Making Angels Laugh

by Woods, Karen

  Mrs. Banks smiled, but there was something odd about that smile, as though she couldn’t quite believe this conversation. “Dreiser based the novel on an actual murder conviction of a man whose girlfriend drowned in a lake and the execution of that man. Dreiser even gave his protagonist the same initials as the convicted man.”

  “So, that was where some of the richness of the detail came from,” Margarita replied, her voice thoughtful. “Hmmm, that is interesting. I’m not sure what I think of that.”

  “Do you like novels or poetry better?”

  “That’s like asking if I prefer sculpture or sketches. Both have their places. We’d be a good deal poorer culturally if either were missing.”

  “What did you think of Miss Dickinson?”

  “Of the woman, or of her work?” Margarita asked, not quite sure of what the teacher was asking.

  “Let’s start with the woman,” Mrs. Banks said.

  “It is not my place to judge anyone, living or dead. That is God’s right, not mine. But it seems from her work that Miss Dickinson was an extremely lonely woman with too much time on her hands, too little contact with the world, too little faith in God, too strong of a sense of convention, and far too little imagination to conceive of thwarting conventions even while she clearly seriously chafed under the massive social and economic restrictions Victorian society placed upon so called gently reared women.”

  Mrs. Banks wore a stunned expression for a brief moment, then smiled slightly. “Rita, could you write an essay explaining your view of Miss Dickinson, and bring in examples from her writing to support your views?”

  “Certainly, I am able to do so. I assume you want this essay to be written in English?”

  Mrs. Banks looked puzzled for a moment. Then she sighed, obviously forced a smile, and asked, “What other languages do you write in, Child?”

  “Other than English, I write well in Russian, French, Spanish, and German. I have conversational or reading skills in a few other languages. I am simply not comfortable enough with the grammar and vocabularies of those languages to write anything important in any language, apart from those I have mentioned.”

  “English will do. I will provide paper. And a copy of her poems. You have pencils.”

  “No need for the book. I remember the poems.”

  Mrs. Banks smiled warily, “You have that good of a memory?”

  “I am blessed, or cursed, with an…” she searched for the word in English, “eidetic memory, or something closely akin thereto. I read quickly and remember almost everything that I’ve ever read.”

  Mrs. Banks rose from the table, walked back to her desk, and opened the test booklet. “What was question twenty-two on the math section of the test?”

  Margarita sighed, not at all liking her word being questioned, but replied, barely concealing her anger, “Three boys decide to pool their money to buy a baseball from the store. John has a quarter. Billy has three nickels. Mike has two dimes and a nickel. A baseball costs sixty cents. Sales tax is five percent. How much change would they receive?”

  “And the answer is?”

  “Two cents,” Rita replied.

  Mrs. Banks looked at her for a long moment.

  Even now with forty-four years having passed, Rita recalled clearly the interior struggle mirrored on the teacher’s face as Mrs. Banks labored to reconcile expectations of an average ten-year old with the reality that was Margarita Aleksandrova Melnikova. After a moment, a long moment, Mrs. Banks said, “That is amazing.”

  “No, it is not at all amazing. Not for me, at least. I remember nearly everything I read whether I want to or not… I wish I could forget some of the books I have read.”

  “What, in particular, have you read that you would like to be able to forget?” Mrs. Banks asked.

  Margarita sighed, heavily as she regretted ever saying anything. “We can start with Mein Kampf.”

  The surprise in the teacher’s voice was clear and unmistakable, “Hitler’s book, the one he wrote while in jail in the 1920s, that laid out his vision for National Socialism and Germany?”

  “I was unaware there was another book by that title,” Margarita replied, her voice quiet. “Yes, it is Hitler’s manifesto that I would like to purge from my mind.”

  “Why in the world did you read that?” Mrs. Banks demanded.

  “My mother believes in using actual documents to teach history. So, while I was studying the Great Patriotic War, what most of the world knows as the Second World War, I read those volumes, and far more.”

  “Do you remember the name of the translator of Mein Kampf?”

  “There was no translator, Madam. I read it in German, the 1926 edition. Mama and I found that in a used book store in Bogata.”

  “Bogata, Colombia?”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  “What were you doing in Colombia?” the teacher’s voice was incredulous.

  Again, Margarita shrugged, “Everyone has to be somewhere. Papa and Mama were working in Columbia while we waited for US Immigration permission.”

  Mrs. Banks brought over a blue paper covered examination book containing blank, college ruled, pages. “Write your name on the cover and give your essay a title. Then start your essay about your opinion of Emily Dickinson’s poetry on the first page of the exam booklet. I’d like to see a standard five paragraph essay; opening paragraph, three good paragraphs supporting your arguments, and a strong conclusion. While you are working on that, I’m going to go make a phone call. I want you to talk to Mrs. English, who teaches foreign languages at the High School while I arrange for you to take some more advanced assessments in mathematics, science, history, and English.”

  “I am here to be placed in school. Whatever you wish me to do, I shall attempt to the very best of my ability.”

  Mrs. Banks smiled. “Thank you.”

  “I am simply doing as I am instructed,” Margarita replied, clearly puzzled. “This is as much to my advantage and it is to the school’s. Neither of us wants me to be in a place where I will be… the idiom, I believe is… ‘bored to tears’. Why would you thank me for this?”

  Mrs. Banks smiled, although the smile was strained, “I’m thanking you for making my job more pleasant. Many people would be upset or angry at this. You are handling this whole situation with far more maturity than I would expect from a ten-year old.”

  Margarita shrugged. “I can be only who I am.”

  The ringing of the cell phone brought Rita out of her remembrances and back to reality. She didn’t have time to walk down memory lane. Not that they were memories she wanted to dwell upon, anyway. She had work to do. Patients to treat. And she was due in the cath lab for three fairly simple procedures for patients this morning before she had other patients to consult.

  Chapter Two

  As the grandfather’s clock in the corner of her office struck noon, Yulia, Rita’s nurse/personal assistant, reminded her, in Russian, “This was the last consultation of the morning, Matushka. You have a lunch meeting with the physical therapy staff. Weekly status meeting on cases. You’ll be in the small conference room.”

  Rita replied in Russian, “Thank you, Yulia. What does the rest of my schedule look like for today?”

  “After lunch you have patient consultations until three. You’re in the gym teaching your self-defense class at three fifteen until four thirty. At five fifteen, you have a dinner meeting in the large conference room. Vespers in the chapel at seven. After that have a free evening. Since you’re traveling tomorrow, that’s a good thing.”

  “I take it you know about this surprise birthday present?”

  Yulia laughed at the dryness of her boss’s tone. “Since I manage your calendar, I had to be informed. I was instructed that this was a surprise present and I was to keep silent.”

  “It was a surprise; that much is true.” Rita sighed then forced a smile. Speaking in English, she said, “The small conference room for lunch with the PT staff? And the large conference room at a qua
rter past five. Who am I meeting with this evening?”

  “The senior staff weekly status meeting, moved up to today because of your leaving tomorrow. As usual, dinner will be served.”

  “Very well.”

  Walking down the hall to the conference room put her in mind of another walk, another day, long ago.

  Ten-year old Margarita looked up at her father as she and her parents entered the hundred-year old Township High School building on Saturday the seventh of July. She knew actual age of the building only because she had read the timeworn cornerstone as she and her parents had walked past it.

  The school building smelled, to her, of sweat and disinfectant, of wax and dust, of joy and fear, of pain and pleasure, of dreams fulfilled and shattered, of teenagers and old people. If the adults, both her parents and the school board, had their way, and she knew they would, she would be enrolled in High School here for the coming year. The prospect utterly terrified her.

  A woman met them just inside the door. She was middle aged, her once dark hair liberally streaked with gray and pulled severely back from her face and confined in a tight bun. She wore an unpleasant expression on her face as she tapped her foot and glared at her watch. From the lines on the woman’s face, it appeared that woman typically wore an unpleasant expression. “It’s about time that you arrived. You’re late. But that’s typical for Ruskies.” She made an unpleasant, dismissive, sound in the back of her throat. “None of you know how to get anywhere on time.”

  Margarita didn’t like that woman, at all, just on first impression. And further acquaintance hadn’t, at all, improved her opinion of the high school secretary, Donna Petit, whom she still thought of as a bitter, angry, and quarrelsome old woman.

  Papa looked at his watch. “Appointment is for half nine. We are early.”

  The woman cleared her throat. “Follow me, now. Superintendent Jones does not like to be kept waiting. Bad impression to make, being so late. Especially when he’s gathered the faculty committee on a summer weekend, at your convenience, and their great inconvenience.”

  Then the woman turned and walked away, muttering something about ungrateful, and privileged, foreigners thinking that they were entitled to special treatment.

  Margarita did not miss the dismayed and disappointed look that passed between her parents.

  As they followed the woman, their footfalls echoing the nearly empty hall, Margarita saw a bulletin board that contained the photographs of all the teachers of the school with captions as to their names and subject matter. It wasn’t a large faculty: two teachers for each of the academic subjects of English, Foreign Language, Mathematics, Science, History; one teacher each for Business, Industrial Arts/Agriculture, Auto Shop, Home Economics, Boys Physical Education, and Girls Physical Education; a guidance counsellor, and the Principal who was also the director of the band, orchestra, and vocal music programs. The PE teachers taught health and driver’s education, as well as physical education.

  They followed the woman from the hall into an office where she announced, “Superintendent, the Melnikov family is here, finally.”

  Superintendent Jones, a large man seated behind an equally large table or rather a group of banquet tables pushed together, looked at his watch. “They’re early. But show them in, Donna. We’re ready for them. Doctors Melnikov, Melnikova, Miss Melnikova, please come in and be seated. We were just reviewing the young lady’s test scores and trying to figure out exactly how we can best serve her.”

  As the Superintendent invited them to do, Margarita took a seat on an armless straight backed oak chair. Her parents sat one on each side of her in similar chairs, across from the Superintendent and several of the high school teachers. The worn wood was rough against the back of her knees.

  She had met several of these people during the week of testing that she had undergone for placement here. Present were: Mrs. English who, ironically enough, taught Spanish and German; Mr. Haight who taught chemistry and physics; Mr. Barton who taught mathematics; Mrs. James who taught history; Mrs. Henderson who taught English; the girls’ physical education teacher Ms. Cumberland; the school guidance counsellor Mrs. Fisher; and the high school principal, Dr. Fisher.

  “Now,” Superintendent Jones said, “we were just reviewing your placement tests. Rita, I must say, young woman, we honestly don’t quite know what to do with you. Age wise, you belong in elementary school. Placing you there would not be doing anyone a favor. Ability wise, you’re well past high school level in most subjects, having shown proficiency in all levels of our curricula in several areas, namely mathematics, science, and foreign languages, as well as testing out of several English and History classes. We have little to nothing to offer you in those areas. We have already decided to grant you the credits in those courses with the highest possible grades, based on your test scores. Which, technically, gives you sufficient credits to graduate, and then some.”

  The superintendent sighed, then continued, “And if you would like, Doctors Melnikov, the district will waive the physical education requirements, and all other unmet requirements, for her to graduate and will issue her high school diploma, now, based on her testing, with the proviso that she pass the test on the US Constitution and Illinois Constitution.”

  “That might be the best solution,” Margarita said in Russian, looking hopefully from one parent to the other. “That way I can travel with Papa to the University and take classes there.”

  Mama shook her head negatively as did Papa. Mama replied, “That is an option, of course, Superintendent… She could benefit from more time to master colloquial English. A year or two of exposure to colloquial English in an academic environment cannot be anything except a good preparation for her future success.”

  Papa said, “I will arrange for her to have mathematics and science instruction as directed studies at the University where I teach. Her work there will have minimal impact on her studies here. She will have a testing and laboratory work day now and again. She will need to be excused from classes here on those days.”

  “We can work around that,” the Superintendent agreed. “Talent should be encouraged. We have three other high school students who are doing college level mathematics at the community college. Perhaps they can form a study group. We will put you in touch with the families. It is district policy that college credits earned with a C or better grade can be applied to high school, one semester college for a year’s credit at the high school. Still, Doctors Melnikov, I must confess, we are still at a loss of how to handle her education.”

  Principal Fisher asked, “Doctors Melnikov, what is your overall plan for your daughter? How can we best help you in her formation?”

  Papa replied, “We intend for her to go to University full time by the age of fourteen. Until then, we expect that she will be full time here and part time at University.”

  “And long term?” Principal Fisher asked.

  Papa said, “It is our daughter’s desire that she go to Medical School and then to spend her life in the practice of medicine. We fully support her in this.”

  Margarita stated, “I wish to serve God as a medical missionary nun.”

  No one among the educational establishment seemed quite certain of how to react to her stated goal.

  “So, you expect her to be admitted to Med School at sixteen?” Principal Fisher asked her parents.

  “Or sooner, depending on when she completes her bachelor’s degree,” Mama replied. “Yes. That is the plan. As for what we want from the school, we want her to become accustomed to classrooms, to institutional learning. We have, until now, given her a good private education.”

  “A good private education, indeed,” Principal Fisher said. “We all agree that Margarita Aleksandrova is a remarkably well educated young woman. You have done an excellent job with her. You should be very proud.”

  Mama shrugged, “My daughter absorbs knowledge the way that sponges soak up fluid. Her education is largely to her own credit.”

 
“We are simply trying to determine what her schedule might look like for the fall,” Principal Fisher continued. “Margarita, what classes would you like to take?”

  Margarita smiled. “I have not had much exposure to American Literature, so I would like to study that. I would truly like to learn some practical skills like typing, accounting, auto mechanics, woodworking, some basic construction skills including electrical wiring, drafting, carpentry, plumbing, and so forth. When I am grown, I need to be able to… oh, what is the idiom?… ‘stand on my own two feet’. This may be the last time in my life I’ll have both the opportunity and the leisure to learn many of these life skills. Can you assist me with learning the skills I will need to be successful in life?”

  “I think we can manage that,” Principal Fisher said with a smile. “Anything else?”

  “May I audition for the high school band?”

  Chapter Three

  The only bad thing about the end of a work day was that work was done and her “real life”, such that it was, could crowd into her thoughts. Of course, today, it was hard to tell the difference. Her thoughts had been all too filled with the past. Yet, she had done her job; consulted patients, taken her meetings with staff, and had just finished teaching the class in Krav Maga.

  The class, as usual, had been well attended by both patients and staff. Rita liked teaching this basic self-defense class but only could teach it a couple of times a week, because of her other duties. Most of the time, this class was taught by her staff members, most of whom she had, herself, trained in this most pragmatic of martial arts.

  Stretching, she dried off following her after-class shower. This class was always a good deal of fun to teach. And teaching this class a couple of times a week let her have a good workout as well. Between this class, mile long freestyle swims three days a week, and dropping in on the walking for fitness group occasionally, she stayed reasonably fit.