All the Silent Spaces

by Christine Ristaino

  Chapter 22:

  Cartoons

  I attended a presentation given by Ronnie Bonner, Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Community. I had seen his name everywhere but had never met him. In person he was dynamic and intense.

  Part of the provost’s presentation involved a recent incident, where a student—who had lived in Israel twice before—had published a cartoon in the university’s student newspaper that seemed to equate Israel’s security wall with Nazi imprisonment and the persecution of Jews in Poland. “I feel there are some eerie similarities between the boundary wall erected in Jerusalem and the walls of the Jewish ghettos in Europe during World War II. . . . I have no intention of inciting a connection with the Holocaust,” he had written, despite having just done so.

  The campus began an involved debate culminating in a letter written by fifteen of the university’s most prominent, tenured professors, condemning the cartoon and asking the newspaper for a public apology for having printed it.

  The provost wanted to know what tone this type of letter set for students and if a different approach could have included rather than alienated students from the conversation. We all agreed—there were charged topics, topics that made incredible pain resurface. How could faculty, despite the pain the cartoon had provoked, have reached out to this student?

  After the discussion, I approached Provost Bonner. “My children and I were attacked in a parking lot, and people kept asking me if my attacker was black. My angry responses to their questions stopped our conversations.”

  The provost nodded.

  “When something is painful,” I said, “you just want to shut down, stop a conversation, prevent it from happening. It’s sort of a protection. But I was alienating people.”

  I told the provost about my son’s fears of black men after the attack. “I wanted to recognize this was a fear based on an experience, but I also wanted to diffuse it.”

  After our conversation, the provost shook my hand and thanked me for talking with him.

  When I walked away, I felt great. I had shared how his story had affected me. But later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I wondered if I had gone too far, talked too much, taken advantage of the provost’s willingness to listen. Did he think I agreed with my son about fearing black men? Did he feel singled out as a black man? Had I conveyed what I wanted or had I rushed through the story, not connecting the dots, my message that I was appreciative of the risks he was taking lost somewhere? And was this topic just too painful? I had taken a risk, one I would continue to take, but the lines still remained dizzying.

  Retrogression 23:

  September 15, 2007, 7:09 p.m.

  I stand on the sidewalk in front of the store. Next to me in an awkward line are Ada, Sam, an Asian couple with a baby, and a white woman. I wipe my face with napkins, guess at where the blood is. Nobody tells me for sure, and I use Ada’s tears to wet the paper. A woman exits the store and asks what happened. “I have been inside the store for about an hour,” she tells us. “That man was on the bench when I arrived.”

  Chapter 23:

  Misunderstanding

  When I help my children wash in the bathtub, I am careful. I put shampoo on my hands and massage their scalps. I soap up their backs, arms, legs, hands, and feet. When I get close to their privates, I hand them the soap.

  I explain to my daughter and son, “If anyone touches you in your private parts, anyone, you tell me or Dad. You promise?”

  When my son refuses to wash himself after pooping in his pants, I ask him first, “Can I wash you?” and when my daughter soils her pants after a bout of the runs, I inquire hesitantly, “Do you mind if I help you clean up?”

  I ask these things because I know how much is at stake. I think back and try to remember what my mother did—if she washed me in my private places, or asked me before she did, but nothing comes to mind. I remember her sweet smile, her laughter, her songs, but I don’t know who washed me when I was five.

  When I think of the man, I try to turn the story into a mistake. I try to imagine it was a misunderstanding—like when a parent washes a child in his or her private places and perhaps that child remembers incorrectly. Could that have happened? I worry about this scenario every time I have to wipe off my children’s poop or help them wash up, but deep inside I know what I remember was more than a misunderstanding.

  Retrogression 24:

  September 15, 2007, 7:07 p.m.

  A woman with brown hair in her mid-thirties arrives. “Oh my God,” she says and throws her arms around me. “Oh my God. Are you okay?” My daughter calls my name and I touch her hand. “It’s okay,” I say, lifting my son from the cart and pulling him into my chest. “We’re okay.” “It’s not okay, and you’re not okay,” she says. “I saw it.”

  Chapter 24:

  Samir and His Wife

  Damn immigrants don’t know how to drive. What the hell did you do? Fucking immigrant! You asshole. Why don’t you go back to where you came from!

  —A quote by a police officer to Samir, after a cement truck hit his car.

  At the Unitarian Universalist congregation, you can generally find fifteen or so children whose parents insist they attend a religious education (RE) class in the summer. On this Sunday, however, because the sermon would be given by activist Reverend Joseph Lowry, there were over fifty children between the ages of five and twelve who needed to be accommodated into RE classes. “Please could you stay and help with the children?” one administrator had asked me.

  I wanted to hear Lowry speak, but the children pulled me in their direction, too. “Okay,” I replied.

  There were too many children to hold class, so we took them outside to the playground. It was here where I had a long conversation with Samir’s nine-year-old son, who told me about a recent trip to Alaska he had taken and showed me photos of a cousin from India, which were on his new iPod. “I don’t have a single picture of my sister,” he said. “I’m going to have to change that.”

  I first met Samir at my university. I often ran into him in the parking lot in the mornings. Always afraid I would make a mess of his name, I rarely said it, or when I did, I would speak it quietly under my breath. Samir always remembered my name, and he pronounced it as though it were the title of a great piece of literature.

  The day I took Ada to aikido for the first time, I recognized Samir right away.

  “I didn’t know you did aikido,” he said to me. “Is she here for the class?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s new. We’re both new.”

  “Well, I’m her teacher,” Samir said. “This is my other life.”

  He took my daughter into his protective care, and I watched from the sidelines as she began her relationship with aikido.

  After the service on the playground, Samir and I greeted each other and then his wife arrived. I had met her a few times, but I couldn’t remember her name. She wasn’t a practicing aikido member, but she sometimes brought her children to classes and her smile relaxed me.

  “Have you met Christine?” Samir asked.

  “Yes, I have,” she said.

  “Did you know she works with me?”

  “I didn’t,” she responded.

  “Your children are great at aikido,” I said to her.

  “My daughter sometimes doesn’t want to go. But we told our children they have to take it forever so I will feel confident they are safe, or at least until they are ten,” she said, laughing.

  “Our daughter’s so small,” Samir added.

  “I enrolled my daughter without asking her. But Ada likes it,” I said.

  “I’ve never done it, but it seems organic, somewhat grounding. The world’s so fragmented,” Samir’s wife commented.

  “It is. My children and I were attacked recently. That’s why we started. I thought it would make all of us feel less vulnerable, but what I didn’t count on was how connected it would make us feel to others.”

  “I didn’t know,” Samir’s wife said and
paused. “I’ve never been attacked. But there were some close calls. Like the time I was gardening and these two teens came into my backyard, grabbed my hands forcefully, and said, ‘Get in your house, lady.’ I did this thing where I lifted my hands up, opened them away from each other, and freed myself.” Samir’s wife showed me what she had done.

  Samir clasped his hands in front of him. “She did an aikido move and she doesn’t even know aikido. Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Then I screamed at the top of my lungs, with all the force I could gather. It’s not natural to scream. In fact, it felt counterintuitive. But it worked. They both ran away so fast. When I got my bearings, I yelled after them, ‘I could be your mother. I could be your sister. What were you thinking?’”

  “Tell her about that other time in New York City—you know, that guy near the apartment building,” Samir said.

  “Oh, well I was walking home one night and there was this man waiting in a recessed doorway. We were both under a long scaffolding in New York City where they were doing work on the building. So once you entered, there was nothing you could do but go on. He had his hands folded in front of him. He stared at me. I didn’t know what to do. So I asked him, ‘Is this the way to Fifth Avenue? It is, isn’t it?’ I really thought he was going to mug me, but it completely disarmed him.”

  “I wish I could think that fast. Samir, has aikido made you more like your wife?” I said, laughing.

  “Yes,” he responded. “And I think it’s also changed the way I react to people. One time I was in a terrible accident. My car was hit by a cement truck, and it turned around and around and slid into oncoming traffic. A few minutes after the accident, a policeman opened my door and began screaming at me about being an immigrant and my driving skills, as though being hit by a cement truck had been my fault because of who I am. I stayed calm and said, ‘Look. I was just in a really bad car accident and I’m a bit shaken up, so could you give me a moment to collect my thoughts?’ The man stopped yelling at me.”

  For a moment we were all silent. I glanced at my children. Samuel was inside a plastic house, calling out to Ada, “Hey Ada, look at me. I’m in the window.”

  Ada held on to the monkey bars, grabbed one bar, then the next, and acknowledged her brother with a nod.

  “That’s the worst story of them all,” I told Samir.

  I began to shred a paper napkin that was in my hand and thought about the implications of Samir’s story. “The man could have shown compassion,” I said. “Did you report him?”

  “I did. There was a black officer who came after and I told him about it. But he said, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’ He’d seen him do this before and it didn’t end well when the person complained.”

  Samir shook his head and his whole posture changed.

  I glanced again at my children. They had been talking with a boy about who would use the tire swing. “Mom,” my daughter said when she caught my glance. “He’s not sharing.”

  “I saw you talking with him—you and Sam. Why don’t you talk more until you figure it out. I’ll wait. We have time.”

  Retrogression 25:

  September 15, 2007, 7:06 p.m. and 30 seconds.

  “I was just attacked,” I tell the Asian couple with the baby. “I need you to call the police.” I’m not sure if they speak English, but then the man takes his cell phone out of a pocket and holds it out to me. “Please, could you dial?” I say, glancing at my hands, which are covered in blood. “I don’t want to get blood on your phone.”

  Chapter 25:

  Waiting for Repairs

  As most people in the United States began preparing emotionally for the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I was preparing for 9/15, the first anniversary of my own attack—so much so I was surprised to hear the radio announcement one morning to mark the 8:46 a.m. moment of silence when the first plane hit.

  I had been feeling the weight of my own attack as August turned into September. In fact, everything had seemed more difficult. Even the small task of returning an email had become overwhelming. My son and I suffered from the same insomnia and often kept each other company in the early hours, and I couldn’t help but acknowledge a feeling of restlessness that was getting worse as the fifteenth approached. It was around this time my son poured a full glass of water onto my computer. “Hey, Mom,” he said, and when I looked, he tipped the glass over.

  My husband and I try to support local businesses, so I took my computer to a Middle Eastern man who had his own store at a shopping center near my home. He was a small man who looked as tired as I felt.

  He must have children, I thought.

  “Your son poured water on your computer?” the repairman asked.

  “Yes, on purpose,” I said.

  “Oh. I’ll order some new parts,” he said, touching the side of his brown hair. He wore glasses and his pupils shone from behind them, adding a seriousness to his expression. “It will take at least a week.”

  A week later I stopped by the shop unannounced to ask about my computer’s progress. There it was, spread out in front of us like a jigsaw puzzle.

  “I’m sorry,” the store owner said as he fumbled in front of me. “I had to take your computer apart entirely. I usually work on IBMs and it’s easy to change the keyboard on an IBM laptop. You just snap it in. But with Macs, you have to take the whole laptop apart.” He frowned. “Look. Here’s what I needed to take apart,” he said, as he pointed to the frame. “See. Right here’s the new keyboard.” He slid his hand along the side and looked up. “And I’ve checked every key, but one of them doesn’t work. See, this one right here. The caps lock.” He touched the key with his finger and pressed it, even though it wasn’t connected to a computer. “That one’s not working at all. Every other key is working but this one.” He looked at me and shrugged with half a frown. “I’ve asked them to send me another keyboard and they are going to, but it will be a few more days until it arrives.”

  “So when do you think it will be ready?” I asked.

  “Three or four days. I will call you when it’s ready.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

  I walked out of the computer store with my heart racing. A month earlier, one of the computer support techs from my university had fixed a problem with my computer. I thought I was going to have to bring my laptop to him. Instead, we both logged on under different names—he from campus, I from my house. I was amazed that both of us could move the mouse, type, and control what happened on the desktop. This experience had unnerved me. What else were people capable of doing and who else could do this? I thought of my computer, completely open and vulnerable on the countertop of a stranger’s shop. I imagined insanely he was part of a terrorist organization and had decided to use my computer and email account to make plans. I would be arrested for suspected terrorist activities.

  “But I don’t know anything about this,” I would say.

  There would be a whole pile of emails sent from my account as evidence, and I would be led out of the courtroom, condemned to death. I’d wave goodbye to my husband and crying children, never to see them again. Or worse, I’d simply disappear and nobody would know where to find me. My family would search everywhere. I’d end up at Guantánamo Bay, no court date in sight, unprotected by the Geneva Convention, and with no way to contact those I loved for help.

  I have to say, this scenario bothered me. Hadn’t I felt connected to the computer repairman’s tired eyes only a week before? I was disappointed in myself, but I couldn’t stop worrying. I tried to quell the feeling of unease that kept tugging at me from inside, but this did nothing to prevent me from thinking something terrible could happen to us at any moment. The more I tried to put the scenario out of my mind, the more I thought of it. I didn’t dare tell anyone. They would think I was crazy.

  One night my husband and I had just put the kids to bed. It was late, and I could tell by the way my body felt, my arms stiff, my toes trying to poke through the hole
they had found in my sock, that falling asleep would be an accomplishment. Perhaps this was why I decided to broach the subject of the computer repairman with my husband, against my better judgment.

  “This man who is working on my computer. Why did he have to open it up so completely?” I asked as I filled the teakettle with water and placed it on the burner. “Don’t you think it would be easy to change the keyboard? It’s right there on top of the computer.”

  “Maybe it’s attached to something inside,” my husband said as he pulled two cups from the cupboard in front of him and placed teabags into them—chamomile for me, Irish Breakfast for him.

  “And I don’t understand this thing about the caps lock key. Does that sound strange to you?”

  “Sam did pour a whole glass of water on it. I’m surprised there’s not more damage.”

  “But what if he’s doing something to my computer? What if he’s . . . I don’t know.”

  My husband frowned. He wasn’t getting it. The scenario I had imagined had never even crossed his mind. The kettle whistled and I began to fill both cups with hot water.

  “The tech people at my school. They could get onto my computer from campus. Do you think this man can do that?”

  “I don’t think so, honey. I think he’s probably tired of looking at your computer. He’s had it for almost two weeks,” my husband said.

  “I guess I’m afraid he’s going to use my email account to plan something.”

  I took a sip of my tea and felt the sting of hot water on my lip. Should have waited. By the look on my husband’s face, I knew he thought I had gone totally bonkers. Then we both began to laugh.

  “What are you afraid of?” he finally asked. “Are you afraid he’s a terrorist or something?”

  The room was quiet. I sat at the kitchen table and tried to find its surface, which was obscured by bills, my daughter’s homework, a few napkins, and a jar of honey.