Up From Jericho Tel

by E. L. Konigsburg

  We quickly made our way there and walked in. We were immediately met by a woman in a long black skirt who told us that unaccompanied minors were not allowed in. Rules had not been something that we had had to worry about when we had been invisible. I told the woman that Malcolm and I were accompanied and that we had just temporarily become separated from our accompanists. “Please tell the trio with the dummy that Tallulah’s friends have arrived.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but you can hardly expect me to know which of my customers is a dummy.”

  “Would you please page Mr. Simonescu?”

  She became downright snippy. “This is not an airport; it is a high-class establishment. We have no paging system. You two just better run along now.”

  “Do you think I could make up a name like Simonescu?” I asked. “Nicolai Ion Simonescu. Please call him.”

  “Does he have a reservation?” she asked. I told her that he did not. Then she said that she had no way of knowing where he was, no way to call him, and that we better run along.

  She didn’t say in which direction we were to run along, so Malcolm and I bolted into the restaurant just in time to see Nick, P.H. and Emmagene sitting down in a booth in a far corner. Hey, Nick,” I called, and all three of them looked around. Nicolai started to get up from his seat, but the hostess signaled a waiter to come help her. The waiter pinned Malcolm’s arms behind his back, and the hostess squeezed me into a bear hug, but she had not covered my mouth, and I managed to yell, “Tallulah sent us. Tallulah, Nick. Tallulah.” Nick lifted himself from his seat but still hesitated. “You!” I yelled. “Yes, you, Nicolai Ion Simonescu. We want to see you.” Nicolai looked puzzled, but he stood up and came over and told the hostess and the waiter to let us go.

  “We’re here about Tallulah,” I said.

  “Where is she?”

  “All around,” I said as the hostess let me go, and the waiter let Malcolm loose. I immediately linked one arm through Nick’s and the other through Malcolm’s and headed toward the corner booth.

  Malcolm and I sat down. My breath was coming in razor slices that were whipping my throat. I asked for a glass of water, and Emmagene pushed hers toward me. I drank the whole glassful, and Malcolm drank Patrick Henry’s. They didn’t take their eyes off of us. Nick asked if we would like more water and pushed his goblet in my direction, but I shook my head no. “Then,” he said, “it’s time for you to tell us what is happening?”

  “Where’s Anna Karenina?” I asked.

  “Under Emmagene’s cape.”

  “She must be suffocating,” I said.

  “In all the excitement, I almost forgot about her,” Emmagene said, smiling but doing nothing toward rescuing Anna Karenina.

  Nicolai said, “I don’t understand what is going on, but come, let’s make room for Anna Karenina.”

  Malcolm and I were seated side by side along the wall, and we inched apart and made space for Anna Karenina; only then did Emmagene pull her out from under her cape. “It all seems so strange,” she said, “that the three of us should happen to meet after all these years, and that the name of Tallulah should come up. It doesn’t seem to make much sense.”

  “Or it all seems to make too much sense,” P.H. said. He studied Malcolm. “Say NOW HEAR THIS, NOW HEAR THIS.”;

  Malcolm said it, trying to make his voice lower than it really was. Patrick Henry cocked his head and listened. “Have you ever been to The Magic Flute in Elmhurst?”

  “Is that a restaurant?” Malcolm asked.

  Patrick Henry said, “I have the strange feeling that I have heard this voice before, and I have the stranger feeling that I have lost all control of this conversation. Would someone mind telling me what is happening? Or if that information is not available, would someone mind telling me who you are?” We introduced ourselves, and when Patrick Henry heard Malcolm’s last name, he said to Nicolai and Emmagene. “I don’t think our meeting here is one hundred percent coincidental.”

  After P.H. said that, I asked Emmagene if she wouldn’t like to remove her cape. She said that she would prefer leaving it on, that she got awfully cold and always took a long time to warm up.

  The waiter interrupted to take our orders, and as he did so, Emmagene withdrew a notebook from under her cape and began to write. She sighed and closed the book. “How many songs have you left to sing?” I asked.

  “Five hundred and forty-two,” she answered, not at all surprised that I would know what she was writing. But Nick and P.H. looked puzzled, and I enjoyed being mysterious. Then for the first time ever, my visible self took control of an adult conversation. I felt like the conductor of a symphony; I could lift a baton and make the violins play; or I could wave my hand and make the drums roll, but all I did was to ask questions quietly and calmly.

  “We’re going to play catch-up,” I said. “First, Emmagene.”

  She smiled bashfully. “There’s not much for me to tell. I’m pretty much the same as I was when I last saw Nick and P.H.”

  “Why don’t you start by telling us about how you got your break.”

  Her sigh was deep enough to lift her shoulders. “There’s not even very much to tell about that, unfortunately.”

  “Did you really perform in that night club in the Village?” Nicolai asked. “I heard that you did.”

  Emmagene studied her gloves. She took them off and began pulling at the fingers, straightening them out, one by one. “A coffee house,” she said. She continued to study the gloves as she answered, “About ten years ago, I was singing outside Carnegie Hall, and a man came up to me and said, ‘Young lady, it has been years since I have heard a voice as sweet and pure as yours. You should be singing inside Carnegie Hall, not outside on the sidewalk.’ He gave me his card and told me he ran a coffee house here in the Village, and that he would feature me for his Saturday night show.”

  “Wow!” Patrick Henry said. “That was always a dream of mine.”

  “What happened?” Nick asked.

  “Nothing really. I sang my songs. The audience applauded, and I left the stage. The next Saturday the same thing, and the next. I performed there for six weeks, but nothing happened. No one reviewed my show. No one who came seemed to tell any of their friends about me. I didn’t catch on, so I went back out on the streets.”

  “Did that man give you your break before or after Tallulah died?” I asked.

  In a motion so rapid that only someone reading body language would notice, Emmagene’s hand flew to her throat. She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes. “After.”

  The waiter brought our orders, and during the silence that followed, while everyone started eating, I picked up Anna Karenina and began speaking through her to Emmagene.

  ANNA: Tell me, Emmagene, how you like my new cape what Nicolai made for me for this reunion occasion.

  EMMAGENE: [Smiling.] Oh, I like it very much, Anna.

  ANNA: I like vairy much your cape. But is vairy hot now in this place. Anna will now take off her cape and show to you her beautiful shoulders.

  EMMAGENE: You are very vain, Anna. You always were.

  ANNA: Why you not also remove your cape?

  EMMAGENE: You won’t see any beautiful shoulders. You will see only some old clothes.

  ANNA: And maybe something else.

  EMMAGENE: Yes. Moth holes.

  ANNA: No, I think that what else we will see is something vairy interesting.

  There fell a silence over the table, as if someone had suddenly sucked all the air out of our corner of the room. “Take off your cape, Emmagene,” I said.

  She undid the clasp and let her cape drop over the back of the chair. Beneath the cape was a down-filled jacket that was rubbed slick at the elbows.

  “Take off the coat, Emmagene.”

  She slowly undid the toggle buttons. P.H. reached his arm over the back of her chair and helped her pull first one arm and then the other out of the sleeves. He took the coat and laid it over his lap. Beneath the coat appea
red a gray wool turtleneck sweater that was worn thin at the elbows and that had one frayed cuff and a moth hole near the shoulder.

  “Take off your sweater,” I said.

  She didn’t do it right away. We locked eyes across the table, but I had had good practice at stare-downs, and I did not flinch. She furrowed her brow and looked to P.H. and to Nick for support, but they sensed that more than Emmagene was being uncovered, so they avoided returning her look. She pulled the sweater over her head, and Nick took it from her, folded it and put it to one side of the table. Beneath the sweater was a high-necked calico pinafore made with a half a hundred hand-sewn tucks. This time, no one needed to ask, and Emmagene offered her back to Nick, and he undid the buttons. I looked over at Malcolm to see if he would be embarrassed, but he was not. After all the buttons down to her waist were undone, Emmagene turned around and looked at each of us in turn. She looked at Nick for a long, long time, and her eyes filled with tears. Her lips formed the words, “I’m sorry,” and she dropped the straps of her pinafore. There, at the pulse point of her throat sparkled the diamond that had once belonged to Tallulah.

  For a long time no one said anything. Maybe Nick needed a minute to realize what it was. Malcolm and I needed time to realize that our quest was over. At last Patrick Henry said, “It’s The Regina Stone, isn’t it?”

  Emmagene nodded.

  Then Nicolai asked, “Why?” He repeated asking why, asking himself as much as Emmagene.

  “I needed it,” Emmagene said. “It was Tallulah’s lucky piece. Her talisman, she called it. I thought that if I had it, I would get my break.”

  “And you did,” Nicolai said.

  “I did, and I didn’t,” she answered.

  P.H. said, “You did. You got your break, Emmagene. You had talent. What more did you need?”

  “The third thing,” I said.

  “The third thing,” Malcolm repeated. “She didn’t have the third thing.” He picked up Emmagene’s book. I nodded. “It’s in the book, isn’t it, Jeanmarie?” I said, yes it was. Malcolm flipped the pages back to the dates when she was singing in the club. He read, “March 3, ‘Greensleeves,’ ‘Marys Hill,’ ‘Shenandoah’; fifteen thousand, one hundred twenty eight songs left to sing.” He read a few more entries: fourteen thousand six hundred and twelve songs left to sing . . . eleven thousand one hundred and six songs left . . . He flipped through the pages until he was at the end. “December twenty-second: ’Scarlet Ribbons,’ ‘London Pride; five hundred and forty-two songs left to sing.” He closed the book and handed it back to her. “You’ve written your own account of why you’ll never be a star.”

  Emmagene took the book from Malcolm and opened it. “Where is it written that I shall not be a star?” she cried. Her hand went to the necklace at her throat. “Where does it say that?”

  “It’s written on every page, Emmagene,” I said.

  “I still don’t understand. I am not a greedy person,” she said. “Nick,” she said, her eyes filling with tears, “you know I’m not greedy, don’t you?”

  He smiled and nodded. “I know you’re not, Emmagene.”

  Malcolm said, “The book is not saying that you’re greedy, Emmagene. It is saying that you are not generous. You never have been. You are not generous with your talent. You keep track, you have always kept track, and you shouldn’t.”

  We looked at Nick and P.H. and knew that they understood, too. Even with a lucky break, a person like Emmagene could never be a star. Not because she had no talent but because she had talent and was stingy with it. Stars can’t hold back. Emmagene had only eighteen thousand songs to sing, and she kept track. Stars can’t be afraid of letting go. Stars must be willing to expose themselves. I said to Malcolm, “We found what Tallulah wanted us to find.”

  Emmagene reached up and started unfastening the necklace. “Don’t,” I said. “Keep it. You have only five hundred and forty-two songs left, Emmagene, and then you will need to live off what The Regina Stone can bring you. Keep it.”

  Emmagene slid her arms back into her pinafore and turned her back so that Nick could fasten the buttons. She took her sweater from his lap and pulled it over her head, and then Patrick Henry helped her into her coat; she stuffed her gloves into her pockets. Nick got up and tenderly placed her cape over her shoulders. She cradled the book in her arms and stood by the side of the table. “I’m leaving now,” she said. “I just don’t understand. I took the necklace for luck. Do you believe me, P.H.?”

  Patrick Henry looked sad. “I believe you, Emmagene.”

  Emmagene looked again at the book, her eyes brimming with tears. “I simply do not understand.” She stood there with her cape half falling off of one shoulder, shaking her head and repeating, “I don’t understand.” She looked at Malcolm and me—most especially at me—and said, “You still have all your songs left to sing, you can afford to be generous.”

  “If I’m to be a star, I can’t afford not to be,” I answered.

  Emmagene left the room without a single backward glance.

  We remained sitting at the table. The waiter reappeared and asked if he could bring us dessert. Nicolai nodded to the waiter and asked us if we wanted anything else. Malcolm said, “A ride home.”

  Tallulah says, “A happy person strikes a balance between doing good and doing well.”

  seventeen

  MALCOLM AND I went to Jericho Tel early the next day and the next, but Spot, Now and Then, never appeared.

  We were worried that Tallulah was annoyed with us because we had not returned with The Regina Stone. We wanted to explain why we had allowed Emmagene to keep it, and we wanted to hear from her that we had done right.

  I tried to make bargains with history. If Tallulah would ask us back, I would: clean up my room and never again argue with Mother; be not just nice but extremely nice to Lynette Hrivnak as soon as school started; give up pizza for three months. I pledged all my Christmas money to the United Fund, wished on the first star I saw at night, didn’t step on a crack or walk under a ladder or spill salt, but we didn’t find Spot waiting at Jericho Tel.

  Malcolm’s aunt and uncle in Elmhurst invited Mother and me to Christmas dinner at their house. We went.

  I didn’t know if the Soos were friendly or if they were just uncritical, but Mother and I felt at home, and it seemed natural that we would volunteer to help with the dishes. After dinner and dishes, we all assembled in their living room to exchange presents. I gave Malcolm a western leather belt with a genuine brass buckle that I had ordered from a store in Texas, and he gave me a book, A Parliament of Sounds: Poems to Read Out Loud.

  Malcolm asked Millie to do some tricks. She said that she was surprised that he was interested. “Lose some; win some,” he said as he looked at me and smiled. I knew what magic we had lost, and as good as Millie was, she was not a patch on being invisible.

  After Millie finished, Malcolm picked a bulb off the Christmas tree and held it under his chin like a microphone. “And now,” he said, “coming to you directly from the Empire Estates Mobile Homes Park, is Jeanmarie Troxell, who will read to us from her new book.” He handed me the book, opened to Ogden Nash’s poem, “The Carnival of the Animals.” At a signal from him, Reuben put a record on; I recognized it as the one he had played at The Magic Flute when Malcolm had interrupted. As the music played, I read the poem. I was not perfect, but I was wonderful.

  And it was wonderful.

  Performing was wonderful. It was a lot like being invisible: the outside Jeanmarie disappeared altogether.

  I made up my mind that I would try out for a part in the school play.

  TRYOUTS were the first Friday we were back. I was nervous doing it, but I read for the part of Rumpelstiltskin. I was the only girl who did. I certainly didn’t want to be the miller’s daughter. Late on Saturday Mrs. Spurling called me at home and told me that I had the part.

  I looked at the new. calendar on our refrigerator door. It was January 6, Twelfth-Night. I called Malcolm and told h
im. He came over, and we lit candles and sat at the kitchen table and talked about Tallulah. We knew then that we would never see her again.

  When Malcolm left, I circled the date of my first play.

  I knew I would make mistakes, but I knew I would be wonderful.

  And I did.

  And I was.

  FROM 2-TIME NEWBERY MEDALIST

  E. L. Konigsburg

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  The Newbery Medal is awarded each year to the most distinguished contribution to literature for children published in the U.S. How many of these Newbery winners, available from Aladdin and Simon Pulse, have you read?

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