Hydrophobia

FOR some months past I have witnessed the meeting of an irresistible force and an immovable object. The irresistible force is my desire to have my twelve-year-old nephew, who is temporarily in my care, take a bath. The immovable object is Robert himself, who keeps as far away from a bathtub as is possible in a modern and urban society.

Belonging as I do to the sex which even in the time of Solomon washed to its elbows, I found it hard to believe that there was anything congenital about a boy’s desire to avoid water. Given a dirty boy, warm water, plenty of soap, and fluffy dry towels, why should n’t there be a bath, I asked. I was soon to learn the answers — many answers.

At first the reasons were prosaic. Robert did n’t think he had time for a bath before school. By the time we finished arguing on that first morning, Robert was right; but the next morning I filled the tub, and before Robert’s eyes and wits were fully opened I had him hustled from his bed to the bathroom door. The results were indifferently good, but by the third morning Robert had discovered that by dawdling long enough he could make himself late for school, and so the morning bath was tacitly abandoned.

If I were Robert’s mother, duty might impel me to carry the assault to and over his last rampart, but as I am only an aunt the wear and tear of a daily bath is greater than our relationship warrants. After the first week I capitulated to the extent of compromise. Some nights are bath nights, and some are not. On the latter, our apartment is as serene as a convent garden; but on bath nights the train dispatcher at the Grand Central Station is not so busy as my nephew. All the clubs to which he belongs hold long sessions; teachers have assigned extraordinary amounts of homework; visitors and telephones are imminent from dinner on past bedtime. As these excuses wear thin under what I strive to make a hard and cold blue eye, more imagination develops. The most elaborate, though least successful, flight of fancy was a sprained ankle carefully bandaged by Robert about an hour before bath time. In his opinion the bandage should not be removed; in mine, especially after I caught him limping with the wrong foot, a good soaking in hot water was just what Robert’s ankle needed, not to mention the rest of him.

I understand that there are two points of view about the inevitable that happens when the irresistible force and the immovable object meet: one school believing that the resulting débris will cover several townships; the other, that the collision results in absolutely nothing. As a result of experience to date, I incline to the second belief. My desire continues in force irresistibly; Robert continues unmoved; and as far as I can see into the future, nothing is going to happen unless the irresistible force gives way to nervous prostration before the return of Robert’s mother.

I can hear the laments of those who profess to know how to train bent twigs into straight and sturdy oaks: ‘My dear, it’s your method. Properly handled, boys take to water like ducks.’

Maybe they are right. Exhausted as I am from a five months’ sanitary campaign, I can summon strength for only two random shots: first, the greatest king of ancient Israel picked out the boys from the girls by the amount of water they did not apply to their persons; and, second, six out of every ten women wishing to usher themselves from a depressing world jump into a river, whereas most men prefer a dry exit with a pistol. Maybe some boys are different, but I doubt it. In fact, I am beginning to wonder if the magnificent impulse that started Man on his upward climb through the ages was no more than a normal masculine reaction to the repugnant water found in primordial ooze.