Far Far Away (19 page)

Jeremy stared at her blankly. “I guess I just have to think it through.”

“For
good morning
?” the second woman said.

Well, it degenerated from there. The women asked two or
three more questions, but when Jeremy had to wait for me to translate before he could speak, the women became visibly impatient. One of them said, “Look, Jeremy, this whole time-delay thing isn’t working for us. It would be fine to deliberate if we were asking questions you needed to search your memory for, but you’re supposed to
know
these languages. The answers should come flying right back to us,
bam-bam-bam
.”

I felt chastened. So did Jeremy. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

He stood up. He seemed so young and lost that evidently even these brusque women felt the need to soften the blow. “You seem bright and nice and photogenic,” the first one said, and the other one added, “It would’ve been great having a contestant your age.”

“It’s okay,” Jeremy said. “It’s not your fault.” He looked around for the door.

Tell them that you are an expert on the Brothers Grimm
.

“What?” Jeremy said.

“Pardon me?” the first woman said.

Tell them that you are an expert on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and all their tales
.

Jeremy said, “I know a lot about the Brothers Grimm.”

The women looked dubious.

“You mean fairy tales?” one of them said.

At my further urging, Jeremy told the women that he could tell them almost anything about the lives of the Grimm Brothers, about their methods of collecting the tales, and about the tales themselves.

The women looked at each other, and one of them shrugged.
They motioned him to sit back down. They each made clicking sounds on the keyboards in front of them and then stared at their illuminated screens.

“Okay,” the first woman said, “give me the first and middle names of the two Grimm brothers?”

I told Jeremy, who said, “Jacob Ludwig and Wilhelm Karl.”

“Which brother was married, to whom, and what tale did this woman relate to the brothers?”

Slowly, Jeremy said, “Wilhelm. To Dorothea Wild. ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ ”

The two women turned to each other in surprise, then looked again at their monitors. The first woman said, “What was Dorothea Wild’s father’s chosen profession?”

“Apotheker,”
Jeremy said, and when the women looked confused, I guided Jeremy to revise his answer: “What we would today call a pharmacist.”

“That is correct,” the second woman said, and it was clear that the mood in the room had brightened. These women were now rooting for us.

This was fun, I had to admit, and Jeremy and I answered several more questions without difficulty. Finally, after the women had conferred for some time in front of one of the television sets, the first woman said, “Explain what might be meant by the term the
Göttingen Seven
.”

So! These women thought they had us, but it was we who had them! Slowly, deliberately, Jeremy gave our answer: “When Wilhelm and Jacob were teaching at the University of Göttingen, King Augustus abolished the constitution. The Grimm Brothers publicly protested, along with five other professors, and
they became known as the Göttingen Seven. They all were dismissed from the university, and several of them, including Jacob, were deported.”

For a moment, it was very quiet in the room. Then the women rose as one from behind their table. Their faces were radiant. “That’s right!” one of them said. “That’s absolutely right!”

They nearly lifted Jeremy from his chair as they escorted him into an adjoining room. “Get everything on this young man,” the second woman said to a man sitting at a desk. “Get his Social, complete bio, release forms, everything.” She grinned at Jeremy. “We might well need it.”

A half hour later, when Jeremy finally made his way out to the foyer, Ginger looked up expectantly. Conk, too, looked up from the sporting page in his hands.

“Well?” Ginger said.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t too bad.”

“Are you going to go on the show?”

Jeremy shrugged.

“But how did you do?”

“Okay, I think,” he said, but from behind him a woman’s voice said, “
Okay?
I think you did a little better than
okay
.” It was one of the two questioners hurrying up, smiling. “So, Jeremy, are these your people? Agents and handlers and so forth?”

She was joking in some manner, but only Ginger realized it. She grinned and said, “Actually, Conk here is Jeremy’s driver, and I’m his agent.”

The woman laughed, and hands were shaken and names exchanged. At the exit, the woman said, “You made my day, Jeremy Johnson Johnson, you really did. No promises, but chances
are, you’ll be hearing from us.” She turned to Ginger and Conk. “Jeremy is a regular demon on the Brothers Grimm and all their fairy tales.”

Everyone was grinning, and it must be admitted that I, too, felt a bit giddy. Conk’s grin, however, seemed oddly lopsided, as if there was some source of humor here that the others did not yet see.

“When will Jeremy find out?” Ginger asked the woman. “I mean, how soon will he hear if he’s going to be on the show?”

The woman seemed amused by Ginger. “Maybe you
should
be his agent,” she said. “But if he’s accepted, he’ll hear soon, because we’re doing the show in this region in just a few weeks.”

“How will he hear?”

“Bad news by mail, good news by phone—that’s the general rule. And if Milo Castle himself calls, you’re golden. Milo likes to be the bearer of good news.”

Before they parted, the woman said, “Oh, and, Jeremy, one little thing. If you are on the show, you might think about a different shirt. Something a little less … 
distracting
.”

Jeremy smiled and said he’d see what he could do.

Good spirits prevailed among the young people as they walked through the late-afternoon light to the truck and when they
stopped at a small restaurant for sandwiches. But on the long drive home, an odd discord arose. When Ginger said, “I still can’t believe it—I think you’re going to be on the show!” several seconds passed, and then Conk said, “You’re not actually going to do it, are you?”

“What do you mean?” Ginger said. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“C’mon, Ginger.
Fairy tales?
He hears voices, he’s the only kid in town who can’t throw a football, and now he’s going to go on TV as an expert on
fairy tales
?”

Jeremy stiffened and swung his head away.

Ginger, seeing this, said, “You are such a complete idiot, Conk.”

“Truth hurts,” Conk said, and kept driving down the highway for a few minutes before he broke the silence by saying, “Well, why are you doing it, anyway?”

Jeremy, staring stiffly off, did not answer. I was not even sure he had heard.

“Because he needs the money, Conky,” Ginger said. “And do you know why he needs the money?”

“No, I don’t. So why don’t you tell me?”

“Because the bank is going to take back his store. Which is where he lives.”

Conk seemed actually surprised. “Okay. I didn’t know that.” Then he said, “Couldn’t the bank cut you some slack or something?”

Ginger stared at him. “What do you think?”

They all fell silent. As the radio played softly and the passing wheat fields turned golden in the dusky light, Ginger grew sleepy and dozed for a while against Jeremy’s arm, and then, half waking, she shifted and nestled her head onto Conk’s shoulder.

It was dusk by the time they reached Never Better. As Conk wheeled the truck onto Main Street, Jeremy leaned forward and said, “Could you just let me out here?”

“Hey, c’mon,” Ginger said, awake now and restored. “I thought we could go see if the baker saved us any Prince Cake.”

“Naw,” Jeremy said. “I’m kind of tired.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Conk pulled up to the curb, and Jeremy slid from the cab. “Thanks,” he said, looking past Ginger to Conk. “That was pretty nice of you to drive me all that way.”

Conk shrugged. “No problem.” He looked forward. “And you know that bank-loan thing? I’ll talk to my dad about it. Maybe he can do something.”

This was doubtless a surprise to Jeremy, and it seemed to impress Ginger, too. Her eyes lingered on Conk for a moment before she turned back to Jeremy. “Sure you don’t want to come along? A piece of Prince Cake could perk you right up.”

“No, but thanks, anyhow,” Jeremy said, and stepped away from the truck. He stood watching until it disappeared from view, and then he turned for home.

I could not help but remember a night from long, long ago. Wilhelm and Dortchen had made plans to attend the opera. I was opposed—Wilhelm and I had work to do. He and I had been upstairs at our desks working late and ignoring Dortchen’s entreaties that Wilhelm cease work and dress for the evening.
“Ich tue es auf der Stelle,”
Wilhelm kept saying—
I’ll do it this minute
, but under my severe gaze he did not leave. Finally, Dortchen came into the room holding Wilhelm’s evening clothes. She
was already dressed in a black gown, looking—I remember it perfectly—absolutely enchanting. “If you don’t put these clothes on this very instant,” she said, “I am going to stuff them with hay and go to the opera with Herr Strawman.” Wilhelm laughed with delight and, ignoring my gaze, was soon himself within the clothes. I walked out to the lane as they were stepping into their carriage. It was a cold, starry night, and they snuggled close together under their lap robes. They waved back at me and called out merrily. As the clatter of the horse and carriage fell away, I felt as cold and dark as the night’s sky, and then, of course, I returned alone to my study, just as Jeremy, now, returned alone to his bookstore.

But the day’s surprises were not over. As Jeremy stepped into the bookstore, he was met with another.

Floating through the store from the direction of his father’s room was a delectable aroma and something else, something even more unexpected.

The sound of singing.

A man’s and a woman’s.

Jeremy crept across the room, put his ear to the closed door to his father’s room, and listened to a woman’s voice singing alone now, high and light:

I knew this lilting voice to be Jenny Applegarth’s. But then there were two voices, weaving one with the other in a dance of questions.

Jacky boy?
Jenny Applegarth sang, and a surprisingly resonant tenor answered:

On the last line
—Among the leaves so green, O
—they joined their voices, and then continued on with this cheerful melody shadowed by dark lyrics:

After they were finished, Jenny Applegarth laughed and said, “Well, listen to us! Aren’t we something!”

Jeremy pushed the door open and found his father sitting up in bed grinning. Jenny Applegarth sat in a chair pulled close by. Their faces were radiant.

Jeremy’s surprise at the scene caused his skin to burn, and all he could think to say was, “How’d you get in?”

“Well, that’s a fine way to say hello,” Jenny Applegarth said with a laugh. “Through the front door is how. What did you think, down the chimney?”

Jeremy, flustered, shook his head. It
was
quite a surprise, this sight before him: Jenny Applegarth in her summery yellow dress, with her apricot-brown arms, and his father’s eyes bright in spite of his tangled hair and beard. The tantalizing aroma of baked goods was even keener here—it emanated from the kitchen.