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.
