Bagombo Snuff Box (16 page)

“I refuse to worry about it,” said Otto, as he, Falloleen,
and I cleared away the supper dishes. “If I worry, I can’t work, and if I can’t
work, I can’t get any money to bail me out of this mess.”

“The important thing is for somebody to worry,” I said, “and
I guess I’m it. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone up here in the greenhouse
while I go to work

“Man must spend half his time at one with Nature,” said
Otto, “and half at one with himself. Most houses provide only a muddy, murky in
between.” He caught my sleeve. “Listen, don’t rush off. All work and no play
make Jack a dull boy. Why don’t the three of us just have a pleasant social
evening, so you can get to know us, and then tomorrow you can start getting
down to brass tacks?”

“That’s nice of you,” I said. “But the quicker I get to
work, the quicker you’ll be out of the woods. Besides, newlyweds don’t want to
entertain on their first evening at home.”

“Heavens!” said Otto. “We’re not newlyweds anymore.”

“Yes we are,” said Falloleen meekly.

“Of course you are,” I said, opening my briefcase. ‘And you
must have an awful lot to say to each other.”

“Urn,” said Otto.

There followed an awkward silence in which Otto and Falloleen
stared out into the night through the glass walls, avoiding each other’s eyes.

“Didn’t Falloleen put on one too many earrings for supper?”
said Otto.

“I felt lopsided with just one,” said Falloleen.

“Let me be the judge of that,” said Otto. “What you don’t
get is a sense of the whole composition—something a little off-balance here,
but lo and behold, a perfect counterbalance down there.” ; “So you won’t
capsize,” I said, opening the studio door. “Have fun.”

“It didn’t really jar you, did it, Otto?” said Falloleen
guiltily.

I closed the door.

The studio was soundproofed, and I could hear nothing of the
Krummbeins’ first evening at home as I picked over the wreckage of their
finances.

I intruded once, with a long list of questions, and found
the upstairs perfectly quiet, save for soft music from the phonograph and the
rustle of rich, heavy material. Falloleen was turning around in a lazy sort of
ballet, wearing a magnificent evening gown. Otto, lying on the couch, watched
her through narrowed lids and blew smoke rings.

“Fashion show?” I said. ;

“We thought it would be fun for me to try on all the things
Otto’s bought me that I haven’t had a chance to wear,” said Falloleen. Despite
her heavy makeup, her face had taken on a haggard look. “Like it?” she said.

“Very much,” I said, and I roused Otto from his torpor to answer
my questions. “Shouldn’t I come down and work with you?” he asked.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’d rather you wouldn’t. The perfect
quiet is just what I need.”

Otto was disappointed. “Well, please don’t hesitate to call
me for anything.”

An hour later, Falloleen and Otto came down into the studio
with cups and a pot of coffee. They smiled, but their eyes were glazed with
boredom.

Falloleen had on a strapless gown of blue velveteen, with ermine
around the hem and below her white shoulders. She slouched and shuffled. Otto
hardly glanced at her.

‘Ah-h-h!” I said. “Coffee! Just the thing! Style show all
over?”

“Ran out of clothes,” said Falloleen. She poured the coffee,
kicked off her shoes, and lay down at one end of the couch. Otto lay down at
the other end, grunting. The peace of the scene was deceptive. Neither Otto nor
Falloleen was relaxed. Falloleen was clenching and unclenching her hands. Every
few seconds Otto would click his teeth like castanets. .

“You certainly look very lovely, Falloleen,” I said. “Are
those by any chance moonlight-engineered cosmetics you’re wearing?”

“Yes,” said Falloleen. “Otto had some samples made up, and I’m
a walking laboratory. Fascinating work.”

“You’re not in moonlight,” I said, “but I’d say the
experiment was a smashing success.”

Otto sat up, refreshed by praise of his work. “You really
think so? We had moonlight for most of our honeymoon, and the idea practically
forced itself on me.”

Falloleen sat up as well, sentimentally interested in the
subject of the honeymoon. “I loved going out to glamorous places every evening,”
she said, “but the evening I liked best was the one when we went canoeing, just
the two of us, and the lake and the moon.”

“I kept looking at her lips there in the moonlight,” said
Otto, “and—”

“I was looking at your eyes,” said Falloleen.

Otto snapped his fingers. “And then it came to me! By
heaven, something was all wrong with ordinary cosmetics in the moonlight. The
wrong colors came out, blues and greens. Falloleen looked like she’d just swum
the English Channel.”

Falloleen slapped him with all her might.

“Whatja do that for?” bellowed Otto, his face crimson from
the blow. “You think I’ve got no sense of pain?” .”You think I haven’t?”
seethed Falloleen. “You think I’m striated plywood and plastic?”

Otto gasped.

“I’m sick of being Falloleen and the style show that never
ends!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s dull and shallow, scared and
lost, unhappy and unloved.”

She twitched the yellow handkerchief from my breast pocket
and wiped it across her face dramatically, leaving a smear of red, pink, white,
blue, and black. “You designed her, you deserve her, and here she is!” She
pressed the stained handkerchief into Otto’s limp hand. Up the ramp she went. “Good-bye!”

“Falloleen!” cried Otto.

She paused in the doorway. “My name is Kitty Cahoun
Krummbein,” she said. “Falloleen is in your hand.”

Otto waved the handkerchief at her. “She’s as much yours as
she is mine,” he said. “You wanted to be Falloleen. You did everything you
could to be Falloleen.”

“Because I loved you,” said Kitty. She was weeping. “She was
all your design, all for you.”

Otto turned his palms upward. “Krummbein is not infallible,”
he said. “There was widespread bloodshed when the American housewife took the
Krummbein Vortex Can Opener to her bosom. I thought being Falloleen would make
you happy, and it’s made you unhappy instead. I’m sorry. No matter how it
turned out, it was a work of love.”

“You love Falloleen,” said Kitty.

“I love the way she looked,” said Otto. He hesitated. “Are
you really Kitty again?”

“Would Falloleen show her face looking like this?”

“Never,” said Otto. “Then I can tell you, Kitty, that
Falloleen was a crashing bore when she wasn’t striking a pose or making a
dramatic entrance or exit. I lived in terror of being left alone with her.”

“Falloleen didn’t know who she was or what she was,” Kitty
sobbed. “You didn’t give her any insides.”

Otto went up to her and put his arms around her. “Sweetheart,”
he said, “Kitty Cahoun was supposed to be inside, but she disappeared completely.”

“You didn’t like anything about Kitty Cahoun,” said Kitty.

“My dear, sweet wife,” said Otto, “there are only four
things on earth that don’t scream for redesigning, and one of them is the soul
of Kitty Cahoun. I thought it was lost forever.”

She put her arms around him tentatively. “And the other
three?” she said.

“The egg,” said Otto, “the Model-T Ford, and the exterior of
Falloleen.

“Why don’t you freshen up,” said Otto, “slip into your
lavender negligee, and put a white rose behind your ear, while I straighten
things out here with the Scourge of Wall Street?”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m starting to feel like Falloleen
again.”

“Don’t be afraid of it,” said Otto. “Just make sure this
time that Kitty shines through in all her glory.”

She left, supremely happy.

“I’ll get right out,” I said. “Now I know you want to be
alone with her.”

“Frankly, I do,” said Otto.

“I’ll open a checking account and hire a safe-deposit box in
your name tomorrow,” I said.

And Otto said, “Sounds like your kind of thing. Enjoy,
enjoy.”

George M. Helmholtz, head of the music department and director
of the band of Lincoln High School, was a good, fat man who saw no evil, heard
no evil, and spoke no evil, for wherever he went, the roar and boom and blast
of a marching band, real or imagined, filled his soul. There was room for
little else, and the Lincoln High School Ten Square Band he led was, as a consequence,
as fine as any band on earth.

Sometimes, when he heard muted, wistful passages, real or
imagined, Helmholtz would wonder if it wasn’t indecent of him to be so happy in
such terrible times. But then the brasses and percussion section would put
sadness to flight, and Mr. Helmholtz would see that his happiness and its
source could only be good and rich and full of hope for everyone.

Helmholtz often gave the impression of a man lost in dreams,
but there was a side to him that was as tough as a rhinoceros. It was that side
that raised money for the band, that hammered home to the school board, the
Parent Teacher Association, Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Rotary, and Lions
that the goodness and richness and hope that his band inspired cost money. In
his fund-raising harangues, he would recall for his audiences black days for
the Lincoln High football team, days when the Lincoln stands had been silent,
hurt, and ashamed.

“Half-time,” he would murmur, and hang his head.

He would twitch a whistle from his pocket and blow a shrill
blast. “Lincoln High School Ten Square Band!” he’d shout. “Forward—harch!
Boom! Ta-ta-ta-taaaaaa!” Helmholtz, singing, marching in place, would become
flag twirlers, drummers, brasses, woodwinds, glockenspiel and all. By the time
he’d marched his one-man band up and down the imaginary football field once,
his audience was elated and wringing wet, ready to buy the band anything it
wanted.

But no matter how much money came in, the band was always
without funds. Helmholtz was a spender when it came to band equipment, and was
known among rival bandmasters as “The Plunger” and “Diamond Jim.”

Among the many duties of Stewart Haley, Assistant Principal
of Lincoln High, was keeping an eye on band finances. Whenever it was necessary
for Haley to discuss band finances with Helmholtz, Haley tried to corner the
bandmaster where he couldn’t march and swing his arms.

Helmholtz knew this, and felt trapped when Haley appeared in
the door of the bandmaster’s small office, brandishing a bill for ninety-five
dollars. Following Haley was a delivery boy from a tailor shop, who carried a
suit box under his arm. As Haley closed the office door from inside, Helmholtz
hunched over a drawing board, pretending deep concentration.

“Helmholtz,” said Haley, “I have here an utterly unexpected,
utterly unauthorized bill for—”

“Sh!” said Helmholtz. “I’ll be with you in a moment.” He
drew a dotted line across a diagram that was already a black thicket of lines. “I’m
just putting the finishing touches on the Mother’s Day formation,” he said. “I’m
trying to make an arrow pierce a heart and then spell ‘Mom.’ It isn’t easy.”

“That’s very sweet,” said Haley, rattling the bill, “and I’m
as fond of mothers as you are, but you’ve just put a ninety-five-dollar arrow
through the public treasury.”

Helmholtz did not look up. “I was going to tell you about
it,” he said, drawing another line, “but what with getting ready for the state
band festival and Mother’s Day, it seemed unimportant. First things first.”

“Unimportant!” said Haley. “You hypnotize the community into
buying you one hundred new uniforms for the Ten Square Band, and now—”

“Now?” said Helmholtz mildly.

“This boy brings me a bill for the hundred-and-first
uniform!” said Haley. “Give you an inch and—”

Haley was interrupted by a knock. “Come in,” said Helmholtz.
The door opened, and there stood Leroy Duggan, a shy; droll, slope-shouldered
sophomore. Leroy was so self-conscious that when anyone turned to look at him
he did a sort of fan dance with his piccolo case and portfolio, hiding himself
as well as he could behind them.

“Come right in, Leroy,” said Helmholtz.

“Wait outside a moment, Leroy,” said Haley. “This is rather
urgent business.”

Leroy backed out, mumbling an apology, and Haley closed the
door again.

“My door is always open to my musicians,” said Helmholtz.

“It will be,” said Haley, “just as soon as we clear up the
mystery of the hundred-and-first uniform.”

“I’m frankly surprised and hurt at the administration’s lack
of faith in my judgment,” said Helmholtz. “Running a precision organization of
a hundred highly talented young men isn’t the simple operation everyone seems
to think.”

“Simple!” said Haley. “Who thinks it’s simple! It’s plainly
the most tangled, mysterious, expensive mess in the entire school system. You
say a hundred young men, but this boy here just delivered the hundred-and-first
uniform. Has the Ten Square Band added a tail gunner?”

“No,” said Helmholtz. “It’s still a hundred, much as I’d
like to have more, much as I need them. For instance, I was just trying to
figure out how to make Whistler’s Mother with a hundred men, and it simply can’t
be done.” He frowned. “If we could throw in the girls’ glee club we might make
it. You’re intelligent and have good taste. Would you give me your ideas on the
band festival and this Mother’s Day thing?”

Haley lost his temper. “Don’t try to fuddle me, Helmholtz!
What’s the extra uniform for?”

“For the greater glory of Lincoln High School!” barked Helmholtz.
“For the third leg and permanent possession of the state band festival trophy!”
His voice dropped to a whisper, and he glanced furtively at the door. “Specifically,
it’s for Leroy Duggan, probably the finest piccoloist in this hemisphere. Let’s
keep our voices down, because we can’t discuss the uniform without discussing
Leroy.”