A Stretch in Siberia

Mr. Cutts, the English master, said: "We will now have Mr. Drake on the mystery of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Mr. Drake, if you please."

Drake came to the prescribed position of attention and marched to the side of the desk. He made a smart about-face. The paper trembled a little in his hand, but Drake was more exultant than nervous. This was showdown.

He cleared his throat. "Dis Homlet," he read, "he don' make me sensible. Dot mon, he t'row away hees prettybird, an' get put down."

Drake lowered the paper. The faces of his classmates stared back at him woodenly. OK, you tame bastards, Drake thought. This is my crashout anyway. Strictly mine. He waited for Cutts to blow.

"A succinct and original précis," Mr. Cutts said mildly. Drake's mouth tightened. "However," Mr. Cutts said, "somewhat off the question. We wanted your thoughts, Mr. Drake, on Ophelia's suicide, specifically."

OK, Drake thought. OK. "Sir?" he said.

"Mr. Drake," said Mr. Cutts.

"Perhaps, sir, she wasn't getting enough," Drake said. "Perhaps she was one of these big women, you know? And maybe he was one of these sort of runty little guys." He turned his head slightly and smiled gently down on Mr. Cutts, who was indeed a thin little man. Right where he lives, thought Drake. Right where he lives. Him and that big-butted nurse of his. Very handy for old Cutts, her having an apartment right off the infirmary. Her and her big mouth and her sleepy eyes, you could tell she needed lots of it. Well, thought Drake, now he knows I know. I guess he'll get off my neck now. I guess he'll be glad to get rid of me by June.

"A true 16th Century approach," Mr. Cutts said. "Evidently Mr. Drake scorns the subtleties of the contemporary Freudian attitude. I will have 500 words from you, Mr. Drake, if you please and for the next class, on the sexual implications of Ophelia's suicide."

Outraged with defeat, rigidly shaking, Drake returned to his seat.

"I will amend that," Mr. Cutts said. "One hundred words should exhaust your knowledge of the subject."

Drake barely heard him. Drake was thinking of his red Jaguar, now resting on blocks in his father's garage 500 miles away. Drake was thinking of his checkbook and his charge account plates and his driver's license and his wallet, even, all lying on his father's desk.

"Five thousand dollars," his father was saying. "That's what it cost me this time to keep you out of jail, to hush up just one more mess you've got yourself into. And if that woman you clipped with your damn sports car had died, I'd've been lucky to get off at 50 thousand."

His father leaned over the desk. "So this time," he said, "you are going to jail. It's a special kind of jail for the spoiled brats of rich men, one of the best schools in the country in fact, and the masters are specialists in curing what ails you. You'll have no Buicks to smash up. No Jaguars to half kill people with. No girls. No money. No privileges. And no elective courses to horse-trade with. At this school you pass all, or you pass nothing. It's Siberia for you, kid."

His father pushed at the little pile of belongings and symbols of belongings. "Straighten up and be flying right by next June," he said, "and you get these back, and you can go on to college. Flip it, and you stay in Siberia all summer, and then repeat the year."

It was Siberia, all right. The masters were polite with a terrible politeness. They were all trained in judo. They taught, relentlessly; and Drake swore he would be out by June. He was capable of effort, and most of his grades were good. But Drake had not yet learned about total effort. He permitted himself some relaxation in the English classes, and the master graded him accordingly.

Drake began to hate the English class and the English master and by now he didn't know or care which had come first. His hatred of Mr. Cutts was an almighty itch, and Drake scratched at it pleasurably and frequently. It was nearly Easter before he forced himself to be realistic: Cutts would never pass him. Cutts stood between Drake and freedom in June.

The period bell rang and Mr. Cutts dismissed the class. Drake glared at him out of his reverie. "Come here, Drake," the master said.

Drake stood over him. "When are you going to cut this prep-school crap and do some work?" Mr. Cutts said. "You can't buy a passing mark from me with your nuisance value." The English master flexed his slightly stooped shoulders as though to ease some chronic ache. He was a man who looked older than his years, a man of urbanity with a vaguely harassed air. Drake longed to hit him, but all that had been settled on the October day when Drake, new, sullen, but confident in his six feet of height, had aimed a contemptuous slap at Mr. Cutts. Mr. Cutts had punched him over the belt, so hard that Drake had vomited right in the classroom. "You fool," Mr. Cutts had told him then, "do you want me to really work you over? Never raise your hand to a master in this school, do you understand? Never."

Drake sighed now. "Maybe I can buy it some other way," he said.

"Do you mean your stupid reference to my relations with my fiancée? I consider the source, Drake. I consider the source."

Drake sighed again. Here goes, he thought. Here goes. "Well, sir," he said, "I happen to have seen you going up to her apartment late at night."

"So?" Mr. Cutts said.

"And coming away just before daylight," Drake said.

And that's got him, Drake thought.

Mr. Cutts had put his face down on one hand. It was a little while before Drake realized that the English master was laughing. "God," he said, "Drake, you're pathetic. I suppose now you're going to threaten me with exposure to the headmaster."

"All I want is to get out of here in June," Drake said.

"You fool," Mr. Cutts said, "do you think the head is going to take your word against mine? And besides, do you think he cares whether I'm sleeping with Miss Phillips? I can assure you, my denial will be enough."

Mr. Cutts leaned back in his chair. "You're probably like most scholars in this academy," he said. "You've belonged to one of these clubs that correspond with some girls' school. You cherish the memory of a few half-conquests in the back seats of cars. In a word, Drake, you're still a kid. You don't know the difference between furtiveness and discretion. Now get out of here," Mr. Cutts said, "before I break down all the way and start telling you the facts of life."

I'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll kill him. Jogging across the quadrangle Drake chanted it crazily to himself. So he considers the source. So I'm a clown. So I'm a comedian. Stick it into him, Drake raved to himself. Get him where he lives.

But where the hell does he live? Drake wondered later, isolated in fury in the midst of his cavorting classmates. He had just done a fast 400 in the pool and was loosening up under a hot shower.

And then it came. It came, beautiful, absolute and complete. And a little frightening. Brewster, a lanky youth from somewhere in Wyoming, came yelling down the tiles and stepped on a piece of soap. For a moment he lay sprawled. Then he stood up, grimacing.

"You buckin' for infirmary, Brewster?" somebody said.

"Gawd, no," Brewster said. He limped under a shower and turned up the hot water. In Siberia, infirmary time was lost time.

Drake held on to it for 24 hours, loving it, seeing it as perfect. It was dangerous. Dangerous as hell if he overplayed his hand. But this time, Drake promised himself, he would play his hand just right. And he would -- Cutts flat.

In the shower room, the next day, there was the usual brief uproar. Drake came trotting through from the pool, shot one heel in the air, and came down with a smacking thud.

"Buckin' for infirmary, Drake?"

Drake lay still, letting his eyes close and then open very slowly. He pulled his lips back from his teeth. "Hey," somebody yelled, "he's hurt! Get Samuels."

Mr. Samuels, the physical education master, came in. "Get up," he said. Drake, mute, shook his head.

Mr. Samuels bent over and gave Drake's thigh a hard pinch. Drake moaned and held himself rigid. "Well," Mr. Samuels said, "your back isn't broken if you can feel that. Get dressed, two of you, and fetch the stretcher."

Drake was committed.

Modest under a sheet, he was carried to the infirmary. Miss Phillips told the bearers to put the stretcher on a long wheeled table. "Gently," she said, "gently." She bent and slid her hands and forearms under his hips to take some of his weight as he came down. Miss Phillips was a tall girl; as she eased his head to a more comfortable position Drake found himself looking into the falling V of her uniform. The sunlight in the infirmary was very bright and the nurse's uniform seemed to absorb it. (continued on page 52)Stretch in Siberia(continued from page 48) Drake moaned involuntarily, and closed his eyes. Watch it, he thought. Watch it.

"God," Miss Phillips said, "he never should have been moved at all. That Samuels is a brute. All right, boys," she said.

The stretcher-bearers left in a hurry. June was coming fast for all Siberians. Miss Phillips rustled and crackled softly around Drake. "The doctor's coming," she said. "Is it hurting much?"

Drake opened his eyes. Miss Phillips' eyes were brown and not exactly sleepy right now. "Some," Drake said. "A little."

Miss Phillips glided away in the smooth gliding way of a woman in low heels, and went into a room marked X Ray. She opened a farther door and he could hear water splashing. "The doctor will want a picture," she called out to him. "I guess you don't feel much like looking pretty for your picture, huh?"

But the doctor thought the picture was pretty enough. "Well," he said, peering at the wet film, "this confirms my examination, Miss Phillips. No fracture." He lowered the film and frowned at Drake, then looked at the film again. "Of course, a disc might be ... Well, let's get you on your feet. Help him, Miss Phillips. Easy now," he said to Drake. "It will be a little painful."

It was painful, in fact. Drake had come down solidly on the shower room tiles. "You should see this bruise," the doctor said, twitching up the hospital nightgown Drake was now wearing. "Bend," he said. "This way. Now this way." His fingers moved around the knobs of Drake's spine. "I guess you're not gold-bricking, hey? No gold-bricking in, ah, Siberia?"

Drake forced a patient's grin.

"Flat on your back for a week, young fella. You can use crutches once a day. That's a concession to your blushing youth. Let's get him up again, nurse."

The doctor snapped his bag and moved toward the door with Miss Phillips. "No strapping," he said. "No. Let everything straighten out on a hard mattress. Massage and heat lamp ... Let me know if anything ..." The door swung to with a pneumatic shush and Drake sighed. Just about perfect, he thought.

The door shushed again and the nurse came gliding to the bed. "Well, we might as well get you settled into routine," she said. "Open your mouth." She picked up Drake's hand and laid her fingers on his pulse. "My, my," she said presently, her wide mouth curving. "Holding hands upsets you, doesn't it?"

Drake took out the thermometer with his free hand. "It's a terrible change," he said.

"You don't seem to be fighting it," Miss Phillips said. "Usually they act as though they're in the death house when they're sent here. Aren't you worried about your grades?"

"I'll make them," Drake said.

Miss Phillips laughed, her eyes slanting, her teeth shining. She was really a hell of a good-looking babe, Drake thought. "Well," she said, "I hate a worried patient. You'll have a fine week if you don't worry about things. Private nursing, too, unless I get somebody with mumps or something. Now, here's a nice present for you."

Drake frowned at the needle.

"Doctor's orders," she said. "And you'll have the prettiest dreams."

• • •

Drake held on to it for another 40 hours, roughly. Alone, he had periods of magnified aloneness, of a kind of nervous doubt. But he was not often alone. Miss Phillips seemed to enjoy having a patient; and Drake, rather clumsily, groped for the word, the gesture, that would show him a way beyond the routine the nurse had immediately and efficiently set up.

Mr. Cutts called on his fiancée the second evening. Drake could hear a record player, distant across the landing between Miss Phillips' apartment and the infirmary. Later, there was a clatter of dishes in a sink, and then voices. A door opened and the voices came out on the landing. Quite clearly, Drake heard Miss Phillips say: "I'm getting a little bored with this little lecture series of yours."

Mr. Cutts said: "What else can we do but talk, with a patient in there?"

"There isn't always a patient in there," Miss Phillips said.

"Well there is now," Mr. Cutts said. "Goodnight, my dear."

In the glow of his night light, Drake grinned. Old Cutts and his discretion. Then he stopped grinning, feeling the small grimness of a small triumph. Something had been spoiled for Cutts tonight, at least.

In the short hallway off the landing Miss Phillips said, "Oh, hell" in a low voice and unfastened the hook that was holding the door open. She must have forgotten it, Drake thought, beginning to breathe rhythmically. The door shushed, and Miss Phillips came in for her night check. Drake felt her fingers on his forehead, then on his wrist.

Suddenly, quietly, she said, "Are you faking?"

Drake started with surprise. "Huh?" he said. "What?"

Miss Phillips dropped his hand. "Never mind," she said. She drew the covers up over his shoulders and for a moment the tips of her fingers rested against his face.

Drake's mind was staggering. Now? he thought. Try it now? "Whadsa matter?" he muttered, stalling.

Miss Phillips sighed. "Never mind," she said. She moved away from the bed. "Go to sleep," she whispered. "Go back to sleep."

• • •

Drake awoke brilliantly. He held this brilliance in focus all through the routine of breakfast, his shuffling trip to the john, and his bath.

"I hope I didn't disturb you last night," Miss Phillips said. She had finished his legs to midway on his thighs and was now sponging his chest.

"Gee," Drake said. "I hardly remember."

"That's good," Miss Phillips said. "You finish yourself, now. I'll be back for these towels and things in a few minutes."

"Back rub?" she said presently, after she had cleared away.

Drake lay looking up at her, feeling the brilliance an absolute suffusion now, beginning to tremble now. He swallowed.

"Not my back," he said.

"What?" Miss Phillips said. Her eyes moved over Drake's nude figure. "Oh," she said, her eyes suddenly stopping. She laughed a little. "Oh my."

Drake's arm was hanging over the edge of the bed. He now placed the ball of his thumb very delicately against the calf of Miss Phillips' leg, feeling the strange rough-smoothness of the nylon as, still with the utmost delicacy, he traced his thumb upward to the warm and slightly damp little bulge behind her knee.

It was as though he had struck the backs of her knees a violent blow. Eyes and mouth opening widely, she collapsed across Drake's bed. She thrashed and rocked wildly, her face coming up to Drake's, her elbows sharp in his ribs, her knees painful on his thighs. It was a moment before Drake realized that Miss Phillips was tearing off her clothes.

Feeling triumph, and feeling too the almost-virgin's terror of this absolute brink, Drake pushed down the bed covers.

• • •

"You faker," Miss Phillips said. She was terrificly pleased. "You gold-bricker. Are you really telling me the truth?"

Drake was finishing his lunch. "I tell you," he said, speaking his well-rehearsed lines again, "I just couldn't stand it. Seeing you, feeling the way you made me feel. I just had to do something about it."

"Well you certainly were clever. You certainly risked a lot. And I never (continued on page 78)Stretch in Siberia(continued from page 52) guessed. If only you knew what I thought of myself last night. If you only knew," Miss Phillips said, standing up and beginning to unbutton her fresh uniform. "Darling," she said. "Are you all right now?"

Miss Phillips, in the peculiar seclusion of the infirmary, unbuttoned her uniform a great many times in the following days, and in the nights too. Disoriented, indeed overwhelmed by Miss Phillips' eagerness, Drake could do no clear thinking about Mr. Cutts. Mr. Cutts was peripheral to what was happening to Drake, for a while.

"Darling," Miss Phillips said. "Don't you like it any more?"

"Oh sure," Drake said. He shrugged and grinned at her. "Out of steam, I guess," he said.

"Mama knows how to fix that," Miss Phillips said.

But Drake was thinking very constructively about Mr. Cutts again, and now Drake was armed. So he hits me again, Drake thought. So he beats the hell out of me. It was a sucker punch anyway. Maybe I could take him.

"Darling," Miss Phillips said.

He'll pass me, all right, when he knows, Drake thought. He won't be able to stand the sight of me. Briefly, Drake considered the possibility of Mr. Cutts' exposing him, of expulsion. He won't do that, Drake thought. He won't blow it around that a Siberian's had his woman.

"Darling," Miss Phillips said. "What's on your mind?"

"Cutts," Drake said.

"You mustn't worry about him. I know him. I know him very well. He wouldn't believe we'd been doing this if you walked right up and told him."

Drake stared at her, shaken.

Miss Phillips' eyes crinkled at the corners. "Ah," she said, and laughed. "Jealous?"

Drake nodded, going along with it, his mind busy.

"We'll go to bed together," Miss Phillips said.

"What?" Drake said.

"In my bed. In my bedroom. All night, darling. Maybe you'll still be jealous, but you'll have everything anybody's ever had."

She led him across the darkened landing before midnight. "Don't worry," she said. "He won't come. He never comes late when I have a patient."

Drake wasn't worried. He wished Mr. Cutts would walk in now and find them together. That would get it over with. That would get it over with, with a bang. But not Cutts, Drake thought. And she's right, too, he thought with a kind of vicious anger, he wouldn't believe it if you told him. He'd just sit there and laugh.

"Darling, you're marvelous," Miss Phillips said. "Oh, it's good for you to be jealous. You keep right on being jealous. Darling, do you realize that your week is nearly over? We can't stop when you go back to classes. I couldn't stand that."

"Stop pawing me, will you?" Drake said suddenly.

"What? What did you say?" She sat up, bouncing on the soft mattress, and Drake was appalled by the rage in her face.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," she said, stroking his face. "You need a little rest, darling. Darling, will you come to me at night?"

Now everything was falling apart. "What about Cutts?" Drake said.

"Never mind about him, darling. I can look after him."

"I don't see how I can work it," Drake said.

"We can work it," she said. "And you can get out. I know."

She was right. It was easy enough to sneak out of the dormitories because Siberia's authorities knew there was little temptation to do so. There was nowhere to go. All of the buildings were within a high stone wall.

"Listen," Drake said, "I think we'd better just skip the whole thing when I go back to classes."

"No. Please no."

"I think so," Drake said.

"It's just the way you feel now," Miss Phillips said.

"No," Drake said. His stomach felt sick.

Miss Phillips looked at him out of her sleepy eyes and her full mouth curved gently. "Supposing I tell?" she said.

Drake laughed at her. "You've already said he wouldn't believe it."

"Not Mr. Cutts," she said. "I'm not stupid. No, dear boy, not Mr. Cutts. Your father."

The bloody end, thought Drake.

"Don't make me do it," Miss Phillips said. She put her head down on the pillow and began to cry. "Don't make me do it! God," she said, wrenching herself around, "I know what I am. Do you think I don't know what I am? But it's not much out of your life, after all. Darling," she said. "Please don't be selfish."

"Well," Drake said, "all right, I guess."

"This is no time for guessing."

She was right about that, Drake thought. It was certainly no time for guessing. He touched her in a way he had learned that she liked. "All right," he said. "I'll come over."

She wakened him early. "It's your last day," she said. "Go and use the infirmary shower while I tidy myself and get this place straightened up. Then I'll make your breakfast."

After his shower, Drake wandered back to the apartment. The bed, he noticed, had been made. Miss Phillips was in the kitchen.

"It's getting pretty late," she said. "And the doctor's coming to check you out."

"OK," Drake said.

"Try to make your bed look slept in," she called after him.

Drake wandered back down the short hall of her apartment, and then stepped quickly into the bedroom. He had a heavy silk handkerchief that bore his initials boldly. Drake pushed it under the pillow.

And that, he thought, shafts Cutts.

• • •

He should have known, Drake thought afterward, long afterward, that the thing was shot to hell as soon as he saw Mr. Cutts. The little English master came into the classroom like a man six feet tall. He was very dapper that morning, very. Nothing harassed about Mr. Cutts.

Damn, thought Drake. I'll have to think of a new one. The little bastard looks good. I guess he needed the layoff.

"Mr. Drake," Mr. Cutts said when he was dismissing the class. "I'll have a word with you."

"You know," he said when Drake stood at the desk, "that there's no chance whatever of my giving you a passing grade this year, don't you?"

"No, sir," Drake said, "I don't. I think there's a very good chance."

Mr. Cutts put his chin in his hand and looked up at Drake. He was grinning. "You thought there was a very good chance," he said.

"Drake," Mr. Cutts said, "you will perhaps be interested to learn that my engagement to Miss Phillips is terminated."

"What?" Drake said. "What?" It was shot to hell, all right.

"We had a long talk about it, of course," Mr. Cutts said. "That's one thing about engagement-breaking, as you'll someday learn. There has to be a lot of talking. Women expect it. Well, out of all this talking something emerged with great clarity; it will be quite impossible for me to pass you. You'll have to spend another year here with us in Siberia, Drake."

"I don't get this," Drake said.

Mr. Cutts was laughing openly now. He reached into his pocket and took out Drake's silk handkerchief and handed it to him. "My sincere thanks, Drake," he said. "Under ordinary circumstances, I'd be happy to pass you, out of gratitude."

Drake stared at him.

"But the lady, as you'll have time to observe more fully, can be very persuasive," Mr. Cutts said, and he beamed at Drake.

Suddenly, quietly, she said, "Are you faking?"