The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (24 page)

I loved standing under the towers—choose any one, depending on the time of day—looking up and farther up, until the back of my head rested on my shoulders. I would hang there until a certain slant of light caught the pendants and made them refract an endless pattern of colors. And then, and then I would spin around and around, making myself the moving sleeve of a kaleidoscope. And when I stopped, I would look down and watch their still-spinning shadow embroider the ground.

I had always loved spending time at 19 Schuyler Place, and I thought that my uncles loved having me. I expected them to jump at a chance to have me spend the four summer weeks that my parents would be gone. But they had not.

My other first choice of “What to do with Margaret” had been to go with my parents to Peru. They had always taken me with them before. I had assumed they would want me along because as an only child, I had spent a great deal of time among adults, and I was an excellent traveling companion. I never required extra bathroom stops—my mother always carried empty cottage cheese containers as an emergency portable potty—never demanded special foods, and regardless of how endless the car ride was, I never asked, “Are we there yet?”

Since I was not given either of my two first choices, the only remaining alternative was summer camp. That being the case, I decided that the choice of camp would be mine and mine alone. So it was with a bruised heart and wounded pride that I set about making my selection. I decided that I would choose such a wonderful camp and have such a wonderful time that my parents and my uncles would be sorry that they had not come, too.

I invested many hours in making my decision. I sent away for thirty-six brochures, read them all, and sent away for thirty-two tapes, of which I watched a total of nineteen all the way through. I chose Talequa.

• • •

After recovering from the shock of Uncle's unannounced appearance, Mrs. Kaplan asked, “Why, Mr. Rose, did you not give us notice of your arrival?”

“Because if I had, Mrs. Kaplan,” he replied, “you would have told me not to come.”

That was true, but she did not have to admit or deny it. “How did you get here?” she asked.

“I walked.”

No one walked into Camp Talequa. Visitors arrived by car or minivan and by invitation. Mrs. Kaplan had heard that once, long before she had bought the camp, an elderly couple had arrived in a taxi, but there were no living witnesses to that story, so she placed it into the category of creation myth. But even if there really had once been a couple who had arrived in a taxi, no one had ever
walked
into Camp Talequa. There was no rule against it because who would have dreamed that such a rule would be necessary? Actually, there were no rules at all about
how
to arrive, but the Talequa handbook made it clear that there were definite rules about
when.
One strict rule was: No visits from friends or relatives for the first two weeks of a session, which, in Mrs. Kaplan's interpretation, made Alexander Rose a trespasser. There were other rules—rules about what you could bring with you. Alcohol and drugs were explicitly forbidden, of course, but it was just as clearly written, so were dogs. The punishment for bringing a dog was not as well defined as that for alcohol or drugs (immediate, nonrefundable expulsion), but the basic animal rule was: Dogs were not allowed in camp. Never. Paper trained, potty trained, K-9 trained: No. Even if they were trained to flush, they were not allowed. There was to be no Lassie, no Pluto, no Scooby-Doo. Never. Not as visitors. Not
with
visitors.

And this man had brought a dog!

Collecting her wits, Mrs. Kaplan presented Uncle with her best varnished smile. “We are most willing to discuss Margaret's problem with you,” she declared, “but, Mr. Rose, we cannot permit dogs on our premises.”

Alexander Rose knew that any smile that registered as high on the gloss meter as Mrs. Kaplan's came from well-practiced insincerity. Uncle also knew that Mrs. Kaplan did not object to Tartufo as much as she objected to his disobeying one—no, really
two
—of her rules. He could have told her that Tartufo was a working dog and allowed to go where no dog had gone before. He could have asked her, Would an ordinary dog be allowed on a Greyhound? But, wisely, he didn't tell, and he didn't ask. Instead, he said, “Tartufo is here, Mrs. Kaplan. I'm not a magician. I cannot make him disappear.”

With her smile lashed to her teeth, Mrs. Kaplan replied, “Then we must insist that it wait outside.”

Uncle had learned long ago that obeying a rule in fact but not in spirit was very hard on people who say
we
for
I
and who do not allow dogs on their premises. So without hesitation, he led Tartufo to a spot just outside the front door of the office cabin. With the door open so that Mrs. Kaplan could hear, he told Tartufo to sit. Then he removed Tartufo's leash and carried it back into the office.

When he reentered, Mrs. Kaplan had her back to him. She was removing a file folder from a cabinet behind her desk. Uncle stood in front of the desk, conspicuously holding the empty leash in his hand. When she turned around and saw the leash, she realized that not only was there a dog on her premises, but it was not tethered. The smile left her face, and her mouth formed a Gothic O. She started to say something, thought better of it, and didn't. Instead, she sat down, opened the file, and began studying it. The file was all about me, Margaret Rose. Considering that this was only my ninth day at camp, the folder was quite full.

Uncle continued to stand, waiting for Mrs. Kaplan to look up again. “May I be seated?” he asked.

“Please,” she said, sweeping her hand toward the right chair, one of two that faced her desk.

Uncle sat down, quickly got up and moved the chair four inches, sat down, got up and moved it again in the opposite direction, and then did it a third time. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Rose?”

“The sun,” he said. “It's shining in my eyes, and you are a dark shadow.” Uncle meant every word.

Wearing her patience like a body stocking, Mrs. Kaplan said, “Suppose you take the other chair.”

“Good idea,” Uncle said, and moved that chair once before settling down. With a fussiness as elaborate as it was deliberate, he inched his bottom toward the back of the chair. He steadied his gaze on the woman sitting across the desk from him and waited until only the sheerest shroud of patience remained. Then he folded his hands in his lap and said, “Now we can talk.”

In more ways than one, Alexander Rose resembled a set of Matryoshka nesting dolls. He was short and squat, he had many fully formed layers beneath his roly-poly outer shell, and deep inside was an innermost self, a core that was solid and indivisible.

In an unconscious effort to create as much distance as possible between them, Mrs. Kaplan leaned back in her chair and slowly turned the full force of an uppish smile on him. “We see, Mr. Rose, that you are not this child's parent.”

“That is correct. I am her granduncle.”

“You must mean
great-uncle.”

“Great or grand, they mean the same: I am the brother of her grandmother.” Mrs. Kaplan was not sure if
great-uncle
and
granduncle
were interchangeable, but she decided to let his remark go. She would check it later. Uncle said, “At the moment, though, since Margaret's parents are out of the country and unable to tend to her, I am
in loco parentis,
in the position of a parent.”

Mrs. Kaplan replied, “We know perfectly well what
in loco parentis
means, Mr. Rose.” But as soon as she said it, she regretted it. This interview was not going well. Best to get to the matter at hand. “Yes, it was in your capacity as guardian of Margaret that I called you last night. As I mentioned on the phone, Margaret refuses to participate in any of our activities. She says, ‘I prefer not to.'” Tapping the folder, she said, “We have here a report from Gloria, Margaret's camp counselor.” She lowered her head, put on her glasses, and began reading aloud. “On Monday—

Margaret did not take a copy of the words to our camp songs when I was passing them out. I did not force a copy on her because I assumed that like a lot of our other girls, she had learned the words from our tape. Then on Tuesday, our karaoke and sing-along evening, she did not sing with the group. When I asked her why, she said it was because she didn't know the words.”

Mrs. Kaplan raised her voice slightly while reading the phrase
because she didn't know the words.
She looked over her reading glasses at Uncle and waited until he indicated with a nod that he had caught the significance of her emphasis. She continued, “On Wednesday—

Margaret did not show up for origami class. When I went to her cabin to fetch her, she refused to attend. When I asked her why, she said that she preferred not to.

Margaret failed to create a design to paint on a T-shirt. She said that she preferred not to. Then in the afternoon when we were to paint the T-shirts, she said she couldn't because she didn't have a design. I suggested that she do something spontaneous—an abstract, maybe—and she replied, ‘I prefer not to.'”

Uncle folded his hands across the expanse of his belly and cocked his head a little to the left, his supreme listening mode. He waited.

Mrs. Kaplan took off her reading glasses and laid them on top of the open folder. “That brings us to the events of yesterday. The girls were scheduled to go tubing on the lake. Everyone but Margaret boarded the bus. Everyone waited, and when Margaret did not appear, Gloria went to Meadowlark cabin to look for her. She found Margaret still in her bunk, not ready. We had to leave without her. A little later, we personally went to her cabin to have a talk with her.”

Mrs. Kaplan waited for a response from Uncle. None came. She cleared her throat and continued. “Our visit yesterday elicited a remark from your niece, Mr. Rose, that was so uncalled for that we were prompted to phone you last evening.” She again waited for a response from Uncle, expecting him to ask what awful thing I had said, but Uncle asked nothing. In truth, he did not want to possibly have to agree with Mrs. Kaplan that something I had said was truly uncalled for. When it became clear that Uncle would not ask, she continued. “Your niece has become increasingly unreachable.” She put her glasses back on, took two pages from the folder, and handed them to Uncle. “You will find that Louise Starr, our camp nurse, agrees. You may read her reports.”

She handed Uncle Alex the forms. The first report said that I, Margaret Rose Kane, was neither anorexic nor bulimic nor suffering from preadolescent depression.
In conclusion, I find her simply uncooperative.
The second report again eliminated the same things—bulimia, anorexia, and depression—and upgraded me from
uncooperative
to
incorrigible.

Uncle Alex was not a rapid reader, and he took the time to read the reports twice before laying the sheets back down on the desk. He slowly pushed them toward Mrs. Kaplan. He said nothing. Mrs. Kaplan closed the folder, removed her glasses, and rested her hands on the cover. “What do you have to say about those reports, Mr. Rose?”

“Nurse Starr has a very nice handwriting,” he replied.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Yes, it is all I have to say. Not all I
can
say.”

“Please feel free to tell us what is on your mind.”

“Well, Mrs. Kaplan, I can tell you that I understand. You see, I, too, once lived under a monarchy. I, too, preferred not to, so I emigrated.”

“We would hardly call our community here at Camp Talequa a monarchy, Mr. Rose.”

“And that, Mrs. Kaplan, is because you are the queen.”

“We deeply resent that remark, Mr. Rose.”

“I'm sure you do, Mrs. Kaplan, but with all due respect, your camp here has a surprising resemblance to the camps in my old country. You require blind obedience. So did they. You demand conformity. So did they.” Uncle then waved a hand toward the folder. “You have your spies. They had theirs. And you have—”

“We have happy campers, Mr. Rose.”

“And so you should, Mrs. Kaplan. And it is for that very reason that I want to remove an unhappy one.” He stood up. “Now, if you'll please tell me where I can find Margaret Rose, I will get her, and we shall leave.”

Mrs. Kaplan protested. “We have procedures, Mr. Rose.”

“Start the procedures.”

“There are forms to be signed.”

“Bring them to me. I will sign them.”

Mrs. Kaplan resisted. Uncle insisted. Finally, Mrs. Kaplan called over to the main house and asked Gloria to come to the office. As they waited, Uncle asked Mrs. Kaplan for a refund.

“A refund, Mr. Rose?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kaplan. It is my understanding that all the fees were paid in advance. I expect you to deduct from my refund the eight and a half days Margaret Rose has spent here plus something for your administrative costs.”

“But surely, Mr. Rose, you know that we are at a total loss.”

“Surely you have a waiting list. Most places do.”

“Of course we have a waiting list.
Certainly
we have a waiting list. We have a long waiting list. Our waiting list is as long as that of any camp in the Adirondacks. But at this late date, there is no way we can sell the space that was to have been taken by Margaret. Our supplies have been ordered with a certain number in mind. That number includes Margaret Kane.” She pulled a sheet from a file drawer and thrust it at Uncle Alex. “Read your contract. No refunds after June twenty-first. There will be no refund, Mr. Rose.”

“That being the case, Mrs. Kaplan, I would appreciate some lunch and a ride back to Epiphany.”

“We can allow lunch, Mr. Rose. But a ride back to Epiphany is out of the question. We cannot tie up a bus and a driver to transport two people all the way to Epiphany.”