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They drove down to the school on a hot and humid day in mid-September. It turned out to be a longer journey from London than Sir Andrew had anticipated, because they were delayed first by an accident on the highway and then by a convoy of farm vehicles piled high with tottering bales of newly cut hay. They moved at a snail’s pace along the narrow, winding country roads in a drawn-out procession that Causier, Sir Andrew’s chauffeur, couldn’t get around. His angry honking had no effect on the drivers in front, who carried on at a precise ten miles per hour, until Sir Andrew instructed Causier to desist.

“If we’re late, we’re late,” he said. “It’s not our fault. Father Philip will understand.”

“I hope so,” said Elena nervously, clasping her hands together inside her stole. “We do want to make a good impression.”

She glanced unhappily over at Theo, who sat morosely silent with his head turned away from them, staring out of the window at the slowly passing hedgerows, just as he had throughout the journey.

But behind his fixed expression, Theo was feeling a welter of conflicting emotions. He was angry about being sent away to boarding school, but that was nothing new—he’d been furious ever since his stepfather had told him about it at breakfast three weeks earlier. Now, however, a growing anxiety about what he would have to face at the end of the journey had added to his inner turmoil, and he welcomed the delay caused by the farmers’ stolid defiance of the Rolls-Royce behind them, even if it meant having to endure more of the uncomfortable chafing of his tight new uniform suit against his sweating skin.

“Stop fiddling with your collar,” his mother told him, reaching out to pull on his arm. “You’ll ruin it if you carry on like that, and there won’t be time to change when we get there.”

“It’s too tight,” said Theo, pushing her hand away. “I can hardly breathe with it on.”

“I remember I hated Eton collars, too, when I was your age and first had to put them on. Chokers we used to call them at my school,” said Sir Andrew sympathetically. “But you’ll get used to it in a couple of days. Everyone does.”

“Like slaves do with their iron collars? They forget they’re there—is that what you mean?” asked Theo, seamlessly transferring his irritation over onto his stepfather. They were the first words he’d addressed to him all day.

“Of course not,” said Sir Andrew mildly, refusing to be provoked. “You’re a schoolboy, not a slave. All good schools have uniforms. It fosters a sense of identity. Makes everyone feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves.”

“Slaves aren’t given a choice, though, are they?” said Theo, sticking to his theme. “They have to do what their masters tell them. And that’s exactly what’s happening here, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Sir Andrew. “You’re going to school because it’s what boys your age do. It’s for your own good.”

“And yours too. I know you both want me out of the way. And where better than this godforsaken place, stuck out in the middle of nowhere?”

“Theo, please,” said his mother. “I can’t stand it. It’s the opposite of godforsaken. Andrew says it’s the best Catholic school in the country.” She had started to cry, the tears shaking her chest as she fumbled in her handbag for her handkerchief.

Immediately, Sir Andrew’s expression changed—patience replaced by anxious concern as he took hold of his wife’s hand and tried to calm her down.

Theo felt terrible. His mother’s nervous vulnerability frightened him. She had been delicate for as long as he could remember. Her migraines had been a cloud over his childhood. But the illness she had suffered in New York the previous winter when she had come so close to death had changed her. Her brown eyes seemed larger than before. Their luminous brightness was a startling contrast to the pallor of her complexion. The pale, translucent skin was stretched tight over the bones of her face and her body seemed fragile, as if it were made of a thin glass that could break under the slightest pressure.

He wanted to reach out to her and make it all right, but he couldn’t, not with his stepfather there. Besides, he knew that the two of them would take any apology to mean acquiescence in their decision to send him away to school, and he wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. So he resumed his moody silence instead, watching his mother out of the corner of his eye as she tried to compose herself, taking out the pretty gold compact her husband had given her and setting to work to repair her face so that she would look her best for the headmaster.

Then, just when it seemed that they weren’t going to arrive before nightfall, the farm trucks turned off the road and Causier was able to open the throttle and get them to the school a minute before their five o’clock appointment.

They parked beside a flagpole in the center of a big asphalt quadrangle, enclosed on three sides with lines of tall gray buildings. The thick stone of the walls and the narrow lancet windows gave the school an oppressive, watchful feel, intensified by the overcast sky and the heavy atmosphere of the late afternoon. There was not a breath of wind in the air, and the Union Jack drooped disconsolately from its pole.

There were other cars parked here and there, and groups of boys passed between them, coming and going through scuffed doors that were set at regular intervals around the facade. A few stopped to point at the Rolls-Royce, and Theo shrank away, instinctively wishing to avoid association with his stepfather and his wealth.

On the other side of the car, a thin man with a pronounced limp had approached Sir Andrew and was ushering him and Elena toward a different door from the others, painted green and with a polished brass lion’s head knocker at its center. He had the shortest hair that Theo had ever seen on a man, a semicircle of gray thatch above a white scalp, and large, protuberant ears. A toothbrush mustache, also gray, and an ill-fitting suit gave him an odd resemblance to Charlie Chaplin, except that there was no bend in his left leg as he walked, and Theo guessed that it was a prosthetic.

“Come on, Theo. Sergeant Raikes here is taking us to the headmaster,” Sir Andrew called back to him, and Theo reluctantly followed, feeling sick to his stomach and wishing he was anywhere but where he was.

They passed into a hallway that surprised Theo with its lavish furnishings. A thick wool carpet covered the floor, and an elaborately arranged vase of blooming flowers sat on an antique mahogany table beneath a full-length portrait of a severe-looking monk, dressed in a pleated black habit and cowl that covered every inch of his body except his hands and the front of his face.

“’E’s the founder, ’e is,” said Raikes, nodding grimly. “’Anged, drawn, and quartered on Tyburn ’Ill by the Protestants back in fifteen hundred and ninety-one. A ’orrible, ’orrible way to die, but that’s the way they did things in ’em days.” Raikes finished his speech with several nods of lugubrious satisfaction and rubbed his hands together, which Theo later came to know was a characteristic gesture.

“Please don’t frighten our guests, Sergeant,” said a cultured voice behind them. “I’m sure that executions are the last thing they want to hear about after their long drive!”

The headmaster was a tall man with beady, watchful eyes that seemed to operate independently of his easy smile and warm handshake. He had been in the job for just over three years, moving back to Saint Gregory’s from the order’s house in London to take up his position following his predecessor’s retirement, and perhaps it was his experience of the capital that gave him an unexpectedly worldly air. He wore his habit as if it was a suit, and a pair of expensive, well-polished Oxford brogues were visible below the hemline. His office, too, furnished with tufted leather armchairs and Persian rugs scattered across the floor, was anything but Spartan. Its main window faced out not onto the gray quadrangle but toward the wide front lawn of the school, with an attractive view of green hills in the distance, and shelves of carefully arranged leather-bound books lined one of the walls.

“I do apologize for Sergeant Raikes, Lady Campion-Bennett,” he said, pouring her a cup of tea from a pretty Wedgwood pot that sat ready and waiting on a side table. “He has a regrettable habit of getting carried away when talking to visitors. He lost his leg on the Marne, and sometimes I think that the experience may have unsettled his mind as well, but I think we have an obligation to do our best for those who risked their lives for us on the field of battle, don’t you?”

Sir Andrew and Elena nodded in agreement and the headmaster swept on. “I believe I read somewhere that you, too, fought in France, Sir Andrew, and were awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous valor. Is that right?”

“Yes,” said Sir Andrew shortly. “It was a long time ago.”

“Indeed, indeed. The war to end wars—let us hope that we never see its like again,” said Father Philip gravely, putting the tips of his fingers together for a moment, as if in prayer.

“Now tell me about young Master Campion-Bennett?” he asked, glancing over at Theo, who had his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. “I’m sure he’s going to be a most valuable addition to our student body.”

“I’m not ...” said Theo. He hadn’t meant to speak, and the two words came blurting out of his mouth unexpectedly, leaving everyone in the room, including Theo, looking shocked.

“I mean I’m not Campion-Bennett,” he went on after a moment. “I’m Theo Sterling. That’s my name.”

“Oh, I see,” said Father Philip, looking as if he didn’t see at all.

“Theo’s my stepson,” said Sir Andrew. “I’m sorry, Headmaster. I should’ve made that clear. His father was called Sterling.”

“Perhaps it would be best if you were to discuss this issue amongst yourselves and then you can let me know your wishes,” Father Philip suggested diplomatically. “And in the meantime, do you have any other questions?”

Elena had some—about such diverse issues as medical facilities and opportunities for confession, which Father Philip did his best to answer. But soon they were outside in the quadrangle again and Causier was getting Theo’s trunk out of the back of the car.

“You embarrassed us,” Elena broke out angrily, speaking in Spanish. “I asked you not to, but you did. I don’t know what Father Philip must think of us.”

“I don’t care what he thinks,” said Theo, digging his hands deep into his pockets. “I’m not his son”—he shot a vicious look over at his stepfather—“I’m Dad’s, and I’m keeping his name whether you like it or not. Just because you want to pretend that Dad never existed doesn’t mean I’ve got to too.”

“You need to grow up and start showing some gratitude—” Elena began furiously, but her husband cut her off.

“No,” he said, laying a hand on her arm. “The boy’s right, Elena. It’s his choice what he wants to be called. I’m going to go back in there right now and tell Father Philip, so there won’t be any confusion.”

Four and a half hours later, Theo lay in bed in Dormitory B of Cardinal Newman House, staring up through a high, narrow window at a scimitar moon. It was hanging in the black sky over the tower of the abbey church of which he could see only the topmost section due to his oblique angle of vision. He was lying very still, trying to empty his mind and forget what he had eaten for dinner—a piece of lukewarm greasy meat—called mutton, apparently—that had been almost impossible to cut as it slithered alarmingly across his plate, colliding with an equally inedible slab of half-mashed potato. Now the food felt as if it was sitting solid and horrible inside his gut, incapable of being digested. The pauper’s rations that he and his mother had been subsisting on in New York the previous winter had not been as foul as this mutton, and yet his mother had spent the day assuring him that this was the most expensive Catholic school in England. It made no sense, but then, very little did anymore.

He closed his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep, but now he was distracted by the discomfort of his bed. The ancient springs had almost given way so that his body sagged, as if it was contained in a badly designed hammock with only the top of his trunk, stowed away underneath the bed, stopping him from sinking all the way down to the linoleum floor. He wondered if the other beds in the dormitory were as bad as his and decided that they probably were, judging from the sounds of tossing and turning all around. There was snoring, too, and occasional farts, and a low moaning coming from the next-door bed to Theo’s, which abruptly ceased after an angry voice called out: “Put a sock in it, or I’ll come over there and do it for you.”

Theo sighed, trying to imagine what the noise would be like the following night after the rest of the boys had arrived. Currently, the dormitory was only about half occupied. It was a long room with two rows of identical iron beds divided one from the other by cheap pine chests of drawers labeled with their owners’ names. Campion-Bennett was on Theo’s, and he wondered if it would be changed the next day. He hoped it would so he wouldn’t have to protest again and draw attention to himself.

He thought of names and beneath them other names and other identities, peeling away like the insides of a Russian doll. He knew he was no Campion-Bennett, but was he a Sterling, when that name was just an invention of his father’s, put on like a new suit to help him get ahead in a new country? Or was he a Stern, the star name of his Jewish grandfather, who had once tried to claim him for a tradition of which he knew next to nothing, and had never contacted him since? They were all exiles like his mother, running from far-off lands where houses burned and death cries went unanswered. Flotsam and jetsam, belonging nowhere and to no one.

Finally, Theo fell into a troubled sleep in which he dreamed he was searching for his father through the empty rooms of a cavernous house. He knew his father was alive because he could hear him talking to himself, like he did at night near the end in the apartment near Union Square. Up ahead, at the end of a windowless corridor, there was a door that was shut. He hurried forward. His father was inside. He knew he was, if only he could get to him in time. He put out his hand to turn the handle, but Frank was there beside him, pulling him back. “You don’t want to see,” he said. “It’s for your own good.” But Theo shook him off. He couldn’t hear his father anymore and there was no time to lose and he pushed open the door. And he was falling hard, fast ... screaming ...

“Shut up, you sniveling little brat!” shouted the same voice that had let loose on Theo’s neighbor earlier. “One more peep out of you and you’ll pay for it in the morning. That’s a promise.”

Theo lay flat on his back, staring up at the moon. He felt wide awake, but as if in a dream, powerless to stop whatever was coming next.

He was woken by the ringing of an electric bell that made his body tremble with a responsive vibration, as if he was being wrung by the current too. He opened his eyes and found himself looking straight into those of his moaning neighbor, which were wide with anxiety and reddened from a night of silent crying. The boy looked far too young to be at a boarding school like Saint Gregory’s. He ought to have got an exemption, Theo thought: “Not fit for frontline duty at this time.”

“I’m sorry for screaming,” Theo said, raising his voice so as to be heard over the noise of the bell. “I was having a nightmare. I’m Theo, by the way.”

He stopped, expecting the other boy to introduce himself, but the boy just looked even more terrified than before and said nothing. Theo wondered if he could speak at all, but there was no time to test the hypothesis with further questions because Barker, the prefect on duty, was strutting up and down the central aisle of the dormitory like one of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, rapping on each of the iron bedsteads with a swagger stick, and ordering everyone in a military parade-ground voice to get up, get washed, get dressed, and be ready for roll call in fifteen minutes. Theo recognized his voice as the same one that had shouted in the night.

Barker was dressed as if for dinner, with his black shoes polished so brightly that they shone and his school uniform clean and pressed, with the jacket unbuttoned to show an embroidered white silk waistcoat underneath. But his beautiful clothes only served to draw attention by way of contrast to his ravaged complexion. Each morning, Theo would learn, he woke earlier than anyone in the school and attempted to disguise the pimples and pustules and pockmarks with layers of dermatological creams, but their only effect was to make him look absurd as well as ugly. His mouth was set in a permanent grimace of pained self-awareness as his eyes darted from one boy to the next, searching for evidence that they were laughing at his disfigured face.

Theo’s neighbor was already standing up, holding his toothbrush, by the time Barker got to his bed and stopped, staring at him like he was an insect he was debating whether or not to squash.

“Name?” he demanded.

“Cattermole,” said the boy, proving he wasn’t dumb after all. But his voice was little more than a squeak, and Barker glanced at the label on the chest by the bed to verify it.

“Cattermole! What kind of name is that?”

Cattermole didn’t answer. He just trembled while Barker stared, tapping the silver head of his swagger stick rhythmically onto the open palm of his hand.

“You weren’t so shy last night, were you, you little toad? Keeping us all awake with your carrying on.” Barker reached out with the stick and placed it on Cattermole’s stomach, adjusting it carefully until he had found the center of Cattermole’s small solar plexus.

“You and me are going to be friends this term. Just you wait and see,” he said and laughed, turning away, just as Theo was about to intervene. He was the one who’d screamed, and Cattermole shouldn’t be taking the blame for that.

But he’d hesitated a moment too long and now he felt guilty and, worse than that, complicit in Barker’s persecution, when he looked down and saw that Cattermole had peed in his pajama bottoms.

Somehow the boys got ready in time, standing beside their made-up beds, fumbling with their last buttons, and answering to their names as Barker read them out, making each one sound like an order by spitting out the syllables machine-gun style.

Over above the door, the thick black minute hand of the clock flicked onto half past seven and the electric bell began to ring again, summoning the boys to an unappetizing breakfast of watery porridge and burned toast.

The headmaster’s beginning-of-term address delivered in the main hall at the end of the morning gave Theo a first sense of what the school was about. By now all the boys had arrived back, driven down by parents or met off the train by a fleet of yellow buses laid on for the occasion, and the hall was full. Row upon row of identically dressed boys sat on identical chairs, while Sergeant Raikes and a coterie of prefects in colored waistcoats patrolled the aisles to ensure that everyone sat up straight and listened.

The walls on either side were wood-paneled and covered from wainscot to ceiling with the names, in gold lettering, of scholars and athletes who had gone before and brought glory to the school. Some had a thin cross added after to denote that they had died in the Great War, making the ultimate sacrifice for King and Country. The rows of columns made the school seem as if it had been there forever, hallowing its teachings with the force of an ancient tradition.

On an elevated dais facing the boys sat the masters—a motley collection of old and young, fat and thin, monks and laymen, with the latter wearing gowns and mortarboards. And behind them on the back wall, Jesus hung on an oak cross, sending the message to the boys that Saint Gregory’s was founded not just on tradition but on the word of God.

Father Philip came forward from the dais and stood behind a table on which a selection of highly polished silver cups and trophies were displayed on green baize. To Theo, he seemed a different man to the smooth-talking conversationalist of the day before. Gone was the urbane, ironic voice, replaced now by a commanding, almost military demeanor.

“Welcome back, boys!” he said. “Each year is a good year at Saint Gregory’s, but I have a premonition that this is going to be a bumper year, an annus mirabilis. We will study hard and play hard, and with God’s help we will receive our just rewards. Including the Challenge Cup ...” He paused, looking down at an empty space in the center of the row of trophies. “For five years we have been beaten by our rivals despite our most valiant efforts, but I believe that this season will be different. However, for that to happen we must all come together and be as one. Not just those on the field of play but the rest of us, supporting them and willing them on to victory. And that is what we must aspire to in all our endeavors, academic and athletic. We must put school first. In these changing times, there are men in other schools who put themselves first, and that is the way to corruption of both the body and the spirit. But that is not how we do things here. That is not the Saint Gregory’s way ...”

At the end of the speech, the boys cheered long and hard, waving their hats in the air. One or two were even thrown, and Sergeant Raikes took care to take down the names of the offenders.

Back in the dormitory at the end of the day, Theo found he had been moved to a new bed at the other end of the room. He tested the springs and was pleased to find that they were an improvement on what he had had to contend with before, and saw to his satisfaction that the label on the adjacent chest of drawers read Sterling . It was as if Campion-Bennett had never existed. Except that his new neighbor to the right, a boy called Alwyn Thomas with carroty hair and a singsong Welsh accent, knew all about the change.

“How do you do it?” he asked, pointing at the label. And then without waiting for an answer, he started firing more questions: “Are you going to do it again tomorrow? Maybe call yourself Harry Houdini? Or Ramsay MacDonald?”

“I haven’t decided,” said Theo, looking undecided, and they both laughed. “How did you know I switched?”

“I know everything,” said Alwyn mysteriously and then laughed again. “I’m curious, that’s all. I like to know who everyone is, match names to faces, so that’s what I was doing last night before lights-out. And I wasn’t likely to forget a mouthful like Campion-Bennett in a hurry—it sounds more aristocratic than Queen Victoria. But now you’re just plain old Sterling—about as interesting as me, except for you being American, of course. Don’t get too many of them over here; more going the other way—seeking their fortunes in the Wild West. Might try it myself one day if I ever get out of this place. So go on—how did you do it?”