Bridge of Sighs

had returned to Lucy’s cheeks, and he said he felt fine, that it must have been something he’d eaten in the cafeteria, but Noonan could tell he was still troubled. “You think he’s really crazy?” Lucy said.
    “It’s possible.”
    “What happened after I left?”
    “He gave me my final exam topic,” Noonan told him. “Kozlowski, too.”
    A few minutes before the bell, Noonan had asked the question that had been on everybody’s mind. “Why us?”
    Perry had apparently been lying in wait for him, because he immediately chimed in “Which answer would you prefer?” clearly hoping that others would join his laughter and scowling when they didn’t.
    “Why
not
you?”
    “What I mean is,” Noonan continued carefully, “this is honors. It’s supposed to be for the best students.”
    “Okay, Mr. Marconi. That will be your personal final exam. An essay on the subject of
why you.
Why the fifteen of you and not the smart Jews you were expecting.” Then, when Nan flinched: “You don’t mind if I use the word ‘Jews,’ do you?”
    “What I want to know is why
he’s
here,” Perry said, indicating Three Mock, again sitting right up front, though today he’d not said a word. “He doesn’t even go to our school.”
    Mr. Berg grinned at him. “And that’s
your
final.”
             
     
    T HAT NIGHT, Noonan lay in bed trying to figure out Mr. Berg and wondering why he needed to. The rest of his teachers were simply who they were and transparent in their expectations, which didn’t amount to much at all. His history teacher, for instance, had begun class by announcing his intention to keep them busy, then handed out a five-page syllabus amplifying that modest academic goal.
    Mr. Berg was more like a dentist with a wire pick, intent on probing each student until he located the nerve he was looking for; to what purpose Noonan couldn’t fathom. He obviously wanted them to think, but apparently didn’t believe that was possible without first undermining not only their fundamental assumptions but also the very underpinnings of their personalities, and the man’s yellow grin made Noonan doubt he was motivated by sheer goodwill. And while it might be true that he’d settled on him as a favorite, as Lucy believed, Noonan was convinced he had a reason that didn’t involve actually liking him. Even when he said, “No fool, our Mr. Marconi,” his intonation suggested irony and doubt.
    Still, why should any of that matter? So far, the class had been thrilling. He’d unfolded the final petals of “Hope” with delicacy and precision, laying bare both its meaning and the students sitting there. They’d had trouble understanding the poem, he explained, because it had been written by a Negro, Langston Hughes, who lived in Harlem, in black America, which could boast little or no commonality with white America, as represented by Thomaston, New York. Every Negro in Harlem knew what a dream book was, so it was no mistake that Three Mock was the only student—that was the word Mr. Berg had used to describe him, even though he wasn’t enrolled in the class—who had any idea what the poem was about. He wasn’t smarter, just the only one who had access to a key buried deep in poverty and superstition, racial injustice and despair. Readers in white America were unlikely to discover this key, especially if they had no interest in looking for it, if their parents discouraged the search, if their America was purposely structured to ensure its own prosperity and the continued subjugation of the other America. As Mr. Berg spoke, Noonan was surprised to realize that he himself harbored such subversive thoughts though he lacked the ability to articulate them. This was the class he’d look forward to, the only one that would matter in the end. Given all this, why distrust the man? Even if Mrs. Lynch was right and he was trying to get himself fired, that was no skin off his students’ noses. Why not sit back and enjoy the spectacle?
    He was about to fall asleep when he heard his father come in, the door off the kitchen banging shut, then the sound of surly muttering in the dark. Since returning to Thomaston, Noonan had slept in the room they’d always referred to as the den, which had no door. The big desk where his father paid the bills—it was locked now—had been moved out to make room for him. The sofa was a pullout; there was a small closet for his clothes. His brothers all doubled up in the