3. The Koenig Smile

The room's seating arrangement had been created for conversation.  Across from the fireplace was a roomy sofa, plump cushioned, and with a coffee table conveniently before it.  From either end of the table identical armchairs faced each other.  Koenig had risen from one of them.  I headed for its mate and thought grimly that if it were the last thing I did, I'd match him at everything.  

Larry settled herself on the couch, pulling her legs under her but keeping her shoes off the cushions.  Slob, I thought.  But hell, maybe she was right.  Koenig's grooming was neat but casual; maybe his informality was one of the things I had to match.  I suddenly wished I hadn't worn my best suit and made a mental note to wear slacks and a pullover next time.  Despite the static my mother would raise.  And if, if, there were going to be a next time. 

I shot a glance at him, hoping, now that the tidal wave had stopped, to pick up some clue.  The turquoise eyes were on me, and I wondered how the hell he'd become my adversary when it was Larry I was supposed to be competing against.  My eyes flicked over to her.  She was looking at Koenig and seemed bewildered.  Turning back to him, I saw why. 

In the eyes and around the lips there was another smile, different from the one he had greeted us with.  An amused smile.  A smile that said I've just told a joke and sooner or later you'll catch on.  He wasn't laughing at us, and he sure wasn't laughing with us.  No wonder Larry was confused.  Because it looked for all the world like he was smiling for us.  Smiling because the joke was too good not to smile at. 

"Relax, you two."  He put the pipe back into his mouth, concentrated on lighting it.  "I gave up eating children years ago."

Larry gave a polite chuckle and I did nothing.  Sure, Koenig, relax.  In a pig's ass we will, you fool. 

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable with your feet up on the cushions, Nalara?  Kick your shoes off and see."

Startled, Larry did as he suggested. 

"And you, Joel, you seem perfectly comfortable.  Am I to take it you're at ease?"

I was all set to give a dutiful yes sir when my hunch voice came screaming in like a jet.  "Truth," it said. "He's testing for truth." 

I braced myself, looked at the gem eyes, and replied, "I'm a little nervous, sir.  Naturally."

"Of course, naturally."  He puffed and grinned at us, teeth still on the pipe.  "Two teenagers walk into a strange man's house.  A handsome prize rides on his judgment of them, and then the darn fool mumbles something about consuming children and tells them to relax."

What was he, a mind reader?

"You have a right to be nervous, to be afraid.  People are born with the capacity to fear and they never lose it.  Call it a birthright, if you will."

"It sounds horrible," Larry decided. 

"Not really.  We're born with other capacities as well: the capacity to love and to be angry.  And on these three emotions we build all the others."

"I'm not following you," I told him.  Truth, Joel, truth.  Don't try to crap him. 

"Let's look at a few examples.  You stand in a supermarket about to reach for a lush, juicy apple.  You can almost taste it, you want it so much.  Before your hand gets to it, however, another comes along and takes it for himself.  He's a complete stranger with as much right to the apple as you, but nonetheless you are angry.  Maybe you do something about it, maybe you don't, but the anger is there.  But now suppose that the hand that seized your apple was a familiar hand, one belonging to someone you loved.  What then?"

"If you loved the person enough, you'd let him have the apple," Larry argued. 

"Yes, you'd let him have it, but would you be angry?"

"A little, perhaps.  Nothing big."

"And if he did this frequently?"

"You could learn to hate a guy like that," I said. 

"Exactly, Joel, exactly.  You learn to hate.  You create this hate by mixing together, in whatever proportions, the love and the anger."

Larry nodded.  "I see."

"Now let's take pity.  It isn't straight love, although elements of love must be involved in the mix.  What other emotions might be?"

I thought a few moments and decided to gamble my answer.  "Fear.  There'd be some fear that whatever happened to him‑-whatever made you pity him‑-might happen to you."

"Good thinking.  But let's not stop here.  Suppose you took the amalgam you just learned, hate, and mixed it with the pity.  Now what would you be feeling?"

"Contempt."  Larry was completely sure of her answer. 

"Right.  And so it goes.  Our emotions are various mixtures, but all can be traced back to those original three: fear, anger, love."

"Okay," I said.  "I follow."

An approving grin this time.  The man had an endless variety of smiles.  "I was sure you would, Joel.  Once I gave you a chance to think."

It suddenly dawned on me that this whole gambit had been designed for one purpose only.  He'd told us to relax and had seen to it we obeyed.  Even I had been sucked in, thinking along with him.  Good show, Koenig.  Distract us till we lower our guard.  Subtle, very subtle.  And then I wondered what the hell I was guarding against. 

"...essays very interesting," he was saying.  "I was hoping you would read each other's so we could compare them."

He paused and Larry and I nodded agreement. 

"And while you're doing that, I'll ask Mrs. Horvath to rustle up some refreshments.  What would you like?  I have an unending supply of delights to offer: juice, milk, soda, tea, coffee, cakes, cookies‑
"

"Just tea, please," Larry asked.  "No cream, sugar, or lemon.  And nothing to eat."

"And you, Joel?"

"Coffee only, thank you.  Unadulterated."

He took our essays from the coffee table and handed them to us.  "One tea, nothing with it; one coffee, black and bitter.  Not hard to remember."

His exit line bugged me, and I couldn't figure out why.  Get hold of yourself, Rawson, I thought.  And then I realized I'd forgotten to check now noticeable his limp was.  Dammit, nothing was going the way I wanted it to.  Exasperated, I started reading. 

For a big man he moved silently.  He was setting the tray on the table before I was aware he was back in the room.  I raced through Larry's last paragraph, determined to be the first one finished. 

"Will you pour for us, Nalara?"

With a smile that was half adoration, half gratitude ‑-as if he were doing her the favor‑-she bent to the task.  Then she looked up.  "There are only two cups."

"I'll be making my demands very shortly.  Right now let's tackle those compositions.  Joel, did any similarities strike you as you read them?"

"We organized them the same way.  In reverse order of importance.  We both began our discussions with wealth and ended with truth."

"Truth's a good place to end.  Or begin.  But since you started with wealth, let's consider your thinking on that.  Similar or different, would you say?"

Larry's turn.  "Similar, really.  Just put differently."

"Yes, I agree.  Joel points out wealth has no power over anyone who rejects it.  I wondered when I read that, Joel, whether you'd been reading the philosophers and the religious sages.  Many of them make the same point.  And you, Nalara, came to that very conclusion although you put it more personally.  In essence you said wealth had no power to bring you the things you wanted, and hence from your point of view no power at all."

"We were in agreement on love and knowledge too," I added.  "Boil it down and we both said emotions control things more than thought does."

"So they do, perhaps because we've had them with us longer.  We feel before we learn to think.  I was particularly impressed, Joel, with the illustration you cited.  That a young mother who knew she couldn't possibly lift the rear end of a car would ignore that knowledge and do so if her child were trapped under it."

"Is that really possible, Mr. Koenig?  Could what Joe says happen?"

"People have surprising powers, mental and physical. Trigger the adrenal glands by a very strong emotion and I'd say the mother could save her child.  We don't really know what strengths we have till we test them."

"Something like getting your second wind," I suggested. 

"Something like.  And of course it can be done mentally too.  Wrestle with a problem till you're exhausted, and you can still find that second wind to solve it.  If you want to.  Which brings us to the problem of truth.  Did you save your thoughts on it for last because it was a delicacy, a kind of dessert to be savored?  Or did it come last because you put off facing it?"

Pipe puffing time.  He sat there smoking, throwing a warm, almost sympathetic smile at us, but his last words hung in the air.  He had slapped a glove across our faces; he'd asked if we were chickens.  Puff and smile, Koenig.  I'm not buying that question as academic.  I'm retiring to a little farm in Jericho. 

He waited, but when neither Larry nor I picked up his gauntlet, he removed the pipe and continued.  "On the surface you seem to have very different answers.  Nalara quotes Keats and equates truth with beauty, then goes on to a curious metaphor where she likens it to a safety net.  And Joel sees truth as both a sword and a shield."  He paused again, puffing and smiling. 

Oh no, Koenig.  Jericho Joe stays right where he is. 

"A very curious thing happens when you ask someone to tell you about truth.  He does.  He reveals a small piece of it, a glimpse of one of its faces: the face he sees.  In short, he tells you something about himself, and often without knowing he's done so.  I know, for example, that somewhere in your life, Joel, you very much wanted a 'sword and a shield.'  Whatever the experience or event was, you wanted them.  Just as Nalara wanted a 'safety net.'  Perhaps you got what you wanted, perhaps you didn't.  I'm wondering, however, whether you'll show me this truth‑-your truth‑-directly, not through a metaphor.  But of course before you can do that, you'd have to look at it yourself.  You may not want to."

That damn gauntlet again. 

He folded his hands behind his neck, stretched out his legs, and stared at the ceiling.  "I'm going to assume that when you put truth at the top of your list, you were being honest.  That you still give it the highest priority.  In addition to honesty I'll credit you with courage, at least till you've proved otherwise.  Don't confuse courage with lack of fear.  Courage requires us to act in the presence of fear, never in its absence.  So we'll test for courage.  And I'll give you three weeks to make your decision."

He sat upright, fixing us with the twin turquoises.  "Today is March 1.  If by Monday, March 23, I haven't heard from you, I'll consider you no longer in contention for the award I offer."

"Just what do you want us to do?" Larry asked. 

"First you'll weigh and determine which of your experiences was most powerful in making you wish for your net, or your sword and shield.  Next you'll think this experience through very slowly and carefully, remembering as much of it as you can.  Then, since I've already seen how well you handle essays, you'll write up this episode as a short story.  And in your narrative you'll use third person, not first.  Am I still coming through?"

"We know the different points of view," I assured him coldly. 

"Do you really?"  All smiles, all amusement. 

That one may smile and smile and be a villain... 

"Oh yes, Mr. Koenig.  Last year Mr. Jarron, the junior English teacher, made us rewrite a short story from another viewpoint."  Larry was all earnestness.  "It comes out altogether different."

"Then you're not confused by the directions I'm giving.  That, at least, won't be a difficulty.  And if you can solve the problem I've set before you, if your narrative is in my hands by the twenty-third, then I'll expect to see you here again.  Let's say Wednesday, April 1.  Three o'clock."

You goofed, Koenig.  At last.  "That's a school day," I told him.  "We can't get here that early."

"No, Joel," Larry pointed out.  "We'll be on spring vacation."

Bitch.  I gave her the Jericho look. 

"Had either of you planned to be away then?"

"No," I responded flatly.  "I don't sir."

"Me either.  I only go away for a week in the summer.  To my aunt's at the shore."

"The shore and its sparkling waters.  Do you enjoy being there, Nalara?"

"I love it.  It makes you‑-I don't know.  Relax, I guess."

"Many people get that feeling near the sea.  Not everyone, of course.  Some look to the mountains, others to the woods.  But most people do find some aspect of nature to draw strength from."

I looked down at my shoes, shined brilliantly that morning.  All right, Koenig.  Now give us your pontifications on nature. 

But it was Larry's voice that came through.  "I suppose it doesn't matter where you look.  Just so long as you find it."

Brilliant, Larry, brilliant.  Profound.  A message I could never have caught without you, and will treasure always.  I glanced up at Koenig to see what his reaction was to such inanity. 

I had never seen anything like it before.  All afternoon I'd been watching smiles come and go across his face and labeling them.  Amused.  Mischievous.  Welcoming.  Encouraging.  Sympathetic.  And so on.  But there was no label for the smile he had now.  He was looking directly at Larry, and there was no one word for his expression.  The muscles around his strange colored eyes had moved somehow and were giving them a look of sorrow, and, incredibly, amusement at the same time.  His mouth was also performing simultaneous impossibilities.  It was managing to show gentleness, sympathy, mischief, and God knows what else, all at once.  I looked, and I saw, and I didn't believe it.  I never even thought what I would do if he turned it on me.  I just sat there stunned, like ten kinds of idiot, staring at that smile.  And the little hunch voice inside me kept saying, "That's it, Joel, that's it!  The Koenig smile." 

Then the smile turned to an impish grin.  "Let's test your finding power, then.  Could you find your way out alone, I wonder."

Larry laughed and slipped into her shoes, and the two of us headed for the door of the study.  Larry pulled it open.  "There," she said.  "See you, Mr. Koenig.  Next month."

I willed myself to turn around and say goodbye.  But he wasn't smiling at all now.  Just patiently puffing his pipe. 

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