JEWEL (38 page)

Her eyes shot to his when he’d said her name, and now she was looking at me.

I nodded, and she stood right off, walked around his desk and went to a plant with pale purple leaves hanging in a basket from the ceiling.

She was in the sunlight now, Mr. White’s back to her, and she touched leaves here and there, just fingered them.

“If I may, ” he said, “I would encourage you to enroll her as soon as possible, Mrs. Hilburn. That will allow us to begin that lifelong process of learning as much as she possibly can, as much as her level of retardation will allow.”

“But ” I began, and’d meant to ask him the question all these plants, all this shiny hardwood and oak furniture and the fine rugs on the floor had screamed for me to ask, how much would enrollment cost?

“In reality, this endeavor might seem hopeless, ” he said and now he was off the edge of the desk, swooping toward me, his eyes on mine as he came near. “But hope isn’t what we find at stake here. It’s educability, helping the child find his or her own level of learning, and proceeding from there. Finding at what point the child’s learning abilities taper off. Finding where we can begin working with what they already know, what they need to know, what, in fact, they can know.”

Now he was pacing, his arms still across his chest, that finger still tapping out his chin. He hadn’t raised his voice at all, hadn’t ranted.

He was only speaking, giving out to me what was going on here at the Exceptional Children’s Foundation. I felt my neck go hot, my breath so short with all these words, with his movement and seriousness and authority. And I listened.

“We cover such topics as the alphabet, simple addition, money value, et cetera, as well as storytelling, exercise that’s where they are right now ” He pointed behind him, and for a moment I glanced that way, as if I might see something. But we were only in a room, his office.

He stopped, stood by the edge of the desk, leaned against it. “I suppose you’ll want to know who I am, ” he said, and he gave a smile, however rehearsed or insincere it may have been. Still, I thought, it was a smile. “I am a philanthropist, I make no bones about saying that.

There’s no pride in my revealing this fact, no boast. I come from upstate New York, studied business management in school. But I found that the sort of business I was most interested in involved helping retarded what I call Exceptional, of course, hence the name of the Foundation children.” He paused. “I had a retarded brother. A younger brother, and I can remember his being brought home from the hospital, and my parents staying up and weeping all night long for weeks.”

He said all of this matter-of-fact, even that word weep, a word I wasn’t certain if I’d ever heard spoken before except in the sanctuary at church, and then it’d been Jesus who wept. Jesus wept, I thought, the shortest verse in the Bible.

I glanced over at Brenda Kay, wondered if I could just go ahead and tell him all about her, about how long in labor I’d been, about Cathe ral’s boys Sepulcher and Temple carrying me downstairs, eyes locked on each other, and about the drive to New Orleans the first time, and about the burns on her legs, and how we’d finally moved here. I wondered if I could tell him all of that, any of that, but he gave no room for me to speak.

“They finally placed him in an institution, my younger brother only a month old. That was the beginning of the journey, the journey that has ended here. You see, ” he said, and now he uncrossed his arms and put his hands on the edge of the desk. He was still looking at me, eyebrows knotted up, eyes all concern and care, though, like that smile, I still couldn’t tell how much heart was behind it. “You see, I saw my brother grow up, ” he said. “I saw him being raised in an institution, saw him go from a month-old infant to a child to an adolescent to a teenager to a young man. I saw all of it, because we as a family made it a point to visit him once a month. It was a fine institution, fiscally sound and with a caring staff. And we loved him, gave him cookies and candy when we came, spoke carefully and lovingly to him, touched him and hugged him and smiled at him. Still, it was an institution in which he lived every day, and over the years I began to see in my brother’s eyes a certain spark, a certain unspeakable something deep inside him I believe went untapped, and when he died at age twenty-one, I grieved. I grieved not for my mother or my father or my older sister or myself. I didn’t grieve for any of us.”

He paused, and he was off the desk now, and sat in the empty chair next to me, leaned close to me. I saw he was older than I’d first thought, saw flecks of gray in that black hair, saw his skin wasn’t as soft as I’d thought before, but was aging, aging like all the rest of us.

“What I grieved for was that spark, that undeniable spark behind his eyes, in his eyes, that had gone untapped. I didn’t know what that spark meant, didn’t know what it might have meant. But it was gone.”

He finished, and I brought my eyes from his, settled them on my hands holding my purse, at my old hands here in front of me. Then I looked at Brenda Kay. She stood at the window, had both hands up to the glass. She was looking out at something in the side yard of the place, then turned to me, the sun falling in on her to light up her face.

She pointed a finger to the glass, said, “Momma, look! Matoes, Momma!

” She smiled, and I thought I, too, could see a spark of some kind in her eyes, her green eyes illuminated by the sun so that the color’d become gemlike, green and light.

“Tomatoes, that’s right, Brenda Kay, ” Mr. White said, and stood, went to her at the glass. “That’s another of our projects here. In addition to class time and exercise, we also work on our garden out there. Cherry tomatoes, for some reason, seems to be the vegetable of choice for these youngsters.”

He put an arm on Brenda Kay’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even move, as though already she’d known who this man was and why he was here.

“That’s what we used to grow back at home. In Mississippi. Tomatoes, and all else you can name, ” I said, and suddenly I felt stupid. Words about vegetables. I didn’t want him to think me the cracker I was, wanted him to know I, too, was a teacher, had gone to college.

But he only looked at his watch, turned from her and picked up the tan suit coat from the back of his desk chair, started shrugging it on.

He said, “I know you are thinking at this moment that here is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, exhibiting his family’s failures and his retarded brother’s plight as well as his own grand designs on the world for all to see. But the truth of the matter is that that is how matters we pretend do not exist change. Living in closets, hiding away the exceptional and pretending they do not exist, pretending that God is in His heaven and that all is right with the world, none of these antiquated notions serve the exceptional child. They only bury these young people, only turn our eyes from finding that spark in every one of them. And I am convinced that there is a spark in each child. That may be a simplistic view of the world, may even be ridiculous, some retarded children never learn to wipe their noses, never learn to chew food.

Perhaps for those the institution is needed. But not for the children to whom we address ourselves here at the Foundation.”

He paused, the coat on now, and ran a hand down the tie, placed his hands in his pockets. He tilted his head to one side, said, “Now, what do you think? ” I took in a breath, not ready for him to turn this around to me. I’d been listening, hearing his words, words that made sense to me, but words so forward, his handing them all out to me so abrupt and straight that the only words ready in my head left me just as quick, “You are a pompous man, ” I said. “But right.”

He laughed, laughed out loud and long, leaned his head back and laughed and laughed, and shook his head. Brenda Kay turned quick to him, and then she started to laughing, too, her’huh huh huh! ” filling up whatever room for laughter was left in here, and I felt myself begin to smile.

He said, “Thank you, Mrs. Hilburn. Thank you, ” and he came around the desk, held out his hand for me to shake. “And I’ll expect you and your daughter here tomorrow morning at eight for her first set of tests, and for enrollment.”

I finally stood, glad to be out of the chair, swearing to myself already I’d never sit there again, never let him boil over me like that, though I knew what I’d said was true, he was right. And I knew, too, we’d be here tomorrow morning, would arrive out on that street at seven-thirty just to make sure we weren’t late.

I took his hand, a hand that seemed too frail in mine, and we shook.

“Enrollment, ” I said, and felt my smile leave. Now was the time, “Enrollment, ” I said again. “How much will that cost? ” He stopped shaking my hand, but still held it. He said, “What you can afford, you pay.” He paused. “Remember? I am a philanthropist. Pay only what you can afford.”

He let go my hand, touched his tie again. He said, “I admire your candor, and look forward to more of it. I need the occasional kick in the pants. Refreshing, certainly.” He turned from me, started toward the door.

“Brenda Kay, ” I said, “come on, honey, let’s go.”

I held my hand out to her, the same hand I’d shaken with Mr. Nathan White, Philanthropist, just held it out to her.

She was facing the window, both hands to the glass again. For a moment or two she stared out to where those tomatoes must have been, then dropped her hands to her side, turned and came around the desk to me.

Then we were standing before the closed door, Mr. White with his hand at the knob, ready to pull it open.

He smiled at me. “One last item, ” he said. “The word nigger. It’s an outmoded word, to say the least.”

“Oh, ” I said and felt my face blush, “oh, I ” “Don’t worry, ” he said.

“There’s simply the word colored or the word negro. By no regards new words, certainly. But ones which we employ here. I hope you understand.”

“Yes, ” I said, “yes, ” and then I felt something settle over me, a calm I took and wrapped myself in, Brenda Kay’s warm hand in mine.

He smiled again, and pulled the door open, followed us out to where May the colored girl sat. She was on the telephone, but smiled up at us anyway. Mr. White leaned over the desk, took a pencil and piece of paper from the desktop, scribbled something on it. She read it, nodded at him even though she was in the middle of a sentence.

Mr. White turned to us, quick glanced at his watch again. “May here will fill you in on what we’ll expect tomorrow, how long the testing will take, et cetera.” He looked behind us and up, and I could hear scuffling from above, sounds I knew well, the scrape and scratch of desks across a wooden floor.

He said, “If you wish, you may take a look in either of the classrooms for a moment, just to give you a concrete glimpse into what happens here.” He looked at me only an instant, and turned, went into the foyer and started up the stairs. “If you like, ” he called.

“Otherwise, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

He was already on his way up, two steps at a time.

“Now, Mrs. Hilburn, ” May said from behind me, and I turned to her, saw her smiling, nowhere in her face any show of that word I’d used, the one I’d been raised on, the one that’d never meant anything wrong in my life. But a word, I knew starting then, I’d try my best to keep from speaking.

She said, “Let me have your address and home phone number, to start with.”

Brenda Kay and I made it to the landing on the stairs, and we both looked out the window onto a long green lawn, fenced off on all three sides, honeysuckle and climbing roses and oleander growing up against those fences.

“Brenda Kay, ” I whispered, “how’d you like to play out there? ” I She nodded hard, smiled.

“Let’s go see where you might go to school, ” I whispered next, and put my arm round her, held her close as we went up the rest of the stairs.

Then the word sank into her, and she stopped, turned her face to me.

“Schoo? ” she said, her mouth open, eyebrows up.

“School, ” I said. “Like Wilman and Annie. Like your momma used to teach long before you ever came around. School.”

“Wimn? ” she said, then, “Nee? ” “No, not here, ” I said, and started us on up to the second floor.

We made it to the top, and I saw across from us a door partway open, saw just the shoulder of Mr. White’s tan suit, him up at a blackboard a blackboard and talking away.

He moved a little to the side, and now I could see his face. He caught sight of us out here in the hall, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder, meaning, I figured, Brenda Kay’s class was the next door down.

He hadn’t even stopped talking, only motioned us on.

We moved along the hall, a window at the far end so that the place was filled with light, something I was more glad for than I would’ve ever imagined I could be, sunlight in a hallway.

The next door was closed, and so I let go Brenda Kay, leaned my ear close to the door, and heard a woman’s voice, no other sound than that.

I smiled, looked at Brenda Kay. She smiled at me, and I reached a hand to the door, quietly knocked.

“Come in, ” came the voice, and I reached down, turned the knob, slowly opened the door.

There were things about that moment I will always remember, Mrs. Becky Hamby, her blond-white hair parted on the side, curled under just where it reached her shoulders, her standing in front of a blackboard just as Mr. White had, the big storybook she held in her hands, the pages facing her audience, the picture there a drawing of three policemen at a busy intersection with their hands up, holding back traffic so a line of ducklings could make it across the street. And there was the smile she gave to us, the nod, and the way she started right back into the story she’d been reading, her voice a song there in the room, “When they came to the corner of Beacon Street there was the police car with four policemen that Clancy had sent from headquarters ” But of course it was the children and the slow turn of all their heads to the two of us standing in the doorway that I would carry with me from then on, kids with black hair and blond, red and brown, kids with freckles and teeth and no teeth and glasses and no I glasses, new clothes and old clothes, even a couple of colored children, and I can remember making myself think that word, colored. And all of the children, I figured, here for the same reason, parents who loved them, parents who held out hope.