A Drop of Rain (4 page)

My classes are going well. After twenty years of teaching, however, I am longing for a change. So many colleagues who started in the late 1960s, when the colleges first opened up, are taking early retirement now. They're my age.

I wonder if I can hold out for another ten years.

Eva is enthusiastic about teaching because she has been working in an engineering firm. When I started teaching, I had been counselling young offenders. Initially, teaching was a change: a new challenge.

Eva is almost twenty years younger than me! Does
it matter? No, we are truly in love.

Jill wants more money for the boys. They are involved in hockey, as well as baseball. Jill says I have no idea of the price of things today. I had to make do with second-hand stuff when I was a kid, so why can't the boys?

I wish the boys were interested in photography, so I could do some shoots on weekends. I missed a gorgeous sun pillar the other day because I didn't have my camera with me.

John Van der V. says some press in Toronto wants to publish a book of his astronomical photos. I'd love to do a book on weather.

All I need is a tornado!

Saturday, September 25, 1999

Mr. Dunlop was impressed with my mother's notes about the Auschwitz Museum. He read them to the whole class yesterday. Then he tried to start a discussion about the persecution of the Jews during World War II. Unfortunately, what happened next was totally embarrassing.

“During the Second World War, Jews were like people with AIDS today,” says Mr. Dunlop. “Pariahs. Outcasts. Yet they were no different from you or me.”

“I thought people with AIDS were homosexuals or drug addicts,” says Bob Carter. “I don't know about you, sir, but I'm no fairy or dope fiend.”

“No, you're just a ree-tard jock and beer-swilling jackass,” mutters David Sutton.

The whole class hears David's remark and laughs. Even Mr. Dunlop smiles. Only Bob Carter scowls.

“Actually, you've got a point, Carter,” says Mr. Dunlop. “One must be careful about making
generalizations about groups of people. One must . . .”

“I wonder if Naomi is Jewish,” says Melony Price. “Her first name is Jewish, and her last name is foreign.”

“Thank heavens Mapleville is finally becoming a little more cosmopolitan,” says Mr. Dunlop, as I feel my face turn hot and probably purple. “We need all the West Indians, Italians, Vietnamese and Greeks we can get to make this WASP enclave more interesting.”

“Melony is just jealous because Mr. Dunlop picked Naomi's assignment to read out loud,” says Sarah Smith.

Sarah sits behind me. She has waist-length blonde hair. She takes modelling lessons. She has gorgeous clothes. Plus she sings with a band!

“I'm not jealous,” says Melony. “I was just stating facts. Naomi looks different, and her name is different.”

“No more personal remarks, Melony,” snaps Mr. Dunlop. “Such remarks lead to the same intolerance that got out of hand in Nazi Germany. Many people look ‘different.' I do. You do. What is normal? Naomi is certainly ‘normal'.”

“Actually, I am one quarter Jewish,” I burst out. “Supposedly, I look like my Jewish grandmother, my father's mother. My last name is Polish. My mother's grandparents came from Poland to Canada shortly after World War II. They were Christians, not Jews. I look like the women on that side of the family too. They also have dark hair and eyes.”

“Thanks for taking Melony's remarks so well, Naomi,” says Mr. Dunlop. “I'll bet your Jewish grandmother had a lot of stories about World War II. Authentic testimony . . .”

“I never met my Jewish grandmother,” I say. “She
died before I was born. One of my grandfathers was a war hero. He was a pilot in the Polish wing of the British Air Force. One of my great-grandfathers was a partisan. That's an unofficial soldier in the Polish underground. My father's father was a journalist. I don't know whether he was a war correspondent or not. All these people died before I was born.”

“I see I've got myself a first-class history student this year,” says Mr. Dunlop, beaming.

“Not really,” I say, feeling my face getting even hotter and purpler.

“I thought Melony was totally ignorant to pick on you like that,” says Sarah after class as we're walking home.

History is our last class on Friday. We have walked partway home together each Friday since the beginning of the school year. Previous Fridays we talked politely about general topics. This Friday, we suddenly talked on a personal level, as though we were friends.

“Melony is as dumb as Bob,” I say. “I hear they're going out together. They deserve each other. Actually, I was more embarrassed by Mr. Dunlop. Now he'll expect me to write brilliant essays or something, and I really don't care about school that much. I've got a job now, and I'm into fashion. I want to open a clothing boutique like my grandmother did after her kids grew up.”

“You don't have to go to university for fashion,” says Sarah. “But I think you still have to go to a community college.”

“I don't want to go to university,” I say. “Or college.
I'm not an intellectual like my parents and Aunt Hanna. Anyway, there are hardly any jobs for university graduates. It took my mother fifteen years after university to find a full-time job so she could raise me and buy a house. By the time Mom found the perfect job, I was already raised.”

“Didn't you say that your father is a journalist?” asks Sarah.

“That's my grandfather. My father is a translator over in Poland,” I say. “He used to translate for this guy called Lech Walesa. Walesa was a revolutionary leader who won the Nobel Prize for peace about twenty years ago. My parents are divorced.”

“That sounds exciting,” says Sarah, pausing at my ugly little red-brick bungalow. “I mean, about the Nobel Prize.”

“It's not,” I say. “Because I've never seen my father. He has another family. A wife and son. There's no contact at all. Not even letters. Mom hears news about him from an old aunt who still lives in Poland. This aunt has an apartment across the hall from my father's apartment. She is so old that she actually knew my father's parents and grandparents!”

“You could visit your father, couldn't you?” asks Sarah. “Poland isn't communist any more.”

“Of course I could,” I say, “if I had the money. And if he invited me. But so far he hasn't invited me. Mom thinks my father's present wife is jealous of me and won't let him see me.”

“Is your Aunt Hanna really old?” says Sarah, flicking her long, perfect hair.

“Pretty old,” I say. “Fifty-nine. She's a total invalid.”

“That's awful,” repeats Sarah. “My family is so boring compared to yours. My father calls us a FOOF: ‘Fine Old Ontario Family. Pop, Mom, boy, girl. Healthy. Wealthy. Wise.' That's why I've got to get out of here. One more year, and Paris here I come. Or New York.”

“I can see your name in lights now,” I say. “TONIGHT: SARAH SMITH!”

“No, no! Too WASP! I'm changing my name to something Arab, or French, or . . .”

“How about Naomi Goralski?” I ask, smiling fakely.

“Hey! That's it! Jewish and Polish! How glamorous can you get?” Sarah says.

Sarah and I make a few more dumb name jokes, then she continues down the sidewalk to her gorgeous, gleaming, white, two-storey, Cape Cod house a few blocks away.

Sarah lives near where Curtis lives. One day I checked out their addresses in the phone book, and then I walked past Sarah's house. I was too embarrassed to walk past Curtis' house, so I don't know what it looks like. Curtis has not phoned me yet, so I suppose I was mistaken about the intensity of his glances at me. I am really disappointed that he has not called.

As I trudged up our cracked, weed-filled driveway to my run-down house, I was thinking that Sarah would have laughed hysterically if I had told her about my heartfelt desire to sing with her band and have a boyfriend.

“Hi!” I say to Hanna, leaning into my old room.

“Hello!” says Hanna. With a single word, she reveals that she is a foreigner. She pronounces
hello
like HALLO.

Her expression is gentle and sweet. This makes me feel guilty, but I still don't want to visit with her right now, so I rush off to the kitchen for a snack.

As I'm eating vanilla yoghurt mixed with sliced banana and granola, I pull my marked history assignment out of my backpack and read Mr. Dunlop's comments: “A+. This is outstanding. Maybe you would like to collect more of your family's memories of World War II for a longer, special project.”

A+? Hey! I am not a bad student. I always pass. But this is my first A+! Trust my mother, the ace student, to get an A+. I get mostly Bs. My mother says I don't “apply myself”. I could use an A+ in history. But unfortunately, there's nobody in my family to interview.

I started working last week. My job is cleaning at the Mapleville Recreation Complex, about six blocks from where we live. The job is hard. Huge mops. Heavy buckets of water. Dozens of toilets and sinks to scrub. Kilometres of walls and floors to wash. Minimum wage. Naturally. Weekends and holidays. Naturally. But I'm lucky to have any job.

If it weren't for Mary, I would have quit after the first hour. Mary is a medical doctor from Poland who is working as a cleaner because she's not licenced to practice medicine in Canada. Mary is older than Hanna: sixty-six. She is well dressed, sophisticated
and humorous. She came to Canada eight years ago.

Mary has been cleaning full time at the Rec Plex for four years. She is my supervisor, but she helps me a lot. She doesn't just boss me.

Mary talks almost constantly as we are working together. She tries to teach me stuff by telling me funny little stories. At times, her stories are almost impossible to understand, because her English is so bad. I have to listen closely and get her to repeat words, so I can figure out what she is trying to say. She asks me to correct her English. But if I corrected every mistake, she'd never finish one single story in a whole eight-hour shift.

Mary says she's writing her life story for her grandchildren. I hope her Polish is better than her English!