The Night of the Moonbow

by Thomas Tryon

  Again he blushed. But because she seemed genuinely interested, he soon forgot his shyness and opened up a bit. They talked some more about the model village, and about Fritz, whom she liked; Leo could tell.

  “And your counselor? What does Reece think about this village of yours?”

  Leo was embarrassed again. “He calls us Santa’s helpers.” Dagmar covered her smile with her hand. “Reece doesn’t like Fritz much. Or me,” he added glumly.

  “Is that so?” she asked sharply.

  Leo nodded. “He doesn’t think I fit in. I’m too different.” Dagmar became indignant. “Well, I should hope you are different! The only reason the world turns is because some people dare to be different. Most- people are like so many sheep. You just go right on being as different as you like. As for His Majesty, don’t pay him any mind. He doesn’t own the whole world, you know, nor his father either. Just the whole of Tolland County.” They laughed together; then, crooking her finger, Dagmar motioned him from the barn. Leo left his stool and covered his work, saying he had to quit anyway, it was time for swim.

  “Come along with us,” Dagmar said. “It’s on our way. We can drop you off, and you can tell your friends you had a ride in my auto.”

  Leo was speechless. He knew it was against the rules for any vehicle except Hank’s jitney to “ride” the campers. Dagmar, however, obviously paid no attention to such strictures, and led him to her automobile, where she introduced him to Augie. He smelled of shaving lotion, and his smile made Leo like him right away.

  “Tack,” Dagmar said, as Augie held the door and helped her in, Leo after her,

  “What’s tack?” he asked.

  “Swedish. Means ‘thanks,’ ” she said, pushing her short, sturdy legs out in front of her and propping her small feet on the footrest.

  He liked that; tack had an interesting sound. He settled himself comfortably in the handsomely appointed interior, impressed by the folding foot-rests, the little chrome ash-receiver, cleverly set into the armrest, the tasseled handles, the shades of amber silk that drew up and down on slender, braided cords, the tops of magazines revealing their names in the puckered side pockets. The motor purred like a leopard, and the upholstered seat felt soft and bouncy, as if he were riding on a feather bed.

  They went over a bump and Leo’s head touched the upholstered ceiling above his head. “Whoopee - bump!” exclaimed Dagmar and they laughed again together. Then suddenly she turned to him and said, “I was surprised when Ma mentioned that you’d stopped playing your violin. Is it true, you’re not practicing these days?”

  Leo shrugged but offered no comment.

  “But you must practice. It’s very important, if you’re going to have a career in music. You do plan to take it up, don’t you?”

  “I - I d-don’t know,” Leo stammered.

  “Don’t know?”’ she exclaimed. “Of course you do -gracious, don’t talk nonsense.” She sucked in her cheeks and ran her tongue around her teeth. “See here. I don’t know what silliness came over you at Major Bowes. But these things happen at times. A string breaks, you hit a clinker, you forget where you are in a piece.” She eyed him intently. “Look at me, please, when I am talking to you. Don’t you want to be a musician? Don’t you want to be an artist?” she demanded.

  “Yes, I want to play on the radio with Toscanini,” he blurted. Dagmar clapped her hands.

  “Well, then - to be a fine musician requires not only diligence and practice but the will to be. No matter who tries to get in your way. All great artists have a sense of destiny, you know,” she went on, “that is what helps them become great. And they are strong, like steel, hard, because they cannot let anything or anyone stand in the way of their talent. They make the most of the moment when it comes. Carpe diem! You know what that means, don’t you? Seize the day! And fly on wings of song!”

  On wings of song! Leo stared at her wonderingly.

  She smiled her crusty, wrinkled smile. “Your mother would like that, wouldn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Leo looked at her. How did she know about Emily?

  Dagmar nodded with satisfaction. “I thought so. You loved your mother very much, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She used the hand-strap to redistribute her weight into her corner of the seat. “You haven’t told me how you lost her.”

  “It was an accident. A train accident.”

  “Oh?” She drew down the upholstered arm and_ leaned toward him. “That is a tragedy, indeed.”

  She straightened and lit one of her Camels. “See here,” she said, picking a fleck of tobacco from the tip of her tongue, “suppose I invited you to the Castle - you and your friends. Would you like that?”

  Would he! He had thought to leave camp without ever clapping an eye on the famous shrunken head, and here was Dagmar suggesting a visit. And what a feather in his cap if he could walk into Jeremiah and make the announcement that they were going to the Castle.

  “Oh yes! Very much,” he said.

  “Well, you shall come, then, and see the shrunken head.” She paused, eyeing him. “And afterward, if you happened to bring along your violin, we might have a spot of music. Would you like that?”

  “Perhaps. Who would listen?”

  “I would, for one. And our friend, Fritz. I know you like Fritz. And, why, the boys of Harmony. You must invite them all, every one. Do you have any music?”

  “Just some old pieces.”

  “Sometimes the old pieces are the best ones. Do you know ‘Traumerei’?”

  Yes. Leo knew the piece.

  “Paganini’s Caprice in A Minor?”

  Yes, he knew the Paganini, too.

  “Suppose you just brush up a bit, then,” Dagmar said. “I shall have the piano tuned for the occasion. We shall play duets in the music room.”

  Leo stared; if he played with her - surely he could do it then, could — how had she put it? — fly on wings of song! And see the Castle! He could hardly wait to get back and tell the guys!

  “We’ll leave you here, then,” Dagmar said as Augie pulled over at the mailboxes. “Goodbye. Don’t forget - practice. It won’t make perfect but it helps.”

  She waved and he waved back, cupping his hands and shouting: “Tack; tack, tack.” Then he made tracks for Jeremiah to tell Tiger and the others all about it. The moment he walked into the cabin, however, he met trouble. Not unnaturally, it originated in Garbage Gulch, which was what, in his journal, he’d dubbed Phil and Wally’s bunk rack. Tiger wasn’t around; Leo had forgotten, there was a meeting of the Sachems, who’d asked Tiger to attend. But Phil was there.

  “We saw you,” he said, “getting out of Dagmar’s car. Doesn’t she know it’s against the rules, giving campers rides?” He draped his swim towel around his neck.

  “Gosh, I don’t know,” Leo said, feigning innocence as he kicked off his sneakers. “Maybe you can remind her on Saturday - at the Castle.”

  They didn’t get it. “What are you talking about?” Monkey asked. “Everybody knows we’re not allowed to go to the Castle anymore.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Leo retorted, flipping his hole card, an ace. “Because we’re invited to visit Dagmar there - next Saturday.”

  Phil chose not to believe it. “Who’re you kidding?” he scoffed.

  “I’m not kidding. I fixed it with her. For lunch and everything.”

  Phil was astonished. “You fixed it?”

  Dump snorted. “Aw, c’mon, Wacko, what d’you mean, fixed it? How?”

  “It wasn’t hard. I just talked her into it, that’s all. I said it would be nice; a lot of the guys haven’t seen it.” “Including you, I suppose.”

  “Why not? There’ll be music, too,” he added, tugging on his trunks. “Dagmar and I are going to play duets.” “Hope it’s better playing than at Major Bowes . . . ” Wally muttered as Leo hopped outside to pull his towel from the line.

  “Don’t worry, Wally,” the Bomber said, saluting the news with a s
tupefying chain of farts. “You can ahvays stop your ears.”

  Phil and Wally’s expressions said there was something fishy in it all, but Monkey and Dump and, on the opposite side of the cabin, Eddie Fiske signaled approval, and in a few minutes the news was being spread among the assembled swimmers at the dock that the Friend-Indeeders had been invited back to the Castle - and, according to the way he told it, all thanks to Wacko Wackeem.

  In the age of the electric Frigidaire, Kelsoe’s icehouse was less a building than a relic of an earlier time, less a fact of life than a sentimentalized tradition. For years Moonbow campers had been hearing from Pa and Henry Ives tales of the “good old days,” when the Friends of Joshua would come out from Putnam in wintertime, sleighing and jingle-belling over the backcountry roads, bringing their saws to cut the ice and their baling hooks to haul the blocks up the tin-sheathed ramp from the shore to be stored, covered with sawdust and battened down under tarpaulins, against the coming hot summer months.

  Decidedly smaller than a barn, the icehouse nonetheless had the atmosphere of one, with its lofty, shadowy spaces, its thick rooftree and timbers set with trunnels, mortised and tenoned; there was hardly a nail in the whole place. High in the rafters, gray papery wasp nests the shape of footballs swung in the breeze among mud-dauber dwellings so firmly chinked into the corners that they blended with the architecture. Half-rotted surfaces were overgrown with dark-green mosses and blue lichens, with patches of chemical-orange toadstools that thrived in the loamy soil. Here and there along the well-adzed rooftree, families of birds nested - barn swallows in little half-cups of mud and, in one corner, the straw-and-twig sack of an oriole. The cool interior smelled of mold, a pungent, mushroomy kind of odor, and over the years the room had become the habitat of whole colonies of grubs and termites, and spiders of a sort completely different from those that inhabited the meadow.

  Leo had already found the place a good one for spiders; now he had decided it would be a perfect spot to practice in as well, a hideaway where he could fiddle to his heart’s content, where the walls would not only provide sounding boards for his music but prevent the sound from carrying to unwelcome ears. He shed his cap, the one Reece had objected to - these days the felt crown sported even more bottle caps, and buttons with views of Ausable Chasm and Niagara Falls that he’d traded for around camp; even a Coast Guard anchor he’d swapped for his Mel Ott bubble-gum card - and, having come across a beat-up peach basket to sit upon and an all-but-backless chair for a music stand, he made himself at home just within the side entrance. He opened his knapsack and brought out some sheet music, then unsnapped the catches of his violin case. He began softly, a do-re-mi scale, up and down, up and down, checking to see if he had gone rusty.

  He practiced diligently for a while, performing the intricate finger exercises the way he’d been taught, endlessly repeating scales and arpeggios, coaxing the notes from his instrument, whose rich wood warmed against his throat. Then, when this became tedious, he had a go at “Traumerei.” It felt sweet, the happy return to something both natural and deeply satisfying, the thing that signified to him he was someone, not just Wacko Wackeem, but Leo Joaquim, who played the violin. The melody grew, amplified by the empty spaces of the icehouse, and he could feel the pulse of the violin on the flesh of his cheek.

  After that, he played a couple of other favorites -the “Meditation” from Thais, the Bach Solfeggio - then attempted the Paganini Caprice. Finally he lifted the bow; the vibration ceased, the notes faded int9 silence, and he took stock of his performance. He told himself it had gone well - and why not, when there was nobody around to make him nervous? For a time all was quiet.

  Outside a light breeze caused the tree leaves to tremble and riffled the water in the covet and the golden sunlight, sifting down through the branches, dappled the ground. Leaving his place, he went outside the icehouse and settled himself against the wall beside the door, where, contentedly devouring a Mr Goodbar square by square, he reflected on his unexpected visit with Dagmar. It had been just the thing he’d needed to get him practicing again. Was it her own love of music that had caused her to interest herself in him? Had Ma said something to her? If so, what? Was it possible that he might have a career - that Emily’s dream would one day come true? Happy as that prospect might make him, it hardly seemed likely; his destiny lay among the pimpled orphans at Pitt.

  Somewhere hidden from sight a woodpecker rapped out its hollow tattoo, and cicadas sang their summer passions, their buzzing electrifying the torpid air. Now and then a small fish splashed in the water, a bright pip, a series of rings, and calm again. This was paradise, he thought, the Garden before the Fall, when Adam was banished and took Eve to live east of Eden in the Land of Nod. The high, bright, sultry heat of midsummer had come on, the gorgeous cloud-fleeced days, each one more perfect than the last, and reason enough for Leo to forget the trials he had endured. He lay back on his elbows and gazed up at the trembling blue sky and, drawing his deepest breath, held it. Then, shutting his eyes, he began to count - one two three four - out loud. He told himself that if he could count up to one hundred on the same breath he would never have to leave this place, he could stay here forever. No - forever .ind a day. (He liked the phrase: “forever and a day.” That was as long as anyone could think of, forever and one more day. The pxtra day made all the difference.) I le would never have to leave, never never, this place where the sky was ocean-blue, a huge bowl in which butterflies swam like the fishes in the deep blue sea - so many golden fishes waiting to be caught, trophies of his Moonbow summer.

  He rolled over and pulled Fritz’s book from his knapsack. Between its dark, worn covers he had discovered a glorious world of words and rhymes and images. There was a poem by Macaulay that he particularly liked, “Horatius at the Bridge,” retelling the old Roman legend of three brave warriors defending the city of Rome against the Etruscan hordes. It had to do with something very much on Leo’s mind these days: friendship.

  “ ’East and west and south and north,’ ” he read,

  The Messengers ride fast,

  And tower and town and cottage Have heard the trumpet’s blast.

  Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home,

  When Porsena of Clusium Is on the march for Rome.

  He broke off as a warm, moist tongue licked the back of his neck.

  “Harpo!”

  He rolled around with the dog, then sat up to see Tiger come charging across the meadow. He threw himself down beside Leo and looked at him with excited eyes and a big smile, while Harpo panted between them both.

  “Is it true?” he said. “You fixed it with Dagmar for the Castle?”

  “You heard?”

  “Sure. Everybody’s talking - you’re the hero of the hour. Dagmar usually means what she says; you really must have fast-talked her.”

  Afraid to meet his friend’s eye, Leo looked out across the pond. “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Come on, what do you mean ‘sort of’? Did you or didn’t you?”

  “Sure. I did. It’s fixed.”

  “That’s swell. Only don’t look so unhappy about it.”

  Leo felt trapped in his lie - he hadn’t fixed it, it had been all Dagmar’s doing - and he didn’t like being untruthful with Tiger. Still, he could say the invitation had been issued because of him.

  Just then, from the far distance came the throb of Doc Oliphant’s Moonbow Maid. Leo recognized Reece’s trademark yachting cap, and the flutter of his Hawaiian shirt - and next to him a golden head that could only belong to Honey.

  The two boys watched as the speedboat sped past the mouth of the China Garden and cut a wide arc north, heading for Turtle Bay.

  “I guess you heard about the crazy stunt Reece pulled this morning,” Leo remarked. Tiger, having finished up the Indian belt he had been making for his father, had been getting in some extra batting practice during crafts. “Yeah, I heard about it.”

  Leo could see Tiger was embarrassed by the incident
, but it was obvious he would see any real criticism of the counselor as disloyal. He did concede that Reece’s display of temper had not been the most glowing demonstration of the behavior expected of the camp’s Moonbow Warrior. “Reece’s got a temper,” he explained. “He gets it from Big Rolfe.”

  Leo was indignant. “But he’s a grown-up, not a kid.” “Grown-ups don’t always act grown-up. Besides, all Germans have tempers — look at Hitler.” He rolled over and looked at Leo. “Were you able to mend the doll?” Leo described the patchwork job he’d managed. “The left eye got lost, though. I looked everywhere.”

  Tiger said he’d help in the search; a one-eyed doll wasn’t going to please Willa-Sue much.

  “How was your meeting?” Leo asked.

  “Fine.” Leo waited; Tiger fiddled with a new Krazy Kat puzzle he’d bought, trying to roll the eyes into their sockets. “If you were wondering about the red feather Saturday night, don’t.”

  “Was I blackballed again?”

  Tiger’s expression indicated the answer was yes. For Leo this was bad news. There wouldn’t be too many more chances for him to be taken into the Senecas. He shook his head in woeful frustration. “All because of putting on the bonnet. What a dumb thing. With Pa right there.” Tiger put up a hand. “Forget it. I know you didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  Leo reflected for some moments, then:

  “What about Fritz? Was he blackballed again too?” Tiger nodded. It was a matter of general camp knowledge that, though there was a party among the Senecas in favor of Fritz’s nomination to the honor society, an opposing faction, headed, it was whispered, by Reece himself, violently opposed awarding Fritz the red feather. And why?

  Because no Jew had ever been a Seneca, seemed to be the answer, just as no Jew had ever been allowed inside the Tunxis Country Club, where Rolfe Hartsig headed the steering committee.

  Leo was disappointed for Fritz. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done anything to deserve the snub. And if camp was all about friends and friendships, well, it was just wrong, that was all.

  Out on the water the Chris-Craft made another slow, curving pass. Leo watched glumly; the sight of Honey boating with Heartless depressed him.