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By Root 443 0

to me that without Silver we were all doomed somehow. Rick sat with his arms folded across his chest looking at the closed door. There was something wistful in his expression and I watched his eyes until he glanced at me. He nodded, almost indiscernibly. Hala looked away from the room out to the poplars. Lily smiled sadly at me. Abdul rocked back and forth, from time to time quickly running his thin fingers through his curly hair. What would he become, this nervous kid so paralyzed? In black ink, Cara drew an intricate design across a white page. Aldo slept on his desk, his hair across his face. Jane straightened the books on her desk and then she opened her notebook. On a blank page she wrote, “December 13, 2002.” I watched her hand, the black nail polish replaced by a clear varnish, move slowly over the page: December 13, 2002, retracing the date again and again, December 13, 2002, December 13, 2002, December 13, 2002. The tip of her pen followed the deepening line, the pressure forming a groove in the soft paper.

“He’s probably not coming,” Hala said.

I glanced up at her surprised.

Rick looked at Hala and nodded knowingly.

Cara shook her head. “Unbelievable,” she said.

“What?” I said.

No one answered.

Colin was staring at me with a strange expression on his face. When our eyes met it seemed as if he were apologizing for something.

We were so quiet waiting there. So still. And I thought: This is exactly where we are. Friday morning. December 13. 2002. This is exactly where we are, waiting for the next thing. December 13, 2002. I concentrated on the fake wood grain of my desk.

In the stillness of the morning, I felt such affection for all of us in that single moment of our lives. Everything was tenuous. Everything was fragile. The flat gray light outside, the black leafless poplars, the frost on the field, the muffled voices filtering through the thin walls. This is where we are. December 13, 2002.

* * *

When the door opened and we saw that it was him, what we felt, I promise you, what we all felt, was relief. He carried with him a stack of novels.

“Bad morning,” he said. “Sorry I’m late. As I Lay Dying. William Faulkner,” he said, handing out the books.

“We haven’t even talked about l’Etranger,” Hala grumbled.

“No, Hala, you’re right we haven’t. And we will, but I’d like you to have this and begin reading it. You’ll be able to move through it slowly. It’ll be an opportunity, a chance to savor a novel rather than read it under duress.”

He smiled. But Aldo, who’d been sitting glumly with his chin on his desk, laughed smugly. “Savor it?”

“Indeed Aldo, savor. Like a piece of pie.”

“Whatever.”

Silver turned, looking at him for the first time.

“Aldo,” he said sternly as if beginning a speech. And again in mock sadness, shaking his head, “Aldo.”

He turned to us and began.

“Every text is understood by each of us differently. We cannot separate our experience from the way that we read. Our experience informs our reading in the same way that it informs our lives, what we see on the street, how we interact with people, and so on. Which is why you might argue that there’s no single truth, no absolutely common experience. Both l’Etranger and As I Lay Dying deal, in their own ways, with this same idea. As you read, you’ll see that Faulkner and Camus have more in common than you might first imagine.” He looked around the room. And then he said what he always did, “What am I talking about?”

He folded his arms across his chest and waited. I watched him up there, that familiar expression, the cocky demeanor, the posture of expectation, of control. He’d been charming, had spoken with those irregular pauses, a slight grin when he’d suggested the possibility of savoring the novel. And again the restrained smile, amused with himself.

I raised my hand.

He faced me and gave a slight bow. “Gilad,” he said, “Tell us.”

“I think the point is, well, I think that’s right. Everything we’ve experienced determines how we experience other experiences. Something like that. Each person sees the world slightly differently. So,