“If things were otherwise,” she said quietly, “I might love you but—” The smile faded. “Well,” she said, “You need someone better.” It hurt her but she said it.
“Oh, stop it,” I said, not knowing whether I felt sympathy or anger. “There’s nothing wrong with you but unhappiness.”
All she did was shake her head slowly. I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to draw her to me but she held back.
“No, please,” she asked. “That just makes us forget the truth.” She looked at me pleadingly. “No more, Matt. Please. If it will make you happy—yes, I love you. But—” Her small hands held me away. “That’s not enough, Matt; you know it isn’t enough. There are too many things against us. You know it as well as I.”
The rest was leftovers—her bandaging my forehead, getting me a drink of water. It was as if everything had been said and we were strangers again. Love? It was out of the question even though I sensed that she wanted me to tell her otherwise. But I couldn’t tell her. I wasn’t sure enough.
On the way back to the cabin, I saw a light in the dispensary and saw Miss Leiber washing up inside.
“Miss Leiber?”
She started and whirled. “Who’s that?” she asked in a frightened voice.
“Matt Harper,” I said.
“You scared me half to death,” she said, irritably.
“I’m sorry. Where’s MacNeil?”
“Being driven to a hospital.”
“Oh. Broken wrist?”
“At least,” she said. She squinted suspiciously at the screen door. “Were you the one he was fighting?”
I swallowed. “Yes,” I said.
She shook her head in disgust. “Fighting, fighting, fighting,” she said. “Is that all you young men do?”
“No,” I said. “Sometimes we love.” She looked at me with eyes that did not understand.
3.
The argument between Ed and Doc Rainey came three days latter.
Lights were out, the kids were, presumably, out and I was in the dining hall getting some music I’d left on the piano earlier that day. I was on my way out with the music when the outside office door banged shut and a bar of light threw itself through the inner doorway that led to the dining hall.
“No use talkin’ about it, Doc,” I heard Ed Nolan say. “We’re gonna do it and that’s all there is to it.”
“Ed, for God’s sake, use your head,” Doc said in a voice that was, for him, agitated. “You’ll be cutting your own throat, can’t you see that? Don’t you think the boys will tell their parents about it?”
“So what if they do?” Ed asked stubbornly.
“Ed, you know good and well what happened last time.”
I moved across the floor quietly.
“At least eliminate the Junior Division,” Doc said. “For God’s sake, you can’t expose a seven-year-old boy to things like that.”
“Never too young,” said Ed, still obdurant. “Christ, you’d think it was somethin’ awful. It’s fun, Doc, fun.”
A tense silence, then Doc saying, “All right, Ed, but just remember this’ll have to be your responsibility. I can’t back you on this one. If there’s any—”
“Nobody’s askin’ you to back me,” Ed told him. “It’s my show.”
I heard a drawer opening and shutting, then the squeak of a heavy body sinking into a chair.
“You’re making a mistake, Ed,” Doc said.
“Then I’ll make it, goddam it!” Ed said angrily. “It’s my camp and I’ll do what I please with it!”
“You’re not going to have it long doing things like this,” said Doc.
“I guess that’ll really break your heart, won’t it, Doc?” Ed said contemptuously. “If I get the bounce, that’ll really disturb ya.” His voice stiffened. “You’ve had your eye on Pleasant since I been here. Ya never did get over them puttin’ me over you—even though ya been here two years more than me. Have ya?”
“You’re just trying to start an argument, Ed,” Doc told him. “I’m not going to—”
“Ya can’t argue with me, that’s why!” Ed interrupted, lashing out angrily. “Ya know damn well ya been doin’ a slow burn ever since they give me the camp over your head. Ya been just waitin’ t’see me get the boot,” Ed said. “Just waitin’.”
“Is that why I’m trying to talk you out of this Madame La Toure business?” Doc asked.
“Never mind,” Ed said.
“Your logic is bad, Ed,” Doc said. “If I’d wanted to see you ‘get the boot’ as you put it, all I’d have had to do was sit back and let you cut your own throat. I didn’t have to keep pleading with you year after year to keep you from doing a hundred and one things that would have ended your directorship. All I’d have had to do was sit back and watch you make a noose and hang yourself with it.”
“You through?” Ed said.
“Just about,” Doc said. “Just about. I’m through trying. After tonight you can do as you damn well please.”
“I always have done as I damn well please!” Ed stormed. “You tryin’ t’tell me that—”
“No point in trying to tell you anything, Ed!” Doc shouted back. “That’s futile business. You get what you want. You wanted Loomis out so you saw to it that he got out.”
I felt myself stiffen.
“Loomis got himself out!” Ed yelled. “I didn’t do a thing! I s’pose you’d’ve told me t’keep ‘im in camp until he raped some kid!”
“Loomis was a perfectly honorable young—”
“Honorable, crap!” Ed said loudly. “He was a queer!”
“All right, Ed,” Doc said, his voice suddenly tired. “All right. I wash my hands of it. Have your fool show. I won’t say another word.”
“Wouldn’t matter if ya did!“
Doc’s laugh was brief; a sort of tragically accepting laugh.
“You always have to have the last word, don’t you?” he said. Then, for a moment, his voice grew hard. “Want the camp? Yes, I want it, I’ve always wanted it! And with the damn fool way you’re running it—I’ll have it too!”
After that, Doc left. I did too; returning to my cabin where I undressed, got into pajamas and bathrobe and went up to Paradise. Then I started back.
I was just going by Mack’s cabin when I heard the door open halfway and saw one of the kids standing there.
“Psst,” he said. “Hey,” his voice hushed and timorous.
I stopped and went over, shining my light on his face a second to see who it was. It was one of the boys I didn’t know.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Mack’s sick,” he said. “He’s makin’ funny noises.”
I went up the warped steps and into the darkened cabin. “What’s up?” I heard a voice ask from one of the dark bunks. “Go to sleep,” I said and went over to Mack’s bunk.
He was writhing on the mattress, his face rolling from side to side on the pillow. I put my hand on his forehead and felt how hot it was before he twitched away from under my fingers.
“How long has he been like this?” I asked the boy quietly.
“I dunno,” he said, sounding scared. “A while I guess.”
Mack groaned in pain, his head raising up a little, then thudding back on the pillow. I shone the light on his right hand and saw that his arm, above the bandage, was red and swollen.
“Get in your bed,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay,” he said, relieved, and I heard his bare feet pat across the floor boards, then the slight rustle of him climbing between his bedclothes.
I looked at Mack again. His teeth were clenched together tightly and he kept grimacing and making little noises in his throat which, every few moments, became pitiful, drawn-out moans.
“What’sa matter with ‘im?” I heard a voice and, shining my light up to the bunk above, I saw Tony raised on one elbow. He blinked and turned his face to the side until I lowered the beam a little.
“Go to sleep, Tony,” I
said.
“What’sa matter?” he asked. “He sick?”
“Yes,” I said. “Now—”
“Good,” said Tony.
“Tony, that isn’t nice,” I said firmly.
“I hope he dies,” said Tony.
“All right, that’s enough,” I said. “Go to sleep.”
I didn’t have the time to worry about Tony, so I lowered my flash beam to Mack again. I stood there about a minute, looking down at his slightly thrashing body, the increasing sounds of pain he made. Then I leaned over and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Mack,” I said, shaking him a little. “Mack, wake up.”
He reared up a little, gasping convulsively, then fell back, eyes wide open and staring at me. I could tell he didn’t know who I was. He didn’t even seem to know where he was.
“Mack, we’d better go down to the dispensary,” I said.
He breathed raggedly through an open mouth, staring up at me, his chest rising and falling in quick, shallow movements.
“Mack, you’ve got a fever. You’d better—”
“What d’ya want?” he asked gutterally.
“You’d better go to the dispensary. Come on, I’ll help you.”
He knocked my hand off his shoulder as if it were a spider. “Get outta here,” he said breathlessly. I noticed how swollen-pupiled his eyes were.
“Mack, get up,” I said. “You’ve got a fever.”
He closed his eyes and lay there breathing heavily, mouth open. He rubbed an awkward hand across his brow, breath hissing slowly through gritted teeth.
“Get outta here,” he said hoarsely.
“Mack, come on,” I told him. “Get up. You’ve got to—”
“Who’s ‘at?” he asked, eyes open again, staring up at me.
“It’s Matt,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Matt,” he said, as if he were tasting the name, “Matt.” He winced and groaned a little, then whimpered with pain. “My hand,” he muttered. “Oh, Jesus God, my hand.”
“Mack, come on. Miss Leiber will fix you up.”
He writhed his heavy-muscled shoulders on the mattress and then, with mindlessly irritated fingers, he fumbled and jerked down the zipper of his sleeping bag. I could see that his skin of his chest was flushed and covered with a dew of sweat.
“Hot,” he mumbled. “Goddam hot.”
“Mack, come on.” I put my hand on his arm. “Let’s go to—”
His left hand clamped, vise-like, on my wrist and he stared up at me. “Who th’hell are ya,” he asked.
“Matt Harper,” I said.
“Harper,” he said, letting go. He made a sound which, I guess, was laughter. “Harper,” he said. “We’ll ge’ rid o’ you too.” Another gasping, mirthless laugh. “Ge’ you the hell out same way we got Merv.” He grimaced. “Damn queer,” he muttered between his teeth, his head stirring fitfully on the pillow again.
I stood looking down at him blankly, listening to him mumble to himself.
“Ge’ you too,” he said. “You too. All fairies, all ya. We’ll get ya.” He drew in rasping, phlegmy breath and moaned, “Oh Jesus, Jesus, my
hand!“
“Mack, come on, let me—”
He knocked my hand off again and I straightened up.
“Took ‘is bathrobe,” Mack said, chuckling hollowly. “Stubid bastid, never even—”
He shuddered and, suddenly, opened his mouth wide. A long, loud groan filled the cabin.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked a boy’s thin, frightened voice across the way.
“Nothing,” I said. “Go to sleep.”
“Who’re you?”
“The Werewolf of London,” I snapped. “Go to sleep, will you?”
I waited a few minutes, then left the cabin and went to the dispensary. Ten minutes of knocking managed to rouse a heavily dormant Miss Leiber who came to the door in her woolly wrapper. I told her Mack was feverish. She asked me why I didn’t bring him to the dispensary, and I told her. Clucking disgustedly to herself, she got dressed and went back with me.
When we reached Mack’s cabin, we found the lights on and Mack was propped on one elbow, cursing at kids. Miss Leiber shut him up. Then, between the two of us, we got him on his feet and down to the dispensary where she took over.
I walked back to the cabin, thinking of what Mack had mumbled unaware. How nicely, how sickeningly, it all fit together: Merv caught without his robe or towel, the damning evidence Big Ed had sought so long.
I lay awake quite a while, feeling as cold as the moon, thinking of a man named Edward Nolan and how his immediate removal from this world would make so many people so happy.
4.
Madame La Toure ended it.
While we were eating lunch, Jack Stauffer got up at the leader’s table and raised his arms for quiet. He was holding a piece of yellow paper in his right hand and he stood there posed like that until talk had ceased. Then he lowered his arms while, seated beside him, Ed Nolan kept on eating.
“We just received a telegram this morning,” Jack announced, “in answer to a message we sent to Marie La Toure who, you all know, is the great French high-dive artist.”
A buzz of excited talk. “All right, all right, hold it down,” said Jack, amiably demanding, his arms raised again. When the boys had quieted down, he read, “I am delighted to be asked to perform at Camp Pleasant stop Will be happy to do so stop I will be at the camp the morning of August 5th stop Sincerely Madame Marie La Toure.”
“Yay!” some boys began cheering and it caught on. I sat there thinking about Doc and Ed arguing.
“Now what this means,” Jack went on when quiet had more or less ensued, “is that the Madame will be here the day after tomorrow.”
He armed down a rising flurry of yays and hand clappings.
“Hold it,” he said. “And that means we’ve got a lot of work to do this afternoon and tomorrow to get the camp all cleaned up for the Madame’s arrival. We’ve got to erect an extension to the diving platform and the dock’s going to have to be really scrubbed down good, then decorated.”
A look of tender recollection came into Jack’s eyes.
“I don’t know whether any of you have ever seen Madame La Toure perform,” he said. “If you have, you know what a treat we’re in for. If you haven’t well, take it from me, you’re going to see one of the greats in high-dive artistry. Marie La Toure, although not too well known in this country, is a continental favorite in Europe where she’s performed before the crowned heads of England, Norway, Sweden and lots of other nations too numerous to mention.”
During rest period, the boys discussed the impending event with enthusiasm; except for Charlie Barnet who seemed more amused than excited. I remembered that this was his sixth year at Camp Pleasant and I asked him if he’d seen Madame La Toure before.
“Huh?”
I repeated.
“Yeah,” he said, “I seen her.”
“She good?”
He had obvious trouble repressing a smile. “Yeah,” he said, “she’s pretty good.”
Whereupon he was deluged with questions from the boys which he answered carefully, slowly and, I was sure, falsely.
After rest period, we were sent down to the dock to help slick it up and I asked Jack Stauffer about it. He and I were on top of the diving platform, nailing on the beginnings of an extension.
“What’s the deal with this Madame La Toure?” I asked.
“Deal?” he asked back, looking surprised.
I nodded, “Yeah. Is there really such a person?”
He looked still more surprised.
“You heard the telegram,” he said sincerely. “You don’t think I made it up, do you?”
I looked at him carefully. “You pulling my leg?” I asked. He laughed pleasantly. “You’ll see,” he said. “She’s a magnificent performer.”
“Then there really is a Madame La Toure?” “Of course,” he said.
That evening, Ed Nola
n got around to informing me that I was fired. It was after supper and Sid told me that Ed wanted me in the office.
As I went in through the dining hall door, Ed was sitting at his desk, his back to me, thumbing through some papers—the employees’ contracts, I noticed as I came closer. I stood beside the desk and he kept thumbing through them. He found mine and, without even glancing up at me, tossed it on the desk.
“You’re out,” he said. “Sign the bottom line. You’ll get ya check in September.”
I stood there, motionless, until he looked up.
“I said sign it,” he told me in that same tone of voice I’d heard when he’d demanded an apology of Merv.
“When am I supposed to leave?” I asked.
“I want ya out o’ camp by tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be out,” I said and, leaning over the desk, I signed the dismissal clause at the bottom of the contract, feeling a little sick as I did because I knew that, after the next night, I’d never see Ellen again.
I tossed the pen on the desk and straightened up.
“Now get out o’ this office,” he said, sounding less imperious than sullen and disgruntled.
“Good night,” I said, and left the office. There was no violence left in me. I was just tired of the whole damn business.
It was a Wednesday night and there were movies down in the lodge so I sent my boys there and stayed in the cabin, packing my trunk.
I was folding up some shirts and putting them away when the screen door squeaked open and, looking over my shoulder, I saw Tony standing there.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi, Matt,” he said. He came in and walked over to where I was. “What’re ya doin’?”
“Nothing. Why aren’t you down at the movies?”
“I didn’t feel like it.”
“Oh.” I knew what he really meant was he didn’t like to sit among boys who did not welcome him.
“What’re ya packin’ your trunk for?” he asked.
I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to lie. “I’m leaving,” I said.
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