quotes from which he would choose ten. Even if they just studied those quotes, they would be ready.  Then he told them about the new testing formula that he was going to use and he saw them get nervous again. He explained that he did it so that they would have more time to express themselves and feel less pressure. They were not convinced.

Standing with Bernadette, in the hall between classes, he said, “I just had the best class that I have ever had with these kids. They are something special.”

Bernadette’s dark eyes looked into his face. Her expression was worried. “Do you think that you might be putting too much pressure on them?”

“No,” said Ron quickly.

“Are you raising their expectations too high, Ron?”

“Why are you asking that?”

“Because I think that some of these kids are going to fail to live up to your expectations of them and what happens to them then? You get a new batch of kids to teach. What do they get?”

Ron felt slapped. He actually took a step back. “Is that what you think that I’m doing?”

“I’m worried that you might be getting carried away,” she said.

“Have you spoken to them about colleges?”

“A little bit.”

“Did you tell Elena that an Ivy League school would not be out of the question?”

“I didn’t have to tell her. She already knew. But I certainly didn’t discourage her.”

Bernadette rolled her eyes. “Come on, Ron, an Ivy League school?  And even with affirmative action, if she did get in, do you think that there would be any way that she could possibly make it in that kind of an environment?”

“Yes, I do.”

Bernadette’s face was hard. “Whose dream is that Ron, yours or hers?” Saying that she turned and went back into her classroom. Ron stood and watched her go feeling very confused. A moment ago he had been riding along on the wave of their learning. He was feeling like he was finally doing some real good and now he felt incredibly insecure. Bernadette had never said anything like that to him before.

At lunch, he walked the streets around the school and smoked cigarettes. The leaves were the spectacular variety of colors that he remembered from his childhood. The light was soft as if filtered through them. He wanted to do what was right. He believed in them. They believed in him. Did they believe in him too much? Did he have unrealistic expectations for them? Was he setting them up for failure? Did he just want to think that he was some kind of magical person who could come back to Newark and change the way that things were? Was he a fool? He thought of the Blake proverb about the fool persisting in his folly and becoming wise. Did the fool become wise by learning that he had been a fool? He did not want his wisdom to come at their expense. He was quite sure that he could never forgive himself that.

At the end of the day, Bernadette appeared in his doorway. He had sleepwalked through his afternoon classes. He could not stop thinking about it. “I was cruel to you,” she said.

He looked up and said, “No, you were telling what you believed. That’s not being cruel.”

“What do you think I was telling you?”

“I think that you were saying that I might be doing this for myself more than I am doing it for them.”

“That’s how I thought it sounded too. I was just upset.”

“About what?”

Bernadette came into the room and closed the door. “I got a letter from Irene Emanuel.”

“How is she doing?”

Bernadette moved deeper into his room.  “She was worried about the way that she left and she was worried about you.”

“Me?”

“She said that I should look after you and help you to not burn yourself out.”

“I miss her,” said Ron. “I really wish that I understood why she just had to go like that.”

“If I tell you something you have to promise me that you will never tell anyone under any circumstances.” Ron looked at her quizzically. She paused and waited for him. He nodded. “Do you remember that man whose body they found in the basement just before she left?” Ron nodded again. “Did you know Father Joyce?”

“He baptized me when I converted back when I was 14. I studied with him.”

“Did you like him?”

“No, he was cold and never smiled.”

“You were too old for his taste. Lucky you!”

“What do you mean?”

“Irene Emanuel was poking around in the basement trying to figure out what had happened. She couldn’t stop wondering what this man was doing down there and why he went there to die. She found a bunch of pictures of Father Joyce and the boys from the second grade Indians Club. Some of the boys had no clothes on. It wasn’t a hobo Ron. It was a former student. He went down there to kill himself”

“What?”

Bernadette nodded. “She took the pictures to the Rectory and shortly after that both she and Father Joyce were transferred.”

Ron sat with his mouth hanging open.

“Some things here are never what you think that they are, Ron.”

 

End of Part 3

 

Chapter 67

On Monday morning, Ron began class by drawing a cross on the board and dividing it, not by yes and no as was his normal way, but with the words ‘love and justice. He did not look at the side board although he knew that there were many comments there. While some students took the weekends off, Ron had learned that his were very diligent at accomplishing their lessons over the weekend. They had confided to him that in many instances that they were not allowed to go out and that they could get out of doing housework by claiming that they had school work which needed to be finished.

“Would you prefer to live in a world that is governed by love or a world that was governed by justice?” he asked.

Ron almost fully expected that the girls would almost unanimously vote for a world where love was in charge and was at a loss to explain when the vote came back evenly split between the two choices. He looked at them very thoughtfully. He circled the group that had voted for justice. “Then you believe that Shylock was treated fairly?”

Donna’s hand shot up like a bolt. Before he could even acknowledge her, she said, “That wasn’t justice! That was prejudice!”

Ron smiled. “What do you mean?”

“Well the judge does not even try to hide the fact that he hates Shylock.”

“That’s true,” said Ron. “But is he impartial?”

“He claims to be but that is a joke. He was looking for any way to overturn the bond.”

“Doesn’t Shylock demand the ‘letter of the law’ and isn’t that what he gets?”

“Yes, but isn’t the purpose of the law to help everyone to be treated fairly?”

“Is it?” said Ron.

“It should be!” countered Donna.

Ron nodded. “You are correct. It should be. I want you to think about your history classes for a moment.” The girls groaned and Ron was shocked at the reaction. “What?”

Elena said, “History is no fun, Mr. Tuck.” She looked at him with her eyes twinkling in the secret that the two of them now shared.

“Haven’t our laws always been a reflection of our prejudices?”

The girls were silent. Elizabeth who had also voted for justice said, “Then there is nothing to trust except love. Is that what you are saying?”

“No,” answered Ron. “Love does not even attempt to be fair. We treat those that we love much differently than we treat anyone else.”

“So what’s the right answer?”

“You tell me,” said Ron. “It’s there. It’s right in the pages.”

Veronica smiled broadly and put her hand up. “The mercy speech by Portia.”

Ron smiled and said, “Let’s look at it together.” Ron read the speech as the girls followed along. He read it slowly. He reread the words, “… in the course of justice, none of us shall see salvation…”

Ron paused to let the words sink in. Then he said, “Why doesn’t Shylock take three times the amount of money that is due him?”

Paula Sandal said, “Because he hates them and he wants to get back at them.”

Ron nodded.  “Why else?”

Judith said, “Because of his daughter.”

Ron nodded again. “Why else?” He felt uneasy about saying this because those were the two reasons that he wanted. Sometimes he would push beyond what he expected them or him to know and had this kind of blind faith in the power of the classroom to provide an answer. Victoria didn’t make him wait long.

“He is sticking up for all the Jews.”

Ron smiled. He had not thought of Shylock as seeing himself as a standard bearer but there it was and it seemed to ring true.

Elena said, “Do you think that Shakespeare secretly liked Jews, Mr. Tuck?”

“What I think is that Shakespeare, in his writing, wanted us all to treat each other better. But let me ask you this. How would Shylock know what mercy looked like or felt like? Had anyone shown him mercy? If you were trying to leave this room and every time that you almost got out, I swung down and kicked you in the teeth and knocked you back into the room, wouldn’t you want to beat the hell out of me if you finally did get out?”

Elena said, “So, Portia is asking Shylock to give something that he has never been given.”

“So why does she do that?” said Ron.

Paula said, “Because she wants him to be better.”

Paula had just started volunteering answers and the last thing that Ron wanted to do was to shut her down.

“That is partially true. Why else?”

Donna’s face lit up. She pointed to the love side of the vote. “Because she is in love with Bassanio and wants to get Antonio off.”

Ron was having trouble containing his smile. “Do you think that she really cares about Shylock at all?”

There was a soft chorus of “no” in the room.

Ron returned to the board and looked out at them. In this space he felt that somehow he was inside of the play, moving in it like an observer, almost like a director. He drew another cross. “Does Shylock get what he deserves?”

The vote was swift. There were fifteen who said yes and seven who said no.  Ron circled the minority and walked away from the board without saying anything. They knew what it meant.

Veronica said, “He should be punished for what he has done, but they don’t leave him with anything, not even his friends or his religion.”

“That’s true,” said Ron. “If he becomes a Christian, his fellow Jews will think of him as dead.”

“I want to change my vote,” said Judith.

“Ok,” said Ron. “Why?”

“Cause if I don’t, I won’t be any better than they are.”

Other girls said, “I want to change my vote too.”

Ron grinned at Judith. “See you are a real trendsetter.”

She beamed.

“But that doesn’t make Shylock any better of a person, does it? And Shakespeare leaves him this way. In some ways what Shakespeare is saying in his own Christianity is that Shylock had a shot at redemption and turned it down, which is why a lot of critics have said that Antonio is like a Christ figure in the play. You may want to write that down.” Dutifully the girls wrote.

Ron went back to the chalkboard and said, “OK, let’s switch gears here.” He circled those who had voted for the world governed by love. “What happens in the courtroom between Bassanio and Portia?”

Samantha said, “He digs himself into a really deep hole.”

“Why?”

Samantha gave him that look that again displayed disbelief at his inability to understand. “He gives away his ring!”

Ron grinned. “So?”

“Has a girl that you loved ever given you a ring?” said Samantha.

Ron looked down at his finger. There was silver ring with Minnesota jasper in it on the third finger of his left hand. Robin had given it to him when he first moved to Minneapolis, before he knew that she was sleeping with her cousin, before things had gotten really crazy. He dutifully wore the ring every day. He thought of her each time that he slipped it on his finger. “This one,” he said holding up the finger.

“How would she feel if you gave it away to another woman?” said Samantha.

Ron felt his eyes fill up instantly. He fought the reaction. Not here! Not in front of his students. The girls saw his face and the room became very quiet. Ron tried to smile and he shrugged. “I doubt that she would care very much anymore,” he said. The room was very quiet. The floor creaked as Ron moved across it. “But she also would probably not try to trick me into giving it away.” He was trying to get it back, trying to will his mind away from that place and back to his students. He felt himself close a door. For a moment, he heard laughter across the hall. It made him flinch. “OK,” he said. “Now the first thing that Bassanio does is to tell Portia, who he does not know is Portia, that he would give her up if that would help to get Antonio off the hook for the pound of flesh.” Ron read the passage. “The next thing that he does, and Portia has already said that she was going to leave at this point, is to keep asking her if there is anything that he can give her. And that puts it in her head to ask for the ring.”

“Yup,” said Donna. “He’s a dope.”

“Well,” said Ron, “he is not as smart as she is.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Donna. “But I have a question. How could he not know who she was?”

“Because the court was a man’s world and he would never have guessed that a woman could conduct herself in there the way that Portia did.”

“Yup ,” said Elena. “A real dope.”

The bell rang. The class groaned. Ron smiled. “Act 5 is very short so it’s almost like you have a free night, but remember as soon as we finish the play, we have the test.”

 

Chapter 66

 

It wasn’t so much that he dreaded the weekends, as it was that he felt lost during them. Ron sat at his desk, on Friday night, thinking about his life. He felt as if the changes that he was going through were profound. In his mind, he pictured himself walking the halls and grounds of the various college campuses that he had haunted. He had always kept his eyes focused on the girls that he had seen. He had always wanted to meet them. There were never too many girls, even when he had been with Robin or Zoe or anyone else. He felt that was behind him now. He was not going to be looking for a girl, not ever again. He had decided that from now on he would wait to be found rather than look for someone that he wished to find. He had grown tired of the endless desire. It had not served him well. As he thought about it, he realized that anytime something had worked out, it had been by accident, or he had been the one who had been pursued. Hadn’t Robin told him that she had watched him for weeks before she had been able to get his attention? Hadn’t he met Zoe when meeting a girl was the last thing on his mind? Hadn’t his other encounters with women been a series of comical mishaps? It was time for it to stop. What was the saying about staying in one place and letting the world come to you? Ron had gone off looking for the world and each, and every time that he had done that it had worked out badly. Maybe the truth was that he did not like himself well enough to want anyone who wanted him. Maybe what he needed to do was just wait and see what it was that life had in store for him instead of seeing it like a gigantic treasure hunt.

These insights did not make him happy. He saw himself as damaged beyond repair. He was like his knees. Once his speed had been one of his best attributes as an athlete, but it was only when he had learned to accept their damage and stop trying to pretend that he had not been injured that he was able to get himself into the shape that he was in today. He had gone out looking for the perfect job, but it was not until his mother had taken the step that he had resisted and sent out his resume that he had come to Our Lady of the Forlorn. It was not as if he had nothing. He had his teaching and he was sure that it would sustain him for a long time.

It was about 11pm when the phone rang. Ron had been thumbing through his copy of Shakespeare’s plays and lying on his bed. He had no idea who could possibly be calling him.

“Hello.”

A soft, scared voice said, “Mr. Tuck, it is Elena.”

Ron felt a jolt. “Elena, what’s wrong? Can I help you?”

“I need your advice, Mr. Tuck.”

“OK.”

“I am with my boyfriend Junior. He is in the other room and I don’t know what to do.”

“Just tell me what is wrong,” said Ron.

“He wants me to do it and I said that I would and now I’m scared.”

“Why are you scared?”

“I don’t know. I think that I’m just being silly.”

Ron nodded. His mind raced. “If you are scared, then maybe you aren’t ready.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a lot of pressure on you Elena. You are still very young. There really isn’t a reason to rush.”

“A lot of the girls in class talk about doing it with their boyfriends. I feel like I’m being stupid.”

“Maybe you are being very smart.”

“What do you mean?”

“Doubts are often a good thing, Elena.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think that you are calling me, because maybe you don’t want to and want me to tell you not to.”

Ron bit his lip. He sounded just like Lashly, telling a student that she didn’t really know what it was that she wanted. One difference a reassuring voice said in his head was that he wasn’t going to have Elena come to his house so that he could show her how to do it.

“You think that is it?”

“I really do, Elena.”

“Then I’m not going to do it.”

“Whether you do or not has to be your decision and it can’t be because Junior will get mad if you don’t, or that the other girls will think that you are strange because you don’t. When you are ready, I promise you that you won’t be calling me or anyone else.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tuck. I think that was really what I needed to hear.”

“Alright Elena. You can call back whenever you need to call.”

“You are wonderful, Mr. Tuck. Why can’t my boyfriend be like you?”

Ron laughed. “Cause he isn’t as old as I am.”

Elena said softly, “He is only three years younger than you are.”

Ron frowned. This was not some eighteen year old guy trying to talk his girlfriend into giving it up. This was a grown man with one of his students. His face hardened. “If there is any problem when you say no, call me and I will come and get you.”

“There won’t be a problem, Mr. Tuck but thank you for looking out for me.”

Then she was gone. Ron hoped that he had said the right things to her. He stared at the ceiling for a long time before he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 65

Ron waited for the girls to arrive. He was anxious to see them. It occurred to him that he had never had a favorite class before, and he wondered if it was healthy. Although he was active and happy in his other classes, he did not think about them the way that he thought about the Shakespeare class. He worried that he might be short changing his other classes.

His worry vanished when he saw them coming in. Many of them moved straight to the side board and began to write before they even put their books down and before the bell rang that announced the start of the class. They were using their hall time, their free time to talk to each other, to be in his room and write comments about the reading. It made him swell with pride as he watched them.

Samantha wrote, “Portia is cool. I like her.”

Donna wrote, “Jessica is going to be an unhappy girl. This thing with Lorenzo is doomed.”

Elena wrote, “The loan seems to be filled with hatred.”

Elizabeth wrote, “Portia is trapped because if she does not honor her father’s will, she will lose her own honor.”

Helen wrote, “These people give their religions a bad name.”

Ron watched the girls writing and tried hard to not notice the way that their young bottoms jiggled as they wrote so furiously. He looked down into his book. He did not want to look at them that way.

Connie wrote, “I think that Portia and Nerissa are true friends and I hope that nothing bad happens to them.”

Veronica wrote, “I think I know why Antonio is sad.”

Her comment startled Ron. It was a good place to start the class but if would diffuse some of their excitement over Portia. She had spun her spell on them and they were seeing themselves in her place. Shakespeare truly was an incredible genius, thought Ron. How could he conceive of this character? Then he realized that in a world ruled by a queen, it was be easier to think of women as strong.

“Ok,” said Ron. It seems like everyone has gotten through the first two acts. Does anyone have any questions about what is going on?”

Ron waited. No one raised a hand. He turned to Elena. “Summarize for me. What has happened?”

Elena smiled. “Well Bassanio and Portia are going to get to be together.  You can just see that coming. But, Bassanio went to Shylock and they agreed on this weird loan, three thousand ducats for three months. Antonio guarantees the loan and Shylock says that he wants a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he can’t pay in time.”

Donna interrupted. “Is that legal?” I mean, can you make a loan for that kind of repayment?”

It was a good question, almost too good. If he really answered her now, he would blow the ending. “The laws were different back then and remember, people also sold themselves into slavery to gain passage to America. Such a thing would not be legal today, but back then it was a common practice.” He looked at Donna. His answer seemed to satisfy her. He turned his gaze back to Elena and the dark eyed girl continued.

“Shylock’s daughter Jessica and Lorenzo want to be together, but they have to sneak around. Oh, and I finally understand about Portia’s father’s game. If these guys make a wrong answer they have to agree on their honor to go away immediately and never marry. That makes the stakes a bit higher. So they have to really want Portia before they even ask to choose. I wish that they did not keep the answers in caskets though. That is very creepy.”

Ron smiled. “They aren’t caskets in the way that we think of the word. They just are small boxes, like jewelry boxes.”

“Oh, “said Elena. “Is there any reason that they can’t just say jewelry boxes?”

“Caskets does make it seem much more serious, doesn’t it?” said Ron. “Ok, how many of you agree with Donna and think that Jessica is making a mistake?”

Ron directed their eyes over to Donna’s comment on the side board. He made a yes and no divide on the chalkboard and had the strange thought that he did it by drawing a cross. That hadn’t occurred to him before. He polled the room quickly. The class was split. The class was split ten agreeing that Jessica was making a mistake and thirteen not agreeing. Ron turned to Donna, “OK, why do you think that she is making a mistake?”

“Because of the way that he talks to her,” said Donna. “He talks down to her all the time. Wait let me find it.” She looked into the book. Ron almost popped a shirt button with the swell of pride in his chest as she went to the text to back up her assertion. She got it. She was way ahead of the curve.

Donna read, “‘Most beautiful pagan, most sweet Jew! if a Christian did not play the knave and get thee, I am much deceived.’ Donna paused. “That’s not the best example, but I always get the feeling that he is talking down to her and treating her as if he is doing her some kind of great favor.”

Ron nodded, “OK.”

“I think that he really loves her and that he doesn’t care if she is a Jew or a Christian. I think that he really wants to be with her,” said Helen.

“Does anyone think that she should not go with Lorenzo other than for Donna’s reason?” said Ron.

Veronica raised her hand a little bit timidly, almost as if she was apologizing.  “I think that what she does to her father is wrong. I don’t think that Shylock is a nice man but he is her father and she steals from him and she leaves him all alone. She betrays him.” Veronica was gaining strength as she talked. “And I think that it’s bad luck to start a marriage with a betrayal. And she is going to have no family for the rest of her life. These people will always think of her as the Jew’s daughter and if Lorenzo gets tired of her she will have nothing at all.”

Elizabeth shot back. “What does she have now? She’s stuck with a father who treats her like a piece of shit.” Elizabeth’s hand flew up to her mouth and her light skinned face reddened visibly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tuck,” she said staring up at Ron. “I mean he treats her like crap.”

Ron smiled in a way that let her know that she was not in any trouble. Cursing carried a penalty of five demerits and for a moment Ron was the person in charge of discipline. The class was watching him intently. “I think that we all talk differently when we are not in class. The important thing to do is to understand the difference and Elizabeth corrected herself before anyone had to point it out to her.” He paused and hoped that what he said would sink in. “Now let’s get back to the important stuff. Samantha, why do you think that Portia is cool? And why did you start to like her?”

Samantha grinned. “She’s sarcastic when it comes to guys. She knows what you are like and she can see through your game.”

Ron smiled. “I don’t have any game.”

Like synchronized swimmers, the girls rolled their eyes at the same time. Ron saw it and began to laugh in spite of himself. “Why else do you like her?”

“She knows what’s important to her,” said Samantha.

“Let’s hold that thought,” said Ron. “Samantha, we are going to come back to that comment at the end of the play. If I forget, I want you to remind me.”

Samantha smiled as she basked in the glow of having made a positive contribution. She was thrilled knowing that one of her ideas was an idea that he wanted to save and revisit. It was just then that the bell rang. The class groaned. Ron smiled.

About an hour later, he met Sister Donna Maria in her office to review discipline. After they had settled and gone through a list of girls that were coming before the faculty council, she said, “It isn’t often that I get a complaint about you, Mr. Tuck, but I got one.”

Ron looked up. Her eyes were a watery, placid brown, like wet mold. “What is it, Sister?”

“Are you teaching the children about the Jewish faith?’

Ron laughed, “Not at all, Sister. We are reading The Merchant of Venice in my Shakespeare class.”

“But did you teach them that Christians persecuted Jewish people?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Why would you tell them that?”

“Well,” said Ron. “For one thing it is the truth and for another it is in the play.” Then he thought that this was going in a poor direction. He did not want her prying into the content of the plays. He was instantly and instinctively sure that she was not familiar with Shakespeare. When he had first proposed the idea, her comment had been something to the effect of ‘did he really think that the girls would have any interest in that.’ He decided to take a page out of Shakespeare’s book. “Sister, the Catholic Church is never mentioned. As you know, in England that had The Church of England. I will make sure that the girls understand that.”

Donna Maria smiled placidly. Then her smile turned to a frown. “I have also been informed that you allow the girls to curse in class. Now when I heard that, I didn’t believe it, but I think that since we are talking about it I might as well put all of my cards on the table.”

Ron looked down at the table like he was seeing the Old Maid card with her picture on it. “One time, one girl mistakenly used a crass word. It did not take the name of the Lord in vain or I would have been very upset.”

“What was the word?”

“She said, ‘shit’ and then she immediately apologized and corrected herself.”

Donna Maria sighed. “I guess that we can’t expect too much of these girls considering who they are and when they are from.”

Ron felt his face tighten. He truly did not like this woman and was seeing more and more why Bernadette considered her dangerous. “That’s true, Sister.”

“Who was the girl?” said Donna Maria.

Ron scratched the back of his head. “Gee, I can’t even remember.” Then he paused. “You did put me in charge of these kinds of offenses, Sister.”

“Yes,” said the principal thoughtfully but it is important that I also know who the rabble rousers are.”

Ron squinted as if he was trying to remember what he was really doing was trying to keep himself from saying what he thought, which was that she would consider anyone with a  brain and an original thought a troublemaker.

 

Chapter 64

“Why do you think that Jewish people have been the object of so much prejudice for so long?”

Ron started the class with this question, and as he expected, the question was met with silence. He waited to see what they would say. Lately, he had learned to become comfortable with silence in the classroom. He knew that his questions weren’t easy, and that they needed time to think if he wanted them to give thoughtful answers. It occurred to him that teachers often did not ask questions that had no right answers because they were uncomfortable with the silence that followed them. He looked into their faces. Since this was the first day of the play there were no comments about last night’s reading on the chalkboard.

“Because they are so different,” said Donna, “and they seem to think that they are better than anyone else.”

Ron waited. He knew that there would be more if he could hold out. He gazed at them. He sensed that it was not that they were confused, but that they were unsure about how they should answer. Finally Elena said, “I don’t think that I have known any Jewish people, personally.”

Ron saw a number of the girls bob their heads up and down in assent. He hadn’t considered this. They didn’t know any Jews. Then an idea struck him. “It is quite possible that Shakespeare did not know any Jewish people either. He was working from stories that he had heard. In some cases, he was working with stereotypes that had been passed down for a long time. Jews had been expelled from England a long time before Shakespeare was born, and the depictions of them were usually those of sub-human monsters, which is why, among other reasons, Shakespeare set the play in Venice. There would have been no Jews in England.”

“Where did they go?” asked Donna.

“They wandered in Europe, not being totally accepted. In some places they were forced to wear strange costumes that would mark them as Jews. In other places, such as Venice, they were not allowed to have citizenship or work at jobs. As a result, they turned to money lending, which is referred to as usury in the play.”

Then he turned to the tape player and switched it on. It was the opening scene. He had them. Not like he had them in some of the more romantic plays, but that was coming and he was satisfied. The thoughts in his head as he watched them follow the words of the actors were about how much he would acquaint them with the Jewish culture. How much would he be allowed to say? Would he be allowed to say that it was really the Italians that killed Christ? That in his head it had been one of the great bait and switches of all time to have made the Jews the scapegoats? It didn’t matter. The fact was that they were going to meet their first Jew. Ron wished hard that Shakespeare’s description was not so much of a stereotype, but he wanted to make sure that his audience got it. He wanted them to hate Shylock so that he could, in some ways, redeem him. Shakespeare had really boiled it down to two speeches, two monologues. The one “Hath a Jew not eyes…” and the other, the more famous, “the quality of mercy” It really all came down to those two and one of the strongest women he had ever seen on a stage, Portia.

After the first scene ended, he clicked off the tape. “One question that I want you to try to answer at the end of this play is “Why was Antonio sad?” He turned and wrote the question on the chalkboard. The girls all copied the question into their notebooks. They knew him well enough to know that it was from these questions that he would select their essays. The bell rang before Ron wanted it to ring. He said quickly, “Finish the first act for tomorrow and remember it takes five statements on the side board for us to be able to begin class.” There was a groan and he answered it with a smile and then they left.

The next day, Ron began by looking over at the side board. He read: “Why do parents have nothing better to do than meddle in their kids’ lives?” It was signed by Debbie. The next read, “How can she spend the rest of her life with someone based on the results of a game?” That was signed by Donna. The next read, “I don’t think that it’s fair to force us to read about Jews.” It was unsigned. Ron stared hard at it. It was unsigned for a reason. Of course the girls knew who wrote it and he could force the issue but he decided to let it go. The next read, “What’s the big deal about loaning money for interest?” That was Elena. Veronica had written a quote from the play. “All that glisters is not gold.” Next to it she wrote, “Why did we all learn that it was glitters and what does glisters mean?” It was of course from the second act and it told Ron that Veronica had read ahead. She had probably read the entire play but he would be embarrassing her if he asked. And finally Samantha wrote, “I have no idea why Antonio is sad. He’s rich.”

Ron thought quickly about where to begin and then from seemingly out a nowhere an idea struck him. He turned to the board and quickly drew ten vertical lines. Over each column he placed a number from 1-10. “Now with ten being the highest and one the lowest, tell me how much it matters to you that your parents like the man that you will eventually marry.” He had had some experience with this process and turned to give them a caution. “Now before you lowball the answer, think of this. You are out on a date and the guy you are with tells you that on a scale of 1-10 he would rate your looks a 6.” They laughed. “Would you be offended?”

“I wouldn’t be offended but I would make sure that it was the last time that I went out with him.”

“And why is that?”

“Who wants a guy who does not think that you are beautiful?” she said as if he must be some kind of moron.

“You didn’t do that to your last girlfriend did you Mr. Tuck?” said Donna.

Everyone laughed again. “No, I did not do that. If I thought she was a 6, I wouldn’t be out with her.”

The girls laughed again and Ron laughed with them. As he took the vote, it split the way that he expected that it would. It was based on their mood of the moment. Some said ten and some said one. Samantha asked if there was a category for zero. There were very few in the middle. When he finished the survey, he had 3 tens, 4 nines, 3 eights, 6 twos and 7 ones.

He stared at the results.  He circled the 13 low scores. “So are you saying that your family is not important?”

Elena’s hand shot up. “No, I am saying that my family needs to have trust in my decisions. They need to respect what it is that I want for my life.”

Ron nodded again. Donna, who was a 2, said, “I may not get married but if I did, I wouldn’t want my parents choosing my partner.”

“That’s not the question,” said Ron.

Donna smiled. “No you twisted the question around, the way that you always do.”

Everyone laughed again. Ron feigned being aghast at her response. “I do not twist.” They laughed harder.

Samantha said, “You probably won a twisting contest in the olden days.”

Ron needed to move on. He did not want them dwelling on how he might be manipulating them. It would make it much harder to teach them if they did.

“What about my 10’s and 9’s here? Why is what family thinks of your prospective husband so important?”

Surprisingly Veronica raised her hand and said, “I would be lost without my family. I know it may sound weak, but I need them to like the guy that I want to marry.”

“It is not at all weak,” said Ron. He thought about how he responded to his mother’s judgments of his girlfriends. He thought that life would be easier if she had liked them but he also thought that if there was one that she liked that she would push him to marry her.

Elizabeth said, “I want my mother to be proud of who I choose. It would be great if she were proud of something about me.”

Ron let what she said sink in. He did not want to patronize her. He realized that she wanted to express what she had said, and that in some way it had been cathartic for her to be able to say it.

“For all of you who don’t like, women’s liberation, let me say that back in Shakespeare’s time, women were property. A man could actually beat his daughter to death for disobeying him and it would be within his rights.”

“My dad would have loved living back then,” said Elena.

Now Ron ran through the plot and pointed out some quotes that he suggested that the girls remember and understand. They wrote furiously. These quotes they knew would be the batch from which he would select the ones on their test. When he finished, he clicked on the beginning of Act 2.

His eyes turned to Elizabeth while they were reading and he saw that she was holding her head down and fighting back tears.

In the hall at the change of class he said to Bernadette, “What do you know about Elizabeth’s mother?”

“I never met her,” said Bernadette, “but I know that Elizabeth is frightened of her judgment. And I know that there is no man on the scene.”

“She’s a very determined girl,” said Ron.

“I assume that she gets that from her mother,” said Bernadette. “I think that her mother wants better for her and pushes her to excel. At least that’s what it sounds like.”

Ron wondered if he should find a way to meet Elizabeth’s mom.