Facing the Hunchback of Notre Dame (14 page)

A little boy with white-blond hair gave a little wave from his wheelchair. “Hi! You were at the lodge a little while ago!” he announced.

Walter got right up. “How are you doing, mate? The name’s Walter.”

“I’m Kyle.”

Walter turned to introduce the others. “That’s Quasi over there, the big guy. And the tall one is Linus.”

“Whoa!” said Kyle, his blue eyes growing rounder, “You look like a strong guy, Quasi!”

“He is.” Walter motioned Quasimodo forward, but he looked like he was about to be shown the gallows (a wooden frame from which a person is hanged). “Show him, Quasi.”

Quasimodo’s face registered panic for just a moment, but then his expression changed to one that Walter had yet to see in any context other than food.

It was sheer amazement.

Kyle had offered his hand for Quasimodo to shake.

“He’s not from around here, Kyle,” explained Walter. “This is what we do here, Quasi.”

Walter took Kyle’s bony hand in his and gave it a gentle shake. Then Kyle held his hand out toward Quasimodo again. Quasi slowly offered his own bony hand to the boy; but his hand wasn’t frail, it was large and quite able to crush Kyle’s tiny one. Quasi held the little boy’s hand with the utmost gentleness, and the boy beamed.

Linus had to bite back the emotions that threatened to bring tears to his eyes. This tiny gesture would do more to change Quasi’s future than anything Ophelia had ever said or done, and much more than anything he and Walter had tried to offer Quasi that afternoon. Or so Linus hoped.

Soon the other children gathered around Quasimodo as well. He picked them up and spun them around, holding them up over his head. Well, those whose physical states would allow it.

But when Quasi hoisted Kyle over his shoulder and climbed the large oak tree nearby, any reservation that someone might have had toward the young man who looked so different from the rest of the world, vanished.

Well, except for the young camp director who now shouted in a panic, “Get back down here!”

Kyle called down from above, “Look at me, Eric! I can see the world! I can see the whole world from up here!”

Quasi smiled and laughed. “Yes, you can, Kyle. And so can I!”

W
hile Aunt Portia and Uncle Augustus were out for dinner with Ronda and Mr. Birdwistell, Walter and the twins taught Quasimodo how to play Gin Rummy, Scrabble, and Chinese Checkers. He found himself to be a real whiz at playing the kids’ video games as well (mostly older ones about that little Italian plumber whose name I can never remember). Hide-and-seek? He’d never played it! (Oh, the outrage!) But Quasi loved the challenge of finding hiding places that would totally conceal him and his bulk.

Quasimodo was beginning to realize that no one had to sit back and let life just happen to him; he could face it head on and try to beat it.

He thought,
Perhaps I might be able to change things when I get back to Paris. Maybe with enough thought and planning, courage and faith, I can make a life for myself that isn’t tragic— one that’s filled with hope and meaning for myself and for those around me. It has to be possible!
He thought this last part to himself over and over again as the hours that remained until 11:11 a.m. dwindled down.

Ophelia wondered if her brain might explode. They’d decided to stay up all night so as not to miss a single minute with Quasimodo. And who could blame them? He proved himself a chap of the first degree—not at all like some actors’ portrayals of him in the movies. In fact, Walter slipped off to the video store to rent a copy of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” the silent version from
1923 with Lon Chaney playing Quasimodo. (If you watch it sometime, you might get as big a kick out of it as I did.)

Linus made some popcorn, heavy on the butter and salt, and by 9:00 p.m. the four of them were sitting in Ophelia’s room with their eyes glazed over, hands automatically traveling from bowls to mouths as the story played out before them. As soon as the actor jumped up on the balustrade of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and started jeering at the people and sticking out his tongue at those gathered below, Quasimodo jerked his head back with a start. “That’s how I’m perceived?” he asked.

“That’s just the actor’s interpretation,” Ophelia said. “It couldn’t be further from the truth though, could it?”

“Why would I do that?” Quasi set down his popcorn bowl. “What did any of them ever do to me? I just hang around the Cathedral. And you know what? People appreciate how I ring the bells. They know I do that for them. I do it to bring happiness to people.”

It was clear he was getting flustered.

“It’s just a movie,” Linus said.

They’d already explained to Quasimodo what a movie was before they started the DVD player. Not easy.

Walter chimed in, “It’s not a personal attack on you, Quasi. Before the past couple of days, you were just someone created in the mind of a novelist a long time ago. Only we three and Father Lou know you as a real person.”

“And you’re very, very real!” said Ophelia, patting him on the shoulder. She gestured toward the TV screen, “Just look at this for the funny thing that it is.”

“I’ll try,” he said with a sigh.

Ophelia stole glances at Quasi during the rest of the film. She realized that watching the tragic tale of the hunchback being acted out on the screen was doing more to help him than anything they could have said to him. He watched as Esmeralda fell more and more hopelessly in love with Captain Phoebus, the handsome military man who would only use her affection. He watched as Frollo, still fraught with love for Esmeralda, cast all caution and wisdom to the devil in order to obtain her. And most of all, he watched himself, caught in the middle as an unwitting player, innocent and
gullible in the workings of those who were willing to do anything to get what they wanted or thought they needed.

He drew in a shaky breath. “Oh, I don’t think I can take any more of this. Maybe I should go back up to the attic.”

Linus immediately turned off the DVD player.

“We wouldn’t think of it, Quasi,” said Walter.

Quasi seemed as if he were in a dream; he shook his head. “Do you think there’s a fate for someone like me, a person created in someone else’s mind? Do I have a will of my own somehow, now that … well, now that I’m here and I’m real —” he slapped himself on the forearm “— flesh and blood? Or am I doomed to live out what Victor Hugo decided for me long ago?”

They all stared at him in sorrow. Nobody knew the answer to that question—nobody, of course, except Cato Grubbs. And thankfully, he wasn’t around to tell them the answer.

At 4:30 a.m., Walter looked out the window and across the street. By now they’d played enough games to last them a month. “The kitchen light is on at the manse. We should go see what Father Lou is up to.”

Everyone agreed.

As they crossed Rickshaw Street, Walter said, “I could really do with a proper cup of tea.”

“So could I,” said Quasi who admitted it was his favorite beverage since his crossover to Real World.

“I shouldn’t be coming with you,” Ophelia said as she stepped up onto the curb. “I still have a hundred pages left to read.”

“Plenty of time,” said Linus.

“I do read rather quickly,” she said—not to boast, but to convince herself that this break would be all right in the end.

Honestly, I think she was rather irresponsible in taking a risk like that, what with the horrible prospect of Quasimodo fizzing down to nothing more than a pile of smoking rags. But nobody ever listens to me.

Father Lou opened the kitchen door right away and said, “I’m not surprised to see you all.” He showed them in and turned to Quasimodo. “Not much time left, huh?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, we’ll certainly miss you,” he said. “Sit down, everyone, and I’ll get us some tea.”

Ophelia pulled out a chair. “Walter was hoping you’d say that.”

“Absolutely.” Walter grinned as he sat down.

“What’s that noise?” Quasimodo cocked an ear toward the sound of voices coming from what looked like a radio of some fashion.

“A police scanner.” Father Lou spooned tea leaves into a brown teapot. “Old habits die hard. And it’s the only thing worth listening to at this time of night.” He filled the electric kettle with water and set it on its base to heat.

First, they chatted about incidentals (not terribly exciting matters), and then the kids helped Father Lou get caught up on all the happenings of the rest of their day. Just as Quasimodo began telling the priest how much he loved Scrabble and was planning to carve a set of his own wooden alphabet tiles upon his return, a bolt of lightning cut him off midsentence as it illuminated the thin white curtains at the window. A crack of thunder quickly followed, and then rain — torrents of rain — split the night sky, spilling down onto the church and into the already swollen Bard River.

They looked at one another.

“I hope …” began Ophelia.

But she knew. They all felt the importance of the moment, remembering the instability of the dam.

Father Lou turned up the scanner. “If something happens to that dam, we’ll hear about it on this. I’ll make another pot of tea.”

T
he vigil began. A vigil means someone is keeping watch, usually at night, and that person will often stay awake into the wee hours of the morning. Nowadays people use that term for anything that happens after 7:00 p.m. and utilizes candles. Most of these events are actually memorial services or polite protests, but let’s not spoil the meaning for them. It’s the thought that counts, eh?

The gang was still sitting around Father Lou’s kitchen table a while later. Before setting out the tea things, he’d covered the table with a lace tablecloth found in one of the kitchen drawers. It was in such opposition to his personality, yet somehow it was entirely fitting. The hands on the wall clock, which looked like a large pocket watch, seemed to speed around the face. It was almost 6:00 a.m. already. Only five hours left until Quasimodo’s departure, and here they sat, listening to a police scanner and hoping against hope that bad news wouldn’t be transmitted from speaker to eardrum.

“This situation might call for something a little stronger,” said Father Lou as he rose from his chair, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a bag of coffee.

Now you’re talking
, thought Linus.
Tea was okay but nothing more than that
.

A voice from the scanner said, “Engineers have judged the dam to be severely compromised. They say it may give way soon—probably in less than fifteen minutes, but maybe in as much as an hour. Hard to tell.”

All of their spines stiffened at this news.

“The camp,” Quasi gasped, a look of fear on his face.

“The entire street!” Walter jumped up from his chair. “Many people won’t be awake at this time.”

“We have to get those kids to higher ground,” said Father Lou as he slipped on his boots that were sitting by the back door.

“Rickshaw Street needs to be evacuated as well,” said Ophelia.

The police scanner burbled. “It’s not looking good here.”

“Quasi! We can use the bells!” Father Lou shouted with excitement. “Head on up to the bell tower and ring them for all they’re worth!”

“Yes, Father!” Quasimodo jumped from his chair and hurried out the door, looking surprisingly graceful as he did so.

“Ophelia. Wake your aunt and uncle and start knocking on doors to warn everyone. Linus. Walter. Let’s get over to the camp right now!”

As they dispersed outside the manse, they looked up to see the shadowy figure of Quasimodo scaling the wall toward the window of the bell tower. Despite the rain, his fingers dug into the crevices between the stonework. His arm muscles constricted into strong cords, looking limber and lithe and as coordinated as a cat.

“The door was locked!” he called down to them. And a second later, he disappeared into the darkness behind the window.

As the storyteller, choosing whose viewpoint from which to tell the current scene can be an excruciating decision. The writer tries to pick the most compelling point of view, but sometimes, as is the case here, they’re all quite compelling—all perspectives are of equal value, yet they’re all very different from each other
.

Quasimodo was utilizing a very different set of bells — ones not requiring his full weight. As such, with the first pull of the rope, he’d come crashing down onto his poor knees. Ophelia awakened her aunt and uncle, and then the three of them divided up Rickshaw Street, knocking on doors as loudly as they could and yelling, “The dam is about to burst! Get to higher ground! Get to higher ground!” (
And I feel compelled to add here that Aunt Portia’s hair was a sight
.) The police arrived on the scene a full five minutes after Ophelia and her guardians had already begun warning people.

Linus, Walter, and Father Lou were taking great care with the children at the camp, most of whom weren’t as frightened as one might think. This might have been due to the fact that they were plenty used to medical emergencies—sometimes riding in ambulances in the middle of the night—and almost constantly relying on other people to do the right thing by them.