The Book of Knowledge

by Doris Grumbach

  ‘How does she know?’

  The sheets felt cold and damp. The dark in the bungalow had deepened. She thought it was possible that she would never fall asleep again. The nightmare of the baker, his head fallen back as if he had broken it in a terrible effort, maybe, to stay afloat, and the awful blow her love had suffered, might keep her awake forever, scared, shocked, disillusioned. While she considered the cost of eternal wakefulness and the pain of unrequited love, she began to feel drowsy.

  ‘I hate her. I love her,’ she thought, and fell asleep.

  After talking to Grete, Mr. Ehrlich told the ambulance driver to take Ib’s body to the undertaker in Liberty and then have it cremated, the ashes to be sent by parcel post, insured, to the apartment in New York of the bereaved widow, as he described Grete to the driver.

  ‘Send me the bill,’ he said.

  Irritated at having been called out of bed at this hour, the driver said, ‘Oh, sure, but I’d better stop at the coroner’s place first. He’s the one to okay that.’

  Mr. Ehrlich apologized for his ignorance. ‘Of course, do what you have to do. But be sure to say he went out on the lake without permission from anyone here. We’re not responsible.’

  The ambulance pulled rapidly out of the camp grounds.

  Mrs. Ehrlich, full of pity for the white-faced Grete, invited her back to the bungalow for hot chocolate. Fritzie, Muggs, and Rae were standing within earshot, so she invited them as well. Then she passed the doctor, who had been called to examine the body and, to his dismay, had ended up helping to carry it, and the nurse. Dr. Amiel’s jacket was wet. To stop himself from shivering, he had his arms wrapped around his chest.

  ‘Might as well,’ Mrs. Ehrlich thought. She invited them too.

  Soberly they all filed into the dining room. Mrs. Ehrlich gave the doctor a sweater of Oscar’s and then started into the kitchen. Grete got up and gestured that she would get the hot drinks from the kitchen. Mrs. Ehrlich sat down heavily in her chair at the end of the table. No one spoke as they waited to be served.

  Mr. Ehrlich brought a plate of cookies from the pantry. Oscar reached for one. The others declined Mr. Ehrlich’s offer, hindered by the thought that these might be the dead baker’s final products. No such scruple restrained Oscar. While Grete poured cocoa from an agate pot, he reached for a second cookie.

  ‘That’s enough, Oscar. You’ll get fat,’ his mother said.

  Oscar frowned. He withdrew his hand, which held three cookies.

  ‘Leave him alone, Lena,’ Mr. Ehrlich said. ‘He’s a growing boy.’

  The doctor smiled. Mrs. Ehrlich looked annoyed. The others addressed themselves to their drinks. Grete brought her cup and sat down beside Rae, who turned to her at once.

  ‘We’re all very sorry, Grete. If there’s anything we can do for you here, or back in the City …’

  ‘Nothing. But I thank you.’ She looked grim, the only expression she could manage to disguise the immense relief she felt.

  ‘I am free,’ she thought.

  She had been instantly, unexpectedly liberated, saved by accidental death from a further extension of her unbearable life. Reaching to her chest, she fingered the checks in her brassiere. She said:

  ‘One thing maybe, Mr. Ehrlich. You could write my poor husband’s check—to my name?’

  Mr. Ehrlich looked startled. ‘Yes, of course. I can do that. Did he have his check with him?’

  ‘No. I have it.’

  Grete reached down, brought out a folded check, and put it on the table. Everyone stared at her. Grete started to gather up the cups.

  ‘I … did not see him to give it, after you paid us. I was waiting. I did not know he went on the lake. I would have said, don’t go. He does not … did not know to swim.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll write another one right away.’

  He took the check, followed Grete into the kitchen, and leaned against the counter to write.

  Grete rinsed and stacked the dishes. For the first time since she had worked for the Ehrlichs she left the dishes unwashed.

  ‘Those pigs. Let them do them,’ she thought. She took the check Mr. Ehrlich held out to her, said: ‘Thank you. Good night,’ and left by the back door. She was eager to get away to her room to enjoy in privacy her miraculous release.

  Mr. Ehrlich sat down at the table.

  ‘Better get to bed, Oscar,’ he said.

  Oscar stood up. His heavy stomach protruded between his white shorts and his shirt. He reached down to hitch his pants up over it.

  Muggs gasped.

  Mrs. Ehrlich said: ‘What’s the matter?’

  Muggs put her hand over her mouth.

  ‘He’s got—he’s wearing Cindy Maggio’s belt.’

  ‘That’s his belt,’ said Mrs. Ehrlich. She looked hard at her son. ‘Isn’t that your belt, Oscar?’

  ‘Sure is,’ he said, pulling his shirt down to cover his stomach and the belt. ‘I bought it … in Liberty.’

  ‘No,’ said Muggs. ‘It’s hers. I taught her how to make it. It was stolen … well, taken from the A&C bungalow.’

  Mrs. Ehrlich stood up. Her loose flesh seemed to shake in anger.

  ‘Are you saying my son stole that belt?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. I guess I am saying that.’

  Rae decided matters were getting out of hand. ‘Come on, Muggs, let’s get back up the line. It’s almost two o’clock. We have a hard day tomorrow.’

  Fritzie got up quickly to put her hand on Muggs’s shoulder. She too sensed the danger in Muggs’s insistence on what was apparent to everyone, including, she thought, the Ehrlichs. Oscar had stolen the belt and probably everything else that was missing.

  Rae said: ‘Good night,’ hastily, as if she was speaking for everyone, and pushed Muggs before her out the door.

  ‘We’ll be going too,’ said the doctor, gesturing to the nurse.

  Mrs. Ehrlich’s face was pale. ‘No, wait. Talk to him, Doctor. Find out why he did it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, Mrs. Ehrlich. You talk to him. Or Mr. Ehrlich. You’re his parents.’

  Mr. Ehrlich stood up, knocking into the table. He was very red in the face and looked at Oscar as if he were about to hit him. He opened his mouth, seeming about to explode until his speech came, high and rapid:

  ‘I am not his parent. I am his uncle. Mrs. Ehrlich, er, Lena, is my sister. She is Lena Ehrlich Hayman. Oscar is not an Ehrlich. He is a Hayman, son of Isaac Hayman, a terrible man …’

  ‘Shut up, you fool,’ said Mrs. Ehrlich.

  Mr. Ehrlich went out the door. Oscar moved to follow him.

  ‘Stop, Oscar,’ Mrs. Ehrlich said. The boy turned. He stared at the floor. The doctor and nurse stood, frozen in their places.

  The doctor said: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought you were …’

  Trapped by the shock of the revelation, they all formed a tableau of stunned silence during the interrogation that followed.

  Mrs. Ehrlich said: ‘Have you been taking things from the bungalows, Oscar?’

  Oscar said nothing.

  Dr. Amiel felt compelled professionally to act. He said to Mrs. Ehrlich:

  ‘Ask him why he took the things.’

  ‘Oscar, tell me why you took things.’

  Oscar went on staring at the floor. Then he said, in a voice so low they had trouble hearing him: ‘I wanted to have things of the girls’.’

  Mrs. Ehrlich held on to the table to steady herself.

  ‘Why, in God’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just to have them. And wear them.’

  ‘Did you take other things?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Like what?

  ‘Things hanging on the lines … behind the bungalows.’

  ‘Things? What things?’

  ‘Panties … and well, urn … underwear.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Money, sometimes. Only a little. Not much. There wasn’t much around.’

  ‘My God, Oscar, with
all the allowance you get?’

  ‘I thought I’d buy them things, presents. In Liberty.’

  ‘Who is “them”?’

  ‘My friends. The seniors.’

  ‘Which seniors? I never saw you with any seniors.’

  ‘Maybe not now. But they would be my friends if I had more money.’

  Dr. Amiel could stand it no longer. He took the nurse’s arm.

  ‘I think we’d better be going.’

  Fritzie, as though released from a trance, followed them to the door.

  Mrs. Ehrlich said: ‘Doctor, please find Rae early in the morning and tell her Oscar will return everything he’s taken to her bungalow tomorrow morning. First thing. I’ll see to it.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Good night. It’s almost good morning.’

  Mrs. Ehrlich said, grimly: ‘Yes. Almost.’

  Walking up the line, Fritzie was absorbed in the night’s revelations. Mr. Ehrlich’s disavowal of the paternity of Oscar and his relation to Mrs. Ehrlich added to the drowning of the baker: she felt exhausted by the weight of the disclosures. She needed to get to bed. On the steps of her bungalow, Dolly was waiting.

  ‘Glad you’re back finally. I couldn’t sleep. Not after what happened,’ Dolly said. ‘It was like a scene in a Eugene O’Neill play.’

  ‘That was nothing. You should have been at the cottage just now for the sequel. Well, come in, but not for long. I’m bushed.’

  Roslyn woke up when the dramatics counselor’s foot struck the leg of her cot.

  ‘Sorry,’ Dolly whispered. Roslyn sat up.

  Fritzie stopped at the bottom of the cot to look at her. Roslyn decided to avenge her rejection by ignoring her.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ Fritzie said. The two counselors went into Fritzie’s small room and closed the door.

  Roslyn lay awake, trying to hear what they were talking about in there. This day and night had given her a taste for the instructive practices of peeping Toms and the joys of over-hearing. By such illegal means, she now knew, she could be educated in what was going on among adults. All this was good to learn for a girl who was going to be a writer, maybe more useful than memorizing stories of the hundred neediest cases.

  Not being able to hear what Dolly and Fritzie were saying (‘They are purposely whispering,’), she was patient, absorbed in the summer’s education, enumerating the virtues she had acquired. Patience, for one thing. If she lay here alert, listening hard, sooner or later Dolly and Fritzie would forget and speak loud enough so she could hear. Sure enough. In a few minutes, half awake, she heard Fritzie say an amazing thing: the Ehrlichs were not married. They were brother and sister.

  ‘Why do you think they never told anyone?’ Dolly said.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think. I bet they thought it looked better for them to be married, to have people think they’re married. For the parents, you know. A couple might seem to be more reliable caretakers for kids.’

  ‘I always thought it strange they looked so much alike.’

  ‘Married people sometimes grow to look alike, though. I’ve noticed that. Oh, God, I hope I don’t start to look like Joe Lyons. He’s getting bald and has that big nose. Maybe I won’t marry him. Even if he asks me, which he probably won’t.’

  Roslyn felt a new sadness wash over her. She thought of beautiful Fritzie, of what a desecration it would be if she married Joe whatever-his-name-was and grew to look like him, whatever he looked like.

  But that thing about the Ehrlichs: she couldn’t wait to get home to tell her parents. To put her mother straight, who always said they were a perfect couple to run a children’s camp.

  Then she heard Fritzie tell Dolly they had found out that Oscar was the camp thief. (‘Ha. I knew that, before they all did.’) She felt great pleasure at hearing that the news had spread, although she regretted that she had not been the unique mystery-solver. The little holy family of her parents’ invention was falling apart.

  ‘But why would he want those things?’ Roslyn began to fall asleep as she listened to Fritzie tell Dolly why he stole. He was what she called a fetishist. Roslyn decided to look up the word when she got home. She thought: ‘That stupid, awful Cindy Maggio. Why would anyone want anything of hers?’

  The last full day of camp was anticlimactic and rainy, full of lackadaisical activities because all the contests were over and the spirit of fierce competition had died away. Somehow, word of the baker’s drowning had reached most of the campers. The older ones found the news terrifying; the young ones were affected mainly by the disappearance of their favorite desserts. The other revelations of the night before were confined to the staff and counselors, and to Roslyn, who told none of her bunk-mates about her discoveries, relishing her sense of being the only camper privy to great secrets.

  Rae waited in vain for Oscar’s appearance with the purloined goods. She spent much of her time rallying the dispirited cook and kitchen helpers to prepare for the banquet, and enlisted Grete’s help in the bakery, surprised by the good humor and willingness of the bereaved widow.

  And the banquet: it went off exactly as Roslyn in her reverie had thought it would. She was pleased to have predicted its progress so accurately, and went to bed tired and happy, feeling she had successfully fulfilled her role of prophet.

  The ride to Liberty in the dark took more than an hour. Will sat in front, Rae drove. They said nothing to each other. Behind were Hozzle and Tori (the diminutive was all that survived of her name, Victoria), a stocky, middle-aged, warm-hearted woman, rightly considered by Mrs. Ehrlich to be a perfect substitute for the little girls’ mothers. Fritzie was between them. Being crammed together made for good-natured complaints, much shifting of buttocks, and outbreaks of hilarity in the backseat. The laughter seemed to drive Rae and Will into deeper silence.

  No one was at the bar in Keating’s Saloon. Ignoring the tables intended for ladies, the five counselors took stools together. In the half-dark their uniforms as they perched there gave them the look of crows on a wire. As always, the talk took on the semblance of a play, with the bartender using his customary lines.

  Jerry Keating: ‘Hello, girls. What’ll you have?’

  Tori (with a strong tone of satire as she imitated Jerry’s choice of noun): ‘Beers for all. Right, girls?’

  Hozzle: ‘Right for me.’ The others nodded.

  Fritzie: ‘Yep, I’m feeling very free and rich tonight.’

  Tori: ‘But are you old enough to drink here, girlie?’

  Fritzie: ‘You bet your life I am. Old enough to do anything. And I can’t wait.’

  Hozzle and Tori laughed. Rae and Will said nothing. A circle of gloom seemed to surround them. They all drank deeply of their beers. Aware of their troubled friends, the others fell silent, their gaiety extinguished by their friends’ moroseness.

  Rae reached into her blouse pocket for a pack of Murads and handed it to Tori. She took one and passed the pack. Will lit everyone’s cigarette and sank back on her stool to stare ahead at the row of bottles reflected in the mirror, on which was mounted a DRINK DR PEPPER sign.

  Fritzie decided to try again. She took a drink of her beer and looked at Rae:

  ‘Everything went okay tonight, I thought.’

  At last Rae smiled. ‘I agree. Thank you.’

  Hoping to draw Will into a better humor, Fritzie said:

  ‘I was glad to hear that everyone seemed to know the words of the camp song. It only took eight weeks.’

  Tori (singing): ‘Clear Lake, to you we sing our praises …’

  Will said nothing. She stared at the Dr Pepper sign as though she had complied with its instruction and was awaiting further word. The tubes that formed its frame contained a bubbling colored liquid which seemed to interest her more than the talk.

  Conversation moved from generalities to the particulars of the day behind them. Everyone ordered another beer. Rae, determined to hide the truth, told them that all the trunks were packed, and all of them had been searched. Nothing had been
found.

  Hozzle: ‘Who searched the counselors’ trunks?’

  Rae: ‘Muggs.’

  Hozzle (who had lost twelve dollars to the thief): ‘Ah. And who searched hers?’

  Rae (laughing): ‘Some of the missing stuff is from the arts and crafts bungalow. She must be sick of looking at all those things. As for the money, I have a suspicion, somehow, that she has money. A dollar here, two there, would hardly make any difference to her. But if you think I should, I will.’

  Hozzle (grumpily): ‘Twelve dollars is more than one or two here and there.’

  Rae: ‘Okay, I will’ Fritzie looked at Rae but was silent.

  They ordered another beer and drank in silence. Rae paid for them. There was a small protest from Tori, but Rae waved it off.

  ‘You’ve all been a great help to me, all summer. I’m grateful. My pleasure.’

  Will looked at her, still saying nothing.

  Fritzie: ‘Speaking of paying, when do we get our checks?’

  Rae: ‘At the station tomorrow afternoon.’

  Fritzie: ‘Do they think we’d take off tomorrow or something if we got paid on the last day?’

  Rae (shaking her head): ‘It’s the way they’ve always done it.’

  Tori decided it was time for a new subject: ‘I heard on the radio this morning they’re not going to make Pierce Arrow cars anymore. The company’s going out of business.’

  Fritzie: ‘Damn. That’s too bad. I always thought that was a great car. And I adore the swell-looking guy in their ads.’

  Rae: ‘It’s the kind of car I always wanted. In place of my junky Plymouth that’s always breaking down. What about you, Willie?’

  Will: ‘Makes no difference to me. Anything’s better than not having a car at all.’

  Rae thought of the years she and Will had shared the old Plymouth. Rae owned it and did most of the driving, because, they agreed, she was the better driver. She wanted to say to her: ‘Take the car, love. I’ll get another.’ But she knew she could not afford it, not at the beginning of the semester. She was silent.