A Drop of Rain Page 10

  Beatrice is an actor. She is not plain like me. She is downright homely. But our school puts on a play, and Beatrice acts the part of a witch. Everybody says Beatrice is as good as a great actor in Warsaw. Now everybody knows that some day Beatrice will be famous.

  As for me, I am good at many things. When the teacher asks us to write about the meaning of life, I write about what happened to my family in the war. The teacher reads aloud my composition. The class has to discuss it.

  Sometimes the teacher asks me to go to the blackboard at the front of the class and show how I get the answer to a maths question, and often I am right.

  I can draw the leaves of a plant accurately. Everybody can tell what kind of plant it is.

  I am good at gymnastics, and I practice every day after school. Maybe I will win the national competition.

  But I am not as good at sports as Johnny is. And I can’t do my homework as fast as he can. Johnny finishes his lessons in one hour. Then maybe he fixes something for Mommy or Grandpa. Then he goes outside to play soccer with his friends. And he still gets the highest marks in his class!

  I have to stay inside and study. Maybe I go out to the garden for a while and pull weeds, or else I help Grandpa with the animals, but then I have to come back inside and study some more. Meanwhile, Johnny is having fun.

  Elizabeth doesn’t care about getting good marks. She only studies a little bit. Then she cleans the house. Then she goes outside and walks with her gentleman friend. Still, Mommy says that Elizabeth is an angel.

  I don’t have a gentleman friend, and I am not an angel.

  One day Elizabeth asks me to mail a letter to her gentleman friend. I go to the gymnastics club after school, and the gym club is near the post office.

  Elizabeth has had a disagreement with her gentleman friend. She got angry and sent him away. Now she wants to apologize to him for sending him away.

  I am in such a hurry that I forget to mail the letter. So the next day Elizabeth doesn’t get a letter back from her gentleman friend, and he doesn’t come to call.

  She asks me if I mailed the letter, and I say, “No, but I’ll mail it tomorrow for sure.”

  But the next day I am in such a hurry that I forget to mail the letter again.

  So again Elizabeth doesn’t get a letter back from her gentleman friend, and he doesn’t come to call. And again she asks me if I mailed the letter, and I say, “No, but I’ll mail it tomorrow for sure.”

  Elizabeth still has long golden curls, but Mommy says she’s like a nun, because she is so patient and loving and good.

  I am not a nun. The third day I also forget to mail my sister’s letter.

  When she asks me if I mailed it, I say, “Yes, of course.”

  “Thank you,” says Elizabeth, ever so sweetly. “You’re a dear sister.”

  I say nothing and go and do my homework.

  The next day when I come home from gym club, Elizabeth is crying because her gentleman friend didn’t write her a letter, even though she wrote to him. And he didn’t come to call.

  I don’t say anything, but I get on my bicycle and ride all the way to the post office without stopping, and I finally mail that letter.

  Am I ever tired that evening as I do my homework! But I am happy, because I know that tomorrow Elizabeth will be smiling.

  And she is!

  After I win the national gymnastics competition, I get very sick. I turn all yellow. The doctor diagnoses hepatitis and says my liver is diseased.

  I was supposed to go to the Olympics, but after that sickness I can never do competitive sports again. I still like walking, though, and riding my bicycle.

  And after being in the hospital, I want to be a doctor again—just like I did when I was a little kid.

  Eva

  Hanna’s memories begin mostly after the war. One day when she was playing with some other children, these children began saying something derogatory about Jews. And she joined in. But then she saw the horrified look on her mother’s face! She never joined in again.

  Hanna and her mother lived for a long time after the war in a little log cabin in the Carpathians. The cabin had been built by an aunt who was a teacher in the village school. Hanna and her mother both had tuberculosis, so the mountain air was good for them.

  Hanna attended the village school, fetched wood for the stove and helped in the garden.

  When Hanna was a teenager, a priest named Karol Wojtyla used to come to the village from Krakow to lead young people on hiking trips in the mountains. This was the same Karol Wojtyla who became Pope John Paul II!

  Father Wojtyla discussed religion during these hikes. Sometimes, he and his hikers would drop in to a little wooden church to pray.

  Everyone would be wearing hiking clothes while they prayed. Even Father Wojtyla. And everyone had to address Father Wojtyla as “Uncle”, rather than “Father”. If the communist authorities knew he was a priest, he and his young hikers would be in trouble.

  When I met her in 1979, Hanna still liked hiking in forests and high places. She also liked discussing philosophy, art and literature.

  Hanna and her mother obtained an apartment in Warsaw by winning a lottery.

  She and her mother received occasional packages of food and clothing from relatives living abroad. They also received help from another priest whom Hanna called “Uncle”.

  When I visited Hanna in Warsaw, “Uncle” still dropped by from time to time with a bouquet of flowers and some meat and vegetables from his country parish.

  “Uncle” never stayed long. Just long enough for tea and a chat, and then he was gone.

  Hanna spoke once only about her “ten lost years”. These were the years following her mother’s suicide.

  Yet she acquired a Master’s degree in art history, and a Master’s degree in library science. She began to work at the National Library in Warsaw.

  She said she had to relearn everything. The relearning was slow and painful.

  One of the poems in Reed’s collection is dedicated to Hanna. This long poem, titled “Warsaw Reverie”, is complex and prosey, but its refrain is brief and lyrical. The refrain was apparently inspired by a glimpse Reed caught of Hanna standing in a crowded, jerking tramway in Warsaw. Reed had already met Hanna several times at the National Library, where she worked. Here is the refrain:

  She is tall and within her is some strength of mind,

  and she sways. The wind is kissing her eyes and lashes,

  and she sways. The wind is bringing the rain and ashes,

  and she sways. Within her is some strength of mind.

  Joe

  The out-of-control student was hauled up by the head of her department. She was given a long and serious talking-to. When I phoned the head, she was completely supportive of me. Other teachers have been having the same kinds of problems with this student, or worse. Case closed. (Joe, old man, where was your self confidence?)

  Back to the usual grind. Mid-terms this week. Enough committee work to choke a horse. Enough paperwork to . . . whatever.

  Some good shots of the early snowfall.

  Both boys are doing well in school. Their teachers were very positive during parents’ night. Apparently the boys’ school has the most problems of any in the city. The school brought in a Special Ed teacher full time last month for the rest of the semester.

  “So many single-parent families,” said Jerry’s Grade Six teacher, who surely knows that Jill and I are divorced. I guess I’m a decent father after all.

  Week Ten

  Naomi

  Sunday November 14, 1999

  If it weren’t for Mary, I’d quit this stupid job right away. Mary needs my moral support, and my physical help.

  Mary says many people think cleaners are “nothing.” I say many people regard a cleaner as a machine. A machine is not human.

  You finish cleaning a window. The next minute, a parent lets her kid smear the window with his sticky hands. You keep cutting your hand on the towel rack when you p
ut the new rolls in. And the director is sure it’s your fault, not the cheap design. You carefully put the mop away clean. But then some higher-up staff member, like the accountant or the social director, borrows it to clean up a spill. This well-paid, full-time person does not bother rinsing out the mop. So it is dirty when you have to use it again. Then the customers plug the toilets with sanitary pads, even though the sign says not to. So the cleaner fetches the plunger and plunges this disgusting stuff, until the toilet stops flooding over. Plunging toilets is the janitor’s job. But the janitor is busy with something else. So, to be helpful, the cleaner does it instead. Now the cleaner works extra time to finish her written-down cleaning quota, even though she is not paid for this time.

  I am very worried about Mary. Often, towards the end of our shift, her lips get blue, and she gets chest pains. She says these symptoms are caused by the chemicals we use to clean windows and mirrors.

  “I tell director we must not use so many chemicals, but he no listen me,” Mary says.

  “Tell him how your lips get blue and you get chest pains,” I say.

  “What for?” she says. “I already told him. He no listen to no old womans.”

  “You should see a doctor about your symptoms,” I say.

  “What for?” she snaps. “I am doctor.”

  “Doctors aren’t supposed to treat themselves, or their family and friends,” I say. “That’s what Sarah says. Her father is a doctor.”

  “I have no time,” she says. “I am starting from zero. When can I go to doctor?”

  Mary tries to appear confident, but I think that she is worried about her health too. She is alone here in Canada, and our system seems cruel.

  Sarah and I are becoming true friends. I told her I was angry at her for making me fail that biology test, and for forgetting my audition for her band. After I did this, we had a so-called “heart-to-heart” talk, and Sarah apologized for being inconsiderate. She also said that her family is falling apart.

  Sarah’s father moved in with his secretary. Her brother moved in with a drug-pusher friend. Her mother cries all the time and blames her father for committing adultery and leading his son astray. Her mother also tells Sarah that Sarah is her “last hope”. Sarah thinks she (Sarah) is going to crack up if she doesn’t move out too. She’s not planning to go to Paris or New York now. She wants to move in with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend rents a house with three other guys here in Mapleville.

  Curtis came over to our house for dinner last Saturday. He got along well with my mother, Joe and me. At first, Curtis mostly listened to everybody, but gradually he began to relax and talk.

  At the dinner table, Curtis seemed interested when Joe talked about growing up without a father. Joe’s father died when Joe was eight. Joe only had an uncle who was too busy with his business to pay much attention to him. That’s why Joe is very careful to spend as much “quality time” as possible with his sons. Curtis nodded and looked sympathetic when Joe said all this.

  Curtis seemed impressed when Mom told him that Hanna had devoted a lot of her time in her last years to caring for several young men with AIDS. He seemed even more impressed when Mom told him that Hanna had been an art historian. He was grateful when Mom said she had lots of art books that Hanna had given her over the years, and that Curtis could borrow them. Curtis said there aren’t many good art books at the Mapleville Library, and he has already memorized them.

  After dinner, Joe and Mom went over to Joe’s place to watch some intellectual videos. Mary visited with Hanna, and Curtis and I went to see Tarzan. After the movie, Curtis and I went for sundaes, and then for a walk. We talked for hours. He told me how the animators made Tarzan. I told him about how worried I was about Mary. He said that, unfortunately, there are no cleaning jobs available at the grocery store where he works.

  Curtis talked more than he had on the plane. He even laughed. Curtis wants to be a visual artist. He would rather draw pictures than study academic subjects: that’s why he failed Grade Twelve last year. Curtis is mostly a serious person, but he also appreciates humour, especially cartoons. Like me, Curtis has some problems at home. His father left him and his mother about two years ago. His father fell in love with another man, “came out”, and went to start a new life in Edmonton, but that didn’t work out. Curtis loves his father a lot. He respects him as a brilliant guy who tries hard to be a great father. But Curtis finds it hard to forgive his father for leaving, and for not having much time for him right now. Curtis says he hates his mother’s friend, Steve, who is an ignorant bully. Curtis says he doesn’t usually tell people about his father being gay.

  “Even though I’m not gay myself,” Curtis said, “I worry that if people know about Dad’s orientation, they’ll label me and make my life a lot more difficult than it already is. I just wish Dad had stuck around, so I could still do father-son stuff with him. We talk about everything—computers, birds, whatever. All Steve talks about is organized sports. He thinks every ‘normal’ guy adores sports on TV. Personally, I like getting exercise, but I hate organized sports. Especially team sports. I’d rather bike, hike or canoe outdoors by myself.”

  This was the best Saturday evening of my entire life. I knew Curtis was the right guy for me. My horoscope for Saturday said that I am “an attractive, warm-hearted person who is good with people.” I hope Curtis agrees.

  Curtis

  Had a good time at Naomi’s house.

  Mary is difficult to understand, because her English is so bad. But she is nice.

  So is Hanna, who said only one sentence to me. She is too sick to talk much.

  Eva is a great cook and generous. She said I could borrow her art books any time.

  Joe is a great guy. Hulking grizzly bear, but as gentle as a white-tailed deer.

  Naomi is bee-yoo-tee-full!

  Somewhere deep in the boreal forest, He Wolf howls.

  “She Wolf,” he howls, “I woof you!”

  Woo-oo-oo-oof!

  Mary

  Let Us Out

  I am sure I want to be a doctor. But sometimes I am not sure of myself. Am I good enough? Will my marks be high enough? Mommy and Grandpa can’t afford to send me to medical school. I have to win a scholarship.

  I do!

  Then I am in medical school, and all we students have to work very hard. There are long hours in the classroom, long hours in the laboratory, long hours in the hospital, and long hours studying in our rooms. It is difficult to find time to eat and sleep, but I do. It is difficult to find time to have fun, but I do.

  Mommy sends Johnny and me back to university with food parcels. Johnny is in engineering school in the same city as my medical school. We take care of each other.

  I tell him that his girlfriend is seeing another man. I sew the buttons back on his shirts. He takes me to dances with his friends. He makes sure his friends are nice to me.

  I don’t have too much money, so I make my own dresses and do my own hair. I wear the same dress to a few parties, then I sell it to get money to make another dress. Also, I make dresses for the other girls.

  I am sewing as I read a medical text. Read, stitch, stitch, stitch. Read, stitch, stitch, stitch. Read, stitch, stitch, stitch.

  When we finish our medical exams, we want to celebrate. The other students say to me, “Mary, you don’t drink, so you must guard the door. You must see that we do not go outside, shout on the streets and get into trouble.”

  At this time in Poland, it was very dangerous to express your opinions of the communist regime publicly. No sooner had one war ended in Poland, than another had begun. As the Nazis fled, the Soviets invaded. After World War II, the Cold War. Now war was not about killing the body—unless we openly resisted. It was about killing freedom.

  We medical students have to pass an exam about communism. About politics! I hate politics! This is ridiculous. Politics have nothing to do with medicine.

  If we don’t pretend to believe in communism, we must leave medical school. One stude
nt even goes to jail for mocking the system. One professor is sent to Siberia.

  You know what it’s like to be sent to Siberia? People are crowded worse than cattle in a box car of a long train. Everybody has to pee and poop in a pot in the middle of the box-car floor. There’s no toilet paper. There’s no privacy.

  You have no change of clothes. You have no place to wash. You are dirty and stinking. Everybody is dirty and stinking.

  Then, when you get to Siberia, there’s not enough food. Just watery porridge, if you’re lucky. In summer, there’s hard labour on farms. In winter, there’s severe cold—months and months in the deep freeze. And you don’t have proper clothes to keep warm.

  Often, of course, you die.

  Stalin, who is the ruler now, is as bad as Hitler. Millions of people in his own country starve to suit his whims. Millions suffer.

  Anyway, at our graduation party, the other students drink vodka, dance, sing and get louder and louder in expressing their true opinions about politics. I don’t drink. I never do. I lock the door of the house where we are partying, and I hide the key.

  The other students are becoming aggressive. They are determined to go outside into the streets. They want to wake up the whole city by singing and shouting.

  “Let us out!” they shout. “We want freedom now!”

  They crowd around me and bully me.

  “Give us the key, Mary,” they say. “We want the key now!”

  “Just a moment,” I say. “I can’t find the key. I don’t remember where I left it. I’m looking for it. You go lie down and rest, while I look for it.”

  Finally, I get all the girls lined up and resting on one bed. And I get all the boys lined up and resting on the other bed. And they all sleep safe and sound until morning.

  Instead of going to jail, they all go off to different hospitals in different cities and towns all over Poland.