by Thomas Tryon
Durenstein, the village on the outskirts of Vienna, was a place Fritz knew well - a little corner of his childhood that held many happy memories, unclouded by the misfortunes that had befallen him since. Sometimes, as he worked, he would tell the campers stories about how on Sundays in springtime he and his family would drive out of the city in their big touring car to take lunch under the arbor at a little cafe where the hasenpfeffer was tasty and they would drink May wine with strawberries in each glass and afterward sing the old German songs.
But no more. Fritz did not care to hear those songs any longer. It saddened Ma, for it didn’t seem likely he would ever see his family again - at Durenstein, or anywhere else. The Auerbachs had been one of the oldest and most respected banking families in Vienna; since the Austrian Nazis began their bid for power they had coveted the fortune of the family of Jews, and one night - this was some months before the Anschluss, when Hitler’s panzer units had rolled across the border into Austria -the Brownshirts had descended on the Auerbach house, breaking in at the front while the family escaped through the alley with only the clothes on their backs and a few bits of jewelry. Fritz, who had been away at school in Geneva, was sure his father would try to reach New York, and had himself made his way to America to wait, boarding with a family in Middletown and earning his tuition at Wesleyan by private tutoring in the German language. Among those he had taught had been Rex Kenniston’s younger brother, and it had been on Rex’s recommendation that Fritz, though a Jew, had been offered the post at Camp Friend-Indeed.
The results, Ma decided, had been gratifying. For Fritz, who had the most reason for complaint of all the young men on Pa’s staff, gave the impression of being the most content, and was the most easygoing and pleasant to be around, doing his utmost to hide the anguish that had already touched his dark, curly hair with silver. He was also - as Ma’s friend Dagmar Kronborg had pointed out with satisfaction - responsible for bringing to Friend-Indeed something of the “culture” the boys had encountered heretofore only on occasional visits to the Castle. Indeed, he had turned the so-called White House, the small cottage of which he was sole tenant, into the acknowledged cultural hub of the entire camp.
Ma smiled to herself. Being a “cultural hub” suited the little house, she thought, picturing it set in the grove of slender birches: the low, narrow doorway elegantly fronted by a sliver of porch, with its decorative bits of curlicue and filigree, and boasting a pair of Doric columns that had once framed the doorway of a building in Junction City. The tiny one-room “playhouse” Pa had contrived with Henry Ives in order to keep Ma close to him in that long-ago time when love was fresh had in recent years been the residence of Hap Holliday, who had been far from pleased at being relegated for the season to a bunk at Bachelors’ Haven, the staff dorm. But Ma had made up her mind as soon as she heard Fritz’s tragic story from Dr Dunbar. “That boy’ll need a home,” she had told Pa, “a place where he can be alone.” And when Fritz had moved into the cottage with his meager possessions - the few treasures he’d brought with him from Switzerland (an antique chess set, an album of stamps, and a pewter-lidded stein reputed to have come from “King Ludwig’s castle at Neuschwanstein”), a small shelf of books, and a collection of classical and jazz recordings that he played on an old Victrola he’d picked up in a Junction City secondhand shop - she knew she’d done the right thing. Besides, lately Fritz was proving an agreeable companion for Leo Joaquim, giving him a game of checkers and lending him books. A well-educated, cultured person like Fritz was bound to have an effect on the poor orphan, might even influence his entire future, help to mold him into the sort of person Ma believed him capable of becoming. “Glad Men from Happy Boys,” wasn’t that the Moonbow motto, Pa’s favorite slogan?
The sun having crept into her eyes, she adjusted her celluloid eyeshade to cut the glare as she checked on Willa-Sue, who was sitting on the slatted bench under the grape arbor, among the ragged clumps of snapdragons and hollyhocks, cradling her doll, and watching Jezebel, who was on the hunt for mice among the arbor’s sagging posts.
Ma sighed. Pa himself had carpentered the arbor some twenty-five years before, and in those happier days he and she would sit side by side on that same bench, holding hands and planning the future, in anticipation of which Pa had also constructed a cradle. But it wasn’t until the thirteenth year of their marriage that their union had been blessed by the precious gift of a child, a baby girl born just before Christmas, and when two whole summers had passed and they had yet to hear her first words it had dawned on Ma that there must be something wrong. Medical science and Doc Thomason had confirmed her suspicions. Pa had been brokenhearted, taking it as a personal insult
— Starbuck males didn’t breed mental defectives - and a new chapter had opened in the life story of Mary and Garland Starbuck.
Pa took to sleeping in the spare room in the narrow bed and turned away from his daughter and his wife; even the camp that he had founded, and its “boys,” seemed to lose their place in his heart. As for Ma, being by nature optimistic and resourceful, she had taken the disappointment in her stride. If Willa-Sue was a bit slow, that was all right; at least she wasn’t sickly or peaked, the way some children were, and Ma could help her along with her lessons. The trouble was, the boys enjoyed making fun of her. One camper in particular, and that had been most upsetting because of who he was; though it had happened so many years ago now, Ma had never forgotten it. She had been sitting right here in this very chair in this same office; the boys were hiking past the window to the dining hall. A few had stopped to play with Willa-Sue; another - Reece Hartsig, then a camper in Harmony - had impatiently urged them to hurry up.
“Come on, you spuds, leave the dummy alone and let’s hop it!”
The dummy.
“Dum-dum dummy,” the boys shouted and ran away. Ma had grabbed the child from her playpen and carried her inside as if she’d been burned by fire. Pa, connected up to his radio set by earphones, had missed it all. She never told him what had happened. It would have done no good, no good at all.
It was then Ma finally realized that the man she lived with was no longer the man she had married. And nowadays -nowadays, out for a walk among the Moonbow byways, he had his eyes forever on the treetops and the little birds that hopped about among their branches, and on the clouds floating above the trees, and on the sky beyond the clouds, and saw almost nothing of the doings of “his boys.” And this was too bad, because there were some problems Ma couldn’t solve - in particular those concerning that same Reece Hartsig and the new boy in Jeremiah, Leo Joaquim. The morning after the Snipe Hunt Reece had come storming into the office, griping about the dumb trick Leo had played on Phil and Wally and demanding that Ma switch him with Talbot in Isaiah; the new boy, he said, would never make a Jeremian, and would cost the cabin the Trophy. Ma wouldn’t budge. To Jeremiah had Leo come, in Jeremiah would he stay. Frankly, she thought him real clever, resourceful too (not many new campers so much as suspected the truth behind the Snipe Hunt), but even if she had been so inclined she would not have acceded to Reece’s request, which would have meant separating Leo from Tiger Abernathy. She had reminded the counselor of the happy points his new camper was already earning for Jeremiah with his spider collection, and Reece had seemed mollified. Still Ma couldn’t be sure; if only Pa would have a word with him - but she knew the likelihood of that was small, the summer would be gone before he did.
She forced herself out of her morose reverie and returned to the task at hand. As she completed the last page of The Pine Cone and peeled it from the machine, Leo himself appeared in the barn doorway and headed for the pump. For some reason Willa-Sue had fixed her interest on the new boy from the first day - probably because he was one of the few campers who paid her a degree of attention - and now, slumped on the bench, she ogled him across the compound, idly fingering the ribbon Ma had put in her hair.
“Willa-Sue, pull your dress down,” Leo told her as he passed. “People can see up it.”
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Ma shook her head at the child. “Willa-Sue, honey,” she called through the window, “you heard what Leo said. And leave off tugging your ribbon, it looks so pretty. The way you look today, you could be a movie star if you wanted. What would my lambie-pie like for lunch? How’s about a nice cold plate?”
Willa-Sue’s dour features set like plaster and she eyed her parent with a sulky expression.
“Horsecock,” she blurted.
“Now, hush you, Willa-Sue, I told you, nice girls don’t talk like that, that’s boy talk. If you don’t want a cold plate, how’s about a nice sammich?”
WillarSue jammed a thumb in her mouth and stared. “What kind of sammich would my honeybunch like?” Ma prompted.
“Penis butter and jelly.”
That old joke; Ma shook her head despairingly, and called through the window for Leo to keep an eye on Willa-Sue while she went into the kitchen to make lunch; obligingly he carried his copper mug full of water over to the arbor and sat down beside her.
***
“Wacko Wacko, chews tobacco ...” Willa-Sue stared at Leo, her bug-eyes slightly crossed, a giddy expression on her sallow face.
“Wacko, Wacko, chews tobacco,” she said again.
Leo spoke sternly. “I asked you not to call me that. My name’s Leo: L-e-o. Leo. For ‘Leopold.’ It’s the name of a king. Leopold, King of the Belgians.”
“Lee-pole.”
“Pold. With a d. Lee-oh-podub. Can you say it?”
“Leo-pol-dub.”
“Well, it’s better than Wacko,” he muttered.
“Wacko, Wacko.” She rolled her eyes and burred her lips at him.
He blew out his cheeks in exasperation. “What do you want, Willa-Sue?” It turned out she wanted him to do the Three Stooges imitation the Bomber had been coaching him in, so he obliged, making his stupid Curly face, doing “Nyuck nyuck nyuck,” and slapping his cheeks, squeaking, and rolling his eyes idiotically, while the girl clapped her hands in excitement.
“Moe, Moe!” she cried. “Now do Moe!”
He did Moe for her, combing his hair forward and slapping his face some more. Willa-Sue became more excited and began to laugh shrilly. She held out her doll to him.
“Wacko hold dolly,” she commanded, and Leo took the doll and held it on his lap.
Just then the jitney pulled into the drive; Hank Ives debarked, and began to ring the bell for Morning Swim.
Almost before the first peal died away, craftsmen by the dozen erupted from the barn.
“Woo-woo, look at Wacko,” one of them called.
“Playing with your dolly, Wacko?” said another.
Burning with embarrassment, Leo grabbed Willa-Sue’s hand and marched her across the lawn toward the office, where he delivered her up to Ma and the penis-butter sandwich. Then, before he could be detained further, he headed down the meadow path at a fast clip. He didn’t want to be late for Morning Swim.
As he came trotting along the line-path the rest of the Jeremians (except for Tiger and Dump, who were getting in some practice with Hatton, the new Red Sox first baseman) exploded through every cabin aperture and raced off toward the waterfront. By the time Leo had jumped into his trunks and joined them and scores of others on the swimming dock, everyone was already lined up according to cabins, and Rex Kenniston sat up on the lifeguard stand. His silver whistle blew, calling the large, boisterous group to order; he reminded them of the waterfront rules (threatening to expel anyone who disobeyed). Again the whistle sounded and at once the place erupted in watery riot, but no sooner was the crib full than Rex sounded his whistle a third time, calling for buddy check, waiting until all campers’ hands were paired in the air (Leo had drawn Monkey as this week’s swim buddy). A fourth whistle - double this time - was the signal for activity to continue, and the boys were off, the Bomber cannonballing through the water with Eddie (his buddy), and Monkey following with Leo, who was not a strong swimmer. When they reached the raft, instead of boarding it, the Bomber sucked in a breath and sank from sight; Eddie and Monkey, then Leo, followed suit, and when they surfaced they were in the hollow chamber beneath the raft, surrounded by eight metal drums harnessed together. A golden web of reflected sunlight darted about them, transforming the space into a glorious underwater cave, and their voices in medley reverberated crazily under the wooden floor.
Suddenly there was a loud clamor overhead. Dozens of feet were stamping and pounding on the floorboards, cries became shouts, focusing attention on those sequestered underneath. Then the raft began rocking back and forth, the metal drums sounding a hollow roll as the agitated water splashed against their sides.
“We better scram out of here,” Monkey said, seeking to avoid having Rex blow his whistle on them, and they all gulped a breath and flipped down into the watery depths.
By the time Leo came up outside the raft, Monkey was aboard her, and Leo clambered up after him. Eddie and the Bomber were going in, Monkey said - the Bomber wanted to get in some rowing practice. The Bomber was the intermediate unit’s star oarsman, and was expected to win the boat race - and ten happy points for Jeremiah - at the upcoming Water Carnival. Leo nodded. He watched as Bullnuts Moriarity, wearing a rubber bathing cap strapped under his double chin, his beefy body sausaged into trunks, clambered onto the raft, followed by his fellow Endeavorites Bud Talbot, the biggest boy in camp, and Jack “Blackjack” Ratner, whose name suited him, since he was of a thin, dark, and distinctly rodent-like character with a mole-spangled face. Presently they were joined by Phil and Wally, who exchanged a few words with them, after which they all sidled over to arrange themselves around Leo.
“Hey, Wacko,” Ratner began, affecting casualness, “us guys are all goin’ up the tower. Whyn’t you come on up too?”
So that was it. “No, thanks,” he said.
“Aw, heck, be a sport, Wacko,” said Talbot, dancing around on the balls of his feet.
Leo shook his head. “I’m heading in. Coming, Monkey?” he called, but his swim buddy remained where he was, stationed beside Phil and Wally. No help there, then. Suddenly Moriarity loomed in front of him.
“Come on, Wacko, don’t be a sis. It’s not as high as it looks.” He used his belly, nudging Leo along toward the ladder. “You never know if you like it till you’ve tried it, ain’t that right, boys?”
Leo glanced helplessly about. The water surrounding the raft was crowded with the curious faces of boys waiting to see what would happen next.
“You cornin’ or not?” demanded Moriarity.
“I said no.” Leo scowled. He mustn’t let them see he was scared of them.
“Ooh, he said noooo,” Bullnuts squealed, and gave a lewd shimmy of his midsection. “Then I guess we’ll just have to ... ”
Their intention clearer now, the group pressed closer and, using his belly as a ram, Bullnuts forced Leo to the foot of the ladder, where they held him perpendicular and fixed his feet on the first rung.
“Go ahead, Wacko, climb,” Moriarity commanded, goosing him upward. Leo jerked, then climbed a rung or two higher.
“Higher!" Moriarity goosed him again. Leo looked around frantically, praying for a miracle. The top of the ladder seemed so far away; he would never make it. And if he did he would fall, he knew it. He was sick with fear and panic. Help, someone, help me; but there was no one to help. All across the waterfront, every eye was on him. Even the tadpoles in the swimming crib flailed their arms and passionately screamed; and the perfidious Peewee Oliphant - there he was, hanging on the crib rope and hollering, “Wacko! Wacko!” and “ ’Ray, ’ray, all the way!”
Looking across the water to the dock, Leo sought the help of Rex - surely Rex would do something, wouldn’t he? Only it wasn’t Rex on the lifeguard stand any longer, it was Reece, and he was calmly shading his eyes to observe more clearly the action on the float; so much for any help from that quarter - it would never occur to the counselor that a Jeremian would refuse to climb the tower; even Stanley Wagner had managed that.
“Whatcha waitin’ for, Wacko?” Moriarity jeered. “Ya gonna take the jump or do we make ya walk the plank?” Worse, much worse, were Phil’s contemptuous words: “Come on, Wackeem, don’t make any more of a fool of yourself than you have to. Get it over.” Leo looked from Phil’s red, aggressive face to Wally’s pale, pimply one and hated them both. And Monkey, where was he? Down below, twiddling his thumbs. "Watch out you don’t crack your skull on the cable,” Phil added. “Go ahead, I dare you.”
Leo could see the thick steel rope receding at an angle to the bottom of the lake and the heavy cement block that held both the float and its tower fast, and it seemed to him that if he were to jump he would hit it. Yet the watery abyss pulled at him like a magnet. He must go over . . . must fall . . .
Feeling Moriarity’s hand pressing the small of his back, he gasped, then clutched the railing tighter. Go on, coward, the piggy eyes seemed to say, go ahead and jump. Ashamed, Leo lowered his head; he could feel the sickish heave of his insides. His stomach gurgled and turned over, and then, losing all control, he threw up his breakfast. Moriarity, the recipient of this unexpected eruption, let out a roar of indignation, and with a bellow flung himself from the platform and plummeted into the water below.