Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition (31 page)

Sylvia resumed her reading of the catalogue again, opened out a folding map of “The Sward,” as the campus of Whitehill 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:

“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 your 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 Whitehill. 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.

She couldn’t bring herself to tell the boy what his father was doing, so she said, “He’ll be along in a minute, dear. He
understands.” And then she said, “You wait here, and I’ll go get him and come right back.”

But she didn’t have to go to Doctor Remenzel. At that moment the big man came out of the inn and caught sight of his wife and son. He came to her and to Eli. He looked dazed.

“Well?” she said.

“They—they all said no,” said Doctor Remenzel, very subdued.

“That’s for the best,” said Sylvia. “I’m relieved. I really am.”

“Who said no?” said Eli. “Who said no to what?”

“The members of the board,” said Doctor Remenzel, not looking anyone in the eye. “I asked them to make an exception in your case—to reverse their decision and let you in.”

Eli stood, his face filled with incredulity and shame that were instant. “You what?” he said, and there was no childishness in the way he said it. Next came anger. “You shouldn’t have done that!” he said to his father.

Doctor Remenzel nodded. “So I’ve already been told.”

“That isn’t done!” said Eli. “How awful! You shouldn’t have.”

“You’re right,” said Doctor Remenzel, accepting the scolding lamely.

“Now I
am
ashamed,” said Eli, and he showed that he was.

Doctor Remenzel, in his wretchedness, could find no strong words to say. “I apologize to you both,” he said at last. “It was a very bad thing to try.”

“Now a Remenzel
has
asked for something,” said Eli.

“I don’t suppose Ben’s back yet with the car?” said Doctor Remenzel. It was obvious that Ben wasn’t. “We’ll wait out here for him,” he said. “I don’t want to go back in there now.”

“A Remenzel asked for something—as though a Remenzel were something special,” said Eli.

“I don’t suppose—” said Doctor Remenzel, and he left the sentence unfinished, dangling in the air.

“You don’t suppose what?” said his wife, her face puzzled.

“I don’t suppose,” said Doctor Remenzel, “that we’ll ever be coming here any more.”