The Book of Knowledge (20 page)

‘Someday I'm going to write about you.'

‘For God's sake, don't.'

‘Well, maybe not you so much. I don't happen to know much about you. But about my feelings for you.'

‘That too. But you'll forget all about that by the day after tomorrow. Even maybe tomorrow.'

‘Never. I'll never forget.'

‘Okay. You can show me your feelings now. Go and put your shoes on so you can help me move the trunks to the porch. Carmen will be coming by in a little while to get them. And wipe the mud off your feet before you put your socks on. Your mother will think you never washed.'

Furious, Roslyn stamped into the bungalow. ‘She was making fun of me again, rejecting me.' She vowed that if she ever came back here (God forbid, as Fritzie would say), she would concentrate on snakes. She was already fond of their sleek, green, shining bodies and wet, white underbellies. She would launch a campaign against anyone catching them in order to use their skins as belts. Instead she would make pets of them. They ought to be good for new similes and metaphors.

Grete put her belongings into a large packing case. She tied it with heavy twine and wrote
MISS GRETE OLSSEN
and her address on both its top and its bottom.

‘For sureness,' she told herself.

She went down the hall to Carmen's room. His belongings were neatly folded in a still-open camp trunk outside his door.

Carmen opened the door.

‘Oh say. Meant to come by. Sorry about Ib.'

‘It is all right. But thank you. I came to ask. Do you want his clothes? I think they fit you.'

‘Sure. I'll take them.'

They went to Grete's room.

‘Over there,' she said and pointed. ‘In the corner.'

Carmen scooped up two bundles and carried them to his room. When he came back to thank her, Grete was sitting on her bed, her feet up on the rung of a chair. She was drinking from a quart bottle of ale.

‘Jumpin Jehoshaphat. Didn't know you ever drank. And so early in the day.'

‘So early? Yes. I am just finishing this bottle. Ib's from Wednesday. I am thirsty.'

Oscar said to Cindy Maggio, who was taking a damp suit off the line: ‘Here's your belt. I found it.'

‘Where?'

‘In the grass somewhere.'

‘Son of a bitch,' she said.

Before she could get out the accusation that came to her mind, he had started down the line. At Rae's bungalow he paused, swallowed, and wiped his forehead. He went in. Rae was packing. Another counselor whose name he did not know was sitting on Rae's bed watching her.

‘My mother made me come to give you this.' He handed her the gym bag.

‘What is it?

Oscar swallowed again and said nothing. As she started to open it he left, clumping down the steps. He went around the bungalow towards the woods.

Rae pulled out a tangle of purses, belts, lariats, underpants, and money.

‘Jesus Christ,' said Will.

Rae looked troubled. ‘How can she expect me to return all this stuff?'

‘You could set up a booth in Hoboken and invite the owners to claim their stolen property.'

‘A good idea, in part. Hoboken, no. It would make a bad impression on the parents. But I'll find Muggs. She can say she located the stuff somewhere. The kids can come to her for their, uh, their lost-and-found possessions on their way to the buses.'

Will reached into the pile and separated a ten-dollar bill and two ones.

‘I'll bet these are Hozzle's. I'll give them to her on my way down. It'll make her happy for the rest of the winter.'

Rae smiled wanly: ‘I wish we were going to be.'

‘Going to be what?'

‘Happy. For the winter.'

‘In that I join you, my friend,' said Will. She reached over and brushed her finger against Rae's cheek.

At two-thirty the buses were parked at the camp gate, behind the trucks loaded with trunks and cardboard boxes. Counselors shepherded their bunkies down the line. Rae, looking weary and dispirited, her familiar clipboard in hand, inspected each bungalow as it was vacated for campers' possessions, made a check on her list, and then moved on.

Mrs. Ehrlich was nowhere to be seen. Mr. Ehrlich gave the bus drivers their orders to depart when their bus was full, and waved to the campers, who were singing camp songs as they leaned out of the windows. Filled with the pleasure of departure and thoughts of dinner tonight with their families, they waved back happily to the director.

On the last bus, the doctor and nurse sat together. Dr. Amiel had hoped to ride to the station with Dolly, but she had taken an earlier bus with Fritzie and her campers.

‘Stuck with me, Doctor,' said the nurse when she saw him looking around.

‘Yup. Guess so.'

‘Glad it's all over?'

‘Am I ever. All those infernal baseball fingers.'

‘When does your wife arrive?'

‘In a few days, I think. Why do you want to know?'

‘No reason. Are you looking forward to her coming?'

‘What is this, the Inquisition?'

‘What about Dolly, your great love?'

‘I will look back on all that with the greatest pleasure, Nurse Jody.'

‘You bastard,' she said, her words heavy with the bitterness of the everlasting underling.

Dr. Amiel smiled at Nurse Jody.

‘Yup,' he said, with professional arrogance.

Between them, Mr. Ehrlich and Oscar lifted Grandmother Ehrlich into the backseat of the sedan. Mrs. Ehrlich came out of the cottage carrying a gray lap robe, which she tucked around the old lady's legs.

‘Where am I going?' she asked her daughter.

‘To New York. To the apartment. I'll see you there.'

‘Enjoy the ride,' Oscar said and stood back beside his mother. His face was very red, and one eyelid, rosier than the other, was swollen shut by his sty.

‘Don't forget the checks, Lena.'

Mrs. Ehrlich said: ‘When have I ever forgotten the checks?'

Mr. Ehrlich got into the car. Carmen started the motor. Mr. Ehrlich turned around and said to his mother: ‘Just relax. You'll be fine.'

‘When?' she said.

The station platform was crowded with noisy reunions. Parents listened delightedly as their daughters reported their athletic triumphs, their achievements in the water, their medals and pins. The parents exclaimed over how brown their daughters were, how healthy they looked, how they'd grown. When the fathers said goodbye, they pressed ten-dollar bills into the hands of the counselors they considered responsible for these satisfactory states.

Fritzie saw Joe Lyons's bearded face far down the platform. She resisted the impulse to run to him, because Muriel, unable to locate her parents in the confusion, clung to her arm, and Roslyn, who appeared to be more interested in Fritzie than in finding the Hellmans, held her hand. The Kresses found Muriel. As they hugged her, she stood very still, not raising her arms to them, her eyes wide with recognition that what she had guessed, had
felt
, was true. She noticed her parents' somber clothing among the other summer-clad parents, their stricken faces, the absence of her sister. … Fritzie handed Muriel's health report to Mr. Kress, and then stood back, still held captive by Roslyn.

Roslyn whispered to her: ‘Where's Ruth?'

Fritzie said: ‘I don't know.'

Roslyn thought: ‘She's lying. Why isn't she here? Why are they wearing black? I bet I know.'

Alert to fictional possibilities, Roslyn decided Ruth was very sick. Then too, she might be dead. The awfulness of this thought went through her, and made her hands shake. She wasn't brave enough to stay around the Kresses any longer, to learn the truth.
Maybe I don't have what it takes to be a writer
.

She called over to Muriel: ‘So long. See you next year.' She knew at once it was a stupid thing to say, but she couldn't think of anything else.

Muriel appeared not to hear her. She was crying into her mother's shoulder. The Kresses paid no attention to Roslyn or Fritzie.

Roslyn walked away with Fritzie.

‘Is your boyfriend here?'

‘My fiancé? Yes, he's here.'

Roslyn decided to make one last grand gesture.

‘I hope you'll be happy.'

‘Thank you, Roz,' she said, and, feeling she owed the girl a bit of kindness, she kissed her on the cheek.

Roslyn stood still, as if she were suffering under her touch, and stared at her counselor.

Fritzie laughed, said goodbye, ‘See you next summer,' and walked away down the platform toward Joe Lyons.

‘Not bloody likely,' said Roslyn aloud.

‘It's something,' she thought. ‘She likes me. I still love her. Emma may grow her tail back and be whole. My stomach still aches a little, and that silly pad between my legs is beginning to make me sore. But I'm beginning to feel better.'

From a distance Dolly waved to Amiel. He waved back and then turned to the Maggios. Mr. Maggio, holding on proudly to two red woven belts, shook the doctor's hand vigorously.

‘I want to thank you, Doctor, for the good care you gave my girl here.' He slapped him twice on the back and then handed him an envelope.

‘It's a small token of my appreciation, Doctor.'

Mrs. Maggio nodded to the doctor. Despite the warm day, she was wearing a fur stole, a large string of pearls, and gold jewelry.

The doctor thanked Mr. Maggio and said: ‘It was nothing, sir,' a literal truth, since Cindy Maggio had never been sick. He gave her father the health report and looked around to see if the circle of counselors around Mrs. Ehrlich had thinned out.

Three abreast, the Maggios walked toward the ferry slip.

‘Never once was in the goddamn infirmary,' said Cindy to her father.

Mrs. Ehrlich watched the family group get on the ferry. She had been informed by Rae that the junior camper's vocabulary had been more colorful this year than last. She resolved not to call on the family this winter in order to remove Cindy and her language from the camp roster.

But she need not have worried. The Ehrlichs were to be saved by a kindly Fate. Through the newspapers, they learned that the Maggios had gone abroad to visit relatives in Sicily soon after the closing of camp. There was a gathering of the large Maggio clan. While they ate hugely of pasta and drank much
grappa
, an investigation into Mafia activities in the United States revealed that Constanzo Maggio, Cindy's generous father, had been involved, in a suspicious manner, in Brooklyn politics. The borough's district attorney informed Sicilian officials, through federal representatives there, that the Maggios would not be welcomed back into the country. Cindy Maggio's vulgarity would no longer be a threat to the sheltered minds of junior campers.

Dr. Amiel took his envelope from Mrs. Ehrlich and shook her hand.

‘Have a nice winter in Florida. I've enjoyed the summer.'

‘I'm glad.'

‘Where's Oscar?'

‘He made the first ferry. There's a movie in the City he wanted to see. Called
Public Enemy
, I think.'

‘I hope he'll be all right. Try to get him to lose some weight.'

‘Yes. But you know him. I'm not worried about that. It's … his behavior. What am I going to do about that?'

‘Why don't you take him to a psychiatrist?'

‘That Freud stuff? I don't believe in it.'

‘Well, maybe you're right. I hope his eye clears up,' he said, anxious to get away from Oscar's multiple troubles and to make the ferry. ‘You take care. Say goodbye for me to your … to Mr. Ehrlich.'

‘Thank you. I will.'

For a few moments after the doctor left, Mrs. Ehrlich stood alone, feeling deserted and defenseless, without her supportive head counselor, without useful Grete, without her brother or her son. She saw Muggs coming toward her. Immediately she resumed her old confident stance.

‘Goodbye, Mrs. Ehrlich,' Muggs said. She was dressed in a handsome blue skirt and blouse that Mrs. Ehrlich thought looked as if it had come from Saks Fifth Avenue. Her heels were very high, displaying the elegance of her arches.

‘I'm sorry about the belt business. Maybe I shouldn't have said …'

‘Maybe not,' said Mrs. Ehrlich coolly. She handed Muggs her check.

‘Are you making this ferry?' she asked the counselor as she started to turn away.

‘No. I'm driving back.'

‘
Driving back?
'

‘Uh, well, yes. The chauffeur brought my car.'

Mrs. Ehrlich stared. For the first time since she had hired her, three summers ago, she remembered about Margaret Stewart. Not just the arts and crafts counselor, or the betrayer of her son, but one of New York's rich girls. Maybe she should have had her to dinner one night. …

Margaret Stewart said, waving the check: ‘Thank you for this,' and smiled. Her receding chin seemed even more in retreat.

Mrs. Ehrlich said: ‘Yes. Good. Well, goodbye,' and turned to greet the Hellmans.

Dr. Amiel made his way through the diminishing crowd to the ferry. He felt healthy but depressed, sunburned and well exercised but, for some reason, sad: sad about Dolly, apprehensive about his internship at Bellevue, which began in a few days, dejected at the thought that the noose of his marriage was about to descend upon him. He found a place at the rail on the upper deck and leaned against it to watch the boat make its slow, decorous way across the Hudson to Manhattan. For some reason, he suddenly remembered Grandmother Ehrlich.

‘I'm sick of myself,' he said into the sea breeze, and laughed.

After all the farewells and pleasantries were over, Rae and Will made the last ferry. They went to the lower-deck rail. Will started to shake as she saw the water swirling about the prow of the boat. Rae took her arm.

‘Willie dear. Let's go into the cabin.'

They took a bench at the back. A boy offered them hot dogs and soda. They refused, and sat very close to each other.