Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

Leo felt the schism keenly as the day approached when, with the completion of the village, he hoped once again to redeem himself for all that had gone before. The model would repose on its stand in its glass display case, the formal unveiling would be held, photographs would be taken for the paper, and the two creators of the village would be honored. By Tuesday morning everything was set, and he sat on his stool in the work corner of the lodge, surveying the fruits of his labors. Was it all right, he wondered? He had just given the castle one last coat of banana oil, the fortress was fitted securely into its mountain site, the banner with its Hapsburg device was flying over the portcullis. If only, Leo thought, Tiger would come by to make it up, everything would be just fine.

It was not Tiger who arrived, however, but Pa Starbuck, accompanied by two young men who were announced as the newspaper reporter and his sidekick photographer. While the photographer checked his camera equipment, the reporter asked Leo some questions (“What’s your name, son, and where do you come from? Are your folks members of the Society of Joshua? What do they call you? Play baseball? What’s your batting average? Ha ha”). Leo was relieved of further interrogation by the arrival of Fritz, who greeted the reporter with aplomb and provided him with some background on the real Durenstein. Pa kept looking at his watch, growing more impatient every minute until the Hartsigs, including Reece, finally arrived, twenty minutes late, Rolfe giving as an excuse for their tardiness the fact that he’d had to stop at the film exchange in Putnam to pick up the movie for tonight’s program.

While Reece shook hands with the reporter, an old high-school chum he greeted as “Andy,” Joy Hartsig walked straight to the model to look it over, her eyes shining with pleasure. As often happened when she was around, she quickly became the focus of the gathering, her gold and ivory bracelets jangling as she gestured, patting her coiffure or bringing her cigarette to her red lips.

“Goodness,” she cooed, “haven’t you two done a lot of work! I’m simply astonished.” She smiled warmly at Fritz, her diamond rings catching the light as she crushed her fingers under her chin. “I just love the way you’re making everything a little skewed, a bit crooked,” she added. “It gives a nice fairy-tale effect. At least I imagine that’s what you were after. Wouldn’t it be fun to visit the real thing sometime?”

“I don’t imagine you’d care to visit it just now, Mrs Hartsig,” Fritz said with a touch of irony. Joy’s bright smile left her lips as she laid a hand on his arm.

“I know how much it means to you,” she said. “Is that how it looked when you were a boy?”

“More or' less. It^s not easy making things look exactly the way you recall them. But it’s close, I think.”

“What do you think, Dutch?” Joy asked her husband.

“Looks pretty authentic to me,” Rolfe replied. He was especially taken with the steamboat Leo had crafted, its wheel beating the waves of the blue plaster Danube.

Then the photographer, who had been trying a series of angles, asked that the model be moved out of its corner to a position where everyone could be grouped around it for the shot he wanted. Fritz and Leo, with the newspapermen, performed the job, carrying the worktable out into the middle of the room, after which several pictures were taken of the model with Pa and the Hartsigs (excepting Reece, who declined), and finally with Leo and Fritz, who was' asked to make a further statement about his creation.

Fritz’s expression grew serious and he groped for suitable words. “This is my gift to the campers of Friend-Indeed,” he said at last, “and to Dr Dunbar and the Friends of Joshua, who have invited me to spend my summer here and who have behaved kindly and generously toward an exile from his own land.”

He paused, and the reporter’s glance fell on Reece, who had been leaning nonchalantly against the wall and who now sauntered over.

“What’s your opinion, Reece?” the reporter asked. “Got something to say about this project?”

“It’s fine…” Reece said with a pleasant smile, "… if you like Tinkertoys,” he added, and there was a moment’s silence while the reporter tried to decide whether he was sincere or joking.

“Oh, but I do!” said Fritz, relieving the others of potential embarrassment. “Everyone enjoys toys, doesn’t he? We’re all children at heart, aren’t we? And see here-” They watched as he reached behind the model to move a tiny brass lever built into the foundation. In a moment a ticking sound could be heard, then tinkling music began: the familiar strains of the “Blue Danube” waltz.

“What a wonderful touch! Whose idea was that?” Joy asked. “Yours, Fritz?”

“No, ma’am.” Fritz gallantly declined the intended compliment. The idea had been Leo’s. The works had come from a dime-store music box.

“Clever lad,” said Joy. “I’m sure he deserves a lot of praise.” She beamed her brightest at Leo, who flushed with pleasure but modestly pointed out that the idea for the village as a whole had been Fritz’s, that he, Leo, had merely “helped out.”

“Let’s get a shot of the whole group, shall we?” the photographer suggested, re-forming the gathering with Fritz and Leo in the center. “Come on, Reece, you get in on this too.”

“Thanks. I’ll skip it.”

“Just one?”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“Okay, okay, sorry.”

The photographer directed a puzzled look at his colleague, who shrugged, as if to say, “Consider the source,” and went on questioning Fritz, jotting down statistics on the population of Durenstein and the Austrian wine industry. From these considerations he moved on to a general sizing-up of the political situation in Austria, and Fritz spoke heatedly about Hitler, saying that with the way things were going there was. bound to be a war in Europe pretty soon.

Rolfe rubbed his palms together. “You’ve got it all wrong, Fritz; Hitler doesn’t really want war, he only wants what’s coming to him, what belongs to Germany by right, to guarantee her natural borders. Take it from me,” he went on, “Stalin’s the guy we really have to watch. If we’re not careful, we’ll have a bunch of Bolsheviks running the good old U.S.A. It’s the Commies that are making all the trouble, on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Fritz leaned forward, his look intense. “May I ask, sir, have you heard of Mein Kampf?”

“Sure. What about it?”

“If you were to read that book you would learn exactly what Hitler plans to do. And make no mistake – he means to do it! Already he is rounding up all who oppose him. He has taken my family, he has robbed us of our property, they are in prison. I may never see them again.”

“Come on, pal, we mustn’t dramatize these things. I’m sure your family is okay.” Rolfe turned to the others. “Besides, Hitler’s only after the big-money boys-” Fritz’s face had gone red with anger, and Pa, seeing it, stepped forward in an attempt to temporize. “Now, now, Fritz, let’s exercise a little control shall we? What’s happening over there has nothing to do with us over here.” “You’re wrong,” Fritz said. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Now Reece stepped into the argument. “Watch it, Katzenjammer!”

Fritz rounded on him. “I have asked you not to call me that.”

Reece gave him his blandest smile. “It’s just a joke, Fritzy.”

“I do not find it amusing.” Fritz glowered, and Joy began chattering to cover the awkwardness. Andy, who had been scribbling in his notebook, asked Rolfe, “Can I print all that, what you said about the big-money boys?”