Fool on the Hill

by Matt Ruff

  “That’s been your problem ail along, you know,” Hamlet interrupted him. “You’ve been suffering from a serious thinking shortage. I never understood what you saw in Saffron Dey in the first place.”

  “I’ll give you two large and firm guesses.”

  Hamlet nodded. “Granted,” he said, “that good cleavage doesn’t grow on trees, I still don’t see the sense in it. Zephyr’s shape isn’t as exaggerated as Saffron’s, but it’s a nice shape all the same. And lest you forget, my friend, Zephyr has a personality. Saffron’s is as shallow as the dimples on a golf ball.”

  “That’s all true,” Puck admitted.

  “Then why’d you do it?”

  “Look, it’s not like Zephyr and I had a firm commitment. . . .”

  “That,” said Hamlet, “is one of the two dumbest statements made by males on this planet, be they sprite or human.”

  “I had urges, all right?”

  “And that takes care of the other.”

  Puck twiddled his thumbs self-consciously, not sure what to say next. “By the way,” Hamlet went on, “what in God’s name possessed you to invite Saffron on the Raid, especially when you were trying to patch things up with Zephyr?”

  “I didn’t invite her. She’s Cobweb’s date, officially. I guess he liked what he saw when he was watching us go at it in the display case.”

  “Did you try telling Zephyr that?”

  “She didn’t believe me.”

  “Hmm. I guess that’s not surprising, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Puck said gloomily. “But what am I supposed to do, Hamlet? I don’t want her to go on hating me forever.”

  “I doubt she hates you. Oh, she’s not too pleased with you right now, obviously. And as to whether she’ll ever trust you again, well, that’s a toss-up . . . I’m afraid I don’t have any simple solution for you, Puck. The consequences of chauvinism, as they say, aren’t easy to undo.”

  “And there’s nothing I can do?”

  “Nothing honest I can think of offhand. You could always try using another series of lies to repair the damage from the first series, but that usually has mixed results. I’d say your best bet is just to keep on being nice to her and pray that things work out. Or chuck her and go after a different sprite entirely.”

  “I can’t do that, Hamlet.”

  “Well then, I guess you’ll have to depend on Fate to see you through. Who knows, maybe—”

  He broke off as there was a sudden splash in the water off to their right. It was followed by three others, as unseen objects plunked into the lake.

  “What is it?” said Hamlet, preparing for evasive action.

  “There.” Puck pointed. “On the shore.”

  Four young boys, humans, stood on the shore, approximately twenty yards away from the battleship. They were throwing rocks, and as Puck watched them, one produced a slingshot from his back pocket.

  “How’d they spot us?” Puck wondered aloud.

  “Children are good at noticing things that others would ignore,” Hamlet reminded him. “And this boat isn't tiny, either. I've had trouble a few times before. Hang on.”

  The battleship’s starboard side faced the boys. Now Hamlet accelerated and began to turn toward them.

  “Wait a minute,” said Puck. “Shouldn’t we be retreating?”

  “Not to worry,” Hamlet replied, throwing a switch. A panel opened near the bow and a catapult-like contraption rose up to the level of the deck.

  “Holy shitmoley!” cried the smallest of the boys. “Its comin’ for us! It’s comin’ for us!”

  “Shut up, Mikey,” suggested the slingshot wielder. He took careful aim and fired a shot that passed right above the catapult and thudded clumsily off the outer shell of the bridge.

  Puck stared at the rock, which weighed nearly as much as he did.

  “This is one of those times,’ he said, “when I almost wish I weren’t invisible.”

  “What makes you think they’d stop if they could see us?” asked Hamlet. “Have you ever seen what they do to chipmunks? Now, pray for good aim!”

  He threw another switch and the catapult lobbed an egg-shaped object into the air. In fact it was an egg, one that had been drained of its yolk and refilled. It flew in a high are and burst on the forehead of the smallest boy—Mikey—who proceeded to scream as if mortally wounded.

  “Hamlet!” Puck cried. “What was in that—”

  “Child repellent,” Hamlet told him. “Don’t worry, the effects are temporary.”

  Mikey began to swipe at his head now, staggering blindly back and forth and wailing pitifully. The other children ceased their rock barrage and gathered around to see if he would drop dead, or what.

  “Care for some tea?” Hamlet asked, bringing the ship around and heading once more toward his island home. “Macduff got me a really special blend. Says he liberated it from one of the dorms. It’s part Earl Grey and part Colombian Red.”

  “Sounds good,” said Puck. “Who knows, maybe it’ll give me some inspiration about what I should do.”

  “Just give it time,” Hamlet advised him. “Women have a way of coming around.”

  “Uh-huh. Now who’s being chauvinistic?”

  Hamlet laughed.

  “Realistic, Puck,” he said. “Just realistic. And besides, my fellow chauvinist, I didn’t say that men were any more sensible in handling their emotions, did I?”

  VIII.

  Wednesday, 12:10 P.M.

  “Check her out, partner.”

  Preacher looked across the Arts Quad at the woman Ragnarok pointed out. Blond, medium height, with a Tri-Pi blazer.

  “Decent,” Preacher granted him. “Plastic, but decent. But you can keep right on dreaming, cuz.”

  “Why?”

  “That flash on her wrist. Even if it’s costume jewelry, it cost. And you see how the bottom of her ear winks every time the wind blows her hair back? That look like a diamond earring to you?”

  “So she comes from money. So what?”

  “So what is what’s she need you for? Must be a whole line of nice white fraternity boys just waiting for a chance at her. You’re nothing new, except you drive a bike instead of a Porsche, and you don’t have a tie on. She’ll probably figure that’s ’cause you don’t have money, and poor, my friend, is a very old story. Now if a man came along who could offer her a real change of pace . . .”

  “They have black people in the Greek system too,” Ragnarok informed him. “And Hispanics, and Asians, and Saudi Arabians.” Ragnarok smiled. “You’re nothing special either, Preach.”

  Preacher smiled back. “Well that’s true,” he said, “but I guess I wouldn’t be going after that particular chick anyway.”

  “Oh, of course not.”

  “I mean it. Why don’t you check her letters one more time before she gets away?”

  Ragnarok shook his head, puzzled. “What’s wrong with Tri-Pi?”

  “Oh, nothing. Sweet little sorority, the Pis. But why don’t you rummage around in that steel trap mind of yours and see if you can’t remember who their brother fraternity is?”

  “Brother frat . . . Oh! Oh, shit.”

  “That’s right,” said Preacher. “Good old Rho Alpha Tau.”

  “The Rat Frat. Shit.”

  “Not just that,” Preacher continued. “Now that I think about it, I remember her from around the dance clubs. Guess who she goes high-stepping with on Saturday nights?”

  “The Chief Rat?” Ragnarok made a wild guess. “Jack Baron?”

  “The man himself. Still think she’s cute?”

  “Miles Walker!” a shrill voice called out to them. “Miles Walker and Charlie Hyatt! Hey there!”

  Both men turned, knowing already from the sound of the voice whom it

  belonged to. Ginny Porterhouse, an Orientation Counselor of truly enorrnous proportions, jounced up to them like a tugboat coming into port over stormy water. She pulled a much smaller woman in tow.

  “Miles,
how nice to see you!” She swept Preacher into a clumsy embrace before he could duck away. Ragnarok was quicker, escaping with a mere handshake. Both Bohemians were, as usual, impressed by her display of affection—for though they knew from experience and observation that she had no real patience with weird cases like the Bohemes, Ginny always managed to act civilly toward them. For a brief period.

  Ginny’s charge for the day was a diminutive Asian lugging a huge shoulder bag, which looked as though it might tip her over at any time. Still, Preacher could see in her eyes that she was strong, and perhaps Ragnarok saw it too, for they both began to care for her—or at least lust after her in a friendly manner—at the same moment.

  “Ginny P.!” Preacher burst out. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Oh, we’re having a wonderful time today,” Ginny replied in her most matronly tone. “Boys, I want you to meet Jinsei. Jinsei’s a transfer student from Penn State, but before that she was born in mainland China, of all places!”

  “No shit?” Preacher said, winking discreetly at Jinsei. “And here I had you pegged for an Australian.”

  “Jinsei,” Ginny continued doggedly, “this is Miles Walker and his friend Charlie Hyatt.”

  “Hi,” said Ragnarok. “We’re from mainland America.”

  “The low-rent district,” Preacher added. “Say, are you sure you’ve never been in Sydney?”

  Jinsei smiled bemusedly at both of them. “Actually,” she said, “I grew up in Pittsburgh.”

  “Yeah?” Preacher turned to Ginny. “Here’s your chance to take some serious English lessons, Gin. Bet she could cure that California accent of yours in no time.”

  “I’m sure,” Ginny said. She took a not-too-obvious glance at her watch. “Well my, look at the time. And we have a really busy schedule today. . . .”

  “Don’t let us hold you up,” said Preacher.

  “I don’t think we could if we tried,” Ragnarok pointed out.

  “Nice meeting you both,” Jinsei said pleasantly, following as Ginny began to walk away. Preacher and Ragnarok bowed deeply to her.

  A moment or two passed. Then Ragnarok called out. “Hey! Hey!” Both women, already some distance away, looked back.

  “Don’t believe a word she tells you!” Ragnarok shouted cheerfully to Jinsei. “She doesn’t know the first thing about: life at Cornell!”

  “She doesn’t even go to this school!” Preacher added. “She’s an Ithaca College spy!”

  Ginny dropped all pretense and glared at them. Jinsei favored them with another smile, catching both their hearts.

  “She likes you,” Preacher observed.

  “She likes you,” Ragnarok replied.

  “So what do we do, cuz?”

  “Guess we take turns falling for her,” said Ragnarok. He spoke jokingly, but as it turned out, he was more right than he knew.

  IX.

  Wednesday, 6:15 P.M.

  The bus bearing the Cornellians for Christ to their first fall picnic arrived at Taughannock Park shortly before sunset. It pulled up by the shore of Cayuga Lake, where an assortment of tables, a wooden shelter, and a ready-made bonfire were waiting. The Christers—as they were popularly known, like it or not (though the Sun was careful to use a different nickname)—piled out onto the grass and, after getting dinner started, chose up sides for frisbee football.

  Aurora passed on the game, and while Brian and Michael Krist flipped steaks over a charcoal fire, she crossed Route 89 in search of Taughannock Falls. A footpath led her alongside a wide stream, and she paused frequently along the bank. The water seemed alive; from time to time the Falls would dry up to a mere trickle and the stream would suffer with it, but not this season. It roared, turbulent and jubilant, but for all its ferocity, the melody it made as it crashed over the stones in its bed struck Aurora as distinctly feminine. So did the song the wind pushed through the trees.

  All this was part of a delightfully unorthodox world view that would have pleased her father to no end, had he known about it. For despite the cross that hung above her breast, and all the dogma that went with it, she had always thought of God as being female (or rather, Female). The image that came to her mind when she bothered to conjure one was of a not-quite-old, not-quite-matronly woman with the universe set out before her like a floor plan on a drafting table. It was a romantic conception, one Aurora could never have explained, much less justified, to Brian and the other Christers. So she simply believed in it, quietly and to herself.

  Across the stream at one point she spotted a peculiar fall of logs that, combined with the oncoming darkness, gave the illusion of a cottage. It reminded her of a scene from George’s book, in which the White Rose Knight and his Squire stopped for the evening at a cabin in an enchanted forest. The beautiful occupant of the cabin turned into a grizzly bear with the rising of the moon, and the Knight was very nearly torn in half before effecting his escape. Aurora didn’t know about that part, but the earlier descriptions of the forest and homestead very much caught her fancy. It would be nice to live in a magic wood, she thought, with an occasional wandering Knight for company.

  I just don’t want you to wake up thirty years from now and realize that your chance to have more of a life has gone fry .

  More than once in the past two weeks Aurora had given thought to her father’s words on the morning of her leaving. Far from unraveling the meaning of everything he had said, she had nonetheless begun to understand the basic gist of it, in particular his fear of Brian Garroway and how Brian might influence her. Walter had made no mention of her boyfriend, but no mention was necessary.

  Her feelings about this were varied. Above all she was touched that her father should care so much for her, for she knew that at the very root it was love rather than selfishness that motivated him. Oh, no doubt Walter dreamed of having a norm-breaker for a daughter, but the concern in his voice on that last morning had been more than that of a man losing a dream.

  She was also amused at this further confirmation of her world view. God was supposed to be omniscient, but Aurora had never met a man with any talent for mind-reading. Her father had apparently decided that, since she showed no outward signs of radicalism, her capacity and desire to be “different” had somehow vanished. Here Walter was dead wrong. True, she had grown up peacefully enough, with little show of rebellion or deviation. Aurora did not bother with such displays; while she had a certain admiration for those who made argument their daily bread, she herself avoided confrontation except when absolutely necessary and kept more to herself than most people ever realized. But her dreams were vast.

  If Aurora could have stepped inside the world of George’s book she would have done so in a moment. Why not? Cross the magic stream and enter a world of enchantment. And if a dragon or two had to be faced, then that was a worthwhile price of admission. But in real life there were other things, stronger even than dragons, to keep you from crossing that stream. Love, for instance.

  Aurora loved Brian Garroway Someone knowing the full scope of her dreams might not have understood this, but love kept its own secrets. To Walter Smith, Brian’s bad points seemed all too obvious: impatience, his inflexible sense of law, general intolerance. Closer in, Aurora saw good as well. She had been witness to scenes Walt would never know: impatient Brian spending an entire Sunday afternoon on an elaborate funeral and burial service when his younger sister's pet rabbit had died; law-abiding Brian running countless red lights on the way to the hospital when the same younger sister fractured her ankle skating; intolerant Brian walking a mile to a friend’s house to apologize when he realized he’d been too hasty in an argument. Such moments were touchstones to her, keys to really seeing Brian as opposed to just judging him.

  And of course he loved her too, however poorly he sometimes demonstrated that love. This was perhaps the strongest compulsion of all; true love is hard to turn away, especially first love, even if the cost is high.

  I don’t want you to feel that loss. . . .

  She would
think the whole thing over yet. Carefully. She still had time to think. Not much time, for Brian would be proposing officially to her before long, but hopefully time enough. Time to weigh the good against the bad, time to balance what she would gain against what she would have to give up.

  Aurora walked the rest of the way to the waterfall, stunned, as always, by her first glimpse of it, a hundred-foot silver cascade that turned the last rays of the sunset into a light show. She stood on a stone bridge and lost herself in the music of the flow. In its day Taughannock Falls had seen explorers, tourists, lovers, and, in 1903, a pistol duel. It whispered her a song of magic past, and magic yet to be.

  X.

  Friday, 5:30 A.M.

  At an hour when no sane student or professor would wish to be awake—even the Sun deliverers had, after a week of classes, decided to sleep a bit later—better than a hundred dogs were gathered on the Arts Quad. Sergeant Slaughter, a Bulldog who served as mascot to the members of Cornell’s ROTC, had been padding about the campus since four in the morning, waking Purebreds and mongrels alike for the Dog’s Convocation.

  They stood, sat, lay, rolled over, tussled in a rough semi-circle before Ezra Cornell’s statue: Pointers, Retrievers, Hounds, Shepherds, Terriers, Spaniels, the odd Toy Dog, other more exotic breeds, and a tight knot of mongrels who clustered at the far edge of the crowd, watching defiantly for any sign of condescension from the Purebreds. Luther, Blackjack at his side, looked anxiously for his sire as well, but Moses was nowhere to be found.

  As they waited for the ceremony to begin, Joshua and Denmark argued fervently with a Collie bitch named Bucklette.

  “Explain to me again,” Denmark said, “how the Fourth Question is supposed to be ‘perfectly acceptable.’ “

  “It is,” Bucklette insisted. “You dogs"—here Joshua bristled—"just don’t understand the educational process.”

  “I guess I don’t,” Joshua agreed. “How about teaching it to me?”

  “Look,” said Bucklette, “it’s not as if you were the only ones who had a right to be upset—if there was anything to be upset about. The Fourth Question implies prejudice against everybody.”