Loves of Yulian (19 page)

Perhaps sensing my anxiety, the principal had two items of good news to add. One was that there was another Polish boy in the school, a Stefan Stepnanski also from Warsaw, who could be my friend and help me out with any language issues.

“Oh my God,” Mother said. “Stepnanski from Warsaw? I knew the Stepnanskis, if it’s the same family. The father was a doctor, Michael Stepnanski, and
her
father was Bolek
Terasocki
. They had a son Julien’s age. He was at your birthday party, Julien.”

There had been a lot of children, that I didn’t know, at that birthday party. Mother had bought toy rifles and tall
Ulan
hats for everybody, and there was a picture from the party in the paper. Mother was in the middle of the picture, wearing an
Ulan
hat, canted over one eye, and aiming a rifle, surrounded by children doing the same thing. Kiki had shown it to me. Except that I wasn’t in the picture.

The principal acknowledged that Stefan’s father was, indeed Dr. Michael Stepnanski. The Stepnanskis, he said, had been fortunate enough to leave Poland before the war began. Mother said that that was, indeed, good, because Stefan could help me find my way around. I had reservations about this, but kept them to myself.

The other bit of good news was that the school operated a bus that would pick me up right at the hotel every morning and return me there every afternoon, so that I wouldn’t have to walk.

My concern over relating to my schoolmates was pushed to the back of my mind, as I was fitted for my uniform, at a downtown store and supplied with two white “T” shirts, decorated with the school logo over the left breast, which the saleslady said I would need for gym class. But I was greatly disappointed when Mother told me I could not wear the uniform until I started attending school the next day.

In fact, on the bus back to our hotel, we had a debate over the issue, in which I was quite proud of my logic. If, as Mother implied, I was not authorized to wear the uniform until I had actually begun attending classes, even though the principal had already entered my name and assigned me to a class, then I had no right to don the uniform the following morning either. If Mother’s argument were correct, then I would have to bring the uniform on the school bus, in its cardboard box, and not put it on until class started. But Mother’s headache returned at that point, and she didn’t have a chance to see the powerful logic of my argument. We ended up spending most of the rest of the day with Mother doing her solitaire and me keeping the terror of tomorrow at bay by imagining myself marching down the street in front of our hotel with my classmates in our tan uniforms, on some Brazilian holiday. An additional benefit, that occurred to me, was the fact that this was the same uniform that Andre had worn at one time.

The next morning, Mother and I stood in front of our hotel, waiting for the school bus. In my hand, I held a pencil box, the same blue as my uniform shirt, and one of the “T” shirts that the woman in the store told us I would be expected to bring to class. Mother’s hand rested possessively on my newly-uniformed shoulder, and no wiggling of that shoulder seemed to dislodge it. Mother surprised me by her perception of my concern. “The other children will respect you more when they see me with you,” she said. Every instinct inside me told me that greater respect for me was not the result that this image would produce. But I had no choice, but to stand as tall as I could, with my shoulders back, and present as impregnable a figure as I could to my new schoolmates.

Then a bus of the same color as my uniform, with the same logo as on my badge painted on its side, and its interior filled with children dressed just like me, pulled up in front of us, and I prepared to climb on board with firm step and my chin raised.

“Give me a kiss,” Mother said. Kissing was not part of our normal repertoire. Mother never suggested kissing before she left for Sra. O’Brien’s, but, for some reason, she felt the need to bless the start of my adventure with this display of affection.

“You are embarking on a new career,” she said, as the bus driver waited with his door open and the engine chugging, “and I want you to do it with your head high and a firm step.”

This was precisely what I had intended to do, but now that resolve felt, somehow, definitely deflated. Nevertheless, I hurried onto the bus, before the driver could get angry at me and drive off. As I made the turn towards the rear of the bus, I pretended not to notice that my mother was waving at me.

There was an empty seat beside a girl dressed in the feminine version of our uniform. It was, probably, my unconscious sense of relative security in the company of girls, that made me seat myself beside her. This immediately set off a flurry of loud Portuguese words and hand gestures from my intended seatmate, conveying the idea that I should not be doing that, followed by similar expression from our fellow passengers.

In an instant, my shoulders slumped forward and any sense of impregnability that I may have salvaged from Mother’s goodbye left me. Desperately, I looked around for another empty seat and heard the driver yelling something at me. The other passengers quickly picked up the driver’s message and endeavored to drill it into my mind through ruptured eardrums. It took several repetitions before I understood that the bus could not move until I sat down. I found another empty seat beside a boy, further back in the bus and seated myself, braced for whatever unpleasantness might come from that quarter.

My new seatmate, some years older than I and quite large, was reading a book, and, blessedly, took no notice of my presence beside him. Unfortunately, I soon discovered an unpleasant odor emanating from his direction. I dearly wanted to move to another seat, the next time the bus stopped, but could imagine another barrage of Portuguese questions and protests, and just satisfied myself with making a mental note of the large boy’s appearance, for the purpose of not sitting beside him again.

My teacher, a stocky woman with red hair, a long chin, and a very tight skirt, had, evidently, been well primed for my arrival. The moment that the principal’s secretary led me into her classroom, the teacher greeted me with a smile and an extra loud and distinct, “Good morning, Julio. My name is Sra. Fernanda. Did you understand that?” I assured her that I did. Sra. Fernanda did not offer to shake hands. Then she instructed a boy in the desk directly in front of her own to move all his belongings to a desk in back, and directed me, my pencil box, and my “T” shirt to the newly vacated one. From her own desk, she produced two notebooks, a blue one and a red one, and, smiling at me, lifted my desktop, deposited the red notebook inside, and laid the blue one on top of the desk.

With me thus settled, Sra. Fernanda began a monologue to the class that was too fast for me to understand, except that, from the words like “Poland” and “Hitler,” I gathered that she was explaining who I was and why I was there. Then, switching gears, she turned to me and explained, very slowly and quite loudly, that Stefan Stepnanski was somewhere and would do something later. She asked if I understood, and I, again, said that I did, guessing that this Stefan must belong to another classroom and I would be introduced to him some time in the future.

Much to my relief and delight, my classmates seemed to take no notice of me. When I saw them writing in their blue notebooks, I had my own open on my desktop, and when they switched to the red one, I did the same. And, when they turned them in at the end of the lesson, I also handed in my blank one.

At recess, the boys all seemed to join in a game of tag, while the girls stood in little groups and talked. A man teacher, who seemed to be in charge of this activity, urged me to join in the game of tag. I pretended not to understand him, even when he mimed by tagging me and running away, and he, finally turned away to deal with a fight that was developing between some older boys.

I wasn’t introduced to Stefan Stepnanski, until classes were over that first day. Stefan was older than me, but I shook hands with him and greeted him in Polish. Stefan turned away without a word, after our handshake, and went to rejoin his classmates. That was fine with me. On the bus going home, I was one of the first people on board and found a seat next to a window. Nobody came to sit beside me, and that was fine with me as well.

The following day, Sra. Fernanda wiggled herself onto my chair, right beside me, opened a book she had brought, and proceeded to coax me to read from it. They were easy words, and I worked my way through a couple of paragraphs, trying hard not to stutter, by drawing my words out very carefully. Sra. Fernanda probably thought it was the letters that were giving me trouble, not realizing what would happen if I tried to speak faster.

I wasn’t comfortable sitting right up against this teacher. There was a roll of fat above her belt, showing through her dress and a very slight odor coming from her, which wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but somehow distressing to me.

The story in the book was clearly about a boy, a girl, a dog, and a ball. I knew most of the words, and the ones that I did not, were easy to guess. “Do you understand?” Sra. Fernanda asked when I had finished half of the page. It was at that moment that a plan occurred to me, and I shook my head extending my palms in a gesture of total ignorance.

“You did not understand any of it?” she asked. I repeated my previous reply.

The senhora drew in a breath and pointed to the name
Jose
, in the first line. She enunciated it, just as I had done, then pointed to the boy in the illustration. “Jose,” she repeated, tapping the boy’s stomach.

“Jose,” I repeated after her. Then I tapped my own stomach and said the word once more.

“No, no, no, no,” she said, in surprise. She drew an imaginary line around the entire boy. “Jose,” she said.

I drew an imaginary line around my entire body and repeated the name, “Jose.” I had played this trick before, on a Soviet officer who was trying to teach me Russian words pertaining to a glass of very hot tea and had had a terrible time keeping a straight face. I had the same difficulty now, keeping myself from bursting into laughter by sucking in my lips.

Sra. Fernanda shook her head. She traced my outline with her finger and pronounced “Julio.”

I performed the very best imitation I could of finally grasping her meaning. I smiled with happiness and tapped my own chest. “J. . . ulio,” I said, proudly. “J. . . ulio.”

Sra. Fernanda smiled a smile of disappointment. What she had on her hands, I was sure she was thinking, was not just a language problem, but a dunce. I smiled back sweetly.

Now, Sra. Fernanda pointed to my chest, and said, “Julio,” which I repeated proudly. Then she pointed to the illustration, being sure to touch the boy’s chest. “Jose,” she said.

“Jose,” I said. Then, to prove how well I had learned my lesson, I pointed to my own chest, without her prompting, and pronounced, “Julio,” then back to the boy with another, “Jose.”

“Very good, very good,” Sra. Fernanda said. I beamed in the glory. Realizing that she needed to return to the class, Sra. Fernanda urged me to continue reading the book by myself and began handing the red notebooks back to the students.

I could not wait to get home and tell Meesh about how I had fooled the teacher. But, as I had suspected might happen, I found little satisfaction in my monologue. It was Irenka that I needed to tell my story to. She would understand and laugh. I went down and knocked on Irenka’s door.

“Oh, Yulian,” she said, opening the door a little and looking at me. She seemed quite surprised to see me. “What is it?”

“I h. . . ave s. . . .ometh. . . .ing to t. . . ell you,” I said.

“What is it?” she asked, not opening the door any wider.

“Is s. . . omething wr. . . .ong?” I asked.

“No, no, come in.” She opened the door wide for me to come in. I saw that Irenka was dressed in a bathrobe, which would not have surprised me had it been my mother, but I didn’t expect to see other people dressed in bathrobes at that time of day.

“What is it?” Irenka said, sitting down on the chair. I had the strong feeling that she wanted me to say whatever was on my mind and leave.

“I. . . t’s ab. . . .out what h. . . .appened in scho. . . . . ol,”

“Yes?” I could tell that she was only pretending to be interested. I told her my story as quickly as I could. While I was telling it, it occurred to me that in her present mood she might not find it funny and reprimand me instead. But she didn’t. She did laugh, though not with the enthusiasm I had hoped for, and I went back upstairs. I knew that grownups, particularly women, had moods when they didn’t enjoy things the way they did at other times.

There was a boy named Gustavo in my class, who was, clearly, the fastest runner of all the boys. He had reddish hair, cut so short you could see his scalp, and freckles, and his skin seemed stretched tight over his face, and when they played tag at recess, no one ever seemed able to tag him. I could tell by the grin on his face, as he evaded his pursuer, that he thought he was pretty good. That look on his face annoyed me. I had been the fastest runner in my class at the French school in Warsaw. It had been the only positive element of that entire school experience, but the title had clearly been mine. And now, to see Gustavo think he was so great really incensed me.