Miss Lenaut stood up as they approached the desk.

“This is my father, Miss Lenaut,” Rudolph said.

“How do you do, sir?” she said, without warmth.

Jordache said nothing. He stood there, in front of the desk, chewing at his moustache, his cap in his hands, proletarian and subdued.

“Has your son told you why I asked you to come this afternoon, Mr. Jordache?”

“No,” Jordache said, “I don’t remember that he did.” That peculiar, uncharacteristic mildness was in his voice, too. Rudolph wondered if his father was afraid of the woman.

“It embarrasses me even to talk about it.” Miss Lenaut immediately became shrill again. “In all my years of teaching … The indignity … From a student who has always seemed ambitious and diligent. He did not say what he had done?”

“No,” Jordache said. He stood there patiently, as though he had all day and all night to sort out the matter, whatever it turned out to be.

“Eh, bien,” Miss Lenaut said, “the burden devolves upon my shoulders.” She bent down and opened the desk drawer and took out the drawing. She did not look at it, but held it down and away from her as she spoke. “In the middle of my classroom, when he was supposed to be writing a composition, do you know what he was doing?”

“No,” said Jordache.

“This!” She poked the drawing dramatically in front of Jordache’s nose. He took the paper from her and held it up to the light from the windows to get a better look at it. Rudolph peered anxiously at his father’s face, searching for signs. He half expected his father to turn and hit him on the spot and wondered if he would have the courage to just stand there and take it without flinching or crying out. Jordache’s face told him nothing. He seemed quite interested, but a little puzzled.

Finally, he spoke. “I’m afraid I can’t read French,” he said.

“That is not the point,” Miss Lenaut said excitedly.

“There’s something written here in French.” Jordache pointed with his big index finger to the phrase, “Je suis folle d’amour,” that Rudolph had printed on the drawing of the blackboard in front of which the naked figure was standing.

“I am crazy with love, I am crazy with love.” Miss Lenaut was now striding up and down in short trips behind her desk.

“What’s that?” Jordache wrinkled his forehead, as though he was trying his best to understand but was out in waters too deep for him.

“That’s what’s written there.” Miss Lenaut pointed a mad finger at the sheet of paper. “It’s a translation of what your talented son has written there. ‘I am crazy with love, I am crazy with love.’” She was shrieking now.

“Oh, I see,” Jordache said, as though a great light had dawned on him. “Is that dirty in French?”

Miss Lenaut gained control of herself with a visible effort, although she was biting her lipstick again. “Mr. Jordache,” she said, “have you ever been to school?”

“In another country,” Jordache said.

“In whatever country you went to school, Mr. Jordache, would it be considered proper for a young boy to draw a picture of his teacher nude, in the classroom?”

“Oh!” Jordache sounded surprised. “Is this you?”

“Yes, it is,” Miss Lenaut said. She glared bitterly at Rudolph.

Jordache studied the drawing more closely. “By God,” he said, “I see the resemblance. Do teachers pose nude in high school these days?”

“I will not have you mock of me, Mr. Jordache,” Miss Lenaut said with cold dignity. “I see there is no further point to this conversation. If you will be so good as to return the drawing to me …” She stretched out her hand. “I will say good day to you and take the matter up elsewhere, where the gravity of the situation will be appreciated. The office of the principal. I had wanted to spare your son the embarrassment of putting his obscenity on the principal’s desk, but I see no other course is open to me. Now, if I may have the drawing please, I won’t detain you further …”

Jordache took a step back, holding onto the drawing. “You say my son did this drawing?”

“I most certainly do,” Miss Lenaut said. “His signature is on it.”

Jordache glanced at the drawing to confirm this. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s Rudy’s signature. It’s his drawing, all right. You don’t need a lawyer to prove that.”

“You may expect a communication from the principal,” Miss Lenaut said. “Now, please return the drawing. I’m busy and I’ve wasted enough time on this disgusting affair.”

“I think I’ll keep it. You yourself said it’s Rudy’s,” Jordache said placidly. “And it shows a lot of talent. A very good likeness.” He shook his head in admiration. “I never guessed Rudy had it in him. I think I’ll have it framed and hang it up back home. You’d have to pay a lot of money to get a nude picture as good as this one on the open market.”

Miss Lenaut was biting her lips so hard she couldn’t get a word out for the moment. Rudolph stared at his father, dumbfounded. He hadn’t had any clear idea of how his father was going to react, but this falsely innocent, sly, country-bumpkin performance was beyond any concept that Rudolph might ever have had of how his father would behave.

Miss Lenaut gave tongue. She spoke in a harsh whisper, leaning malevolently over her desk and spitting out the words at Jordache. “Get out of here, you low, dirty, common foreigner, and take your filthy son with you.”

“I wouldn’t talk like that, Miss,” Jordache said, his voice still calm. “This is a taxpayer’s school and I’m a taxpayer and I’ll get out when I’m good and ready. And if you didn’t strut around with your tail wiggling in a tight skirt and half your titties showing like a two dollar whore on a street corner, maybe young boys wouldn’t be tempted to draw pictures of you stark-assed naked. And if you ask me, if a man took you out of all your brassieres and girdles, it’d turn out that Rudy was downright complimentary in his art work.”

Miss Lenaut’s face was congested and her mouth writhed in hatred. “I know about you,” she said. “Sale Boche.”

Jordache reached across the desk and slapped her. The slap resounded like a small firecracker. The voices from the playing field had died down and the room was sickeningly silent. Miss Lenaut remained bent over, leaning on her hands on the desk, for another moment. Then she burst into tears and crumpled onto her chair, holding her hands to her face.

“I don’t go for talk like that, you French cunt,” Jordache said. “I didn’t come all the way here from Europe to listen to talk like that. And if I was French these days, what with running like rabbits the first shot the dirty Boche fired at them, I’d think twice about insulting anybody. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll tell you I killed a Frenchman in 1916 with a bare bayonet and it won’t surprise you that I stuck it in his back while he was trying to run home to his Mama.”

As his father talked, calmly, as though he were discussing the weather or an order for flour, Rudolph began to shiver. The malice in the words was made intolerable by the conversational, almost friendly, tone in which they were delivered.

Jordache was going on, inexorably. “And if you think you’re going to take it out on my boy here, you better think twice about that, too, because I don’t live far from here and I don’t mind walking. He’s been an A student in French for two years and I’ll be here to ask some questions if he comes back at the end of the term with anything less. Come on, Rudy.”

They went out of the room, leaving Miss Lenaut sobbing at her desk.

They walked away from the school without speaking. When they came to a trash basket on a corner, Jordache stopped. He tore the drawing into small pieces, almost absently, and let the pieces float down into the basket. He looked over at Rudolph. “You are a silly bastard, aren’t you?” he said.

Rudolph nodded.

They resumed walking in the direction of home.