A lesson in remorse (work in progress)

Hello friends,

Here's another story I wrote a while back and am currently reworking into a longer short story. Do you have any comments or suggestions for this story? What would you like to have more of or less of in the extended version? Which descriptions do you find real and compelling or weak and in need of fine-tuning? I look forward to your feedback.

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A lesson in remorse

My first-grade teacher was a bully. I have forgotten so many faces over the years, but her face comes back to me easily. It is scornful and unkind, with piercing black dots for eyes and a big frog-like mouth. She might have been good-looking in her youth, when her chin was not buried in layers of fat, but she always carried herself in such an intimidating way that we failed to see whatever traces of beautify she might have had left. All we knew was a perpetually irate middle-aged woman. Once her face is back in my mind, I can also recall her crispy voice making another stern pronouncement about lack of discipline and diligence in our classroom. I do not welcome these memories, but they creep up on me unexpectedly and take a firm hold before I know what has happened. I surrender after a short fight and allow a mental flurry of thoughts and images to take over.

I did a lot of daydreaming at school. I would allow my imagination to frisk me away from the nondescript classroom in the four-storey brick school building in the best traditions of the Soviet urban architecture. It was a typical H-shaped building with cement-paved courtyards on either side. Every other school in the country looked exactly like it. The courtyard on one side is used for lineikas, celebrations and gatherings of young pioneers. The other courtyard is being constantly swept, watered, and otherwise pampered by the pioneers. It seemed like its single purpose was to keep them busy, and it was always there for them, ready to inspire and encourage their never-ending cheerful activity.

I often wondered why the word lineika was the same word as a ruler, a wooden strip we used in our math class to draw and measure squares and triangles. I smiled as I pictured my fellow students as different shapes lined up on the ruler to report to the headmistress and the senior leader of pioneers. I did not like the pioneers or their celebrations. They were too noisy and too quick, just like their famous slogan "always ready." For someone who spent most of my time thinking, they looked like wind-up machines with ready-made answers and solutions to every problem. No deliberation, no thinking, just action. Part of me initially admired this promptness: life as a pioneer seemed so much easier than my life full of doubt and uncertainty. But the memory of the senior leader of pioneers, a brisk petite woman in her early thirties, delivering another upbeat speech for the hundredth time with unyielding enthusiasm, told me I would never be ready.

My gaze would linger on the water-damaged wall in the right corner of the classroom or the chipping paint on the wooden floors, but I would look without seeing. My mind could paint me a much brighter picture than anything my surroundings could offer. I would eagerly abandon reality to enter my imaginary world. One of the biggest attractions of my escapes was the fact that I was in control. I would assign roles to real and imaginary characters as I saw fit, and choose the ways in which my stories started, developed, and ended. I never grew tired of this mental routine.

At school I would think up different situations all resulting in the bullying teacher leaving never to return. Sometimes, the scenarios would be simple and straightforward. The principal would come in and announce that the teacher had accepted another position or decided to leave town. Other times, my stories would get more elaborate, depending on what role I chose to assign to myself. My roles ranged from an audacious student, to a most powerful magician, to a ruthless witch. In some of my stories I stood up to the teacher, and amidst cheers and boos from the whole class, made her flee. In others I would cast a spell to make her disappear and she would slowly vanish into the thin air much like a cartoon character. In yet others, I dreamed up ways to make her small, defenseless, at our mercy, just like we had been at hers. Most frequently, though, I made up mental conversations with her where I very eloquently and indignantly presented to her everything we all thought but had always been afraid to say. Invariably, my daydreaming scenarios ended with my victory and her defeat. Years later, one of these conversations was reenacted in an entirely non-magical way, but that is another story for another time.

The teacher did not have favorite students, or if she did she had not been consistent in her preferences. Virtually every student in our class had, to a certain extent, been exposed to her verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse. More often than not she would pick on already vulnerable students, from unlucky or unhappy family circumstances, or those who were bigger, smaller, or stood out in other ways. I was fortunate not to be among her favorite prey, but that is where my fortune ended. Our classroom had always felt like a minefield, we groped silently forward expecting and dreading another explosion.

Like most bullies, the teacher had her favorite targets: a boy who had trouble reading out loud, a girl whose parents had recently divorced, another boy who lived with a grandmother earning a living by sweeping the streets, and, of course, Ian. He was the smallest boy in our class, and, incidentally, he had the largest head. He was smart, orderly, and, slightly annoying before you got to know him better, and, sadly, very few of us did.

 To be fair, it was Ian's mother who annoyed us, but as a grown-up she was beyond the reach of our contempt, Ian had to bear the brunt of it. Even now when I think about Ian, I first remember his mother- her worried face and her clucking voice as she uttered yet another life-saving instruction for Ian while quickly and efficiently tying his shoelaces. She did not approve of rowdy kids on the playground and the way we shrieked with delight running under the water fountains, throwing snowballs, or jumping into mud puddles after the rain. During recess he was seen reading his textbooks or spending time with his mother and eating another perfect homemade meal. The playground where little persons were practicing their social skills by launching wars and making peace, separating into cliques and reuniting, electing and deposing leaders, was a foreign place to Ian. Like an alien, he stepped into the classroom after recess and found himself surrounded by faces possessing the secret knowledge and language to which he had not been made privy.

Like most other students, I hardly knew Ian. He was seated in the front row, alone in a two-seat desk. The teacher used seating arrangements to reward, punish, and threaten. She frequently reassigned seats attaching a particular meaning to being put in a particular seat. "I do not like YOU anymore", she would say menacingly, regarding another victim with a piercing look. I was puzzled by this choice of words, since she clearly did not seem to ever have liked any of us. "Take your things and move," she would bark while directing another hapless student with the long narrow end of her wooden pointer.

Both Ian and I were in the front row, but it had different connotations for our status in the classroom. The front row was occupied almost entirely by girls, and reserved for boys as a punishment. For girls, the punishment was to be moved away from the front row or our usual seats and put next to one of the first row or back row boys. Ian was one of the two boys permanently occupying the front row. The other boy was put there by the teacher due to his occasional wetting accidents. It was easier for him to get to the bathroom and for the janitor to clean up if he failed to do so. Unlike the other boy, Ian was put there at the insistence of his mother. She thought that because of his small stature he would be better off sitting right in front of the teacher. She also felt he needed to be shielded from the rest of us and our immature ways. She relied on the teacher to fill in her role, oblivious of both the lack of maternal aptitude on behalf of the teacher, and the impact it had on Ian and his standing in the class.

I dreaded the prospect of ever having to move from my seat. My desk was in the first row by the window and had numerous advantages. I could see the blackboard straight ahead and the teacher in her desk in the middle of the room, but I was not in her immediate line of vision. I was separated by two aisles from a clique of constantly whispering girls undoubtedly plotting another trick they would later play on someone at the playground. I was also a safe distance away from a couple of mischievous boys who used every opportunity to push, hit, spit at and squabble with girls. To top it all, I could see the street outside which had always been a welcome digression from the tensions inside. I was put in this seat when I first walked into this classroom, and had not been ordered to move ever since. It was my safe haven, my only constant in this unpredictable emotionally charged environment.

I got to know Ian when I got punished. I do not remember what I had done and whether I had done it, but I remember very clearly the teacher's crisp voice telling me to move next to Ian. I collected my things very slowly hoping the teacher would change her mind. When she did not, I picked up my backpack and walked towards Ian's seat while the class cheered, giggled, and whispered. "Freaks of feather stick together" somebody ventured. I slipped into a seat next to Ian and I caught a glimpse of his face. He averted his eyes and did not say anything. I could feel that he was just as ill at ease with the situation as I was. He reminded me of a turtle retracting inside at the sight of the unknown, possibly dangerous. When the cheers subsided and the lesson resumed, I watched Ian to pick up his textbooks and then set them back down again, neatly aligning the corners. After he had done it a few times, he played with his pen-case, rearranging pens, pencils, and oddly shaped erasers. I felt like an intruder, an unexpected guest to be accommodated by an unprepared host. I could only guess what Ian was feeling.

My punishment lasted for a couple of weeks, which at that age seemed like an eternity. Ian and I gradually started letting each other into our separate worlds. I would share playground stories and jokes; he would help me figure out a math problem or tell me about a book he was reading. We did not become friends, but we were genuinely cordial towards each other as only seven-year-olds can be. We had made an unspoken pact to make the most of our situations as a passive act of defiance. I did not know if Ian had any friends outside of school, but in our classroom I became his closest approximation to a friend. I did not think he was annoying any more, just apprehensive. I also discovered that we had a lot in common: we both had a demanding parent, a manipulative teacher, and the fear of becoming a failure.

My punishment ended just as abruptly as it started. The teacher had temporarily left the room, and the class sunk into chaos. Boys were pulling girls' hair and spitting chewed paper balls at other boys. Girls were chatting, giggling, and plotting. Everyone was obnoxiously loud, intoxicated by the sudden windfall of freedom. Getting my fair share of hullabaloo, I grabbed my large plastic ruler and started play sword fighting with a girl behind my desk. Flushed and giddy with excitement, I spotted Ian out of the corner of my eye. He looked tense and aloof casting furtive glances at the classroom door. I felt vaguely irritated at his withdrawn look, his refusal to partake in all the fun we were having. I wanted to shake him out of this state, and before I knew it, I turned and smacked him on the head with the ruler. The class babbled with encouragement. The troublemaker boys egged me on to give him another smack. The clique girls chattered animatedly. Ian did not move away or say anything. He did not need to; his stunned look conveyed his feelings better than any words would have. The teacher walked in just in time to witness the incident. "What do you think you are doing?" she said giving me a smirk, "leave the poor boy alone, and move back to your seat".

The next few minutes went by in a blur. I collected my books, pulled my backpack from under the seat and walked to the desk I used to call mine. I did not hear the teacher making a joke at my expense and teasing Ian about being beat by a girl. I did not think about whether the teacher approved or disapproved of me hitting Ian. I did not enjoy the air of camaraderie expressed through whispers, glances, and stifled giggles. After having looked forward to returning to my seat for so long, I felt no joy now that it finally happened.

Back at my desk, I could still see the look in Ian's eyes. They did not accuse me, nor did they show any anger. I knew he was not looking at me anymore, but I felt like he still was. I felt strangely confined in my own being, as if the air kept filling in my lungs, my entire chest and throat, until I could not breathe or move. I just sat there with this heaviness inside, my heart pounding and my thoughts tangled. I knew that Ian and I would never share our worlds again. I was reinstated in mine and he was reclaiming his.

I had not been a good guest, I thought. He let me into his private den and I broke one of his most valued and fragile possessions. We did not talk much since then, and Ian's family moved to another country by the end of the next school year. The incident slowly disintegrated in the myriad of faces and events.

I spent many long hours over the years thinking about my school years and lamenting the unfortunate fact of having a bully for my first teacher. Sometimes, I still wonder if I would have become a different person or would have been able to achieve greater things had my first experience as a student been different. And, yet, when I think about those first years at school, I realize that even the most negative experiences can teach us positive lessons. The most valuable lesson my bully teacher taught me was a lesson in remorse.

Car-personality correlation

I am beginning to think there is a strong correlation between the size of a car and a person's overall disposition. The bigger the car the bigger the person's ego. Every time I drive my toddler from school, I have to get into the far right lane to be able to exit. Invariably, the owners of shabby rusty small old cars are the ones to wave and let me in, while the owners of the bigger shinier vehicles are the ones to glare and make sure I don't get in at all costs. I wonder why this is the case. Is this because a bigger car typically means a wealthier driver who feels entitled to a certain status, even on the road? Or, do the drivers of smaller vehicles have an affinity for other small car owners, such as myself? Any thoughts?

A story I wrote this summer...

July 10, 2010

Three Rocks

The first rock hit me on the leg right under the knee. The road was full of newly laid gravel, so I ignored it and kept walking. The second rock hit me in the back between the shoulder blades. A quick sharp pain took me out of my reverie, and back onto the unpaved road I took to the subway from the library. It was summer of 1993, the last summer before my final year in high school. I had already set my sights on entering the English Language Department of the World Languages University, and spent most of that summer at the library practicing my English in a Conversation Club led by a group of American expatriates.

The library was a small old building with elegant columns and a wide staircase located in the Old City of Tashkent. There were very few old buildings left after the earthquake in 1966, but this one survived; the paint was chipping off the columns, the floor inside was in terrible disrepair, the roof leaked after heavy rains (which, thankfully, were not a frequent visitor in this region), but it still had that old charm of the bygone era. The Old City was not an official name, but rather something people used to describe the northwest part of town, which was spared by the Soviet architects and the infamous earthquake alike.

The labyrinth of dusty narrow streets lined by mudbrick houses and mosques, the famous huge open air market, Chorsu Bazaar, selling fresh produce, spices, cheeses, meats, clothes and every imaginable household item, were not the only artifacts the Old City preserved. It was also a stronghold of a more conservative faction of local Islam. Women were more piously dressed and men on the constant lookout for transgression. I was aware of the district’s reputation, and, during those library trips, had been given a fair share of glares and called names I do not wish to repeat. I dreaded the long trips to the library, but I never once considered not going.

 Every other day I would get up early before the heat would grow unbearable, take a cold shower, eat a quick breakfast, put on the most modest outfit I could come up with, and walk to the bus stop. On my luckier days the bus would arrive within twenty minutes. On other days, I’d spend an hour or more under a narrow benchless bus enclosure. Normally, waiting for an hour would not cause me much discomfort- my life up until then taught me to be patient in the face of omnipresent red-tape and delays, but waiting for a bus in the summer had always been my least favorite kind of waiting. The bright sun, unsparingly scorching despite the early hour, would tire me out before I set out for my journey. There used to be schedules posted on every bus stop, but it seemed that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the new government abandoned all pretense of order.

 Most buses were old, overcrowded, and smelled of gasoline and body odor. Grungy men in unwashed clothes would send me lascivious smiles and try to get close and rub against me. Overweight women with gold teeth, baskets, swollen plastic bags, and wailing children would push me aside to get to that one rare seat by the window. Riding on local buses was always an exercise in humility. I would close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere else, where another passenger’s sharp elbow did not threaten to fracture my ribcage and the air smelled of freshly washed laundry. Sometimes, I would practice irregular verbs or recite a poem. Since taking my books out was not an option, I learned to visualize textbook pages and go over them one by one mentally turning them over. Once I got to the subway station, I would promptly disentangle myself from the crowd and sprint inside, dreaming of nothing else but a never-ending cold shower. I would breathe in the cool air of the subway with some relief, but this was just the beginning. I still had to take two subway trains to get to my destination.

The Chilanzar line would be packed with people carrying all sorts of oddly shaped objects: bags of clothes and cigarettes, baskets of freshly baked bread, children’s toys and bicycles. Sometimes, when the trains were too full, the uniformed subway workers would walk down the line and forcibly push people inside in order to close the doors. I sighed as I finally made it inside the train and found myself squeezed against the sign specifying the nature and dimensions of objects allowed on the subway. Had the posted rules been abided by, it would have been a lot easier to breathe, both literally and figuratively. Sadly, it seemed that many signs and social norms had become largely optional for people too intent on surviving to pay them any mind.

When I arrived at Pahtakor station, I knew I was on the home stretch: only one more train to go. This was the shortest part of the trip, but also the most strenuous. If the Chilanzar line was busy, the Uzbekistan line, that would take me to the Chorsu station, was always complete pandemonium. Crowds arriving from two different subway lines would join, like a confluence of two broad gurgling rivers, and get packed promptly but inefficiently into arriving trains. The expression about sardines packed in a can does not come close to describing how crowded the place was; the sardines might have had a mighty good time compared to the people on the subway, but for the fact that they were dead. It was a tenuous distinction at best, as far as I was concerned, when after being pushed, pulled, poked and groped, I’d finally make it. I braced myself as I envisioned getting on the train. Sometimes, I would dive into the human flow and let the crowd carry me inside: other times I would just stand there dazed before I could regain my senses and take the plunge.

 “Why do you have to study so much?” my mother would say. “You don’t have to go the library every other day, do you?” I did not share any of the unpleasant incidents with my family, because their solution would be not going. The trips were exhausting and took a toll on my mood, making me either irritable or morose the day after. This was a time when everyone was fighting some sort of a battle: lack of money, loss of a job, or the general uncertainty about the future. Some struggled with all their might trying to take control of their lives, others watched passively by, fatalistically going with the proverbial flow.

My parents took the latter path, unable and unwilling to change themselves to fit their new realities. Both trained as engineers, they had their moderately paid but stable jobs, my mother working for the Academy of Sciences and my father for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After the collapse, the Academy lost most of its funding, as research was no longer a priority, and the Ministry had undergone a reshuffle resulting in longer hours, more supervision and less pay. “We are not able to sell or steal,” my father would passionately declare at the dinner table. “Nor do we have wealthy relatives,” my mother would chime in. At times I felt infuriated by their passivity. It felt like my life was slipping away in the most mundane and unexciting way, and they did not seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. Young people, and I was certainly no exception, have a tendency to be very self-centered: only later did it dawn on me what they might have been going through at the time.

While the older generation overwhelmed by a new world order was flung into inertia, the younger generation embraced our newly found freedom in a most precarious way. Schools were ill-prepared to provide guidance; barely scraping by to keep their buildings intact and have enough teachers. The stern looking babushkas, previously an indispensible attribue of any neighborhood, suddenly abandonded their posts as unappointed guardians of social mores having to supplement their meager state pensions by selling everything they could bear to part with at spontaneously errupting street markets. Having been raised under strict adult supervision, my generation was suddenly left to fend for itself when we reached our teens. As a result, many were lost to alcohol, drugs, and prisons. It was an exciting time full of hope and latent possibilites, a short window in history as the old monster of a regime was dying but the new fledgling one was still too weak to take hold. This was the time to make it or break it.

I was still unsure about what I wanted to do in life, but with the ache of youth I longed for change. I was surprised to learn from my American teachers that people in the West thought our situation had recently improved. Gone were the shackles of communism and the free people were supposed to rejoice and embrace their new identity as a democracy. Rejoice I did, not having to hear about the Communist party and its achievements no one believed in anymore, but it seemed that most people were too immersed in their daily struggles to pay any attention to the new political order. As the new government staged a half-hearted experiment in democracy, its people whole-heartedly embraced the notion of the survival of the fittest. Going to the library had become my personal struggle that summer. I needed to hold on to something not to be subsumed by the chaos of the times.

The third rock whooshed past my right ear taking a small piece of my skin with it. I touched my ear instinctively, and gazed at my red fingers still not completely aware of what had just happened. When I heard more rocks flying by, and landing on the gravel behind me, the fear kicked in and I ran. I heard voices of young boys behind me, voices full of raw hatred. They were shouting in broken Russian and Uzbek as they were picking up handfuls of gravel and sending them in my direction. All sorts of thoughts raced through my head as I was running, but mostly I was shocked at how much hatred these boys had harbored in their young hearts. I remember thinking that no child could possibly be born with that much hate. I wondered what had caused it and made it grow.

I wished I had worn a pair of jeans that day instead of a long summer skirt that I thought would be less provocative in this neighborhood. The mermaid shaped skirt loosely hugged my waist, hips, and knees, which made running almost impossible. The flip-flops I was wearing did not help either: my feet kept sliding to the sides and getting hurt on the rough gravel. To make things worse, my backpack full of heavy dictionaries and library books was dragging me down.

“Urus djalab,” I heard a boy behind me yell, spewing saliva mixed with anger. He must have been only ten. He was dark-skinned and scrawny, his clothing consisting only of a pair of ill-fitting shorts and rubber sandals. “Russian whore? Me?!” I thought indignantly as I ran. I was neither Russian, nor a whore. I did not even have a boyfriend, what with spending most of my time at the library that summer. Part of me wanted to turn around, grab the boy by the ear and give him a good spanking, but I knew there were more of them, some my age, some younger, some older. I did not even want to imagine what would happen to me if they surrounded me. Warm tears of helplessness welled up in my eyes, but there was no time to feel sorry for myself, I had to keep running.

Most of the makeshift stalls were closed for the day, but there were a few still open with men and older women selling cigarettes, candy, and soft drinks. I hoped that when I reached that stretch of the road, the boys would be deterred by adults and stop chasing after me. To my dismay, the two middle-aged men seemed amused rather than disturbed by the scene in front of them. They exchanged some comments that I could not hear, and snickered. The women gave me a quick look over and busied themselves with packing their skimpy merchandise. My only hope was the subway station. I gathered all my strength and ran on. My heartbeat loudly reverberated though my entire body. My mouth went dry. Time seemed to freeze.

I forged into the station just barely escaping from my pursuers. My skirt was covered with dust, my feet bleeding and sweat pouring down my neck. I took out a handkerchief that my mother insisted I carry with me at all times, and wiped my face. I do not remember the long trip back. A myriad of faces swept in front of me, trains and buses came and went, light turned to dark, late afternoon heat gave way to an evening breeze. Time was no longer static; it was moving again. It kept moving me away from the incident, from uncertainty, from fear, into the present tranquility of my life in a new country. No matter how far or fast the time moves those three rocks are always with me as mental souvenirs of my narrow escape.

Today's quote of the day is inspired by the lecture I attended over my lunch break.

Panelists included: Denise Cardinal from Alliance for a Better Minnesota, Ben Golnik of Golnik Strategies, Gary Goldsmith, executive director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, and Mike Dean, director of Common Cause Minnesota.

Ben Golnik, who was described as the rising start of the local Republic Party, complained about the uneven playing field, alluding to contributions from politically active labor unions. Denise Cardinal provided a very telling allegory about what a typical labor union member "Susie" (most SEIU members are women) compared to a typical (usually male) company CEO would donate. SEIU's total spending on politics in 2009 was close to 58 million, which is 17% of union’s total funds (including lobbying and nationwide). Now take Exxon Mobil with its 310 billion in revenue, spending at least 27 million on politics. Now that political spending by corporations cannot be banned, had Exxon spent at least 1% of its revenue (3.1 billion) it would be more than a half of Barack Obama's presidential campaign spending (around 5 billion) that was so sharply criticized by the conservatives. And that's just one corporation....As Denise said, "leveling the playing field is like bringing a knife to the nuclear war."

This website was described as the "clearing house" for campaign financing in Minnesota. Starting from the 2010 election cycle, it is required that all reports are submitted in electronic format which will make it easier to track who donated to whom.
http://www.cfboard.state.mn.us/


More on the issue: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/how-corporate-money-will-reshape-politics/