Ten Arthur’s Round Table

In this fourth installment of passages that I cut from my memoir, LANDSCAPE IN LAVENDER, my unofficial college advisor, the highly esteemed Dr. Paul J. Korshin of Penn’s English Department, unexpectedly invites me to dinner. To this day, I am ever so grateful to Paul for taking me under his wing and mentoring me, but as a naive undergraduate, I was unsure what to make of his attentions. Fifty years later, I’m still not entirely sure.

With a cartoonish “beep, beep,” Paul Korshin’s orange VW Beetle screeched to a halt in front of the Wynnewood, PA commuter rail station. After surprising me by inviting me to dinner, he had come to “collect me” at the station. Not sure what I had done to deserve this honor, it made me nervous. Yes, I was a good student, but so were quite a few of my classmates. Over the years, I have repeatedly asked myself what it was that Paul saw in me, without ever clinching it. Maybe he recognized that I was genuinely interested in what he was teaching, as opposed to taking his class merely because I needed the credit. Regardless of the reason, I had enthusiastically accepted Paul’s invitation.

When I hopped in the car, Paul took off at a rapid clip, regaling me with amusing stories about his fellow English professors over the loud buzz of the engine. After darting to the left and then to the right, we pulled up at a little cul-de-sac. We had arrived at Ten Arthur’s Round Table, one of a matching set of Tudor houses with half-timbered gables and steep slate-tiled roofs. What a perfect address for an English professor, I reflected—the very name was steeped in Arthurian legend. 

Paul led me to the lilac-colored front door, which was decorated with a wrought-iron peep window and massive ornamental hinges. Just as I was observing how the door managed to look at once inviting and imposing, it swung open, revealing the hospitable figure of Paul’s wife, Kate, whom I had not yet met. With her chestnut-colored hair swept into a ponytail, she wore wire-framed glasses and a large white apron over a simple house dress. “So you’re Brooks,” she said with a warm smile, “Come on in.” 

In the comfortable living room, sofas and armchairs huddled around a coffee table on a Persian carpet, under a high-coved plaster ceiling. The effect was elegant yet casual, which meant that it was charming as all get-out. Sitting on the sofa were a well-dressed academic couple that Paul introduced as Tim and Ursula McCarthy. Ursula’s large green eyes sparkled as she greeted me in her German accent. They must have been in their forties, although I really had no idea how old any of my professors were. As far as I was concerned, they were simply grown-ups, while I remained in some awkward nether zone between youth and adulthood.

Gazing around, I noticed that all the rooms were painted in warm pastel shades of tangerine, salmon, and watermelon. Beyond the living room, a wide archway led into the dining room, which was furnished with a long oak table and eight or ten dining chairs. At the far end of the room, a nondescript swinging door led into the kitchen. Kate led me on a private tour of the kitchen, which was large enough to form a separate wing of the house. As she pointed proudly at her battalion of polished copper pots and pans hanging from the ceiling on hooks, she explained that she was taking cooking classes at the Cordon Bleu Academy, in a nearby Main Line town.

While Kate served glasses of wine, the doorbell rang, and within a few minutes three other guests arrived—Father Reedy, a professor of theology at Fordham University Divinity School; an enormously fat man called Mr. Kirshner; and Dave Conant. Paul had prepared me in advance, explaining that Dave was an announcer on one of Philadelphia’s two classical music radio stations. This was the station that annoyingly repeated two advertisements with mind-numbing frequency throughout the day. One was a pitch for “The More than One Hundred Extraordinary Shops of Chestnut Hill;” the other, an ad for “The First Lady of Orientals.” Not only was “The First Lady” a store that sold Persian carpets, but it was in fact one of those more than one hundred extraordinary shops in the tony north Philadelphia suburb. Listening to the classical station, you quickly got the impression that the entire audience spent its time strolling up and down Germantown Avenue, all in search of the perfect tea set.

After serving canapes, Kate excused herself to finish the dinner preparations. As the kitchen door swung behind her, the cocktail phase of the evening slipped into high gear. Paul was chatting intently with Father Reedy in one corner of the living room, and soon I found myself face to face with Dave Conant, with absolutely nothing to say. Tongue-tied, I finally blurted out, “So…I hear you’re a DJ.”  At this, Mr. Conant leaned backwards slightly, then drew his chin up as high as he could manage.

 “I am not a DJ, I am an announcer,” he growled, clearly taking umbrage. 

“Um, well I know that you’re in charge of programming at W—,” I responded, trying desperately to remember the station’s call letters. Later on, I managed to steal a private moment with Paul, who was highly amused. 

“Nothing wrong with what you said, Brooks, he’s had that coming for quite a while.”

Surprised that Paul was actually proud of me for cutting Dave down to size, I began to wish that I had done so deliberately. In those moments of confidence, Paul’s approval felt like warm sunshine, just as it did when we were working in the office and I managed to say something witty enough to make him laugh.

Then again, Paul’s pleasure at my inadvertent put-down of the radio announcer only reinforced the intimidation technique I had witnessed him use on the phone. Once more, I found myself conflicted between basking in his approval and cringing at his elitist arrogance. There was something so well-bred about it, something that no doubt helped him achieve his goals, but where did that leave me? I didn’t want to go through life being a bitch to everybody. Still, I felt sure that he had my best interests at heart. He was not going to steer me wrong.

Suddenly, we heard the loud trill of a kitchen timer. After a short pause, it buzzed again, and Kate emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Dinner is served,” she announced, and we filed into the dining room with heady anticipation. After indicating which place each of us should take, Paul seated himself at the opposite end of the table from the kitchen. Then Kate came in again, carrying a steaming platter. 

I don’t remember the name of a single dish that was served at that theatrical dinner, but each one was exotic and delectable. As steam rose from the fragrant, colorful offerings on our plates, each one an ingenious mélange of ingredients, Kate left the room again, the kitchen door squeaking behind her. 

Paul was well into a clever and witty disquisition when we heard the kitchen timer yet again. Immediately afterwards, the door swung open and in came Kate once more, carrying a plate which contrasted vividly with all the others. It bore a humble mound of unseasoned cabbage, with a few short and lean slices of corned beef piled on top. Poor Kate. She was maybe a few pounds overweight—only a few, mind you—and this was to be her penance, that while the rest of us dined on the ambrosia of the Gods, she was forced to content herself with a few bites of slimy cabbage. Her cruel and unusual punishment was compounded once more when, after two or three distinctive courses, each perfectly paired with wines personally curated by Paul, dessert was served. While we all feasted on a divine Kahlua chocolate mousse garnished with orange zest, Kate served herself a small bowl of plain yogurt. I found myself wondering if Paul ordered her to diet to preserve their marriage.  

While we savored our chocolate mousse, Paul continued to hold forth, as he liked to call it, on current events and scholarly topics with equal panache. After we licked our spoons, he glanced at his watch and announced that it was time to run me up to the station. It was precisely 10:30 PM, and with a little luck I’d make the 10:40 train. I hopped up from the table, thanked Kate, and jumped into Paul’s Beetle for the return run. Zipping to the station, he energetically shook my hand and bade me good night. For a fleeting moment I wondered if he was sexually attracted to me. An energy flowed between us that sometimes verged on an electric current, but he never touched me, and the whole situation was wrapped in ambiguity. 

The train took a long time making its way back to the city, allowing me to reflect that, despite having been in the midst of a fabulous set of A-listers only moments before, now I felt lonely and bereft. Unsure why Paul had singled me out for the privilege of dining at his home, and even less sure of what he expected from me, I was a bit shaken. Although grateful for all his attention, I felt unworthy, as if I were an imposter. Now, like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, I was reduced once more to the bohemian milieu of student life. This served to remind me that I didn’t belong among the rarefied professors, but where exactly did I belong?  I had no idea. I badly needed guidance from an older male mentor—either my father or Paul or both. But I needed a mentor who ‘got’ me as a whole person, not someone who wanted to mold me into an architect or a worldly intellectual.

Many similar dinner parties ensued, each one ending when Paul checked his watch and ran me up to the station, where I’d rush to catch the train just as it was pulling into the station. The next year, he generously hosted my twenty-first birthday party, inviting two of my classmates to accompany me. At the party, Paul presented me with two gifts: a copy of Alastair Cooke’s “America,” which was currently a PBS television sensation, and what he called a lifetime supply of tabasco sauce. A lifetime supply turned out to be a box of ten small bottles. 

Just as he was getting ready to spirit me off to the station, he said, “Brooks, I have something to show you.” At that, he and Kate led me to one of the dining room windows. Lifting the blind, Paul pointed to a tiny cactus on the windowsill. A porcupine pin cushion, the diminutive blue-green object stood erect in its pot, rising above two small needle-covered spheres, one on each side.

 “You see that cactus?” Paul asked.   

“We decided to name it Brooks,” said Kate. Blushing, I didn’t know what to say. So was it true that he was attracted to me? And was Kate too? Did they honestly want a threesome with a lowly college student who was still, to his shame, a virgin? The situation was so ambiguous that it only added to my confusion.