A Song for Summer

"Well, you may be right. I'm just sorry I couldn't oblige her by letting Juan teach pottery. But Marek seems to have found work for him in the garden." To have two people on his staff on whom he could rely so completely was a bonus, though Marek, he knew, would not stay.

Now Bennet remembered his first interview with Tarnowsky. He had rowed himself across the lake from Professor Steiner's house and asked for a job.

"It won't be long. A few months ..." "What can you teach?"' Bennet had asked. It was not the way he engaged staff as a rule but he had no sooner seen the quiet, slow-moving man than he wanted him.

"I thought I might work in the grounds," Marek had answered. "The orchard is in poor shape and the trees behind the jousting ground want thinning."

"Could you take fencing for the older boys?"' asked Bennet, following his hunch.

"If you like. And carpentry, I suppose." Bennet had tried pottery--he had a much prized heap of clay in the cellar moistened periodically by trusted children awaiting someone worthy--but Marek disclaimed all knowledge of pottery.

"There's a book," said Bennet, looking at the man's large, reassuringly "unartistic" hands.

"I'll think about it."

"I'm afraid I can't offer you much in the way of pay," Bennet had said.

"I don't want any pay. But I tell you what I do want."

He had wanted leave of absence to go with Professor Steiner on his folk song collecting expeditions whenever the Professor heard of a promising singer. As he reached the door, Bennet tried again. "What about music? Could you take the choir?"'

Marek turned, shook his head. "Definitely not music," he said.

Now it struck Bennet as singular that the three people on whom he could let his mind rest, certain that they would give of their best, were all of them uninterested in the ideas which for him empowered his school. Ellen, Marek and Margaret (who had come in at ten at night to help with his letters), did not seem to be concerned with freedom and self-expression--nor had they shown the slightest interest in the end of year play which everyone, though that was not its title, was calling Abattoir.

Ellen's friendship with Lieselotte grew day by day. Her promotion from kitchen maid to cook brought a glow to Lieselotte's eyes; her pride in her work, her skill, were a joy to behold. Within a week she had brought her Cousin Gretl to help out, and with Juan working in the gardens and Fr@aulein Waaltraut ensconced in the library to prepare a report on culinary herbs, the kitchen became a haven of cleanliness and skill.

Not only that, but in befriending Lieselotte, Ellen had acquired the goodwill of the Hallendorf tradesmen who had hitherto held disapprovingly aloof from the school. The butcher was Lieselotte's uncle, the baker was her mother's brother-in-law, and a farmer at whose apricot orchards Ellen had cast longing glances, was married to her aunt. Assured that the castle no longer meant to import corned beef from deserving stockyards in Ecuador or brown rice with

weevils from a distant cooperative, they promised to supply the Hallendorf kitchens with fresh meat and fruit--and at prices that were reasonable and fair.

All the same, when Ellen announced that she was accompanying Lieselotte to church the following Sunday, her remark was greeted with consternation. Swimming in a bathing costume was one thing, but this was courage taken to dangerous lengths.

"Can one?"' asked Sophie, her eyes wide. "Can one really do that?"'

"Of course one can," said Ellen. "If one can worship Beethoven and Goya and Dostoevsky, why shouldn't one worship God? After all, who gave Beethoven and the others their vision? It might well have been God, don't you think?"'

"It can't be, because God doesn't exist," said Leon. "And anyway religion is the opium of the people."

"I used to go to church sometimes in Vienna," said Sophie wi/lly. "The housekeeper took me. It was lovely--the incense and the music."

Ellen, steeling herself, said nothing. She had taken no Sundays off since she came and had reached the stage, so familiar to those who work in schools, when she wanted to speak to no one under the age of twenty, and thirty would have been better.

"The steamer doesn't go till the afternoon on Sundays, does it?"' she asked Lieselotte.

"No. There's a bus very early--but usually when he's here Marek takes us over in his boat: me and Frau Tauber and anyone else who wants to go. He has friends in the village. He's so kind and such a gentleman."

And this of course was Ellen's undoing. Making her way down to the jetty soon after seven, she found Sophie sitting on the steps, her arms around her knees.

If she had begged to be taken Ellen would have been firm, promising to take her some other time with her friends. But of course Sophie did not beg. She knew she was not wanted, and sat quietly on the jetty, and looked.

"Would you like to come?"' Ellen said, and saw the spectacular change that happiness made in the thin face.

"Am I tidy enough?"' she asked--and of