Dorothy fell in love with him. My parents were actors, she wanted to tell him. They were like you.
She whispered the name to herself, all the way home. Frank, she thought, Frank, Frank, as her uncle put his hands on her and then moved them away again in fear. In summer evenings, there was too much light; they could be seen from too far away. Sometimes Uncle Henry didn't do anything, except smile and pat her knee. Tonight was one of those nights. All the trees seemed to whisper in gratitude. Could she plant a tree and call it Frank?
Frank, she whispered as she fried sausages. She thought of his smooth hands, his one clean suit, his funny hat, his groomed moustache, his light and pleasing tenor voice. She thought of his kind and handsome face. His name seemed to sum up everything that was missing from her life.
Frank, she thought, as she lay down that night. She thought of him, and she thought of her own unworthiness, and tears stung the lower edge of her eyes. It was as if she were in a boat cast adrift, never to come ashore to some green and happy land, where people laughed and everything was beautiful. She herself had cast the boat adrift, and there was no going back. Now she would never get home. Now she would never be where Frank was. He was too good for her. She began to hate him just a little. And said his name again.
The next day, the Substitute brought in a thick red book.
"How many of you," he asked them, "can speak Ottoman Turk?"
The class looked back at him in silence.
"Well, this is a book called the Redhouse Osmanli-English Dictionary, and it tells me what words are in Turkish. How many of you know anything about Turkey?"
Stupid question.
"Uh-you eat them at Thanksgiving," said Larry Johnson. The class laughed, somewhat shyly, because they knew they were ignorant. The Substitute smiled, too, lightly, happily.
"Turkey is a wonderful country," said the Substitute, his blue eyes going pale with wonder. "The Turks worship in huge domed buildings called jamis, bigger than any cathedral. Vast domes, with pigeons flying around inside and carpets on the floor and fountains where the faithful wash before worshiping. They have wonderful tiles on the walls, all blue and green. And the sultans have many wives and many concubines, so many that they all live together in beautiful prisons which no man may enter-or he'll be killed. In the palaces there are special fountains where executioners wash their swords."
This was very racy stuff indeed. The class was fascinated.
"Ask me a word in Osmanli," he whispered.
There was a shuffling and a shrugging of shoulders and birdlike exchange of nervous giggles.
"What's the word for sunflower?" asked Angela, who was brave.
"Moonflower," said the Substitute promptly, smiling with anticipation. He didn't have to look it up.
The class laughed, partly in relief that this was going to be fun, and partly from the pleasant strangeness of another language. It was like a mirror that reflected things backward.
"They pronounce it 'aychijayee,' " he said and turned and wrote it on the blackboard. "It's the Arabic alphabet," he explained.
They asked him the word for hen and the word for school. Dorothy Gael put up her hand.
"What's the word," she asked, shyly, "for home?"
The Substitute blinked and then his face went soft. Just answer the question, thought Dorothy.
"Ev," said the Substitute. "Ev means 'home.' "
"What's your name in Turkish?" asked Larry Johnson, grinning.
The Substitute smiled, spun smartly on his heel and wrote, without hesitation. Then he pronounced the word.
The class laughed in unison. "Ooze?" they asked.
He made a kind of embarrassed swallowing gesture. He pronounced it again. This time it sounded more like "Uz." "It means 'frank' in Turkish. And Frank's my name. It means a lot of other things as well. It means 'real and genuine.' It means 'pure and unadulterated.' It means 'kernel and cream,' and it means 'self.' It's the root word for 'yearning' and for 'homesickness' and for all the things that people want. It also happens to be the original name of the Turks. They were a tribe called the Uz, or the Uzbecks. Or the Oz, and they came out of the wilderness."
Dorothy was suddenly hauled out of herself by a gust of childish interest. "You mean like the Indians?" she blurted out, her voice loud and lacking in grace.
The class laughed until the Substitute, the full power of his smile trained on Dorothy, said, "Very like the Indians. They were desert nomads who lived in tents. They came out of the East and the North, they came out of the desert, and they conquered the Greeks and they conquered the Arabs. Turkey is a country where the Indians were the settlers. The Indians won."
He held up the book called Redhouse, like Red Indians, and he said, "And this is the Oz-English Dictionary."
The Substitute got bored just as quickly as the children did. The fire for Oz went out of his eyes, and he began to talk about other things. He told them the story of his play. He told them how it had run out of money, and how he was now "resting." They chuckled at his joke. "Mind you, actors are always resting. That is the attraction of the profession."
The class tested him. They mocked his New York accent. "I say, I am an actor from Noo Yawk."
He laughed. They waited. It wasn't a false laugh-that would have showed he was pretending to think it was funny so he wouldn't have to do anything about it. He didn't imitate them back, so he wasn't sarcastic or mean. And he didn't tell them it was wrong to make fun of people just because they were different, so he wasn't a pompous fool. Instead, he genuinely seemed to think it was funny.
He laughed and looked a bit mystified.
"Why," he asked, "is it that people laugh?" He asked it in wonder.
Was it a trick question? It seemed to be a pretty dumb one.
"Cause something's funny?" ventured one of the girls.
"Yes, but what do we mean by funny? I mean, what is funny?"
It was the sort of question a little kid about five would ask. Unanswerable. It was a real question, one the Substitute himself had no answer for.
Suddenly the Substitute was looking at Dorothy. He remembered her question about Indians, about home. It was as if he had recognized a kindred spirit. The look he gave her was questioning. He wanted a mystery solved, and he wanted to know more about her. The look, confiding and sincere, alarmed Dorothy. It was not unlike the look that Uncle Henry gave her.