Welcome to the Monkey House

by Kurt Vonnegut

  "Not demand--" said Sylvia.

  "Request firmly?" said the doctor.

  "Maybe I'm just a simple-minded country girl at heart," said Sylvia, "but I look through this catalogue, and I see all the buildings named after Remenzels, look through the back and see all the hundreds of thousands of dollars given by Remenzels for scholarships, and I just can't help thinking people named Remenzel are entitled to ask for a little something extra."

  "Let me tell you in no uncertain terms," said Doctor Remenzel, "that you are not to ask for anything special for Eli--not anything."

  "Of course I won't," said Sylvia. "Why do you always think I'm going to embarrass you?"

  "I don't," he said.

  "But I can still think what I think, can't I?" she said.

  "If you have to," he said.

  "I have to," she said cheerfully, utterly unrepentant. She leaned over the plans. "You think those people will like those rooms?"

  "What people?" he said.

  "The Africans," she said. She was talking about thirty Africans who, at the request of the State Department, were being admitted to Whitehill in the coming semester. It was because of them that the dormitory was being expanded.

  "The rooms aren't for them," he said. "They aren't going to be segregated."

  "Oh," said Sylvia. She thought about this awhile, and then she said, "Is there a chance Eli will have to have one of them for a roommate?"

  "Freshmen draw lots for roommates," said the doctor. "That piece of information's in the catalogue too."

  "Eli?" said Sylvia.

  "H'm?" said Eli.

  "How would you feel about it if you had to room with one of those Africans?"

  Eli shrugged listlessly.

  "That's all right?" said Sylvia.

  Eli shrugged again.

  "I guess it's all right," said Sylvia.

  "It had better be," said the doctor.

  The Rolls-Royce pulled abreast of an old Chevrolet, a car in such bad repair that its back door was lashed shut with clothesline. Doctor Remenzel glanced casually at the driver, and then, with sudden excitement and pleasure, he told Ben Barkley to stay abreast of the car.

  The doctor leaned across Sylvia, rolled down his window, yelled to the driver of the old Chevrolet, "Tom! Tom!"

  The man was a Whitehill classmate of the doctor. He wore a Whitehill necktie, which he waved at Doctor Remenzel in gay recognition. And then he pointed to the fine young son who sat beside him, conveyed with proud smiles and nods that the boy was bound for Whitehill.

  Doctor Remenzel pointed to the chaos of the back of Eli's head, beamed that his news was the same. In the wind blustering between the two cars they made a lunch date at the Holly House in North Marston, at the inn whose principal business was serving visitors to Whitehill.

  "All right," said Doctor Remenzel to Ben Barkley, "drive on."

  "You know," said Sylvia, "somebody really ought to write an article--" And she turned to look through the back window at the old car now shuddering far behind. "Somebody really ought to."

  "What about?" said the doctor. He noticed that Eli had slumped way down in the front seat. "Eli!" he said sharply. "Sit up straight!" He returned his attention to Sylvia.

  "Most people think prep schools are such snobbish things, just for people with money," said Sylvia, "but that isn't true." She leafed through the catalogue and found the quotation she was after.

  "The Whitehill School operates on the assumption," she read, "that no boy should be deterred from applying for admission because his family is unable to pay the full cost of a Whitehill education. With this in mind, the Admissions Committee selects each year from approximately 3000 candidates the 150 most promising and deserving boys, regardless of their parents' ability to pay the full $2200 tuition. And those in need of financial aid are given it to the full extent of their need. In certain instances, the school will even pay for the clothing and transportation of a boy. "

  Sylvia shook her head. "I think that's perfectly amazing. It's something most people don't realize at all. A truckdriver's son can come to Whitehill."

  "If he's smart enough," he said.

  "Thanks to the Remenzels," said Sylvia with pride.

  "And a lot of other people too," said the doctor.

  Sylvia read out loud again: "In 1799, Eli Remenzel laid the foundation for the present Scholarship Fund by donating to the school forty acres in Boston. The school still owns twelve of those acres, their current evaluation being $3,000,000."

  "Eli!" said the doctor. "Sit up! What's the matter with you?"

  Eli sat up again, but began to slump almost immediately, like a snowman in hell. Eli had good reason for slumping, for actually hoping to die or disappear. He could not bring himself to say what the reason was. He slumped because he knew he had been denied admission to Whitehill. He had failed the entrance examinations. Eli's parents did not know this, because Eli had found the awful notice in the mail and had torn it up.

  Doctor Remenzel and his wife had no doubts whatsoever about their son's getting into Whitehill. It was inconceivable to them that Eli could not go there, so they had no curiosity as to how Eli had done on the examinations, were not puzzled when no report ever came.

  "What all will Eli have to do to enroll?" said Sylvia, as the black Rolls-Royce crossed the Rhode Island border.

  "I don't know," said the doctor. "I suppose they've got it all complicated now with forms to be filled out in quadruplicate, and punch-card machines and bureaucrats. This business of entrance examinations is all new, too. In my day a boy simply had an interview with the headmaster. The headmaster would look him over, ask him a few questions, and then say, 'There's a Whitehill boy.' "

  "Did he ever say, 'There isn't a Whitehill boy'?" said Sylvia.

  "Oh, sure," said Doctor Remenzel, "if a boy was impossibly stupid or something. There have to be standards. There have always been standards. The African boys have to meet the standards, just like anybody else. They aren't getting in just because the State Department wants to make friends. We made that clear. Those boys had to meet the standards."

  "And they did?" said Sylvia.

  "I suppose," said Doctor Remenzel. "I heard they're all in, and they all took the same examination Eli did."

  "Was it a hard examination, dear?" Sylvia asked Eli. It was the first time she'd thought to ask.

  "Um," said Eli.

  "What?" she said.

  "Yes," said Eli.

  "I'm glad they've got high standards," she said, and then she realized that this was a fairly silly statement. "Of course they've got high standards," she said. "That's why it's such a famous school. That's why people who go there do so well in later life."

  Sylvia resumed her reading of the catalogue again, opened out a folding map of "The Sward," as the campus of Whitehall was traditionally called. She read off the names of features that memorialized Remenzels--the Sanford Remenzel Bird Sanctuary, the George MacLellan Remenzel Skating Rink, the Eli Remenzel Memorial Dormitory, and then she read out loud a quatrain printed on one corner of the map:

  "When night falleth gently

  "Upon the green Sward,

  "It's Whitehill, dear Whitehill,

  "Our thoughts all turn toward."

  "You know," said Sylvia, "school songs are so corny when you just read them. But when I hear the Glee Club sing those words, they sound like the most beautiful words ever written, and I want to cry."

  "Um," said Doctor Remenzel.

  "Did a Remenzel write them?"

  "I don't think so," said Doctor Remenzel. And then he said, "No--Wait. That's the new song. A Remenzel didn't write it. Tom Kilyer wrote it."

  "The man in that old car we passed?"

  "Sure," said Doctor Remenzel. "Tom wrote it. I remember when he wrote it."

  "A scholarship boy wrote it?" said Sylvia. "I think that's awfully nice. He was a scholarship boy, wasn't he?"

  "His father was an ordinary automobile mechanic in North Marston."

>   "You hear what a democratic school you're going to, Eli?" said Sylvia.

  Half an hour later Ben Barkley brought the limousine to a stop before the Holly House, a rambling country inn twenty years older than the Republic. The inn was on the edge of the Whitehill Sward, glimpsing the school's rooftops and spires over the innocent wilderness of the Sanford Remenzel Bird Sanctuary.

  Ben Barkley was sent away with the car for an hour and a half. Doctor Remenzel shepherded Sylvia and Eli into a familiar, low-ceilinged world of pewter, clocks, lovely old woods, agreeable servants, elegant food and drink.

  Eli, clumsy with horror of what was surely to come, banged a grandmother clock with his elbow as he passed, made the clock cry.

  Sylvia excused herself. Doctor Remenzel and Eli went to the threshold of the dining room, where a hostess welcomed them both by name. They were given a table beneath an oil portrait of one of the three Whitehill boys who had gone on to become President of the United States.

  The dining room was filling quickly with families. What every family had was at least one boy about Eli's age. Most of the boys wore Whitehill blazers--black, with pale-blue piping, with Whitehill seals on their breast pockets. A few, like Eli, were not yet entitled to wear blazers, were simply hoping to get in.

  The doctor ordered a Martini, then turned to his son and said, "Your mother has the idea that you're entitled to special privileges around here. I hope you don't have that idea too."

  "No, sir," said Eli.

  "It would be a source of the greatest embarrassment to me," said Doctor Remenzel with considerable grandeur, "if I were ever to hear that you had used the name Remenzel as though you thought Remenzels were something special."

  "I know," said Eli wretchedly.

  "That settles it," said the doctor. He had nothing more to say about it. He gave abbreviated salutes to several people he knew in the room, speculated as to what sort of party had reserved a long banquet table that was set up along one wall. He decided that it was for a visiting athletic team. Sylvia arrived, and Eli had to be told in a sharp whisper to stand when a woman came to a table.

  Sylvia was full of news. The long table, she related, was for the thirty boys from Africa. "I'll bet that's more colored people than have eaten here since this place was founded," she said softly. "How fast things change these days!"

  "You're right about how fast things change," said Doctor Remenzel. "You're wrong about the colored people who've eaten here. This used to be a busy part of the Underground Railroad. "

  "Really?" said Sylvia. "How exciting." She looked all about herself in a birdlike way. "I think everything's exciting here. I only wish Eli had a blazer on."

  Doctor Remenzel reddened. "He isn't entitled to one," he said.

  "I know that," said Sylvia.

  "I thought you were going to ask somebody for permission to put a blazer on Eli right away," said the doctor.

  "I wouldn't do that," said Sylvia, a little offended now. "Why are you always afraid I'll embarrass you?"

  "Never mind. Excuse me. Forget it," said Doctor Remenzel.

  Sylvia brightened again, put her hand on Eli's arm, and looked radiantly at a man in the dining-room doorway. "There's my favorite person in all the world, next to my son and husband," she said. She meant Dr. Donald Warren, headmaster of the Whitehill School. A thin gentleman in his early sixties, Doctor Warren was in the doorway with the manager of the inn, looking over the arrangements for the Africans.

  It was then that Eli got up abruptly, fled the dining room, fled as much of the nightmare as he could possibly leave behind. He brushed past Doctor Warren rudely, though he knew him well, though Doctor Warren spoke his name. Doctor Warren looked after him sadly.

  "I'll be damned," said Doctor Remenzel. "What brought that on?"

  "Maybe he really is sick," said Sylvia.

  The Remenzels had no time to react more elaborately, because Doctor Warren spotted them and crossed quickly to their table. He greeted them, some of his perplexity about Eli showing in his greeting. He asked if he might sit down.

  "Certainly, of course," said Doctor Remenzel expansively. "We'd be honored if you did. Heavens."

  "Not to eat," said Doctor Warren. "I'll be eating at the long table with the new boys. I would like to talk, though." He saw that there were five places set at the table. "You're expecting someone?"

  "We passed Tom Hilyer and his boy on the way," said Doctor Remenzel. "They'll be along in a minute."

  "Good, good," said Doctor Warren absently. He fidgeted, looked again in the direction in which Eli had disappeared.

  "Tom's boy will be going to Whitehill in the fall?" said Doctor Remenzel.

  "H'm?" said Doctor Warren. "Oh--yes, yes. Yes, he will. "

  "Is he a scholarship boy, like his father?" said Sylvia.

  "That's not a polite question," said Doctor Remenzel severely.

  "I beg your pardon," said Sylvia.

  "No, no--that's a perfectly proper question these days," said Doctor Warren. "We don't keep that sort of information very secret any more. We're proud of our scholarship boys, and they have every reason to be proud of themselves. Tom's boy got the highest score anyone's ever got on the entrance examinations. We feel privileged to have him."

  "We never did find out Eli's score," said Doctor Remenzel. He said it with good-humored resignation, without expectation that Eli had done especially well.

  "A good strong medium, I imagine," said Sylvia. She said this on the basis of Eli's grades in primary school, which had ranged from medium to terrible.

  The headmaster looked surprised. "I didn't tell you his scores?" he said.

  "We haven't seen you since he took the examinations," said Doctor Remenzel.

  "The letter I wrote you--" said Doctor Warren.

  "What letter?" said Doctor Remenzel. "Did we get a letter?"

  "A letter from me," said Doctor Warren, with growing incredulity. "The hardest letter I ever had to write."

  Sylvia shook her head. "We never got any letter from you."

  Doctor Warren sat back, looking very ill. "I mailed it myself," he said. "It was definitely mailed--two weeks ago."

  Doctor Remenzel shrugged. "The U.S. mails don't lose much," he said, "but I guess that now and then something gets misplaced."

  Doctor Warren cradled his head in his hands. "Oh, dear--oh, my, oh, Lord," he said. "I was surprised to see Eli here. I wondered that he would want to come along with you."

  "He didn't come along just to see the scenery," said Doctor Remenzel. "He came to enroll."

  "I want to know what was in the letter," said Sylvia.

  Doctor Warren raised his head, folded his hands. "What the letter said, was this, and no other words could be more difficult for me to say: 'On the basis of his work in primary school and his scores on the entrance examinations, I must tell you that you son and my good friend Eli cannot possibly do the work required of boys at Whitehill.' " Doctor Warren's voice steadied, and so did his gaze. " 'To admit Eli to Whitehill, to expect him to do Whitehill work,' " he said, " 'would be both unrealistic and cruel.' "

  Thirty African boys, escorted by several faculty members, State Department men, and diplomats from their own countries, filed into the dining room.

  And Tom Hilyer and his boy, having no idea that something had just gone awfully wrong for the Remenzels, came in, too, and said hello to the Remenzels and Doctor Warren gaily, as though life couldn't possibly be better.

  "I'll talk to you more about this later, if you like," Doctor Warren said to the Remenzels, rising. "I have to go now, but later on--" He left quickly.

  "My mind's a blank," said Sylvia. "My mind's a perfect blank."

  Tom Hilyer and his boy sat down. Hilyer looked at the menu before him, clapped his hands and said, "What's good? I'm hungry." And then he said, "Say--where's your boy?"

  "He stepped out for a moment," said Doctor Remenzel evenly.

  "We've got to find him," said Sylvia to her husband.

  "In time,
in due time," said Doctor Remenzel.

  "That letter," said Sylvia; "Eli knew about it. He found it and tore it up. Of course he did!" She started to cry, thinking of the hideous trap that Eli had caught himself in.

  "I'm not interested right now in what Eli's done," said Doctor Remenzel. "Right now I'm a lot more interested in what some other people are going to do."

  "What do you mean?" said Sylvia.

  Doctor Remenzel stood impressively, angry and determined. "I mean," he said, "I'm going to see how quickly people can change their minds around here."

  "Please," said Sylvia, trying to hold him, trying to calm him, "we've got to find Eli. That's the first thing."

  "The first thing," said Doctor Remenzel quite loudly, "is to get Eli admitted to Whitehall. After that we'll find him, and we'll bring him back."

  "But darling--" said Sylvia.

  "No 'but' about it," said Doctor Remenzel. "There's a majority of the Board of Overseers in this room at this very moment. Every one of them is a close friend of mine, or a close friend of my father. If they tell Doctor Warren Eli's in, that's it--Eli's in. If there's room for all these other people," he said, "there's damn well room for Eli too."

  He strode quickly to a table nearby, sat down heavily and began to talk to a fierce-looking and splendid old gentleman who was eating there. The old gentleman was chairman of the board.

  Sylvia apologized to the baffled Hilyers, and then went in search of Eli.

  Asking this person and that person, Sylvia found him. He was outside--all alone on a bench in a bower of lilacs that had just begun to bud.

  Eli heard his mother's coming on the gravel path, stayed where he was, resigned. "Did you find out," he said, "or do I still have to tell you?"

  "About you?" she said gently. "About not getting in? Doctor Warren told us."

  "I tore his letter up," said Eli.

  "I can understand that," she said. "Your father and I have always made you feel that you had to go to Whitehill, that nothing else would do."

  "I feel better," said Eli. He tried to smile, found he could do it easily. "I feel so much better now that it's over. I tried to tell you a couple of times--but I just couldn't. I didn't know how."

  "That's my fault, not yours," she said.

  "What's father doing?" said Eli.

  Sylvia was so intent on comforting Eli that she'd put out of her mind what her husband was up to. Now she realized that Doctor Remenzel was making a ghastly mistake. She didn't want Eli admitted to Whitehill, could see what a cruel thing that would be.