Lawrence Looks for Treasure

Part 2 - Chapter 21

21

It was nearly midnight when we arrived at the campsite. Our flashlights pointed, we wondered the perimeter, travelling all four corners to discover we were alone.

We decided to set camp in the middle of the grounds. Ema and I pitched the tent. Chris and Matty left to gather firewood.

'Can I help with that?' I asked Ema, as she kneeled to connect the tent rods.

'I think I've got it,' she said. Her eyebrows were furrowed. Her tongue was curled around her upper lip. A strand of her hair had escaped its ponytail, and dangled over her temple. She was beautiful. No way around it.

'Your aunt has a nice house,' I said, watching her, admiring her.

'Thanks,' she said.

'Your aunt's husband—he's an accountant, right?'

'Not quite,' she said, still fidgeting.

'He's not an accountant?'

'He's an accountant. He's just not really her husband.' Ema clicked the rods together. Rising proudly, she picked up the tent cover, and began funneling the rods through it.

I didn't do much except watch her. 'They divorced?'

'Not yet,' she said. 'My uncle moved out last month. So right now, they're only separated.'

Suddenly, I questioned my desire to live like Ema's Aunt. Who cares whether your house is big, if you don't have someone to share it with?

'Does she have kids?' I asked.

Ema shook her head, 'Mm-mm.'

'Why not?'

'I dunno. They married late. He works a lot. What's with all the questions?' she laughed.

'Sorry.' I smiled.

No kids, either? Life without children is, in my opinion, an incomplete life, a sad life. I didn't want to live like Ema's aunt, after all.

I had now talked to two adults on my adventure: the guy at the gas station and Ema's aunt. Neither led a particularly worthwhile life. Their lives had some good parts. I admired that they had made for themselves any kind of life. I didn't know whether I could. But if I had a choice, I wouldn't choose either of theirs. Whose life would I choose? No one's from Kinnard—not my dad, not Pastor Simes, not anyone in between. The only person whose life I admired was a fictional Austrian named Dmitri.

Obviously, the problem wasn't other people's lives, it was my expectation for life. My expectation misunderstood reality. I mean, if I hadn't met a single adult who led a worthwhile life, maybe, just maybe, I needed to rethink what makes a worthwhile life. I could've been mistaken on that point. I've been mistaken before. I'd say I'm mostly mistaken.

The more I thought about my future, the sadder I got. It felt hopeless. The late hour didn't help. Nights are bad for me. I battle too much during the day to battle any more at night.

Thankfully, my thoughts were interrupted by the return of Chris and Matty. They came with wood, and they started a fire. Everyone but me seemed in good spirits. They sat and talked and laughed. Chris even joked about almost drowning earlier that day. I just watched the fire crackle, too tired to engage. I could watch for hours, if I wasn't so tired.

Even more than tired, however, I was excited to read The Grand Adventure of Dmitri Waltz. Even more than sleep, I needed escape. A chapter of The Grand Adventure was my trapdoor to peace.

'Should I continue reading my book out loud?' I asked.

'Uh, sure,' Chris said.

Ema wasn't paying attention. 'Look what I have,' she said, pulling a bottle of vodka from her bag.

Chris and Matty started laughing like miners who struck gold.

'Where'd ya get that?' Matty asked, excitedly.

'Took it from my aunt.' Ema smirked.

'Let's crack it open,' Chris said.

'None for me,' I said. 'I'm exhausted.'

'You sure, man?' Matty asked.

'C'mon Lawrence, it'll be fun.' Chris said.

Ema didn't say much at all.

'Not tonight,' I said. 'I think I'm just gonna go to the tent and get some sleep.'

Chris and Matty looked disappointed and, at the same time, unsurprised.

'I have a second bottle for us tomorrow,' Ema said.

'Tomorrow it is, then,' I said. I would have agreed to anything, even to fly a fully-occupied passenger plane, if it meant I could, at that moment, steal away.

'Tomorrow it is,' Chris repeated.

'Night man,' Matty said.

'Night guys.'

Thirty seconds later, I was alone in the tent. It was such a relief to get away. I felt ten pounds lighter. Another thirty second later, I had jumped into my sleeping bag, opened The Grand Adventure of Dmitri Waltz, clicked on a flashlight and started reading. Boy was I snug.

The brother of the bearded-lady, a round man named Monsieur Grenouille, fed and housed me, and I, in return, performed magic for his guests at the Inn. I performed once on Thursday night, twice on Friday night, and five times on Saturday from matinée to soirée; all other time was my own. M. Grenouille insisted I use that time to attend school. Education was free in France—God bless those socialists—up to the age of twelve. Although I was fourteen, I was then a diminutive boy, prepared to lie to find myself in the classroom free of charge. Ultimately, I did not have to. No one asked my age and I told no one. Indeed, I'd bet a franc or ten that I was not the only grey-hair taking a desk. It was the spirit of the time to consider education a great good, and any rule depriving the youth of it was a rule to be ignored. In short, I fit in well.

It was a happy arrangement I had with M. Grenouille. At the Inn, I became something of a local attraction. My routine, the act of a dimwitted magician, who couldn't quite nail the trick, but whose efforts were sincere and determined, filled the bar with bodies and the bodies with beatitude.

At school, I laboured with discipline. Don't misunderstand—the classroom was not much work. It was at home where the learning began. Using the course book as my guide, I taught myself, alone by candle light, the lessons our teacher had planned for the following week. What the students were learning for the first time, I had already read and reread, front-to-back, back-to-front, upside-down, and side-to-side. In this way, I seemed much brighter. I was, at any rate, bright enough to realize that it's not how smart you are, but what you do with your smarts. There are no prizes for the man on the street, no matter how quickly he can add. Smart is as smart does.

There were a few as keen as I. As I said, the rest were not much denser; they simply valued schooling less. After lessons, they played and I learned. Though I was invited to join on occasion, I was more interested in the few, like me, who preferred their books. I hoped that if I consorted with the keen, I could learn their habits and views, and, in so doing, improve my own.

Even among the keen, I was drawn to one above all others. Her name was Ines. She was tall, thin and plain, or, at least, uninterested in the trappings of femininity. She wore heavy sweaters that hid her figure. Her hair was either hidden behind a bonnet, or so disheveled that it ought to have been. And she lugged around a bag so full and heavy, it seemed to be holding a bust of Napoleon, instead of books.

Ines always knew more than I. And any attention she did not pay to her appearance, she redirected in double to her notes—by God, she had the prettiest notes—so that when the teacher interrogated her on any subject, Ines would shuffle confidently through them until she arrived at the right page, and answer the question so completely as to stop the matter right there.

When I first approached Ines after class, it was not that I loved her, though I soon would. She was simply a model from whom I needed to learn, to imitate, with luck, to outdo.