P.N.ZOYTLOW

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Words fail. That’s what we say when we are shocked by events. I was somewhere between confounded and stupefied when I learned of the death of Philip N. Zoytlow just a week before his 75th birthday on June 15, 2025. I had met with him half a year earlier in Mount Airy, North Carolina, a town near the Tennessee border and inspiration for a popular television show some decades earlier. It was his choice to meet there, and I wondered if that once popular show, Mayberry, was part of the reason. It was one of many questions, perhaps dozens more, that had attached themselves to PNZ. He remains, in death, the enigma he was in life. There is no known photograph of him, except for a blurry image taken from behind in a dime art gallery.

The purpose of that meeting had been to conduct an interview and put some closure on his years of itinerant teaching and writing. He was reviewing the transcript, and I expected to hear from him shortly so I could publish it somewhere. Of course, it would appear in his blog P.N. Zoytlow Reports, which, (very) sometimes, has attracted readers.

The terse notification of his death came to be via the Coroner in the California county where he died. In going through his backpack, the officers found my name and address and notified me of the chance that I might be a relative with the authority to dispose of the body.

I know from interviews just last year that Zoytlow was preceded in death by his parents, though nothing is known of his mother except that she left the family after a disagreement over the boy’s name. As a person of Bohemian extraction, she favored Nepomuc as a given name; the father favored Philip. As Philip explained, “That accounts for being a motherless child.” Then he laughed.

Here is the complete [final] interview from early June 2025

Mt Airy, North Carolina, at a Whataburger. It was still morning, and I ordered the breakfast special. PNZ had a glass of orange juice.

DGB: Well, Philip, how long has it been since we talked? I have noted that we last met for an interview in Limon, Colorado, in June 2011.

PNZ: Yes.

DGB: But we had contact in between, especially concerning your novella, A Scrim.

PNZ: [nodded]

DGB: Let’s talk about Scrim. You blame me for its poor reception with critics and sparse sales. Is that true?

PNZ No

DGB Elaborate?

(PNZ raised the orange juice, drank it, checked the paper cup for any lingering drops, and then crushed it in his hand.)

PNZ: There was nothing at fault with your part in the book. Some critics thought your brief comments were more interesting than the book’s main body. That did not bother me. But I have concluded that modesty aside, that slim work is too far ahead of its time and more a part of future literature. It was, and is, a book of cutting-edge brilliance that will be read for generations. But most folks were unprepared for it, and I don’t fault them. I should not have written it the way I did. That is why I am releasing a revised edition, which will be crafted without editorial assistance. And by the way, I might offer a few pages of gratuitous sex because that is what sells.

DGB Oh, my! Are you serious? I understood you were opposed to any cheapening violence or lasciviousness. Was I wrong?

PNZ No. I was pulling your leg just now. Besides, there is no need to describe thrashing about on a bed and yowling. There is enough of that out there; anyway, my type of writing is not fiction. I observe and report, but I don’t make it up. The Ilman manuscript came into my possession honestly after I met Eduardo Ilman in Illinois. I would not betray that by turning a family history into a three-ring orgy. There were affairs during the years I worked at Ballast, but since I didn’t pay attention to the details, how could I discuss it?

[The reference here is to meeting Ilman at Ballast College in Pecatonica Junction, Illinois, in the early 1990s, I believe.]

DGB There were suggestions that you used to hang out with some of the Administrative secretaries…

PNZ: Did you hear that from me?

DGB No, not directly.

PNZ Well, then…..

DGB [Noticeable from the beginning was that Zoytlow seemed restless and was perhaps having a bad day. He did not smile, never seemed to relax, and squirmed in his seat. He did not want to be there.

DGB: Let’s not derail this interview with side shows, so tell me, in your portrayal of the Ilman family, was there a person you admired most?

PNZ Well, as you might suspect, I favored them all. They suffered, and that has to be acknowledged. There was nothing special about them; the world assigns “special” to one person over another.

I do favor, if that is the word, the women. I sympathize with their situation, whether in Transdanubia or at Ballast College in Northern Illinois. Men beset women because men are besotted –that’s what it is.

DGB: Was your mother?

PNZ, I didn’t have a mother. She left when I was born. I explained that earlier, didn’t I?

DGB: Yes, sorry.

PNZ Well, to answer. I admired Mehna.

DGB. How did you get involved with the Ilmans?

PNZ: Ballast College. Eduardo and I connected. He wanted help writing his family history. Let’s pick this up later, say in about two weeks. I’ll be back in California, and you can find me at the Lompoc Public Library. One more thing, and this is the last word I have to say about the Ilmans and A Scrim: these were salt of the earth people, nothing special; they had their quirks, none of them did much serious harm, and if their collective lives did not provide a traditional plot line, that’s what it was—no apologies needed.

DGB: OK, I’ll shut off the tape for now. See you then. Two weeks, Lompoc. And with that, Philip N Zoytlow left. I never saw him again. Our understanding, his and mine, was that if anything were to happen to him, I was to be in charge of his literary estate, meaning the care of the blog P.N. Zoytlow: Field Reports and Other Curiosities. He reminded me of this at our last meeting, and I didn’t think it was ominous or otherwise significant at the time. Now I do.

My condo time. It was an accident. Well, not that dramatic, more like something that could have been better thought out and carefully planned. I had recently left my adjunct position at Ballast College in Pecatonica Junction, Illinois, which was a few more years of my life in which I had found something to do, a distraction like most things in my life, from that restless search for the BIG WHAT. I might explain that later because, unlike my observational function in the novella Beyond the Scrim, I will allow myself onto center stage in this little chunk of autobio and tell you some stuff, too. And for those readers still determining who I am and where Ballast College might be, I’ve left a reference at the end of this little report. 

 I moved to Coco Glen because, after some years of itinerant academic life, I wished for a place to call home, one that would be both an investment and a place that would be a secure lock-and-leave should I choose to accept another offer to teach or what passes for teaching (you may know what I mean). Coco Glen Luxury Estates was a condominium community inland from the Gulf Coast. Real estate gets cheaper the further inland you go in Florida. Folks want to see the water! That was one of the arguments in Moby Dick, one of my favorites, until I tried to teach it at Ballast College and other places. 

Excuse the digression. What was gnawing at me was that I was not financially ready for the “later stages of life” and thought the anticipated boom in Florida real estate would create a healthy sum, which, together with an occasional teaching gig at some little college, would be all I needed. In some newsletters, I read that Florida would attract the usual retirees and politically and religiously conservative persons. All it took was a condo community near a mega-church and then sitting back and watching folks come down to the Sunshine State. 

As I have mentioned, Coco Glen Luxury Estates (hereafter CGLE) is waterless except for the half-acre lagoon, which serves as the centerpiece on the premises. Several miles to the south are the Morbee Wetlands, which some call the Little Everglades. A cinder-block wall surrounds the entire CGLE complex. There is no pool, but a heavily chlorinated above-ground hot tub is available for use in less torrid times of the year. 

I bought it for $57,000 (the usual 20% down and a thirty-year mortgage)

My unit was a one-bedroom, with one bath on the ground floor and a small patio. The AC and water heater were new. The appliances were not new, but they appeared to be well-maintained. But you never know. There were 60 apartments in total, divided into 10 buildings. 

The place was quiet–not too many small children, and at first, I wondered if there was a 55 and above rule. There was not, but CGLE attracted mainly retirees or near-retirees. I learned many had been

employed at the Morbee Lab two miles off. The Morbee Animal Research facility served several Florida corporations, mainly household or cosmetic product manufacturers, in a consortium arrangement. I should have remembered because several animal protection agencies had cited the place for unacceptable standards of care, from guinea pigs to small monkeys.

“Let all flesh keep silent,

Silent as the tomb

Too much small talk

Guarantees man’s doom.”

Those were the words I heard on the first Sunday morning at CGLE. I opened the door and saw several dozen adults, primarily seniors, grouped at the edge of the central lagoon in lawn chairs they had carried with them. No one seemed to be in charge, and other than a sad song, which was intoned thrice at various points in the “service,” there was no sound from the group. I am attracted to weirdness so I made a note to learn more about these Quiet Folk.

But what a stupid business! I closed the door most of the way to observe them without being noticed. So these were my neighbors, or at least some of them. Well, the place was quiet and seemed deserted most of the time. Two weeks after moving in, I still had not met more than the person who lived above me and the older woman in the end unit of the nearby building. Both seem friendly, if somewhat cautious. 

The couple upstairs had a dachshund named Billy. They were from Utica, New York, and had been in the furniture business until retiring to the Sunshine State. “Augie Botfleigh” was what I thought he said as he extended a limp hand. “Betsy Botfleigh, but I was born a Merganser,” said his wife. “Phil Zoytlow, from All-Over.” They stared, and Billie growled at my ankle. 

The older woman from the next building was Mrs. Hapenstanz, who was quite deaf and, despite a pair of clunky hearing aids, had the habit of pointing to her ears when you met her, an explanation for why she never lost a puzzled expression. After I met her, she hung a small bag of bannock on my door with a note: “Enjoy this. Mrs. H”

Bannock? Who expects to eat bannock in central Florida? But that was a small potato question compared to my growing list about my new neighborhood and its presumed community. I am new to condo living, and I expected a commune experience. Still, since seeing other residents was exceedingly rare, the only evidence I had of them was the automobiles in the parking lot. All of them were American-made, mostly Chevrolet, and none had bumper stickers that could provide a hint of some sort. This was better than a blizzard of obnoxious political views, but on the other hand, their complete absence was disquieting.

Since there was no clubhouse or other focus for the community, I wondered if there was a place for meetings. Finally, after about five weeks, an envelope appeared on my door, a welcome letter with a few details. There was a property management (PM) company with a phone number, but no location was indicated. The monthly fee for a small number of services (pest control, mainly garbage) was $45.00. Expenses for emergency repairs (roof, plumbing, security) were assessed when needed. There was no reserve fund. At the bottom of the page was this:

“Residents who have lived at Coco Glen for more than three months may apply to be members of the Board of Directors when vacancies occur. At present, there are no vacancies. Residents are welcome as visitors but may not interrupt the proceedings until the designated question period. They may not, of course, vote.”

There is an old joke going around. A retired man sees his doctor, and the doctor has bad news. “In all candor, I have to tell you that the tests show

disturbing, if not alarming, levels of peregrinitis.” “How much time do I have?” asks the man in a quaver. “Well, hard to say, hard to say. I see on your records that you live in a condominium.” “That’s true.” Well, get on the Board of Directors, and time will move very slowly, even stop at times, and you’ll WISH you were dead at the end of a year!” This little jest often meets with a rueful chuckle when told. The reader may wish to know why I attended. As near as I can ascertain, it was a blend of curiosity, presumed obligation, and ……well, I don’t know what a third reason might be. 

Belatedly, I realized that I had confused, or confabulated, what I assumed a “condominium” community might be. Blame it on my undergraduate experience at a California university infested with young leftists of every stripe. Among these, the idea of communal living devoid of property ownership ranked prominently in their constitutions. Worker control of production, communal agriculture, neighborhood schools, child care, etc. Flexible rules on marriage and divorce. No more inequalities and decisions made for the good of all. These were old ideas, of course, but they bubbled to the surface occasionally. My college years during the 1960s were one of those times, and the failure of communal notions to take hold did not erase them from being cherished by an aging gent such as myself. Was I a naif as I succumbed to a communal dream at CGLE? 

Was I a “naif”? That was not a word I had applied to myself, though it is not too far off. My academic aspirations were naive, and certainly so. I don’t think I ever understood the culture of the places where I was an adjunct (read serf). At CocoGrove, I flattered myself, considering that the Board of Directors would be interested in my leftist suggestions for a more successful communal experience. I wrote out a proposal and made several copies to hand out. This was already a misstep, as such things were rarely welcomed. I would have had to have an ally on the Board, and I did not. The proposal was peppered with words familiar to students of socialism: steering committee, the politburo, directorate, five-year plan, plenary assembly, proletariat, etc. To add to the appeal of this heady mixture, I suggested removing the capitalist Property Management (PM) organization because they were the natural enemies of a commune.

Nothing came of this. I did not distribute my manifesto if that is what it was. Several things were clear from when I sat at a cramped table in the community center:

1. Having meetings on a weekday morning meant that only retirees could attend or be on the Governing Board, the GB.
2. The Board had five members and one non-voting member, the PM representative.
3. Interest in the GB depended on the issues at hand.

Most of the time, Coco drifted along and allocated money to whatever seemed to be the most pressing problem. My first meeting involved repairing a fence, deciding to plant several new shrubs near the lagoon, and so on. 

The Governing Board had officers in name only. Arranging meetings, collecting the monthly fees from residents), keeping minutes up to date, and expediting work orders were accomplished by the Property Manager (PM). The Coco GB was female and older, as was the PM. This may account for the hesitant, nearly tepid greetings extended to me at the first meeting. I was a youngish outsider. Would I be a problem?

This brings us to the crux of the story (sorry it took so long to get here).

This will not be a record of communal living. Not in the least. The sense of sharing anything at the Coco Grove Luxury Estates was absent. People lived in their dwellings and interacted only slightly, except for that peculiar religious group around the pond on Sundays. If there was a complaint or a suggestion, it came to the PM, who then shared it with us at the monthly meeting. Most of the time, the PM just took care of things, having learned to be suspicious of democracy when the efficient expedition of issues was handled unilaterally and then presented to the Board. All of this showed me something I had already learned in other places: socialism was not applicable in a community of weird older adults and the stray young family, who was there in a transitional capacity until they scraped together a down payment elsewhere. Conclusion: the residents were unaware of their proto-socialist situation, ignored it, and were pleased to be the creatures of the Property Management Organization. They were sheep.

Overall, Coco Glen had seen better days. The stucco was chipped, the paint was peeling, there were cracks in the sidewalk, and the shuffleboard area was uneven and unplayable. Palm trees dropped huge brown husks and dog waste not being picked up by all dog owners (and they were numerous). In short, most of the inhabitants of the 50 units were content in their homes and preferred to relate to the exterior of the buildings and the grounds with casual oblivion.

At my first meeting, the Property Manager, a short woman in her fifties with a blond wig and an anchor tattoo on her left arm, ran through a list of “resolved issues” from the previous month. It was disquieting to me that most of that issue concerned pest control. While the other board members seemed detached, I was unsettled. The pests reported were

termites, fire ants, mosquitos, raccoons, citrus rats, lizards (three kinds including iguanas), alligators, and Burmese pythons.  

I raised my hand. ” Excuse me, I’m new here, Phil Zoytlow.”

Someone murmured, “Hi, Phil.” They did not offer their names. 

I continued, “How many alligators and snakes were apprehended on the property last month?”

“We don’t keep those figures.”

“Do you have a budget sheet I could study? I’m playing catch-up on how a condominium works?”  

The woman to whom I directed my questions was portly and had a jowly face that brought to mind certain dog breeds. And braids atop her large head. Since childhood, I have found those “looks” disquieting and dangerous. In any event, there was no response. Had they heard me? I cleared my throat but noticed frowns on the faces of this Board trio. This called for a non-active approach. I folded my hands and listened to the rest of the meeting, which discussed repairs to a shuffleboard facility and the need to get estimates to do the work. There was a lengthy discussion of banning charcoal barbecues in favor of propane. 

About this time, I noticed a frail-looking, younger woman in the row of chairs set aside for resident visitors to these meetings. She was pretty but emaciated, the kind of suggestion of vulnerability attractive to some men. I guessed she was about 35. She wore tinted glasses, and her outfit, part military surplus and bib overalls, suggested something radical. Trotskyite? I felt a little nudge of hope. An ally?

 After the meeting, I was unsurprised to find her walking beside me on the curving sidewalk leading to the condos. During the meeting, I did notice that she glanced at me several times.

“I’m Gretch. I mean, it’s Gretchen.” She offered a fist bump.

“Phil.” Since she had not provided a surname, neither did I. Why confuse people with a curious name like “Zoytlow?”.

“You’re new here, I know. What did you think of the meeting?”

‘Not sure what I think. I came as an observer only. I don’t think I want to be a board member.”

“Good call.”  

She hesitated and then peered up at me, looked away as if to gather her thoughts, made eye contact again, looked into the distance, and finally resumed her examination of my face…And while she continued in this uncertain loop, I was using the time to prepare myself for whatever had to come next. Either she needed money, love, or some other favor, from fixing a faucet drip to protecting her from a vengeful husband. Cut to the chase: out with it! I tried not to sound too blunt or unfriendly. Could I handle friendly bluntness? Probably not.

“What do you want?” That is all I could manage. This did not encourage or discourage her. My question, blunt or otherwise, opened up her blockage.

She began, “I’ve lived here nearly a year and haven’t made any trouble. I pay my dues, try to be pleasant when seeing neighbors, and attend every Board meeting. I go to board meetings because when people fear air travel, they go to an airport to get used to the planes and reassure themselves that the worst does not happen. Usually not. In my case, I am trying to gather the courage to request a special variance from the Board to help me resolve a household problem.”

“Such as?” Here, I imagined something that required a structural change in her unit, like installing gym equipment or solar panels. Maybe a water bed, something most condo communities forbid. I decided to take a stab at it since she was so hesitant.

“Garbage disposal plugged?.”

She looked at me with some irritation. 

“Cockroaches?” I had seen some of the geckos feasting on them. She began to sob unexpectedly, and that is the worst kind of sobbing, as we all know. I put my hand on her shoulder and said

the accepted cliché: “there, there,” while I considered my role in somehow precipitating this uncomfortable development. And what if she began to blubber and wail miserably? What then? However, after less than a minute, she regained her composure and asked me if I had the time and if I would consider walking her to her door and sharing my thoughts on what I found at her place. What could I say? I was afraid of another episode of lachrymosa if I refused.

She had a unit directly behind mine, on the other side of the building. So we were neighbors! We no longer talked until we reached the door, at which point she signaled me to be silent. Even before the door opened, I smelled a sharp odor like a zoo building in summer. She opened the door enough to get her slender hand in to reach the light switch and then asked me to look. I quickly looked over her head and saw a portion of the living room. My senses were alert. The odor of something feral increased, but it took a moment to adjust to the act of seeing. In the meantime, my body was pressing against hers, and I felt her increasing this pressure. Her bodily warmth was apparent despite her overalls and added to the sensual and olfactory bouquet, which I was beginning to enjoy in a primal way. Then, just as I began to realize that there was something, as yet unseen, in that apartment, she shut the door and turned to me. She was only inches away. She appeared stressed; I put my arms around her. She leaned her forehead on my shoulder and began to press against me again, and the benefit of the doubt I wanted to maintain about her motives began to erode. I was starting to weigh some options. Finally, she spoke.

“I am so sorry to put you through this, but it appears she is angry, and it may take a while for her to calm down. I want her to be at her best when you two meet.'” 

Her voice was muffled, and her mouth was pressed against my arm. It was awkward, and I hoped to extricate myself from her and the situation. I had had enough weirdness in my recent years of academic postings. And besides, what if she decided to bite me?

Then she stepped back and murmured, “Let’s call it a night, Phil. I think my judgment is off today. Thanks, though.” And with that, she opened the door just enough to slip through. The door clicked shut, and I heard a deadbolt engaging. An instant later, the door opened a crack. ” May you live with ease.” Her voice was clear, and I reassured myself that she would be alright. 

Poor woman. I never saw her again, but as a visitor to the Board meeting the following month, I heard she had moved out, and her condo was up for sale. More details came to me from a story in the Ocala Organizer, a mediocre little paper that focused on odd news, locally or otherwise—for example, a three-part series on the Albanian royal house, members of which had settled in Florida. 

But back to Gretchen: There had been visits from the Florida Departments of Wildlife Management and Public Safety. A Morbee Animal Research Center van had also paid a visit late one evening. As the story went on, Gretchen (Gretch) managed to land a clerical position at the Morbee Center and was in the habit of liberating research animals. White rats, rabbits, and finally, several rhesus monkeys. She had intended to board them until she could find homes for them in towns along the Gulf Coast. When that did not work out, she would drive south to the Everglades and release them in habitats she assumed to be suitable. It was partly a clandestine for-profit business and a pro bono exercise in animal liberation. Most of these liberated creatures were not recovered by the authorities. What she intended my role to be in all this remains a mystery.

The affair caused some lousy publicity for Coco Glen Luxury Estates, and I waited a few years until I could put the condo on the market without a loss. In the meantime, I arranged several adjunct teaching jobs further north. That was that—my condo time. It was quite sobering to learn how uphill it is to convince people that a modified communal organization might serve their best interests.

I thought of the quip the doctor had offered his terminally ill patient: get on a condo board. He might have broadened it to say that, curiously, both pleasantly and unpleasantly, time stands still when you live in a place like Coco Glen Luxury Estates. But what the hell? 

__________________

I made reference above to my short novella on Ballast College and the time I spent there in the early 1990s. This may be found, together with other writings, on my blog at www. pnzoytlow.com

by Philip N. Zoytlow

I am amazed to be writing something, however, minor, about the Zoytlow family. Despite an admittedly sparse readership of the Field Reports and the longer pieces found on http://www.pnzoytlow.com, there was a growing interest in my family history. I half-understand this curiosity; people are sure, without ever meeting any of us, that we are a family of odd ducks. Harmless eccentrics! Let me admit that I, too, am curious about my “family of origin,” but like many of us, I know little, and solid factual evidence is slight.

I can share with you, interested readers, an incident or two that was known to me for some years, and only in the last year did an unconnected event bring the topic to light emotionally. 

I was born in 1950. My father, Philo N. Zoytlow Jr., was born in 1900 to a wine merchant in Atascadero, California. He died in 1972. He had a bother, Pharrell N. Zoytlow, the family rebel of whom I knew nothing for the longest time, just a few years before my dad passed. Pharrell died in 1949, and I do not know his age, but he was older than Dad. My grandfather, Philbert,  

who died in 1926, was the one who had brought the Zoytlows to California. He worked for a mining equipment firm in Bakersfield before moving across the state to Paso Robles. “ Folks will be drinking wine long after the mines give out,” said he. He passed this confidence in the American need for drink to my father who skipped college and went into the business, Zoytlow Wine Distributors. 

Philbert N. Zoytlow was known for his loathing for the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, who approved the 18th Amendment which threatened to prove Philbert wrong about alcohol.  And “he got us into war” was the other source of his hatred. Thus: the SS Palo Alto, to Grandpa, was more evidence of the Presidents scheming, lying, low-down ways. When Wilson died, Grandpa celebrated for days and with so much stomping and hammering on a cast-iron skillet that the police were called.

As I mentioned, Dad was a wine merchant based near Paso Robles. During Prohibition, used his skills as a traveling man and sold other things up and down the coast. I was not clear what those “things” were, but he referred to them as “personal products” and “that was a long time ago,” which meant he didn’t want to return to that time or say much about it. Since he knew the Central Coast well, he knew what might happen from Santa Barbara to Half-Moon Bay. And that brought him to Aptos on January 16, 1930, the day the SS Palo Alto arrived on that stretch of beach.

It’s a long story, but I beg your indulgence, dear reader, since it is interesting.

Toward the end of the First World War, a shortage of shipping meant that the war might end more slowly than hoped. The problem was scarce fuels for the now-mechanized allies (think of those tanks!), and a novel solution was to build ships made of concrete, often erroneously called ‘cement” ships, though, as everyone knows, cement is just one component of concrete. Two of these ships were built by Vogelstein Shipbuilding Corporations in Oakland, California, the Palo Alto and the Peralta. The war did end before these tankers could be launched, but numerous reasons were found to continue the project, 

On the day the work was to begin in the shipyard, the owner of the VSC came to the docks and addressed the men as follows (reported in the Oakland Leveler):

 “A vice president went to the dockyards to address the men. It was a bit of bravado to tell the men they should ignore mocking comments from others working on nearby steel ships. ‘The Palo Alto,’ he told them, ‘ is a ship of the future, and it will help us keep the peace in Europe, too! And the taxpayers have invested 1.5 million in the project. So let’s show the nation what Vogelstein Shipbuilding and concrete men can do together!'”

A worn sepia print showed a group of 23 workers, all, with one exception, wearing the cloth caps of the era (no hardhats!), standing before a wooden framework of a ship-to-be. The date, penciled on the back, is 1919. The place: Oakland, California. The ship embryo was the SS Palo Alto. The stand-out in this photo was my uncle, Pharrell N. Zoytlow, wearing a broad-brimmed tropical hat he bought in Panama, where he had been a “concrete man” working on the Canal. Pharrell Zoytlow hated the chill Oakland morning, the men in the work crew, and the Palo Alto. He had enormous respect for concrete and felt that fashioning it into an ugly ship was a disgrace. It would probably sink anyway. Furthermore, as he told the story years later, he was the only crew member who wasn’t a wop or a mick. 

That was Pharrell Zoytlow. He resented immigrants and despised the Palo Alto because he had heard that the hull would be built with added chunks of rubble from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. “Bastard concrete will doom this ship.” According to my father, brother Pharrell Zoytlow believed in the necessity of concrete purity and little else. The other thing was to insist that the Zoylows had no other ethnicity except identifying as “Americans.” And what was critical in this regard was to know what you were not. “You don’t have to know what you are; you need to know what you are not!”

Pharrell Zoytlow was my father’s older brother and the family rebel. He was about 25 years old, maybe 30 when he signed up for the Palo Alto. If he got that hat in the photograph in Panama, well, who knows? My dad got along with Pharrell, but they were not close. Dad was almost a decade younger. Because the Panama story had some bragging rights, the family subscribed to it. Yes, Pharrell had been working on the Canal! End of story. We saw little of him for the most part, and when we did, it was always unexpected. 

Pharrell N. Zoytlow was  hardly alone in his poor opinion of ships made of concrete–forgetting that similar arguments had been voiced when hulls were made of metal. “It will sink like a stone because it IS a stone!” was often heard. 

In 1921, Palo Alto did its trial runs in San Francisco Bay. It did not sink and, briefly became a topic of interest. But that seemed like the end of it, however. The Palo Alto was berthed at a dock in San Francisco, and there it sat, all 425 feet of her, unlovely and unloved for the better part of the next decade. Concrete ships, born in an atmosphere of ridicule and doubt, never rose above the level of curiosity. They required thicker hulls, which affected hydrodynamics and limited cargo space.

While this is a story of the SS Palo Alto, it also, more personally, involves my family. My  grandfather knew the absent Pharrell had a job on it: he had seen the news photo and recognized his son and Panama hat. A decade later, this brings us to a cliff above the beach in Aptos, California. The date is January 21, 1930. 

Philo N Zoytlows stood on the cliff with a blanket against the chill. He shielded his eyes against the silvery glare. Philo N., having learned what was to happen, made sure he had business in çSanta Cruz that day. As the sun began to warm the day, he folded his blanket around him and sat on the ground. Around noon, the event started.

  The SS Palo Alto appeared! Not trailing a plume of smoke or braying her horn but being nudged by a tug that had towed her from San Francisco Bay overnight. The tug prodded her into a reverse position so that she pointed out to sea, then gently arranged her some 500 feet offshore, perfectly straight. When the persons on board the Palo Alto were satisfied, they descended into the engine room and opened the seacocks, allowing the ship to rest on the sandy bottom. Then the men were confident that the task had been done, and a cheer went up: “Hooray for the Palo Alto, hooray for Aptos! Viva California!

Philo looked at his watch and saw that he would have to leave soon to make his appointment in Santa Cruz. Then he noticed a man not twenty feet to his left, cheering the proceedings and waving a Panama hat.

Their eyes met, and they recognized each other.

“Brother Philo! Come to see the show?”

It was Pharrell, and my father was dumbstruck. He had not seen his brother in nearly a decade and was surprised that he was alive. “What the….”

“I’ve come to see my baby,” said Pharrell. He had somehow overcome his loathing for the vessel. “You know what’s happening here?” My father did know quite a bit: that the Palo Also was to become a pleasure boat with a dance floor, restaurant, observation posts, and a place for bands to play the hits of the day. All of this was the grandiose project of a group of investors who were betting against the Depression and for people’s need for distractions.

But Dad let my uncle chatter on and played dumb when Pharrell unfolded a yellowed news clipping with the famous photo of a work crew with one man in a Panama hat. “I know that ship, and I know where I put my initials into wet concrete on the bow and the stern!.” There was no mistaking his pride. Pharrell next produced a bottle of whiskey and suggested they find a place to have lunch. And so they did. 

It was a splendid afternoon in the rear booth of a restaurant in Santa Cruz. They ate fish sandwiches and drank the bottle dry. His brother looked at the bottle and tried to look sheepish.  “I can’t help it,” said he. “That ship drives me to drink, always did!”And when they parted, Pharrell suggested they meet as soon as the pier was built to connect the beach with the ship. Then, when some big band like Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey booked, they would bring dates and have “a swell time.” That did not happen.

The SS Palo Alto provides an example. Once the ship had been positioned and stabilized on the ocean floor, the Corporation made good on its word and built an extensive pier that reached the stern. A dance floor, swimming pool, and a restaurant were installed.

Soon, the public responded, and Palo Alto became a unique magnet for classy entertainment that drew people to the Aptos Beach area. The State of California established a state beach. As Pharrell said, “I’m just so glad this chunk of concrete was able to become something. Such a happy outcome compared to the others.” By the others, he meant the dozen or so concrete ships serving as drab breakwaters elsewhere.

Father Neptune had other plans for the Palo Alto as well. After a year as a magnet for good times, a storm in the winter of 1932 caused the hull to crack, and the ship was no longer seen as safe for dance bands or investors. The ship became a fishing platform.

When I was about ten, my Dad and I drove up to Aptos  early one Saturday morning to do some serious fishing off the bow of the Palo Alto. The deck was slightly askew as more storms had come to make some changes in what was happening on the sea floor. Large openings had appeared in the hull, and sea creatures made their homes and nesting areas there. On the deck, pelicans, cormorants, and gulls perched, squawked, and cussed you out if you disturbed them. The ship was theirs; one pelican became a totem for the ship, perched on the roof of the old wheelhouse and somewhat tame. It was a favorite of photographers. On a sparkling mid-summer day, the ship belonged there. It looked good, and it felt good to see it. Dad and I would talk about how Uncle Pharrell had played a role in it, but the hoped-for reunion with girlfriends and  later families had not happened. Uncle Farrell died in 1949 in some accident somewhere in Nevada, and we never heard the details. After that, Dad liked to come up to Aptos as often as he could get away or as often as his job took him nearby. Although he never had much time with Pharrell, the ship was the place where he could still connect. And once, near the end of his own life, Dad did discover “PNZ 1920” pressed into the inside of the bow railing. He brought that to the attention of the local historical society, and they photographed it. The curator said it added a “human element” to the ship. Dad and I saw it as a monument to a strange guy who happened to be our brother and uncle. Some families bond over a house, or a town. Maybe even an automobile. We Zoytlows had the SS Palo Alto.

 We went fishing off the Palo Alto several times, maybe six or seven. Dad got me up early, and we would drive up to Aptos and walk the pier until we descended the ramp and were on board. We headed to the little bait shop on the bridge and got a bucket of twelve of the little guys who would soon be dangled off the bow.

Dad thought the side of the bow that faced Monterrey and not Santa Cruz would be where they were biting. He was choosing a place he associated most closely with his brother, Pharrell. The first time I went with him, I was seven and had a bamboo pole just the right size to drop the bobber about eight feet off the bow. There were fish down there, and Dad said I would probably catch a mugwump. What do they look like? I asked. “You’ll know when you see one.” But whenever something did bite, and I managed to haul it up, it would not be a mugwump but a shandy, which was not its name, but that is what we called them, an average fish with no problem for me to lift out of the water. Dad caught some, too, and we took them home in a bucket.

We fried the fish at home, Dad and I did. I do not have a Mother. When my parents married, they learned soon after that they would not have children of their own. So they adopted me as an infant; before I was very old, my adoptive mother disappeared, and no one offered me an explanation, not that it mattered since I had no recall of her. Later, I fabricated a story explaining that she had drowned due to a rip tide somewhere south of Pismo Beach. 

As I got older and bigger, I would cast off the bow, almost where my uncle had left his mark, and hope for a fish bigger than a shandy. Later I remembered about the mugwump while doing another adjunct stint at a college in Iowa. It was a conventional survey course in U.S. History offered to first-year students. Like most classes, I taught here, there, and everywhere, I knew too little about the subject, so I would buy a synopsis and augment the stuff with my ideas. That is how I stumbled across “mugwump,” and what fun that was to finally get Dad’s little joke. 

But wait! This is not about fishing for mugwumps. It’s about the SS Palo Alto, a famous cement (I mean concrete) ship of Seaside Beach at Aptos. Right? 

After Dad died when I was eighteen or nineteen, there was no more fishing. I revered our times, driving up to Aptos, walking the pier and using the gangplank, boarding the old SS Palo Alto. The deck had started to shift slightly due to waves and shifts in the sea floor. The gaps in the hull were more extensive, and divers confirmed that marine life was plentiful in the sheltering concrete. Then I read that the ship was off-limits and no longer considered safe boarding. Sea birds colonized the deck, especially the cormorants and the pelicans. 

In 2020, though no longer in California, I was invited to give a talk at a high school graduation in Watsonville, and just why that is so is another tale. Of course, I seized the opportunity to see the Palo Alto, the iconic cement boat of Aptos, the not-to-be-missed curiosity of the Central Coast. After the ceremony and after shaking a few hands, I drove the short distance north to Aptos. I slipped the car into nearly the same spot Dad and I had used on our fishing trips. I walked to the bluff and sat on a bench. Then came the shock. The pier was gone. The ship was hardly recognizable. Winter storms had broken its remaining spine. What remained wallowed like a cadaverous hulk of some cumbrous sea creature. 

I wept. This does not happen regularly to Philip N. Zoytlow, but I was overcome. Entwined with the ship was my grandfather, my uncle Pharrell, who was present at its hopeful creation. And without fail, my loving dad, Philo, who had raised me and shared the Palo Alto with me. We Zoytlow’s have some ownership here, here in these lumps of concrete.

And what of the SS Palo Alto and those baffling twists of fate that canceled a heroic career as an oil tanker in the noble war intended to save a world and encourage a better one? Or the quickly eclipsed brilliance as a place of music and dance. Even the most humble assignment, a place for fishing, was cut short. Then, a bird island and shelter for fish to nest. And someday, far beyond my own shrinking lifetime, the restless waters would make the Palo Alto vanish.

NOTE The purpose behind publication in blog form is explained at the beginning of SERIES II #12 Additional information is at the beginning of the present text, #13. Your patience and indulgence is appreciated

So please be indulgent.

BEHIND THE SCRIM

   P. N. ZOYTLOW

Ignore all typos etc.

NOTE ON THE PUBLICATION OF THIS WORK

Following  the debacle of A Scrim, the publisher of that work declined to 

place its name on the present sequel. It was agreed that they would publish

this little book and at a good price, but the author was required to sign a 

non-disclosure agreement about the circumstances to this publication.

In addition, the author wishes to state that this is a work of fiction of the 

highest order and that he did not have an ax to grind. 

This book is dedicated to the memory of Edouard Ilman (1939-2008)

Date of publication 2023.   

BEHIND THE SCRIM

Forward

After serving as the editor of P.N. Zoytlow’s A Scrim, I told him I would not agree to be a part of anything else he wrote or created. That is still true, but he invited me to write something at the beginning of Behind the Scrim and gave me carte blanche. The story of how I met and worked with P.N.Z. need not be told here. I encouraged some of his earlier work that is found in his blog to this day. (See pnzoytlow.wordpress.com). You either like it or you don’t. I didn’t want my name attached to any more of his work than it needed to be, and certainly not to the extent that it compromised my own carefully-honed standards.

A Scrim is, in my view, a somewhat twisted story of immigration late in the 19th Century. He wrote it, I edited it, and made such suggestions as I deemed appropriate, often in the hopes of having the whole project go belly up in a morass of scarcely credible details. On the positive side, the novel is brilliant and breaks new ground with each chapter. So naturally, it flopped, and part of the problem was that the American public was tired of immigrants and their allegedly grungy entrance into the Promised Land.

A look at reactions by the persons who received a copy of the first (and only printing) shows that of 30 copies distributed, more than one-third were not read or acknowledged. Another third claimed they had read it only in part before some difficulty set in, and they gave up. A final handful offered some polite commentary. But most confessed confusion or called it joyless or depressing. Zoytlow was caught off guard by the first comment he received, which asked why anyone would bother to write such a book!

Why indeed? P.N.Z. was (almost) ready for this. I tried to believe him when he said he didn’t care what readers thought since the whole project was an experiment to see what it felt like to write and then see what effect responses might have on him. He was prepared for the negative but plainly mystified by those who did not bother to open it nor say they received it. But, as Buddhists will tell you, it only leads to suffering if you cling to expectations. So “Expect Nothing” was his watchword as he checked his email for responses. 

Writing a few words of introduction for a sequel to a book that few read and even fewer understood seems like a fool’s project. But like Zoytlow himself, I admire the attempt to rise above irritants to the ego. Zoytlow enjoys writing; he often laughs as he writes or revises. He told me he did not care if others saw much merit in it. He had a good time. I believe that, once again, in this sequel, Philip N. Zoytlow has shown us the raw brilliance we have come to expect from his pen. And the certainty that he had a good time.

D.G.B.

Chapter One  WHY SOCIOLOGY?

In late August 1990, an item appeared in The Ogler, the Ballast College faculty newsletter:

Ballast College welcomes Dr.Malva Hortensia. Dr. Osa Spengler and Probationary Lecturer Zander N. Pfinster. They are three new faculty joining the Ballast Team as this promising academic year, our 111th, proudly commences.

Dr. Hortensia (Malva) comes to us from the Pumper School in Poltroon, Arkansas, where she distinguished herself as that institution’s founder of the program in Paleobotany. A native of Winkel, Pennsylvania, Dr. Hortensia earned her doctorate in Biology at Capstan University. She comes to us with her 15-year-old son, Alonzo.

Dr. Osa Spengler graduated Milagro Con Leche from the University of Nebraska-Sand Hills. Her dissertation was recently accepted for publication by the Starboard Press with the title “Why Sociology?” She joins our Sociology Department. Dr. Spengler wants to introduce us to her dog, a corgi named Opa.

And finally, Probationary Lecturer Zander N. Pfinster will offer introductory Philosophy and Economics courses. He is a native of Bullgine, South Dakota, and he reports hobbies that include philately and deltiology.

———–

And so it was that Osa began her career at Ballast College on the hilly banks of the Pecatonica in northwestern Illinois. Like most new faculty, Ballast had not been her first choice, but the market in Sociology had dried up in recent years. At the same time, a new urgency to leave Nebraska had emerged: her disastrous breakup with Daniel Haldeman, a political scientist who had sat on her dissertation committee. Haldeman had “plucked” her while she was a graduate student. Osa was 24, and Dan Haldeman was 47 and recently divorced. He spotted her in the bookstore reading the blurbs on recent detective novels. She was tall, almost gangly, and wore her bronze hair in a long ponytail which, on some days, was wrapped in a thin coil atop her head. Large reading glasses with frames the color of her hair completed a look of unintended severity. Jeans and a Cornhusker sweatshirt completed her look. Osa was reading, silently mouthing the words, her dark eyes darting as she read. She did not smile.

Their affair was the talk of the campus and, too often, a model of rank indiscretion. For several months they were everywhere together and blatantly public. Was there a corner of the campus that had not been the scene of their affection? And then it was over (and who knew why?), but not before Haldeman had arranged a position on her dissertation committee. The original idea had been for him to “protect” her from the possible misogynistic sadism of other committee members. Now the whole thing would surely be awkward for Osa Spengler.

On the dissertation defense day, Osa Spengler dressed in her dark suit with a light lavender blouse and white scarf. A black and white “Save the Whales” pin fastened the ends of the scarf, worn on the advice of a friend who thought it sent the right message to the committee: this woman loves creatures both great and small. In a small lecture room in the Library, Osa sat facing her three inquisitors. She knew them all, all men, and smiled carefully at them. For the next sixty-two minutes, Osa Spengler was grilled. The first question came from Dan Haldeman. “Miss Spengler (a deliberate slur, why not Ms.?), your dissertation is titled ‘Why Sociology?’ and I want to begin with that question, so ‘why sociology?'” He sat across the table from her, hands folded and head to one side like a spaniel trying to make sense of things. Osa was reminded of her own corgi and felt a pang of longing to get this over with and simply cuddle with Opa.

A fair opening question? Of course, but coming from Haldeman with a slight sneer attached, Osa Spengler felt herself blush and unable to look at the committee. Her answer was garbled, and her words sounded like so much blather. Shameful. Gradually, the mood lightened, and the other members of the committee predictably plodded through the exam except for Dean Roland Popescu, an aging chemist who asked, in all seriousness, if Ms. Spengler thought that “the discipline which you represent might have something to contribute to our understanding of ahhh….cetaceans whom I believe are seen as having a group experience.” The other committee members considered this facetious and gave off sniffy academic laughter through their noses. But Osa treated this question with unexpected gravitas.  

“Whales, or most cetaceans, if you prefer that term, are indeed creatures not unacquainted with group behavior. We may think, prima facie, that with a nuanced methodology, we may enlist species-specific modalities that allow, ipso facto, us to do just that. Your question is excellent, Dr. Popescu, and I would welcome an invitation to join a team of oceanographers to illuminate the topic.”

Jesus! thought Osa. I was a tad clumsy, but I managed to speak his name, flatter him, and show that rogue questions would not throw me off. It reminded her of her dental hygienist, who, whilst flossing her, related how the local zoo had recruited her to floss the larger herbivores. She had been reluctant to accept the assignment, but once she did, the word got out, and her dentist experienced a massive increase in patients. Everyone wanted to have their teeth cleaned by the brave hygienist. Everyone wanted to know about the hippos. Yes, a woman had to show her grit.

Degree in hand, Doctor of Sociology Osa Spengler accepted the only opening in her field at the time, Ballast College in Illinois. Without seeing the place, she welcomed the offer, the first hired at Ballast using a video interview.

And so it began. Osa was assigned to an office at the end of a second-floor corridor in a former dormitory, Mordant Hall. The window, facing north, was narrow and opened to a view of the back of the yellow-brick Zange Museum. Osa moved the desk so that the afternoon would provide natural light for reading and writing. The walls were flecked with old tape and tack holes where the dorm inhabitants had put up posters to provide familiarity and comfort. There were ugly gaps in the vinyl flooring where bunk beds had once been anchored. The dorm was decommissioned in 1987 after toxic substances were found in the ventilators. The problem had been corrected, of course, but the rumors persisted. No parent would allow their child to live there. Another remnant of the past life of Mordant Hall was the timed lights in the corridors. Osa had to tap a switch that allowed three minutes of transit time to approach her office or leave it. The promise of new offices in the forthcoming Huhn Hall,  scheduled for completion in the 1990-91 academic year,  somewhat offset these inconveniences. 

She met her classes four days a week, and Friday was a day for class preparation. On the weekend, she could attend whatever cultural events appeared on the campus or explore the town of Pecatonica Junction. She had taken a furnished studio apartment a twenty-minute walk to campus. And unless something changed, that would be her life, no more, no less.

In late October, change presented itself. Not the tearful pregnant co-ed who had to make a decision and turned to her now-favorite sociology professor. Not the lacrosse team member who had crippling anxiety before games and exams. She recognized that her youthfulness guaranteed that she could become an informal counselor less than ten years older than most of her students. A mixed blessing. These tales of woe were entertaining and flattering–as if she could fix lives. 

About the change: on a Friday evening, she attended a student theater production about a forest nymph and a Microsoft technical representative. The plot was mediocre, and the actors spoke their lines with loud and exaggerated articulation: even the love scenes were bellowed. Osa’s thoughts drifted, and she tried to remember if she had double-checked to see if she had locked the door to her office. She would have to pass by later.

Turning into the darkened corridor of the second floor of Mordant Hall, the light timer was not working, and she groped toward her office in the dark. Just past the halfway point, she stepped on something that cried out.

“My hand!” 

“What?” 

“My hand! You stepped on it!”

“What?”

By this time, Osa’s eyes had adjusted, and she could see the outline of a form, a body, lying in the corridor. She stepped around it, reached her office, and switched on the light. Then she peered down the hall and saw a person seated with its back against the wall.

“Are you all right? Are you injured?”

“Unlikely. Just umm…indisposed.”

Then Osa smelled the stale beer with a sharp whiskey scent rounding off the haze hanging over the man.

“I think you mean intoxicated.”

“Sure, why not?

“Do you want me to call someone?”

“Probably not.”

“What about Security?”

“Nope.”

Osa was aware of her deliberate choice of Security. She was sure the man would not want that, but it might be a way of prodding him down the corridor and out of Mordant Hall. Mordant Two was an all-female office floor as it had been during its dormitory phase, and men belonged on the first floor. She assumed he was a student who was lost.

” Do you know you’re on Mordant Two?”

“Oh, Jesus!”

“Meaning you are lost?”

“Well, (belch) excuse. So sorry. I have an office on Mordant One. Number Sixteen. Faces the yard. Was working late.” 

“Uh-huh. Let me help you up, OK?” He had not convinced her that he was a faculty member and thus her colleague.

The man said nothing. She helped him stand, and together, they shuffled towards the stairway. He grasped the railing with his free hand and leaned on her arm. When they reached his office, he dug into his pocket for a key and handed it to Osa. She opened the door, turned him around, and aimed him so that he descended back into a chair. His chin drooped, and he was asleep. So much for thanks or an introduction, thought Osa. She closed his door and glanced at the name on the way out. 

Mr. Zander N. Pfinster

Lecturer

Depts. of Econ. and Phil.

And that was how they met or at least crossed paths. Osa had heard the name before but had not associated it with anyone she saw on campus. He was “mystery faculty,” and she had heard that there would always be those whose existence was known but who were never seen. It was usually more a function of spatial and disciplinary distance, and it happened to most faculty at a school with more than several hundred faculty. Of course, she knew something about him: the eccentric fellow who combined teaching with confabulations. Just recently, one of her students related that “Pfinster said he suspected that a radio transmission from Jupiter, or was it Neptune,” had influenced the colors the House of Dior favored for their new lines. Crazy stuff, said the student in an admiring tone, but it always seemed to have a point about how economics or philosophy were different sides of the same coin. And then he urged them to think about that. Brilliant? Who knew?

On a Tuesday afternoon, at 4:45, the end of her posted office hours. Osa Spengler heard a light tap at the door. “Yes?” And a man stood holding a small terra cotta pot with a cactus. He was about her height, a bit flabby about the middle, with an open-collared blue Oxford cloth shirt, khaki pants, an ill-fitting tweedy sports jacket (and without looking), she was almost sure his shoes would be boating loafers. And then she smelled him, an overly sweet aftershave heavy with undertones of bay rum. 

“We’ve met, yes?” said Zander Pfinster. ” I’m Zander Pfinster, but everyone calls me Zander.” He giggled a bit and extended the cactus. “You get full sun on this side of Mordant, so just the plant to do the job.” 

Osa decided to extend the game. “We’ve met? Are you sure you have the right office.? I’m Osa Spengler, and everyone calls me Doctor Spengler.”

He grimaced, and she felt sorry for him. “Oh, yes, Friday night. How are you feeling?” 

He blushed and looked down at the cactus. Osa liked his blushing.

“I wanted to thank you for helping me to my office. I got lost, and I was drunk. Drowning sparrows, that sort of thing.”

“Drowning your sorrows?  That sort of thing?” 

It was not a question, just a matter-of-fact way she had. 

He had intended it as a joke, and now her response unnerved him. This woman was either humorless or offended by his suggestion of dead birds. Or both.

“No, no. no, just feeling sorry for myself, not killing birdies!” He sat in the other chair in her office, where students usually emoted about the meaning of life. She raised her eyebrows. He had not been invited in nor to take a seat, and it would be harder to get rid of him now, assuming she wanted to do that. 

Gradually they found a conversational tone. She told Zander of her journey to choose sociology; he told Osa about the war within: was he an economist or a philosopher? He envied her evident focus; she admired his ease in covering two fields. She began to smile, and he laughed easily, perhaps too quickly. How had he come to Ballast? He laughed again and told how the Dean had invited him to be something like the vanguard of critical thinking and how daunting he found that. “I think I am a fraud.” The man was so forthright! Soon she would hear about his childhood. And so it was.

“My parents abandoned me as an infant and left my grandparents to raise me. My parents wanted to join the Peace Corps, and I got in the way. Off they went somewhere and, as they say, ‘went native’ and never returned. Granny was a mystic, and Grandad was an inventor. Together they build an underground chamber to attract visitors from other dimensions.

“Such as?” 

“You name it.”

“Well, deceased persons, aliens, future beings?”

“Mostly aliens. What do you mean by ‘future beings’?”

“Let’s say a Ballast administrator 200 years from now.”

He made a sour face. “Those count as aliens.” 

Osa laughed.

So it went, their first encounter. Osa never asked what his “sorrows” were, and Zander had forgotten them. But she had done some addition and decided he was likely a loser. He did not have job security at Ballast, had no meaningful doctorate, had been an orphan exposed to maverick grandparents, and could drink himself into a stupor. Now she worried that she had encouraged him. She made an excuse when he suggested they have dinner together that evening, and they parted at the Mordant Hall exit. 

“See you,” he called after her. She half-turned and nodded. 

On Thursday, Osa received two emails. The first was from Zander N. Pfinster, asking if she was perhaps related to Oswald Spengler. She ignored it because she did not care to encourage Zander, and she was bored with explaining that, yes, the famous author of The Decline of the West was a very distant relative. But the second email was disquieting: would she stop in to chat with the college President on Friday morning between 9:45 and 10:00? What could that be? At least the allotment of fifteen minutes to “chat” took the dread out of it. Osa had never been in difficulties with authority figures before except for the business with Dan Haldeman at UN-Sand Hills, and that was nothing. Dan was not an authority; he was a predator.

President Baldur B. Brunkelvic (referred to as “Triple B” or “the Vitch”) by faculty and staff” had been at the helm of Ballast College since the late 1970s and was credited with steering through several crises having to do with enrollments. Keeping numbers high was imperative since students had many choices in the upper Midwest. Keeping Ballast a lively competitor meant a balanced budget, support for the athletic program, and the ability to retain faculty and programs. Osa Spengler had not met Brunkelvic and had never even seen him except at the opening convocation and in the distance on Parents’ Weekend. Triple B had worn his academic attire, cap, gown, hood, and the medallion of an obscure honor society on each occasion.

Brunkelvic’s office manager, a sharp-faced woman, ushered Osa into the office, which was, as expected, lined with shelves of books, trophies, and photographs of noteworthy visitors who had stopped over the years. There was Bob Hope, Margaret Truman, and some forgotten UN Secretary-General. U Thant? The President sat with his hands folded and with a thin smile. He nodded towards a chair directly in front of the mahogany desk. Behind him was a large window that provided a broad view of the campus. He addressed Osa with the usual formulaic small talk about how good to see her, and she was doing well, and wouldn’t it be nice when Huhn Hall was completed and she had a real office? Then there came the clearing of his throat, which shook his wattles. He appeared to be a short, ordinary man without his academic regalia.

”Dr. Spengler, I am turning to you first to help me achieve the clarity I need concerning a situation brought to my attention earlier this week. Our Dean of Students received a phone call from an upset parent who said her daughter and a friend had observed something last Friday evening. Do you know to which I refer?”

Osa shook her head, negative, but her stomach gave a twist just the same.

“To get to the hub, I mean nub, two persons were seen in Mordant Hall in a state of apparent intoxication. Leaning on each other before disappearing into the Mordant One hallway? Can you enlighten me?”

Osa’s hands rose to cover her face, and she slumped in her chair. She took a breath, then dropped her hands and told Brunkelvic everything in the minutest detail in a steady voice. How the lights had failed, and she had stepped on Zander’s hand in the dark, offering to call Security and leading him down the stairs to his office.

“So that individual was intoxicated?”

“I am sure of that. He smelled of whiskey and beer.”

“And you had no other contact with Zander Pfinster, before or after the Mordant ah, unpleasantness?”

Osa explained further–the Tuesday visit, the cactus, the impression she had of Pfinster, and that she had no plans to see him again unless professionally (“for the good of our students.”) The President of Ballast seemed content and thanked her. She appeared to be one of the more believable persons he had encountered, while Zander Pfinster fell somewhat short of that in his estimation.

And that was that. 

Chapter Two  THE FINLAND CONFERENCE

The train, a rusting mix of petroleum tankers, boxcars filled with pale cabbages, and two passenger coaches, inched out of Saleznevo, the checkpoint before the Finnish border. Whatever expectations he had about how one might feel on the border between the deflating Soviet Union and Finland (in the terminology of the time, the Communists and the Free World), he felt more indifferent than pleased with himself. 

He was now 49 years old, mid-life, halfway to the finish line. More than half! He did not accept the current notion of a “crisis” in the middle years. But he was given to an almost obsessive introspection. Why did he think as he did? It was a habit that enriched his life and yet invited irritation, and it had also cost him several friendships and a possible marriage. “Zander has to hype up everything to prove he’s intelligent!” That was what he overheard his fiancé saying near the end. And so he thought about that, too, and filed it under “Ambiguities” with so much else that defied resolution.

Now staring out at the bleak day as the train began to groan forward, Zander N. Pfinster asked himself why he found his present circumstances so banal. It was all too familiar here, so much like the bleak setting of the small university where he would most likely spend more years in limbo. Some new token of his scholarship might open the door to a promotion or a new posting in a more stimulating place. Once his resumé contained the news of one more conference, the one he was traveling towards, well, that might nail it. 

Or perhaps not. There were more details at play than the quality of his scholarship, and these mattered more than some dreary little paper read in a monotone at a remote conference. In Pfinster’s case, the brief encounter brought on by the drunken mistake involving Osa Spengler had upset the delicate balance of shoptalk and rumor at Ballast College. That was another problem that time would have to erase. And it had been nothing, really, so he assured himself. President Baldur Brunkelvic had placed him on “informal probation” and told him to get some counseling, attend a few conferences and set new goals. “Plump up your resumé, boy.” 

Those were his words. 

Ballast College was no different than the vast universe of American education: how to appear relevant to students’ needs without dumbing them down. And in another regard, Ballast shared the erosion of budgetary support needed to honor its various “mission statements,” which were invented by committees, scrutinized, adjusted, and finally reinvented repeatedly over the decades. When Zander was hired, he had an M.A. in Philosophy, a field poorly represented at Ballast. Would he find a home in another discipline? Eager for an income and an academic start, Zander Pfinster agreed to teach an introductory interdisciplinary economics and philosophy course: a dual appointment and a challenging one. “You’ll be plugging a few holes here at Ballast.” said the smiling Divisional Dean, the tallest man at Ballast and with a Doctorate in Accounting, “and you’ll be well-positioned for critical thinking.” Pfinster, much shorter, stared up at this giant and nodded enthusiastically. He had lied on his resumé: his degree was not in Philosophy; it was in Folklore. He had guessed correctly that such a degree would not be salable at Ballast.

.”Well-positioned for critical thinking.” The words felt like a cart filled with  stones, which he now dragged everywhere behind him and, on some days, pushed ahead of him into the classroom where he was to teach “Survey of Econo-Philosophy 1A.” One course, two approaches. Pfinster wanted to desperately engage students, and to this end, he “invented the Monday thinking cap.” Yes, “thinking cap” was an old term, but why not dust it off? Before the first semester ended, Pfinster had become part of the Folklore of Ballast College for his approach to “critical thinking,” which may or may not have been marginally successful.

Each Monday, he invited his classes to share what he called “phenomena” because “we are so often exposed to the new, the interesting, and the thought-provoking.” This invitation was met with a profound silence each Monday. No one had anything to share, or they preferred to keep their phenomena to themselves. So, Pfinster, feigning great reluctance, offered something of his own. His students knew he would; in fact, their silence was a conspiracy to force him into sharing something that they invariably labeled as “weird” or “bizarre” or some other of the labels that their generation used for anything unconventional. And with each week, the anecdotes became stranger. Pfinster had discovered (like others had) like that an instructor could cover his inadequate preparation for philosophy and economics by being entertaining.

And he delivered! Consider this monologue: 

“Aaah-um. Just Saturday, I went to the Farmers’ Market near the fire station on…well, you know where it is…I was looking for radishes and green onions. Nothing more. As I was leaving, there, in a wire cage, was a chicken. One chicken. How was this? Had the others been sold? Or was this the only chicken on the planet, this remnant of the dinosaurs? Or was there only this sole chicken to begin with? How to resolve that question? But before applying our methodology, I noticed that the solitary chicken, a rather large bird, seemed to be staring at me. [pause] Aaah-um, was I curious about the bird, or was it curious about me? I assumed it had the jump on me with that one, for I was late in noticing him. The chicken stared back at me through the crude wire enclosure. I had evidently engaged its curiosity. No credit to me, for it may make any living thing into an attractant when you are the only chicken in an enclosure. Or perhaps it was just stupidity. Can it be assumed that this chicken thinks there are or were other chickens? Limited perception of the present and none of the past, hmmm; future given over to wariness. 

[At this point, most of his students had taken off their thinking caps and were staring as Pfinster continued to crank up the emotion his emotion.]

“And what did the solitary state of this bird say about its absent owner, the one who had created the crude wire mesh enclosure? Poverty? An Easter chick that failed to die in a timely manner, [and here his voice rose] sentimentally fed by some well-meaning children only to live on, oppressing adults with its empty stare and greedy beak? Or was it that familiar form of loneliness which finally becomes empty-headed indifference, the very sort which humankind disapproves of and strives, aaah-um, [pause] SO FUTILY TO AVOID?”

As is well-known and tolerated, a level of eccentricity appears in most higher education, whereas it is uncommon in middle school. A more sophisticated undergraduate might have caught that the Lecturer (for that was his rank), Z.N. Pfinster, was, consciously or not, attempting to bridge the two disciplines, Philosophy and Economics, and present them as a coherent whole. 

Such ruminations (referring to the chicken story) leaked out of the classroom and through the faculty and beyond. The tallest man at Ballast, the Tall Division Dean with the Doctorate in Accounting, spoke to him about “critical thinking but not an overtaxing of the mind” and so on. There had been, he hinted, “a few” phone calls from parents. Would Pfinster strive to make his mark in more conventional ways? 

 Perhaps an observer would have concluded that tourism was the reason for his travel to Finland. Who would know that fearsome shadows hung over Zander Pfinster? His entire occupational insecurity had brought him here. Of the dozens of low-level academic conferences available to him, he had submitted his proposal to the Finland Midsummer Symposium earlier in the year. This modest event annually invited brief papers on themes attracting various disciplines. This year the theme was “New Classic Theory.” His brief presentation would develop the theme of “Liberation Economics: New Classic Theory or Not?” It was a reworking of an earlier, shorter paper, “No New Theories in Liberal Class Economics?” which he had read in Costa Rica two years earlier. In both cases, and whatever he offered to Ballast students, his economics thinking came from his undergraduate notes and an article in Time magazine.

Zander’s private and, as he assumed, brilliant insight was that most college faculty members were bobbing about in a swamp of self-hatred brought on by their conviction that the truth about anything would never be known. They were forced to present themselves theatrically like fraudsters and mountebanks. They were like dancing bears managed by carnival folk.

Since no one at Ballast College knew anything about Finland beyond Helsinki, it had been easy to avoid revealing that the Midsummer Symposium was a modest affair. It was hosted by something called the Lyceum for Superior Studies in the small provincial city of Rovaniemi, far to the north on the Kemijoki River. The papers were presented within a fifteen-minute limit, and the seven minutes assigned to questions and comments meant that three participants shared a session each hour. There were to be four sessions in the entire conference, an opening banquet, and a keynote address. 

And now, stepping off the train in Rovaniemi, he saw that the precautions with his colleagues had been more than adequate: no one would have heard of this place or surmised its lack of academic heft. It was late afternoon. The square in front of the station was deserted except for a taxi, its motor whining unevenly. The shops had evidently closed. He recalled a sepia street scene in an old silent motion picture. Was it Nosferatu?   

“Sir?” It was the taxi driver, an unhappy-looking man in a brown uniform. He drove Pfinster through empty streets to the Hotel Mursu on Pelikaani Katu. It was a short ride but long enough for the driver to inquire about his passenger’s purpose in coming to Rovaniemi. Enough time to tell him that the Midsummer Symposium had been canceled some days earlier. A “scheduling conflict” at the Lyceum, no one knew what. At the Hotel Mursu, he was handed a handwritten note confirming, but not explaining, the cancellation and inviting him to attend a “consolation session” where he might meet other “parties” over drinks. His presentation could be photocopied and distributed there, provided it was “reasonably brief.” Unexpectedly, he imagined Osa Spengler looking down from some dais, and she was frowning.

Since the landscape had changed instantly, he grasped at the need to save his plan. He would hide and claim he had given his paper to great acclaim. His room on the second floor provided all that he wanted of Rovaniemi, a narrow view of the brown Kemijoki River as it oozed along its stone embankment. He watched occasional human figures or small brown birds from his chair facing the window. From his bed, his vision was upwards towards the sky with its single motionless cloud shaped like a narrow-brimmed gray hat. He slept briefly and sparingly, ate brown bread, and drank a bitter pine resin tea from the hotel kitchen. This would be, he thought to himself, an experiment in purposelessness. But even that suggested a purpose. He called the desk and ordered a sleep mask. Then 

Zander checked to see if the bed had a mattress, for it was so hard he imagined it was designed for penitents. Then he pulled a thin blanket up to his chin and worked at shutting down his mind.   

He imagined himself a leaf, a small one. And so, on the following day of his residency on the second floor of the Hotel Mersu, he lived the life of a simple oval leaf with symmetrical veins. Unconcerned about the problem of detachment from a possible larger community of foliage, he directed himself, this thin green thing that he became, to the near-constant light of the solstice sun. An imperceptible release of odorless carbon dioxide followed, and gauzy half-sleep led to the emptiness he seemed to crave.

His experiences were not expressly those of an economist/philosopher who became a leaf. On the second day, the unmistakable urging of thirst warned him of desiccation, and he reluctantly shook off his experimental identity as flora. The light had made the whole thing so pleasant, the unfailing light. He remembered: it was midsummer, and at this latitude, the light persisted, leading fauna and flora into the appealing lethargy of timelessness. At least, that is what he told himself. Pfinster had given himself over to “the lethargy of timelessness.” Who has not at times succumbed to similar notions?

“Am I, I mean, are we near the Arctic Circle?” he asked the man who regularly brought him his piece of dark toast and glass of bitter tea. 

“Yes, it is on the north edge of the town. Half an hour by foot.” 

This conversation, the longest he had had in Finland, shook him out of the torpor he had cultivated so effortlessly. He rose from the bed, showered, and cleaned his teeth methodically with the coarse dentifrice powder purchased in St. Petersburg. Then he flossed with exceptional care. Flossed until the thread was pink. His clothes, washed during his slumber by the Hotel Mursu laundry,  were stiff with starch and smelled of naphtha soap. The walking shoes had been burnished with a thick brown wax. Even his belt had a new look and feel. Everything pointed to a new day. Cheerfully thinking things were likely OK, he whistled a few bars of an old Benny Goodman hit, left the hotel, and turned north.

Rovaniemi offered no new impressions over those which he had formed on the day of his arrival. It was clearly a modest city that encouraged restraint and prudence. Old brown Volvos lined the streets, the drivers somewhere out of view. Pedestrians nodded at him but did not acknowledge his obvious foreignness. Looking out of apartment windows, dogs merely stared and did not bark. Pfinster appreciated the open-ended ambiance, which allowed a man to go to Finland to read a short treatise on economics but instead stroll to the Arctic Circle. And what did it really matter?  John Maynard Keynes had said something about that, but he resisted the effort to recall just what that thought was.  

He stopped before a display window. There was nothing to be seen except spools of thread. It was a shop that sold thread. A thread shop? Could a shop sell only thread? Mostly brown thread, too. Everywhere was brown, but there was also some blue, a reflection in the window and still more strongly in his peripheral vision. He turned his head and looked squarely at a young woman dressed in a full blue skirt, long-sleeved white blouse, and stockings. Her hair reminded him of the mixed ash and birch forests that had bordered the rails on his journey north. She wore a modest crown of yellow ribbon and miniature meadow flowers. A scent, vaguely of juniper and something unfamiliar, came to him. He looked uncertainly into her azure eyes. It seemed rude to stare, to note a skin more sand-toned than snow, the sculpted cheekbones with glowing highlights, and the firm yet generous mouth that suggested character and passion tempered with sadness. Or so Pfinster, who could be deeply romantic, allowed himself to think

The poet in him sensed that he was looking at some triumph of Eurasian evolution. Or, more modestly expressed, the glory of Rovaniemi. Somehow he turned himself entirely from the window of the thread shop and stood in front of  the woman. She smiled. The effect was profound. He felt a shock and a churning of his physical being. He wanted to weep. Dualities, hardly discernible except in the barest of outlines, tore through his mind: joy, grief; the sacred, the profane; fame, ignominy; desire, fear; the hunger for life, the longing for death. Unexpectedly, unfamiliar words formed and left him, almost inaudibly, except to himself and the woman.

     “Widespread they stand, the Northland’s dusky forests,

      Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams;

      Within them dwells the forest’s mighty god,

      And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.”

There is no awareness of how he came to be seated at the scrubbed pine table amid the wooden utensils, the steaming kettle, and the smell of clove, bay leaf, and smoked eels. She reached across the table and placed her hand on his. 

“What did I just say?”

” You know our myths.”

“I do?” and then “Is this your home?”

She answered him in her soft voice accented with its suggestion of schooling  in England. 

“This is my home. I was born here, here in this house. In that room, behind you. It is a special room because the Arctic Circle crosses it. My father told me so. He measured it very carefully with instruments. It is still my room. My father told me that it is a special room and a special thing to sleep on the Arctic Circle. Especially during the time of the solstice. Then he went away to Cyprus with the United Nations. He was a peacekeeping soldier, a good man. He was killed there. There was no war, but someone wanted to make some trouble, an incident. Then my mother could not live in the house so alone. She took me to England. She wanted me to learn to be a nurse. I did. She was a person who sews, you know, a seamstress. This dress she made for me. I was visiting her grave today when I saw you looking at the thread in the window.”

She paused and moved a fingertip deliberately over the back of his hand. He looked at her hand and said nothing. His eyes filled. The kettle breathed its aromatic steam into the room. Somewhere a summer insect tapped against a windowpane. The light had softened. 

“I came back to this house, to Finland. I did not want to be alone in England, and I knew I was too much alone.” Her voice had descended to a whisper. 

He met her eyes and saw early snow falling on a stunted tundra which was at the same time the ocher landscape of his youth, landscapes of yearning and remorse. He felt the power of a place where the sun would not set this night. Drawn by earthen scents, he took her other hand and leaned forward across the table. 

“You,” he said, “and I are so near the Arctic Circle.” 

He wept as he spoke and did not see her reassuring smile. Would he ever want to leave this place? Then she arose, walked into the room on the Arctic Circle, and closed the door. He remained at the table until the sun of the midnight hour was lower still. Then he moved slowly towards the room, her room, and softly opened the door. It was empty. In truth, it was beyond empty.  There was no bed, table, chair, dresser, mirror, rug, curtains, or even wallpaper. And if the room had ever smelled of pine, it was now without any scent at all.

Chapter Three  CONVOCATION

 Until the completion of Huhn Hall, the Odeon-Plethorium was the newest and most admired building on the Ballast Campus. The OP (avoiding the deliberate pretentiousness of the name chosen by President B.B.Brunkelvic himself)) featured an auditorium, a small theater-in-the-round for repertory productions, and a modest gallery space. For the dedication in May of 1981, Brunkelvic invited a native Illinoisian and current President of the United States, the Honorable Ronald Wilson Reagan. The benediction was expected to be offered by the former President of the United States, the Honorable James (Jimmy) Carter. Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Tebaldi would join in singing a medley of American folk songs. Then President B.B. Brunkelvic would give an address titled “Ballast,” followed by an appearance by the Ballast Glee Club singing “The Ballast Fight Song” and other community favorites. None of the luminaries accepted the invitation to appear. The OP, without fanfare, began quietly occupying its place in Ballast history.

The beginning of each Fall Term in September meant the Opening Convocation in the smaller theater on the Thursday after Labor Day. The theater had a horseshoe shape with a focus on the podium. Brunkelvic liked this format: no one could hide, and all faced the front and could see most of the others seated in the horseshoe theater. “We are a family,” the President would say, “just look at you!” No one looked around.

Before the meeting started at 9:00 AM, a 30-minute coffee and cookie time allowed faculty to greet colleagues. Two topics were always present: the summer was too short, and where did they get these awful cookies year after year? 

Osa Spengler, in her second year,  was still too new to know many other faculty members. She went directly into the theater and sat high up on the left. She was clutching a copy of her first book-length publication, which had arrived the day before. Titled Why Sociology? the slim paperback had been contracted to a small press in York, Nebraska, by the big university press in Lincoln.”We do this when we are running behind.” was the explanation. took her seat and used the time before the meeting to inspect the result. She had already noted various fonts from one chapter to the next, which was not a good sign. Osa had avoided the coffee hour because she did not wish to encounter Zander Pfinster.

Since the incident, if widely known, would have placed her in a situation of acute scandal, Osa had kept to herself and hoped that Zander would not return from wherever he had gone, some conference abroad, according to rumor. From what little she knew of him, it seemed reasonable to assume that the man was a loser without a solid disciplinary identity. A man without a terminal degree and straddling two fields, philosophy, and economics, was asking for trouble. Had he been sacked? The truth was otherwise: there was an ominous asterisk following the Pfinster’s name.

No, he had not been terminated. Not at Ballast College! President Brunkelvic liked Pfinster! To him, Finland had not been a boondoggle. A debacle, but not a boondoggle. Brunkelvic encouraged Pfinster to take the summer off, appear on the first contractual day (the Convocation), and perhaps resume teaching. The two had kept in contact. Had Osa bothered to look in the class schedule, she would have known this as well, but as the Convocation began, she began to doubt that he was still on the Ballast Faculty. Such relief! With her first publication resting on her lap, Osa decided that her second year at Ballast was beginning with nothing disturbing on the horizon. She would cross the campus with a straight, confident spine and no longer glance furtively left and right. Not that she feared Pfinster, but he was the one who was linked to her with the accusatory shame of a restraining order.  How many persons knew of it; probably no one.

The meeting began. At the podium, the Director of the Harpp Student Center, Valerie Kapuffnik, slim and white-haired and the oldest woman on the faculty (she also taught Product Marketing) and traditionally given the honor of opening the Convocation. Behind her stood the Junior Glee Club.

“Fellow Hounds!” I have the privilege of being the first to welcome you back to Ballast. Back to Ballast! What a nice mouthfeel those words have! Let’s have a heartfelt singing of our Alma Mater,” She drew out a pitch pipe, gave out a squawk, and began to wave her arms to signal the need for greater volume.

Ballast, Ballast, solid is thy name

Ballast, Ballast, noble is thy aim

Ballast, Ballast, succor the noble youth

Ballast, Ballast, may they know TRUTH!!

“Good job!” said Ms. Kapuffnik. “And now, to open Ballast College’s 107th year of service to our students, our communities, and our Great State of Illinois, I give you, President Baldur B. Belinsky– excuse me, BRUNELVIC!” In the nine years that President Brunkelvic had been in office, the Opening Convo always began with the presidential joke and ended with another singing of the school song. As for messing up the President’s name, it happened every year, and some swore it was deliberate. The President’s joke followed a round of light applause. And so it began:

“I heard a good one that, the other day, got it from one of you, a member of our Ballast family. I didn’t understand it at first, so give it some time. As usual, it is a decent joke you will want to share with your families tonight. Anyway, here’s the joke:

“A Flintlander man, a Russian man, and a fellow from Chicago walk into a bar in Helsinki. That’s a city in Flintland. The bartender looks up, shakes his head, and says (and here the President began to chortle): ‘OK, fellas, what’s the joke?'” 

Then, red-faced, he laughed, loud and open-mouthed, while many who were present offered restrained sounds of the “tee-hee” variety. Most exchanged glances and nodded. Was this the long-awaited proof of his senility? This joke had come to him from Zander Pfinster, and it was the first hint that something was afoot.

That done, the parade of deans, vice presidents, the faculty senate president, and finally, the lugubrious registrar came to the podium to reach into their bag of overworked redundant boilerplate, platitudes, and bromides. There was also twaddle and piffle, most of which was cast out to the audience in a tone of inauthentic optimism—Brunkelvic, seated in a green armchair to the right of the podium, beamed and occasionally clapped. After nearly an hour, he rose to present another regular feature of the Opening Convo: “Stories from Ballast’s History,” which Brunkelvic chose for their presumed inspirational value.

The audience learned that nearly 50 years earlier, in 1933, the Ballast College Industrial Arts Department developed a metallic robot that was strong enough to lift either the front or rear of an automobile to facilitate changing tires at service stations. Other applications were considered: farming (pulling a manure wagon) or military (classified, secret). The prototype was still stored in the heating plant but not open to the public. Nearly 20 years later, Hollywood based the robot GORT on the Ballast model, for which 20th Century Fox gratefully sponsored ten scholarships. The film The Day the Earth Stood Still is shown annually during the fraternity-sponsored “Klaatu Daze” in Spring. Most faculty knew this story already, and several members of the Business School had been lobbying to have the Ballast robot made part of a fund-raising roadside attraction on County Road 14. Finally, it was time to end the proceedings.

“Fellow Hounds, let’s have a word from Coach Edwin Palloucca!”

Hounds? What was this? Osa was still too new to have absorbed much Ballast arcana. The college was once mistakenly called Ballast College for a year due to a printing error. Once discovered, some wit suggested that the school needed a mascot anyway and what was wrong with “Hounds?”

 Palloucca was in the audience, eight rows from the front. He stood, faced the faculty, and rasped the words he said, more or less, each year: “We’re gonna beat ’em!” And so saying, he sat down again.

“Thank you, Coach Palloucca, and I particularly look forward to all the games and especially that Homecoming Game with Pervus College. As an Illinois boy, I always enjoyed our friendly rivalry with anything from Iowa.” 

The Coach stood again and brayed, “and I mean beat ’em! How about the Hound Fight Song Cheer?” Dutifully, though some in the audience looked towards their shoes, the chant began:

“Ballast, Ballast, 

We know the Truth.

Truth Sets You Free! 

Yay, Ballast!”

Brunkelvic roared  Those in the first three rows got a glimpse of his dentition, the usual pattern of dark fillings and overly white crowns. Then he raised his arms for quiet. 

“Now, here comes the huge news today, and you’re hearing it here first: Ballast has entered into an exchange program with some colleges and universities in Fringland! I’m told the ink is just drying on the protocols! Haven’t seen ’em. I’ve asked the architect of those agreements to share a proverb from Fingland that has special meaning as we, the Ballast family, venture out into the world and, might I add, become the first college in Illinois to embrace Finglander colleges! I am talking about our good colleague, Zander Pfinster! Come on up, Zandy! Right up here with me, fella!”

There was a gasp, one of amazement. Zander Pfinster had been sitting front and center, nearly under the podium. Now he stood and climbed onto the stage, shook hands with Brunkelvic, and faced the puzzled audience. Osa sat up in astonishment. She heard the name, but Zander Pfinster was different than he had been months ago. He was slender and no longer walked with a stoop, but most curious: he had long locks of golden blond hair folded neatly over his shoulders like someone who might be playing   Hamlet. He leaned forward towards the microphone and said, in a pleasant tone,   

“Joka vanhoja muistelee, sitä tikulla silmään.” 

Then he extended his arm towards the the President and asked, “our good friend President B.B.Brunkelvic” to share this potent Finnish proverb in English. Brukelvic dramatically cleared his throat, leaned into the microphone, and intoned. 

“A poke in the eye for the one who dwells on the past.”

Was that designed for her? Osa felt ill. She scarcely heard the second whining of the morbid Ballast College anthem, which concluded the Convocation. A deep sense of betrayal made her gorge rise. That weasel, ball-less wonder Brunkelvic and the repellent Pfinster had found each other for some purpose! The relief she had felt leaving the President’s office in Spring, the knowledge that a restraining order was in place to protect her from this besotted fool Pfinster, and how she felt valued by the CEO of this college. Now what? She would stay in the shadows while Prince Zander basked in the approving glow of some far-fetched international connection. Who were they kidding? Ballast would be lucky if it could enter a consortium with some junior college in Little Egypt downstate. She shook her head, clutched the copy of Why Sociology? and watched for the chance to escape. 

Osa Spengler was among the last to leave the auditorium. No point in chancing an encounter with the President and his apparent toady, Zander Pfinster. She sighed. It had only been her second opening Convocation at Ballast or anywhere, and she felt deflated. She rose from her seat and nodded at someone she thought she may have met. Somewhere in the distance in the music practice rooms, a few mellow tones from a french horn reached her. She left the building, clutching her copy of Why Sociology? Foolish to have brought it along. No one had noticed. What is all this? she asked herself. What have I done? She regretted taking the first job that came along, and she could have extended her time at Western for another year. But there was Dan Haldeman to get away from, and more and more persons at UN-Sand Hills were aware of her liaison with him. So here she was, at Ballast. 

Of course, the odd business with Pfinster was just a fluke. How many new faculty stumble over a drunken colleague in the darkened hallway of a retrofitted dorm? But there were other things. There was no one in her department to bond with, or was something wrong with her? Nor had she really seemed to click with students who had rated her a disappointing 3.15 out of a possible 4.00. The Tall Division Dean interpreted the evaluations and assured her that students constantly whined if assigned more than 25 pages of reading per week. The usual comments about needing a new hairstyle, making an effort to smile more, lecturing more slowly, and showing more videos. There was nothing new or alarming here, said the Tall Dean, who told her she might think about being more visible at athletic events.” Be part of the Ballast family,” were his concluding words.

Osa Spengler was not a fan of athletic events. In high school, she had hated the mandatory gym hours with their insane rope climbs, tumbling, and relay races to name a few of the events she found a torment. She liked to skip rope, but skipping rope was not offered. And why did institutions of higher learning actually sponsor the time-consuming athletic teams and the nonsense of playing against other schools? Osa kept her disdain for athletics secret. In class she occasionally attempted to illustrate a point with an example drawn from the world of sports. These usually fell flat and might even be a source of snickering: for example, referring to the quarterback of a baseball team when discussing the subtlety of social power. Her preference would have been to use the game of Scrabble as a reference. That was her game and, together with word puzzles, was what had been done at home.

Opening Convocation and then Department meetings. When Osa reached the offices of the Sociology Department, the meeting was about to begin with the usual discussion of course offerings, room assignments, and hourly schedules. And enrollment numbers. And office hours (in Osa’s case, the hours spent in old Mordant Hall). It was over in 25 minutes, and then it was open for questions or comments.  

Still a new and most recent hire, Osa Spengler had nothing to say unless asked a direct question, though these never came. She fixed a smile on her face and listened to the others. Who are these people, she thought, now that my life is thrown in with theirs?

The Chair was Willibald Seward, M.A., beginning his 32nd year at Ballast. His degree, the only non-doctorate in the department, was in Rural Sociology from Oklahoma Poly. Sensitive about his credentials, he nonetheless had served as head of the department for 14 years. Praised by President Brunkelvic as “a steady hand” and “our beloved,” Seward had decided early on his watchword: “Social change does not come from below, and it does not come from above. It just happens.” His multiple-choice exams always had some form of this as the first question. 

The others, were seated at the table.  Osa had devised descriptions for  each of four others in the department”

Edwina Bates, the Department Queen,  spoke with an affected Brit accent. 

    Phony.

Monty Blair, Department Clown, a mean prankster, off-color joking. 

Voyeur.

Gwendolyn Welles, Department Pessimist, spoke little, frowned much.

Weepy.

Usher Smith, Department Mumbler, perhaps deranged a bit.

Idiot.

Sensing that the meeting was at an end, no one dared to raise a question or make a comment which would prolong the pain. As he did every year,  Seward cleared his throat and began praising the department and recalling how they had backed him during an epic turf battle five years earlier. Osa knew nothing of this, so she was one of the only person even mildly interested in the story. It was about how the Sociology Department had won the right to use “sociopath” in course titles, and the Psychology Chairperson, F.T. Manzano, had to retire “psychopath” in in his department. And then Manzano resigned in deep shame for failing to protect his department and discipline. Hearing Seward savor the retelling of his victory over Psychology and Manzano was a disappointment to Osa. Not only did it seem childish to her, but surely there was something better to talk about, something more appropriate, perhaps something to share. What Osa had in mind, although it made her uncomfortable, was some recognition that she had on the table before her a copy of her book. A decent-sized book with a red cover with a pale question mark. Why Sociology? and then “Osa Spengler, Ph.D.” on that cover in contrasting white. How could anyone miss that, flat on the table? And yet, Osa was conflicted. She wanted the recognition, yet she wanted to remain within her preferred lower profile. There were those, such as Edwina Bates, who privately called Osa “a mouse.” 

“I don’t doubt she’s got the grey matter to teach, but she will never make waves,” she had told Gwendolyn Welles. The two senior women adopted a cordial demeanor towards Osa, one designed to keep her from getting too comfortable. Both were burned out with their teaching, and the only focus left was to direct their scrutiny towards the rest of the faculty and watch the President (presumably) deteriorating. 

Osa Spengler had experienced the Opening Convo and the subsequent Department Meeting at the beginning of the previous year, but it was still all very new and made little sense. She was utterly focused on her classes and assumed nothing was there to learn from the braying of the school anthem.

This year it had been different. All the hoopla and empty comments! Only the appearance of the reinvented Zander Pfinster interested her. What conclusion should be drawn if a clown like that could appear with the chief academic officer prancing up to the stage as a Nordic blond-tressed hero? Why, of course! It meant that she, Osa Spengler, was too good for this mediocre little college! 

What an epiphany for Osa!  She was twenty-seven years old and constantly aware of the shadows cast by men.. Her father always won at Scrabble, and her high school had offered no avenues for recognition unless she could excel at badminton and she could not.  In graduate school, her mentors insinuated that they were tolerating her aspirations. And now her book lay before her on the table, face down. Was the book ashamed of itself? Of course not, but her pleasure at publishing it was corroded by self-doubt. Had “they” (the ever-present patriarchy)  humored her by publishing it? 

With seconds to go before the meeting ended, Osa turned the book over and placed it face up in the center of the table. Her jaw was set, her brow furrowed, and her face reddened with determination. 

“I would like to share my pleasure, ah, my happiness, in this contribution to our discipline. I’ll leave this copy here. I’m pretty proud of it, and I hope you like it.”

It was a short, simple little speech, but Osa was almost out of breath and light-headed when she finished. Somehow enough confidence was left to make eye contact with each of her colleagues. They were surprised, and none had noticed the red book their young colleague had been clutching since the Opening Convo.

Chairperson Seward smiled, and the others nodded, making throaty noises of approval. “Umm-hmmm.” “ooo-ohhh.” “Hnh-hnh-hnh.” They waited for Seward to give something other than a grunt. He delivered:

“Professor Spengler, you are on your way.” he intoned. To which the phlegmatic Usher Smith moaned, “Hear-Hear.” 

And that was that.

Chapter Four    SPECIAL PROJECTS

`”That was a damn fine Opener!” 

Baldur Brunkelvic swept his left arm, taking in half the buildings lining the Veterans’ Rectangle at the heart of the Ballast Campus. His right hand rested on the shoulder of Zander Pfinster, whose blond tresses were now gathered into a ponytail. The two men were returning from the Opening Convocation and heading toward the administration center in old August Hall. 

“And, what’s more, Zandy, from my chair on stage I could look deeply into the audience, and I liked what I saw!”

“A full house!” said Zander with exaggerated enthusiasm, marveling 

at how he had acquired a nickname for the first time.

“No, not so much that. Honestly, I had a good look at how your presentation was going over; let me say I saw a lot of eager faces. The Finn Exchange is now launched, and it’s a winner!”

Zander turned towards the President, grinned as best he could, and tried to forget his own impressions. He had seen a different reaction. How odd that an audience seems to think that a speaker, singer, or even dancer could never see their individual facial expression or body language. Zander had keen peripheral vision. He had spotted Osa Spengler’s open-mouthed astonishment and the dozens who had turned towards a neighbor with an eyebrow raised. On the right sat the head of the Phys Ed department, who leaned forward with her face in her hands. A usually eager-eyed biologist closed his eyes and seemed to remove himself from the meeting. These persons were in the minority, but they were the ones Pfinster noticed. There were skeptics, but more critical was the certainty that the Finland Project was deep in the heart of the President. And Pfinster knew his man. The President lived for affirmation of his ideas, especially the ones that became his passions.

Brunkelvic, now in his 11th year as President of Ballast, desperately wished to demonstrate to other regional colleges that Ballast could also mount a Global Outreach and Exchange approach to market itself. Nearly every smaller school, like Ballast, with under 4,000 students, had something to boast about: France, Poland, Scotland, Denmark, and on and on. But no one had yet colonized Finland. When he returned to Ballast from Europe in August, Pfinster had effortlessly convinced the President that Finland was ripe. 

“I can think of three, maybe, four impressive guys and one younger  woman whocould be here in the Spring Semester and mount courses that would send shock waves through Ballast College and onward from Dubuque to Kenosha and all of Illinois. Well, starting in the north for sure.”

“Ah, this female, is she one of those blond Scandahoovian beauties.?” Zander gave a wan smile and a wink. Brunkelvic liked women; he liked to ogle them, and he had once nearly groped a woman who had read his mind and turned on her heel. 

“Well, fine!!” said Baldur B. Brunkelvic without waiting for an answer since this goddess already existed in his mind. “I want to see this underway ASAP. Maybe in a year, my team and I can set up something like an exchange over there for our people. And see some sights along the way. Maybe fly in by way of Paris.” 

My team, our people. The President had reached his office. He turned and once more clapped Pfinster on the back and disappeared inside. Pfinster had an office in the same building as the Presidential Suite, a parking spot, a key to an executive bathroom, and a secretary shared with the Housing Office. He had a broad view of the Veterans Rectangle (usually shortened to  “Rect”) from his office. The Finnish flag and a large three-dimensional map of Finland hung on the wall opposite the window. The desk chair had a headrest and could rotate and lean back for those moments when the occupant wished to suggest the ease with which a man could manifest both  calm and authority. There was nothing on the desk except a paperweight with some runic characters quickly purchased at the airport gift s in Helsinki. Beneath this object lay an envelope, address side down so that its foreign origin would be obscured.

Pfinster, who had been scanning the Rect as if he were a panoramic camera, now turned towards his desk, sat down in the imposing chair and sank his head into the padded leather back. There, in that envelope, was his future at Ballast College and perhaps even the continuation of Baldur B.Brunkelvic’s presidency. Pfinster’s recent Finnish connection had seduced him into thinking grand thoughts of his own future. And why not? Brunkelvic has already hinted that once the Finland Project was underway, “Zandy” could expect a title change from Director of Special Projects to Academic Vice-President. All in good time, of course.

After the debacle in Roraima with the failed conference and the encounter with a maidenly archetype at the Arctic Circle (which he had come to doubt had ever happened), Pfinster had taken the suggestion to attend the Rump Session. The embarrassed host institution promised a chance to share ideas and make contacts there. Pfinster showed up but found few academics had stayed in Roraima when the more attractive choice of Stockholm was just next door in Sweden. For those who preferred the Rump Session, it was a sorrowful and squalid event of self-pitying academics. Pfinster loathed these clusters of self-important anemic-looking professors with their bad haircuts and those tribal identifiers: leather elbow patches. And, at that moment, he hated himself for being one of them.

But today, ten weeks later, Zander Pfinster was at ease and supremely satisfied with himself. He rose again from the chair, clasped his recently manicured hands behind his back, smoothed his hair,  and looked across the campus. A stray student here and there, but no faculty as all were, like Doctor Spengler, at their departmental meetings. Not Zander! He no longer had a departmental affiliation, so there was no need to attend such fatuous events. He was done trying to cobble Economics and Philosophy into a course that made any sense to anyone. And no more confabulating tales that might have a point to them other than to present him as an engaging eccentric, though that was what students liked about him. “Zander the Clown,” he murmured.

But that was a past life! Here was Z.P. looking over The Rect. He recognized the Harpp Student Life Center, the Veezen Center for Communications Studies, and through the trees beyond Veezen to the left of Zange Museum was The Pond, a reservoir formed by a small tributary of the Pecatonica, Gastric Creek.  Nearly completed but not visible from this perspective was Huhn Hall, to be dedicated during the May Commencement. Pfinster was to be one of the speakers. “You’ve come a long way fast, Z.P.,” he murmured. ” I owe a lot to being under the aegis of that blithering idiot napping down the hall at this very moment.” 

It was a curious comment, and there is a backstory. Pfinster was proud of using “aegis” and knew he could have used a more common synonym. And he was proud of his ability to manipulate the transparent needs of President Brunkelvic. Pfinster wanted respect, and so did Brunkelvic. Brunkelvic wanted to be an achieving President; Pfinster wanted an office and a title that would raise him above the lumpenprofessoriat. And now he had it, mostly.

Zander quit his survey of the Rectangle and returned to his desk. His blonde locks rested on the back of the leatherette headrest, and he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. It was time to address his first crisis as Director of Special Projects, which was monstrous. On his desk lay a face-down envelope with a foreign airmail stamp. Beneath the letter lay a telegram delivered hours before the letter arrived. 

The telegram was, as telegrams tend to be, terse.

Dr. Phil. Zander Pfinster

Ballast College

Illinois/ USA

Regret Prof. T. Kivola in hospital. We are sending a replacement

with attributions. Arrive late February. Details to follow. 

Toivo M.

The “details”which arrived by regular post, explained that Professor Kivola would be undergoing delicate surgery to implant donated tonsils and adenoids and would not be able to speak above a whisper until the following summer, too late to honor any agreement with Ballast College. Further, Professor Kivola was most distressed and suggested sending a junior department member to replace him. That person could arrive a few weeks before St. Urho’s Feast Day (16 March) to formally begin the lecture series on that day. A series of questions followed about housing, travel, honorarium, and what sort of weather Ballast College experienced in late winter. Finally, due to prior commitments, could Professor Pfinster arrange for all of the visitor’s agreed-upon academic obligations (a total of three Finnish humanities lectures) to be completed by 22 March?

Zander read both the telegram and the letter again and then again.

Who the hell had tonsil implants? And who was St. Urho? He tried to connect the correspondence with the Rump Session in Roraima last summer. There, far from sober, he had caught the ear of several others and given in to making splendid proposals about academic exchanges. Come to Ballast! Come in the late winter when the redwings return to build their nests along the graceful Pecatonica! Enjoy penthouse living atop the Library! Had he waved his arms as he spoke? Had he thrown down uncounted shots of icy vodka? Yes, he had.

If only another terse telegram would end this impending horror.

What were his choices? Send this Kivola a note saying that the proposal would have to be terminated this year with hopes for a year or two later. It was too late for that. The President was leaning on him and Zander Pfinster needed action by November. Failure to deliver meant that Zander would be laughed off campus when it became known that a reverse tonsillectomy was at the bottom of it all.

Then an idea: What if the afflicted Finnlander had his tonsil procedure done in the Upper Midwest? After all, it sounded rather ordinary as procedures go. Get a donor match, implant them, and follow up within a few days in the hospital. Of course, the best otorhinolaryngological surgeon in the business would do it. Someone at the Mayo! All of this would bring another publicity coup to Ballast. He would discuss this with the President in the morning or even later today should they cross paths. But now Zander Pfinster needed his nap. He reached for the remote to lower the blinds and leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, empty save for the troubling mail from Finland. And he was grateful for the soft leather headrest. 

 He relaxed by reviewing his hard times in the classroom. Attached to two departments, he had found the assignment ambiguous and knew it was not popular with students. To earn their smiles and positive evaluations, he resorted to telling them fanciful tales, one or two each class period, and then drew tortured, bogus Philo-Economic connections from them. Things were going along well enough that he rewarded himself by getting very drunk. This led to the unfortunate incident with that woman, the newly-hired sociologist with the heavy-duty name ( Osa Spengler?), and then the fateful encounter with the President, which (inexplicably) went well and sent him off to Finland and the Special Projects Directorship. All is well, etc. if only he could bring it off. 

Zander thumped his feet down on the nearly empty desk.

This is what winners did, didn’t they? He had the correct posture and closed his eyes. Sleep came quickly, but so did a dream which had come to him often since his newfound favor at Ballast. He called it the Dental Dream. In the dream, Zander had gone to a dentist to report a dull ache in a molar somewhere in his lower jaw. The pain was intermittent but, in recent weeks, had begun to pulsate like a traffic light, a yellow one, and that meant “caution,” did it not? The dentist, a giant woman in her fifties with muscular arms and a slight mustache, did the usual poking, probing, tapping, and x-raying. Nothing conclusive. Then she walked to the door and closed it. Zander heard the lock click.

“You’re going to have to help me on this one.” said she. “A new method of diagnosis and resolution, assuming it is a case that yields resolution. Here’s the deal: I insert you into your buccal cavity near what we dentists call the ‘Insertion Point.’ This is also the ‘Extraction Point’ so remember it, otherwise the only remedy is the suction hose. Near there, look for a satchel of tools and, importantly, the lamp to mount on your forehead. Turn on the lamp. If it seems dim, look for a new battery in the satchel. Put on the tool belt. Now wait for my instructions. I’ll use a very low volume of speech so as not to deafen you. Remember, you are now miniaturized and so are your eardrums. 

“How…,” said Zander and then he was transported into his own mouth. He had wanted to ask about any dangers, but the dentist was in a hurry. 

“Left buccal, lower molars, send from the end of the line. Watch for loosened plaque. You must have flossed today. Put on the boots.”

 He passed the bicuspid and looked up at the menacing array in the upper jaw.  From his perspective, the teeth, his teeth, were huge —twice as tall as he was. The molar in question came into view: huge and yellowed. The gumflesh had an unpleasant odor; he trudged on until he heard “Stop!” in the distance. The dentist’s command echoed back from the palate. Saliva was deepening and began to spill into his boots.

“Doctor! Something just fell on me and I almost lost my balance!”

“Food particle. You’re not flossing often enough. Relax. Do you see the stepladder between the two end molars?”

“No.”

“Well, shit! Must be on the other side. Right buccal. Take the shortcut—cross the tongue and look on the other side. And hurry! I have patients waiting.”

The shortcut! Across the tongue! Tricky! Dangerous! A healthy tongue reacted powerfully if it sensed something on it, or the whole business might gag if the crossing were too far back. He scrambled onto the resting tongue using a snared piece of nylon floss near the bicuspid. Saliva was pooling. Soon the tongue would react–or the dentist would insert a suction tube, also a significant danger if…..but she probably knew his location. He stepped onto the tongue. Aside from his growing panic at being swallowed–he pondered how a tongue in his own mouth could simultaneously be stepped on by him.  This conundrum signaled the end of each of these horrid dreams.

An alarm was sounding! Zander opened his eyes and tried to calm his breath. Saved by a bell– his telephone. Zander picked it up and mumbled reflexively, “Thank you, that was close.” The caller paused and then identified herself. 

“Professor Pfinster? My name is Genevieve Ricard, Chemistry.”  

“Yes?”

“I heard your remarks at the meeting a few hours earlier. I have an idea and have already cleared it with my department head, Dr. Verdigris. Perhaps you know him; he’s on the Executive Council with you and…”

“Oh, yes.” Zander did not know the name or the Council. This must be a mistake, but this Ricard woman was already moving on. But what would it matter if he heard her out? Besides, she sounded young and pleasant. Since the brief encounter with the Nordic apparition at the Arctic Circle, he had not had much to do with women, and he had best pay attention. The more this Ricard woman talked, the better he liked her. He learned that she had come to Ballast some years ago and was the newest and youngest hire in the Chem Dept and twenty or thirty years younger than the six others in the department. Not that this was a complaint: they were all “gentlemen” and “lovely.”  

It turned out that a fellow grad school colleague had accepted a job in Finland but was now eager to return to the States. Also a chemist, but a man of 34 yrs who was also a Finnish-American and (here she paused), well, could he be considered the visitor? Or did they already have someone in mind? In that case, could this person be on the list as an alternate?

Zander was not thinking this through, and he knew it. 

“I can’t answer that directly, Professor Richard, but perhaps…”

“It’s Ricard. My father is of French descent. And my mother was Austrian, maybe, or Slovenian. I’m not sure.

“Sorry, Ricard. Can you come here, the Special Projects Office in August Hall, on Monday? Does that work for you?” 

She agreed to meet with him. Zander pulled at his blond locks and considered this a strong possible resolution of the deepening Finnish crisis.  He knew he would probably go for it.  The tipping point had been the suspicion that this Kivola’s tonsil implant at the Mayo, no matter how brilliantly accomplished, would still result in a hoarse, whispered delivery of the good news on Finnish humanities.

Chapter Five  TAR WATER

On an  October afternoon, some six weeks after the Opening Convocation, Osa Spengler sat in the Harpp Student Center with a group of young women. They were members of the Pan-Hellenic Council that coordinated the doings of 5 of the seven sororities at Ballast College. The purpose of the meeting, called by some of the sorority officers, was to convince Osa to serve as their faculty advisor. All student organizations were required to have at least one faculty advisor, and the Pan-Hel had recently lost theirs due to retirement. 

As the women spoke with enthusiasm of the past accomplishments of the Council, Osa feigned interest. To be sure, sororities and fraternities interacted both actually and symbolically. This must be sociologically relevant, perhaps a topic for her second book. More to the point, however, was that her Department Chair, Willibald Seward, in a recent review of her, had mentioned that it was usually in the second year that faculty demonstrated a willingness to become involved in the life of the campus. In other words, make oneself visible as other than a classroom teacher. It was he who had mentioned her to the Pan-Hel women. Osa resented this intrusion, and besides, she had a low opinion of sororities, fraternities, and intercollegiate athletics: all were distractions from the proper business of the academy. Of course, she stood nearly alone in this, and if there were similarly-minded faculty, she had not met them yet, except for Genevieve Ricard.

Genevieve and Osa met accidentally due to a scheduling error that had assigned their classes to the same room. Both instructors stood pondering a solution, with some students in their seats and many others standing along the wall. A voice called out, “Hey, flip a coin!” And they did. Genevieve won the toss and offered to buy Osa lunch afterward. Both women found they had some things in common. Genevieve had been at Ballast for five years and faced a tenure decision. She was the youngest member of her department and found the other members hard to read. They were older and mostly part of the Ballast establishment. Osa’s experiences were similar; she mentioned signing on as the Pan-Hel advisor. Ricard groaned. “I almost ended up there, too, but I worked out something with Special Projects.”

“Special Projects? Like what?” 

“Oh, most of it is so-so, Osa, so-so. Except for the Finland Exchange, the business we heard about at the Opener. That’s turning out to be more of a headache than I thought it would be. Pfinster is something of a dunce, and he has to be prodded along on everything! I’ve had to make all the arrangements for November. It’s a pain.”

Osa felt a tightening in her stomach. 

“You mean Zander Pfinster is your boss? That should help with tenure. Isn’t he Brunkelvic’s golden puppy?”

The disdain in her voice was unmistakable. 

“You know the guy? asked Genevieve.

“I’ve met him, that’s all,” said Osa in an even tone. She was grateful that so few knew of the previous year’s incident when she had trampled this besotted man in her office corridor.

“Well, I’ve met and worked with him, but that should end in November once this Finnish business is over. Pfinster has no other ideas in the hopper involving me, which will be the end of my work with him. Cross fingers that the tenure is a done deal by then.”

When she tried to keep her tone light and indifferent, her frown and the occasional tightness in her jaw said otherwise. She was a few years older than Osa, shorter and full-figured with chestnut hair and a habit of dressing in jeans with a lab coat with “Prof. Ricard” stitched over the right breast pocket. Genevieve Ricard was of French descent, specifically Alsatian. Born in Colmar in 1949, she was now in her early forties. Her father, it was true, was a Frenchman, but her mother’s loyalties had always been with the German side of Alsatian culture. During the war, the couple had been caught up in the conflict over the region’s future: part of the German Reich or a liberated region of France? Genevieve’s mother, Elsa Ilman, was the more outspoken of the two, and after the war, military courts sentenced both to prison. They signed two-year-old Genevieve over to an American orphanage, and she was soon adopted and forgotten.

“Lucky for me, Pfinster seems to be afraid of women. Never hit on me. Sometimes stares at my butt, and that’s it. So I don’t have to worry about setting him straight. Really, the guy is an idiot, and I don’t know what Brunkelvic sees in him. Of course, that’s another idiot.”

Osa found her new friend refreshing. Unlike the crones in her department, she was exciting and realistic. The unspoken feeling among many younger faculty was that Ballast was pretending to be more than it was. Too many burned-out faculty were bored with their field and counting the days until an affordable retirement crept over their financial horizon. But it was rare to have lunch with such an irreverent person as Ricard. Of course, she had not told the whole tale: how she had sold Pfinster on the Finnish-American guy and how he fits the bill perfectly and without a lot of paperwork, linguistic challenge, and no issues such as the replacement of missing tonsils and who knew what else. The last point had been decisive, for Zander Pfinster did not have the courage to pick up the telephone and call the Mayo Clinic to inquire if they were in the business of reattaching tonsils.

After lunch, Osa and Ricard agreed to meet off campus for a TGIF drink, and it would become the first collegial friendship for either. After several weeks, Osa learned of Ev Baleinin,  Gen’s one-time liaison with the  featured speaker for the Finnish Event in early November.

One week later, in his tidy office in August Hall, Zander Pfinster was sketching out the itinerary for the visit. His yellow pad had the first sheet nearly filled with the basic outline of what was to come.

1 November    10:15 Pickup at Rockford Airport. 

Arr at 11:27. From Stockholm via MSP (United)

Met by Prof. Ricard. (Use University late-model car.)

 Lunch in Rockford with the President of the Rockford Ballast Booster Assn. Dinner on campus with Pres. Brunk.   

Lodging at the Sphagnum Inn in Pecatonica Jct.

2 November Sphagnum Breakfast–on own. (charge to room)

AM Tour of Chem Dept with Ricard

Lunch on campus

4:00 First lecture in Zange Museum auditorium. 

Topic?

3.November Day trip to Galena, IL, Mining exhibits.

Lunch with Galena Boosters U.S. Grant?

November 4 Lunch with Sons of Norway in Freeport

Second Lecture— 7:00 PM Topic?

Odeon Plethorium Auditorium

November 5 Meet with interested classes

(as arranged)

OP auditorium

 Evening concert of College Orch.  7:30 PM

Topic: (Sebelius) (Remarks?)

November 6, Third (and final) lecture

Zange Hall   7:00 PM

“Why I like being a Finn!”

November 7 Departure (Ricard to Airport).

Breakfast at Sphagnum (charge to room)

1;47 PM Republic Airlines(?) to FAR via MSP  

That’s a full week alright, thought Zander. Ricard can do the heavy lifting since she knows him. He swung his feet up on the usual corner of the desk, which had changed little since that first golden day he took over the office. Except for one change: the opposite corner now had a stacked In and Out basket. In was for incoming mail, but most of it was ideas about possible “Special Projects” suggestions that came to him. Zander had looked them over briefly, and they terrified him nearly as much as the anticipation of the looming Finland kickoff. Too much work, too many phone calls, boring meetings with the food service staff, and so on. Too many chances to become the defrocked high priest of August Hall.

And yet, there was no dodging his new responsibility, the one that had freed him from the classroom and labeled him as a “Higher Education Administrator.” Among the projects in his Inbox after the Finnish Awareness Events were the dedication of Huhn Hall in December, followed by the Job Fair for Seniors in January, the Illinois Woodwind Workshop in January, and then the Foreign Film Festival in February. March was the lecture by former Socialist Pilchard Rassmussen, “What America Has Come to Mean to Me,” and April was open. And May meant the Promenade and Graduations and Faculty Awards Ceremony. 

Too much work for one person, the thought that had propelled him to ask for a part-time assistant. He had Ricard in mind; a week later, he had asked for her reassignment to one-third administrative work for Special Projects. The reassignment surprised her; she had not been consulted, and Brunkelvic called her, and the Chemistry Department Chair in and laid it on them. The Chair tried to hide his dismay. Ricard was a very effective intro Chem 8a instructor and the only one who could do the senior-level course on Idiosyncratic Polymers. 

“So drop the polymers,” said Brunkelvic with a shrug.

 Ricard took a deep, if covert, breath and let it out slowly. Could this change lock her into tenure? 

She knew the reassignment meant covering the things that Pfinster disliked. And the first effort was at hand, the Finnish Thing as she referred to it. Now, three days before the “Thing” was to start, Ricard and Pfinster sat together in his office, sharing a quiet moment as they looked out at the autumnal glory of the Rectangle and the sun-splashed facade of the Zange Museum opposite.

“Nearly Showtime,” said Pfinster quietly. “Want to go over it again?” 

“I’ve got it nearly where I want it. Not sure yet about the topic he’ll have for us over there at The Zange. Ev told me it would be a crowd-pleaser, so I’m not worried.” 

But inside, she was worried. True, she knew Everard (Ev) Baleinen, her colleague in graduate school chemistry. She had dated him during their last year at Montana, but as his smoking weed became nearly daily, they parted ways. Still, she liked him, and he was a talker about almost anything. True, he had not had much to say about his Finnish heritage in Sebeka, Minnesota, and she had been surprised when he accepted a beginning appointment in Finland three years ago. Now he was homesick, so Ricard had gone to bat for him at Ballast. What could go wrong? she thought and shook her head, but not so much that Pfinster would notice. Good thing since he was already nervous enough.

And so, the day came November 1. Ricard met Ev Baleinin on time at Rockford International Airport. They ignored his jet lag and had a pleasant lunch at Howard Johnson’s on the Interstate before heading west to the College. Her recollection of his ability as a glib talker was confirmed when the President of the Rockford Ballast Boosters, a dentist on his day off, asked Ev his impression of Finnish Dentistry. Ev spoke confidently about implants, orthodontia, and gum diseases and how quickly Finnish crowns could be produced. Later he confessed to Genevieve that he had never been to a dentist in Finland and had not seen one in years. “But you do speak Finnish, Ev?” she asked him and learned that he usually got by with English and the household Finnish he remembered from his childhood. 

To Ricard, Ev seemed to have mellowed a bit. Yes, he was beginning to wonder about the Finnish Thing, but he had been in tough spots before. He planned to sail through the schedule set up for him, collect his honorarium and then visit his parents in Minnesota and stay for Thanksgiving before returning to Finland with his ticket provided by Ballast College Special Projects. According to his mother, Ev was a good boy, but he had a talent for fudging details when he sensed that something advantageous had come along. When he got wind of the Ballast deal and remembered that Ricard worked there, the pieces began to fall in place. The unexpected piece was that Zander Pfinster was also looking for a solution after the tonsil-reattachment issue made Ev Baleinein seem like a blessing. Baleinen still had his tonsils; Pfinster had asked about them.

Dinner with President and Mrs. Brunkelvic had gone very well. Iona Brunkelvic had started things off right after introductions by asking, “What can you tell us about Finland? We have not been there?.” Thus when Baleinin learned that the Brunkelvics were not travelers, he began to describe a country that featured reindeer, a Volvo and Saab factory, hot springs amid snow, fiords, excellent dairy products, including Havarti cheese, and also “the best rye crackers in the world.” And so it went, with Iona Brunkelvic exclaiming, “Oh, my!” and B.B. just beaming like a man who had scored big time.

Zander Pfinster introduced Baleinin to a modest audience at the Zange Auditorium at 4:00 PM on the second day. “Seated behind me on this stage is an excellent young man from Finland, though I believe he is an American in his soul, too…..” The rest was boilerplate filled with the occasional use of “honor,” “anticipation,” and ” how fortunate,” ending with, “now here is our esteemed guest to announce his topic.”

Baleinin, wearing dark glasses and a leather vest with bone buttons, stood and approached the podium. He had a reddish beard, which Ricard did not recall from the day before.

“Hello, my good sailboat lady, and what are we interested in buying today?” said Ev with a generous smile. He spoke the words in Finnish, but it was the only Finnish he offered them. 

“My topic is deceptively simple, and its title is “How the Pine Tree got its Needles.” What followed was a twenty-minute talk on the features of conifers that made them unique, with particular emphasis on the molecular structure of the resin of the Baltic Pine. From there, he devoted the remainder of his talk on mixtures of pine resin and water known collectively as “tar water,” which had been used for centuries but had lately fallen in usage. However, due to his work and others, tar water was again cited as a panacea for maintaining robust health. Baleinin concluded by thanking his audience for attending. 

“We Finns call tar water “terva,” and we like to say, and I ask you to remember it: ‘If sauna, vodka, and terva won’t help, the disease is probably fatal.” If that was a laugh line, it failed. 

The applause was somewhat tentative when he finished after 37 minutes. There were no questions other than one regarding where Americans could find pine tar products for sale. Baleinen had no idea.

For the next Event, the concert featuring Sebelius, Genevieve Ricard prepared some remarks on Finnish mythology that Baleinin could read and, frankly, look authoritative. The orchestra had prepared the composer’s En Saga, and Ev would talk for five minutes beforehand. It went well, though Ev had not prepared for his reading of the remarks, so he stumbled through them before lapsing into a repeat of his comments on tar water.

Finally, Ev gave his lecture on “Why I like being a Finn” in the Zange Auditorium  (capacity 1165)  in anticipation of a large crowd. While the group was not large, it was larger than the others because there was now the rumored hope that Ev would say something both unexpected and bizarre. The talk revolved around his affection for being Finnish because, in his estimation, they were good people, and he wanted to be one of them. He brought up the examples of how Finland saved its Jews and ferried them to neutral Sweden, how the Nobel Prize for Animal Husbandry had been a Finnish idea though not yet realized, and how the Finnish royal house had married one of its ‘most handsome princes’ into the House of Windsor. “All of these things make me very proud to be a Finn! ” 

After Ev Baleinin was gone and the Event was over, the whisperings among faculty and students came to a head. An ad hoc faculty committee was called into being at the request of Professor Sixtus Aragonus, the last member of the once prestigious and now largely liquidated Classics Department. Aragonus asked, “The Finnish Event: money well spent or (pause) money frittered away?” He took the latter view. 

Sixtus Aragonus had been at Ballast for over thirty years. He had come to Ballast as a newly-minted Classicist with an M.A. He was a son of the West and a tall, heavy man with thick silver-white curls beneath his black Greek fisherman’s cap. One of seven brothers, each named for a roman number in reverse birth order, meaning Sixtus was the second-born. Sixtus was an expert in the javelin throw and the discus in the Mountain States Games when he played for his school. His skill in ancient field events made him interested in the Classics. His Master’s Degree (Art History) was a critique of the Discobolus statuary of the Greco-Roman world. In it, he argued that sculptors had it wrong concerning the placement of the thumb. He graduated Summa Cum Laude and was quickly hired by Ballast College in 1961. He joined a lively group of young classical world scholars who dreamed of making Ballast the Athens of the Midwest. Over the years, the number of students who elected a course in classics dropped, and the department’s size shrank to where Sixtus Aragonus was the only one remaining. Sixtus survived and managed to keep enrollments in his intro sections high. Was it his powerful physique, his basso profundo voice, or his use of sculpture photos with an unabashed examination of marble buttocks and genitalia?

Now he stood before the Plenum also known as the SCQB for Senatus Collegium Qua Ballastiensis which in most colleges would be more simply known. But Sixtus has insisted on the name. As President of the Plenum, Aragon’s rose to discuss the recent Finnish Awareness Event.

“Senators! I arise to unequivocably condemn the recent risible, shameful, demanding, flat-footed, incompetent, sub-amateurish malodorous bovine feces which disgraced our college last week. You know that to which I refer!”

And they all did! While no one had seen Aragonus at any Finnish Events, all knew that he was well-informed by a system of spies recruited from among his best and most loyal students, ones drawn by his charisma. The implications of the meeting would be obvious: President B.B. Brunkelvic was on the hot seat, and the entire structure of Special Projects would be under fire. And that meant Zander Pfinster.

 Chapter Six   BALLAST PASTORALE

In the aureate i.e.golden days of autumn, the time between the sunny optimism of the Faculty Convocation in September and the gray debacle of the Finnish Event in November, the Ballast Campus was at its most lovely. Maple and elm leaves littered the walks on the Rectangle, and students and faculty alike seemed touched, however briefly, by something more profound than their day-to-day cares. So beautiful! Such a good world, this!

On Fraternity and Sorority Row, macabre preparations were underway to prepare for Homecoming later in the month. The homecoming game was against Peevus College in Iowa, a traditional foe and one that the Ballast Hounds had defeated in most years. The frats built floats while the sororities constructed stationary scenes on the Rect. The theme was, as always, to defeat Peevus and to offer them every humiliation known to humankind. Scenes of beheading, electrocution, drawing and quartering, impaling,  boiling, evisceration, crushing, poisoning, and so on were shown inflicted on the Peevus team. The irony was that no one from Peevus other than the team was apt to see all this creative mayhem since Peevus students preferred to stay in their own Iowa campus burrows, indifferent to the abuse heaped on them. So what was the point of all this?

And so Osa Spengler and Genevieve Ricard wondered and smiled indulgently, kicking dry leaves before them as they cut across the Rect to Friday lunch at the Harpp Center. They were neither amused nor irritated at what they saw.

“What are we looking at, Osa?” said Ricard. “I’m just a chemist, and I can tell you why paint dries, but all this energy for this crap…..”

Osa shook her head. “Oh, sure, ask a sociologist! Like, I know why it happens each autumn. “

“I’ll accept any half-congealed theory,”

“That’s an odd expression.”

“Sorry, I was explaining coagulation to my intro class this morning.”

“Hmm, and I was explaining terror management theory. Aside from that, unity comes out of a shared enmity.”

“Flip a coin?” laughed Genevieve. It was a reference to the coin-flip that had settled a classroom issue between them. And also inspired their friendship. Osa was about to insist on Ricard applying coagulation to what was happening on the Rect when they both saw Zander Pfinster coming out of the Harpp and toward them.

“Oh, shit,” said Genevieve, “hang on!”

Osa tightened her mouth. She had been able to avoid crossing paths with Pfinster for months. According to Genevieve, not difficult since he was “like a hermit in August Hall.” Pfinster slowed and stopped at the edge of the walk. 

“Hello, ladies!” he said in a jocular tone that rang false to them and him. “What a day, and what a rare mood we are in….” he said and then blushed as he saw the pained toleration on their faces. Very aware that she was his part-time assistant, Ricard felt the need to respond in kind.

“Yes, great day, Mr. Pfinster, “we were just crossing the Rect for lunch. Have you met my friend Dr. Osa Spengler, Sociology?”

“I think so,” said Pfinster looking as if he were trying to recall something very remote, like the date of the Battle of Borodino. Osa nodded but kept silent.

“Nice to see you both. Hey, beat Peevus!!” and he moved on.

“Jesus, what an ass!” said Genevieve Ricard.

“That man has a problem,” answered Osa. ” Did you say he is afraid of women? That must be part of it.”

“He seems to be working up some steam to ask me out. He’s been hinting at going to the Peevus game. But I told him I was not going to the game because…what  did I tell him? Something about having to watch the coagulation experiment. And he says that sounds very interesting and perhaps he could visit my lab sometime. Na- uh, no way!”

Osa smiled at her friend, then seemed to be thinking out loud. “Is he the only reasonably young and straight man available at this college?” Ricard shrugged.

 Also enjoying the Rect from his office in August Hall was B.B. Brunkelvic. The President was feeling good. He took a deep breath and folded his hands behind his head. His optimism had remained since the Convocation, and he had put aside Finland. Now, if the footballers would just trounce the generally beatable Peevus team, that would further convince him that Ballast was blessed with an annus mirabilis. B.B. and his wife were looking forward to watching the game with some close friends from Missouri, wealthy Ballast grads from the Fifties who came for Homecoming each year. The couple had just announced a donation to install paper towel dispensers in the eight restrooms of the nearly completed Huhn Hall on the East side of the Rect. Brunkelvic, grateful for this gesture of support, arranged to have the marching band play the Missouri Waltz at halftime.

The President looked at his new digital wristwatch, which was giving him trouble.  He missed the face of his Bulova with its reliable hands instead of flashing numerals. Yes, at 12:50, and in ten minutes, he would meet with six students who had requested the meeting over “student concerns.”

The thought of students in his office sitting in the chairs set in a semi-circle facing his oak desk was unpleasant. Perhaps beyond unpleasant for the President of Ballast College was uneasy in the presence of students and never more so than when they arrived with a petition for something or other. To Brunkelvic, students were on a spectrum of sub-humans or barbarians at best.They spoke with unfamiliar jargon and slangy language: “It would be cool if you…..town people are pissed if we park….would it be traumatic if…?”and so on. Brunkelvic no longer rolled his eyes, but he had a twitch over his left eyebrow during his rare encounters with them.  

Now Brunkelvic heard them in the outer office, and soon, all too soon, Lois, his secretary, would buzz him and announce their presence. He would stand to greet them and then hide his irritation as they dropped into the visitor chairs without being invited. Lois introduced them as Rick, Josh, Roger, Mort, and the women, Ann and Corinne. Brunkelvic led off with his hopes that the Peevus game on Saturday would be a good one, by which he meant the annihilation of the Iowans. The students did not pick up the thread; instead, they began their pitch.

“Sir, we understand that the new classroom building will be called Huhn Hall. Sir, we don’t know who Huhn is or was. We had the thought, and many students are behind us; we have an alternative name. Why, Sir, couldn’t it be called Blackhawk Hall?”

Brunkelvic managed his half-smile, the one he had perfected after many years of enduring situations, not to his liking. He was annoyed at the overuse of “Sir.” He looked at the spokesperson, Rick, a young man with his ball cap backward and the plastic strap over his forehead. A glance showed that the other men and one of the women had the same hat treatment. Where did that all start? That and the torn jeans. Brunkelvic’s principal and only verbal faculty critic, Sixtus Aragonus, had likened the President to an elitist Walmart manager who privately disdained the mass of his customers as low-class swine, forgetting that his status depended on their mindless consumerism. It was not that B.B. Brunkelvic did not strive to keep the image and the physical plant of Ballast intact. It was that of all the components that made a college a living organism; the student body was the least compelling and, often, the most loathsome to him. When President BBB appeared he seemed alone, walking the thirty feet from his parking space to the door of August Hall and then the elevator upstairs and then past Lois and through the door to his office, a hideout. His public appearances, such as the Opening Convocation, were carefully orchestrated, lacking genuine warmth or convincing spontaneity. 

Brunkelvic suspected this, and as long as he could avoid adverse publicity for Ballast and keep enrollments healthy, wasn’t that enough? Not quite. He

also hoped to keep Sixtus Aragonus from leading a charge to remove him. Fortunately, Sixtus was nearly as reclusive as Brunkelvic, and the President only occasionally heard rumors of Aragonus’ latest utterance demeaning him. And the latest had been something along the lines of the emperor’s new clothes with the implication that Brunkelvic was “intellectually naked” and operating on “the fumes of vanity”  “Fumus Vanitatis!” Aragonis’ use of Latin, or nearly so,  irritated Brunkelvic even further. That phrase was one Aragonus used whenever the topic of Ballast’s leadership arose. As the rest of the administrative team was too insignificant to notice, Aragonus left them alone. That included Zander Pfinster, the “new lapdog,” as Sixtus had referred to him the only time he mentioned him at all. 

“Umm, Professor Aragonus thought it was a good idea, so we know we have his support,” said Rick in a helpful tone. 

“That so?, said Brunkelvic evenly. Damn! Sixtus was behind many things that burrowed into his peace of mind. 

“Let me say this, Rick, that’s your name? I think you students have an idea there, and, let me explain, this will require me to talk it over with the Huhn family. They are the ones pushing for Huhn Hall, and they are paying for a lot of this project. They have funded some of the matching grants that encouraged some of our alums to pitch in. You see where this is going.”

“But President Brunkelvic, Sir, who knows a forgotten professor and who does not know about the heroism of Chief Blackhawk in this part of the state and the whole region.” It was the plaintive voice of Corinne, who seemed near honest tears. “This land was once the Sac and Fox tribal homeland, and we need to remember that.”

Brunkelvic retorted. “We do remember them. We name our counties, towns, and rivers after them. We have high schools, golf courses, and what not all after them! I myself once lived on a Blackhawk Circle as a newlywed. We named our cat Blackhawk, Iona and I did.”

Corinne lowered her eyes and became silent. The meeting was over. Brunkelvic stood up and, in a low voice, said, “I have not said no, so stay tuned.” The students filed out, frustrated. 

A quarter mile west of The Rect and partially obscured by Veezen Hall,

The Pond was a feature of the Pecatonica Rivers since the days when beaver had established themselves there. The creatures were gone, but The Pond was their legacy, kept in its historic configuration by a small concrete dam at the egress point of the river. A narrow walkway crossed the damn and served as the continuation for a gravel path around the Pond itself—a total walking distance between one-quarter and one-third of a mile. Walking around The Pond, hands behind his back, was Sixtus Aragonus. He was taking his daily walk instead of lunch, which he had established as a habit more than a dozen or more years earlier in the interest of carefully dieting and getting fresh air. Sixtus walked alone, nor did he wish companionship except for the mallard ducks to whom he threw day-old pita bread from a second wooden walkway where Gastric Creek entered The Pond. 

Rick ,recently departed from August Hall and Brunkelvic’s office, approached him from a counter-clockwise passage around the Pond. Sixtus knew Rick and liked him. After a few pleasantries, Rick told Sixtus of his meeting with the President. “We learned that he had a cat named Blackhawk on his honeymoon!”

“ Oh, hell. Don’t give up, Rick. Here’s a better idea.  Keep up the pressure to eliminate the Huhn name; we know we can’t defeat the Huhn money. So, just when things are looking ugly, the papers as far off as Chicago will get wind of it, and then there will come, out of nowhere, that Brunkelvic should commission a statue of Blackhawk to stand in front of Huhn Hall. They will be desperate for a compromise, and that statue will do more to memorialize the Chief than another boring building. Not a word to anyone. Plenty of time for that later.”

Rick smiled. His intuition told him that it would work out just as Aragonus predicted. He shook hands with the older man and departed. Aragonus continued his walk. It was a glorious day on the Ballast campus. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black windbreaker and increased his pace. But then he glimpsed a piece of litter and picked it up. It was a candy bar wrapper! Aragonus, unknown to anyone, collected candy bar wrappers. He  ironed them flat at home and placed them in an album. Today’s wrapper was a disappointment, an Oh, Henry! which he already had.

Chapter 7    THE BLACKHAWK RESOLVE

The rage of Sixtus Aragonus had been on full display at the Faculty Plenum, but that was not expected to be the end. As noted, the Classics professor had connections. One of these was to the editors of several regional newspapers, which reached nearly 70% of the area that drew Ballast students. High School counselors, parents, and prospective students read those news items. Most of them had recently focused on the comedic elements of Ev Baleinen’s presentation during the Finnish Awareness.  The Galena paper featured a cartoon showing B.B. Brunkelvic drinking tar water from a cow’s horn flagon.

Aragonus next contacted his friends who were influential in the Ballast Boosters, and through them, the powerful Huhn family in Chicago would be interested, too. Now, mused Sixtus Aragonus was his moment. But what moment was this? 

Academic grudges are unlike political grievances, where pragmatic calculations smooth things over in the party’s interests. In Academia, there is no party, only frequent self-interest at the expense of the community. Once two or more tenured faculty members lock horns, the dispute may take on a permanent life. Since each combatant had already garnered all available prizes regarding promotions, salary, and a comfortable class schedule, most were turf battles fought over small chunks of worn sod. Aragonus had more in mind: he wanted Brunkelvic out of August Hall and buried in some department forever, forgotten as a humiliated minor player in the life of Ballast College.

What had Brunkelvic done? He had, in effect and playfully so, placed a figurative dunce cap on the magnificently curled hair of Sixtus Aragonus. The occasion, some years earlier, was the introduction he gave Sixtus when was introduced to the entire Ballast community at the 1985 Commencement exercise. Sixtus had been chosen to help pass out diplomas on stage because of his magnificent classical look: a big man, fit, and with a head of curls. A kind of Adonis.

Brunkelvic had introduced him to the audience in the stadium as “Master Sixtus Aragonus of our wonderful Classics department. He comes to us from a great university in the West. He is a Master, with a Master’s Degree, and someday he will be a Doctor, a real Ph. D. because that is the goal of most faculty, just as the goal of so many of our students here today was to prove that graduation is achievable. Do you agree, Master Aragonus?”

Aragonus managed to nod and raise a hand in limp greeting to the assemblage. He felt sick, nauseated by his hick of a President who could not have humiliated him more. He clenched his teeth and swore that this was an outrage to be answered. Where did Brunkelvic get the idea that one had to have a doctorate to be a competent instructor? Yes, yes, of course, he could have frittered away the requisite years grinding away at some inconsequential topic, and yes, yes, those who preferred to do so did make the occasional contribution to the field. And yet, would his likely dissertation directly affect the substance of his teaching? The topic he had in mind was tentatively something about the rise in interest in tropical fish during the time of Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian in the first century CE.. 

“Go for it!” said his academic advisors at Eastern Montana. “No one else is doing interdisciplinary work in Ichthyology and any branch of Classics. At least not yet, so get in there!” But he hadn’t, and he chose to bed down at Ballast with his Masters and endure the doltish Brunkelvic.

Aragonus stooped to pick up a candy bar wrapper, a Whiz Bar, and, after reading it, he folded it carefully. He walked to the nearest trash can and pretended to deposit it. And now Aragonus had a plan, and it was, to his mind, a masterpiece that would end with eliminating Brunkelvic. The components:

1. Push the idea of Blackhawk 

    2.    Involve the Huhn Family Foundation

    3. Get the Panhellenic Council on board

    4.   GORT, on May Day

A day later, walking the Pond’s circumference again, Aragonus waved Rick and Corinne over. He felt his heart beating–this was the start! Trying to remain calm and making eye contact with the students, Sixtus told them that once they had gotten the anticipated negative response from the President, it would be time to raise the temperature over this issue on the normally phlegmatic Ballast campus. 

“What are your social action resources?” he asked Rick and Corinne. “You showed the clout to mount a few noisy demonstrations over food choices at Harpp, and all without property damage. So you have some credibility. There is student newspaper in which the Blackhawk name can show up everywhere. I’ll have a friend in Chicago make BH buttons–have BH on them with a feather or something. Blackhawk becomes a cause celebre here at Ballast. What do you think?” Sixtus tried to calm his breathing, but he was excited now.

“You mean we can do this stuff as soon as Brunky says no to us?”

Sixtus was heartened by the enthusiasm he saw in their faces. This thing was going to work. And three days later, Rick, Corinne and two others revisited the President’s office and heard the expected “no.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m a history buff, and I have always admired Native Americans. But the Huhn Foundation has made it pretty clear they want to honor Simon Huhn. And they have the deep pockets this project needs. The late Professor Emeritus Simon Huhn was a first cousin to the Huhn Foundation Chairperson. I hope that clears it up.”

“This college sits on land that once belonged to the Sac and Fox people.” blurted Corinne her face reddening. Brunkelvic looked towards the campus as if trying to imagine a collection of teepees on the Rect. He shook his head slightly. The meeting was over.

Three days later, in the morning, Brunkelvic drew back the office drapes. He groaned. Fifteen signs were planted on the lawn facing his office, All of them in support of Blackhawk and demanding respect for “our neighbor” by affixing his name to the new building. The newspapers picked up the story. This was exciting stuff for Ballast since the college was, in the opinion of one Rockford television channel, “incapable of generating news.” The protest was changing that. On the fourth day since Brunkelvic vetoed Blackhawk, several Native American civil rights organizations noticed, and the story spread throughout the Plains States. Once the broader student body saw their new notoriety as a college, they began a march around the Rect, then Brunkelvic appeared in effigy hanging from a lamppost. Later it was torched in a scene shown by (and for) ABC News.

On the evening of that day, as Sixtus Aragonus watched the local news at 10:00, he learned that there was talk of a student strike. In an interview, several younger math department members stated that the faculty was “getting interested” and were meeting with students in what they described as a solidarity council. Aragonus thought it might now be time to go to his plan’s second and third steps, the involvement of the alum group, the Ballast Boosters. Though hastily arranged, weekend meetings were scheduled at the Huhn Foundations headquarters on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Sixtus, ponderous presence that he was on the Faculty Plenum would run the conference, including students, faculty, and representatives of the Sac and Fox Nations. And, of course, media. Barbara Walters was standing by and signaled a willingness to interview Cyrus Huhn and BB Brunkelvic, either together or separately, whatever seemed to work best for both. 

Meanwhile, work had stopped on Huhn Hall, and the actual dedication was postponed from December until May, in conjunction with the commencement exercises for May 1991. Brunkelvic planned to announce the resolution to the Blackhawk impasse on the eve of Thanksgiving Day, carefully chosen because most, if not all, students would be off-campus for the holiday. Brunkelvic was confident that the Huhn Foundation would dig in its heels and refuse the name change. And that would be that!

On the Saturday morning before the Thanksgiving holiday, cars began to leave from the Ballast Campus and the Rockford branch of the Boosters. All were bound for Lake Geneva. Aragonus decid not be in attendance at the conference. He had masterfully put the actors into motion and became a mere background organizer. Whatever happened, he did not want to be associated with the outcome. Except for occasional bombastic orations before the Faculty Plenum, as was the case with the fallout from the Finnish Event, Aragonus preferred the style of a puppeteer. He had set students, Brunkelvic, the Boosters, and even the Huhn Foundation into motion, and whatever the outcome, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he could shape history. 

Now, unexpectedly, Sixtus was given a chance to refine his thinking.

Two thoughts were converging. The first was to offer a compromise to the Huhn Hall log jam. Keep the building named as it was intended, thus pleasing the Huhns. Then position a statue in the Rect near the main entrance of Huhn. This intended statue featured Blackhawk with a suitable plaque noting that Ballast was on Blackhawk’s territory, that he defended his people, and was, in that sense, a great patriot.

The second part of the new formulation in the mind of Aragonus was to pass the suggestion of the statue and the compromise solution to B.B. Brunkelvic himself. Why this about-face? Because Aragonus realized that this President represented the devil he knew. Why take a chance on some new snot who would try to impose his stamp on Ballast? No guarantee of what might happen, even perhaps, the final liquidation of the Classics Program. No, better to stay with a “useful idiot” and control him with a favor: making him the author of the Huhn Hall solution. As for the statue, that would have to be worked out and quickly.

Brunkelvic appreciated the gesture and managed to sit on the statue compromise until the afternoon session at Lake Geneva. When he offered it, all parties broke into smiles. So perfect! Huhn Hall and honoring Blackhawk, together as a symbol of the benevolence to the Huhns and of Ballast College, and especially B.B.Brunkelvic whose name, as he envisioned it, would be inscribed with that of Chief Blackhawk on the plaque. The compromise was announced to the public Saturday afternoon by a smiling Brunkelvic. It was curious, as was noted later, that no one asked anything at all about the statue. As it turned out, the devil was indeed in the details.

Blessedly oblivious to the Huhn-Blackhawk issue was Zander Pfinster. After the Finnish Event and Aragonus accusation, Special Projects had become something of a blot upon the college’s reputation. Then the problem began to lose traction, and attention shifted to the Huhn-Blackhawk matter. Genevieve Ricard returned to her Chemistry lab and was told to resume her teaching duties until called upon for some future need in Special Projects. No one blamed her for the Finnish debacle. Ricard expressed her relief to Osa Spengler at their regular Friday Happy Hour, which was now held at the Railsplitter Inn in Rockford. Pecatonica Junction was, after all, a fishbowl, and so were the other communities closer to the campus. 

“I’m plain gobsmacked that I dodged that bullet,” said Ricard while dipping the olives in and out of her martini. “And I don’t think Pfinster realized how bad this thing could have been.” The last I saw him, he zipped over to the Wormy.” [Wormy was the nickname among all except the librarians who worked there for the Wurmknecht library] “Maybe he’s on assignment to find an image of Chief Blackhawk. How much trouble would that get him into?”

“That reminds me,” said Osa, “at the latest Panhellenic Council, the President of Omega Mu Gamma raised the possibility that the Greeks would foot the bill if the statue were within their budget. Then another guy said his uncle had a statue in his garage that might be up for a new home. Then a girl suggested that the art department have a contest to make one. It was refreshing to have all those ideas, and I told them to forward them to President Brunkelvic.”

“I take it you didn’t want to go to Brunky yourself?”

“No, ma’am! Brunky is too weird for me. Did you ever notice how instead of reacting to whatever you say, he just stares at you for a minute which can be very unnerving. And then he has this twitch or tic. Has this happened to you, too?”

Ricard nodded. 

“Have you ever talked one-on-one to Pfinster? No? Well, avoid it. The man has the worst halitosis ever. And I know malodorous chemistry! Honestly, it’s somewhere between the ape house at a zoo and, well…hard to describe. Maybe cadaverine and putrescine.”

“You’re pulling my leg!”  Osa congratulated herself that her encounter with Zander Pfinster was still a secret, but honestly, she had not noticed anything like ape stench coming from him, just beer and whiskey.

Osa gave a little shudder. “I hate halitosis, and I swear half my department has one variety or another. Those meetings to discuss nothing and held in a small room that used to be the rat lab for biology. Every two weeks. Pure hell. I pretend I have a cold and hold a cloth with menthol rub up to my nose.”

“That bad?”

“That bad! And then, the Chair suggested we meet at his home for a “glass of cheer,” as he put it, and then go to the Christmas Concert as a department. I mean, give me a break!”

Ricard was laughing. ” Are you going? Aren’t we all part of the Great Ballast Family? Would it help you to know that Pfinster said to me that perhaps we would bump into each other at the concert? No way!”

Osa smiled. She knew what it was to bump into Zander Pfinster. “Well, anyway, a two-week break follows that ordeal, and that leaves the Spring Semester.” 

They raised their glasses and drained the martinis in a toast.

Chapter Eight   GORT 

January 1991. The Pond was frozen and had been since mid-December skaters had appeared on the ice, most of them looking awkward after a long period off skates. Winter was there and icy winds slashed between the buildings. A few pipes had burst in August Hall and the newer Veezen Center. The contractors over at the nearly finished Huhn Hall had shut off the water rather than risk a plumbing issue in the soon to be occupied building.

In his chilly office in August Hall, President B.B Brunelvic rubbed his hands together before picking up a phone. His call was to his friend in Missouri with whom he and his wife attended the homecoming game each October. The last game, against Peevus College, had been such an embarrassment that neither man wanted to be reminded of it. One of several disappointments of the Fall Semester, but the others were also cringeworthy to Brunkelvic. The Finland Awareness project was awful, and there would be no exploration of academic exchanges with that or any other country for a while. Then came the great flap over the naming of Huhn Hall and the compromise to honor Blackhawk with a statue on the Rectangle.

What had promised to be a brilliant stroke of sensitive leadership, the idea of a statue slipped to him by his otherwise nemesis, Sixtus Aragonus, now was in shambles. In the first wave of enthusiasm, Brunkelvic accepted Omega Mu’s offer to provide an equestrian statue of Blackhawk. Still, after reviewing photos, the President and his wife noted that the statue was made of concrete and was yet another copy of the familiar “End of the Trail” in which a defeated Native American sat slumped over his exhausted horse, no more fight left in him. The concrete had not allowed much detail, so the figure was, as Mrs. Brunkelvic put it, “kinda rough, dontcha think?” 

“Well, maybe we should see it close up and not as a photo,” Brunkelvic said quietly. He was hoping it would work and get him out of a fix, so two days after New Year, they agreed to drive to Galesburg and look at the thing. One glance told them that it was unsuitable. It had been vandalized somewhere, and while the rider was left untouched, the horse was painted over with a medium shade of green with its ears and genitalia sprayed bright orange. The price was reasonable, $1800.00, and the owner offered to have it sandblasted clean. No guarantee on what the total effect would be; sometimes sandblasting creates new problems and so on.

So Brunkelvic was in August Hall, talking on the phone to his friend in Missouri if he had any ideas. And he had. The first was to “retrofit” a Confederate soldier by changing the face and headgear (remove the cap, replace it with a feather) then wrap the whole thing in a copper blanket. 

“No thanks, said Brunkelvic; they already think I’m a fool. Sounds too much like that ugly thing in Galesburg. Well, thanks, call me if you have something. We need it up soon, like February first. The building goes into service for us about then, and dedication later in the year when the weather is good. Find something and get it here in time; I trust your judgment.”

On January twenty-eighth, Brunkelvic’s friend delivered. He had arranged for a pedestal with bronze letters proclaiming “Blackhawk 1776-1851” followed by “Osage Leader” The statue was yet another copy of “The End of the Trail” in aging bronze. Some damage had occurred in the past: the horse’s left hind leg was missing a hoof and part of the tail.  Blackhawk was missing his left hand. Brunkelvic explained this as appropriate and symbolic of the damage done to indigenous cultures. “May we never forget,” intoned Brunkelvic as he pulled down the drapery that hid the statue. That evening a powerful blizzard covered northern Illinois with 14 inches of snow. Blackhawk and his horse were covered with sleet, giving both horse and rider ragged beards.

Brunkelvic tried to avoid walking near the statue or even looking in that

direction. “Denial,” he muttered to himself. He assumed this would all pass just as the Finnish Event seemed to be nearly forgotten because so few had attended the talks on tar water and whatnot. And the demand for a name change for Huhn Hall had attracted some unsavory commentary in the press. Problem solved by utilizing a shoddy statue! And the disaster at Homecoming, when Peevus College from out there in the boonies of Missouri had beaten them 38-6. Several of the floats on the Rect were torched in disgust at the home team’s feeble efforts. Kind of a mixed year but not a champion year in any sense. There was no setting aside the discontent he felt. What to do? What could be done?

Looking at his Spring Semester calendar, Brunkelvic noted that the last day of March was penciled in as Klaatu Daze, the annual showing of the film  “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Other than a showing of the movie with a good deal of hooting by the fraternity that sponsored it, including some inappropriate commentary whenever Patricial Neal appeared on screen, it was a one-day event followed by the usual surreptitious binge drinking in frat houses. The college did not officially endorse Klaatu Daze, but Brunkelvic tolerated it. To oppose it would invite unrest, and there had been enough for the year with the Blackhawk affair.

“Ah…….Gort!” Brunkelvic whispered to his empty office. He would create a more significant event out of a smaller one, a chance to showcase Ballast’s creativity by bringing out the robot prototype as an attraction. Bring in the media, maybe invite someone connected with the film, and perhaps one of the actors could come on campus and testify to Hollywood and academia’s happy marriage. He phoned Zander Pfinsater and set up a meeting.

“And Zandy, find out who the faculty advisor is for the frat community and invite them along. I’ve got an idea to kick around.”

At their Happy Hour meeting in Rockford on Friday afternoon, Osa and Genevieve reviewed the week.

“I was flabbergasted!” said Osa in a weary tone. “I picked up the phone, and it’s your (ha-ha) boss, Zandy, asking me to come to a meeting in Brunky’s office last Tuesday. “What’s it about?” I ask. “I don’t know, is all he says. 4:00 PM” What could I say besides ‘OK’?”

“Stop right there!” Genevieve laughed. “I’m a bit ahead of you. I got called back into duty, full class load or not, and get this; I get to check out how Ballast invented the robot for The Day The Earth Stood Still. And to get the damn things operational, whatever that means. I have yet to see it, but I hear it’s seven feet tall and needs a new mechanism if it’s gonna do more than just stand there looking stupid.”

“That sounds easier than my assignment,” said Osa There was a sardonic tone in her voice and a frown on her face. “But first, let me tell you about the meeting. Brunky seems out to lunch on this whole thing, and he sure did not remember that Zandy and I had that alleged scandal last year. Or maybe he was pretending. I told you about that incident a few weeks ago, didn’t I? I haven’t seen or talked to either man since then. I mean, Brunky has no functioning intuition about people, and he’s a loon.”

“Well, Who arrived first?” asked Genevieve.

“Zandy did, so when I walked into Bunky’s office, there he sat, looking a bit nervous, I will say that. “Hello, Mr. Pfinster,” was all I said. And he nodded. That was it. And as I said, Brunky was on some other planet. Anyway, my ‘assignment’ is to bring the Panhellenics around to understand that what was a bacchanalia for them will now be a respectable event with an academic twist.”

“Good luck with that! Well, you can bitch and moan to me. You know what I think. I think Brunky is heading for another debacle. Have you seen that miserable statue out there in front of Huhn? And by the way, the paper towel dispensers in that building, the ones donated by some hayseeds in Missouri? They don’t work.”

Huhn Hall was slowly filling up with faculty offices on the third and fourth floors, and the lower levels had classrooms. Not all were pleased with the result. The prime offices faced the Rect, but even here, the seniority rule conflicted with the number of square feet per office, the color scheme (avocado and burnt orange), or the noise level from toilets flushing nearby. Also, would toilets be off-limits to students who wandered to the upper floors, each of which had two restrooms? Smoking was prohibited everywhere; the first Ballast building to become completely smoke-free. Sixtus Aragonus, a veteran cigar man, refused the new office and stayed in his brown study in the Zange Museum.

Changes were also evident with the equestrian Blackhawk statue. A replacement copper tail was affixed to Blackhawk’s horse. The missing rear left foot of the horse was replaced by a boar’s foot. The rider’s missing hand became an aluminum stump. The increasingly patchwork look of the statue  invited graffiti, much of it including the seasonal placement of snowballs to mimic horse apples. 

And finally, several weeks earlier, the Governor of Illinois dropped in on a helicopter, a pre-arranged visit he did biannually on most state campuses. It had been pre-arranged, and Brunkelvic was expected to greet the man when he emerged from the machine. But he did not, due to a “scheduling error.” Embarrassment all around, made worse when it so happened that Sixtus Aragonus, who looked so much more presidential than Brunkelvic, was misidentified as he walked across the Rect. Sixtus rose to the occasion and greeted the Governor heartily, and he avoided showing Blackhawk on his horse. Brunkelvic and Aragonus both knew that the visit had increased what the President owed the professor.

Those were the causes for the meeting with Pfinster and Spengler. B.B. Brunkelvic was not having a good year, had his detractors, and suffered from imposter syndrome. 

As he told his patient wife at least once a week, “I feel like I’m faking this whole thing. This is supposed to be higher education, but it feels like middle school. This morning I stopped to use the restroom in the Wurm, and there, written above a roll of toilet paper, someone had written, “Ballast Diplomas, Take One.”

Mrs. B shrugged. She worked as a psychiatric nurse at the state hospital in Rockford and was a good listener, but not part of the Ballast family. She was there when B.B. needed a consort, and she did so with good cheer. Privately, the peculiarities of many of her patients at the hospital seemed almost coherent when she thought about the faculty in general. After attending faculty events, she usually was heard to say something like  “What is this.B.B, a college or a holding tank for folks that can’t make it elsewhere? Jesus F. Christ in the A.M.” That was Mrs. B–and B.B. just sighed. He knew she was referring to him, too, but making six figures hopefully gave him something of a pass with her, but he was not sure. Was he imagining that she seemed more distant lately? 

Middle School or College, Brunkelvic needed a boffo finish for the school year. After explaining his expectations to Osa, he abruptly said the meeting was over. Osa thanked him, but for what she could not imagine, and left the office. Pfinster stayed longer to get a sense of the costs of the event. Osa dreaded having to deal with the Panhellenic Council. Zander hated to be responsible for overseeing the financing of the event. His current personal finances, if known, would have warned Brunkelvic. Managing a budget was not his strength. His checking account at Farmers Exchange Bank was overdrawn, and his credit card had reached its limit. The rent was coming due, and he had recently sold an older stereo system, some baseball cards,  and a Kitchenaid mixer in the want ads.

Meanwhile, Genevieve Ricard was dealing with the custodian of the heating plant, which stood behind Veezen Hall. Four large boilers prepared steam for the pipes that warmed the campus from October until May. Behind boiler number 3, on a shelf, lay the prototype of Gort, the famous robot of the hit movie in which an alien (played by Michael Rennie) lectures the planet on the need for galactic peace and warns Earthlings of the unimaginable destruction to be visited upon them if they did not shape up. Gort, on its massive clumping feet, stood eight feet tall, moved very slowly if motorized, and had a visor that opened and emitted deadly rays if needed. But Gort was in bad shape and couldn’t do much of anything. Ricard decided to skip the walking function and spend her allocation on the visor, which could be operated remotely by fitting it with some electromagnets from a Lionel train set. She sent away for a tape with a soundtrack from the movie once she learned that no one knew how to play the creepy instruments like the theremin used to such good effect in so many space/alien films. By early April, she was ready to arrange for Gort to stand in front of Veezen Hall on the Rect and make ominous sounds while raising and lowering its visor. To Ricard privately,  Gort merely looked stupid.

For Osa, the completion of her assignment was less straightforward. Perhaps that was because she was dealing with a dozen members of the Panhellenic Council and not one dusty robot. The Council met at the Omega Mu house on leafy Willow Street, a block off the campus. The street was lined with fraternity and sorority houses, some well-maintained, others needing paint or masonry work. The Omega Mu Gamma house needed new concrete work for its walk. Sorority dues had not been adequate, and the national office had been reluctant to contribute money because the house was one of the oldest on the street and might reasonably attract some monies from historic preservationists.

But that was not all. Three months earlier, a young woman fell down the stairway to the second floor. She rolled down through the curve on the stairway and halted against an umbrella stand near the front door. The incident happened early in the morning as she attempted to enter the house after several hours of playing drinking games at a neighboring fraternity house. It was a game that imposed penalties, one being either to describe a fantasy sexual act or to drink a bottle of beer. The other players, primarily men, judged whether the description was erotic or disgusting. Most female players, fearing the judgment of the others, chose to chug-chug yet another bottle of beer. And so, the impaired sister returned to the Omega Mu house and climbed the stairs, losing her grip on the railing at the top. The ensuing fall woke no one, and she lay unconscious until discovered by an early riser at 5:00 AM. Someone called an ambulance.  She returned to Ballast two days later, briefly mumbling about a vision, and then became mute, unless she was shown an umbrella. Then she shrieked. 

The vision was that she arose and attempted to reach her room on the second floor. As she climbed the stairs for the second time that night, her feet left faint green patterns on the steps, and voices began to implore her to turn around and go to The Pond on campus. She hesitated and soon felt pulled down the stairs and floated high above the buildings to the Pond with an umbrella in her hand. There, two older women awaited her and dressed her in ceremonial garb. They lowered her into the water. She screamed, but no sound came forth. Then she was again on the stairs and climbing them but without colored footprints. 

The story electrified her sorority sisters, who were deeply impressed and declared the staircase off-limits. From then on, passage to the second floor was via a fire escape on the side of the building. The house took on a hushed, derelict atmosphere. A mood of expectation was palpable.  The young woman whose mystifying experience had started it all no longer spoke at all and so could not offer any insight into her “event” which was assumed to be spiritual, extraterrestrial, or purely evil. After a week she returned home to Peoria. 

When Osa approached the Omega house, she saw a large man with thick white hair, part curly, part haystack, a look favored by rumpled professors. She had seen this man before but not often enough to place him–was he the one who had so eviscerated Brunkelvic over the Finnish Event? She had also seen him through the window of the smoking lounge at the Wurmknecht Library. He had a large cigar in his right hand.

“Who are you?” said Sixtus Aragonus. His tone was meant to be challenging as if she was unexpected and perhaps unqualified.

“Osa Spengler. And who are you?”

He stared at her and then gave her form a sweep from the ankles to the eyebrows with perhaps a noticeable pause at the breast level. Assuming he was not about to identify himself and he may not have heard her,

Osa broke the awkward silence.   

“I’m here as a liaison for the President in connection with an event in April. I’m supposed to meet with Panhellenic members here. This is the Omega Mu Gamma house?

“Yes, yes, oh, I see. We have not met” He extended his large right hand. “Sixtus Aragonus, Classics.”

“Osa Spengler….”

“Oh, yes, “Why Sociology?” Am I right?”

Osa stared at him. “You know my book?”

“Absolutely!” He laughed loudly.

“Well, good to hear, but I must be at a meeting here.”

Aragonus looked at her and became solemn. “I think we should meet to talk about the Greeks here at Ballast. You should know some things; I’ll  ring you up.” He had rolled his eyes while he talked.

Osa entered the house. The place seemed empty, and she called out, “Anybody home?” Soon, two women glided soundlessly through a swinging door out of an adjoining room. They softly spoke their names, and Osa and the women sat on opposite ends of an enormous beige sectional. Osa had prepared a statement which she recited in a near whisper. The house had gotten to her, too.

”I’ll come to the point. As you know, the President and the Special Projects Office have mapped out some changes for the annual Klaatu Fest, which has been the top-rated all-campus event sponsored by the Panhellenic council for some years. This year, President Brunkelvic wants to expand it to showcase Ballast’s role in developing the robot figure, Gort. We have Gort ready to be displayed. We also want to repeat the film’s showing and have some faculty comment on its place in defining a new world order now that the Cold War has ended and we are at the beginning of a time of historical convergence.”

The two younger women stared at Osa and then let their gaze rest elsewhere, one at her manicured hands and the other at the large clock on the wall. 4:45 PM. Neither one spoke. What was it that seemed to cause apparent consternation? Was it “historical convergence,” a concept that might not be familiar to either of them? Then one of them, a chubby girl wearing bib overalls and a pink tee shirt, looked at Osa and spoke in a near-whisper while darting occasional looks at her companion.

“Well. the P.C., you know Pancouncil, is working on some issues which have to do with compliance with the Pan’s Charter and List of Values. We think that we can turn the corner on that soon. Professor Aragonus, maybe you saw him leaving here? He’s our advisor, and he’s such a huge help. We need to work some things, some things, out.”

“I’m sure you’re all busy. My being here only has to do with getting everyone on board.” All Osa had left to explain was that Ballast College would not agree to continue Klaatu Fest as the usual bacchanalia. And that the President wanted this strictly enforced. One of the girls nodded, perhaps too vigorously, and the other sighed and began to wring her hands.

When Osa returned to her office in Huhn a little after 5:00, she scanned the directory to see if either Classics or Aragonus were listed as housed in the new building, but they were not. She took the stairs to the top floor and entered her office. The phone was ringing, and it was Sixtus Aragon.

Chapter Nine  KLAATU

Sixtus was direct.. 

“I know this sounds forward as hell, but we need to talk about the Panhellenic thing. I don’t know how much you know, but there is a bunch you need to know, Dr. Spengler. And Dr.Spengler, have you had your evening meal yet? If not, I suggest we meet at that little Greek place just off campus on Pioneer Street. Do you know it? Any we can do this?”

Osa paused. “Well, I haven’t had my dinner, and I can’t set aside the urgency in your voice. Seven o’clock.”

Sixtus tried not to sound too grateful. “Oh, many thanks; yes, seven is perfect.”

When Osa arrived at The Odyssey, she spotted Sixtus in a distant booth, quite apart from the other guests. The familiar odor of Greek cooking was reassuring. She slid into the booth and noticed a bottle of white wine on the table.

“Do you like retsina? It really isn’t turpentine.” he smiled

“No, I’ll just order myself a glass of the red.” There was, she hoped, no

mistaking that she would not be his guest.

“Get a pint carafe; we’ll be here a spell.” Another smile.

Osa glanced at him and ordered the pint of Rhoditis.

Skipping the usual introductory small talk, Sixtus launched into what was on his mind. To Osa, looking at him, guessed that he was trying to reassure her.

“So, I am the faculty advisor to the frats and sororities, all eleven. I have been for nine years since I volunteered. It has nothing to do with the Classics, and I still am mystified why these groups got hooked up with the Greek alphabet,  but I don’t care either.  I was curious what you were doing on my little piece of turf,”said Aragonus in a mock-serious manner designed to further reassure her. But Osa remained wary.

“Well, I’ve been assigned to be a liaison to the Greeks and their being on board for the Kaatufest,” said Osa who felt she needed to say something. Her wine arrived, and the waiter poured a glass, and she took a sip.

“I assume Brunky pressured you into being a faculty advisor for the Panhel . That would be B.B. Brunkelvic trying to nudge me into deeper oblivion at Ballast. I like those kids; I have a rapport with most of them, and you’ll be the third one he has appointed in the last few years. The trouble is, the Panhel gets along with me and trusts me not to frown on their little intrigues. That’s why you won’t get much out of them in the way of a relationship. See, they are very protective of me, and I am of them.”

“Protective?”

“Yeah, if you have not figured it out, Brukelvic doesn’t give a rat’s ass about students and the frats, especially because they sooner or later generate bad press for Ballast, and as CEO, the buck stops at his desk. That could disturb his naps. I don’t hide my feelings about him, but he’s a fraud, an empty suit, and a dolt. He’d love to get rid of me, but he can’t because of, well, just because.”

“Tenure?” Osa said simply. The waiter came, and they placed their orders. Sixtus, the lamb platter. Osa, spanakopita

”Tenure is not what it once was,” said Sixtus, shaking his head enough to make his white curls move. If they want to get you, they will. Fortunately, he’s not riding very high this year with all those blunders along the way. That mess with Finland. That statue of whomever they think it is. Even that game with Peevus College and the Boosters are royally pissed! So he minds his manners.”

Their food arrived. Osa Spengler was getting an earful, and some things were falling into place, especially after Sixtus volunteered that he had yet to figure out why Brunkelvic would back a hopeless mess like “that Pfinster.” They talked a while longer about other things—Sixtus on books, Osa on music, and ceramics.  He put down his fork and looked around before bringing up the topic that had brought him to dine with Osa.

“Here’s the thing….the frats and sororities are about to go off like a chain of volcanos!” Sixtus closed his eyes as if in disbelief.

“Now that does sound serious!.”

Aragonus provided Osa with a lengthy narrative on the competitive nature of the fraternities and how each wanted to be the dominant Greek organization at Ballast. Traditionally this had been done by demonstrations of wealth, automobiles, other consumerist symbols, whatever worked. The audience was, of course, the other frats and then the sororities who chose their partners carefully and hoped to date men from highly ranked frats. That was the traditional way. But, for reasons perhaps a sociologist would understand—so said Aragonus— the focus had shifted. Lately, it was an effort to stage a stunt that would be imaginative, maybe daring, and certainly create a buzz.

“It started with the Tau Omega Alpha Delts, the Toads, as they’re  known, who returned after the break all wearing black hooded sweatshirts and black jeans one January. They announced that they were about to begin forty days of silence and ritual purging of one sort or another. One of these, of course, was flagellation.”

“Did they do it?” asked Osa, intrigued. 

“They did, and when the weather warmed, they made much of showing their lashes sunbathing on the Rect until Security sent them away. A year later they repeated it, but now they had competition. The Phi Eps

I think it was, staged a 1518 dancing plague when they would begin on Friday noon and dance until all had collapsed of exhaustion, and then two weeks later they did it again, this time on the Rect, until Security sent them home, some on stretchers. One kid lost his ability to void his bladder and had to leave school. Then there were the Crucifiers, the Pole Sitters, the Cauldron Dippers, and so on and on. This childish bravado continued for years until two years ago when one of the Dippers lost consciousness and was half-cooked before they fished him out again.”

“And you were their advisor through this? Why didn’t you stop it?”

“Well, first, I told them to tone it down, but they didn’t understand. Brunkelvic was all over me–keep it out of the papers, and so on. Save Ballast’s good name was what he wanted. And see, we could not just expel them all. More bad PR. So I tracked down the source, and it was in the History Department.”              

“What!!?”

“Yes. Another low moment in academia. The History Dept has been losing students steadily for over a decade, Just like PolySci and Languages. Their solution is to stop the preaching about how you cannot be educated and cannot understand your world, blah-blah, if you haven’t had History. So over the years, the History folks noticed that interest always picks up when the topic is war, martyrdom, persecution, torture, punishment, human sacrifice, and so on. The idea was to skip over the so-called bland periods and get to the action. And they backed it all up with plenty of videos.”

“Did more students …..?”

“No, no increase in majors, just a few more taking those classes with new titles like ‘Evil in the Middle Ages” and “The Weapons of the Age of Discovery.” But perhaps it”s just a coincidence. We do live in nasty times, regardless of who teaches what. Or maybe course titles like those just drew the sickos out of the woodwork.”

Osa smiled. “I was not expecting to hear that.  Now tell me, what are you to do about this and what have I to do with it? And what is going on at the creepy Omega House that I wasted twenty minutes in?

Sixtus signaled the waiter and ordered Ouzo for both of them. “If you don’t like ouzo, I can handle them both.”

Osa laughed. “I am sure you can.” She was beginning to feel comfortable with this white-haired bear. “Ah, you were going to tell me what I have to do with all of this.”

“Well, you might have a choice: let sleeping dogs lie or throw a dog a bone.”

“That makes no sense.” Osa felt a bit of the buzz of wine and Ouzo and wished she had eaten more. Sixtus was talking and talking, but how much of it was worthwhile? She found herself wondering about him. How old? Single? Married? Divorced? Widowed? 

“Oh, sorry. The advice about dogs works well in many contexts, but in this case, I would just continue to play along with whatever boilerplate the students feed you. And feed that back to Brunkelvic. He won’t care anyway. The frats are sitting on a scandal and want to avoid being terminated at Ballast. You can help them by keeping clear and playing dumb. Meanwhile, I will keep them, or try to keep them, from doing their worst. They have in mind a faux burning at a stake using lighter fluid or whatever.”

“Oh! I nearly forgot!” Can you tell me what’s wrong at the Omega Mu Gamma house? They give me the creeps.”  Osa looked at him expectantly, but he was elsewhere in his thoughts and she decided to drop it until a later time. With any luck she would not have to visit those spectral ladies again,

They did separate checks, left the restaurant, and welcomed the fresh air. They agreed to be in contact in a week. Sixtus walked Osa to her street and continued to the campus and his office.

On Friday morning, a few days after Osa and Sixtus had met in the Odyssey, Zander Pfinster sat in a booth at the Pecatonica Pancake Palace. He had suggested a “working breakfast” to get them out of August Hall since Zander had begun to worry that President Brunkelvic bugged his office. In fact, it was not, but Pfinster was experiencing an uptick in his paranoid dread because he sensed he was in trouble since the Finnish mess. Once Ricard arrived, he suggested they move further into the restaurant but could not stop looking towards the door. He ordered a pecan waffle with molasses syrup and coffee, and Ricard asked for multigrain pancakes with orange marmalade. Also buttermilk.

“So, ZP, what’s on your mind? Question about Gort?”

He gave her an oddly tender look and sighed. Twice.

“No, not Gort. I wanted to land a Hollywood person who had some connection with the film, but I am coming up empty. Maybe I’m the wrong person to be cold-calling people. I was hoping you would give it a try. I’d be happy with anyone from a major star down to an editor in the cutting room. I’m afraid, afraid that we’re creating a big flop. That goddam Gort cannot carry the day. We’ll be screening the film all day long, and a person who plays the theremin might be here for a few hours.”

“I can try.” Gen Ricard could have spit her buttermilk in his face. Hadn’t she done enough? Gort in mint condition, a button saying” KLAATU Was Here” or VOTE FOR KLAATU. Arranged a banner with “Barada Nictu” for the dance and ordered four portapotties for the Rect since crowds were expected to come down from as far as La Crosse, Wisconsin.

“Ooh, thankee kindly!” said Zander. “Your friend. Zandy, happy happy!”

Now what? thought Gen. What is that supposed to mean, this baby talk? Pfinster had returned to his waffle and was carving one square off at a time, examining it, and then placing it carefully into his mouth. With each bite, he patted his lips with a napkin. She had never seen anyone eat a waffle in that fashion, and she feared she would never be able to forget it.

“Tell me, Genevieve, what caused you to be named Genevieve? I have long wondered. He smiled sweetly and nodded in a silly way.

“Family name.” Gen snapped in a tone that signaled the topic was exhausted. She suppressed telling him that she was named for a courtesan during Napoleon the Third’s time. In truth, there was no answer. The choice was between “Gwendolyn” or “Gertrude”,” and Genevieve won. She was OK with it unless someone learned her middle name was Moray, as in the eel. She was feeling very bored with the topic.

Pfinster caught her tone, knowing he had annoyed her as he usually did all women. He felt defeated. His head sank until his face was nearly in the remaining waffle. He began to speak in a low tone about his inability to avoid offending women. Of the few he had known, all of them casually, all now avoided him. In one case, in Finland, the woman had disappeared into thin air. Gen Ricard had to lean in to hear his voice so low, and then, unexpectedly, she began to have compassion for this foolish man who was always beneath his pay grade and had merely been oddly lucky to have a job. She finished her buttermilk, reached out to him, put her hand on his arm, and said she had to leave. OK,” said Zander Pfinster hoarsely, “and please forgive me.” He raised his head. Molasses covered the tip of his nose–thick blackstrap molasses, and she saw that he had wept. She blew him a kiss from the door,  and he brightened.

Mid-April and two weeks until the Big Event, part spring festival, college showcase with Klaatu hats for the kids ands a lecture by a film critic from Chicago. The opening ceremony featured B.B. Brunkelvic, President of Ballast College. Barring freakish wet spring weather front, all looked promising. 

“April is the cruelest month,” said Sixtus Aragonus to Osa Spengler when they met again at the Odyssey Restaurant. The occasion was a “progress report” on the fraternity situation, with two weeks left before Klaatufest.  Osa had nothing to report. All the Greek organizations she dropped in on, which was what was expected of her, did not betray bizarre events in the planning stage; most members were working on the annual problem of getting a summer job. The OMG House retained its sepulchral atmosphere.

“So, what’s up, and why do people say this is the cruelest month?”

asked Osa. Sixtus gave her a quick glance. No, she did not understand the reference to April. This was something of a disappointment to him. He had expected more, but, on the other hand, the recent batch of persons with doctorates seemed to know less and less of the classics or literature. 

“Just a line from an old poem. We all have internalized something from our undergrad years.” 

“Ah, kind of like “History is direction—but Nature is extension—ergo, everyone gets eaten by a bear,” said Osa in a quiet voice.

“Exactly!” cried Sixtus, though he did not have a clue where that was from or what it might mean. Pretentious bullcrap! But to appear ignorant:  never! Osa tried to hide her smile. Of course he did not recognize that quote and serves him right—Oswald Spengler had said it! 

“Anyway,” he continued, “I think we can relax. I have the word of the Greeks that they will rally for Ballast and the Klaatu event.” 

They turned to other things. He planned a summer trip to Uruguay to interview a colleague, and she would return to Nebraska and spend time with her family.  Sixtus Aragonus ordered a round of Ouzo. “To success!” he cried loudly enough to startle the couple at the next table. They clunked the little glasses together.

______ _____ _____ _____ 

On the last Saturday in April. Osa and Aragonus met for coffee in the Harpp Student Center. They had agreed to face whatever was happening on the Rect for Klaatufest together. Nearby, ordering their coffee stood Zander and Genevieve. There was a moment of hesitation when the two couples saw each other, but Aragonus waved them over.

“Good morning! Would I be guessing correctly that curiosity and perhaps dread has made early risers of all four of us?”

Zander Pfinster laughed nervously, and Gen smiled. She was holding Zander’s hand, which made Osa smile and wink at her friend. Aragonus caught the wink and reached for Osa’s hand. “Ah, April, you are not so cruel,” said he. Osa blushed but nodded in apparent agreement.

When they reached the Rect, the dominant feature was, of course, Gort.

A small crowd had gathered, and there was laughter which annoyed Gen since all the robotic features were working. But so was another feature.

An outsized papier-maché penis in an erect posture was affixed to Gort’s groin. When Gort’s visor lifted, a buzzer sound was emitted from the penis.

“Oh, my God!” stammered Genevieve Ricard, “there is a buzzer in his schwanz! I mean his privates.” Zander walked up to Gort, snapped off the offending organ, and then found himself the center of attention. He tried to hide it in his coat pocket, but it continued to poke out. Osa delicately took it from him and, removing her jacket, stuffed it in a sleeve. Then the four of them walked quickly to August Hall where, presumably, Zander would dispose of it in his office.

“Rotten little shits!” said Aragonus. He was referring to the frat boys who had betrayed him with this prank. “But I do see myself as complicit. These kids take my Greek Gods in Art course; they always see naked sculptures, which is probably too much for them. Hicks!”

“Unless someone in a sorority…..” began Osa. Gen interrupted with an admiring: “Whoever it was, they have a real appreciation for male anatomy!”

Of course, photos of Gort before and after were everywhere in the news, with TV news using discreet blurring. However, if there was a low point for Ballast, that was it. The rest of Kaatufest was well-attended, and 

no one seemed to note any of the shortcomings. For example, the non-stop showing of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” itself stood still when the projector’s lamp burned out, and there were no replacements on campus.

The “first person” who gave a talk about the film was not a critic from Chicago, or anyone connected with Hollywood. He was the projectionist who had once shown a sneak preview in the Modjeska Theater in Milwaukee. He reported the audience screaming and kids crying. From there, the film went to a first run on State Street in Chicago.  

Button and t-shirt sales were brisk. Someone noticed that Klaatu had been misspelled “Klautu.” The dancing began at 9 PM though there were complaints of a marijuana haze hanging over the dance floor. At 10:00 PM

President B.B.Brunkelvic stood next to the band leader and asked the band to play the Ballast anthem, after which he intoned “klaatu barada nixon!” The crowded dance floor erupted. Mistaking the acclaim, he left the stage with a broad smile. “This has been a damn good year after all, ” said the President of Ballast to himself.

Chapter 10   TTHE BOURBON HOUR

On the Tuesday morning following the Klaatufest, President B.B. Brunkelvic, very much aglow with self-satisfaction, went to the Wurmknecht Library to read the regional newspapers. He was keen to see his success reflected as far north as Monroe, Wisconsin, west to Dubuque, Iowa, south to Normal, Illinois, and east to the greater Chicago area. He began with the Chicago SunTimes and found, on a back page, the article “Major Gaffe Avoided at Ballast Fest” with photos, a report on Gort’s papier mâche penis. No mention of the President. The Monroe paper, the Evening Leader, ran a two-inch column

next two a much longer story on recent success at the local hospital with reverse tonsillectomies. The Dubuque paper did not mention the event, and the Normal Beacon Enquirer made the puzzling observation that Ballast was “back on the map again.” Bunkelvic sighed and hoped his wife did not see anything like this in the Rockford paper, the only one she was interested in since it covered the State Hospital.

He glanced up to see the Very Tall Dean, the Head Librarian, and a third man approaching his table.

“Ah, President Brunkelvic,” said the Very Tall Dean, “we have a visitor

today. Here is Edouard Ilman from the Illinois State Board of Library Facilitation down in Springfield. Mr. Ilman serves the northern tier of Illinois colleges, and (and here the Very Tall Dean paused and opened his eyes wider) he’s a Ballast grad! Class of, what was it?”

“Sixty-five or sixty-six,” said Edouard Ilman quietly. 

“Well! What about that?” Brunkelvic nearly shouted. His astonishment was genuine: he had rarely met any graduates during his Presidency. He clapped Ilman on the shoulder and beamed.

“Come and be my guest at the Harpp for lunch.” His tone was magnanimous.

The Harpp. Inman remembered the place failing to provide the intended congeniality: mediocre food, dull movies, and the clatter of table tennis in the distance. The place smelled loneliness and the regressive bumpkinism of the high schools that had recently disgorged the bulk of Ballast students. Bumpkins was a term Ilman chose to describe his peers at the time. If they had noticed him at all, he would be known as the “museum troll,” for that is where he preferred to be, the darkened galleries of the Zange Museum on the other side of the Rect. 

“I eat the same thing for lunch daily, but you look at the menu board and choose whatever. I’m working on getting in the Guinness Book by eating the same thing: a fried baloney and gherkin sandwich on a white bun, and I have a good chance to get at least an honorable mention.”

Edouard Ilman chose a bowl of chicken noodle soup with extra saltines for himself. When Bunkelvic’s sandwich appeared, he stared at it.

The bun was perfect: round and only slightly browned. Though not large, the bun hid the meat and the gherkin. Both men drank coffee without cream or sugar. 

” I don’t like this sandwich much,” whispered the President, “but I’m used to it, and it is something my wife disapproves of! That adds to the taste if you know what I mean. Try to keep on your sweetie’s good side, if you know what I mean.”

“Interesting,” was Ilman’s response. He was accustomed to the eccentricities that might be uncovered in academia, but this was special. “I know what you mean,” he added, which seemed to please Brunkelvic.

“Do you have the time to stop at my office after this? That’s where dessert is served—my office in August Hall. I want to learn something about your time at Ballast. Who was the President then? I don’t know myself, though I should, I suppose. Honored ancestor, you know.”

” I don’t recall.” Like most of his time at Ballast, it was not memorable. He recalled a girl who had dumped him, smoking in the lavatory in the Zange Museum, and his last encounter with old Professor Huhn. 

Eduard Ilman, B. A . ’65 or ’66, had come to Ballast because he had never heard of it before, and so he was confident that there was little chance that his relatives had either. He had grown up in Waukegan, the grandson of Transdanubian immigrants, and his father had married an Alsation war bride.

It was a dysfunctional family, and more precisely, it had evolved its own functions. They kept to themselves, and anyone who got close to them concluded they were weird. Eduardo recognized this inescapable perception and came to obscure any details of his family. They were not from the preferred immigrant population. Transdanubians! Really! And the family history only got worse over time. His mother may have been a traitor, his uncle was trigger-happy, his father was a pathetic drunk, and another branch would live their lives in the State Hospital in Rockford.

So Edouard was wary. He wanted to fit in, somehow.

As B.B. Brunkelvic led Ilman to August Hall, he stopped to point out the new Huhn Hall, four stores of classrooms, offices, and bathrooms on each floor. 

“Did you know Simon Huhn?” he asked.

“Not personally.”

“How about a course? Did you take a course from him?’

” I did.”

‘Were you here when he died?”

“I was.”

“I see.”

They had reached the Presidential Office. Brunkelvic opened the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and lifted a bottle of Old Grandad bourbon.

“You’ll join me, of course,” and poured out two paper cups of brown liquid that gave off the whiskey’s cozy odor. The conversation continued.

“Tell me what you do, Ilman? Something to do with libraries?”

“I visit the twenty college-level libraries from Galena to Waukegan in the northern counties. The State Board is working out a plan to reduce redundancies in library collections, and they’re also anticipating greater use of electronic exchanges. I’m here to familiarize some faculty with these concepts.”

“Ah!” said Brunkelvic. He seemed to recall reading something that touched on this plan and, taking a sip of his drink, closed his eyes and began to recite.

“As an example, an instructor wishes to order a new book for our collection, and rather than justify that purchase, the consortium manages to utilize a database which would illuminate redundancies, that the book is already extant, thus saving the entire system monies which would obtain elsewhere.”

He opened his eyes and looked both astonished and pleased.  

Ilman was taken aback. Perhaps he had unfairly judged this man as another academic simpleton, some fool, but this notion was quickly dispelled.

“Yes, exactly what it’s all about, at least for now. Well, sir,

thank you for your hospitality, but I promised the Librarian I would meet with a few faculty at 2:00.” He drained his glass and saw that Brunkelvic had been ready to pour another for both of them. 

“Which faculty?”

“Hmm…I recall one was from Chemistry, the other an adjunct in English, Zoytlow, and a woman from Social Work or Sociology. One of those.”

“Ricard is first rate, great little gal. The adjunct, I don’t know, and why would I? Adjuncts are the drones of the college and are usually gone before I get to know them.”

Ilman nodded, but this offhand dismissal of other human beings made him uncomfortable. He already felt sorry for this Zoytlow, a lubricant that made the failing engine of academic work at all. And he felt sorry for Brunkelvic, too. He stood and walked to the door. 

“Stop and see me on your next trip through these parts,” the President said loud enough to be heard in the outer office and the corridor. “And think about your old professor, Simon Huhn. H-U-H-N!!

 EPILOGUE  

The time has come to end this farrago of moments taken from a story of a brave little speck on the map of American higher education, Ballast College. In the last chapter, a visitor to the place reveals to President B.B.Brunkelvic that he has come as an agent of the State of Illinois to discuss a new acquisitions policy. In so doing, he also reveals the names of Genevieve Ricard and a certain Zoytlow, two members of the Ballast faculty although we also learned that the latter is a nearly invisible adjunct. That means low pay and no recognition. Another speck in time and space.

I am Zoytlow, Philip N. Zoylow and I have shamelessly inserted myself into this brief novel, or is it novella.? Yes, I did hire on as an adjunct in the English Department, asssigned to teach the usual mix of composition and literature classes. I lasted there, I think it was four years and who knows how much longer I could have dragged that out. Teaching compostion at a school with abysmal admission standards meant that there were few surprises in the creativity of the students. Also, the tenured heavies in the department are only too happy to have someone invisible laboring in the fetid trenches.  Oh, yes, the students: Most came from rural or small town backgrounds which does not mean they could not write, but they saw writing courses as a painful obligation, something not to be enjoyed. Few were those who were curious about what imaginative copy might flow from their pens! In fact, few were curious about much of anything except the landscape of their chemically altered states or the unexplored cosmos  of their sexuality. Well and good: how could it be otherwise? The tenured members of the department chose the literature to be read by freshman and so I had no choice in that. Well, I could chose between three writers: Melville, Dickens, and G.Elliot, provided the work had over 400 pages. And that is the way it had been for at least two decades, so I was told.

I was there because I needed a job. Depending on my whim, I either presented myself as a biologist, a cultural anthropologist, or an English instructor. As an imposter (watch for more admissions to follow) I found those the easiest departments to “invade” and creation of a suitable resume was not a problem. A few choice, killer phrases on the resumé did it. And always a fierce statement about the willingnss to undertake the opening of minds to the challenge, so necessary to this Great American Democracy, which would ever require the balm of critical thinking! Lest it wallow on the shores of mediocrity! Yes, I said those things. 

In the last year I was at Ballast, and it was during one of those lethally tedious opening faculty convocations–was it in 1989 or 1990?— I hit on the idea that careful observation might yield something along the lines of the present piece, titled, Behind the Scrim. I had previously written a historically-based work titled A Scrim. To refer in the present work in numerous and clever (also clumsy) ways to that work was, and is, a matter of serious self-promotion for which I confess no shame. Shameless is as shameless does, something like that. 

Now back to the present work. While at Ballast (I left as this report ends, around the time of the commencement) and moved to another small college in the South where I passed myself off as a creationist-biologist 

whose talent lay in pretending to honor Charles Darwin while deflating his theories. Shameless.

Ballast is by no means an unusual school. I have worked at others like it and heading south carries no judgment–it was just that after four years of Moby Dick or Great Expectations I was ready for some pseudo science i.e. Biol. 101 in Dixie. I’m working on some poems drawn from that experience, sample title. “The Fig Leaf of Eden was a Mulberry.”

Anyway, Ballast. After the convocation, which had its long moments of inspiration for anyone with a mind to write something of an exposé of the sorrow and the pity and the belly-laughs that academia may provide. The second moment of inspiration came when an even more accomplished imposter give a series of talks on Finland, a fine nation that deserved far better than it got from that yokel.

So how did I get the information to put this thing together? Remember, an adjunct is nearly invisible. He or she may attend department meetings but not allowed to vote nor is their input of value. Nearly invisible. They may wander the campus, eavesdrop, chat up a few folks who never seemed curious about me. Odd, that.  I say, I was too inconsequential to be visible. Well, not always inconsequential. I struck up a friendship (with some mutual benefits) with no less than the President’s office staff They sang to me! By that I mean they knew where the skeletons were hidden and, despite a superficial loyalty to Ballast, they had much to say.

Although I had no loyalty myself, I always wish success to colleges in providing education to their students and the communities they serve. That is why I was so affected by what I saw during the Finland Event.

What was the causal chain that ended with such a pathetic result, one that had me cringing. That, in essence, was the starting point for this slim volume. I did have a good laugh when I learned about the incident in Mordant Hall in which the hapless fool Pfinster was trod upon. Such a small thing, but look where it took Ballast! The President, another dunderhead, sends Pfinster to a harmless conference in Finland and the guy comes back and plays Brunkelvic about some imaginary (so it seemed to me) notion of an exchange with Finland. 

The reason Pfinster was able to sell Bunkelvic on a scheme with no basis in reality was because, in my view, they were both the same type of person and specfically, a male person. Both were in academia as accidents and that is not unusual. (I am one myself.) Both had navigated their way into academic positions though both had modest skills for the job. Neither were scholars and both had a passing ability to run a class. We know what Pfinster’s schtick was, but I did not learn how B.B. Burnkelvic managed to hide his essential buffoon enough to become President. I think his wife knew, and she managed him rather well and she had the smarts not to get enmeshed in college matters. Like many outsiders (and arguably I remain one in important ways, being invisible, etc) she was clear-eyed and after a few years she had seen it all and it ceased to be interesting. 

The newly-minted Ph.D., Osa Spengler also was present at the causal moment, but she was just beginning a career which, I am assuming, would get her to other jobs in other places. She was a person I admired for her poise even when thrown into the ring with clowns. I hoped to get to know her. I knew she had just had her first book published, which I assumed was her dissertation. I never had a chance to strike up a conversation, or rather, I never wanted to since she was never without her Why Sociology? I feared I would be forced talk about it. Eccentricities and even psychoses abound in places like Ballast. And after all, if high schools are holding tanks for adolescents, why not have sanatoria for the professoriat?

It was after commencement in late May. I went to the Olympus, the Greek place in Pecatonica Junction and got very comfortable in a booth grading freshman papers. They had written, in lieu of a final exam, a review of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. I ordered a glass of the house wine and then planned to switch to coffee so that the wine would not cause excessive grade inflation. I had read about a dozen (out of 32) when I became aware of a couple in the next booth. They had not noticed me and anyway, I am sort of invisible. Above the booths was a decorative feature which resembled large clamshells which had the effect of directing sound downward. A parabolic dish. The restaurant was nearly empty–it was a Tuesday. And the people in the next booth were Osa Spengler and Sixtus Aragonus, that windbag from Classics. I did not know him personally, but he was a campus fixture duly noted by me after the Finnish fiasco inspired me to write up Ballast.

I did not know anything much about their relationship except that they had been seen together a number of times after the Klaatufest. Aragonus was doing the talking and Spengler mainly signaled to him that he was so very interesting and please do go on. She wasn’t so wrong: I am now going to provide a paraphrasing of what was on his grand bloviating mind, this visible professor who actually looked like a professor.

“Another year stuffed away. When you have helped stuff as many as I have, you begin to expect little in the way of change and so I expect next September we will start the whole thing again. And why do we do it?”

Here Osa mumbled something which included words like “generational”and “optimism” and “imperative.” Maybe she strung them together into “the imperative of the generational.” Anyway it sounded like harmless academic boilerplate and it caused Mr. Big to snort.

“Osa, my dear, no one wants to die and they do absolutely everything imaginable to stay alive and, here’s the point, keep the idea of death under control so that it only creeps out from under your pilllow at night when you cannot sleep. Name me one thing that humans do that isn’t about keeping the idea of the Reaper from the door.”

“The Reaper?”

“The Grim Reaper, the one who invites us to the Dance of Death, and so on.” He had raised his voice and showed some impatience, but then must have recalled that no one seemed to have stumbled on this astonishing idea. This was his idea. He continued in a quieter tone with “Name me something that human beings do, anything other than eating , sleeping, or defecating and I will argue that it’s a response to death!”

He was being emphatic again and if he thought he was seducing her with his banter, well, that train had left the station. I mean, ‘defecating’ is not the way to go. I occured to me that he had been drinking all the while so perhaps his own denial of death was at work. How could so persuasive an insightful seminal thinker think he would someday die? Then they were silent (eating?) and the next topic was whether to split a baclava for dessert. Later I wondered how, if this was a seduction, he had not argued that copulation was life-affirming?

Nor did I make an acquaintance of B.B Brunkelvic. As you may have noted in the last chapter, he did not know I existed. I did nod at him once in the corridor of August Hall while on my way to visit his secretary. He did not notice the nod nor the nodder, an oblivious noddee was he. Thinking of him makes me think of what Aragonus was arguing to the Spengler woman: everything that Brunky did was in the service of constructing a persona which would fool others and fool himself. Without this apparatus he was truly dust.

I have a few more observations to make, but before doing so it is possible that some readers wish to know how the story ends. We cannot conclude with the Ballast President shouting “Huhn!” into a hallway after a departing visitor. Well, sorry folks, but nothing happened. Sixtus Aragonus continued a brief and empty dalliance with Osa Spengler but it fizzled. Genevieve dropped Zander Pfinster once the Klaatufest was ended. Brunkelvic and his wife separated and he resigned two years later. I have no details, but I heard he is in the Special Cases Ward of the Rockford State Hospital. These are pretty mediocre stories and I am not the one to tell them. But there is one thing,

Both Genevieve Ricard and Edouard Ilman had a number of interesting parallels in their histories. Genevieve was given up by parents who had been in Alsace, France until about the time Gen was born in the late 1940s. Edouard had an Alsatian mother who abandoned his father in Waukegan, Illinois about the time he was born c. 1939. Readers of my earlier A Scrim

will know where I am going with this. I did not share these suspicions with either Genevieve or Eduardo. But why keep you in suspense: yes, they may have been siblings.

I got to know Eduardo Ilman on his visit to Ballast. We struck up a friendship. We liked each other. He told me of his boredom with working for the State Library people and that his consuming interest was to piece together a history of his family, immigrants from Transdanubia. After a few years he entrusted me to see that his efforts were published. This I did. Since that family had settled in Northern Illinois, he had a number of research breakthroughs and was able to produce a promising archive for me to put together after his untimely death. 

I left Ballast and did freelance writing for a number of travel magazines and I never had a reason to return to that part of Illinois. 

FROM THE EARLY REVIEWS

“Zoytlow has presented us with a reassuring portrait of what makes this nation what it is. It is an anthem to the selflessness of noble educators in our smaller colleges and Illinois is home to at least one of them.” Elgin (IL) Times-Bugler.

“A dismal slog of a book. Cringeworthy. But honest.”  McKeesport PA Union-Stabilizer

Anon. parent writing in Creative Parenting Magazine (May, 2022) “My daughter absolutely did not want to go to college. Then I gave her Behind the Scrim and now she will go, but only to Ballast. This is a problem because we are a very religious family and don’t think that school would be a good fit for her.”

From the Liberty University Marxist Quarterly.  “The final crisis of the bourgeoisie is on full display here. Zoytlow is selling well among South Dakota socialists.”

“ At first I laughed. Then I was struck with the essential point the author was trying to make. I took a deep breath.”   (reviewer in Cat Fancier Weekly)

Camille Weenzer in She Review,  “Ugly. Trash.”

Duane Klingenborg in the Park Rapids (MN) Weekly Shopper, “What this town needs is a Greek restaurant. OOPA!”

P.N. Zoytlow, in in effort to reach a wider and more tolerant public, presents his two longer works, A Scrim and Behind the Scrim on his unobtrusive blog. He has decided to forego the royalties which would otherwise come to him since the publication of the international edition by the NeanderPresse. It was poorly received and created a financial loss for the author.

A  SCRIM

p.n.zoytlow

©  2020

 

NeanderPresse     

    Meckerthal, Germany

  Second Edition, Revised

1/ COCKTAILS

Edouard Ilman moved an illuminating magnifying glass over the Baltic States’ forested lands. He was looking for his ancestral home, the wellspring of the Ilman family. It was April 1997, and in a month, he would meet with others in Galena, Illinois, to work out just where “our Ilman forbears” lived before their immigration in 1897. The phrase was not his. It belonged to a distant relative interested in genealogy and assumed that Edouard was the patriarch. He was 55 and not eager to be head of a poorly documented, misunderstood family. Galena’s meeting was called The Ilman Centennial, far too inflated a title for Edouard. “Silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” he muttered. Still, he felt the annoying tug of obligation: would anyone be able to provide something new and interesting? Beyond the specifics on one family, the larger question was never far off: was genealogy useful or just a waste of his time? 

“Trees and more trees, whole forests of them. Pine, birch, oak, beech.” He had moved his index finger along the Polish border with Ukraine and then northward into western Belarus. “Just don’t let it be Russia,” he said to himself. Edouard, a child of the Cold War, had not set aside his suspicions; he wanted to reject any association with that place. He did not know what he was looking for because of the family understanding of where the Ilmans originated consisted of only one word: Transdanubia. Did that mean Hungary? Since the Ilmans did not speak Hungarian and since no one was sure if the name had been Ilman in the past, well, what then?

When, in 1897, the three Ilman siblings left for the United States, their

documentation contained the unfamiliar word “Transdanubia,” but neither

“Bill” nor his brother Travhnar or sister Mehna had even heard the term and could hardly embrace it as an ethnic label. They were stateless, an isolated folk created by too many European upheavals in the past. A marginal remnant. ‘No, they are not Transdanubians,” said Edouard. He had tried to make the name fit, but it did not.

Edouard was the Library Liaison for the Illinois Interlibrary Council, meaning he coordinated purchases and the loans between collections. His was the Northern Illinois District. Edouard was self-conscious about his work life. Was it chagrin at the job’s mediocre nature? Or was it a deeper pattern which he ascribed to his heritage? How he envied those, and there were many, who confidently boasted their ethnicity. His own was shrouded in ambiguity, so Edouard tried to avoid the subject. 

 Edouard was a nearly sixty-year-old bachelor and still considered (by some) a catch. On a recent date, a Schaumburg Branch librarian challenged his reticence. She was Scots-Irish and had visited Ulster. Edouard lifted his glass in a mock-toast and noted that he was drinking a Rob Roy. Her drink was a Peach Margarita. He smiled and said they should be trading drinks, although he was not Mexican. They had finished their dinners and ordered another round of drinks.

“What about your roots? And your family? I’m curious. I get a lot of family researchers in the library. Too many.”

What was she after? Satisfying something that all librarians had-curiosity, or was she also interested in him? Edouard did not care either way, but this topic was uncomfortable. However, he had consumed two Rob Roys and had signaled the waitperson to bring him a third. He felt like talking.

“Well, what to say,” he began. “The Ilmans are said to be from Transdanubia, part of Hungary, but they are not Hungarians. No, not Hungarians and not connected to the Danube. So, what were they? What are we? Well, I don’t know. I know the family has no written documents and is out of touch with each other, so only some feeble oral history is what I know. And besides, they (present company included) are guarded about what little they know. Maybe that was due to hard times in the old country, lack of learning, some sort of genetic quirk–your guess could be as good as mine. Sorry, should we look at the deserts?” 

He hoped that was the end of it; there was not more he cared to speculate. As he knew she would, his date ordered cheesecake and a Créme de Menthe. After spreading the liquor over the top of the cake, she moaned, “Mmmmm,” then looked at him and spoke. The inside of her mouth revealed the beige cake’s ghastly blend with the neon liquor. 

“You make yourself and your family sound like a dithering tribe.”

Who would say a thing like that? thought Edouard. He was not sure it had been her forwardness or the mess in her maw, but he was finished with her and knew he would be avoiding her on his next call at the Schaumburg Library,

Of course, he could have said more but chose not to do so. He had busied himself with accumulating scraps of information about the three immigrating Ilmans and their descendants for some years. Something of a picture had emerged, but perhaps not quite a pattern. And there were those times when he wondered why he bothered? What did it matter, these ordinary, shadowy folks and their undistinguished lives? Of this much, he was persuaded: “Bill,” and Travhnar and sister Mehna were not aware of their ethnicity. They were indifferent to it; what difference had it made? Indeed, what difference did it make to anyone anymore? 

Edouard himself was near to concluding that the Ilman story began in a 

primeval forest and that his forbears had lived in obscurity, perhaps out of necessity. The name Ilman may be Muslim, possibly Turkish, or otherwise Middle Eastern. Such an identity might have required isolation, and even secrecy, for those who had inexplicably settled in Roman Catholic regions. Edouard theorized, though without any evidence, that ancient heavily forested areas might be a place of security. Here people might live simpler lives on the margins of the more robust, more historic peoples of Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, or even the former East Prussian state, lately a part of Russia: Kaliningrad. Further, he had read somewhere that the forest peoples were shy, clandestine, torpid, phlegmatic, withdrawn, and untrusting. Also, passive, listless, unforthcoming, sullen, and habitually morose. 

Was that in his blood? Edouard Ilman cared less about which patch of woodland the Ilmans sprang from; instead, were there any who somehow “stood out” as extraordinary in the past as he still hoped he might in his lifetime? Perhaps his Ilman forbears had just been “regular” folks? Were they the “salt of the earth?” Puzzling.

 PNZ ( P.N. Zoytlow or PNZ), the author /compiler of this work, wishes to affirm that he is the narrator of the Ilman story. He has used what materials were made available to him by the estate of Edouard Ilman. After the “debacle” (Ilman’s word) of the meeting at Galena in 1997, Ilman was “fed up” with the whole project and never went near it again. He was also “fed up” with the state of Illinois and moved to West Virginia in 1993. In this manuscript, I saw a chance to offer a new view of something Edouard Ilman may not have seen: what social science refers to as “ordinary” human beings. True, Edouard Ilman was capable of entertaining the same question, rooting around the edges, but he may also have sensed how elusive ordinariness is. Or he may have lacked the necessary credentials to attempt an answer? Throughout, I have remained faithful to the Ilman record and have provided only occasional emendations. 

I dug around a lot to see where these folks fit into the Big Picture. I have tentatively decided that this family, the ones on the dock and whatever others may have been at home, were members of an obscure minority. The Sub-Minister of Emigration had them listed at “Transdanubia C,” which meant precisely what? They had a familiarity with Hungarian, but speculation would have it that they may have been an enclave of Hunnic Folk or proto-Goths who lived in obscurity and were bypassed by other broad national trends in Central/Eastern Europe. When the map of Europe changed after 1918, a kind of “Transdanubian Bubble” appeared at the Lisbon Congress of Olologists (1923). The meaning of this curious term, Oologists, is lost; it probably refers to a plethora of academics who have degrees that end in “-ology.”) Suddenly everyone (in many disciplines) wanted a part of the mysterious enclave that had escaped the peasantry’s Magyarization. In the frantic search for academic positions in the mid-1920s, it was highly advantageous to know something about Transdanubia. By that time, the Ilman parents were dead; no one knew how to find the departed siblings in America. And so the effort to bring light to the matter collapsed. The term “Transdanubia” fell into disuse.) 

Editors Note: IMPORTANT! Some readers may appreciate a clarification: This work is a history (a partial one) of a family with the surname Ilman. The collector of this information was Edouard Ilman (1939-2008). He left the manuscript to his friend, P.N. Zoytlow, who submitted it for publication in 2015. It was repeatedly rejected by publishers and by the more literary magazines. American immigrant stories were not selling. Hence, Zoytlow and the Editor (DGB) decided to publish privately. P.N. Zoytlow has also kindly allowed this Editor to offer such comments within the text as may be useful to the public.

2/ THE DOCK

Five persons arranged themselves in front of the official under an awning at the dock entrance. He glanced at them, looked towards the sea, and then took his time refreshing the ink pads on the countertop. He had seen their kind before: emigrants, country folk, shabby people. Make them wait since any gratuity they might offer would likely be small.

“I am “Bill” Ilman. Three of us are going to Chicago.” said the tallest of the five. He had a groomed mustache, something the official had not expected. Nor did he expect the tone, rather bold for a bumpkin. “You can wait! Chicago isn’t going anywhere,” he growled. “I see five persons here. Which three?”

“Bill” indicated the thin young male and the kerchiefed female standing nearby. “Travhnar and Mehna,” he said simply. The other persons, unacknowledged, were shorter, tired-looking, and apprehensive in the presence of someone in uniform, with a visored cap, and a complicated-looking badge. All five had emerged that morning from the darkness of the ancient forest, their home. 

The official set aside his busy-work, met “Bill’s” scowling eyes, and took an interest in the group. There were a few questions, after all. But he learned little. Only that the Ilmans lived in the woods, just where it was never established and that “Bill” was 23, Travhnar 20, and sister Mehna either a year younger or older than Travhnar, no one was sure. The official sensed that the oldest of the three emigrants was the dominant one, and to him, he directed his attention. 

And so it had been for as long as anyone could remember. The old couple, the parents, had lost control years ago, unprepared to deal with a son who spurned any family complaints or constraints. “Bill” came and went as he pleased and disappeared for as long a two or three weeks. No one asked where or why. His father feared him. His mother stood by him, as her firstborn, but was often speechless in “Bill’s” presence. Travhnar and Mehna avoided him. They were docile, especially Mehna. “Bill” had convinced Mehna that she was nothing: repellent, an ugly rodent with no hope of marriage. “You do smell, you know. And you are the most boring person I know. I never yet heard you laugh. Well, you can laugh at yourself since I am sure everyone you meet will already be laughing.” And so on. Mehna hid her feelings but at such times might flee to a mossy forest clearing where she stared at nothing in particular. 

As for Travhnar, he learned that he was, and forever would be, a loser, too stupid to ever make a mark on the world. “You are,” said “Bill,” a pail of water with a wooden fork in it. Pull out the fork, and soon, there will be nothing but a smooth surface.” He liked to punch Travhnar and pinch Mehna–not often, just enough to establish his control over this cottage in a primeval forest. Travhnar was also the victim of cruel pranks, which would be recalled but never repaid.

Both Travhnar and his sister hated “Bill,” but they had no sympathy from their taciturn parents. They recognized his authority and sensed their dependence on him. Their helplessness increased with the decision to emigrate, as unlikely as that had seemed just a few weeks earlier.

Even earlier, near mid-summer, an older man with a well-groomed mustache, the kind that demanded respect (and which “Bill” now imitated), appeared. He arrived in a carriage, also unusual. The twisting paths were narrow, used with some difficulty by anything other than persons walking or on a horse. Parents and siblings gaped at the appearance of such a person. “Bill” nonchalantly greeted the man climbing down from the carriage. Here was the Sub-Minister of Emigration! “Bill” knew that man was coming but had not informed anyone. He also knew why this lofty civil servant had appeared.

“Bill” was nearly twenty-three and working in the provincial capital. His job: loading potatoes and rutabagas onto railroad cars–as joyless a job as digging them out of the soil. However, the job did take him to the town where ever-garrulous and cocksure, he learned what he could of the outside world. Much of the talk was about America, and “Bill” was smitten and soon adopted his alternative name. The use of quotation marks was by someone who had kindly advised him to drop the exclamation. And so, Bill! became “Bill.” Before long, mainly to humor him, people did just that; they called him “Bill.” He was already “Bill” when he caught hold of the rumor that the national government had decided to relieve rural population pressure by encouraging emigration. “Bill” met with the Sub-Minister of Emigration, who wrote “Bill” Ilman [+2?] on a list of possible émigrés.

“Bill” had given the Sub-Minister a few descriptions of his parents (“simple folk”), his sister Mehna (“shy, stubborn, not pretty”), and his younger brother, Travhnar (“slow, weak, cowardly”). Ideal for the New World, he assured the Sub-Minister, who was suppressing his glee about the likely triple bounty. If the Sub-Minster could describe a stunning future in America, there was no question that the whole family would agree. And so the man with the well-groomed and not-to-be denied waxed mustache cast a spell of the profound rewards which would come to the Ilmans. Guaranteed! Yes, their generous government would send them to only the best place. That would be Chicago. Yes? Who had not heard of Chicago? And so”Bill,” Travhnar and Mehna agreed to leave the “Old Country.” As for the nameless and silent parents, the Sub-Minister reminded them that they still had two younger children who would support the sad little farm. “You will prosper, same land, three fewer mouths to fill!” Except for the broadly-smiling “Bill,” no one else reacted to this stranger’s judgment.

Mehna and Travhnar had, in fact, not heard of Chicago. Their formal education had ended, as did their older brother’s with four elementary school years. They were moderately literate, and there were a few math skills, but that was all. “Bill,” wandering to places beyond the shadows of the forest, had learned more. His curiosity worked in tandem with his ambitions. In contrast, his brother and sister gave the impression of indifference. The Sub-Minister held the document to sign and

then handed “Bill” three envelopes. Each contained visas, other travel documents, and the equivalent of $12, which he referred to as “start-up” money. They were to appear at noon in a few weeks at the designated dock, a nearly defunct Baltic port.

The official at the dock handed the envelopes back to “Bill.” “No problems here. Your ship is there,” and he nodded towards the only ship tied up to the weathered pier. “It’s the Makrel, headed for…well, somewhere towards the West, maybe Danzig. And come back and see us when you are rich Americans!” He laughed. The tone was sarcastic, but only “Bill” caught it. He took a step back to confront the man, then thought better of it. The idea was to get to the New World, not pick a fight in the Old World.

The Danish schooner Makrel, a lingering sailing vessel in the age of steam, served the short-haul Baltic passenger and livestock trade with a preference for sheep, goats, and swine. Space set aside for humans was an afterthought. The only humans who were boarding were the young Ilmans with those cheap grey canvas satchels that would shout “immigrant!” in the United States. At the time, all bore the surname Ilman. Later, depending on which bored Immigration Officers processed them at Ellis Island, some names were scratched out and replaced. The Ilmans were not inclined to challenge any errors imposed on them. 

The Makrel departed westward under a featureless sky and an uneven breeze. The destination was either Lübeck or Wismar, depending on the cargo. “Bill” hoped for Lübeck, where they could more quickly transfer by train to Bremen to board the scheduled transatlantic steamer. The Makrel was cramped and filthy. Below decks were stalls for horses, sheep, and swine. Wedged between them were bunks for passengers. “Bill” preferred the open deck; Mehna and Travhnar tried to sleep below. Debilitating seasickness tormented Mehna and was apparent from the

moment she boarded and felt an unfamiliar rocking beneath her. Consequently, Mehna stayed below deck, retching as discreetly as possible beside her narrow bunk. Nearby, she heard the stomping, vocalizations and urinating of a mare. Travhnar found the last available place to lie, a thin mattress on a plank suspended over a pen with two mature swine: one boar, one sow. He spent much of the journey in the grip of great dread– falling onto the huge boar who would surely crush and devour him. On his second night, he tied himself onto the plank.

The three Ilmans rarely saw each other while on the Makrel. Occasionally, Mehna glimpsed “Bill” as far up the bow as was allowed while she stood at the stern, purging her lungs of equine stench. Travhnar had found a shaded place behind the lifeboat. “Bill” noticed him there and glared his disapproval. His brother and sister disgusted him, and now that he no longer needed them as bait for the Sub-Minister of Emigration, well, of what further uses were they?

3/ CROSSING

The S.S. Flensburg was a recent addition to a growing German steamship company serving the increasing immigrant traffic across the Atlantic, mainly New York and sometimes to Brazil. Having formed their ideas of what a ship was with the Makrel, Mehna and Travhnar were unprepared for the monstrous black hulk towering above them. The bawling voices of stewards and baggage handlers, odd odors, and the unfamiliar yabbering of so many drab passengers caused them to feel apprehension and near-terror. When the somber bass of liner’s horn sounded, Travhnar began to think of a retreat–anywhere but not into the bowels of an iron leviathan.

As it was, the Sub-Minister of Emigration had anticipated such fears. The envelopes provided directions on transfers from the Makrel to the Flensburg and Chicago by train. None of the six languages in the documents were familiar to Travhnar, so he shared them with various persons of authority along the way: conductors, porters, or police officers. In Bremenhaven, the guard at the bottom of the gangplank tried to explain that they were to board the ship, find their section number in the 4th Class, below the stern. Males to starboard, females to port! Failing to notice a sign of comprehension, the guard assigned a steward to walk them to their quarters. 

Mehna and Travhnar were as helpless as anyone on that dock. Both were only minimally educated, spoke only a dialect of something vaguely Central European (Transdanubian?), lacked a basic sense of geography, and felt abandoned by their older brother. However, both had expected to meet him without making any appropriate arrangements. Since disembarking the Makrel, anxious scanning was something they did most of the day. After the ship docked at Lübeck, Mehna and Travhnar lost “Bill” entirely. On the train to Bremerhaven, where the steamer Flensburg awaited them for the trans-Atlantic passage, their older brother was absent again. Neither would learn what became of “Bill,” and they considered, briefly, that he changed his mind and inexplicably reversed the journey to resume his life at home. Who knew? They had unconsciously been counting on him. Now, “Bill,” the architect of all this change, was gone. For all they knew, by design?” He had given Mehna and Travhnar their envelopes in Lübeck with the documentation and American banknotes. Could it be that “Bill” had dumped them?

In her steerage bunk, Mehna found some relief from her seasickness and willed herself to keep down one meal a day for the ten days of the passage. Women and girls of all ages from Central and Eastern Europe shared the sleeping and eating areas. By degrees, persons who shared an ethnic background found each other for companionship and reassurance. Others listened for a language that they understood, and the mood gradually changed from wariness to conviviality. Songs. Some dancing. Laughter. After a few days, Mehna still had not been absorbed by one or another group. Finally, a Bulgar woman organized an effort to place Mehna by having six women ask her something simple in whatever languages they spoke or knew. Still, Mehna only looked more alone and fearful. Was she a mute? No one knew where she was from, just that she was going to “Sheekahga” like most of them. Finally, desperate to escape their focus, Mehna attempted to disappear by covering her ears and eyes and turning towards the wall. Two of the women, well-intentioned, signaled silence. “Leave her be!” one bellowed.  

As a quiet child, perhaps a joyless one, Mehna maintained a facial mask with little suggestion of what she thought. As “Bill” often pointed out, “You never laugh. Do you even know how? I like to laugh, and I like to laugh at you!” Her parents seldom laughed, and while brother Travhnar could laugh, he often managed only a toothy smile on his broad face. “You and your lunatic look!” said “Bill.” Mehna was serious and approached the world with a studied impassivity and spoke, when she did, in a monotone with only her tight mouth moving on an otherwise frozen face. She had, in fact, never smiled. Not once. Even as a child. 

Travhnar worried about her. When they met at the Flensburg’s stern on milder days, he began to share the English he was learning in the men’s section. There, his welcoming face had brought him into contact with two Scottish brothers, nearly his age, who had decided to arm him with basic English so that he would not fall into victimhood in the New World. An older Hungarian completed the trio of mentors. Unlike his sister, Travhnar had gone to school for four years, a year longer than her three, in which the language was exclusively Hungarian. With these three, he learned at a rate that pleased his mentors and allowed them to feel that they had been good Christians by helping the lowliest among them. Her brother Travhnar met her daily at the stern railing and, with a reassuring smile, made droll remarks about the Flensburg’s foaming wash roiling behind them. “I will get you a rope so that you can dip your laundry into that water! You will then hold the rope while I take soap and go in also to get clean myself! But you must be careful not to let the rope slip away, for then I must swim to New York.” Small witticisms, he hoped, would keep her spirits up. She could not take his comments as anything other than serious. Was he asking her to disrobe while her clothes were in the sea? “Please tell me again what to do in New York,” murmured Mehna. And Travhnar would daily recite the sequence from Ellis Island to Chicago. And don’t forget to memorize the word ‘Transdanubia’ because someone will want to know, and you have to come from somewhere.” In the female section, she uttered the word to anyone who happened to be around. The others stared at her, amazed to hear a sound and puzzled at what she had said. Feeling better, Mehna returned to the smelly sleeping area, lay on her bunk, and tried to make some sense of an unfamiliar concept: her future. 

In New York, women and men were processed separately off the ship and through immigration. Travhnar had advised his sister to look into the face of the immigration officer and, in as strong a voice as she could muster, say, “Mehna Ilman, Transdanubia.” Travhnar had enough confidence in his minuscule new basic English vocabulary to efficiently face the agents. There were long queues, and the process took many hours. Their documents showed new spellings for their last names when it was over.

Mehna (now Mehna Eelman) and her brother, Travhnar (now Travhnar Wheelmann), joined others heading for Manhattan’s railroad stations. Despite having made arrangements to meet, Travhnar and Mehna, though being on the same train to Chicago, never saw each other again. 

And “Bill” Illman? Had he run out on his brother and sister? He was the first to leave the Makrel and fairly ran through the twisted streets of Lübeck, headed nowhere near the train depot. He had a plan and the confidence to make it work. At the steamship company’s office, he managed to explain that he had to cancel his passage on the S.S. Flensburg.  Minus a one-percent service charge, this yielded a full refund. For a month, “Bill” sought out gamblers in the beerhalls of Lübeck and an occasional whore as well. 

The gambling generated a modest sum: enough for crossing the Atlantic and nearly sixty dollars extra. He bought a second-class ticket on the Flensburg when she steamed again towards New York five weeks later. During the crossing, “Bill” discovered men playing cards and his aptitude for learning languages as well as forgetting them once they were useless to him. Whatever his original tongue, he exchanged it for, successively, English, some Spanish, eventually Lakota, and finally, a modest vocabulary in Tagalog. On the passage across the Atlantic, he found a year-old New York Times beneath the mattress of his bunk and, with the help of an Irishman, began the laborious project of learning to speak and read English. The paper featured a detailed chronicle for the twentieth anniversary of a massacre of U.S. Cavalry in the Far West under the martyred General Custer’s command. “Bill” worked over this story until he understood it, and by the time the Flensburg arrived in New York was determined without delay to join the Army that must somehow avenge this Custer. So began his career, rising from ignorant enlistee (but one who had retained his original name at Ellis Island) to the rank of Sargent “Bill” Ilman– destined to die of his wounds in the service of his new country. 

Did “Bill” think about his siblings? That is unknowable, but there is no hint that he did. Some years later, his wife had not heard of them. Nor did he list them as the family to be contacted “in case” he should die in the service of his new country. It is more likely that he never understood their immigration to be other than an extension of his own. He had used them as long as he needed to and refused to drag them along. They were dead weight. 

4/ TRAVHNAR WHEELMANN

The train approached Chicago. Travhnar Ilman, now Travhnar Wheelmann, walked through all the coaches twice, looking for Mehna, but she had already disembarked and moved on to her peculiar destiny. After leaving the train from its last coach, he strode ahead to the engine and stood near the heat and hissing of this oily thing, something he had rarely seen in his homeland and never this close. Unexpectedly the locomotive brought a sharp and unpleasant memory from a decade earlier. Brother “Bill” and his father had trapped a large wild boar near the cabbage plot. The beast had eaten and trampled cabbages for several nights, and now it was time to put an end to it. The trap had snapped on the front left trotter, and the boar announced his entrapment early one morning by screaming in pain. “Bill,” Travhnar and their father rushed over to see. “Bill” had an ax. Joyously, he clubbed at the head of the furious boar until the beast toppled and convulsed.

Meanwhile, Travhnar had turned his back. “Bill” noticed that his younger brother had not enjoyed the spectacle and was weeping. He ordered Travhnar to squat in front of this monster’s face. Travhnar looked at his father, hoping for some indulgence of his tenderness towards the dying animal. His father stood and said nothing. Hoping to redeem himself after this display of unmanliness, Travhnar forced himself to stare into the face of the beast. Then, “Bill” stomped on its chest, which caused a frothy, gurgling exhalation to explode into the younger boy’s face. Travhnar fell backward, scrambled to his feet, and ran home. “Bill” laughed, but the torment was incomplete. After slaughtering this mountain of meat, “Bill” cut off the snout and hid it under Travhnar’s pillow despite the timid protestations of his mother. For the rest of his time at home, Travhnar checked under his pillow at night.

Abruptly leaving the locomotive, Travhnar regained his cheerfulness and entered the station’s waiting room. The oak benches held only strangers, not Mehna. Seeing a route map on the wall, Travhnar began to search for a connection to places north of the city.

Unlike his sister, and mostly when away from “Bill,” Travhnar was a talker. Both on the Flensburg and the train, he struck up conversations at first halting and then moderately confident in the English language. Like Mehna, he never met anyone who spoke whatever it was he had used the first eighteen years of his life. Did his native tongue have a name? He did not know; no one seemed to know. His excitement at being on the Atlantic Ocean or in another country made people smile and made them willing to spend time with him. Westbound and wide awake on the train, he asked men, “Hello, Mister, where you go, what you do?.” a useful phrase he had quickly mastered. With each response, if understood, Travhnar walked to examine a route map on the wall of the last car: St. Louis, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and then the lesser-known Rockford, Kankakee, Waukegan, or Duluth.

Of the three smaller cities in Illinois, Travhnar chose Waukegan because he liked the sound. He had developed a good feeling about it and, coincidentally, the sound “waw” meant “trousers” in his language of origin. Somewhere in Ohio, Travhnar sat near a family with two daughters with blond and ribboned braids who told him about Waukegan.

 “You would like our new park along the lake,” said the father

“Waukegan is an Indian word!” said the older daughter. 

“Potawatomi!” shrieked the younger daughter.  

“All kinds of churches.” said the mother.

“God loves Illinois,” whispered the older daughter.

“A carnival in May!” added the father. ” Moose Club puts it on.”

“It’s the Elks. The BPOE,” said the mother.

With each new and friendly snippet of information, Travhnar smiled more broadly. He was a naturally good sport. What, after all, could have been more unfamiliar to him than these totemic American service clubs? 

Husband, wife, and the two blond daughters: all spoke with emotion and pride born of likely homesickness for their city on Lake Michigan. 

“So, whaddya do for a living…ah…. what’s the name?” asked the father.

“I am Travhnar Wheelmann, and I am living,” said Travhnar, puzzled about the implication that he was not alive. Could that be what he heard? He was breathing, after all.

“Oh, you will be a fine American.” said the wife. 

“I make the bicycle of wood!” said Travhnar with enthusiasm.

“Well,” said the man, startled, “no one can say you don’t have the perfect name for such an enterprise.” But that subtlety was lost on Travhnar, not yet accustomed to his altered surname or familiar with the word “enterprise.” Such matters lay ahead. So Travhnar decided on Waukegan. 

On the LaSalle Street Station platform, having inspected the train on the inside for Mehna, Travhnar once more walked the length of the train, pausing again to savor the sound and smells of the hissing engine. He entered the waiting room only then, but Mehna had already departed. Neither was the friendly Waukegan-bound family to be seen, the ones who might advise him which train to take. Travhnar asked a station agent how to connect to the train to Waukegan. He arrived at Waukegan in the early evening of that same day with some luck. As has already been said, no one spoke his language (in fact, he never heard it again), and his English was rudimentary. Nor was it possible to find a helpful Magyar who would assist him with his school Hungarian. 

Years later, he told his son Stephan that he looked for an omen upon arrival in Waukegan. A man on a bicycle satisfied that need. Travhnar followed the man, who pedaled timidly over the rutted street until he stopped at a tavern, the Old Ulster. It was a gathering place for Waukegan’s Irish and a boarding house.

With his grey canvas immigrant’s bag, no one would assume that Travhnar was anything but a newcomer. The bartender, a man named Monahan, asked Travhnar where he was from and received the standard answer of

“Transdanubia.” Monahan had a loud voice and bawled, “Anyone? Where’s Transdanubia? We have a Transdanubian here!” Of course, no one answered, though most stared at Travhnar, and a few shook their heads. This question determined if the newcomer was from anywhere known to have enmity towards the Irish. Such folks would have to leave and quickly. Monahan liked to head off trouble before it began.

Despite the air of menace and brawling on the weekends, Travhnar lived at the Old Ulster for nearly two months, a critical time in which he worked in the kitchen and came to like the boiled dinner served in the dining hall and the thick breakfast oatmeal. Within a short time, he met Kathleen Kelly, Monahan’s niece, who, at twenty-three, was a few years older and eons worldlier than Travhnar. Kathleen despised her uncle, and she also loathed the men standing at the bar who leered at her. Especially the ones who would propose marriage, a contract sure to be sullied once they “had their way,” as she expressed it. Kathleen Kelly was not pretty and had what her uncle assured her was a “horse face,” which would surely narrow her marital prospects. Anyway, she had little apparent interest in sex, which she was sure was a mean-spirited arrangement involving insensitive, sweaty men in oily work clothes. Travhnar was not one of them. She called him “Dooby” for Transdanubia though she knew he had a real name, a stately one, Travhnar Wheelmann. He called her either Kathleen or Kelly, whichever name came to mind first. Were they not almost the same? Since Travhnar had never thought much about women in his life, he posed no threat to her. He did the dishes and helped prepare boiled dinners.

Kathleen served it up and brought him pile after pile of grease and grime from the vulgarians in the dining room. And then, of course, something changed.

Kathleen began to rethink her evolving spinsterhood, and “Dooby” started to confide in her about the promising designs in his head, the ones that featured bicycles. One day he said to her, “I make you oak and maple bicycle with willow seat!”. That was not proof that he was a simpleton, not to her, at least. It was, rather, an expression of his interest in her, the first

such indication she had had or wanted to have. Then they talked into the night after the Old Ulster closed. She kissed him. He blushed and laughed his big-hearted laugh and told her he would build a second bicycle for himself, and they would ride together. And so on. Much of their courtship was talk of the future wooden bike. Kathleen learned little else about him, and she did not care anyway. She was unaware that he had siblings. She did not know he was Ilman and not Wheelman. True, her curiosity about him had its limits. He was decent, clean, took directions, and seemed content without the little extras of life. Eventually, a few nights later, she proposed marriage and kissed him for the second time. He nodded and laughed. They were married in early 1902.

Did Travhnar reflect on his marriage and how it happened? Probably not. He was not a reflective man, and other than some little thought for the future rooted most of his thinking in the day-to-day. It suited him to let his life be decided for him, not to be the one to choose. He was a poor businessman, and only Kathleen pointed out those things that should have been obvious to him, such as the unlikely success of wooden bicycles. But that was not something she concluded overnight. Kathleen Kelly was also a stranger in Waukegan. Less than a year before Travhnar, Kathleen had arrived as a raven-haired, plain-looking “wench,” which was her uncle’s term for her. She hated him from the start and suspected he would not keep his paws off her indefinitely. She told Travhnar, “I hate him I do, and oh, I hate him so.” (She had an ear for the odd British Isles speech patterns overheard in her uncle’s bar.) 

Kathleen had some savings, and the hated uncle provided a dowry, which he gave up grudgingly. Kathleen had a keen sense for real estate; Travhnar had none. It would be her duplex. Each level had one bedroom, a toilet with a bathtub in a closet off the kitchen, and a larger room that would serve as a living room/dining room. Each unit had its front door and its own address, thus 417 and 419 West Second Street. They moved in during the fourth month of her pregnancy, and by the seventh month, Kathleen complained of her insomnia, which she readily blamed on her husband’s mild snoring. Without remorse, she stated that her rest was critical during her “confinement” (as she called it), and so she bought a single bed, a few pieces of used furniture, and kitchen equipment and moved upstairs to Number 419. The change was permanent. Travhnar, without a concept of marriage other than what he might have absorbed in “Transdanubia,” gave it no thought. Two months later, in mid-morning, she shouted down the back stairway: “Dooby! Get the midwife! Dooby!! “

Stephen was born on an afternoon in December 1902. For the first year of his life, he stayed upstairs with his mother except for those times she worked as a receptionist at the Waukegan House downtown. Then Stephen was in the care of his father downstairs. His lower flat now featured a bedroom/lumber room and workshop [the former living/dining areas]. Kathleen Kelly Wheelmann lived upstairs. This arrangement was permanent.

Editor’s note: Readers, both the voyeuristic and the merely curious, will wonder about the sex lives of Kathleen Kelly and Travhnar Wheelmann. There is no record of that, no testimonial, and no speculation by their son, Stephan. Kindly recall that such revelations were relatively uncommon and thought of as too personal at that time. 

Travhnar and Kathleen were slow to make friends. What others thought of their marriage is unknown, but both may have wed for something that marriage might supply. It was the more certain existence as a wife than a barmaid for Kathleen. She had sound judgment regarding men and assessed her young husband as “harmless” and as one who would not require much of her time and effort.  

For Travhnar, the train’s encounter with the Waukegan family created a success model. A businessman has to have a family, live in a house, and belong to something. Travhnar Wheelmann, indifferent to religion, joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, where he was popular and respected. His relationship with Kathleen remained cordial, distant, and devoid of passion. He did not love her, nor did she love him. As both Kathleen and Travhnar would have expressed it, “we get along.”

[Editor]: A generation later, details may shed some light on the Ilman notion of family life. Mehna, chores permitting while in Transdanubia, sometimes stole away to a small but sunny clearing in the forest. It was her place, and there were no established paths. “Bill” knew nothing of this; he would have spoiled it for her. Occasionally, she invited Travhnar along. The forest was old, and the trees were green with mosses. The filtering sunlight created a verdant ambiance. Mehna sat on a fallen log, careful to avoid the thicker mosses. There was wildlife: quail, squirrel, and wood rats. Mehna and her brother sat silently and watched. The creatures in the clearing had their progeny in early summer, but by late summer, all went their separate ways and, in fact, became strangers to the other. In effect, siblings forgot siblings, and parents forgot their young and seemed, in most cases, to ignore each other. To Mehna and her brother, that was just the way things were.[PNZ related this to me but excluded it from the text for an undisclosed reason.] 

1903 Travhnar appeared in the City Directory as a “cbntmkr.” At the same time, a small advertisement appeared in the Waukegan Sun-Gazeteer, which read:

T. Wheelmann       

        NYÚL Products   

Wooden Manufactory

417 West Second Street 

The woman in charge of arranging ads in the paper had tried to dissuade Travhnar from both the use of “Manufactory” and NYÚL,” but he was unusually adamant. Simply calling it “Products” or the more common “Works” did not match his pride in the new “enterprise,” as the man on the train had termed it. As for “NYÚL,” this was one of the Hungarian words learned in an elementary school, one of the few he remembered in that language. (There was no Instruction in Transdanubian.) Besides, it was the word adapted for use in the Ilman family. It meant “rabbit,” and as a taunt to a less than manly man, i.e., “without balls.” Travhnar had heard the expression often, snarled at him by his father, and “Bill.” He still winced at the memory of it. Since he was not comfortable with vulgarities, Travhnar avoided a detailed explanation of what NYÚL meant. “It is a hare back home,” he told Kathleen, “a great hare,” though this forced him to tell a small lie. Travhnar’s spoken English, mixed in with words from other immigrant languages in Waukegan, was nevertheless improving. “Good name for bicycle!” was what he told her. “Wood bicycle!” 

Travhnar and NYÚL products did not produce (or any) wooden bicycles. Nor was a prototype model ever crafted. Kathleen, who got out of the house more often than her husband, told him that all she saw downtown was tubular steel dominating the cycling market. Besides, a wooden bike would be creaky and swell in humid weather. And so, Travhnar began to make kitchen stools and wooden toys; he specialized in sets of building blocks, small cars, trucks, tugboats, locomotives, and flat cars. 

When Stephen was six years old, Travhnar took him on the road four times a year to county fairs in northern Illinois, as far west as Ogle County, to set up a canvas sunshade beneath which Stephen sat on a tan blanket and played with his father’s toys. In the town of Oregon, Illinois, Stephen showed his aptitude for sales. When asked by fair visitors how he liked playing with the blocks, he said: “I really likes ’em.” which subsequently became something of a motto for the NYÚL Toy Manufactory. Travhnar encouraged the boy to repeat the slogan whenever people stopped. For a few years, Travhnar experimented with selling, at Christmas and Easter, sets of five of his creations in a red box, which included a sketch of a young flaxen-haired boy with freckles (neither described Stephen) smiling broadly, with the “I really likes ’em” in a speech bubble above his head.

Whatever had happened, if anything definite, between his parents, was lost on Stephen. They seemed amicably indifferent to each other and to their arrangement. Neither spoke much to the other except, occasionally, to review the day’s weather. Neither had encouraged the use of “Mother” and “Father” for their child. Instead, the woman upstairs was known to him as Kathleen and the man downstairs as Travvy. Stephen had a simple cot on each floor and took his meals in each place on an alternating schedule. He never doubted that his childhood was happily ordinary, no different from that of other boys in Waukegan. Travhnar was a satisfied man. A family man not unlike the family he had met on the train.

5/ MEHNA EELMAN

Mehna surprised herself by falling asleep on the New York Central to Chicago. Until boarding the Makrel, she had known only a cot near the stove at home. Now, she had slept from Albany until nearly Buffalo, relieved to exchange the train’s forward motion for the Flensburg’s rocking. Asleep again in Ohio, she opened her eyes at Gary and was fully awake when the train entered Chicago. She was nearly eighteen, large-boned and robust. Her black kerchief hid her dun-colored hair still twisted into the uneven braids her mother had fashioned for her. Mehna was attractive, but probably not in Chicago, where the preferred look of a young woman did not favor a narrow face, an upturn of the large nose, nor those generous eyebrows which nearly met. But her eyes, light brown or grey depending on whatever light was available, suggested a frank questioning quality which, coupled with her small, thin mouth, gave Mehna a no-nonsense, somewhat severe demeanor. Brother “Bill” had, of course, convinced her of her ugliness, and so she imagined that she easily repulsed others. 

Mehna shifted the grey canvas satchel awkwardly from her left hand to her right. It was not heavy, but she had favored the right arm since the family cow trampled her wrist and broke it. Her mother had bound it tightly, but it never set correctly, and her hand now angled off. “Bill” had been involved. Mehna was three and “Bill” a few years older. He pushed her into the pen with a cow known to be irritable. Then he ran off and told his father that Mehna had broken a rule and entered the pen. Her father hurried to the enclosure but was too late. Mehna had an imperfect recollection of the event but dimly knew that it involved “Bill.” For some years, he taunted her about her misshapen wrist.

She scanned the platform for her younger brother but did not see him, nor had she seen him on the train. Now she regretted sleeping so long and with her back to the aisle. Travhnar might have walked past and missed her. They had made no arrangements to meet in Chicago. Like half the men she now saw, Travhnar was wearing dark work clothes and a worker’s cap to match. Which one of the dozens then on the platform was her brother?

She walked into the spacious waiting room, but a well-dressed woman with an immense ostrich-feather hat approached before she reached the door. She smiled and beckoned to Mehna, said a few words in English, then German, and finally in halting Polish; none of these brought a spark to Mehna’s downcast eyes. The woman raised a kid-gloved index finger, meaning that Mehna should wait for something. She searched in her purse and found a card; she held it up for Mehna to see. On it was a series of small sketches, neat stick figures in postures of sweeping, washing, cooking, and leading a small child by the hand. “Yes? You do this work?” said the woman, nodding vigorously. Then more nodding as the woman tapped Mehna’s elbow: “Yes, yes, yes?” From Mehna, one more furtive glance down the nearly empty platform and then an assenting nod. 

Satchel in hand, Mehna followed the woman to a waiting carriage drawn by a dappled mare. On a perch sat the drover, a black man who wished to point out the city’s impressive sights, but Mehna did not understand English, nor did she want to acknowledge such a strange man. Meanwhile, her new employer and mistress, Virginia Tooms, kept a flow of chatter going as she waved to onlookers on the sidewalks while heading north on Michigan Avenue. 

In the Toom’s large stone house on the near north side, Mehna began her duties under an older Polish woman’s tutelage. The woman, quite arthritic, could no longer do many of the nursery’s routine tasks. Caring for the Tooms two-year-old, Rudder, was out of the question. So Mehna shadowed the old Pole and learned the basics of household English and copied her actions. After the older woman departed, Mrs. Tooms realized that Mehna still spoke rudimentary and strangely accented English. Now expecting a second child and planning a third, Virginia Tooms decided that clearer English was necessary since Mehna would have frequent contact with the children. The solution was English classes taught evenings in the basement of a nearby Episcopal church, the one the Tooms attended. There she made steady progress, aided by never hearing anyone speak in the language of far-off Transdanubia.

Mehna found a secure niche in the Tooms household and remained there for more than a decade. Unique to her linguistic development was the Toom’s use of their large home as a setting to discuss ideas. Intellectuals, reformers, and eccentrics came to sit around the enormous dining room table. Mehna, seated within comfortable hearing range in the serving pantry, awaited a bell to signal that someone from the world of politics, medicine, or religion required a fresh napkin or another pot of tea. Meanwhile, Virginia Tooms and her husband, Edwin, an editor at a Chicago daily, managed to create a salon to which Marxists, Eugenicists, Spiritualists, Agnostics, and Vegetarians, and others of interest and often with strong viewpoints gathered to thrash out the “Concerns of the Day” as Virginia liked to refer to them. Edwin Tooms sometimes reported those topics in his column in the Tuesday paper. Of these, the eugenics people were the most frequent visitors. Of the many points of view overheard by Mehna Eelman, the most problematic ones were discussions of venereal disease, feeble-mindedness, and nutrition. Mehna became a convinced Fletcherizer, persons convinced by Howard Fletcher, known as the Great Masticator, (ideas often heard at the Tooms salon) to chew your food at least 32 times on each side of your mouth until it “swallowed itself.” To the end of her days, Mehna followed Fletcher’s advice, and he was the one person Mehna might have been honestly interested in seeing had he appeared in person at the Tooms. 

On a morning perhaps two years after Mehna had arrived at the Tooms, Virginia Tooms called Mehna to the library where she sat writing.

“Mehna?”

“Yes, Mrs. Tooms?”

“Are you happy here in Chicago, I mean with us, at this house?

“Yes, Mrs. Tooms?”

“Are you ever homesick? Do you miss your family in ah, Transylvania?”

Mehna understood the question but did not like it. She shrugged her shoulders and looked at her shoes. That was Mehna’s usual response, and Mrs. Tooms anticipated it. She had never heard of Transylvania and, besides, Mrs. Tooms was asking about her feelings. An awful business!

“Mehna, we want you to be happy here.” 

“OK, Mrs. Tooms?”

“I worry that you are not happy here because we have never seen you smile.” Mr. Tooms says the same thing. He worries that you are too, um, severe to spend so much time with Rudder and his little sister.” “Phlegmatic” was the term Edwin Tooms had applied to Mehna, though Virginia Tooms did not bother to pass that along.

Another shrug. “OK. Mrs. Tooms?” She wanted to be excused.

“And do you, Mehna, have a future in mind for yourself here in America, or will you be one of those who, um, return to the Old Country?” Mrs. Tooms used the expression ‘the old country” with immigrants since it was challenging to recall who came from where and “old country” seemed to be understood by most. It was also an expression spoken with a tone of slight disapproval. In the case of Mehna, she doubted if she ever knew more than that her children’s nanny was not of the preferred English, German, or Danish stock. And that she was taciturn. Any talks between the Tooms about replacing Mehna ended when both realized that Rudder and his sister liked their nanny. In private, Mehna tolerated their teasing and covert use of foul language.

“Can’t someone convince her not to end every damn sentence as if it were a question?” grumbled Edwin Tooms. But no one could, and “phlegmatic” was what Mehna was and how she remained though, almost secretly, she knew English rather well after a few more years with the Tooms. But Mehna did not smile, nor was she prone to converse at length. Other than day-to-day topics, few further personal encounters between mistress and nanny took place.

When Mehna left the Tooms in late 1911, she had a definite plan. During her last years of service, she had used her off day (Sunday) to deepen her interest in religion, generally, and more specifically, by the time she left, in a worship community, the Sinai Brethren of the Holy Table. Her interest in religion had been sporadic. With improved English language skills, Mehna became a reader and an eavesdropper. The Tooms had frequent guests, and Mehna had many vantage points from which to eavesdrop.. Occasionally, it was a Methodist group and, at other times, visitors from different points of view: Spiritualism, Judaism, other Protestant groups (but no Roman Catholics). If there was a prevailing secular theme, it was a concern for salvation and improvement of “the race.” Mr. Tooms was partial to “the new science” of eugenics. Mehna had once heard a violent argument involving a Scottish guest and Edwin Tooms over the best means to encourage social betterment: genetic or spiritual. Mehna leaned towards the spiritual and had little personal interest in who gave birth to whom. She had no love interests. That was a subject that Mrs. Tooms brought up from time to time: did not Mehna dream of a family of her own someday? If she did, she wasn’t saying and, as in so many matters regarding her servant, Virginia Toomsend ended with knowing nothing. Even her observation that Mehna treated the children with a distant cordiality left her with little more insight. Nor did she see that when the children were older, Mehna had more time to read whatever lay around the home. 

No one knew or cared where Mehna went on her Sundays off. For years Mehna merely walked to the lakefront and ate popcorn until the effusive and winking man in the popcorn wagon once gave her the nickel bag for nothing. She chose not to go to that part of the park again and changed to a cotton candy vendor who spoke a language she did not know. Staring at Lake Michigan, tearing small wisps off her rosy cloud of cotton candy, she was annoyed when a young woman walking nearby hesitated and came to sit next to her. This was on a Sunday in April 1910

“Good Morning,” said she. Mehna looked ahead of her, fixing on some point in the lake where a silver buoy floated. She would ignore this woman. “I’ve just been to church, and Pastor asked us to share something with the first person we meet” Mehna continued her stare for a while, then said softly, “Who is Mr. Pastor?” Although her accented English was much improved because of life at the Tooms, she was dependent on their particular vocabulary, one shaped by overhearing pleasant-sounding words such as “transcendental” and “imperative,” but “pastor” was not such a word. “Oh,” said the stranger, “you’re new to us, a foreign person! And where is home? No, let me guess–you’re from Sweden.” Mehna shook her head and continued to do so with each country the woman mentioned. A futile game. She did not know the name of her country of origin other than a word: “Transdanubia.” The word meant nothing to the few people who heard it; it meant nothing to Mehna over time.

The young woman concluded that Mehna was shy. She smiled encouragingly, handed her a small pamphlet, and suggested that she read it. “I pass here every Sunday in case you want to talk.” Mehna extended her cotton candy towards the woman and said, “I thank you. I will read this. Do you eat this? it is strawberry, I think.” The woman, whose name was Daphne, took a wisp and walked off. Mehna folded the pamphlet into her purse. Usually, she would wait until the pamphlet provider was out of sight and then dispose of it in a waste barrel. This time it was different.

6/ “BILL” ILLMAN

Unlike Mehna and Travhnar, whose ideas of the New World were open-ended, “Bill,” almost from the beginning, counted on the possibilities of a military career and only in the U.S. Army: the fast track to fame. Since his chance encounter on board the Flensburg with the New York Times retrospective on the Custer Massacre of 1876, he knew that fighting Indians was the proper calling. “Bill” appeared at the office of an Army recruiter in Chicago, Illinois, and signed the papers. He wrote his name within the quotation marks as “Bill” Ilman, thus the only sibling who managed to retain something like his birth surname. Whatever name originally preceded “Bill” was not known to anyone. More than his sister and brother, “Bill” felt an urgency to fit in and forget his origins.

[PNZ: “Bill’s military service record is a reliable source for the man, something not available for his sister and brother. Mehna and Travhnar left only a scant paper trail, forcing the genealogist to rely almost entirely on their descendants. Overall, “Bill” was the most obnoxious person the family produced. Arrogant, bullying, vain, and ambitious; not a person with whom you wanted to spend much time.]

“Bill” was posted, in 1899, to Fort Yates, North Dakota. He carried a pistol in a polished leather holster and once fired a single round into the air while standing on a conical mound of dried earth at Chief Sitting Bull’s grave. He fired a second round into the grave itself. For “Bill,” this was an act of retribution for his hero, General George Armstrong Custer, Martyr of the Little Big Horn and now sorely missed (by some) as a President of the United States. He was unaware of the murder of the old Sioux Chief during a botched attempt to arrest him. “Bill’s” action, recorded by a post reporter/photographer, came to the post commander’s attention, who chose not to take any disciplinary action since “Bill” was recovering at the time of the incident from a case of frostbite. “Bill’s” several winters on the Great Plains had caused part of his right ear to darken and drop off. The photograph

did not identify the shooter and came to be interpreted as a gentlemanly gesture to honor a respected adversary. Which it was not. During his time at Fort Yates, “Bill” had petitioned the Army to change his name to Horn”Bill” Armstrong Ilman; the major refused and explained that only a civil court would change names. A kind comrade also explained to “Bill” that “Horn” would likely evolve into “Horny.” Noted in his record: the habit of swaggering while on guard duty.

[PNZ: “Bill” used his damaged ear as evidence of a combat injury, a story he told while living in Galena, Illinois. Later, while in the Philipines, he returned to the damaged ear’s actual reason. He liked to impress dwellers in the tropics with the horror of Dakota winters.]

[Editor: I argued with PNZ that the use of quotation marks to set off “Bill” was silly and would only annoy the reader. What was the point of it? What sort of a person does that? PNZ answered that it would be up to the reader to decide those questions for themselves. Since “Bill” had chosen to do so, how could we presume to correct the preferences of a deceased veteran?] 

The time “Bill” spent at Fort Yates was one of frustration. Breathless headlines tormented him: the War with Spain, Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral Dewey, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Manila, All exciting stuff–and he was not there-abandoned by fate in North Dakota.

In all of those places, he could have been the instrument of victory. His English improved, and he became a reader of military history and especially accounts of the American Civil War. Because they were both “Bills,” he now idolized the late William Tecumseh Sherman until he learned that the General’s middle name came from a celebrated Indian chieftain whom Sherman had admired. That made no sense to Bill, who despised Indians. All of them. He avoided the people around Fort Yates and had only necessary encounters.

In 1900, “Bill” was transferred to Fort Pulaski in Georgia. In fact, except for the single shot at the grave of an honored Native American, “Bill” saw no action, and his military career became increasingly haphazard and futile. The Army saw in “Bill” the perfect, enthused immigrant who would be able to attract new arrivals to American shores to embrace the military as he had. They assigned him to a windowless Chicago office with tours of duty to other communities in Northern Illinois: Naperville, Joliet, DeKalb, Elgin, Belvedere Rockford, Freeport, and Galena. Eight stops excluding the Chicago office, which was actually in Cicero. “Bill” was to establish himself with a folding table and two chairs in each location, usually in rail or bus depots. His briefcase contained the necessary forms to sign young men into the Army or the Marines and a folded American flag that he attached, if possible, on a wall behind him in some quiet corner of the terminal.

“Bill” was expected to remain in each town for five workdays, travel on Saturdays to the next place, and rest on Sundays. An entire cycle of the eight locales would take two months. When the war with Spain ended and “Bill” was required to stay on with his recruiting work– which dropped off significantly with Spain’s defeat. The end of the war came as some relief to “Bill” because he was always at his unhappiest when, for example, he had signed a farm lad into the Marines, knowing the boy would soon catch up with the likes of Teddy Roosevelt. But not “Bill,” so eager to serve the United States by looking down a gun barrel towards an enemy! So, nothing left except describing, in his accented English, the nobility of military life to others. Moreover, copious paperwork. Yes, “Bill” was disillusioned.

In mid-September 1901, “Bill” was on a train on his route’s westernmost leg. He had been this way before the journey was another layer of the boredom he could no longer shake. He began to count things. Haystacks. Manure piles. Schoolhouses. The train had just made a stop in Freeport when he heard the news: President McKinley — shot in Buffalo, New York! Several

hours later, in the depot in Galena, Illinois, a telegram awaited him: “Military. Alert. Stay. At. Present. Location.” Signed by the Secretary of the Army and addressed to “All Personnel Whether Foreign or Domestic.”

Three months later, dutifully still in Galena, “Bill” had begun to doubt the impact of the late President’s assassination on national security. He scanned the newspapers to indicate what was causing this situation. He noted that the new President, Roosevelt, moved into the White House and seemed unconcerned with security matters. “What the heck!” thought “Bill.” That afternoon he hitched a ride on a one-horse peddler’s cart headed to Dubuque, crossed the Father of Waters into Iowa, and sought to relieve his boredom. 

Mimsy was her name, just a year or two older than “Bill” and the daughter of a musician who performed evenings in the Hotel Granger. Mimsy played the accordion whenever her father took a break. They met. The child, born (out of wedlock) to them, a male, was named after her father, Martin. “Bill” never returned to Galena and forgot the Army–he had no interest in the monotony of recruiting and, besides, he had never met anyone from his target audience, Eastern Baltic immigrants, after months of waiting–so what was the point? “Bill” took a job in the hotel as a “general assistant” and carried baggage, washed glassware, and swept. It could always be worse, couldn’t it? He assured his Mimsy that it was fate that arranged their meeting–supposing you were not at the accordion that evening? Mimsy said, “what about Czolgosz? He’s the one who shot the President, which stuck you in Galena, which led you to Dubuque,” and so on? To this, “Bill” had no answer–he did not travel back along the threads of causality. Men of action do not ruminate!

When Mimsy was four months pregnant, “Bill” was arrested by a U.S Marshall for deserting the United States Army. He had failed to return to his home base in Cicero and had been declared AWOL. Brought back to Chicago in shackles, “Bill” raised no defense for his actions, nor did he plead his impending fatherhood. The Army, instead of incarcerating him, offered an alternative: two years active duty in the Philippine Islands, recently taken from Spain, a transfer which included armed suppression of an independence movement led by Filipino nationalists. “Bill” gratefully went to the Islands with enthusiasm.

[PNZ: “Bill’s” file in the U.S. Army Archives show that until the Philippines, he was regarded as something of a “loose cannon” as a result of his bravado on the grave of Sitting Bull. Such behavior was now no longer seen as a liability in the pacification of the islands,]

For the first time since the episode at Sitting Bull’s grave, “Bill” fired a gun, this time a rifle and at a living target in Luzon. Training exercises did not count. “Bill” cared little for the subtleties of the various enemy forces, nor the cease-fires, truces, treaties, and the like which were common in that time. To “Bill,” Filipinos were all dangerous, right up there with Sitting Bull and Leon Czolgosz, that “Polack fiend” as “Bill” often referred to him with Mimsy. He sometimes expressed disappointment to his platoon leader that his targets were such anonymous men, not like great Lakota chieftains, Spanish officers, or even Czolgosz, who met his end unheroically in an electric chair in 1901. 

So, “Bill” was in uniform, a rifle with a bayonet in hand, slogging through the muck of numerous inhospitable locations. He was thrilled to be there as this was a war that began when the martyred William McKinley was President. “Bill” would avenge him. He volunteered at each opportunity for dangerous duty, preferring solitary assignments into the bush. When the war ended in 1902, he” sulked in a tent with his detested comrades. He took to shooting monkeys and coconuts in the trees and earned respect as a sharpshooter. When the Moro Revolt on Mindinao broke out, “Bill’s” spirits lifted, and he left for the action. Long live war! As expected, his rifle skills meant that he got his shot off first before disappearing into the forest again. Because they had never seen him, the Moros began to imagine that “Bill” was a kind of Satanic agent, in league with that greatest of Satans, Theodore Roosevelt.

“Bill” met his end (butchered actually) on April 30th, 1903, the day the Moros had outsmarted him. He had acquired a few phrases in Tagalog and considered settling in the islands after hostilities ended. A soldier called “The Sniper King” (Bill”) was bound to have some prestige to work with when it came to a business venture. “Bill” taunted the Moros and exposed himself briefly by standing up in the jungle after each kill. The Moros chose their oldest soldier, placed him where the famous marksman would hopefully discover him, and waited. The man began to hum. “Bill” heard the tune and thought he recognized it as one Mimsy played at the Hotel Granger. How could that be? He stood up and walked towards this inexplicable sound. Three steps forward, and a spear struck him in his right temple and continued through his skull. “Bill” dropped his rifle and reached up and grasped the shaft on both sides but recalled that since this was a puncture wound, he had best leave it in place. Momentarily reassured, “Bill” turned in the direction of his base. It was then that the small man sprang up through the brush and cut a u-shaped opening in his belly. With his entrails spilling out, “Bill” dropped to the ground and expired.

Since his removal by the Army in disgrace from Dubuque, he never corresponded with Mimsy, and his death notification was her first news of him, though not technically from him. Meanwhile, Martin was born, forever ignorant of his absent, deceased father’s origins and ideas. Mimsy honored the memory of the man who had fathered her child and had him baptized Martin “Bill” Ilman. She wanted Martin to have pride in his dad. Privately, very privately, she considered “Bill” “the worst sort of hog turd,” a vile epithet as familiar in Iowa as it must have been in Transdanubia.

7/MEHNA EELMAN

A pamphlet in a park. That was how it began. In March 1911, after nearly a year of considering the matter, Mehna joined the Sinai Brethren of the Holy Table and left the Tooms. Daphne, her Amygdala (in the organization’s curious term for a mentor), arranged for Mehna to have a room in the Woolfraam House, a large wooden triplex in the western part of the city. Egon Woolfraam, rumored to be a near-centenarian, had founded his group of believers nearly sixty years earlier. Although they were still unknown to most persons in Chicago, the group had grown to almost 30 members. It was a heterogeneous affair and Mehna, of course, met no one quite like herself. Nor was that expected, for Mehna considered herself solitary but not unique.

Comparisons to reclusive Catholic orders would have been anathema to the Brethren, but that was how it was. She did her share of housework and cooking, as did all Brethren members before Egon offered her a chance to labor in the dairy owned by the group. For five days a week, she milked cows, washed bottles, and then filled the still warm bottles with fresh milk produced by nine cows kept in a barn next to the bottling house. It was probably one of the last dairies within the city limits and the only one offering raw milk. In time, she met Aesilinski, a co-worker and coreligionist who lived in the basement furnace room at Woolfraam House. He was powerfully built, spoke little, and could do all the dairy’s heavy work. Together, Mehna and Aesilinski effectively ran that dairy. They rose at dawn, met in Woolfraam House’s kitchen, ate together, and walked the mile to the dairy. On the day that the impatient cow named Alice knocked over Mehna and her milking stool, Aesilinski carried her home with a broken ankle bone. The injury caused a permanent limp, but nothing more. Mehna’s new attraction to his potent and sweet-sour odor became one of those crucial moments in her ordinary life.

Mehna was quickly back with the cows. Two milkings and bottlings a day and home with the setting sun. Between milkings, Mehna washed cows while Aesilinski shoveled manure. Like Mehna, Aesilinski spoke little, and there were long periods of silence during their workday. Aesilinski was an immigrant and, as he told her, had been born in the Masurian Lake District of eastern Poland. He had come to Chicago in hopes of becoming a fresh-water fisherman. He found cattle repugnant and had come to see his daily shoveling of their copious droppings as a punishment for leaving Poland. 

Mehna was pregnant in the summer of 1915. Working twelve hours a day with Aesilinski led to occasional intimacy, something both of them viewed matter-of-factly. She liked his musky odor; he liked the bead of sweat along her neckline. There was no obvious pleasure or displeasure involved. Besides, the Sinai Brethren of The Holy Table had no particular perspective on sexuality. These things happen. Mehna had no sense of having been seduced, and she may have appeared indifferent.

Aesilinski thought that a bit odd, but as long as she did not refuse him, what did it matter?

Editor: I am aware that readers today want specifics for romance and sex, but the author assures me that there is, understandably, little to be offered here in that regard. “So what? , says Zoytlow, “if you wanted graphic sex, there is plenty in the fiction section. This isn’t fiction.” When I further reminded him that whole dynasties were probably founded on something less than compelling body odor and the appearance of sweat, he became angry at first, then admitted that he had thought that Aesilinski’s odor might have been reminiscent of the time she spent in the forest clearing. Did he remind her of the fungi and rotting vegetation of 

th

woods near home in Transdanubia? But, he added, “don’t expect me to make a fool of myself by suggesting that in the narrative!”

When the child, a female, was born, Mehna did offer a rare opinion: name the child with her name, Mehna Eelman. Aesilinski had no objection. He sensed it a bit odd, and brought it to the Holy Table Council, convened biweekly by Egon Woolfraam himself. Of course, the Council was just a ploy. The old man made all such decisions called “Harmonization.” To add the necessary gravitas, Egon wore the mothball-scented brown gabardine suit. After sitting silently, the patriarch began to hum, softly at first, forcefully holding his breath for extended periods, crimson-faced, then taking in great gasps of air and resuming the pattern again. Then silence. Even without these theatrics, Woolfraam would have dominated the room. He was thin to the point of emaciation with a bifurcated white beard and a missing right hand, lost during a minor skirmish in Tennessee in 1864. He asked Aesilinski to return and spoke:

“I have called upon The Harmony. I have seen the Word on The Holy Table. Name the child Eelman, but Mitzi’s is the first name and not Mehna. A better name for America anyway. Your woman is a bright woman, Aesilinski. Also, I abjure the condition of matrimony, so long as you will reside at our Woolfraam House.” 

That was Woolfraam. The Sinai Brethren of The Holy Table, though loosely Judeo-Christian with a deep loathing for Roman Catholicism, was the fluid creation of Egon Woolfraam’s mind whom voices had spoken in a tobacco field in North Carolina after the collapse of the Confederacy. “The Table” referred to was said to be hidden in the Sinai desert, safe from the “Darkness.” There was speculation that the Holy Table was carved from boron ore, resulting from Egon’s impaired hearing because of cannon fire. Had the voice said “Deborah” or “the boron” that day in the tobacco field? Rather than take a chance, Deborah and Boron were both critical words in the Holy Table hymnal. Also, a small sack of boron ore was present during Harmonizations for as Egon explained it, “Why take a chance?”

When Aesilinski told Mehna of the proceedings, she nodded and returned to nursing Mitzi. He did not know the word “abjure” spoken by Egon, so he left it at that. He made no demands on his “woman” and respected that Mehna kept her thoughts to herself and under control. She did not like surprises, but she had surprised herself in requesting some continuation of the Eelman name. The other, earlier surprise, one seldom recalled, was Aesilinski’s sudden embrace in the milking shed one humid day. 

Aesilinski followed the news and especially developments in Europe. He was alarmed when the war began in 1914 and feared that conflict would come to the Masurian Lakes. He became nervous and became less dependable at the dairy. Mehna said nothing but began to shovel the manure out of the milking area. In late 1917, Aesilinski joined the American Army and shipped out to Europe’s killing fields, where, in early 1918, he drowned. Drowned? A strange death in a land war. However, it happened, Mehna was not interested nor surprised. Egon Woolfraam offered a Harmonization though its purpose was not clear to him or her. Mehna shook her head; no, thank you. Had she learned that Aesilinski had gone AWOL and headed off to the Masurian Lakes, it would not have interested her either.   

To Mehna, life was a series of features, all more or less the same. Time moved along: feature after feature, just like all stuff did. You milked a cow; you shoveled its manure. Aesilinski had fertilized her, and she gave birth. Mitzi needed care and received care. These features were neither better nor worse, merely things to do. Time passed. These were the possible contours of her thought though she never shared them. She continued to live at Woolfraam House and raised her little Mitzi within the security provided by Woolfraam House and the Sinai Brethren of The Holy Table. 

* * *

Mitzi Eelman (1915-1977) was the only child at Woolfraam House in what was an abbreviated and rapid passage into a humorless and task-oriented adult world. She was discouraged from making sounds, playing with the usual toys (no dolls, no blocks, no coloring), and speaking too spontaneously. She conformed to the unsmiling demeanor of the other residents. In this, her father, the late Aesilinski, would have provided some relief, for he was what some would plainly label “kind of a regular guy.” However, he was dead, pictured by her, when she thought of him, in some watery ditch in France or Belgium.

When she was seven, a Truant Officer of the school district somehow discovered Mitzi’s existence in the barn, watching her mother milking and learning to wipe udders. Mehna and the Brethren, threatened with court action and a substantial fine, surrendered her to an elementary school nearby. Mitzi stayed, sporadically, for five years. The pattern was simple: after each summer or winter break, Mehna “forgot” to re-enroll her, then came the Truant Officer, then more school. The girl was at the margins of her class, socially, academically, and spatially. She always sat far from the teacher in a chair reserved for those whose homework was insufficient or not done at all. She enjoyed few features of her schooling, an exception being when old photographs clipped from newspapers shown to stimulate “recitation and elocution.” At the end of the week, each child was allowed to take a favorite image home to share. Mitzi’s taste ran to military themes. Once, she selected a grainy photograph of a smiling soldier with his pistol pointed upwards while standing on a mound of dirt somewhere in the Dakotas. Mehna saw it, stared at it for a long time, and turned it over once or twice. She said nothing but passed it to The Council, which declared it unsuitable for Woolfraam House. Mitzi asked her mother to explain what was wrong, but Mehna, tight-lipped as always, ignored her. On the following Monday, Mitzi could not return the photo to her teacher as Egon had “misplaced” it. The teacher required her to stand before the class and apologize. She was careful not to mention Woolfraam House.

When Mitzi was fourteen, The Holy Table Council, headed by the eldest son of Egon Woolfraam, Ezrah, sought Harmony on the matter of Mitzi’s expected contributions to the community. Mehna hoped they would assign Mitzi to the dairy, but Ezrah told her to take her place as a seamstress in a trouser factory on Division Street. It was a decision of great moment for the girl. Despite some initial anxiety, she learned to ride the tram and work a fifty-hour week. With other women, mostly immigrants, at a large table, she cuffed gabardine trousers and sometimes lesser fabrics such as denim nearly the thickness of sailcloth. Her absence five days a week from Woolfraam House, in time, became more pleasant. She found the clamorous city offered the chance to experience new sights and sounds, see different kinds of people, and listen to gossip. Mitzi continued to be shy, not prone to smiling and easily angered when others referred to her as “Shorty” (which she was). She either ignored them or glared while she ate her lunch by herself.

PNZ: Again, the records of the day-to-day at Woolfraam are silent on who was Mehna’s co-worker after Aesilinski went to war. Aesilinski (revealed by War Department records to have a full name, Gregor Pawel Aesilinski) rests in a military cemetery in Europe.]

[Editor: Here again, I argued with Zoytlow that the matter of Aesilinski was irrelevant. He barked at me: “YOU decide what is relevant?” And then a tiresome monologue on what was wrong with the world. His view that dividing the world into the relevant and the irrelevant was not the way to live. I told him the whole manuscript reflected that view of his, and it would cause him sorrow when it came time to have a publisher consider it. “Still time to bail out,” said he.

The Council warned Mitzi not to engage others on her commute to the factory. No talk, no eye contact, and always sit on the bench with a female. Mornings were no problem, but the early evenings found the trams filled with people, many of them foundry-men or meat-packers. There were no benches with females. Mitzi would glance over the car’s occupants and then resolve to stand as far apart from others, particularly males who sometimes pinched her buttocks. The first time this happened, she sobbed piteously, her misery ignored by others or amusing to them. After more than a year of honing her skills at avoiding molestation, Mitzi found a champion–a young man who murmured that if she stood or even sat near him. He would fend off the mashers. She did not look up at his face, nor did she answer, but did position herself near him. Of course, she had slyly noted him before because he was always on the same tram. The pinching stopped, but why? What powers did this fellow have? After some weeks, she whispered her thanks to him. He whispered back, “They think you are my sister, so they don’t dare disturb you.” What he wanted to say was “my girlfriend,” but how would that sound? Mitzi began to wish he had said that. Weeks later, it was “I’m Frank,” to which she blurted out her name and offered a tentative smile. 

So it began, of course. Frank Knecht was working on the docks of the

Chicago River, unloading lumber from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He smelled pleasantly of pine. Mitzi liked that. Mitzi smelled of sweat at the end of the workday and longed to rinse her armpits. However, Frank seemed not to notice; besides, the entire tram stank of people whose clothes were permeated with the bitterness of their labors. One day Frank, who usually rode further than Mitzi, got off at her stop and walked her to within a block of Woolfraam House. Then, on a Saturday morning, he surprised the Sinai Brethren of The Holy Table by knocking on the door of the House and asking for “Miss Mitzi.” He brought flowers and a jug of lemonade. He charmed his way in, claiming an interest in their beliefs, how he had heard about them at the lumber dock, and so on. Egon and Ezrah understood this to be more polite than honest. But they were not unsympathetic.

Frank sat for several hours, waiting for the Council to Harmonize over whether to summon Mitzi from her room. It went well: Ezrah Woolfraam achieved The Harmony and smiled. “They may be enjoined,” he said without further interpretation. Enjoined? Mitzi understood this to mean that they could walk together, perhaps to a nearby park, but Mehna assumed that it meant that Frank and Mitzi would wed. Mitzi came to agree, and Frank, two weeks later, was informed that they would be further “enjoined.”  

In the meantime, Frank Knecht had secured a job at the Elgin Watch Factory, Elgin, Illinois, to the west of Chicago proper. They were “enjoined.” in 1931 at the Woolfraam House and in strict accordance with the group’s precepts, the most relevant of which was that Mitzi could marry when she was sixteen. Two days later, they were in Elgin, some thirty miles west of Woolfraam House. For Mehna, her daughter’s marriage did not cause her joy or sadness. As Emil Woolfraam once said of her, “She takes all in stride walking in The Harmony of the Sinai Table.” High praise: the most she had ever had. There was never any question that she would not live out her life working the dairy for Woolfraam House and living within its shielding domain. She died there in her sleep in the winter of 1938.

PNZ:  Mitzi Eelman is the source of this scant notice of her mother’s death. The Brethren did not report deaths at Woolfraam House; presumably, interment took place there or in the dairy pasture.]

8/ STEPHAN WHEELMAN

Stephan’s fifteenth year was also his ninth year of summer toy sales at fairs in northern Illinois. He was nearly as tall as he would become, about 5’8″ and no longer as convincing as a boy who delighted in moving a wooden tugboat around on a blue oilcloth. Travhnar had expanded his repertoire of wooden toys to include boats, farming vehicles, and police and fire department models. Each had its oilcloth surface, which Travhnar had designed. With a war in Europe underway, he contemplated a line of trucks and the newer tanks. But what if the war ended? 

Quite unexpectedly, in that summer of 1917, Stephan quit as a demonstrator of wooden toys and struck out on his own. It was a crisis of adolescence that caused the break, not his boredom traveling with Travhnar. They had taken the train to Freeport for the Stephenson County Fair and hoped to go even further west, to Jo Daviess County and Galena. Sales had been strong, and they felt lucky. Travhnar had begun to give his son a small percentage of each trip’s net profits, recognizing that the boy needed to manage his own money.

One afternoon, while demonstrating the toys under the shade of a canvas tarp, a group of high school girls from the county 4H stopped to watch Stephan move a truck along the oilcloth. He was unaware of his audience and intoned his customary “I really likes ’em!’ The girls looked at each other, walked a few feet towards the midway, and began to shriek and giggle. Stephan looked up but failed to see what might have caused this explosive mirth with its cruel edge, but there was nothing obvious. Then, with fearsome clarity, he saw that he was the source of their callous laughter. Shame! That night he told his father he would not be going on to Galena and that they would meet here in Freeport on his return Travhnar shrugged but did not argue, nor did he ask about Stephan’s plans. But when he returned to Freeport after a lackluster sales effort, his son was not waiting for him.

[P.N.Z.: Readers will want to know, at least some will, how Kathleen reacted to this news. There is no record of this. What we know of the inner workings of the family is suggested (though not revealed) by the following episode in Stephan’s life.]

Nearly a decade and a half later, in June 1931, Stephan Wheelman, then almost 30 years old, was brought to the Elgin State Hospital’s Intake Observatory-Theater strapped to a gurney. Standard procedure: secure and restrain all entering patients until the intake evaluation was complete. The gurney was tilted upwards, designed to facilitate eye contact between those interviewed and the lead psychologist. The gurney was moved through the corridors by two attendants in crisp ivory-colored uniforms with “Elgin S.H.” printed in blue on their backs. Military-styled blue caps with “E.S.H.” stitched into the peak completed the first impression an incoming patient received at The Elgin. Later, after the Second World War, the State of Illinois ordered all of its facilities to adopt casual light blue uniforms and no caps. The colder ivory look and the hats were the topic of a sociology graduate student at Northern Illinois, and who determined that the old look was intimidating. A further study conducted by historical kinesiologists at Ballast College proved that the strapped gurneys corrupted the intake interviews. The gurney suggested torture reminiscent of the Middle Ages to patients with an ancestry associate with heresy. The Faculty Senate at Catholic Porcini College objected to “biased research” against “our Roman faith.” In response, The Elgin scrapped the gurney system and moved all intake records associated with it to a basement archive. Retrieving Stephan’s file took a great deal of effort but having them owes much to his son Edouard’s tireless devotion.

 A young woman walked into the Intake Observatorium dressed in the crisp garb of a nurse, identical to the men on gurney duty except for the one blue chevron on her sleeves.   

“Mr. Weeman? I am Miss Formalin. I am an intern here at The Elgin 

State Hospital. I am under the supervision of Dr. Ephraim. He will here directly (she paused.) He is reviewing your case.” She spoke rapidly, mechanically, betraying her insecurity. 

“My case? I have a case?” said Stephan, his voice rising to make sure anyone would know this was a question. “And the name is……”

Stephan let his voice trail off. Did it matter if he was Weeman or Wheelman in this strange place? There would be time to make corrections later. Or perhaps not. Miss Formalin now ignored him. She made an exaggerated pretense of comparing her wristwatch with the time on the Regulator wall clock. Stephan followed her gaze and watched the brass pendulum making its arc. The accompanying ticks were easily audible in the silent Intake Observatory. 

 Oona Formalin was an intern from the Associate Program in Eugenic Arts at some nearby college whose name Stephan forgot as soon as he heard it. And as for Eugenic Arts? What was The Elgin doing with him? Then, Doctor Ephraim, a stooped, balding man mentoring the young woman. He entered the Observatorium without a sound. He wore an ivory smock with matching pants and highly-polished brown shoes with eyelets and laces that reached above his ankles, half-hidden by the pants cuffs. On his upper arm were four chevrons. He sat down at the table and faced Stephan on his gurney. Miss Formalin’s face turned crimson, and she took a deep breath. The two suggested professionalism and seriousness.

“Mr. Weeman, this is Dr. Ugo Ephraim, Head Clinician here at The Elgin. He is familiar with your case. Please devote your full attention and help us seek a resolution. Dr. Ephraim?”

“Thank you, Miss Formalin.” Ephraim cleared his throat several times. He spoke in a high register, a sort of countertenor’s range. “And you are Mr. Wiggin? Yes?”

They were unsettling to Stephan, these two in their spotless ivory outfits. 

Before Doctor Ephraim could speak, his patient felt the need to blurt out the most time-honored cliché of persons in his situation: 

“There must be some mistake! Do you have the right man? My name is Wheelman, not whatever you have there.” 

His tone betrayed his frustration. It was a reasonable question. Both the doctor and the intern looked at their notes, nodded, but ignored answering. Miss Formalin blushed again, and Doctor Ephraim cleared his throat once more. This time his voice was an octave lower. 

“You were arrested by the Waukegan Police. What can you tell us?” 

The doctor groped for a button under the edge of the table, and, distantly, a buzzer sounded. “Wait just a moment before you answer, please.”  

Soon, a stout woman in a navy blue dress and dark shoes seemed to float into the room silently. She took a seat at a small table behind the gurney. Stephan glimpsed her notebook and a clutch of yellow pencils; he assumed she was a stenographer. It added to his discomfort by having her sit just to the left behind him where he could not see her but heard her writing and her occasional sighs.   

Now Stephen began. Yes, he was apprehended by the police as he exited a lavatory in Prater Park on the city’s east side. On a clear day, Stephen explained that he sometimes went to determine whether the park’s bluffs had the elevation needed to view Michigan or Indiana. Just innocent curiosity. Looking back on it now, Stephan continued, he saw why the police took an interest in him. There he was, peering over Lake Michigan with his hand shielding his eyes, looking for either Indiana or Michigan—and standing near the public lavatories. And dressed in the military overcoat from his service days and worn for cooler weather. Of course, what did he look like to the police, a shell-shocked pervert? Looking for Indiana? Hah!

“Yes, yes, thank you, a good beginning Mr. Wheel…er…man. I will turn the next questions over to Oona, ah, to Miss Formalin. Just be relaxed, and whatever you feel you care to share with us, please do so.” Ephraim looked at Stephen briefly and gave a tight smile. “Miss Formalin?”

The intern blushed and took a breath. “Thank you, Doctor Ephraim. Mr. Wheelman, if I were to ask you what your strongest memory was of your childhood, your early years, what would that be?”

“If you were to ask me…but I guess you are, aren’t you?” He winked at Miss Formalin. “And may I ask, have either of you seen Michigan or Indiana from Prater Park?”

The blush deepened. Ugo Ephraim frowned and shook his head before glancing again at the Regulator clock. This might take longer than he had assumed. He had noted Stephen’s sarcasm. “May I remind you, Sir, that we are trying to determine why the law saw fit to bring you here. The arrest record states 26 June. White Male. Stephen Wheelman, detained on a charge of Pernicious Loitering. That is serious business, Sir. Pernicious Loitering is not a trifle in Lake County nor the State of Illinois.”

Ephraim shook his head again, and Miss Formalin took the hint and frowned at Stephan. 

Stephan’s uncertainty at being, however briefly, institutionalized mirrored the less-than-perfect operation of the Elgin State Hospital. He was the only patient there on that day, an administrative fluke due to a territorial dispute(which no one understood) with the nearby Cook County Hospitals and Institutions. Under a gentleman’s agreement, no patients were being admitted to Elgin until all Cook facilities had reached 96% occupancy. The Waukegan Police were not aware of this and were eager to use the Elgin for cases such as Stephan’s seemed to be. Again, the rules were not clear. Was Stephan a candidate for the Elgin, or should he have been placed in the county jail? Ambiguity, the playground of the fates, opted for the Elgin. Perhaps the presence of a new ambulance inherited from the U.S. Army, now finished in Europe, and the novel tilting gurney swayed the arresting officer. Finally, the resulting confusion in naming the new State Hospital “The Elgin” since it was not located in that city, but instead to the west of Waukegan. Elgin, Illinois, was the location of an older Cook County facility. Still, it had no specific name, hence the compounded errors of that day. At the time, no one could sort through this.

What made the Waukegan Police opt for The Elgin was Stephan’s sentimental attachment to the military greatcoat– part of his uniform while stationed in post-war Alsace. To the police, he fit the profile of an untidy and deranged soldier. Was he one of those “shell-shocked” veterans? Or was he a loiterer? And was this (because he was emerging from a lavatory) “pernicious” loitering? 

The questioning began just as Stephan started to feel the tug of gravity on his inclined body. His feet ached, and he had a headache. No one seemed interested in exploring the possibility that he was there by mistake. It would be best to cooperate. Done politely, he believed that he would leave with his secret intact.

Stephen began his narrative by filling in a few details on his parents, the house on 2nd St, and finally, the strongest memory of his childhood. His tone was friendly, cooperative, and accompanied by the occasional wistful look as he recalled things. 

“When I was a child, my mother liked to make scrambled eggs for me. She would have me stand on a footstool and watch the eggs thicken in the pan. Then she stirred them three times exactly and asked me to see if the eggs were speaking to us. By that, she meant, had they revealed something that we could take as a coming fortune for ourselves? A bit like a fortune cookie, and, no, she was not crazy. Very stable. At first, all I saw was pale yellow clouds and sometimes a girl in a dress. Later the patterns became very complex, and my mother helped me work them out. But the eggs always had a message. Kathleen is very Catholic, Irish Catholic. Very devoted to St. Dymphna, the Saint she hoped would appear in the pan. But this is not my favorite memory of those years anyway; I just thought you might like to hear about it. I have not thought about it for some time.

“My favorite memory is about my favorite place: the landing on the back stairs between the first and second floors. My mother lived upstairs, and my father was on the first. They liked it this way, and I spent time with each, up and down and so on. I looked forward to stopping on the little landing between the fourteenth and fifteenth steps and look out the window. Travy, my father, had told me that I could probably see a ship in the lake if it was the right day. In winter, my mother told me to count the chimneys I could see and whether they were smoking or not. But that was just to get started, and I would count or look for all sorts of things. I saw my first aeroplane through that window. It just came out of a cloud one day. I yelled for Kathleen and Travhnar, my parents, but they did not hear me, so they missed it. There were about thirty houses, duplexes like ours, all with gabled roofs and back porches. Most had a small barn near the alley if they still had a horse. No one had a car, at least not that I could see. No privies left. The funny thing was, some of the men in the block still relieved themselves in the backyard. Travhnar did not do that even though he said he was born on a farm. The thing about looking out of that window was that it was never the same thing day after day, and I tried to keep track of what changed and what didn’t. So, that’s about it.”

Dr. Ephraim glanced at the clock and then gave Miss Formalin, now unsettled in her demeanor, a slight nod. Again, Stephan could not know that this was her first intake experience with the highly-regarded Dr. Ephraim. She had only just arrived, the first intern from the Eugenics Program and the pressure to succeed was causing her hands to shake. Although Ephraim treated her cooly, others at The Elgin were more open in their doubt that a female intern from the Eugenics Program would be a good fit. She glanced at the documentation on Stephan, hoping for a clue as to how to proceed. She read that the initial diagnosis for him was “Catatonia Abjectus,” which she had no familiarity with and had never heard before. Sensing that she was headed for failure anyway, Miss Formalin asked the next question.

“Mr. Wheelman, you ran away from your parents at age..uh..fifteen? Why was that?”

Ephraim nodded somewhat grudgingly, which might have meant it was a good question. Stephan wondered what they were after, and he knew that the answer he wanted to give had three components. Stephan thought that the older man was staring at Oona Formalin’s bosom. He hoped not. But he had more immediate concerns.

The first was to ignore that his legs were numb, asleep. 

The second was to craft answers which would not lead to follow-up questions. The third was to remind himself that there were crucial confidences to keep.

“Tell us about how you ran away from home,” asked Miss Formalin.

“Yes, do.” That was Dr. Ephraim breaking his silence in a low voice. 

“Well, it wasn’t running away from home like kids sometimes say. It was just time to go. I knew it. Travy, my dad, knew it. We were at a county fair in Freeport. I left a note with a friend of Travy’s, a guy who roasted peanuts, and told him that since I was no longer legally required to go to school, it was time for me to go. He would understand and would have to deal with Kathleen. I mean, both of them left home, left their parents, at an early age, too—all the way from Transdanubia. The truth is, I did not go far, just a short distance away to the Street of the Darlings, which most would call a Tunnel of Love. It was the same, but a small traveling carnival could not manage a water tunnel with boats. Too difficult. We used scaled Buicks and Fords, one to two couples per car for a four-minute ride through the tunnel, half the ride in near-total darkness—very dim headlamps. There were six automobiles, three Fords, three Buicks. All pulled by a machine. The cars were on this platter device. Very safe. My job was to sell the tickets, show the passengers to their automobiles, throw the switch, and then move between observation points in the tunnel to check that the ride was proper.”

 “Proper?” Miss Formalin had raised an eyebrow.

“I had to go into the tunnel when the ride was underway and spy on couples who were taking advantage of the darkness. “

“And? How so?” 

“The farm kids were the worst. The owner had me use a bamboo fishing pole to prod them into good behavior. They could kiss, but hands had to be off each other. I really didn’t care what they did, and half the time, it was too dark to see anyway. But the owner was worried about the reputation of the thing. The kids mostly thought it was funny, but it was too dim to see who was poking them. I didn’t care. Anyway, the girls would brag about how many times their date got poked and so on.”

Miss Formalin looked thoughtful.”You say you did not care? Is that correct?”

”Correct. They were just kids. Normal kids. Both Ephraim and Formalin stared at him for a long moment. What did I say? thought Stephan. Best to resume the narrative. “Well, that was the easy part. About once a week the whole thing had to be packed up, canvas, machinery, cars and put in a wagon, head for the next town. Did that for about two years.”

“And your parents?”

“Yes?”

“Did they worry? Were they angry?”

“No.”

Stephan continued. He had returned home when he was eighteen and in uniform. Kathleen and Travhnar seemed pleased and unconcerned when told about leaving for Europe and would write when posted. Since the war had ended, there was no concern for his safety. Nor were his parents curious about his decision to join up or what he might be doing in a peacetime military.

Miss Formalin looked thoughtful again.  “Why did you join the service? And can you provide a brief summary of your experiences?” 

The word “brief” gave Stephan hope. They seemed to be tiring and would perhaps soon leave him alone. He was sure that his feet were now blue from lack of blood supply. At some point they would require amputation.

“I wasn’t in the war. When I joined, The Army sent me to Camp Grant and taught me to drive cars and trucks and learn to type. Then I got sent abroad and stayed a few years.” Intentionally vague, and Stephan knew it, but Doctor Ephraim had yawned twice now, and Miss Formalin had glanced at the Regulator clock more than twice. Perhaps this was all.

And that was all. Dr. Ephraim summoned two attendants who transferred Stephan to Reception. Dr.Ephraim scratched out the initial diagnosis of “Catatonia.” Above it, Miss Fromaggio wrote, in black ink, the word “Marginal,” which stood for absolutely nothing but was likely to be approved by the Board of Release. So Stephan was dismissed. His secret still intact after an afternoon at The Elgin State Hospital. His record there bears the name WIEMAN, Steven.

[EDITOR: The Elgin State Hospital, as a new institution at the time, was entitled to make a few mistakes. Mistaking a patient’s name and a perhaps haphazard diagnosis method is unlikely to happen today (so I am told), and the Elgin State Hospital has an excellent reputation. More curious is the happy circumstance that brought Stephen Wheelman there. He was not shell-shocked or given to loitering. Still, these assumptions, soon dispelled, helped create the invaluable record available today to the author.  

9/ ELZA F. WHEELMAN

Released from The Elgin with his secret safe, Stephan fairly skipped to the tram stop a half-mile distant. He had dodged something unpleasant, but just what was unclear. Strange that Miss Formalin had ignored his marital status or whether he was employed. Or perhaps Dr. Ephraim would notice the lapse and come looking for him? The thought of it did not leave him; he had been too lucky. He turned around to see if someone in an ivory uniform was following him, but only The Elgin State Hospital stared after him.

Stephan reached the tram stop and, since there was time before the next tram, he decided on a cup of coffee and the limp liver sausage on rye packed into his greatcoat pocket. He was now self-conscious about the greatcoat. Did it suggest mental problems, or was it odd to be seen in one on a warm day? The liver sausage had surrendered its fat; grease formed a blot on the coat from the left pocket downward. He decided to carry the coat over his arm. Stephan left a nickel for the coffee, offered a cheerful word of farewell to the waitress, and began walking home.

Another wave of paranoia had convinced him that it would be best to walk home and arrive there during dusk when he could take greater. What if a vehicle from The Elgin stood in front of the house? Or a wagon from the Waukegan Police? Such things were not impossible. He reviewed what he had told them at the Ephraim, which would be a matter of record now. He said he had been in “Europe” and not specifically France, an important detail. He had allowed them to believe that he lived with his parents and no one else. 

Arriving in his neighborhood, Stephan chose to walk into the alley behind the houses. He stood behind a hedge and peered at his home.

It was getting dark, and soon the lights would go on and help reveal anything unusual. Sometime later, the bedroom and kitchen lights upstairs gave off their yellow glow. Then Travhnar switched on a light downstairs. He was wearing his favorite shirt, and the familiarity it offered cheered Stephan, who had put on the greatcoat again against the evening chill. Finally, a figure crossed the landing window, probably bringing something down or asking about Stephan. It was Elza, his wife, the Alsatian woman, the war-bride. The lovely person The Elgin had no business knowing about her and then hauling her in on some pretense (other than pernicious loitering). 

After leaving his life as a wooden toy demonstrator, Stephan eventually joined the military. By the time he was old enough to carry a weapon, the war had ended. There were no more wars available. Having demonstrated skill at both vehicle operation and typing and record-keeping, the Army had assigned him to Strasbourg to serve as a driver and secretary. He would assist the American liaison in the newly repatriated districts of Alsace and Lorraine, which, after 1918, were to be taken from Germany and returned to France. After the war, tensions were high between Germans and French in Alsace. The State Department had suggested that any American personnel assigned to the region not have names which would hint at either “Gallic or Teutonic partisanship,” thus Wheelman, which was presumed to be the British Isles. Stephan dropped the final “n” from Wheelmann, which perhaps had only been there because of another earlier error at Ellis Island. His superior officer, Colonel Patrick Wilson, was likely chosen because he shared a surname with an esteemed American President, lately at Versailles, to make sense of Europe after the Great War. Nothing left to chance.

Based in the small Alsatian city of Colmar, Stephan had to report weekly to Colonel Wilson in Strasbourg. He was to report on anything (in the words of Wilson) that “may in the execution of his defined duties have come to his attention and report the same to Strasbourg.” Stephan did not know what he was to “observe,” and his reports were largely irrelevant to Alsace’s future peace. On Tuesdays, he drove the hour and a half to Strasbourg, delivered his report, and picked up a packet of handwritten notes from the Colonel, which he was to transcribe into typescript. To his amazement, these rarely had anything to do with his posting in Alsace; instead, they were part of an apparent treatise on “Evidence of Proto-Lichens in New Hampshire.” Though he never spoke of it, Wilson hoped to land a professorship at one of the newer state colleges in Illinois. 

Wheelman and Wilson saw each other briefly on Tuesdays. Stephan did not find Col. Wilson intimidating and was discreet about the older man’s notes. Once, he was sent to Basel to pick up a small crate of rock samples, presumably from New Hampshire.

“Not too heavy, Wheelman?” said the Colonel after Stephan returned to 

Strasbourg from Basel after a three-hour drive along the Upper Rhine.

“No, Sir!” Stephan wore a mask of indifference to whatever was in the crates, though he suspected rocks. How was it that they arrived in Basel? Well, none of his business. However, Colonel Wilson seemed to feel the need to say something.

“Wheelman, you’ve been here, what? about four months?”

“Yessir, four months next Saturday.”

“Know why you’re here?”

“Driving and typing, sir.”

Wilson waved his arm in a wide arc. Then he grinned broadly at Stephan.

“Oh, that too, that too. And you do excellent work, but you’re here, we are both here because we’re from the USA. We’re Americans. We won the war. They’ll remember that more easily if we stick around and show up now and then. So keep up your driving. Don’t kill any cows. Hold your head high, polish your belt buckle, and be friendly. But, remember, no fraternization with any of ’em.”

“Yessir, Colonel Wilson.”  

“If you get a bit of a swelled head, that’s OK! Perfectly OK. We are the heroes here. We make the world safe for democracy. Always will! God Bless America.! You know that song? Is it Irving Berlin.?”

“Yessir, we sang it every morning back at Camp Grant. Right after the national anthem. It’s a great tune.”

“And a new one too. Did I tell you my Granddad got his wound at Shiloh?”

“No, Sir.” Stephan was used to these topical shifts, but he would have to look up Shiloh.

“You have folks in the War?” Stephan was not at all clear on which War the Colonel meant.

“Colonel, sir, my father came from Transdanubia, and my mother is Irish.”

The Colonel stared into the distance, shrugged, and turned his attention to the crate of New Hampshire rocks.

 In his American uniform and driving an American Army car, Stephan Wheelman cruised Alsace’s roads for more than two years. A happy and fateful assignment. Stephan had his father’s gift for pleasantry with persons he did not know and those of other cultures. At the beginning of his tour of duty, he spoke no French and even less German. His uniform, vehicle, and finally, his identity as an English-speaking young man guaranteed his popularity. All over Alsace, he was invited into homes, whether in the villages or the towns. Once, in Mulhouse, he was asked to witness a baptism. And in the north, near Haguenau, it was a pallbearer for a veteran who died of earlier wounds at nearby Verdun. He was in demand and, had it not been for the introversion which came from his mother, he might have more fully immersed himself in Alsatian culture. As it was, this reticence probably saved him from excess alcohol. Drinking had become a regular possibility because of the enthusiastic invitations to have a brandy and a beer.  

Not far from Stephan’s lodging in Colmar stood “Die Bunte Kuh,” a tavern that was undergoing a name change to something more in keeping with the shift in sovereignty in Alsace. One day, in the autumn of 1921, he noticed a new sign hanging over the doorway: “La Vache Colorée,” which Stephan surmised meant new ownership and, in effect, Germans not welcome. Seated on a bench in front of the place, weeping, sat a young woman. As he was not yet competent in either German or French, Stephan handed the woman his handkerchief while asking if she knew enough of the English language to tell him what the sign said. Without lifting her face towards him, she managed to say, between wrenching sobs, “it is a cow that is colored.” He looked at the sign again and saw that the cow was green with orange patches. Then the woman, really even younger than he had first assumed, looked up at him to see if he understood. At that instant, Stephan knew that this was the woman he would marry. Absolute certainty on this point. No question.

She was Elza Freudenschrei. She was staring at her ID papers and wailing. Stephan learned she’d had just fired from this tavern. He asked why. He noticed that she was very, very pretty. Prettier by the moment, and Stephan felt that if her loveliness did not soon stop evolving, well, who knew? She handed him the papers, and he saw her name and age: seventeen. She could pass for French as she was flawless in French and German. But her name marked her as a German. And this was a time of bad feelings. Stephan asked what she intended to do about the situation. It turned out that she was trying to figure a way to doctor her ID to read Elise Cridijoie, which more or less means the same thing, ‘happy shout’ or thereabouts. Stephan asked more questions politely, found out more about her was astonished by an idea. That came to him: an idea-driven ultimately by his conviction that Elza/Elise was to be his life companion. He would persuade Colonel Wilson to help. But he also saw a problem with that. The Colonel was bound to be suspicious: this would look like a violation of the No Fraternization rule. “We have a job to do, and that sort of thing makes it difficult and maybe even dangerous.” is what Wilson had told him months earlier. 

Brilliant (or so Stephan told himself), the angle to play was that it was shortsighted not to have a skilled interpreter on hand to catch any mood swings in this delicate post-war era. He would tell Colonel Wilson that the sign above the tavern door might have been changed to something nasty, and German anger would boil over for all he might have known. And, also, when he saw graffiti here and there in Colmar, what did it say? What if it said, “Castrate the Huns!!” or something like that? With Elise’s help, he would not be unaware, and the Colonel, and the Army, and the whole USA would be the wiser. Colonel Wilson would argue that Americans did not have to learn other languages. Other folks would have to learn English; winner takes all. “Who won the goddamn war?” And so on. Elise did speak some English; Stephan was ready to argue that she would learn more from him.  

“As I see it, Colonel Wilson, Sir, Miss Freudenshrei/Cridejoie would be an asset for me.”

“A what?”

“An asset, a benefit.”

“Sure.” smirked the Colonel.

When the day came, the two of them stood before the Colonel, and he gave them one of his long stares, picked up a mineral sample and appeared to be examining it, cleared his throat, and nodded. 

“OK. No skin off my ass.” Then he shook with laughter. “My asset!”

Stephan added that she needed some paperwork: two copies with her names in French and German plus US Army documents proving she was an asset to America. More staring, throat clearing, nodding, and then, in a bored tone: “OK.”

That indifferent assent to Stephan’s proposal appeared to him like an expansive and sun-dappled estuary leading to a sea of optimism. Elise would be at his side, costumed by the American Army. They were a team showing American presence in a bicultural province. And later, they would resume his American life, and her new American life, in Illinois. A family would follow. The entire family in its attractive home would be trilingual: German, French, and English. Travhnar and Kathleen would visit for the holidays. A daughter (or two) in the Campfire Girls, a son (or two) in the Boy Scouts. Perhaps this happy family would find common goals: working together to support an Alsatian Restaurant and Bowling Alley.  

After a few weeks of motoring through Alsace’s charming landscapes, Stephan and Elise presented themselves to a civil court in Colmar and married. Her parents and two sisters attended. It was a joyful day, a festive gemstone in the remaining years of their period of idyllic service to the United States of America. Colonel Wilson may have forgotten them months before his departure to pursue a dream position at Rockford State School of Science. His successor generally ignored them. Eventually, the U.S.Army departed, and, excepting the inexplicable, miraculous continuation of a monthly salary, they were unknown to all the world except in Alsace. Motoring along, visiting local festivals and the wine harvests, just too perfect.

Then, abruptly in May 1930, the checks stopped, and Stephan, who had forgotten that such a day might come, felt the bright estuary of their lives narrowing, the boat reversing, and unpleasantness ahead. A series of tearful farewells with the Freudenschreis followed. Then a steamer to New York and the train to Chicago and Waukegan. Years later, Stephan realized that the estuary led inland, up a river, into a creek with a noxious diversion into a narrow channel of effluent from some vile industry.

Yes, Waukegan. Mr. and Mrs. Stephan Wheelmann settled into his parent’s duplex. Not ideal, but given widespread unemployment, what choice did Stephan have? The house on Second St. was cramped and retained the living arrangements which Stephan had known as a child. Downstairs, Travhnar had his workshop in the dining and living rooms, which left two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom off the kitchen. Upstairs, Kathleen had similarly dedicated the dining and living rooms to her hobbies: collecting pitchers, bowls, and chamber pots from neighborhoods converting to modern plumbing. Again, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom off the kitchen. They had remained comfortable here, and Travhnar’s snoring precluded any change in the pattern. 

Money was tight. Travhnar had saturated the wooden toy market, and their durability meant that such toys lasted for generations. He had attempted to adapt to jigsaw puzzle maps of Illinois and the United States, but the cheaper cardboard versions put out by the giant publishing companies offered won the day. Kathleen held her job at the Waukegan House, but business was down, and she expected a reduction in hours at any time. Of course, they had paid off the house, and Travhnar managed to use his contacts at the Odd Fellows to work as a handyman, principally carpentry, in the city and some of the rural areas. His father’s Odd Fellows connection also came through, after many months, for Stephan, and he became a conductor on the interurban, the North Shore Line. The hours were long and included two circuits from the Loop in Chicago to downtown Milwaukee. An odd schedule and his ponderous snoring meant that he slept downstairs. Elza was quickly embraced by Kathleen, who loved her daughter-in-law’s accent and her brunette good looks, and simply the fact that she was a woman. She invited her to take over a bedroom upstairs. This was not what Stephan had imagined during his last month in Alsace, for the stream was narrowing.

And so the situation remained for the Wheelmanns. Stephan had chosen to return the final “n” to the family name. Elza did housecleaning for the affluent in the northern suburbs of Chicago and was especially welcome in homes someone spoke German or French. She rode the North Shore Line to work, free of fare. The young Wheelmanns had their shelter, and they had sustenance, and for a while, there were no complaints. They were managing despite the Depression. They felt encouraged to start a family. In mid-1938, Elza was pregnant, and Edouard was born in March 1939. His neonatal days and nights were spent upstairs, where Elise and Kathleen scrutinized his movements, yawns, and facial quirks. The two women agreed that he was an astoundingly perfect baby, though somewhat, somewhat what? Here the women searched for the word which would avoid an adverse judgment. He was delicate; yes, that was it. Not frail, petite, tiny, and so on. Kathleen prayed in silence each evening that dear Edouard would thrive and not be runted for life. Would Elza not please feed him again? Surely Elza should “give the lad suck” as she urged tirelessly. And she should cover him more at night. Should they be using a gentler soap for his nappies?

“Mein Gott! Schooda, schooda, schooda! That is all you say! I am not a stupid!”

[PNZ: Edouard changed the dynamic of life in the duplex. Though no one suggested that Edouard was an agent of discord sent by some malevolent agency to signal the decline of the Wheelmanns, his birth happened at just such a moment. What follows is a short review of a passage of years after his birth in 1939.]

Kathleen’s mild suggestions that Elza more aggressively nourish the boy evolved into sharper exchanges, including ethnic slurs, the first heard in the duplex. Then rancor and threats came. Finally, Kathleen and Elza ceased speaking; a situation made almost unbearably awkward since they both continued to occupy the second floor. There was simply no room downstairs, and Kathleen would not abide snoring in the bedroom next to her. She continued to care for Edouard if Elza was absent. Elise felt relieved to pursue part-time work with one or two families from late morning until late afternoon.

For Stephan, his continuation on the first floor with Travhnar and his schedule on the North Shore Line limited the time with his wife and son to a few days a week. The good times when he and his young wife had motored about, widely cheered and admired, though the charming villages of Alsace were now gone. At every turn, Illinois had been dismal. The grey houses, the bus stops with men in grey factory garb waiting to go to work, the baleful sound of distant factory whistles calling those men to work, older women dressed in black, the sewer smell during dry spells, the bland food, and a dozen other cheerless features Waukegan presented to Stephan and Elise. Neither spoke to the other of these matters. Elza, hiding her disappointment, Stephan denying his shame with theatrical cheeriness.

And Travhnar, depressed and arthritic; an elder who hobbled to Odd Fellow Hall for companionship that usually came up short because his expectations were out of the range of the possible. Something was missing. The birth of Edouard, a grandson after all, nevertheless left him indifferent and even strangely morose. What’s the point? A new kind of thought for a gregarious and optimistic man. One dark afternoon, in December 1938, he clumped into the empty house and lay down on his bed. Some snoring, then a silence: Stephan found his father the following morning. He was dead.

Perhaps it was not the birth of Edouard but the death of Travhnar which accelerated change in the family. The lower unit now had two bedrooms, but Elza had grown used to the tension of living with a mother-in-law who would not speak, and she did not wish to move into a bedroom, perhaps even a bed, where her father-in-law had died. She had liked Travhnar, perhaps more than she cared for her husband, increasingly to blame for all of her disappointments. As for the baby: ambiguity. Elza could not muster the feelings her child surely deserved. There were those days and nights when she thought of Edouard as a stranger, perhaps someone who belonged to Kathleen or even to Waukegan? Alsace was far away, more so each month.

On June 17th, 1939, Elza Freudenshrei Wheelmann left for her Wednesday duties at the home of Adelbert Orthman, the wealthy German-American financier in Evanston. She would not return. Elza was a valued employee in a home that insisted on the German language’s nearly total use and fidelity to German culture, whether culinary or literary. Elza read to the children, mainly fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Herr Orthman had stacks of 78s, which filled the living room with Wagner and Brahms’s sounds. Orthman had a particular fondness for Elza because an Alsatian was a victim of the war’s outcome and the Versailles Treaty’s anathema. He assured her that the time was nearly at hand when Alsace would be German once again, the way it was intended. His certainty was underscored by his clandestine donations to the German American Bund, which encouraged faith in Adolf Hitler and a National Socialist future for Europe. Elza knew little of Hitler, but she was attracted to reversing Alsace’s fate. Orthman, recognizing Elise’s trilingualism and sensing her unhappiness in Waukegan, persuaded her to return to Europe and take part in the “day that was about to dawn.”  

For Elza, that day was already dawning. After Travhnar died, she began to confide more in Adelbert Orthman, who gave her contacts in the Bund, which arranged her passage to Germany. On her nightstand in Waukegan lay three brief and neatly written notes. All lied regarding her reason for leaving, stating the need to visit her aging parents in Colmar. To Kathleen, she expressed her trust that Edouard would flourish in her care. To Stephan, she expressed regret and the promise that she would return. To Edouard, a thick letter outlining much of her personal story and should she fail to be reunited with him (for these were troubled times), that he would not think poorly of his mother, for she loved him, and would he always remember that he, too, was Alsatian. This letter was to be opened when Edouard was fifteen. 

[PNZ: Of course, Stephan and Kathleen opened Edouard’s letter. They also resealed it and intended to honor it. Shortly after Elise left, a downtown Waukegan bank informed Stephan that of a trust established for Edouard’s support. It was not extravagant, but Kathleen was able to retire from the Waukegan House and look after the boy]

10/ MARTIN ILMAN

Martin “Bill” Illman was born and baptized in Dubuque, Iowa but  primarily raised in Galena, Illinois. When he was three years old, in 1906, his mother, Mimsy, began to feel “uncomfortable” in Iowa. Though she presented herself as the widow of an American serviceman who died serving his country in a distant and hostile land, she was still Mimsy, the tavern accordionist– and who knew, with certainty, the paternity of her child? How many neighbors had met this “Bill” Illman? And this despite her efforts and her father’s to promote the idea that “Bill” had died safeguarding his country, few in Dubuque recalled him. As there were no suitors for Mimsy who wanted a child as part of the package and because the matrons at church ignored her, Dubuque seemed depleted of a future and devoid of joy itself. Crossing the great river into Illinois meant moving forward, didn’t it?

Except that in the first decade of the 20th Century, the usual thought was that you should be headed West if you crossed the Mississippi. Mimsy had it backward. She had gotten it wrong as she did with so many of her life choices. She had left the accordion to be sold in Dubuque because she thought it would condemn her to life as a “tavern person,” something that she had already had “up to here,” as she explained to Martin when he grew older. This statement, used in many contexts, was accompanied by an index finger drawn menacingly across her throat. But that decision cost her the chance to be the only accordion instructor in Galena and left few other options as prosperous as promoting the instrument in Jo Daviess County. Mimsy became an employee of Woolworth’s beginning at the lunch counter ( egg salad, donuts) and, some months later, promoted the “cleaner job” as a salesperson in Notions. By that time, as she also explained to Martin while drawing a finger across her throat, she could no longer abide the look, smell, and feel of egg salad. And there she remained for many years, still a “salesgirl” as women shopping for thread, thimbles, patterns, ready-made lace items, and “what-not” thought of her.

If this would seem depressing to some others, Mimsy never seemed down, and Galena housewives noted her quiet manner and ready smile. If Mimsy had hoped to share her life with another husband, the chances waned as few men passed by the Notions Department at Woolworth’s. Martin was raised by his mother and her deliberate fabrications about the character of his heroic father, who had faced cunning rebels on far-flung shores and had left a legacy of decency, bravery, and a God-fearing disposition for the boy to emulate. “Your father,” said she, “was a fearless hero and a gentleman to the core. He stood for truth, justice, and the American way!”

[Editor: That last sentence started an interesting probe into the origins of that particular phrase. Astute readers (and who is not?) would recall that the phrase appeared along with Superman on radio and television. Here, in what can only be a coincidence, Mimsy prefigured it by several years. Zoytlow says that this is how Martin reported it to him, but Martin himself seemed unaware of the connection. He was more interested in what it reveals about Mimsy. She was, as he said, “a woman who was tragically conflicted and whose life was one of quiet desperation.” Here it is Martin Ilman, not Mimsy, who is unknowingly quoting Henry David Thoreau in Walden. This led to one of my most heated discussions with Zoytlow when I suggested, in an attempt at wit, why he should consider using the phrase as the title of this work? He assumed that “quiet desperation” described his efforts at writing. I, of course, meant something else.]

Surprisingly, Mimsy’s efforts did not make a lasting impression on Martin. Perhaps it was their frequent repetition that made them sound increasingly hollow. Much later, as an adult and after a psychology course at the Normal School, Martin (who adored his mother quite effortlessly) began to cobble together a theory that Mimsy was hoping to embellish her brief marriage to “Bill.” This revelation was the final stage of dissolving his father’s intended impact on his young life.

Among his other revelations as a college student, Martin

understood that his disinterest in his “Bill’s” life of bravado was part of growing pacifism, which made his life in Galena that of a misfit. A town that prided itself in supplying Ulysses Grant to the Union Army (as well as eight other generals) and where the merits of each were up for discussion regularly did not fit into his plans. In 1922 he left Galena and attended Northern Illinois State Teachers College in DeKalb. Martin graduated in 1926 with a degree in Secondary Education. He also developed a life-long loyalty to the Democrat Party and an awareness that his occasional intimacies would be with men, something  not shared with either his mother or his best friend, Horace Plumm.

Horace Plumm was from one of DeKalb’s founding families, known chiefly for their efforts to get the town council to change the name DeKalb to something more Anglo-American. Anti-German sentiment was virulent, and the Plumms for years before, during, and after the War were adamant about change. They had taken a family oath not to use the official name! True, the German Baron DeKalb had fought with General Washington for the cause of liberty. However, the Plumms liked the sound of Meadow Glen, Illinois. And they were comfortable assuming their “pure” English descent.Martin resided with the Plumm family near the college for four years. They liked his polite manner, his studious nature, and his politics. Martin and Horace became best friends, and when Horace married, Martin was Best Man. 

As for Mimsy, Martin would take a bus to Galena once a month to visit her. She never failed to remind him: “When you are on that road, think of your dear dad.” Martin promised he would. He was unaware that the last time “Bill” traveled that road was as a shackled deserter facing a court-martial. Gradually, the constant propaganda about heroic “Bill” subsided, and Mimsy allowed herself to be honest. Though Mimsy never told Martin, she had admitted to herself that she despised her husband, was glad he was dead and hated herself for using this contrived legacy to educate her boy.

* * * * * 

“Martin and Bernice and Lester and Chigger” That was how the Christmas Card, 1931, was signed by Martin Illman. That was the year Martin and Bernice were sharing their third year of marriage, the year Lester was a toddler, and when Chigger was the puppy that Bernice had brought home, saying, “A boy needs a dog.” It was also a holiday season marked by an unusually high rancor level for the Illmans. And the Christmas card was the flashpoint. It was an unusual card: a distant manger scene viewed through the long legs of a camel representing one of the three kings. “O Holy Night,” read the card. Wordlessly, Bernice ripped the cards in half. “No cards this year,” said she.

During his Senior Year at DeKalb, Martin and Bernice met while shopping for groceries. Martin was scanning a shelf of breakfast cereals. Bernice walked by, plucked a plain-looking box without breaking her stride, and placed it in her basket. Martin was amazed at this certainty regarding cereal. He followed Bernice and asked what her choice has been. Bernice saw nothing unusual in this, mumbled “spelt,” and moved on. “Whoa there,” said Martin and asked her to repeat that unfamiliar word. “Spelt!”

Her tone was impatient; she rolled her eyes.

This time, Bernice stopped, looked Martin boldly in the face and said, more like a recitation: “Spelt is the grain given to us by Blessed Hildegard of Bingen for it is a balm for body and soul. And you don’t call a person with ‘whoa!’ That’s for horses.” 

Again, Bernice moved on. Martin returned to the cereals and chose a box of spelt. He had unconsciously also chosen a wife and a destiny. Some days later, Martin again encountered Bernice, thanked her for the “gift of spelt,” and asked if he could meet her sometime. “Sure, I don’t mind, “was her flat-toned answer.  

And so it began, Bernice Oddsdottir, daughter of a pietistic Norwegian immigrant couple on a farm in Boone County (“along the Wisconsin border”), had come to DeKalb in search of the “right man” to marry. Why DeKalb? and what was the “right man.” These were things that Bernice felt sure would be revealed. So, when Martin said “gift of spelt,” that settled it. They married, Martin took the job in Skokie, and Lester and Chigger came along within a year. Martin worked long hours, and Bernice found an outlet for her soul’s hunger for a vague emptiness. She found the Brethren of the Most Holy Sinai Table. Each Wednesday, she commuted to Woolfraam House for a day of service and to witness the Harmonizations that were central to the Brethren. Martin had no objection to her Wednesday pilgrimages, but he generally had no interest in it or any spiritual matters.

[PNZ: Not a typo. The Brethren tinkered with their name over the years. Words like “holy,” “precious,” and “flaming” were used from time to time. The consistent use of “brethren” and “table” helped identify this group

which currently appears in the Yellow Pages as “Brethren of the Table

Covenant Tabernakle” (sic).  

They fought. They did not laugh. Their love-making, as Martin had once confided to Cathy Plumm after whiskey had loosened his tongue, was “strict” like Bernice herself. He was not drunk enough to add something about how different it must be for those who knew passion. Bernice and Martin were married, and they could coexist as long as they kept expectations in check. Bernice’s expectations were simple: shelter and the freedom to pursue her spiritual side. She knew that Martin cared deeply for their son, Lester, but that her own loyalty was more to Chigger, the dog that whined on her days away. Despite flare-ups over unexpected matters (choice of a Christmas card), Bernice was indifferent to much around her.  

 In 1936, a decade after both Martin and Horace had graduated and left De Kalb for Chicago, both men had married and found employment opportunities in the expanding New Deal. They had met again, renewed their acquaintanceship at a Democratic social event looking forward to a second term for Franklin Roosevelt. Horace had signed on as an accountant with the Interstate Commerce Commission while Martin investigated obstructed union organizing for the National Labor Relations Board. Martin had remained unattached. In June, during that muggy summer of 1936 which so encouraged beach outings, the Illman’s (Martin, Bernice, Lester and Chigger) and the Plumms, 

(Horace, Catherine, and Lureen and Hulda, their twin daughters, and the spaniel Rexine) spent a day on the lakefront. Rexine and Chigger had found tentative acceptance in each other’s company as well. 

Bernice had no particular opinion on Catherine.

* * * * * * *

By October 1936, both families were more familiar with each other despite the distance between their homes in Des Plaines and Skokie and the differences in their marriages’ presumed health. Martin Illman saw his friend’s marriage to Cathy as nearly perfect, while Catherine Plumm assumed that Martin and Bernice lived in marital hell. But the two families got along well enough to plan beach holidays in summer. The principal bonds were between the children and the dogs. Martin and Horace were old college friends, and both now worked in New Deal agencies. Only Bernice and Catherine lacked any warmth towards each other. Bernice did not think much about the Plumms anyway: they were just objects in her life, like pillows on a couch. Catherine thought of Bernice as a “cold fish” and saw the Illman’s life as drab and doomed. She felt sorry for Martin. Except for Rexine and Chigger, both families were soon thrust into a crisis that came to have national attention.

Briefly told, in October, the Illmans had overlapping and conflicting plans. Bernice planned a drive to see her parents on the farm. Lester would come along, but not Chigger as her mother loathed small dogs. Martin was invited to a workshop in Washington at the same time. What about Chigger? Catherine volunteered to have the dog but could not drive to Skokie due to Lureen and Hulda and their afterlschool lessons. She suggested that there would be enough time following after-school lessons to go to meet at a midpoint, the St. Peregrine Cemetery. Martin would take a bus to meet Catherine at 4:45, and that would be that.

The meeting was on time. Chigger and Rexine were allowed to run through the headstones for a few moments until it was time to put them both in the back seat of the Nash. Chigger came back with his mouth foaming, and Martin dug a candy bar wrapper out of his throat and wiped off his muzzle. Then he straightened the wrapper and said, in amazement, “a Whiz Bar! Chigger found a Whiz Bar! ” Catherine found this scene humorous and doubled over with laughter.

 “Whoo..sorry! I should tell you,” Catherine continued. “that I laughed while you were so earnestly inspecting that candy bar wrapper. You would think you had never seen a Whiz Bar before! You know it is the best-selling candy bar in the state. Made in Bloomington! You know, ‘Whiz, the best candy bar there izzz”. Or is it, ‘best five-cent candy bar there izzz’?”

 Martin smiled, though he felt some hurt over her reaction. But, he had made her happy, and that mattered, too. He looked at his watch.

 “Almost 5:12. I should go. Streetcar comes at 5:20. I sincerely appreciate your help with Chigger–I hope to do something for you sometime and have Rexine. As I like to say, maybe I say it too often, life is supposed to be an adventure and full of surprises.

Catherine gave him a puzzled look and then began, she realized, to seriously babble. “Don’t worry about him. The girls will be happy with a strange, I mean, a new dog, not a strange one, the dog, especially Hulda; she’s so soft-hearted.” Catherine reached in, rolled the Nash’s back windows down halfway to give the dogs air, and smiled at Martin. “How’s Bernice?” Martin shrugged and said nothing.

  “I’ll walk with you a bit to the trolley stop. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it! I’ll bet you’re getting excited. What do you want to see in Washington? Probably climb to the top of the Washington monument. Do we have somewhere to reach you, just in case Chigger…. Stop a minute; I’ll get my notebook and a pencil.”

Catherine turned and took two steps towards the car. Just behind her she heard the sound of something heavy hitting the grass. Martin lay on his side and looked up at Catherine.

“Are you all right?” she asked, “what happened? Did you step into a gopher hole?”

“Uh, no. I just tripped. Clumsy today, too much on my mind.” Catherine extended her hand to Martin as he raised himself off the ground. He brushed some crumpled leaves off his trousers; his right hand continued to hold hers. He looked at their hands and shook his head. 

“My streetcar’s on the way. How ’bout I just send you a postcard or, maybe, call you tonight with the hotel’s telephone number. Don’t have it with me anyway.”

Martin raised his arm in farewell, turned, and began to take broad strides towards the stop. He saw with relief that the streetcar was still a block off. Then a heaviness descended on him, and each step became more difficult. A strangulated sound made him look over his shoulder. Catherine was stumbling after him like a person trying to keep her balance in a high wind on a slippery winter street. Then she fell and lay still. Her collapse released the heaviness Martin had felt, and he sank onto his knees. 

  “What is it?” Martin addressed her with the assumption that she had followed him with an afterthought. “Did you forget something?”

 “Why, no, I thought I was going back to the…but …”

  “Let me help you up, and then I’ve really got to run.”   

The trolley was announcing itself with a double-clang as Martin helped Catherine to her feet, then he waved both arms at the motorman and turned to race towards the street. Catherine shrieked and hit the ground seconds before Martin, too, felt his buttocks absorb the force of the blow. The streetcar moved on and disappeared before either Martin or Catherine spoke. What had happened did not make sense to either. Had she tripped him, he wondered, and for whatever reason? Catherine looked vaguely for some obstacle, a stone, a wire, fishing line, anything that could give a tangible explanation for the obvious fact that Martin had fallen three times and she twice in less than five minutes. But there was nothing entangled in her feet or his. For another moment, she stared at her shoes while Martin lay on his back, looking at the sky. Carefully Catherine assumed a kneeling position, then rose to her feet and took slow steps towards the automobile. Without turning, she knew that Martin had done the same and was now on his feet and following her.

  “What are you doing?” There was anger in her quavering voice.

  “What?”

  “Stop, please.”

  “Stop what?”

  “What…why? “

  “I don’t know!”

  Abruptly, Martin turned and took a decisive step towards the park entrance. This time he was not surprised to hear Catherine gasp and stumble to the ground. Then he lost his balance and fell for the fourth time. 

“Catherine, I have to ask you a crucial question. Please, I know you are truthful but do answer me honestly with all that you hold dear.  

  “Yes, yes, what?”

  “Did you push me?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what just happened?”

  “No. I don’t know. Honestly.”

  They sat facing each other in silence. Catherine pulled the skirt of her print dress towards her ankles. Martin again brushed the crushed leaves from his dark pants, then hid his face in his hands. In the automobile behind them, Chigger began to bark. Catherine spoke slowly, almost a whisper.

“Let’s get up and walk to the car together. I’ll get in and start the engine and drive away. That should settle it.”

  Martin nodded slowly. Maybe that was somehow what was supposed to have happened anyway. They were returning, he half-reasoned, to some prior sequence, back to the start of a movie. Both rose, and Martin followed effortlessly less than a yard behind her to the car with only moderate awkwardness. Catherine entered the vehicle through the passenger side and placed herself behind the wheel. She closed the door and rolled down the passenger window.

  “Ready?”

  “No. This could be dangerous. You hold onto the wheel, and I’ll walk away. When I’m well out of the way, start the car and drive off. Understand?”

  She nodded, rolled up the window, and grimly locked her left arm through the steering wheel, and grasped her door handle with her right hand. Martin turned from the car and, leaning forward as if towing a heavy weight, began to trudge away from the vehicle. The edges of his leather shoes dug into the gravel. Behind him came muted sounds of struggle. He shot a look over his shoulder and saw Catherine, her left hand now gripping the wheel and her face contorted against the window of the passenger door. She was pounding the dashboard with her free hand.

  “Stop!”

  Martin spun around, dropping to his knees. The look of pain on Catherine’s face softened. She rolled down the window and spoke with resignation and a trace of sarcasm.

  “Now, do you want me to drive off?”   

  “No. I think we would both be injured–or worse.”

  “I think you’re right. Can you get in? Let’s get away from this place. Maybe the problem is this place! Best we drive to our house, in Des Plaines. Horace will be home at six. We’ll see then,”

Martin shrugged and entered the automobile. He did not like the idea of Horace being involved. Still, the everyday reassuring driver and passenger postures seemed to calm them both, but sitting together was awkward, which even this preposterous experience could not mask. They spoke little except to note the banalities along the road. Martin stifled the urge to tell Catherine that he was ” growing more fond” of her. Instead, he called attention to the many farmyards with goats. When they reached the Plumm’s house, Catherine choose to drive around through the alley until she came to the garage. Two taps on the horn and Lureen appeared to open the doors. Catherine, Martin, and their curious situation were about to enter a dark garage followed by a time when the world would know them. 

11/ MARTIN ILMAN & CATHERINE PLUMM

Hulda Plumm, Catherine’s younger daughter, shoved the garage doors open and hooked them securely. As if sensing that the sunset was at hand, the garage was dark inside. A single low-wattage light hung from the midpoint of the rafters. Ahead, along the wall, Horace’s workbench with tools hanging from nails. 

More small talk. Catherine said, “Horace’s next project is to get an overhead door. The slightest breeze makes them tricky, and the girls hate the job. He wants to expand his shop, too.

“Yes, I see,” answered Martin, aware of the dullness in his voice. Catherine gave him a commiserating smile. They both knew what was coming next. Catherine called to Lureen, her eldest, to help get the two dogs out of the car and into the house where they should probably both have water. The girl frowned but complied. And would the girls please wipe Chigger and Rexine’s muddy feet? Lureen’s response to her mother’s afterthought was to call her sister. With no one left to observe them, Catherine drove into the narrow garage, shut off the engine, and nodded to Martin. Both gripped their door handles and slowly opened the doors of the Nash. Martin stepped out first and looked across the vehicle’s roof, expecting to see Catherine. But Catherine was lying across the seat and beginning to cry. He ignored her and put his arm on the top, and rested his head on it. They stayed there, immersed in a stupor of helplessness. Martin felt his fear punctuated by more profound and more specific darts of panic: what about the Washington trip? What about Horace? With an effort, he put aside his fears and realized, in this desperate moment, that he loved Catherine and had loved her for months. He began to groan.

“Martin! Martin! Move away from the door and let me out on your side. Then we can walk into the house, into the kitchen. Just sit at the kitchen table. I don’t want to alarm the girls with anything. We can reach the telephone from there.”

Catherine had composed herself and was taking charge. Her few tears in the garage were among the last she would shed for many days. Here was a calm woman, given to practical responses to life’s challenges. During her childhood, she was attracted to graveyards, a habit that initially alarmed her family. Catherine was the only one in her sixth grade who answered a writing assignment about favorite holidays with an earnest theme on “Decoration Day” in which the recently returned robins “beamed” above the graves and small flags hung “happily” over the honored dead. Eventually, her parents convinced themselves that Catherine was not exercising a morbid turn of mind but rather a means of satisfying some inexplicable aesthetic need. When she was fourteen and attending a summer church camp in Wisconsin, she begged the counselors to visit the nearby cemetery. In it, she found the inscription on the gravestone of a pioneer woman: “She trod amongst the roses of life and endured their thorns without a murmur of complaint.” Catherine committed this phrase to memory, wrote it many times on paper, and embroidered it on her pillowcase. It became her motto. After completing the secretarial course in high school, she worked for two years for a downtown pharmaceutical wholesaler as a stenographer typing out statements to drugstores who ordered hair tonic, back plasters, peppermint oil, wart remover, and the thousands of things drugstores kept in stock. Horace Plumm, representing his uncle’s pharmacy in Elgin, appeared one afternoon to pick up a sizeable Icelandic moss order, which was popular in that city as an antidote to ringworm. His first words to his future wife were, “Islandic moss is not a moss. It is a lichen.” Catherine ascribed this odd remark to shyness. She was half-right: it was shyness smothered by a layer of pedantry.  

Two years later, Horace and Catherine were married. Then Lureen and Hulda arrived. They had settled in Elgin, where Horace had served as a bookkeeper for the Elgin Watch Company until the opportunity with the ICC District Office opened up. For Catherine, the New Deal opportunity for her husband had encouraged her to suggest a new setting for the family, Des Plaines; there, not everyone would be an employee in the watch company. And there, she could perhaps find some relief from the sense of suffocation that had afflicted her in Elgin. Catherine had been active in the Methodist church, had attempted to share her embroidery expertise with the home economics classes in the high school, and had patiently helped organize the annual Fire Department Picnic. In 1929 she and Horace had unexpectedly won the canoe race at the picnic. Yet, the urn commemorating the event seemed more sad than celebratory as it stood alone and tarnished on the dining room buffet. When was the last time anyone had mentioned it? Catherine wanted to dispose of it but could not find the excuse to do so. It had become, gradually and inexplicably, a thorn to be endured without a murmur.  

 “Would you like to use the telephone first? Call Bernice?

  “I don’t think I want to do that,” Martin murmured, looking more alone than ever.

 “Of course. Sorry.” Then call your mother, call Mimsy.”

“Mother is getting over the flu. I’ll call Bernice, I guess.”

He suppressed the quaver in his voice. ” Bernice, Chigger and I are staying the weekend with the Plumms. Chigger ate a Whiz Bar and needs to be watched.”  

Bernice gasped. 

“A Whiz Bar, Martin, a Whiz Bar? Did it have to be a Whiz Bar? How is he doing? How could that happen? Since when are you buying Whiz Bars? I’m coming. I’ll be there. I’ll call my folks and tell them what happened, Martin. 

 At his end of the line, Martin sighed and hung up. “How she loves that dog and hates Whiz Bars he muttered. “She and Lester are coming. Soon. Nothing I could do.”

Catherine, seeing his embarrassment, patted his arm.

 “I’d call the police if I thought it would do any good. Or the fire department, or maybe just a plumber,” Catherine said in a near whisper. 

Martin stared at his hands, timidly folded in his lap. He seemed embarrassed by his lack of ideas and faintly hopeful that Catherine would suggest something, though perhaps a plumber was a stretch. He recalled what a plumber might have in his tool kit. Nothing indicated a solution to what seemed to be an invisible problem. After all, somehow, this situation in the Plumm’s darkening kitchen had more to do with her than with him. But her only suggestion was that they both rise and go to the faucet for a glass of water.

“Has this thing ever happened to you before?’ he asked hopefully.

 “Of course not. But I was going to ask you the same thing.”

 “Probably it goes away as quickly as it comes, this business.”

 “I’m sure it will. If it didn’t, we would hear about other people with the same circumstances. I hope.”

 Catherine’s logical response to the “circumstances” came out of her acceptance of them. It had happened. It would have to be resolved. But her more profound intuition instructed her that here was something that would not quickly disappear because a solution would not soon appear. If there were one at all?  

They had moved, carrying their glasses of water, into the living room and taken up opposite ends of a love seat. Martin began to worry about the impression this would make on Horace. Catherine had switched on a table lamp and called in the direction of the girls’ bedroom. Hulda came out holding Chigger.

 “Honey, Mr. Illman and I are tired. Could you see if the telephone cord will stretch out here so that we can call people if we need to?”

The girl looked puzzled for a moment, then tucked the dog under one arm and went to get the phone. She placed it on the end table next to Martin and asked her mother about supper. Catherine told her to open a can of sardines and share some saltines with her sister. 

”There’s your father coming up the walk. Ask him to fix you and your sister a glass of Ovaltine.” Catherine had seen Horace moments before he opened the front door. Martin felt the knot in his stomach. He wanted to look “normal.” But Horace, seeing his friend on the love seat, expressed surprise and concern. Was anything wrong? He sat in a chair opposite them and leaned forward. Catherine spoke first.

 “I, we don’t just know. Something unusual seems to have happened.

Why don’t you explain, Martin.” She turned her eyes to the man on the opposite end of the love seat and kept them there.

“Uh, it was in the cemetery.” Martin put his hand on his chest. “It seems we can’t be apart. Catherine and I can’t be much further apart than we are now.” 

Horace stood up. “What is this? What are you saying?” he half-shouted.

Martin understood him. “No, no, no…nothing like that. We just can’t be physically any further apart than we are now. Look!”

Martin hastily stood up and took two steps. Catherine stumbled to the floor. She grabbed the leg of the love seat and held on. Straining, Martin dragged both woman and love seat across the carpet. Halfway to the kitchen, he stopped, regained his posture, looked at Horace, and shrugged his shoulders. Catherine stood up. They were less than three feet apart, more like two and a half. Horace returned the love seat to its usual place, then turned on a floor lamp against the deepening twilight.  

Soon after that, Bernice arrived. Catherine and Martin began to give the facts again and finished with a demonstration. Bernice shrank from the scene and stood beside Horace. When Catherine suggested that something must be done about feeding the children or anyone else with an appetite, Bernice took on the task and busied herself in the unfamiliar kitchen. The three adults in the living room sat \as if expecting a fog to lift and reveal something. Martin broke this silence with the pained announcement that he must soon heed nature’s call. Catherine volunteered the same information. Horace grasped their dilemma and suggested that the one standing hold a blanket discreetly to shield the other. Horace would stay with them “just in case,” as he put it. “It’s just normal to want privacy,” he intoned.

Martin was annoyed with this gesture and took it for an unflattering suspiciousness. For Catherine, her husband’s actions were devoid of surprise. Horace was, as people so often told her, a “regular guy” and “a good man to have around.” He had not overwhelmed her during their courtship, but he was dependable and rarely excitable.

 The cumbersome use of the toilet prodded them towards a serious discussion. What were they to do? Horace led them to the kitchen and suggested a glass of Ovaltine. He advised Martin that he had best give up the Washington trip. Suddenly, Bernice, who had been quiet, exploded.

 “This is awful !” she wailed. “You send a man on a trolley to deliver a Chihuahua, and you find out he’s tied with another woman. And he can’t get away even if he tries! Maybe you should be trying more, Martin. Can’t one of us think of something? Are we just going to sit here thinking about how they’re going to bathe or figure out how to get them into their pajamas? And where will they sleep? What are we going to do with the kids? You can’t hide them from their kids. Will one of you come up with an idea?” (A pause.) “I have to feed the kids, these poor kids. And the poor dogs.”

She broke into wet sobs and began noisily setting the kitchen table for three. Martin and Catherine, followed by Horace, returned to the living room, where the couple sat down heavily in the love seat. Lureen and Hulda, called from their Monopoly game in the bedroom, passed by them, and sat at the kitchen table. Bernice had come prepared with a block of Velveeta. a box of Creamettes elbow macaroni, and cut up some frankfurters. She had found a bowl of strawberry Jello and served that as well. For a moment, the three in the living room listened to the reassuring talk at the table. Hulda asked why they were called “frankfurters,” and Mitzi, laughing, said that it was because they weren’t “wieners.” Lester, only four, asked if this was goat’s milk? It tasted funny, and he had seen several goats on the edge of Des Plaines. Bernice told Lester to mind his manners; the reason the milk tasted different was that it wasn’t homogenized as it was at home, in Skokie. She left the children and joined the others in the living room’s dimness. 

  “Well?”

Horace answered slowly. “We haven’t a solution, but I think it’s time to call the sheriff and maybe the FBI.”

Bernice shook her head. “That means the papers. Anyway, has there been a crime? Do you want to make headlines?”

 “No, but maybe they’ll have an idea. What if this is happening all over the place and someone has an idea what to do. What if it is from Mars?  Or that new planet, Pluto. I think that we have to think of the children in this. Anyway, maybe it’s time to see if they can pull apart and get back to normal,” suggested Horace. 

Catherine looked at Martin and shook her head.

“Everyone is talking about us and to us, but Martin and I have not had much of a chance to talk about this, but I think he feels the way I do. Trying to separate is not pleasant and not just because one or both of us ends up on the ground with even more bruises.” 

She discreetly lifted her skirt to reveal two discolored knees. “There is so much we don’t know. Which one of us will be the one to fall? Each time we tried to pull apart, I felt an intense sadness. No, what I’m more afraid of is that sadness. It’s a painful thing, and it seems to get a little deeper each time.”

Catherine glanced at Martin and felt relief to see him nodding. He had a slight smile, which he quickly rubbed out with his fingertips. She looked at Horace and continued.   

 “I know this sounds rubbishy, but I have a feeling that if we try to separate, that peculiar feeling will get stronger and that there is danger in it, kind of like getting too close to the edge of something. I’m petrified to try to pull apart. I almost think it is safer to stay this way, so I won’t attempt to pull away until I think there is a purpose to it. “

 Martin stole a glance at his wife and cleared his throat. “I think Catherine is right. I feel something strange, too, but more angry than sad. But I don’t know why. Right now, I’m feeling guilty—all this fuss over Chigger and my trip to Washington. But I know that if I get up and try to walk, I’ll start feeling angry again, and it scares me. Or maybe I am sad, like Cathy.” I don’t know where that will lead me. Sweet Jesus in the A.M.!!

  “Martin! The Lord’s Name.!”

  “Calm down, Bernice. Let’s all of us calm down. I’m sure the Lord will forgive one misuse, if that’s what it was, of his name,” Horace interjected. “Let’s do this. Bernice, you stay here with the kids. Lester can sleep in our bed. I’ll drive to the Rockford State Hospital with Catherine and Martin.”

“The State Hospital? The State Hospital.” Bernice was angry now. “Who made that decision? I heard no discussion. There are plenty of places closer by, and we still have a train to catch tomorrow. Why would you spend half the night driving to the State Hospital in Rockford? At least they know Martin at Lakeside in Evanston. He spent the night there once after he…The State Hospital! Who goes there? Tramps who get injured along the IC tracks and children born out of wedlock and that sort and….”

 “Freaks?” Catherine softly supplied the word. But Bernice was not listening.

“…..I won’t have it! Oh, God, help us! What did we do to deserve this? You grow up, try to make a decent home for your child, keep your nose clean, press your husband’s pants, and hope for a little dignity in your life, and then something like this thing happens to you. Well, there’s a reason for it. There always is! There is no evil so fine that the Lord will not make it shine.”

Bernice, aware that the three children in the kitchen had stopped talking and were listening, clapped a hand over her mouth. The look of terror in her eyes remained.

Horace told them the best bet would be Rockford, no matter what the distance. The Elgin State Hospital was struggling to be accredited, and the others were not, as Horace expressed it, “in the running.”

Horace brought the Nash around to the front of the house. He ushered his wife into the front seat and his friend into the vehicle’s rear seat with some effort. Martin mentioned some discomfort, and Horace adjusted the distance between the seats. It would be nearly midnight before he reached the hospital at Rockford and Horace had much to consider as he drove the federal highway to his destination. He regretted Catherine’s use of “freaks,” but whatever else the State Hospital was, it was experienced; there was little that would surprise them there, unlike the more convenient hospitals Bernice had in mind. It was also out of the local press’s reach and their source of information, the police. He shared these thoughts with the two of them, and they answered agreeably and then fell silent. Horace reached for Catherine’s hand but found it somehow unfamiliar, as if it had changed in size or shape or texture. He looked at her face in the light of an oncoming truck, trying to reassure himself. 

 Horace fumbled with the radio, found WBBM, and settled in for the drive. He had not shared his hope that certain branches of the State Hospital would be able to diagnose and treat whatever their situation. The decision to take Catherine and Martin to Rockford was due to his familiarity with that institution in the 1920s. Graduating with the Class of 1926, Horace had left DeKalb to assume his responsibilities in the pharmacy trade and had often come to Rockford and visited with the dispensary staff. It was they who had suggested Icelandic moss during the ringworm outbreak. 

“Ah, yes, Icelandic moss, Icelandic moss. It’s a lichen, not a moss.”

He wondered if Rockford’s staff knew better now or whether they had been humoring him when Horace had called on them. “Probably thought I didn’t know or care.” Horace had drifted into a reminiscence; it was a decade earlier, he was younger, and the world existed somewhere between moss and lichen. 

At the time, Rockford had recently recruited several notable medical pioneers. In particular, Dr. Zweckloss, a graduate of the Roentgen Institute, had made a considerable impression on Horace. Zweckloss had been Roentgen’s last student and had briefly nursed the old scientist before his death in 1923. Horace had a particular fascination for x-rays, which he believed would someday be refined to reveal the physical world’s truth. Here might be a case that needed to be shown with X-rays. And what else was it about Zweckloss, a man he had seen eating lunch with other scientists one afternoon? He had overheard their talking. Horace rubbed his forehead to recall: was it something about a pastry recipe? Ahead, finally, Rockford’s lights and the red warning light atop the State Hospital’s tall heating plant at the south end.

“You know, Horace, maybe I should explain why Bernice was so opposed to our coming to Rockford.”

  “Oh, so you’re awake. You too, Catherine. Well, here’s Rockford. That’s the place to the left. Bernice? What about her?

  “Before I met her, Bernice was employed by the Cook County Animal Control Board. She even kept the job for a few years after being married until things picked up for me. On the Board, they would be working with some pretty strange cases. Old folks wanted to hang on to their livestock in the city limits. I mean more than a few chickens. I mean, they had swine, cattle, horses, goats. The goats drew the most complaints. Very destructive in the city. So Bernice had to go to Rockford in those cases where they committed folks, the ones who had come to the city’s attention in the animal cases.”

“You mean people were judged insane for having animals? And why would an Animal Control Office have to bring folks to Rockford.”

“No, at least I don’t think so. It’s just that the really crazy ones had animals, something like that. Anyway, Bernice was younger then and more easy-going. Fun some of the time, too. The last case she worked on before she quit involved an old Bohemian, Vasopec, or something. He had a huge sow that he kept in a shed. This is on the North Side. Neighbors liked him, but now and again, the sow would go crazy and slam the side of the shed and scream. He threatened to blow up City Hall if they touched that sow, so the judge had him committed. Bernice had to ride along when they went to Rockford.”

“What happened to the pig?” yawned Catherine.

  “You mean the sow, “said Martin. “Of course, she means sow. Does it matter?” snapped Horace, departing from his Icelandic moss reverie.

“It mattered to Vasopec! But he was hauled off in restraints. I don’t know about the sow. Ask Bernice when you go back if you dare.” Martin began to choke with suppressed laughter. “She won’t admit it, but she took it to a meat packer! Frankfurters, maybe, or wieners.”

Catherine laughed out loud and was still giving little amused snorts 

when Horace, annoyed with his wife’s obvious delight with Martin, pulled into the ambulance dock. 

The Illinois State Hospital, Rockford, recorded all of the case’s measurable features in the first several months of attempted diagnosis and therapy. Case 36-4039 yielded many pages of the most extraordinary attempts to go beyond speculation into solid science. All the particulars of the case were summarized in a volume of other medical mysteries When Therapy Meets Philosophy, published in Brussels after the war. 

One straightforward generalization emerged: both Catherine Plumm and Martin Illman were not unhappy with their “situation,” as most people referred to it. True, they were never more than twenty-seven inches apart, though there were no boundaries to their nearness. Both had good appetites and enjoyed each other’s food choices so that the dietary staff had little difficulty in pleasing them. They inhabited a sunny room that had its strongest light in the afternoon. Two large double mattresses with a low bolster between them dominated the room. The nursing staff understood that both the bolster and the bed’s size were gestures of courtesy to the Plumm and Illman families, but not Catherine and Martin’s preference. 

Of the therapies offered to Catherine and Martin, the first to be dismissed as useless was an x-ray. The apparatus of Zweckloss, Horace Plumm’s inspiration on that desperate October evening in 1936, had been scrapped in favor of newer though equally ineffective devices. 

Out of deference to Bernice Illman, who saw the situation as “time on the cross” for all of them, several Protestant Chicago clergymen were invited to offer prayer and opinion. After they failed, Bernice argued that Lester needed a “real dad,” married an evangelist, and moved to California. Horace Plumm raised his girls’ to be admired young women and spent much time fishing in Wisconsin after old contacts in the State Hospital pharmacy had apprised him of the best lakes for crappies. And they were all pleased to learn that, as Horace had attempted to recall on that October drive to Rockford, there had been something about a pastry recipe. The item, a seasonal gooseberry bismarck introduced by Dr. Zwecklos, was now an established favorite throughout Rockford.

Freudians offered versions of hysteria, and several physicists attempted to engage Einstein’s mind as late as 1940. Eventually, Case 36-4039 came to the Cold War planners’ attention, especially those concerned with defense applications. Catherine and Martin were classified and deemed possible and promising resources in the national interest. They were guaranteed comfortable and secure living arrangements at their beloved State Hospital

pleased to be beneficiaries of a nervous world and each other’s pleasant company.  

12/ MITZI EELMAN KNECHT

Frank took his hands off the steering wheel and rubbed them together in a gesture of satisfaction. They had crossed the Mississippi River leaving Illinois behind and entering Iowa. Another marker for Frank on what was a purposeful journey for him and Mitzi. The sound of his dry, calloused hands was unpleasant, a rasping distraction from her focus on the road ahead. She gave him a glance, a warning to cease. Frank had anticipated her displeasure and had reached for a wintergreen drop in his shirt pocket. Mitzi was not yet resigned to Frank’s maddening habits of hand rubbing and wintergreen consumption. It happened whenever they crossed rivers, state lines, or after the descent of a range of hills. The crossing into Iowa had provided all three. And when they did get to Dinosaur National Monument some days ahead, she expected Frank to walk around the car and trailer, rubbing his hands and smiling broadly. That was Frank, a man of small victories.

Despite such distractions, Mitzi zealously monitored the road. Their travels had become mainly silent, wary experiences more familiar to airline passengers. Frank had once joked that Mitzi never blinked. Road conditions, atmospheric phenomena, traffic ahead or to the side, and engine sounds were continuously integrated and analyzed by his wife, a non-driver, since the amputation of her right foot. Frank was a competent driver, but her vigilance was a given. Few things could break her concentration, but, in the large rear-view mirror, the kind that could almost see around the trailer, he saw one of them approaching—a pickup with at least three beagles in the back, their tails thrashing joyfully. The truck passed and resumed the driving lane safely ahead of them. Mitzi yelled. ” Frank! For Chrissakes, don’t tailgate! (he was not,) Stay back!” The truck was nearly a quarter-mile ahead but too close for Mitzi. She dropped her gaze to the hem of her cotton dress and studied it until Frank’s “OK” signaled an all-clear. In hopes of distracting her, he tried the radio but could hear only a buzzing sound. 

Mitzi’s aversion to dogs was an ongoing, perhaps even a determining theme of their lives together. As newlyweds, Frank had presented Mitzi with a dachshund puppy. She loved the dog, named it Felix, housebroke it, and took it on walks in their Elgin neighborhood. Frank was pleased and saw this as evidence of his bride’s maternal instincts. However, within a year, Mitzi became moodier and made excuses not to walk Felix. Frank took over the dog, and Felix was entirely his responsibility at the time of the dog’s untimely death. Felix, slipping his collar while on a walk, dashed into the street and was crushed by a city bus. How to tell Mitzi this awful news? Much to his relief, she merely said, “are you sure?” and then said not a word more on the subject. He believed that her grief was so devastating that she could not confront it. Frank offered to buy another dog, but she refused.

Soon after that, Mitzi began to talk about moving further away from Elgin’s center. The city, she said, was too dirty, too noisy. Barking dogs, and you hardly knew where to step with all their excrement. She wanted privacy. So they moved to the outskirts of Elgin. Frank took on extra work at the watch factory and managed the mortgage on their bungalow with its nearly two acres of lawn. Only lawn. Mitzi disliked trees since they were attractive to dogs. With boards from derelict barns in the county, Frank surrounded the yard with a fence. Mitzi felt better and had fewer moods. Frank purchased a gasoline mower for their fourth anniversary, and Mitzi took over the lawn duties. Twice a week, she mowed. Frank was pleased, and he saw in his wife’s beautifully kept lawn more evidence of her maternal qualities. Still, her avoidance of dogs disturbed him. She insisted that he avoid driving near parks, pet shops, and other areas where dogs resided. Mizi was seven months pregnant when a stray dog suggesting Chihuahua ancestry tunneled under the fence and sat on the doorstep. Mitzi called Frank at work. He could hear that she was hyperventilating and told her to scare the intruder off with a broom. When he returned home, the dog was curled up on the welcome mat, and Mitzi was in bed under the cover and fighting for breath.

On that day, Frank attempted to “get to the bottom of all this.” He bluntly asked Mitzi what was the problem with dogs anyway? It seemed silly to him. At the word “silly,” she bristled. 

I never said I didn’t like dogs,” she began, but the shaggier their tails, the more I like them,”

“What makes those tails better?”

“They cover things.”

“Cover things? What things?” Frank was beginning to get a sense of where this was heading.

“Their ugly….their disgusting….” More prodding by Frank until he learned that his wife could not bear to see, or even imagine, their “anal zones.” If only they could keep it covered or face her to obscure the disgusting hind ends. 

Frank was puzzled, but he decided that there were worse things than a wife who was phobic about certain features of canine bodies. He would strive to avoid such awkwardness. 

Jeannette was born six months later, and, ever vigilant, Frank and Mitzi settled down on their two fenced acres on the edge of Elgin, Illinois. Jeannette grew up without pets and aware of her mother’s feelings about dogs, though specifics were never discussed. The lawn remained a focus; Mitzi often heard that it was better than the one in front of the Elgin Watch Company’s executive offices. Frank enjoyed looking at it, and Jeannette liked to roll on it and looked in vain for a four-leaf clover. Mitzi kept it short, free of weeds, and clean: an emerald carpet. Idyllic, and no dogs allowed.

Two days out and Frank pulled the car and trailer into North Platte, Nebraska. He rubbed his hands together. He felt good. The Great Plains–they were half-way to Dinosaur. They stopped at the Frontier Campground, and Frank found a spot. He got out, opened the trunk, found the bottle behind the spare tire and took two short nips of the warm liquor. The heat of the road is in this brandy, thought Frank. Mitzi was airing out the trailer and preparing a hash and eggs supper. She felt safe in the trailer and had given up motels, even those that posted “No Dogs Allowed.”

“Frank,” she called through the screen door. ‘”Where did you put that box with the doll and doll clothes. I thought it was above the cooler.”

“What?”

“Doll stuff. Clothes for a Ginny Doll!”

“A what?”

“Frank!”

“Oh, yeah. Ginny. I thought you packed her.”

“I did, but not the clothes. You were supposed to pack ’em.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

But Frank was not sure. He put the brandy back behind the tire, spat, and put a wintergreen Lifesaver in his mouth. He peered through the screen door. 

“Ginny is back behind the bed.”

“I know that, Frank. I put her there. Then I went to mow the lawn and told you to take care of Ginny’s clothes. They were in a shoebox. Did you pack them, or didn’t you?”

“I’ll look in the trunk.” Of course, he had not packed Ginny’s wardrobe. They had discussed the doll and how, upon finding Jeannette, the dolls would help bring back good memories of her childhood home, though Frank could not recall seeing his daughter play with dolls. Now he walked to the car’s trunk, a Ford sedan, and then went through the motions. Of course, the brandy was there and with less road heat. He took a nip, then put the usual wintergreen drop into this left cheek, and strolled to the trailer where he took his seat for supper.

“Well?” said Mitzi, putting the hash and eggs in front of Frank. He mixed his egg yolks with the hash. “Didn”t find ’em,” said Frank. His tone was one of puzzlement. “I saw a K-Mart on the edge of town. We could get new ones.”

“Jesus, Frank! It would cost good money to replace even half of that stuff. Eight pairs of shoes! A tiara! Listen, those things were important. They might have gotten Jeannette to come to her senses. What are we going to Dinosaur for, anyway? I can’t do this alone, Frank! And do you have to suck mints during dinner? Put it out or swallow it!”

Frank remembered the mint. It was nearly as thin as a postage stamp, and Frank liked to see how long he could keep a Lifesaver intact. He maneuvered it to the front of his tongue, removed it, glanced at it (very thin!), and then put the remains on the edge of his paper plate. 

Mitzi glanced at it with contempt. “Haven’t I had enough trouble?”

That would be it. Frank winced and sighed. She was through for a while. The remark was meant to carry the weight of dog problems, her missing foot, the departure of her only child at the age of sixteen, or was it seventeen?. The meal continued in silence, as did the evening. Frank visited the Ford’s trunk once more before bedtime and then slept through the night. 

Had Jeannette been a happy child? The answer was not obvious. She appeared to be neither happy nor unhappy. Like her grandmother Mehna, often silent and unlikely to provide clues to her inner life. Jeannette lived on the edge of childhood; she saw that time of life as fleeting and even embarrassing. Her parents were materially supportive and supplied her with appropriate toys for each presumed developmental stage, taken with care from a list provided by the family doctor. Jeanette dutifully played with each toy, but mostly they stayed on a shelf to be dusted by Frank once a week. Jeannette rarely laughed or cried in an obvious way. For many years, season permitting, she counted anthills and even individual ants. When this was impossible during the winter, Jeanette invented alphabets and wrote long letters to imaginary friends. No one could decipher these letters, and she never shared them anyway. She did not jump rope, play with jacks, know how to play hopscotch, or play Monopoly.  

When Jeannette was sixteen, she got “perky,” as Frank described it. She stopped counting ants, began to wean herself from the secret alphabets, and hung around the front gate to the manicured lawn. That was where she stood on the late afternoon of Mitzi’s accident. Her mother was mowing, if not patrolling, the lawn and concentrating on cutting overlapping swaths by a mere inch. A young man on a motorcycle drifted by, followed by a large black dog, a Labrador. He stopped near Jeannette and spoke to her. Mitzi, executing an elegant curve, glanced towards the fence just as the dog vaulted over. She shouted to Jeannette to do something, This seemed to excite the dog, and it decided to bound after the mower. Mitzi screamed and wrenched the steering bar in hopes of returning with the mower to the garage. The mower overturned. Frank sued the manufacturer, whose legal team persuaded the jury that this was operator error and never should have happened. Frank lost the suit; Mitzi lost her right foot. 

Jeannette was seventeen when she disappeared. Abducted? The police wanted to explore that theory with bloodhounds, but Mitzi objected to dogs on her property. The District Attorney threatened a criminal investigation for obstruction, but Mitzi was saved by a telegram from her daughter. Jeannette announced her elopement. “Do not worry. He is nice. His name is Duwayne.”

Frank and Mitzi were mystified. They were not to learn more about Duwayne. From time to time, they received small bits of information, such as when The Elgin Watch Factory was asked, on a postcard from Miles City, Montana, whether Frank has insurance from his employer to cover the doctor’s fees associated with a broken arm. Another card regarding an allergy attack in Medford, Oregon. No return address in either case. These fragments concerned her parents, but there was no further word until six years ago when a postcard arrived from Manistique, Michigan, saying. “I like it here.” They drove north, but failed to find her. Only the root beer stand manager seemed to recall her: on the tall side, strawberry blond, braces? That might be Jeannette: she had been half-way through her orthodontia when she left. Perhaps she would return to Elgin to have them removed? But she did not.

Now, on the fourth day driving west, they were following up on another hint and this was the day that would bring them to Dinosaur and Jeannette. Frank and Mitzi sat in the trailer eating Raisin Bran with reconstituted powdered milk. Frank craned his neck to look at the Rockies in the morning light more than once. Mitzi looked at Frank.

“Put on your flannel shirt. It’s cold in the mountains. You’ll get sick. Coffee?”

“Nah-uh.”

“What kind of sound is that? Say yes or no, thanks. Jesus!”

But Frank was through the trailer door and only heard “..sus” though he could imagine what the issue has been. He had, after all, said “Nah-uh” with malicious intent. It would be a tough day. He looked toward the mountains again and felt the fear in his gut. Mountains bothered Frank, some deeper thing. It would be slow going and he would feel the earth’s weight as the horizon shrank. The other force to reckon with was the definite disapproval oozing from Mitzi in the passenger seat next to him.

Dinosaur National Monument on the Colorado-Utah border was where they hoped to find Jeannette. It was a Green River site that revealed large saurians’ fossils. The laboratory of paleontology was open to the public. Jeannette had mailed another “I like it here.” postcard from this place in June with the added detail that he was selling groceries and pumping gas near the Park. Now it was August, and Frank had been fretting for nearly two months, waiting for his vacation time. He returned to the trailer to tell Mitzi that he was ready to go. He found her in the bed with a blanket over her head.

“What’s up, MItz?”

“NOTHING!”

“Come on.”

She gave a loud, ragged sigh. “What should we say to her?”

“About what?’

“About anything. It’s been more than ten years, I mean.”

“I know what NOT to talk about.” said Frank quietly.

 Mitzi did not respond. Both knew it was about the accident. It was the default explanation of why Jeanette had left home: the mower, the dog, the loss of a foot. Still, no one had blamed her then, nor did they blame her now.

It was, as Frank had feared, a slow drive. The car overheated frequently on long ascents, and he was forced to pull over and let the radiator cool. They stopped at a Whataburger drive-in to save time. 

He was intimidated by the small speaker/mike.

“Gudftrnoozr. Plazzerurdna?”

“Huh?”

“Plazzerurdna?”

“Huh?” What was the question? Mitzi had heard the voice, too.

“Frank! Get on with it! Tell him!”

“Tell him?” Then the confusion lifted.

“Oh, yeah, aaah…aaah…two cheeseburgers, one with pickle, mustard and some lettuce and the other one…aaah….aaah tomato and mayonnaise. No ketchup, please, aaah….”

“Waznu, ketchna, pleezurgur.”

“Huh?”

“Frank! Just say no fries and two waters.”

“Waters? I want a coffee.”

“Then one water and one coffee.”

“Waznu ketchna….”

“No fries, one coffee, one water, aaah…..

“Thak!! Pickkupnaurdna. ONE FORTY.”

Frank moved the car to an area marked “PICK UP HERE.” Fumbling for his money in his trouser pocket, he failed to see the overhang just ahead in time. He gasped sharply and whispered “are we going to make it?” He did not. With a sharp tearing sound, the trailer’s roof caught on an iron bar. Frank backed and wrenched the trailer free with a screech of violated aluminum. The driver behind him, confused, honked. People seated in a booth inside the Whataburger stood up and craned for a better view. Two boys on bikes circled about and shook their heads contemptuously. A woman in a Whataburger cap and apron approached and apologized for the delay in getting the fishburgers ready. The manager came around from the back and looked for several minutes at the overhang and seemed satisfied that there would be no need to make those calls to the police and the insurance. 

Frank was sweating profusely. He denied ordering the fishburgers, and the Whataburger woman returned with the sack. Now he stared directly into the sun, trying to assess the damage to his trailer. Sweat stinging his eyes, he turned his head wildly, looking for a safe direction to seek refuge. He bolted onto the highway and then pulled over a short distance ahead. The gravel sloped down into a ditch, and the vehicle stopped with Mitzi pressed against the passenger window. She stared at the litter at the bottom of the ditch and then pulled a blanket over her head. “Get the car out of the ditch. Go back and get the lunch. Haven’t I had enough trouble?”

Frank’s acceleration style was not suitable to the single-lane Colorado highway or any highway–a pulsating on and off the gas pedal. The sun was low and the hills glowed in chalky orange. It would probably soon be closing time at whatever place their daughter worked. Both Frank and his wife began reading billboards to get a clue for what they might be looking for, the place Jeannette wrote about liking. Adolf’s Groceteria. “First Choice of Dinosaur Guests.” Fern’s Place. “Your One Stop Before the Park.” Mrotek’s with no further information. It had to be one of those; he guessed it would be Fern’s. He imagined Fern to be a leathery, deep-voiced cowgirl. Mitzi did no such speculating. “Look for Mrotek.” and Frank nodded and applied the accelerator. They crested a hill, and Frank squinted in search of a town. Nothing but a long row of electrical towers. They passed the remains of a pronghorn antelope: roadkill.

“I’d hate to end up here. It’s a lot of nothing.” said Frank quietly. He began to hum and whisper about not being buried on the lone prairie. Why, he pondered. Would their daughter choose such isolation? And why would she stay here? He cleared his throat and spoke in a confident tone.

” We have to be ready not to find her. How long since that card.”

“Second of June.”

“She might have moved on.”

“No.”

“Well, it IS possible. Hope not.” he answered in a lighter tone. “But this is not Yellowstone.”

“What does THAT mean?” He could tell she was getting annoyed.

“This place does not get the business. Shorter season. Might not be much point in staying on until Labor Day.”

“Yeah, well, that would be my luck, wouldn’t it now? I’m ready for that.” said Mitzi with hardness in her voice. 

It was another expression she used for times she was both expecting disappointment and at the same time recalling past injuries. When she was eleven, she had a cruel experience with a birthday party. She and Mehna lived at Woolfraam house and Mitzi was attending public school. Could she have a birthday party like the other girls? Games, cake, and ice cream. Decorations? Mehna asked for a Harmonization on the question and the aging Woolfraam patriarch divined that the Brethren had authorized that such events be on Arbor Day. Arbor Day? Mitzi told her mother that this would not do: Arbor Day was set aside for planting trees in the Park. There was no arguing with Old Woolfraam on this point and so Mehna made plans to invite all the girls in the fifth grade to come to Mitzi’s party on Arbor Day, 1928. Fourteen girls were handed invitations. Mitzi braced herself and she was right. In the week before Arbor Day her classmates were distant. There was whispering and giggling during recess on the playground. No one came to the party. 

“A shame.” said the taciturn Mehna. “I don’t care,” said Mitzi, “but let’s never do this again. That’s my luck.” There were no other parties, nor did any of her classmates ever penetrate the Woolfraam House. If there was a particular table, a Holy Table, in the Woolfraan House, who knew? Years later, as a mother, Mitzi did not care to risk a birthday party for Jeannette, who never brought classmates home after school or on weekends. 

They passed Fern’s. A one-pump diner and curio shop combination which looked closed or abandoned. Several hundred yards later, a sign for the National Monument appeared, and then, a quarter-mile further ahead, Mrotek’s. Frank shifted into second for the approach. He removed his hands from the wheel long enough to rub them together. “Here we are. Mrotek’s the Magnificent. He was assuming it was the end of the quest. Mitzi was quiet. To her, the place looked like the desolate Fern’s but with a large brick-red sausage mounted on the roof with “Polish Today!” written in a mustard yellow on it. 

Frank pulled onto the parking lot next to a big Buick with Michigan plates and bumper ads for two South Dakota attractions: Reptile Gardens and Passion Play. Intent on what they might find at Mrotek’s, neither Frank nor Mitzi noticed the car or its owner peering under the hood. 

“Heading East?’

“Huh?’

“East” The voice belonged to a hairy-chested man in a sleeveless undershirt who now stood up and grinned. “Wife’s in the store. Bread.

I can’t find good rye bread out here. Hell, I can’t find any bread I’d wanna eat! Plenty of scenery, though; they got that. The wife wants to go to see Salt Lake. Just did this Park. Bones!”

“Aaah…Aaah,” said Frank. What to say?

“Heading South? Stop at the Purple Sage in Rock Springs, pretty nice for a town like that. Try the lamb. We’ll be there next week. Say, do you have a spare bulb for a flashlight? Just checked and this place is out. The wife likes to read maps at night. Got to get to San Borboneo for a wedding. It’s in the desert..”

Frank looked thoughtful. He was trying to look like a man who was reviewing his inventory. “Aaah, no spare bulb. Something I better get.”

He hoped to break free of this fellow quickly and he heard Mitzi shuffling in the gravel behind him. 

“Forget it. Say, been to the Passion Play in Spearfish? They do a fine job. I cried, no kidding and not ashamed to say. There is this scene where….” And the man laughed unexpectantly and shook his head

But Frank had raised his arm in a friendly gesture of farewell and he and Mitzi turned towards the store entrance. Any consideration of the comic elements about a crucifixion would have to wait. Still, to leave this fellow with his bonhomie seemed rude. Frank stopped though now prodded from behind. He found a cheery tone, and turned towards the Buick. 

“Not heading south or east. We’re here. Visiting the daughter. She works here. Been a few years. Say, it sounds like you and the missus have quite a trip! Like the Buick?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Say your daughter works here? Here?” He swept his arm to include Mrotek’s, the sausage sign, and the lowering sun in the west. “That’s nice, I guess.”

Frank sensed the man’s doubts. “Sure. Great job! Just the thing for summer. Fresh air, good hours, and all the sausage she can eat!” The man grinned. Frank had wanted to end on a positive note. Satisfied that he had been a “regular guy,” he followed Mitzi into the store. She had clumped up the wooden stairs, and her limp was suddenly more apparent.

Inside Mrotek’s, a fog of frying onions, sausages, and toasting buns. Frank and Mitzi moved towards a woman at a cash register. To one side on the counter, a rack of nickel bags of potato chips, some thumb-printed with dark grease, perhaps from men with Buicks who spent time touching things under the hood. On the other side, shallow trays of curios: mineral samples, rubber dinosaurs, rattlesnake belts, and key chains. One not obvious from the highway was a windowless cafe with eight red stools at a narrow yellow counter in an adjoining room. This must be where they serve, thought Frank. Back at the cash register, an older woman who spoke with an accent, looked at Mitzi with curiosity.

“So, welcome back, folks. Hard to stay away, ain’t it?” 

“Yes, right.” said Mitzi, ignoring the familiarity,” but we’re looking for Jeannette Knecht, our daughter. Does she work here?”

“No.”

“Have you seen her?”

“See her? I don’t know her. What she look like?”

Frank supplied the basics. Height, hair color, moles, and whatever they remembered under the tension that he and Mitzi now felt. Then Mitzi added that she had braces when they last saw her. The woman seemed to wake up with a huge “Oh, ja! Dat one.!” And she laughed, showing a row of gilded molars. ” I go to ask cook.”

She slid off her stool, locked the cash register, and limped towards the kitchen. Frank pointed our her gait to Mitzi, with whom she shared a limp, then regretted it. Mitzi frowned deeply.

Minutes passed. Frank picked up a brochure from a dusty pile lying on the counter. He read silently to himself, lips moving slightly. He was learning about Faebler’s Walnut Brittle, which was sold in a shop on the highway to Salt Lake. The Faeblers had brought walnuts to Utah and were renowned for their brittle. “We Ship to 48 States.” Some testimonials from consumers followed. The reading and the photos cast Frank into a remembrance. Frank’s father had brought home a sack of unshelled mixed nuts when he was eight or so. It must have been during the holidays. He asked Frank to sort and count the nuts. There had been 14 walnuts, 23 almonds, 16 filberts, 6 pecans, and 15 Brazil nuts, which his father insisted be called Para Nuts. “What they say in the Old Country!” Having counted and sorted, Frank was asked what he had learned from this small task. At first this seemed obvious: they were different from each other. They came from different places and had different colors and textures. Some easy to open, some not. A kid could make walnut shells into little boats to launch in puddles; others were not good for play. With each answer, his now unsmiling father shook his head. He never said another word about the nuts, walked out of the room, and the matter ended. Now, decades later, Frank Knecht still wondered just how he had failed.

The woman returned from the kitchen with a slip of paper. She handed it to Mitzi, who read, silently, the words “ketorM bulK.” She gave it back to the woman who looked at it and turned it upside down once or twice,

“Cook write funny. Also think funny. He say ‘Klub Mrotek’ Go there. You find the lady. One front tooth has silver. She play sax, sing a little. J and the Applicators.”

“Could be, could be.” said Frank. “Many thanks. Say, I wondered your accent–sounds like you might come from Poland? Am I right?”

“Sure.” answered the woman with a bored look.

“The wife here, her people are from, how do you say, Masuria. That’s in Poland, right.”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe.”

[Editor: Mitzi’s father, the late Aeselinski, traced his descent from the Masurian Lakes region in Northern Poland. He was proud of this region and, growing up in Chicago, heard much talk about its lakes and their beauty. Meanwhile, she heard next to nothing about Transdanubia from Mehna. It is not surprising that she would opt to identify as “Masurian,” so she had presented herself to Frank Knecht.]

It was now early evening and the first bright stars had appeared over the dark sandstone ridges on the horizon. They were looking for the Ketorm Klub down the road. On the left. Watch for a flashing neon sign. Frank accelerated up the hills and rolled down with his foot off the gas. They were in no hurry. The impatience that so often drove Mitzi was somehow gone. Neither spoke. Frank tried the radio, but there was nothing except the usual hissing.

Mitzi broke the silence. “Back at Woolfraam House, there was a time when Father Woolfraam, Emil, and Ezrah, his son, went down to Moline for firewood. They bought a couple of bear cubs in a pen, ones they found in the woods. Ezrah wanted one for a pet. He made a scene; he was about twelve. Emil got him back of the woodpile and they Harmonized. Then Emil saw it. They would buy one cub and raise it in the yard. The House had a high fence and the neighbors would not notice. 

The bear came home and Emil told us all he was a part of our family and was welcome at the Sinai Table. This all happened in September. The bear was huge and still chained to a stake in the yard by the next spring. It wore a circle into the grass. All this happened before I was born. The bear began to growl and roar in the mornings. Emil just said “Behold!’ to the bear but nothing else was done. The cub was now a monster. Finally the chain broke and the bear roamed the neighborhood for a day before police took it off. I don’t know if it was dead or alive.” 

Frank was silent. He fished a wintergreen Lifesaver out of his shirt pocket. He had heard the story before and wondered why Mitzi thought of it now. Or why he had pondered the incident with the mixed nuts earlier. What were our brains up to? 

“OK. Lights ahead. Watch for what was it, Romtek?”

“Were you listening!? KETORM! Should I spell it? K, E..”

“Aaah. There it is,” said Frank in a monotone.

The Ketorm Klub was a square shed made of corrugated metal. The blinking sign above the door verified the name. The gravel parking lot was nearly empty, and Frank chose a secluded spot away from the door along the building’s side. He brought his hands together, but stopped short of rubbing them into the familiar rasp. Mitzi opened her door, glanced around to check for dogs, and stepped out. The night was already chilly.

“Ready” he asked in a low tone.  

“I guess.”

They entered and found few occupants. A shadowy booth in the back across from a dance floor but with a low stage view seemed a good choice. Frank walked to the bar, ordered two bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and asked about the music. Another half-hour. They sat in a booth; couples drifted in wearing western outfits. Mitzi began to peel the label off her sweating bottle with a thumbnail. After a few moments, Frank did the same. 

Mitzi slid back in the booth until her shoulder leaned against the metal wall. Frank glanced at her and saw fear in her eyes. Yes, they were both afraid. The search had been diverting, but now, at the apparent end of it other thoughts were at play. Fear of rejection, fear of disappointment, fear of awkward blundering, fear of fear consuming them. Tremors in his gut, shallower breathing, cold hands. Frank had all the signs. The entrance door opened and startled them both. Two couples in matching western wear, aqua and black with bandannas and Stetsons, walked towards the tables surrounding the wooden dance floor. They waved to Frank, having failed to note Mitzi was now slouching deeply in the booth, staring at the shredded remains of the label on her beer. Others arrived. The man behind the bar, all dressed in denim, strode to the area awaiting the band. He turned up the lights on the stage. A microphone squealed. A drummer appeared and provided a drum roll. Frank closed his eyes. 

“Howdy, howdy, howdy all you good-lookin’ folks.! Welcome to a really great evening at Mrotek’s Ketorm Club. The bar is open. Second drink is half-price. And we have that sausage on the grill, the one you all love. Now let me move things along by saying ‘Here they are, J and the Applicators!”

The club was now nearly filled with people who whistled loudly and stomped their approval. There was a rush to the bar and then the rest of the band came on stage. All men, but no Jeannette. They warmed up a bit and then a banjo player stepped to the microphone;

“Folks, we know who you want to see and what you want to hear, so here singing her hit ‘Gully Wash of Love’ is (drum roll, and scream on a sax) our J.!!” A tall, lean, red-haired woman strode on stage and stood before the chromed microphone. Her cowboy boots were of tooled white leather and reached almost to the hem of her buckskin skirt. She wore a straw hat and a red and white checked blouse. The scarf was fringed with sequins, and her left wrist seemed weighted with a massive chunk of turquoise. A short lariat hung from her snake-skin belt to finish off the look. This was J, but could it also be Jeannette? Frank and Mitzi leaned forward, J. signaled the band to begin. J. swaying, crooned a few bars and tapped her boots. 

“O-oh, yass! Mizzerie is mah middo-nayim, mah middo-nayim. Ah say MIZZERIE. Yass! Ah, tell yoo! So, aaaaaah in a Gullywarsh. Yoo left mee thayr….The Gullywarsh of Luh-UV.”

The dance floor had quickly filled with colorful couples. Frank took Mitzi’s hand and moved quickly around the edge of the dance floor until they stood as close as they dared to the stage, off to the right. They stared at J., who was winding up her hit song with a full-throated, open-mouthed bellowed word ‘LUH-UV’! Mitzi nudged Frank and nodded towards the entrance. They were in the parking lot by the time J. said “Thengkyu!” and told the dancers to remain on the floor because “here come J’s Yodle’ to which the audience gave another approving blend of whistles and foot stomps.

The night was cooler still and scented with sagebrush. They were heading back to the campground at Dinosaur. The highway was deserted. Frank tried the radio. Nothing. Mitzi cleared her throat as if preparing to speak, but said nothing. Nearly at the campground, Frank finally spoke.

“Want to see the Reptile Gardens on the way home? Or that Passion Play? Day after tomorrow?” 

“Reptile Gardens won’t take as long. Well, did you see it? When she opened wide?”

” Sure did. Why she never had a dentist take that off…I dunno.” Frank found his wintergreen Lifesavers and peeled one off. Mitzi entered the trailer and turned on the heater. It was very dark, but Frank found the now chilled bottle in the trunk, right behind the spare tire.

13/ TOBY ILMAN

Light, steady rain and the chill of early November. Toby Ilmann stood just inside the lobby doors of the concert hall, sizing up the crowd hurrying into the light and warmth of the interior. Daylight saving time had ended: it was already very dark. Half an hour until the performance. He would rather have been somewhere else, but the orchestra was world-famous, the conductor frequently in the celebrity columns, and Toby had the two tickets he had confidently purchased weeks ago. His intended companion, the nurse who lived in an apartment just three corners from the concert hall, had developed flu symptoms. That is what she had told Toby on the telephone late in the afternoon. Regrets, but he would likely have no difficulty selling the extra ticket. Toby hated the idea, but the ticket was worth eleven dollars. Now he stood, the spare ticket held shoulder-high against his coat, fighting the idea of actually hawking it. The lobby smelled of damp clothing and something like mentholated cough drops.

A young man with a cobalt blue backpack and matching running shoes, probably a university student, hesitated in front of Toby. Was the ticket for sale? How much? Yes, Toby explained almost apologetically, someone with the flu. Half price? The student fished seven damp dollars out of the backpack pocket and then dug into his pants pocket but came up empty. Forget it. Give the kid a break. Thanks, said the student. See you inside, said Toby, still holding his ticket aloft. The student looked at him blankly and left for the hall’s interior.

Moments later, buyer and seller were reunited, Row Fourteen, Seats 8 and 9. In the middle of the row, the student to Toby’s left. Both studied their programs, including the advertisements, and ignored each other. Toby noted that the student had a drippy nose and no tissue or handkerchief. A series of short sniffs, an occasional deeper snort, and a hasty pass of his nylon sleeve under the inflamed nostrils confirmed this deplorable condition. The two seats to Toby’s right were now also being occupied. A well-dressed elderly couple was standing and trying to decide which place would afford the best vantage point. The man, fat layered over his dark gabardine jacket’s collar, murmured to his frail wife in a brown suit. She looked doubtfully at Toby, who had the presence of mind to smile slightly. The woman reassured, sat down and turned to whisper something into her husband’s ear. Toby felt the irritation of being stuck between total strangers instead of making small talk with the bartender, some years younger than himself, whom he had hoped to impress this evening somehow. The suspicion that his influenza was an excuse (a lousy lie) wormed its way into his cheerless thoughts.

A week ago, he visited with his father at the Rockford State Hospital and called his mother in Los Angeles. He learned that she had left the evangelist and moved back to Cicero. As usual, Martin was awash with euphoria, even after twenty-some years in a private suite at the State Hospital. He shook hands with Martin and then followed it with a brief embrace. His father smelled of camphor. Martin would report on what he had been reading since Toby’s last visit in September. Then came the grumbling complaints that nothing was worth watching on the new color television the government had moved into their quarters in April. “Of course,” he said, “this has led to the first argument Cathryn and I ever had! Just like all married folks, you know.” 

Years earlier, Martin and Catherine had married. It was not their idea, but the State of Illinois had arranged it without explaining why. Toby guessed it had something to do with a concern with “fornication,” as voiced by a local congregation. 

“Go on,” said his bedmate Catherine. “Those are not arguments. You remember what that Hungarian specialist said that the two of us are not capable of arguing. One of the things that make us unique, Toby.” Her tone was cheerful.

“Yeah, I know, ” answered Toby in a flat voice. 

He was tired of their famous condition and the endless official probing into what made it so. Recently the State of Illinois, hoping to recoup some of the expense of thirty years of supporting two otherwise ordinary people, had tried to have Martin and Cathryn sign an allowance for ABC’s Barbara Walters to interview them right there in their bed. They refused. “We’re thrilled with our lives,” said Cathryn, “how can getting in front of the public make us happier? No, thank you.” And the matter was settled. And so, putting aside his boredom with these visits, Toby them with the usual promise to see them again when time permitted. Whatever that meant. He worked for the SunTimes in Circulation.

“How’s your Mom, Lester?” Catherine was asking. “Fine, she’s back in Cicero, a small apartment. I’ll visit her soon. And, I meant to tell you, I changed my first name from Lester to Toby. Professional reasons.”

Neither Catherine nor Martin Ilman expressed an interest in either bit of information, but they smiled benignly, another feature of their condition. Whatever had happened to the couple, it had no name. The staff noted new aspects from month to month. Several months earlier, both had begun laughing uncontrollably after eating candied walnuts.

The next day, a Sunday, he went to Cicero to visit Bernice. She lived in a small efficiency two blocks from Woolfraam House, a place where she had been a devoted member since shortly after the “Anger of the Host of the Heavens,” as she referred to it, had embittered her in 1936. Toby had left to start his own life, and his mother resented his break with the Brethren of the Sinai Table. His visits to her were quarterly, not monthly, and each visit was acrimonious. He was conflicted. He wanted to hate her, but he began to feel compassion by turning fifty. After all, life was not fair, and she was a clear example. 

Toby sighed. The house lights began to dim, and he quickly glanced at the program. Some Italian overture to start, then Elgar’s Enigma Variations. It was now quite dark and quiet in the hall. The concertmistress limped onto the stage, a woman who had, Toby recalled, once had a career as a soloist until she had lost crucial years recovering from a train accident in Trieste while on tour. The audience applauded and then quietly awaited the Maestro, a man whose conducting career was at its peak and whose private life made him one of the few conductors with invitations from all the talk shows. Toby became aware again of the nasal processes to his left.

 Now warmer applause: here was the Maestro, a man apt to do anything! A risk-taker who had once, in Melbourne, passed out kazoos in a nightclub and asked the patrons to play opera favorites. Tonight, instead of facing his musicians, the Maestro turned his back to the musicians and faced the audience instead! Then he began, racing through a Rossini overture at high speed, editing out some of the Elgar for some inexplicable reason. Then, it was time for a twenty-minute intermission. Toby stayed in his seat and closed his eyes. He wished he had taken a nap.

The Maestro returned to the pit and again turned to the audience. A microphone was placed in front of him. The evening would continue with the North American premiere of a piece by a Soviet composer. Looking towards one of the boxes to Toby’s right, informed the audience that all would now share the experience with the composer herself, for she was present. A spotlight found the box. The audience responded with modest applause. The composer stood briefly and nodded slightly and, perhaps, unwillingly. She was a tall woman who now spoke a few words to her escort, an obese man with a white handkerchief in the pocket of his double-breasted suit. Toby continued to stare at the faces of this couple in the box. Instead, the house lights dimmed only slightly, but the box’s light remained bright. The Soviet woman was quite visible to Toby, and he noted her straw-blond hair and severe eyeglasses with their heavy black frames. She looked, to Toby, the very image of the Soviet intellectual. This pleased him. He enjoyed ethnic stereotypes. He was still staring upwards when the first blasts of shrill, wrenching sound filled the hall.

 There was no indication either in the program or from the Maestro as to the piece’s length. Toby assumed it would be a matter of ten or fourteen minutes. But why such an assumption? I. He did not like this piece; that was evident during the first few minutes. Oppressive, discordant, loud, no particular underlying rhythm: wild stuff that seemed to Toby to be pretentiously daring, self-consciously radical. Or was it one of those assaults intended to be less a musical composition than a piece of cruel performance art? Those were his early ruminations as the whips and cudgels lashed and thumped at the audience; he winced and protectively lowered his head between his shoulders. A glance to his left confirmed that the student’s catarrh continued unabated, though now inaudibly so even in the din filling the hall. To his right, the thin woman had closed her eyes, either in denial or meditation. Toby assumed it was denial, for only the Buddha could meditate in this place.

This was awful stuff! He began to use some common forms of distraction when a concert turned into torture. Watch the conductor. Pick out the best and worst looking members of the orchestra. Stare fixedly at a man in the string section and establish telepathic communication with him (if he made contact, his eyes should briefly leave the music and search the auditorium for him). Undress the orchestra or members of it. Imagine sex with a tympanist who reminded him of someone who worked at the Rockford State Hospital. These were all time-honored stratagems to defy concert boredom. Now to the architectural details. The number of mosaic panels flanking the proscenium. Spaces in the wood and cloth cover of the hidden organ pipes. The mathematical relationship of the number of wooden panels to acoustical baffles. Four to one? The chaos from the orchestra and the stomping, gyrating Maestro, distracted Toby from these exact computations, and he returned to attempting communion with a violist, a young man with a curly head of hair.

Toby glanced at his wristwatch and realized that he had not made a note of when the piece had begun. But why should he have, unless some early suspicion of a lengthy composition had occurred to him? He guessed the work had gone about nine or ten minutes and tried not to think of the unthinkable: sometime during the past, people like Beethoven and Bruckner and Schubert and Vaughn Williams and Messaien had unloaded some ponderous stuff on an unsuspecting audience. What if those earlier audiences had shown such disinterest? Toby admonished himself to be tolerant. He turned to consider the music, which had stopped. Maestro stood frozen on tiptoes, poised with both arms high, clawed fingers spread, like Dracula. 

Then lurched forward, and the orchestra, led by the trombones, slashed at the audience anew. Toby groaned. It was apparent that Maestro had shortened the first two pieces to leave time, and plenty of it, for this behemoth. He looked at his fingers and turned his hands, trying to pretend he had never seen such hands before. Was that what they called a thumb? Yes, and it opposed his forefinger! Interesting! But this was worth less than a minute of his time, and, besides, Toby now felt the first hint of mild panic. Somewhere he had read an account by a tropical explorer who had fought the madness caused by fearing that insects would whine and torment him ceaselessly. It would never end. This composition: how long? How long? Without any standard musical clues nor any suggestion of a resolution, what hope was there for believing that it would end? The old question about what one would rather have, this piece or a root canal, came to mind—hope and despair, hope and pain: the emotional range of dental patients. Toby felt the dentist’s chair cradle him. The drill was deep into his molar, then briefly out. Then another foray into the rotting pulp. Toby opened his watering eyes and sought the impassive face of the driller. A pause. The last probe? No. The agony would come again, then again. 

Now the second line of panic began to tug at him: he would not endure this music. This composition would kill him because his mind would collapse. Why not stand and drop his trousers? He saw himself as the last person in the hall, a fetid lump of flesh. Pants soiled from the failure of inhibitions and the gradual shutdown of the nervous system. 

Head aching, chest trembling, he reviewed his situation, thinking that he would not have another chance to do so before he lost his mind entirely. Another twelve minutes had passed. This could mean another thirty to forty minutes to go if this piece stayed within the orchestral composition norms. He could simply give up to allow death to embrace him with some haste. This seemed unlikely. He could get up and leave. Just stand up, muttering something to the thin woman and the big man, and shuffle out. He discarded this plan. Perhaps, if he survived, he would review why this was not an option, but at the moment, sheer cowardice was the likeliest reason. Grimly he decided that this was a battle of minds: he would not allow that Soviet phantom up in the box to undo him. She would beg to enter his mind. He would resist her and laugh in her stupid face. He was ready.

Toby grinned like a demon: the student’s snuffling was audible again. He had adjusted the intake snort’s intensity to match the volume of the orchestra. He thought about grabbing that nose and violently clamping the inflamed nostrils with this thumb and index finger. He would then decapitate the student and fling the head at the Maestro. Now he would take a large syringe and drip acid on the corpse’s shoes until they smoldered and caused the thin woman to gag helplessly while her confused and stupidly obese husband gave her the Heimlich maneuver until her ribs cracked. Surely all this would inspire whole sections of the audience to helpless retching. Then it would be time to open carefully concealed boxes under Toby’s seat. Vials of pheromones would be sprayed at the orchestra. Next, thousands of stinging insects would then attack the players. In desperation, the custodial staff would activate the fire sprinklers.

 Throughout all of this, Toby was confident. The Maestro would continue to direct the orchestra. He knew why: the KGB had threatened to open specific sensitive files exposing the Maestro as a pederast and the President of the United States as in the pay of a consortium of Pacific Rim corporations which chained slave children to dangerous machinery in hidden factories. Unless, of course, the premiere took place without interruption. Well, thought Toby, he’ll be damned not to finish this thing and then try to negotiate with them. Time to exercise the right of free speech and yell FIRE! in a crowded theater. Odd to say that word, what with the sprinklers already drenching everything, but they say use of that particular word works. Toby felt suspended between the solemnity of that word and the thrill of bellowing it; he took a deep breath and formed the “F” on his lips.

A hand clamped onto his right shoulder—the husband of the frail woman. Toby looked towards him and saw him shake his massive head in disapproval. “Sit still before I call the usher!” he hissed. Toby sank in his seat and felt his face redden. He reached for his program, which had slipped to the floor. Carefully and slowly, he rolled it tightly. He held this cylinder between his palms to imitate a tensile strength testing device. The program was too thick to bend easily, and Toby pressed, relaxed, and pressed again until the program showed some signs of buckling. The frail woman seemed to crouch further towards her husband, who eyed Toby malevolently. Suddenly, the program released its tension, gave a snapping sound, and soared upwards, landing many rows forward and left. Someone stood up, then sat again quickly. Toby noticed the student, the frail woman, and the beefy man staring at him. He felt his left shoulder tapped by someone behind him.

The episode with the program had been Toby’s last effort. He felt he had given his best. Now, forty-seven minutes into the composition, he sank back, closed his eyes, and waited for darkness to descend on a mind he had once trusted. He thought of his date, the bartender. Somehow this was his fault. Had he been here, he would have distracted himself more positively: taking in his scent, discreetly and then boldly staring at his body. But, no, he had the flu! Bull! He opened his eyes and rested them on the box and the face of this ordeal’s composer. 

To his surprise, she was looking, no mistaking it, directly at him. Toby nodded very slightly. She returned the gesture. Toby smiled very slightly. She returned this gesture as well. He decided that one more test was in order. He rested his left index finger on the tip of his nose. The woman glanced at her companion and responded in kind. Toby was intrigued. What further tests were there? Were they even necessary? The woman continued to maintain eye contact with Toby; there was no doubt of this despite their distance. Fifty, sixty feet? Who was this woman? He felt his facial muscles relax. The throbbing in his temples subsided and vanished. He took a slow, deep breath, never taking his eyes off her face. The severe eyeglasses were gone: she peered down at Toby like some luminous plaster saint. Toby felt her compassion, her acceptance of this member of the audience. She had written her piece for him, hadn’t she? Yes, she had told Maestro that afternoon, in a radio interview, that her work was for humankind and in the hope that individuals of like mind would find in her work a willingness to engage in some transcendent encounter. 

Toby had not heard that conversation, of course. Still, now, during the final convulsive moments of the piece, moments punctuated by the striking of a large gong which Toby had somehow missed, he was moved to a state of modest levitation which suspended him a full four centimeters over the surface of his seat. At the same time, could it be? The composer’s shoulders began to come into view. She was rising slightly, too. The music came to a shuddering and pessimistic halt. Toby was the first to lead the otherwise indifferent audience to its feet. The Maestro, his shirt sopping, bowed deeply twice and gestured flamboyantly towards the composer. She nodded slightly, raised her hand, waved to the audience, but kept her eyes on Toby. “Bravo!” yelled Toby. “Bravo!” and then, “Encore!”

“You must be nuts.” said the frail woman. “Sixty-one minutes of that torture and you want more?” Should have left at intermission!”

“Man, if I had known about that piece, you couldn’t have given me that ticket,” said the student. “Christ, I thought I was going to go out of my mind. What a crock! What’s her name? Definitely to be avoided. I hope she doesn’t ask for asylum. Russki go home!”

The heavy man grinned. “Yeah. Write the State Department and tell ’em you want no more thaws in the Cold War!” Then he turned to Toby. “Seems like you’re the only one in this row who liked that piece. It gave me pain, more than one pain. I hope Mother Russia up there didn’t intend it to have a meaning. Pointless! Say, sorry for the tweak on the shoulder back… well, whenever…you seemed about to get carried away, too carried away for your own good. Well, to each his own. Not my kind of music. I should have had a sign in the lobby. ‘Beware, experiment in progress.’ Well, this guinea pig wants a drink!”

The man, his wife, and the student laughed and shuffled towards the lobby. Toby looked towards the box. It was empty. He followed the student and the couple to the entrance but continued out into the street. It was still raining. He walked close to the buildings to the bus stop.

15/ EDOUARD WHEELMAN  1

Following Elise’s departure and the death of Travhnar, a new though not unfamiliar pattern appeared in the modest Waukegan duplex. Kathleen, nearly 60 in 1939, and her son, Stephan, now in his late 30s, resumed the arrangement that had worked well for them. Kathleen would stay in her familiar flat upstairs, and the infant Edouard would be nearby. Stephen lived downstairs. When he grew older and certainly by the age of three, Edouard migrated downstairs to be with his father and play with old prototype toys, which the late Travhnar had kept just in case trends reversed and wooden toys were in demand in the future. Stephan’s prospects with the North Shore Line improved: in 1944, when Edouard was five, his father was promoted to Ticket Agent at the Zion stop. Regular hours, reduced time on the swaying coach, and a modest pay increase resulted.

1944 was coincidentally the year that Kathleen began to suffer from many of the effects of aging. Her arthritis caused sharp pains in her hands, and she had trouble moving the iron pans on the stove. There were no lighter metals available due to the war, though Stephan looked for them in downtown Waukegan’s thrift shop. The scrambled eggs now prepared with Edouard, watching for some holy sign, was something that happened, at first, once a week, then once every three weeks, then not at all. She began to tell the boy about the adventures and the power of the Saints, one a day, taken from a comprehensive knowledge on the subject. Kathleen’s religion was a mix of anti-clericalism and devotion to the more folkloric expressions of the Church. The net result on Edouard was that he never saw the inside of a local church and his phenomenal ability to recall trivia. Aaron offered him the first saint, as all saints did, a sense of geography (Brittany) and life choices (seclusion), followed by the second saint, Abadios, which highlighted Egypt and Roman persecution. Edouard became an authority on the tortures endured by martyred saints. Irish saints often got two days of attention, but no saint on any list was ever skipped. The practice continued until Edouard was twelve in 1951. By that time, his superior grades in school were commonplace, and his teachers marveled at the breadth of his knowledge. His peers were less appreciative, and Edouard, who could offer no compensatory athleticism, was shunned by many as a know-it-all. Kathleen was half-convinced that perhaps she should set aside her hatred of the clergy, particularly the Irish, and enroll Edouard in a parochial school. But she did not, nor did she encourage the boy to seek a clerical career. Edouard never attended a Sunday school, nor was he baptized or confirmed, facts he hid from his classmates.

Stephan saw no reason to alter many of his upbringing’s details when it came to his son. He had not much information on religion, and while Elise was a Roman Catholic, the two of them did not discuss such matters. Likewise, Stephan spent time playing board games at home and often going to see what watercraft were in the harbor or to watch for trains of the CNW as they headed north or south. The annual visit to the Lake County Fair at Grayslake in July was something both enjoyed. For Stephen, it recalled his visits to county fairs with Travhnar.

Edouard thought of the landing between the first and second floors of the duplex as his own. No sooner was he old enough to move between the floors on his own than he began to stop to look at what there was to see. Later, during an art class in high school, he worked repeatedly, regardless of the medium, on something called “Out the Window.” Whether in crayon, charcoal, or clay, this was without exception, a row of boxy houses with slanted roofs, elm trees, garages, a swath of green for a distant park, and in some instances the flash of a streamlined yellow passenger train in the distance. The only variables were the weather and the mood he assigned to Lake Michigan, which he thought of as a sinister force at the edge of the friendly world.  

On Edouard’s thirteenth birthday, in 1952, he stopped on the landing and gazed out of the window longer than usual. Then he turned and continued downstairs and never stopped on the landing again. Many years later, he recalled that day in an essay in a Ballast College English class.

.

He called it “That Bittersweet Landing,” and it included a remarkable amalgam of his life’s sadness. That day had been his thirteenth birthday, and that meant that his childhood was over. Gone! Happiness had seemed available, but that was innocent happiness. Now it would take more effort, this happiness. On this day, he grieved his grandfather, known to him second-hand from Kathleen and Stephan. A man of innocence and gentleness, a saint! He knew of the faded dreams of a wooden bicycle, of his fear of swine, and how he had lost his sister. 

He had wept when he and his father had gone to the thrift shop, and Stephan pointed out a dump truck made my Travhnar years ago. It looked so unloved to Edouard.

And Edouard! Alone, alone, alone, and his mother gone somewhere. He had no recollection of Elise, but he dug for her an abyss of sadness and stared into it. Where was she? All that his grandmother told him was that she had gone to see her old parents and, most likely, the war had made it difficult to return, but perhaps she would now that the war had ended. Stephan was less forthcoming and did not suggest her return. By 1952, even long before, this was hardly credible. As the boy seemed particularly stricken at the time of his birthday, Kathleen and Stephan decided it was time to give him the letter Elise had written, and so they did. 

Edouard took the letter and opened it. He wept, of course: this was the first tangible evidence he had of her other than one or two snapshots taken in Colmar much earlier. The letter was reassuring because it promised that she would never forget him. Did this mean she was not returning? Or was it a reference to life’s uncertainties? Edouard folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. He would keep it with other things he valued.

[Narrator: What follows was unknown to Edouard until he began his investigations into the family’s genealogy. However, it was known to Stephan, and it caused his spiraling, though sporadic, depression.]

On Monday, October 16, 1944, at 9:30 in the morning, two short, thin men with thick gray overcoats and matching fedoras approached the North Shore Line’s ticket window. Stephan Wheelmann was on duty. He looked up and said, as one might expect: “How may I help you, gentlemen?” His tone was pleasant, and he smiled.

“Are you Stephan Wheelman, residing on West Second Street in Waukegan?”

(pause) “Uh, yes, I’m Stephan Wheelman.” His tone was wary, and the smile had left his face.

“Please follow us,” the older of the two men spoke quietly. Stephan noticed the man’s dark eyes and matching eyebrows. He reached into his pocket and showed Stephan a dull gold badge with the words “Federal Bureau of Investigation” and an eagle with spread wings. 

Stephan closed the ticket window and placed the hopeful sign on the counter: “Return in 15 minutes” There would be no problem since the next express to Milwaukee was not due until 10:15. Stephan followed the men. They stood on the platform and spoke softly but with some urgency.

 “Are you the husband of Elza Freudenschree, a.k.a Elise Joy de Cree?” Stephan ignored the mangled names and saw that the other agent scowled at the mention of his wife’s name. 

“Yes, Why?”

“Do you know where your wife is at present?” 

“She is probably with her parents in Colmar, in France.” She went there to be with them in 1939, and the war has made…..” he stopped. Best to answer only questions asked, not implied. 

“Probably?”

The agent with the badge sighed, glanced at the other man, and nodded. The man opened a briefcase, which Stephan had not noticed until now. He leafed through a file folder, glanced at a sheet of paper (CONFIDENTIAL), cleared his throat, and began to speak in a low voice.

“We have information that your wife became an agent for an enemy nation, specifically the Nazis, and was sent to France, posing as a French National, for purposes of espionage prior to the invasion of France by German forces. To be clear, we do not know where she is today during the liberation. What we want to know is who recruited her? Can you help us with that? Also, we will want to know if you knew of her plans and enabled them.”

Stephan felt his knees grow numb and wanted to gag. He looked at each agent fearfully, stammered a few sentences, and protested that there was a mistake here. Her old parents, in Colmar, were the reason she went to France. He tried to dissuade her; she went anyway. And so on. The agents listened but were unimpressed.

“Mr. Wheelman, we know that you receive certain monthly funds via a local bank from a source. What is that source?”

 And so on. More numbness in the knees. The urge to retch had stopped, succeeded by a desire to evacuate his bowels. They led him to a vehicle. He was taken to Waukegan and placed in the county jail. The next day the real interrogation began, and after the second day, Stephan suddenly remembered the name of the family for whom Elise had worked as a nanny. Yes, Adelbert Orthmann was his name, and no, Stephan had never seen him. 

A week later, in the Chicago Tribune, the alarming news that Adelbert Orthmann had been arrested. Stephan Wheelman was deemed no threat to his country and told to forget the whole affair. He could not. Edouard knew none of this and did not learn more for decades. 

In the meantime, Stephan had the difficult task of being a father, earning a living, and hiding his deterioration. He was beset with bouts of a vague distraction from events and people around him. He would be explaining the train schedule to passengers, but his voice sounded as if it came from an upper corner of the room. At first, he would glance up to the right or the left to see where the voice’s locus was, but it was, he realized, still his voice. He might be playing Monopoly with Edouard at home but imagined that it was a ghostly doppelgaenger that moved the token around the board. He lost track of things, on the job or at home.

He began to drink hard spirits, first with water, then straight. He drank three ounces of brandy late at night to encourage sleep. He stumbled, lost his color, coughed, and his hands shook at times. He was falling apart.

Kathleen died in her sleep in 1955. Edouard was a Boy Scout and off on a weekend outing. Stephan had missed the sound of her plumbing that morning in August. She took a bath each morning, and running water into the tub was something to which he could set his North Shore pocket watch. He called her name upstairs and began to weep, knowing that he would have to enter her bedroom and likely see her without life. He walked towards the bedroom and put his hand on the doorknob. Before turning it, he closed his eyes, thinking it would be easier to open them gradually in the dim light of the room and get used to seeing her corpse. 

Standing a few feet from the side of her bed, Stephan whispered her name on the chance that he had mistakenly assumed the worst. Silence. Then he opened his eyes ever so slightly and perceived that the person in the bed had pulled the quilt over her head and could not be seen except for a human body’s lumpiness. Now he would have to pull back the cover, wouldn’t he? He could not do this. Instead, he retreated to his downstairs flat and called an ambulance, leading the dispatcher to believe that his mother was very short of breath. Let them call her dead. He could not, and so he would not. 

When Edouard returned on the next evening from his Scouting weekend, he found his father in a drunken sleep with his arm cushioning his face from the kitchen table. His shallow breathing alarmed him—never had the man been this close to drinking himself to death. Edouard bounded up the stairs to inform Kathleen and found that she was dead. The ambulance crew had uncovered her head. Edouard covered it. He returned to his father, who had partially revived rasped, “I know, I know, she’s dead. Take care of it, please, will you? I can’t do it.” He pointed to an official-looking document noting the ambulance visit, the declaration of death, time, and further notification that the body must be transferred to an undertaking establishment within 48 hours.  

Early the next morning, Edouard called the nearby mortuary, which had handled the remains of Travhnar 16 years earlier. There was no service and no graveside ceremony. Travhnar and Kathleen had settled matters years ago and pre-paid the gravesite. At 16, Edouard was not legally able to sign anything, so he brought the papers home to his father. On the afternoon of the burial, Stephan slowed his drinking and greeted Edouard at the kitchen door. 

“So sorry. I really could not go. Understand?” 

 “Not sure I do,” was all that Edouard said. 

“When you get sad,” said his father, “you get sad in a lot of ways all at once. I was crying for a lot of things, for my mother, sure, but for my dad, for your mother, and even for people I only know by name, and also for long ago.”

[PNZ. Over the next weeks, Stephan unburdened himself to his son. He sorrowed for Travhnar’s emigrant miseries, of the sweetness of imagining a wooden bicycle, of his mother’s steadfast support of the family. “Every day she went off to work!” blubbered Stephan. “Every day!” Then he was reminded of the cars and trucks and the hopeful road across the state to the fairs to peddled them; how he had deserted Travhnar and Kathleen and run off to France. And what had he offered Elza? A chance to scrub floors for some fat German in Evanston or wherever.” The thought of Elza made him clutch his sides. But Edouard was listening and writing because here was his history unfolding, sometimes incoherently, but coming into focus a bit at a time. It whetted his appetite for more, and he began to ask questions.]

16/ EDOUARD ILMAN 2

(PNZ: Edouard had discovered that the original, pre-Ellis Island family surname was Ilman; it was more than advisable that he re-adopt it. Consider the 1961 article in Look Magazine, “The Nazis Among Us” which listed Elise/Elza Wheelman as a collaborator, though with questionable evidence)

Edouard Ilman, walking the corridor towards Professor Simon Huhn’s office, struggled with his dread. “Steady, steady’s she goes, mate,” he murmured. He had not been here previously; there had been no reason. Now, in these anxious moments, he used his nautical invocation. “Steady, steady’s she goes,” a formula offered by the maritime novels he read late at night. The oak flooring of August Hall creaked like the deck of a man o’ war. A foggy grayness hung behind the frosted glass panel of the door. He hoped that the older man had forgotten the appointment and gone home early this Friday afternoon. He tapped on the glass.

“Ilman?” came the forceful voice, “step in. There’s a folding chair hanging behind the door. Take it down and be seated or stand if you like. Up to you!”

Edouard stepped into the room, sharply aware of his failing courage. To take the chair or to remain on foot? He gave the worn metal chair a doubtful glance and turned towards the older man. Edouard had not come to this office without advanced intelligence on what to expect; Huhn focused on cautionary theories evolved and refined by decades of his students. His eccentricity and occasional capriciousness were legendary. Edouard had heard that the Huhn sat enthroned in a dim and perfectly ordered office. He had not expected this to be so true, but now he saw him on a low dais, an oddity resulting from the August Hall retrofit from classroom use to a series of faculty offices. Seniority counted, and those at the top were given a choice: dais or no dais. Huhn, the endowed G.A. Bardine Professor of Political Science, had elected to retain the platform, adding a matching set of low ramps built on either side, a redundancy necessary to ensure the strict symmetry of the office. A desk, a ponderous and ancient rolltop, sat like a toad in the exact middle of the dais. By lowering his white-thatched head, Huhn was able to render himself invisible and to speak to visiting students without appearing to be there, though that was not his intent. Here was a place of gravity, of ponderous certainty, of authority. Steady now, thought Edouard, his situation like that of lowly Ishmael looking towards Ahab on the upper deck.  

 “Edouard Ilman?” said the thickness of a man with no neck and a nimbus of snowy hair. Except for a small amber desk lamp, there were no lights on in the office, but Huhn was strongly backlit by the brightness of snow and a sinking sun beyond the tall windows. He was checking the appointment sheet prepared by the department secretary.

 “I don’t recognize the name, or…” a loud clearing of his throat “…yes, yes I do. And it is Friday, December 14th in this fading year, 1962, at 4:00 PM, so you must be Edouard Ilman, even if I do not know you. But perhaps I do. Edouard? Or is it Edward?”

The tone was not unfriendly, more the gruff variety of older men who believe that a certain curmudgeonliness is expected and admired. Edouard decided that looking up at him at this point, except for the need to squint into the light, was no different than looking up at him at the classroom lectern. Going over the banal business of why he was Edouard and not Edward encouraged the fear to retreat behind and beneath his stomach.

“It’s Edouard because my mother is Alsatian and…”

 “Fine people, Alsatians!”

Edouard nodded and realized with a shock that his voice had become hollow and distant. Was that his voice? He also was aware that he had used the present tense regarding Elza. Why was that? Well, who would now suspect that Edouard Ilman’s mother was Elza Wheelman? 

 “I remember, Professor Huhn, your lecture about the… ah…the fate of the Alsatians during the war, in ah…1918.”

But now, his fear had left its nest again. What if Huhn pursued this? Edouard could not remember to which war and fate he had just referred. Huhn began to ramble with some dramatic touches as if he were reading from a monument’s base.

“They faced their adversity and did so with distinction. A fine, tough people. Their times were their crucible. They sought their answers in the marrow of their region, and not beyond it.”

Edouard nodded again and said, “yes,” softly in a voice more like his own. He recognized these words. Huhn had come to build his political science courses around a few ideas and the particular view that there is much wisdom in smaller units of a nation, a province, or a state. Now Eduard’s mouth seemed dry; he worked his jaw before speaking.  

“I found that to be very true in my senior paper.”

  “Umm?”

  “My senior paper. Ahh–I was wondering if you’ve looked at it yet?”

  He regretted the words “looked” when he had wanted to say “read” and “yet” seemed too casual a way of introducing a delicate matter. Edouard Ilman had come to ask if the old Huhn had read his senior seminar paper. If so, and if it was acceptable, he would stomp on his billowing fear one more time and ask for a letter of reference to the University of Illinois or Northwestern. The Law School, specifically, at one or the other or possibly a letter to both? He hoped that Huhn would not ask about his interest in the law. He was unsure what he sought in a law degree other than hoping that something would work for him. Like his major in Political Science, Law was chosen by default for its distance from math courses and because of the obscene insistence, coming from somewhere, that Eduard Ilman get on with his life. Huhn was part of the solution because classmates said that if he liked your senior seminar paper, he could open doors for you in any graduate or law school, private or public, in the State of Illinois. Still, Edouard worried that this was just more of the uncertain folklore attached to Huhn, like the rumor that he never raised the blinds in the bungalow, just off campus, where he lived with his nineteen (or was it twenty-nine?) cats.

Huhn stared at Edouard, cleared his throat more elaborately than before but said nothing. The desk chair groaned as he swung to face the oak table between the desk and the tall windows. Here lay symmetrical piles of student research papers; on top of each was a small piece of paper folded like a tent with a number on it. Huhn tilted his head to improve his trifocals’ work, scanning the piles from the farthest to the nearest. Before Huhn reached the senior seminar pile, something distracted him. He removed his glasses, stuck the left bow into his mouth, and slowly, audibly chewed, all the while settling his vision on some distant point through the windows and beyond the campus. His breathing slowed and sounded less labored. Like his fellow students, Edouard had experienced this before, a phenomenon they called a “brain bump.” Lasting anywhere from two to nine minutes (for these episodes had been timed), they were also moments when Huhn looked his most professorial and was presumed to have transported himself into a remote and even loftier stratum of political science. 

Edouard looked at his watch and shifted weight from one foot to another. He glanced at Huhn and looked around, something he seldom did in faculty offices. Professors made Edouard Ilman nervous and deeply unsure of what, if anything, they expected of him. Exit a place like this without delay was the rule. This office was unexpectedly well-organized for a man dressed indifferently and shaved unevenly. Huhn owned a shaggy suit with a missing watch chain dangling out of the vest pocket and button-fly trousers, but he was not wearing it today. Edouard saw the other outfit, the light green sweater with a dark green bugling elk on the front and a fir tree on the back, an item almost as diverting to his students as the suit. 

The office was rectangular, perhaps eight by twenty feet. The side walls were solid with bookcases, the books arranged according to size with their spines a uniform half-inch from the shelf edges. Journals and loose printed matter were hidden in labeled archival boxes on the lowest shelves near the floor. Midway along the side walls were small identical open spaces displaying, six to a side, the solemn black-framed certificates that marked mileposts in Huhn’s career. Ballast College honored him in increments of five years for the nearly three decades since his appointment. For each five-years (a total of five with a space reserved for a sixth), separate documents, framed and protected with glass, offered gothic-lettered appreciation. There were also two blue and yellow bordered commendation statements (for what it did not say) from the Swedish government, a photograph with President Eisenhower at a banquet, and another of equal size on the opposite wall with Adlai Stevenson beside a tractor. Beneath these photos were smaller Certificates of Merit, two on each wall, from Illinois’s four former governors. Finally, a square document citing moral leadership signed by the bishop of the founding denomination of Ballast Collage. Edouard returned his gaze to the desk; it was empty except for a yellow pencil and the appointment sheet prepared by the department secretary once a week. Huhn was the only professor outside of the Religion Department’s busy faculty who insisted on knowing who was coming in and when. He looked at his upside-down name on the sheet and saw it was spelled correctly.  

           12/14 

          Friday

          4:00–Ilman, Edouard

          (Sr.–Pol. Sci)

Huhn suddenly cleared his throat and squealed his chair around to face Edouard. “Mr. ..ah….. I’ve only just glanced at these papers. Yes, just a glance and won’t have the reading, the critical reading, done until the middle of the week, next week in time for the deadline for grades. I’m not sure I can recall the title. This time of year, there are oh-so-many! What was the topic?”

“I called it ‘Containing the Little-Known Places: a Study of American Foreign Policy.””

“Excellent topic, yes, containment. Foster Dulles. But no, I don’t remember it specifically. You did hand it in, I suppose?” Huhn had a way of having his questions sound as if he were amused. “But since you are here, let me see. Shall we, shall we, be sure your opus is on the table? That way, we will know, won’t we? That it will be read. Right? What course?”

Ilman felt the fear rising again. He offered the words, “the Senior Research Seminar,” and watched as Huhn, after another look, lifted the pile from the table and began to sift through them. He read off several students’ names and the titles of their papers in an admiring tone. There was Miss Winckel’s “John Foster Dulles and His Illinois Circle” and Mr. Rosh’s “The Unexpected Mentor: Estes Kefauver and Southern Illinois Politics.” and Miss Lund’s “Asylum in the Asylum: Interwar Politics and the Founding of Rockford State Hospital.” Huhn was smiling for the first time, and Edouard saw this as evidence of the conventional wisdom among Political Science seniors: if you want a good grade, give it an Illinois slant.  

“It’s here.” said Huhn flatly, “and as I thought, I have given it a glance, a look but not more. I shall give it the critical reading shortly and you…ah….you come back next week…ah….Friday, Friday.”

 Edouard took several backward steps and felt for the doorknob. Huhn had lowered his head and was fumbling over some paper clips in his desk drawer. “Thank you. Good-bye,” Edouard heard himself saying towards a shelf of identical brown books. He sighed into the corridor, and his mind filled with profanities. He had endured that encounter for exactly nothing. Pointless to ask for a letter of reference to law school if Huhn had not read his paper and also found it acceptable. Now he would have to return and take his chances with the old coot a second time. 

Leaving August Hall, Ilman encountered a dog that had been hanging around on the campus for several days. He held the door open and encouraged it to enter. “Go on up, fella, the Professor is waiting for you.” The dog stood before the doorway and made a doubtful keening sound. Then it entered the building, and Ilman went out into the fading winter afternoon. 

The Ballast campus was a collection of mixed styles beginning with August Hall (1890) and ending with Veezen Center for Communication Studies (1957). Each was named for a fat wallet of the denomination, the major funders of this intended oasis of decency. And the hope for Christian life in a demonstrably repellent world. In the distance, on the broad bend of the frozen Pecatonica River, which bordered the campus, a group of grunting long-shadowed forms from the men’s dormitory were playing hockey. Beyond them and half-obscured by trunks and branches along the shore, a lone female figure skater did small and tentative leaps. Ilman squinted against the glare of the orange sun on the ice, trying to determine if it was Colleen who had typed his senior seminar paper two weeks ago. He assumed that it was and turned to the left, away from the river path and towards the Zange Museum, a modest sandstone rectangle built in the 1950s by a “student of Frank Lloyd Wright,” according to information enthusiastically offered to parents during Visitors Week each year. It was where Edouard went when there was nowhere else he wanted to be. He had begun his habit of wandering into Zange between classes during his freshman year. The only person on the museum floor was a curator who oversaw the displays, did some typing, and sold souvenirs to the occasional school groups who came through, times at which Edouard avoided the place. 

His visits consisted of a slow transit past the displays, a circuit from aboriginal times (“Our Pecatonica Indians”) through European exploration (“The French Pay a Visit”), the Civil War (“We Hear President Lincoln’s Call”), and ending abruptly in a gallery with a full-scale, genuine Model A Ford containing a plaster family of four. They were going on a picnic: Father gripped the wheel, Mother had a wicker basket on her lap, Older Brother and Little Sister were in the back seat. Brother was wearing his uniform and medals. 

The unalterable mood of the museum and especially this scene pleased Edouard. During his first two years, there had been a black and white dog, labeled “Scooter,” in a running posture a few feet behind the vehicle, but when Edouard had returned in the autumn of his Junior year, the dog was gone with only a thick bolt in the floor where it had been anchored. He learned from the curator, a heavy woman with a floral scent, that the Ford had once belonged to Hjalmar Veezen, President of Ballast during the World War, but that the Veezen’s son did not survive. “He fell at Soissons,” she intoned, and Edouard imagined the scene with young Veezen holding something sacred aloft and stumbling. From here, he also learned that the dog had been removed at the request of the Veezen family, now residing in Chicago and major contributors to Ballast College. But Edouard rarely spoke to the curator, particularly since she had once scolded him for “smoking up” the men’s room. There was no rule against this, and Edouard did conclude his visits to the Zange Museum’s quiet and immaculate men’s room. He sat, door open, in one of the three stalls just to smoke and stare at the stone panelwork and terrazzo floors bathed in the light of pearly lamps that were thought to come, ultimately, from the mind of Frank Lloyd Wright. And he liked the antiseptic odor of the place.  

 No one knew of his habit of solitary wandering. Most students who had an hour or two on their hands either went to Wurmknecht Library or the Harpp Student Life Center. Others returned to their rooms. Edouard did not like these choices. He seldom felt like studying during the day, and Harpp was noisy and full of whispering couples. This year, his last at Ballast, he had a single room, which solved the inevitably annoying roommate’s problem, but the room did not appeal to him. Noises were coming in from other rooms, and the stain on the ceiling reminded him of a nearly-failed anatomy class.  

 In October, he met Colleen; she worked in the town’s book store. The store was not doing well, perhaps due to the community’s small size or perhaps, as Colleen often said in her sorrowing tone, nobody reads. Edouard had shrugged each time she said it. How could she be so sure? Colleen was thin, perhaps a scant inch taller than Edouard on some days; on others, about his height. She had a paste-white face and plucked her eyebrows, replacing them with thin black lines that looked like those flying birds drawn by a child. Her eyes were a light hazel color some days, off-green on others. She spoke with an accent, or perhaps it was just how she styled some sounds and clipped others. Edouard could not be sure and never asked. Since the store seldom needed restocking and since there was never a crush of business, Colleen usually leaned her forearm on the counter and pursued her favorite activity, drawing. Sometimes she took an art book off the shelf and sought inspiration in it, but always she returned to drawing human limbs on notepaper, mostly elbows or knees. It was an activity she was usually doing when Ilman visited the store, and it was what she did with a ballpoint pen on a napkin on their one date. Colleen did typing in her apartment when she was off-duty at the bookstore. He had arranged to have her type the senior seminar paper, thirty-four pages including title page, bibliography, and the pointless one-page abstract which Huhn insisted on. 

  Edouard was unclear whether this appealing wraith was a typist or a romantic interest as well. They had dinner together at a place that served breakfast around the clock, and the talk moved from a discussion of typing and the slumping book trade to clumsy attempts to get to know Colleen: where she was from, her major, her tastes in music, and so on. It was over eggs that he heard the worrisome information which propelled him into Huhn’s office. “Someone” she knew thought references to an Amazonian tribe a risky inclusion in his senior seminar paper. 

Who said this? Edouard wanted to know. Still, she only said that it was “just a cool guy” who lived in her apartment building and who had once taken Huhn’s course before he changed his major to art education. 

When Edouard picked up the typed paper and paid her, he waited two days, called her at the bookstore during her shift, a Thursday night, and asked if she would like to go to see a Hitchcock at Harpp on Saturday. “Which one?” she had asked. Ilman did not remember, itas either “The Trouble with Harry” or “Rear Window.” 

“I’ve seen them. Twice” Colleen said. There was an awkward pause.

“How about some dinner then? He recalled the waffles she had eaten on their date. 

“No,” she said, “I don’t think we should do that, do you? Really?” Her voice was matter-of-fact. Edouard paused and, trying to match her tone, said “OK” and heard her hang up.

  Seated in his favorite toilet stall, the one with either the milky outline of New Jersey or Vietnam, for he could not decide, Edouard considered his senior seminar paper, Professor Simon Huhn, and the future again. Huhn disliked seminar papers that deviated from his preferences, and his tastes were well-known to be regional. His dictum, scrawled on the board at the beginning of each senior seminar, was “Master the Region and You Master the World.” Edouard had proceeded with his topic and the inclusion of the Durdur anyway. But Colleen’s warning wormed through his thoughts and became tangled with the problem of what to do with himself. Now, less than an hour after his inconclusive meeting in Huhn’s office, Edouard unfolded the thick hand-written manuscript and reviewed it as he had each day since Colleen had finished the typing and he had handed it in.

Colleen!! He swerved back to the recent phone call. Stupid, goddamn bitch! Or was he angrier at himself?

“Among the Durdur.” Such was the paper’s subheading, and he saw again that it must serve as the first red flag to Huhn. He read on, shaking his head slightly. It had to be the reason Huhn had not read the title of his paper with the same enthusiasm as those who were more evident in their Illinois-centricity. Barely audibly, he read the introduction: 

“Durdur is the name of a small tribe of forest villagers living in the region known as Pando in Bolivia, but some of them are known to have lived in Peru in the last fifty years. Perhaps they are nomads trying to settle down? Their pleasant-sounding name is said perhaps to come by way of an Inca term for them. According to the Bolivian national census of 1940, there were approximately and unfortunately only 1650 persons.”

Edouard groaned and scanned the next three pages, slowing to read:

“During the period when Illinois was beginning to emerge from the Great Depression, the Durdur began to be visited by missionaries from the Sinai Brethren of the Holy Table, a non-Catholic Protestant group from around the Chicago, Illinois area. They reported success in converting Durdur women.”

Huhn would be unimpressed by this attempt to tie a distant people to Illinois, so obviously, Land of Lincoln. But maybe not. Cut to the chase, thought Edouard. Also, there was a risk that Huhn’s religious loyalty was with mainstream Protestantism and that the Brethren were beneath respect.

“The Durdur have been governed by warrior-shamans who are chosen by the post-pubescent and matured women of the tribe. A woman is considered a true adult after she has successfully lived in Rascuna for over one year and additionally earned the equivalent of U.S. $70.00, which she must place in a trust fund established in the name of the tribe. This trust fund was established in 1925 and is administered by a governing board consisting of the oldest Durdur woman who happens to be residing in Rascuna, the Comandante of the Pando Military District, and the (Roman Catholic) Bishop of Cochabamba. The dollar value of the Fondo (“fund” in the Spanish language as Edouard explained in a footnote) Durdur is not known, though it is estimated to be one of the most substantial amounts of its kind in Pando Province. In the summer of 1955, a military attache of the U.S. Embassy traveled to Pando for secret meetings with the Comandante of the Pando Military District. What these have to do with the U.S.A cannot be known. However, we can guess. It is widely assumed that it was a prelude to the arrival, in late 1956, of a military mission headed by Colonel Kyle (aka “Beeb”) Hoellner of the famous Muskrat Battalion based in Illinois. Official documentation on that mission, which lasted to mid-1958, is unavailable, though an unidentified spokesman released a statement to theRockford Herald.” And so on. 

  Crap!, thought Edouard. Let the man swing from the highest mast! A miserable “unidentified spokesman!” Huhn would hang him for that alone. And Rascuna! He now saw that he had neglected to say anything at all about Pando’s second-largest city, including its location and population.

Worst of all, Edouard had decided not to include the small item in the Chicago Tribune reporting the visit of Col. “Beeb” Hoellner to Woolfraam House in Cicero where he thanked the inhabitants for their interest in the Durdur because “I am sure that if the Communists never get hold of Pando, it will because to the good works of the Sinai Brethren of the Holy Table, here in Cicero, Illinois!!” There it was, foreign policy and Illinois, bobbing together like two sausages in a pot of stew.

A chime sounded in the distance, and the pearly ceiling lights dimmed: it was 5:45, and the museum wing was closing. Edouard folded the manuscript into his pack and left the men’s room. The curator, putting on her coat, gave him a sour look as he passed.

Late the following Thursday, the eve of the Winter Solstice, Edouard stood before the oranges at the Piggly Wiggly. The store was empty at this hour with only one check open and the night manager working the service counter. Tinny holiday music came over the mid-aisle speakers. He chose four oranges, changed his mind and selected tangerines instead, and placed them in a plastic sack with a twist tie before walking out of produce towards the dairy section against the far wall. He glanced down each aisle out of habit for some hint of what other groceries he might require. Two aisles short of the milk and cheese, he stopped, his attention drawn to the presence, at once odd and familiar, of another shopper. The figure, a man, his back towards Edouard, was dressed in a gray parka, a black fur hat, and rubber boots with metal buckles, the sort called galoshes. The metal cart had nosed into a shelf laden with large sacks of dry dog food, and the man seemed to be leaning over and inspecting something in the cart. Edouard felt apprehension in his midsection: this man was Professor Huhn. He turned and walked the aisle towards Huhn, slowing with each step, until he was no more than four steps behind him. Tomorrow, Friday, another late afternoon appointment with the El Huhn. Could he not get it over with tonight? Just ask him if the paper was acceptable? If not, were revisions possible? He would admit to a lack of balance, an over-interest in the Durdur, yes; but the thesis, “containment on the margins,” surely could stand? Then he would hint with quiet enthusiasm at his ambitious hopes for a challenging graduate school. Would the request for a letter of reference not follow? Perhaps, but only if the paper was not disdained by the figure now before him. Edouard cleared his throat slightly, then felt the wave of fear engulf him again.

Huhn held the cart’s handle with the same determination that Edouard had so often observed with the picnic-bound father in the museum. He was ashen and leaning forward, a strand of saliva looped towards the corn flakes and cottage cheese in the cart. One nudge and the whole scene would dissolve; Huhn would slump towards the floor, for he was probably unconscious. Edouard inhaled deeply, held the tangerines to his chest, and took several steps back down the aisle, leaving pet food and approaching the checkout. He turned, abandoned the tangerines on a seasonal display of tinned Danish cookies, and reported that a patron seemed to be ill in the dog food aisle. Then he exited the store. The night had been clear earlier, but now the sky showed a few nearly transparent clouds. Walking to his rooming house, Edouard heard the ambulance. 

During the first week of the new semester in late January, after the memorial service in the chapel for Huhn, he decided that it was appropriate to ask whether the late senior professor had read and made comments on his paper. A sympathetic secretary retrieved it. Edouard glanced through it on his way past the frozen river to the Zange Museum and saw that it remained unread.  

17/ THE COLLOQUIUM

PNZ: As if you can call a trio of cousins a colloquium. That was Hulda’s idea. Hulda Plumm, Catherine Plumm’s daughter. She and Edouard met at her mother and Martin’s quarters at the Rockford State Hospital. There, a seedling of an idea came to her that a reunion of Ilmans by whatever name could flourish to be something informative and memorable. She was a besotted academic, having nailed an adjunct’s position teaching home economics at the vocational/technical college in Galena, Illinois. Being “academic” thrilled Hulda: hence, she reveled in the academy’s venerable traditions. Moreover, that is why a simple meeting of a few third-generation Transdanubians came to be called the “Centennial Colloquium” It was, after all, 1997—the centennial of the “Transdanubian Exodus,” as she called it. By this time, Edouard had tired of his researches, and when she “took over,” it was agreeable to him.]

Hulda had never married and perhaps, as a result, had the energy to spare for family projects. She adopted the Ilmans as readily as some women collect porcelain thimbles. Having learned of Toby, she invited him and Edouard to Galena. Toby was not interested, and Edouard put the family story behind him by this time. Still, both gave in to the seductions of Hulda’s rapturous descriptions of the likely “vibrant flora” along “fragrant country lanes.” And there was no mistaking her enthusiasm. Edouard, and to a lesser extent Toby, felt sorry for this woman, her crazed obsession with the whole Transdanubian thing.

“Bring along your cherished family lore and be ready to share and to learn new things about our precious heritage.” she had written to both. Edouard was single, and Toby brought along his partner of some months, a birdwatcher who worked in a pet shop and was keen on adding some Mississippian corvids to his life list. Toby was lately the head waiter and sommelier at a highly-rated restaurant, Le Crapaud Enchanté, in Chicago’s Loop and would only have a few days to spare. Edouard arranged his library liaison schedule to include Galena. 

[PNZ: The reader may recall that Edouard, a Ballast College graduate (B.A.65), went on to earn an M.S. in Library Science at Northern Illinois. He dragged out his degree work while waiting for the Vietnam War to end. After a stint as a children’s librarian in Elgin, he landed a Library Liason position for the Interlibrary Council. The job required frequent travel.]

And so it began. Friday, May 15, 1997. Hulda had orchestrated her “Colloquium” to include a morning session and an afternoon session. A Friday evening “leisure session” when participants could, as she suggested, “spend time in reflection” or attend a high school band concert. On the following morning, Saturday, May 16, 1997, all would gather again for a “farewell session” at the Best Western motel breakfast room. 

Hulda brought the group up to date with a presentation called “The Contours of the Lives of the Ilmans.” She hoped to provide everyone with a chance to “be on the same page” and provide “points of departure” for the afternoon session.  

Edouard was impressed with Hulda’s approach, and he told her so. Ah, such joy! Since they met at her parents’ bedside at the Rockford State Hospital, she had been drawn to him. She was 65, and Edouard was 59. The chance of a future together was her secret hope, but not his. Hulda praised him effusively whenever he offered an insight with “how you do give honor to our ancestry.” Toby Ilman disliked Hulda and saw through her opportunistic pandering to Edouard.

For the remainder of the morning, the three of them brainstormed questions and speculations. How was it that the Ilmans never managed to reconnect in America? Did Bernice Ilman and Mehna Eelman not possibly encounter each other at Woolfraam House? Was Mrs. Tooms a Communist? Had anyone ever seen a wooden bicycle? Was the real architect of the family disfunction “Bill”? Did anyone have the recipe for those pastries at the Rockford, the ones introduced by Dr.Zecklos? This last question came from Toby.

During the afternoon session, more small facts and minutiae of Illmanology (the term floated by Hulda). Toby was sighing with boredom, and Edouard seemed restless. Then Hulda announced that she had something “very, very new” to share. And so she did.

“We all know that there are several glaring lacunae in our history.”

“What or where is Transdanubia? [here Toby groaned] and what of that critical central actor, Mehna herself?” 

Hulda reviewed the existing information. Mehna, born in 1881, died in 1938. A child with Aeselinski. That would be Mitzi, born in 1917 died in 1962. One child, Jeanette, was born in about 1930.

“And there the trail ends. Are we to believe the lack of representation of the Mehna branch is a given, that they are a dead-end? No, my friends! There is more.”   

Toby examined his fingernails. Edouard, who had been staring at his shoes, looked up and cleared his throat.

“May I interrupt? And here I’m sorry if I spoil your surprise if this is what this is. While I was the Children’s Librarian at the Elgin Free Library, there was a request for Frank Gee Patchin’s The Pony Rider Boys in the Alkali– out of print and dated 1910. Edouard knew of a series by that name and was curious ‘who would request such a quaint, even pulpy, Western? The name on the request form was Frank Knecht. The year was 1966. Did Frank have a grandson with whom he wanted to share the book? No. Was he revisiting books of his youth? No, he just liked Westerns. He had no grandchildren. He was a widower, and his only child had died a few years earlier. Maybe you heard of my daughter, Jeanette Knecht? J and the Applicators? She has a few western songs out there; sometimes you hear them today, said Frank.

“Sooner or later.” said Edouard with some hubris, “I pieced the whole thing together!” Hulda beamed. Toby seemed interested.

Edouard reported that Frank Knecht had passed on just two years ago, in 1995. Over the years, Edouard learned much more about the Brethren, about Mehna, Mitzi, and Jeanette, most of which he had already shared with them. Jeanette did have a few hits, the only one likely to be known as the 1955 smash “Gullywash.” Jeanette had a child, a daughter named Millicent, born about 1962. Frank knew this because Jeanette had sent a note, but Mitzi was dead by that time. Frank never saw his daughter or granddaughter. In 1965 he learned that Jeanette had died.

“Odd detail here,” said Edouard. “She choked on a sausage casing. She loved sausage, particularly bratwurst and Polish. The manufacturers switched from natural to artificial casings, and the change was enough to kill her. End of story. Hulda?”

“No, sir!!” Hulda had an unmistakable tone of triumph.”Millicent was placed in an orphanage, but a good one, run by the Church. She then went to a boarding school in Colorado and then decided to become a nun. She became a sister in the Mute Order of Saint Urraca of Aragon, where she resides today. We cannot interview Millicent. “No exceptions,” added Hulda, completing her narrative. “It’s in Lake County, near Mundelein.”

“Urraca of Aragon?” Toby was fully alert. “I used to live near a retreat house in Naperville with that name. I don’t know what they did there, but I remember a placard beside the door that requested silence of all those who entered. If you ever got permission to enter. Which you would not! Oh, and a picture of Jesus with his finger over his mouth saying ‘Shh.’ Weird place, Ed.”, 

Edouard despised being called “Ed,” but let it go. Hulda Plumm continued with Millicent and Saint Urraca. “Here is the real bombshell. It seems that Urraca, this is in the 14th Century, lived in Aragon, in Spain, for a long time and then left to do missionary work. She ends up in what some folks might all Transdanubia!”

“My Lord!” gasped the open-mouthed Edouard Ilman, “I never…are you sure.?

“Jesus Carpenter Christ!! Toby Ilman mumbled.

Hulda Plumm beamed. 

“We should make you an honorary Ilman, Hulda,” cried Edouard.

“I would like that,” she whispered and smiled.

18/ THE PHOTOGRAPH

Hulda was, to use a term she loved, “gobsmacked.” The revelation that a Millicent Eelman Knecht, daughter of Mitzi Eelman Knecht, existed meant that there was more to know about the Ilmans, but, at the same time, little hope of accessing it. Not as long as Saint Urraca required silence. Hulda, the inexplicably greatest champion of the Transdanubian Ilmans, recovered quickly, however, and smiling broadly, nearly shouted “Documentation!” Edouard, assuming he was supposed to supply proof that Millicent existed, felt some alarm at the idea of a challenge.

“Photograph!” said Hulda. She excused herself and returned with a long-haired student wearing a ball cap (backward) with a pocket camera. They lined up, and he snapped two exposures and left. Hulda ordered four prints made,5×7, sepia-toned to create a mood of antiquity. One copy for Edouard, one for Toby, and the third saved pending discovery of the address of St. Urraca of Aragon’s retreat house, attn: Sister Maria Ungulata. The fourth was framed and displayed in Hulda’s office at the Galena Vo-Tech. 

The photo is (and continues to be) the ONLY photograph of the Ilman family in existence. Edouard, Hulda, and Toby are lined up with Edouard on the left, Toby on the right, and the much shorter Hulda in the center.

Edouard was in a light-colored polyester suit. His face was broad, jowly, and dominated by a drooping and bluntly trimmed mustache. His hair, a haphazard comb-over of grey-flecked twists, the remains of what had once been a thatch of dark blond. Could this have been Travhnar as well? Edouard gave the camera a tentative smile. Both of his hands were clasped behind his back, a posture that did nothing to hide his mid-life spread.

Toby, whose reluctance to be “documented” was only partially obscured by his expressionless face, was a man as tall as his cousin.

There the similarity ended. Toby was fit, clean-shaven, with a head of dark hair, shiny and slicked back. He looked like an otter. Rimless bifocals, khaki pants, and a button-down collared shirt. A head waiter on holiday with boat shoes to complete the impression. His arms were folded over his chest, a pose that suggested indifference. Was this his grandfather, the daring “Bill,” who died on Luzon?

Hulda, a head shorter, was plainly not an Ilman. Blond, her hair in a bun, looked like a pleased auntie between her two nephews. A sheet of newsprint obscured much of her body. She had ripped it off an easel placed there should the Ilman family need one to record brainstorming. There had been no brainstorming. Quickly, and in neat block letters, Hulda wrote.

HULDA PLUMM

surrogate for

MILLICENT KNECHT

R– TOBY I L–EDOUARD I.

And at the bottom:

Ilman Colloquium 

May 16-17, 1997

Why was Hulda in this photo? Toby wondered if people ever wished themselves into other people’s genealogies. He could not imagine it. Had it been that tough being a Plumm? And why would it matter to him? It didn’t. He headed for the door. 

“Wait!” called Hulda, “tomorrow, breakfast at the motel between nine and ten. Waffle maker and great biscuit and gravy. See you there!”  

Late that evening: a tap on the door of Edouard’s room. It was Hulda.

Could they talk? Edouard told her he was just turning in; it had been a long day and one that had drained him. She left.

Early the next morning: a tap on the door of Edouard’s room. It was

Toby. Edouard invited him in.

“I was just watching it get light. Come and have a seat by the window.

What brings you here? It’s still too early for your waffle or your biscuit with gravy,” said Edouard, smiling. 

Toby made a gagging sound and sat down. Outside, a woman in a green windbreaker jacket was walking two handsome standard poodles. “Great dogs,” remarked Toby. “Yes, Classy,” answered Edouard. 

Toby cleared his throat. 

I’m leaving for the city in the next few minutes. It’s not the breakfast, but I’m not cut out for this family history sort of thing. Not that I don’t appreciate the effort. My partner, Rob, is done, too. He saw his birds.”

Edouard wondered if there was a Rob. He had learned little about Toby other than Martin’s near-estrangement and that he had an excellent position at Le Crapaud Enchanté. Also, a boyfriend.

‘Rob’s one of our new waiters, and he needs the hours,” added Toby a bit uncertainly.” I have to tell you, Ed, cousin Ed, I guess, I’m not one to wallow in the past. Everything I’ve learned about the Ilmans makes me think that there was absolutely nothing unusual about them except a pattern of persistent uninspired living. There is nothing I can take from them. They hung on, waiting for something. What could that have been? That waiting? Do you know what I have a copy of in good calligraphy on the back of my apartment door, so I see it every time I leave? .Do you know your Shakespeare?”

“My Shakespeare?” murmured the astonished Edouard. What was this fellow getting at? What was the matter with him?

“Act Five? OK, I have to run. Just this. And you know it:

To-morrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day today

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

“Not saying you’re an idiot, Cousin,” said Toby with just enough

sarcasm. “But why do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“This Ilman thing.”

Edouard somehow thought that this would be a question no one ever raised. He stammered his way through a hopefully respectable response since he sensed that Toby had him on the ropes over something.

“I guess I think I do it to pass the time. It’s something to do. To be honest. And I feel sorry for our ancestors. Their lives were kind of pointless, I guess, or pathetic in many cases: maybe all of them. Maybe mine is, too. Or maybe there is something I’ve missed.”

Something coming from Toby had reawakened his misgivings.

Toby smiled, perhaps for the first time. “Here’s what I do, and this is why I love the job. I greet the guests, suggest a wine to go with dinner, put in the order, serve it to them myself, have Rob or another waiter serve it, make a bit of patter, and move on to the next guests. It is the entire focus, no past, no future. Just an urgent present, and that’s real.”

Toby turned and raised a hand in farewell. He walked to the stairway and was gone.

Hulda was already seated at a table away from the yammering television and away from the other guests milling mindlessly near the food selections in the motel’s breakfast room. She was disappointed that Toby was gone but quietly said, “I don’t think he truly enjoyed himself.” Edouard placed a hand on her arm. “That’s OK. He’s sort of a challenging type, my impression. He told me to tell you that he was sorry to leave, but he needed to get back to the restaurant.”

Edouard asked her if she knew Shakespeare. She did not. He would have to look it up or ask a librarian. They began to exchange family anecdotes. Her father and his recollection of a pastry. The dogs. Kathleen’s search for a saintly apparition in a pan of scrambled eggs and how his father had been the first patient at the Elgin State Hospital. Frank Knecht relating Mitzi’s phobia of dogs. Then more small talk. It was almost ten; the breakfast hour was ending. Edouard was finishing his waffle. Hulda turned to him.

“Didn’t you try the biscuits and gravy?”

[Editor: And what was that, an attempt at humor, even irony? It won’t win me points among the readers, but I went several rounds with Zoytlow on the ending of this, what would you call it? Zoytlow had gotten too involved and swore that every word was true. The Ilmans were real people to him. He seemed overwrought, and I floated by most (as I had hoped) helpful suggestion. That all the Ilmans were killed off, he was shocked at the idea, but assuming we both agreed, on some level, that the Ilmans were fiction, how would that work?

So, I sketched it out for him. Each of the descendants died cleanly. Edouard, crossing the Pecatonica River at Ballast College, fell through the ice. Martin and Catherine should have died much earlier due to a natural gas leak at the State Hospital. Sister Urraca would have died of a catastrophic aortic incident at the convent. That left Toby. Why not a pedestrian death leaving the concert hall in Chicago. Nice and tidy! Hulda survived, and why not? I had to leave Zoytlow with something.

[PNZ:]  I swear that the Ilmans are NOT fiction, No way! Sure, they had to be reconstituted like freeze-dried sausage scraps. But even those scraps form a scrim. And a scrim is a beginning with enough transparency to..to.. 

[Editor:]  There I cut himoff. As an editor, I was mostly ignored. However, as a friend, I have not given up on P.N. Zoytlow. But I will not easily be persuaded to edit another of his works.

FROM THE EARLY REVIEWS

[Editor: Despite my considerable doubt about this work, from the Title to the Ending, I wanted P.N. Zoytlow to experience the thing that had eluded him for som many years. And what was that? Apple! Respect! Invitations to Talk Shows on television. And so on. These were the things he wanted but never admitted to wanting, hence the difficulty of discussing the matter of selecting some blurbs for the back cover. He thought that would look cheap and craven. All he would permit, at first, on that naked back cover, was a dictionary entry for the word “scrim” and only at the very bottom and in a smaller font. We argued and finally settled on something along the lines of Holy Writ inscribed on a grain of rice.]  

Thus: Scrim: a piece of gauze cloth that appears opaque until lit from behind, used as a screen to backdrop

As for the blurbs:

“Zoytlow, how to begin, has offered us a fresh look at the Story of America and of the Trandaubans (sic) who live among us.”—  Elgin (IL) Times-Bugler

“A very quick page-turner to be sure.”—McKeesport (PA) Union-Stabilizer

“We have long-awaited a work which would help illuminate the fate of emigres from the Baltic marshlands. This is not it, but we read it anyway and then regifted it to someone; I forget who.”  Beka Dreksko, Liberty University Marxist Quarterly

“Disgusting misogynist slime. A disservice to a Nation of Ingrates.”— Nadine P. in the Manchester Gardener Review of New Tools

“Who will join is in imagining a world in which each of us has read this book?” — Pravda, Yakutsk Edition

“I scanned it for violence and sex. Zilch! Nada! It sucked bigly! Toss the mother!”  Liam J. Hoover High School Weekly Reader, Waterloo, IA.

“Without having read anything by this writer so new to the scene, I cannot say whether Zoytlow has started at the top or the bottom. I suspect it is the latter. (unsigned)  Dallas Lit. Quar. 

“This little book saved my ass and got me into law school. I was a senior about to graduate from college when I forgot I had an oral presentation due on the topic “How Important is Illinois?” Then I stumbled across this book lying in a grocery cart. I read the chapters on Mehna and boiled them down into a 20 minute talk, “Forgotten Illini, the Story of Mehna Ilman. The class and the professor were blown away and I got a nice reference letter to the Centralia Law School.”  [Letter received by the Editor]

“Why would anyone write a book like this?”  [Overheard in a Dunkin Donuts in Brattleboro, VT]

A Cosmic Footnote

On Friday, the 14th of March, in Oxford, England, eleven-year-old Venetia Katherine Burney joined her mother and grandfather for breakfast. Her grandfather, a retired librarian at Oxford University, was reading the morning paper and, as was his habit, shared news of interest with his daughter and granddaughter. That morning, they heard that the Lowell Observatory had announced the discovery of a new planet orbiting the sun and located at the solar system’s edge. “We have a ninth planet beyond Neptune; well, that’s certainly news!” said her grandfather. 

As Venetia told the story, she asked her grandfather if the new planet had a name, and it did not. Young Venetia, whose interests in school ranged from mathematics to classical mythology, knew that all the planets had the names of Greek and Roman gods except the one she lived, which was derived from Old Germanic “ertha” for “ground.” After a few minutes, Venetia suggested that astronomers should name the new planet Pluto. Young Ms.Burney had chosen well. Pluto was the God of the Underworld, and the new planet drab was likely a miserable place with a dim, frigid surface.

Venetia’s grandfather, Falconer Madan, was well connected with several astronomers, and, at his suggestion, they forwarded the name Pluto to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. There, the staff had been weighing suggestions for a name, one of which may have been Pluto, but when the telegram arrived from England with Venetia Burney’s choice, they quickly decided on it and credited her with the idea.

The young astronomer who discovered Pluto was 24-year-old Clyde Tombaugh, and he was drawn to the name Pluto because the first two letters, P and L, stood for Percival Lowell, founder of the Observatory which bears his name. Lowell, who died in 1916, had long promoted the idea that there was a “Planet X” beyond Neptune, and Tombaugh was the man who found it.

Since the discovery, Pluto’s status as a planet has been questioned, and today it is regarded as a “dwarf planet” and considered a feature of the Kuiper Asteroid Belt. 

Clyde Tombaugh and Venetia Burney lived long enough to learn of Pluto’s impending official demotion to dwarf planet status. Before she died at 90 in 2009, Venetia Burney, who had a long career teaching economics, admitted that she would have preferred that Pluto remain a planet but that it was not a matter of great concern to her. Tombaugh and Burney never met, but they are remembered with two newly-mapped features on Pluto, the Tombaugh Regio, and the Burney Crater.

Special to P.N. Zoytlow’s Blog extraordinaire

A Word or Two from the SAB

[Sardine Advisory Board]

THE SAB, meeting in bloated plenary session in May, 2021 at an undisclosed location, voted 17-3 to include information on threats to sardines due to whatever causes could be blamed as long as the SAB itself remained innocent. Please recall: the SAB encourages appreciation of sardines, but not wanton gorging. However, mindful of awareness of human depredations on the planet, the SAB agreed to look into the matter of:

SARDINE  SUSTAINABILITY

As long as people have celebrated sardines, there have been few worries about demand outstripping supply. We consume them with impunity in much the same way as we consume many natural products. Since they are inexpensive, this supports the impression of plentyBut is this a responsible attitude to take? Are we exempting sardines from our concerns over many other edible species? 

A recent documentary, Seaspiracy, available on Netflix, was suggested to the Sardine Advisory Board member (M). Well worth watching. This 90-minute film will have you questioning the health of fish stocks in the world’s oceans. And the larger question is: can we continue to consume fish at the rate we are doing so now? Or is it time to declare a moratorium on all fishing until adequate stocks reappear and can be carefully managed?

A widely-available brand of sardines, Seasons, places the word sustainable on every package:Seasons elaborates on the meaning of sustainability on its website.

http://www.seasonproducts.com/sustainability/

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, has a role to play in monitoring the health of fisheries, though these are probably most focused on American waters. 

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/sustainable-fisheries

While both commercial sardine fisheries and government give the impression that we can manage fish stocks, other sources are less reassuring:

Science Line, https://scienceline.org/2019/11/no-such-thing-as-sustainable-fish/

Oceanic Society  https://www.oceanicsociety.org/resources/what-is-sustainable-seafood-and-how-do-i-choose-it- 

Mother Jones  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/sardines-overfishing/ 

Have you narrowed the problem down to you and the sardine? We humans too often ignore that the smaller fish are part of a food chain, i.e., other species are involved. The entire ocean should be viewed as a network of dependency. Overfish, and you distress that network. 

All of which may be leading to a word that you may not have seen since Economics 101: TANSTAAFL. Meaning: “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Ignore the cost of that can of sardines; we are talking about global costs here. And TANSTAAFL.

Many times Zoytlow stood at the back of a crowd, trying to determine what the fuss was about. Then he discovered that the human brain casing as as interesting as anything. He also determined that when we look at statues, we seldom appreciate the enormous labor represented by feet. The result: Heads and Feet. And at the same time, an homage to J.S. Bach, “A Musical Offering”.

https://youtu.be/lSSQIgUPJOs

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