Voices of a Summer Day: A Novel by Irwin Shaw

Author:Irwin Shaw
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Cultural Heritage, Family Life, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 9781480412446
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

1964

A BATTER HIT A triple and there was a lot of shouting in front of Leah and Federov as the batter slid into third base in a cloud of dust.

“I guess I’ll see you tonight,” Federov said, leaning back against the plank above them and watching with admiration the long, exquisite feet, in their open blue sandals, of the woman beside him. “I’m sure Peggy will want to go.”

“Well,” Leah said, “you’ve been warned. It could be worse than two weeks ago.”

“It couldn’t be,” Federov said.

At the dinner party two Saturdays before, the subject of the German play The Deputy had come up. It was causing a sensation in New York, as it had wherever it had been shown, because of its attack on Pope Pius XII for not having publicly denounced the German massacre of the Jews. One of the guests was a woman of about forty, a neighbor of the Staffords. She was wearing a disastrous green dress, a thin, plain woman with hyperthyroid eyes, whose husband somehow managed not to be there on most weekends. She was rarely invited out by any of the regular group of the resort. After one evening in her company Federov had understood why. He also understood why her husband found it necessary to stay in town most weekends. Her name was Carol-Ann Humes, née Fredericks, from Charleston, South Carolina, and while she usually was quiet and tried to please, she moved in an atmosphere of boredom as solid and palpable as cement.

But Stafford, who could not bear to see anyone he knew neglected or hurt and who made a point of taking care of social cripples—ladies who were being divorced, rude men with unpopular political convictions, nouveau riche couples with gaudy clothes and objectionable children—always had Mrs. Humes to all gatherings in his house. He was not a born host. It would never have occurred to him, as it did to Leah, to speculate whether any given party in his home was a success or not. In fact, the flow of people through his living room and past his table was not really considered by him in terms of what others called parties. People were his medium, his instructors, his pupils, his concern. If he knew them, they were his responsibility. He was rich in spirit as well as in worldly goods, and his hospitality was general.

In the middle of the discussion, already heated, about the German play, Mrs. Humes said that it was a shame that such a play could be put on the stage in New York. She wasn’t even a Catholic, but she felt that the Pope had been a fine man and that it was disgraceful that he could be attacked in public so many years later, when he was dead and could no longer defend himself.

Peggy, who had been in the thick of the argument, turned on Mrs. Humes. “Have you seen the play?” she demanded.

“No,” Mrs. Humes said. “I wouldn’t degrade myself. But I’ve read the critics and the articles in the newspapers.

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