The Wednesday Wars (29 page)

They hovered above us and laughed.

We ran toward the woods and swatted at them with pine branches.

They laughed some more.

Then we ran toward the fire, since Mrs. Baker said they hated smoke.

They don't. Hiding in the smoke helps about as much as scrunching under a desk during an atomic bomb attack.

"Keep moving and stay in groups," said Mrs. Baker, which is the same strategy to use if you're floating in the ocean and surrounded by sharks. It means that anyone on the outside of the group gets picked off. So we took turns getting in close to the center—except I gave Meryl Lee my turn since she had helped me with the pots. She said that I saved her about a pint of blood—which was worth it the way she smiled at me when she said this.

And that's how Mrs. Bigio found us when she hiked in at dusk—all huddled into small groups, swatting hopelessly at hordes of mosquitoes, nothing cooking on the fire. (Mrs. Sidman was in the tent, with the entrance zipped up.)

Mrs. Bigio unslung her backpack, whipped out a can of insect repellant, and went to work on us. Then she loaded wood onto the fire and sent half of us out for more. "The rest of you, bring me three large flat stones from the river. And scrub them clean! And bring back two pots of water, too. Who's been cleaning these?"

When we came back with the stones and pots of water, she unloaded garlic and carrots and potatoes and turnips and chuck beef and tomatoes.

Mai Thi stared at it all. "Thit bo kho?" she asked.

"It will be by the time we're done," said Mrs. Bigio. "The curry and gingerroot are in the front pocket there. I couldn't find any lemongrass, so we'll have to make do."

She and Mai Thi made do. In a little while, the water was boiling, and they had chopped up the potatoes and turnips into one pot, and the chuck beef into another. And then they combined them and added everything else that Mrs. Bigio had brought. And even if there wasn't any lemongrass, it all smelled as wonderful as any food cooked over an open fire can smell—which is pretty wonderful, let me tell you.

Just as we saw the first star, Mrs. Bigio and Mai Thi ladled the stew out into bowls—that Mrs. Bigio had packed—and gave us spoons—that Mrs. Bigio had picked up all along the trail. "You can never be too careful about your supplies," she said to Mrs. Sidman, who, because she was eating hot thit bo kho, was happy enough not to blame anything on me. Even though I still was the one who carried the pots down to the stream to clean them out.

With Meryl Lee.

And neither of us minded at all.

We were still there when Mrs. Bigio and Mai Thi came down to wash Mrs. Bigio's cutting knives—which she wouldn't let anyone but Mai Thi touch—and when Mrs. Bigio said to Mai Thi that she had meant to be up to the campsite earlier but that she had taken the morning to speak with the Catholic Relief Agency that had sponsored Mai Thi when she came from Vietnam. She wanted Mai Thi to know that the house where she was living with the relief sisters was very nice, but if she wanted, that is, if Mai Thi would like to, Mrs. Bigio had a small house and she was living all alone now and she thought that maybe, if Mai Thi would ever, could ever imagine that—until Mai Thi put her arms around Mrs. Bigio, and Mrs. Bigio put her arms around Mai Thi, and the ripples of the water replaced all words.

Good Lord, for alliance!

***

That night, I lay awake. It seemed that the soggy ground had sunk down and left a whole lot of rocks to poke up into me. I watched the bazillion stars amaze the sky above. I watched until they fell asleep themselves. Half my mind on sea, half on shore. Thinking about Mai Thi and Mrs. Bigio. And Lieutenant Baker coming home to Mrs. Baker. And Danny Hupfer getting ready for his bar mitzvah. And Bobby Kennedy. And Martin Luther King, Jr. And how in five years I'd have to register for the Vietnam draft.

And how the dew was starting to soak my sleeping bag.

So I was still awake when the dawn started to think about showing herself. The air was coloring everything gray, and the fog was coming up from the ground in white shreds and billows, as if the whole campsite had lifted itself up into the clouds overnight. I slipped out of my dewy sleeping bag and walked through the white and the gray to the water. When I reached it, the stream rippled happily, as if it had been waiting just for me all this time. I knelt down and lowered my palm into it. Cold. Frigidly cold. But I rolled up my pants and waded in. Beneath me, the rocks of the streambed felt smooth and slick, even soft, as the water rushed past, carrying itself away.

Then I looked upstream.

The disk of the sun had just come up, and the billows of fog had bowed to it and backed away. The river was a sudden ribbon of silvery light, flickering and sparkling and flashing, carrying the new light on its back all the way down from the high mountains. It was so bright that you couldn't see below the surface until the water was right up to you, and then it was suddenly clear, and buoying me up in its rush. And it never stopped, this rush of bright water from the mountains, these flashes and chunks of light from the sun. There was so much of it to come.

***

I didn't tell anyone about the river that morning. Not even Meryl Lee. I think that if I had told Pastor McClellan, he would have said it was a vision. I think if I had told Mrs. Baker, she would have said that it was a miracle, that all dawns were miracles—miracles being much on her mind lately, as you can understand. I think that if I had told Shakespeare about the river, he would have said, "All this amazement can I qualify"—but he would have been wrong, since what I saw was something more beautiful than has ever been written.

But I didn't tell anyone.

Not even Danny, who was hoping for a miracle, right up to the day of his bar mitzvah.

You could see him waiting for the worst to happen when he stood up in the synagogue a week later—a synagogue that was full, mostly with Hupfers. Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Bigio and Mrs. Sidman sat near the front. Mai Thi and Meryl Lee and Heather and I sat behind a group of ancient Hupfers—I was trying to keep my borrowed yarmulka on the back of my head, because it felt like it was slipping down all the time. And our parents were there, too—even my father, who, I guess, figured that Mr. Hupfer might someday need an architect, and so he had better show up. It was sort of like an investment. He sat as far away from Mr. Kowalski as he could.

We all watched as Danny pulled the prayer shawl his great-uncle had given him around his shoulders. The tassels reached below his waist. Then he wound the tefillin around his arm and across his forehead. You could see him still waiting for the worst, hoping for a miracle. Then the prayers. Still waiting. Then he walked with the rabbi and cantor back to the altar and took out the Torah. We all stood—I reached up to press down my yarmulka—and he carried the Torah back to the reading desk. The rabbi drew it from its mantle, untied the scroll, and rolled it open.

A huge breath from Danny. Still waiting.

And then—can you believe it?—the miracle came after all.

He lifted one of the tassels, touched it to the scroll, kissed it. He took the handles of the Torah in his own hands. And he began to sing.

Baruch et Adonai ha'mevorach.

And everyone around us sang back.

Baruch Adonai ha'mevorach I'olam va'ed.

And Danny sang again, deep and steady, until he got to "
Baruch ata Adonai, noteyn ha'torah,
" when everyone sang back, just as deep and just as steady, "Amen."

Then Danny took a deep breath and began to read from the Torah.

Okay, so maybe sometimes the real world
is
smiles and miracles. Right there in front of us, Danny Hupfer was no longer Danny who stuck wads of gum under his desk. Or Danny who screamed out of his skull at soccer games. Or Danny who ran cross-country on bloody knees and waved sweaty T-shirts.

He was more than all of those things. He sang the words, and he was everyone who had sung them before him, like he was taking up his place in this huge choir and it wasn't Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels but God Himself leading the music. You saw Danny covered with weight.

Then the cantor and Danny's father stood over him and blessed him. More weight.

And Danny chanted again, this time from the Prophets. More weight.

And then he reached into his back pocket and took out his speech, his Dvar Torah. "Today," he said, "I am become a man."

And he had.

You could see it afterward, when he recited the blessings over the challah, and over the wine, and everyone shouted "
L'chayim!
" "To life!"

Danny had become a man. You could see him take up his place. And he was smiling. And crying, too.

After the service, my parents and Heather decided not to stay for the party already starting in the reception hall. When they asked if I wanted a ride, I told them I would walk home instead. But I went to the parking lot with them anyway.

As he unlocked the car, my father said, "I bet you're glad you don't have to go through something like that."

"I guess I am," I said.

"What do you mean, 'I guess I am'?" he said. "Would you want to stand up there with all that stuff all over you and chant at everyone?"

"It was a whole lot more than chanting at everyone," I said.

"Let's get in the car," said my mother.

"No," said my father. He put his arms up on top of the station wagon's roof. "I'd like to know what Holling thought was a whole lot more."

My stomach got tight. "He became a man," I said.

"You think that's how you become a man, by chanting a few prayers?"

"You think you become a man by getting a job as an architect?"

My father straightened. "That's
exactly
how you become a man," he said. "You get a good job and you provide for your family. You hang on, and you play for keeps. That's how it works."

"I really do think we should get in the car," said my mother.

"I don't think so," I said to my father. "It's not just about a job. It's more. It has to do with choosing for yourself."

"And you didn't even have to go to California to figure all that out," said my father. "So who are you, Holling?"

I felt Heather looking at me. And somehow—I don't know how—I thought of Bobby Kennedy, who could have made all the difference.

"I don't know yet," I said finally. "I'll let you know."

"What a barrel of mumbo-jumbo," said my father. He got into the station wagon and slammed the door. My mother blew me a kiss—really—and then she got in, too.

And my sister got in last of all.

She was smiling.

I could hardly breathe.

When they drove away, I went back inside Temple Beth-El, where the sounds of the miracle were still loud. Danny was still smiling—and it wasn't just because Mr. Goldman had brought huge trays of brown, light, perfect cream puffs. He couldn't stop smiling. And after a while, I couldn't, either—especially once the dancing started and Meryl Lee took my hand. And even more especially after Meryl Lee said, "You look different," and I said, "Maybe it's the yarmulka," and she said, "No, something else."

Meryl Lee. Can the world buy such a jewel?

It was when I had gone to find her a Coke that I saw Mrs. Baker, standing alone beside a pile of sugared strawberries. She was holding one in her hand, smiling, too.

Now, I know that you're not supposed to talk to a teacher outside of school activities. It's a rule that probably no one has ever broken. But I decided to break it anyway.

"Do you think Lieutenant Baker will really be home in time for strawberries?" I said.

Mrs. Baker, smiling Mrs. Baker, did not look away from the strawberry. "I'm sure of it," she said.

Now I smiled. "Do teachers always know the future?"

"Always," she said. "Shall I tell you yours?"

Standing there in the music of the bar mitzvah party, feeling the weight of what had happened in the synagogue, I saw again the glittering stream, with its light rushing toward me. "Don't tell me," I said. "But how do you know?"

She looked away from the strawberry and at me. "Do you remember Don Pedro, standing alone at the end of the play?"

I nodded. "Claudio has Hero, and they'll be fine. Benedict has Beatrice, and they'll be fine. Everyone else has everyone else, and they'll all be fine. The only one who's left alone is Don Pedro. And they all go off to dance and leave him behind. And they don't even remember that he's the one who has to deal with a traitor tomorrow, or that he hasn't got anyone."

"That's right," said Mrs. Baker. "And maybe his whole country will split into pieces. He doesn't have any idea what's going to happen to him."

"Great comedy," I said.

"A comedy isn't about being funny," said Mrs. Baker.

"We've talked about this before."

"A comedy is about characters who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all. That's how I know."

"Suppose you can't see it?"

"That's the daring part," said Mrs. Baker.

"So you think Don Pedro ended up all right," I said.

"I think he became a man who brought peace and wisdom to his world, because he knew about war and folly. I think that he loved greatly, because he had seen what lost love is. And I think he came to know, too, that he was loved greatly." She looked at the strawberry in her hands. "But I thought you didn't want me to tell you your future."

The music started again. A quick ring dance. Danny Hupfer was going to dance with Mrs. Bigio, and Mai Thi was doubled over, laughing. Mrs. Sidman had stepped into the ring beside Doug Swieteck—who didn't look all that happy. The Kowalskis and the Hupfers had come in together, Mrs. Hupfer and Mrs. Kowalski giggling and in their stocking feet, since you can't dance in high heels. And Meryl Lee...

Everyone was laughing and jostling to their places. I needed to go find mine.

"
L'chayim!
" I said to Mrs. Baker.

And she smiled—not a teacher smile. "Chrysanthemum," she said.