Farewell Summer (9 page)

A huge question mark, painted on a plywood shingle, hung over the tent entryway. The tent had been erected on one side of the lakefront grounds, and the entrance gave way into the darkness of a haphazardly constructed plywood lean-to museum. Inside was a series of platforms on which were no freaks, no beasts, no magicians, no people. Somehow, overnight, this mystery tent had appeared, as if it had pitched itself.

Across town, Quartermain smiled.

That morning, in school, Doug had found an unsigned handwritten note in his desk. Its message was simple, written with black ink in large block letters: ‘
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE EXPLAINED
.???
AT THE LAKEFRONT. LIMITED TIME ONLY
.' Doug passed the note among his friends, and as soon as school let out for the day, the boys had rushed down here, as fast as their feet could carry them. Now, entering the question mark tent with his friends, Doug was incredibly disappointed.
Migawd
, no bones, no dinosaurs, no mad generals at war,
he thought. Nothing but night-dark canvas and flat platforms and … Douglas peered. Charlie squinted. Will, Bo, and Tom came last into the smell of old wood and tar-paper. There wasn't even a curator with a tall hat and baton to guide them along. There was only—

On top of a series of small tables were a number of large one-and two-gallon jars filled to the brim with a thick, clear liquid. Each jar was topped by a glass lid, and each lid had a red number on it – twelve in all – each number, painted in a shaky hand. And inside each of the jars … maybe that was it, at last, the things implied by the huge question mark outside.

‘Heck,' muttered Bo. ‘There's nothing here. What a gyp. So long, you guys.'

And Bo turned, pushed the tent flap aside, and left.

‘Wait,' said Douglas, but Bo was already gone. ‘Tom, Charlie, Will, you won't leave, will you? You'll miss out if you go.'

‘But there's nothing here, just some old jars.'

‘Wait,' said Doug. ‘It's
more
than just jars. What's
in
the jars? C'mon. Let's look closer.'

They edged up to the platform and crept along, staring into the jars, one after another. There were no labels to tell them what they were looking at, just glass and liquid and a soft light that seemed to pulse
within the liquid and shone on their eager, sweaty faces.

‘What
is
that stuff in there?' asked Tom.

‘Gosh knows. Look close.'

Their eyes moved along, darted and stayed, stayed and darted, fastened and examined until their noses dilated and their mouths gaped.

‘What's that, Doug? And that? And that one there?'

‘How do
I
know? Move!' Doug went back to the beginning of the row and crouched down in front of the first jar so his eyes were level with whatever was inside it.

The big bright glass jar held what looked like a giant cold gray oyster. Doug peered at it, mumbled something to himself, then stood up and moved on. The boys followed.

Suspended within the liquid in the next jar was something that looked like a bit of translucent seaweed or, no, more like a seahorse, a miniature seahorse, sure!

And the glass jar after that held something that resembled a skinned rabbit or a raw cat with its fur shucked, getting bigger …

The boys' eyes moved, darted, stayed, flicked back to examine the first, second, third, fourth jars again.

‘What's in
this
one, Doug?'

Five, six, seven.

‘Look!'

They all looked and it might have been another animal, a squirrel or a monkey – sure, a monkey – but with transparent skin and a strange sorrowful expression.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven – the jars were numbered but had no names. There was nothing to hint at what the boys were looking at, what it was that froze their veins and iced their blood. Until at last, at the far end of the row, near the exit sign, they reached the last jar and all leaned toward it and blinked.

‘That
can't
be!'

‘Naw.'

‘It
is
,' gasped Douglas. ‘A baby!'

‘What's it
doing
in there?'

‘Being dead, dummy.'

‘Yeah, but … how …?'

All their eyes swiveled to rush back – eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five and four and three and two and one – to the first jar, the one holding the pale little oyster curlicue.

‘If that's a baby …'

‘Then,' said Will, all numbness, ‘what in blazes are all those creepy things in the
other
jars?'

Douglas counted backward, then forward again, but stayed silent, his icy flesh all goose bumps.

‘I got nothing to say.'

‘Upchuck, Doug, upchuck.'

‘Those things in the jars …' Doug began, face pale, voice paler. ‘They're – they're babies, too!'

It was as if half a dozen sledgehammers had slammed into half a dozen stomachs.

‘Don't
look
like babies!'

‘Things from another world, maybe.'

Another world
, thought Douglas.
In those jars, drowned. Another world.

‘Jellyfish,' Charlie said. ‘Squids.
You know.'

I know
, thought Douglas.
Undersea
.

‘It's got blue eyes,' Will whispered. ‘It's looking at us.'

‘No, it's not,' said Doug. ‘It's drowned.'

‘C'mon, Doug,' Tom whispered. ‘I got the willies.'

‘Willies, heck,' Charlie said. ‘I got the heebie–jeebies. Where'd all this stuff come from?'

‘I don't know,' Douglas said, chafing his elbows.

‘The wax museum last year. That was sort of like this.'

‘These aren't wax,' said Tom. ‘Oh, gosh, Doug, that's a real baby there, used to be alive. I never seen a dead baby before. I'm gonna be sick.'

‘Run outside. Go on!'

Tom turned and ran. In a moment, Charlie backed off and followed, his eyes darting from the baby to the jellyfish or whatever it was and then to the seahorse or what might be someone's earlobes, tympanum and all.

‘How come there's no one here to tell us what all this stuff is?' Will wondered.

‘Maybe,' said Doug slowly, ‘maybe they're afraid to tell, or
can't
tell, or
won't.'

‘Lord,' said Will. ‘I'm froze.'

From outside the tent's canvas walls came the sounds of Tom being sick.

‘Hey!' Will cried suddenly. ‘It moved!'

Doug reached his hand out to the glass. ‘No, it didn't.'

‘It moved, darn it. It doesn't like us staring at it! Moved, I'm telling you! That's enough for me. So long, Doug.'

And Doug was left alone in the dark tent with the cold glass jars holding the blind things that stared out with eyes that seemed to say how awful it was to be dead.

There's nobody to ask
, thought Douglas,
no one here. No one to ask and no one to tell. How do we find out? Will we ever know?

From the far end of the tent museum came the sound of high–pitched laughter. Six girls ran into the tent, giggling, letting in a bright wedge of sunlight.

Once the tent flap closed they stopped laughing, enveloped suddenly in darkness.

Doug turned blindly and walked out into the light.

He took a deep breath of the hot summer–like air, and squeezed his eyes shut. He could still see the
platforms and the tables and the glass jars filled with thick fluid, and in the fluid, suspended, strange bits of tissue, alien forms from far unknown territories. What could be a swamp water creature with half an eye and half a limb, he knew, was not. What could be a fragment of ghost, of a spiritual upchuck come out of a fogbound book in a night library, was not. What could be the stillborn discharge of a favorite dog was not. In his mind's eye the things in the jars seemed to melt, from fluid to fluid, light to light. If you flicked your eyes from jar to jar, you could almost snap them to life, as if you were running bits of film over your eyeballs so that the tiny things became large and then larger, shaping themselves into fingers, hands, palms, wrists, elbows, until finally, asleep, the last shape opened wide its dull, blue, lashless eyes and fixed you with its gaze that cried,
Look! See! I am trapped here forever! What am I? What is the question, what, what? Could it be, you there, below, outside looking in, could it be that I am
… you?

Beside him, rooted to the grass, stood Charlie and Will and Tom.

‘What was
that
all about?' Will whispered.

‘I almost—' Doug started but Tom interrupted, tears running down his cheeks.

‘How come I'm crying?'

‘Why would anyone be crying?' said Will, but his eyes were wet, too. ‘Darn,' he whispered.

They heard a creaking sound. From the corner of his eye, Douglas saw a woman go by pushing a carriage in which something struggled and cried.

Beyond in the afternoon crowd, a pretty woman walked arm in arm with a sailor. Down by the lake a mob of girls played tag, hair flying, leaping, bounding, measuring the sand with swift feet. The girls ran away down the shore and Douglas, hearing their laughter, turned his gaze back to the tent, the entry, and the large strange question mark.

Douglas started to move back toward the tent, like a sleepwalker.

‘Doug?' said Tom. ‘Where you going? You going back in to look at all that junk again?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Why?' exploded Will. ‘Creepy–looking stuff that someone stuck in old pickle jars. I'm going home. C'mon.'

‘You go on,' said Doug.

‘Besides,' said Will, passing a hand across his forehead, ‘I don't feel so good. Maybe I'm scared. How about you?'

‘What's to be scared of?' said Tom. ‘Like you said, it's just some creepy old stuff.'

‘See you later, guys.' Doug walked slowly to the entryway and stopped in the shadows. ‘Tom, wait for me.' Doug vanished.

‘Doug!' Tom cried, face pale, shouting into the tent at
the tables and jars and alien creatures. ‘Be
careful
, Doug. Watch
out
!'

He started to follow but stopped, shivering, clutching his elbows, gritting his teeth, half in, half out of night, half in, half out of sun.

Suddenly the town was full of girls, girls running here, walking there, going in doors, coming out, girls in the dime store, girls dangling their legs at the soda fountain, girls in mirrors or reflected in windows, stepping off curbs or stepping up, and all of them, all in bright not yet fall, not quite autumn dresses, and all, well maybe not all but almost all, with wind blowing their hair and all with downcast eyes looking to see where their shoes might take them.

It seemed to happen overnight, this infestation of girls, and Douglas walked through the town as if it were a mirror maze, walked down to the ravine steps and halfway up the jungle path before he realized where he was. From the top of the last rise he could almost see the lake and the sand and the tent with the question mark over the entrance.

He kept walking and found himself, inexplicably, in Mr Quartermain's front yard, waiting for he couldn't say what.

Quartermain, half–hidden in shadow on the front
porch, leaned forward in his rocking chair, creaking the wicker, creaking his bones. For a long moment the old man looked one way, the boy another, until their gazes locked.

‘Douglas Spaulding?' Quartermain said.

‘Mr Quartermain?' asked the boy.

It was as if they were meeting for the first time.

‘Douglas Spaulding.' This time it was not a question, but a confirmation. ‘Douglas Hinkston Spaulding.'

‘Sir.' And this was not a question from the boy, either. ‘Mr Calvin C. Quartermain.' And again, ‘Sir.'

‘What're you doing down there, so far out on the lawn?'

Douglas was surprised. ‘Dunno.'

‘Why don't you come up here?' said Quartermain.

‘I've got to get home,' said Douglas.

‘No hurry. Why don't we sort out the sic transits, letting loose the dogs of war, havocs cried, all
that
.'

Douglas almost laughed, but found he could not take the first step.

‘Look,' said Quartermain. ‘If I take out my teeth I won't bite.' He pantomimed as if removing something from his mouth but stopped, for Douglas was on the first step, and then the second, and finally at the top, where the old man nodded at another rocker.

Whereupon a remarkable thing took place.

Even as Douglas sat it seemed that the porch planks sank the merest half inch under his weight.

Simultaneously, Mr Quartermain felt his wicker seat move
up
half an inch!

Then, still further, as Quartermain settled back in his rocker, the porch sank under him.

And at that precise moment, the chair under Douglas rose silently, a quarter inch.

So that each, only sensing, only half knowing, felt that he occupied one end of an invisible teeter–totter which, as they spoke quietly, moved up, moved down, first Douglas sinking as Quartermain rose, then Quartermain descending as Douglas imperceptibly lifted – now one up, now down; now the other up, now down; slowly, slowly.

Now Quartermain high in the soft air of the dying summer, a moment later, Douglas the same.

‘Sir?'

‘Yes, son?'

He's never called me that before
, thought Douglas, and looked at the old man's face softened with some half–perceived sympathy.

Quartermain leaned forward.

‘Before you ask me whatever you've got on your mind, let me ask you something.'

‘Sir?'

The old man's voice was quiet.

‘How old are you?'

Doug felt the breath sift over his lips.

‘Ummm, eighty–one?'

‘What?!'

‘I dunno. I mean. I dunno.'

At last Douglas added, ‘And
you
, sir?'

‘Well, now,' said Quartermain.

‘Sir?'

‘Well, let me see. Twelve?'

‘Sir?!'

‘Or maybe thirteen would be better?'

‘
Yes
, sir.'

Teeter up, teeter down.

‘Douglas,' said Quartermain at last, ‘I'd like you to tell me. What's life all about?'

‘My gosh,' cried Douglas, ‘I was going to ask
you
that very question!'

Quartermain pulled back.

‘Let's rock awhile.'

There was no motion up, no motion down. They held still.

‘It's been a long summer,' the old man said.

‘Seemed like it would never end,' Doug agreed.

‘I don't think it has. Not yet,' said Quartermain.

He reached out to the table beside him and found some lemonade and poured a glass and handed it over. Douglas held the glass and took a small sip. Quartermain cleared his throat and looked at his hands.

‘Appomattox.'

Douglas blinked. ‘Sir?'

Quartermain looked around at the railings, the boxes of geraniums, and the wicker rockers that he and the boy sat still in.

‘Appomattox. You ever heard of that?'

‘In school once.'

‘The thing is, which one is me, which one is you?'

‘Which one what, sir?'

‘Lee and Grant, Doug. Grant and Lee. What color uniform are you wearing?'

Douglas looked down at his sleeves and his pants and his shoes.

‘I see you have no better answer than I do,' observed Quartermain.

‘No, sir.'

‘It was a long time ago. Two tired old generals. Appomattox.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Now.' Cal Quartermain leaned forward so his wicker bones creaked. ‘What is it you want to know?'

‘Everything,' said Douglas.

‘Everything?' Quartermain laughed gently. ‘That'll take at least ten minutes.'

‘How about something?' said Douglas finally.

‘Something? One
special
thing? Why, Doug,
that
will take a lifetime. I've been at it a while.
Everything
rolls off my tongue, easy as pie. But
something
!
Something!
I get lockjaw just trying to define it. So let's talk about
everything
instead, for now. When you finally unhinge
your tongue and find one special eternal
forever
thing of substance, let me know. Promise?'

‘Promise.'

‘Now, where were we? Life?
There's
an
everything
topic. You want to know all about life?'

Douglas nodded, head ducked.

‘Steel yourself.'

Douglas looked up and fixed Quartermain with a stare like the sky and all of time waiting.

‘Well, to begin …' He paused and held out his hand for Douglas's empty glass. ‘You're going to need this, son.'

Quartermain poured. Douglas took and drank.

‘Life,' said the old man, and murmured, muttered, and murmured again.