by Rachel Klein
I was standing outside the Math room with a bunch of girls, waiting for Mrs. Hutchinson to open the door and let us in, when Megan Montgomery said, “I think we should just go in there and bomb the hell out of them! We could level Hanoi in a couple days.”
Megan wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, or maybe the remark was directed at me. How could I keep my mouth shut?
“What a horrible thing to say,” I said. “So many innocent people will die.”
“It’s us or them,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a very hard choice. Let’s bomb them back to the Stone Age and get the rest of our troops out of there.”
“You’re just repeating what your parents say.”
“What about you? Your commie parents … or mother. She’s probably at a protest march right now.” Megan laughed at her joke, and I could see that the other girls were trying not to laugh, too.
My face got hot, not from embarrassment but from anger. “At least my mother, my commie mother, hates murder. What does it feel like to want to kill another human being?”
My voice was rising, and the circle of girls had stepped away from me. At that moment, Mrs. Hutchinson opened the door, and her gray head emerged. “What’s all the commotion out here, girls?”
Everyone else hurried into the classroom, eager to get away from me. I stayed out in the hallway, trying to calm down, but I couldn’t get rid of Megan and her smug, self-satisfied grin.
I should feel sorry for someone who can’t think for herself and is trapped by her parents’ stupid ideas. The exploding bombs are as unreal to her as a Buddhist priest setting himself on fire was to me. I watched the transparent flames nibble at his robes and suddenly shoot straight up in the air. The body collapsed, and the black smoke of the priest’s burning flesh billowed around his still frame. I wasn’t even sad; it was taking place only on the television set. That was how we could stand to witness a scene like this.
For the first time in months, I missed Dora. The only girl who could have understood what I was feeling, my moral indignation, was dead.
Maybe I’ll call my mother after dinner. She’s the one who sent me here in the first place to be with girls like that.
April 4
Sunday is a lost day. I don’t know if it’s the beginning or the end of the week. Even when I was a little girl, Sunday always pulled me down. Now it’s much worse. I never know what to do on Sunday.
I’d thought about doing this for a long time.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and no one was around. The corridor was deserted. It was so still. I was sitting in my room, staring out the window. This was what I had been waiting for.
There was no answer to my knock. When I turned the knob, the door swung open partway. No one stood in my way. If Ernessa surprised me, I would say that I was looking for Lucy. The dresser was still pushed right up to the door. I moved a few steps into the room and closed the door behind me.
Nothing had changed since the last time I was there. The room was bare. No books, no pens and paper, no hairbrush and shampoo, no photographs or letters. Only bed, dresser, desk, chair, lamp, the basic furnishings listed in the brochure. If Ernessa had packed up and left during the night, it would look the same. There was no longer the horrible smell that used to seep into the corridor. The window was closed. It was very stuffy. The stuffiness grew more oppressive. Something was drawing the air out of the room.
“She doesn’t breathe the same air as the rest of us.” I said it out loud to remind myself that I could still speak.
Tiredness, heaviness inside me. They were so inviting. “Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, / Luxe, calme et volupté.” I wondered if I had the strength to make it to the door and turn the knob. No matter how I gasped for air, I needed more and more. It wasn’t at all what I expected.
There was a slight murmur that made me turn my head. Then it grew louder and became the sound of water rushing over the rocks in a streambed, throwing up white foam.
The room was crowded with people. So crowded that they merged into one another. They had no substance yet they pressed against me. I couldn’t recognize any of the faces. I was dizzy, and everything was blurred by their sound. I wasn’t sure that they had faces or even bodies. They gave off a feeling of despair that was as strong as the smell of sweat in the locker room. There were so many of them, and they kept coming.
In time, Lucy was going to end up there. My father might already be there, welcoming me. If it no longer frightened me, why wait? I was among them. I could hear my father’s voice clearly. “I had not thought death had undone so many.” He always used to laugh when he recited those words. It was one of his favorite lines.
I forced myself across the room, through the pressing bodies, and fell against the door. Out in the hallway, I gulped the air in huge mouthfuls, greedily. I locked myself in my bathroom and sat on the cold tile floor for a long time. In the mirror, my face was still a deep red, and my ears ached with the deafening rushing of my blood.
April 6
Mr. Davies stopped me again in the hall to ask how I was. He wanted me to come visit him. I asked him why. He looked pained and said, “To chat. Talk about books.”
All around me, in the hallway, were clumps of girls, talking, swinging their book bags, eating and drinking. No one noticed Mr. Davies and me standing off to the side. No one noticed the way he looked at me.
April 8
I forced myself to go to Mr. Davies’s room. Claire was waiting around afterward to find out what we talked about. “Death.” That was all I would tell her. She crinkled up her big bony nose in disgust.
The door was closed, so she couldn’t possibly have seen Mr. Davies lean over and put his hand over mine.
I could make him fall in love with me, if I wanted. I could make him do anything. He looks at me for a long time. He can’t stop looking at me. What is he looking for?
He was telling me this afternoon that his poetry class is reading Emily Dickinson.
“Why?” I asked, annoyed. “Her poems weren’t written for stupid girls like that. Those are the girls who used to avoid me because I reminded them of something unpleasant. I frightened them.” I imagined the girls reading the words and heard their embarrassed laughter. “Let them have Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Insanity, failed love, suicide. That’s good enough for them.”
“Whom were those poems written for?” he asked. That was when he put his hand over mine. He pressed down hard; he was trying to restrain me.
“For me.”
“Just for you?”
“Yes. Not even for you. They’re mine.”
I was upset when I left his room. I could have cried for hours. Instead, I had to deal with Claire.
Next time I see him, I’m going to tell him that I don’t need Emily Dickinson’s poems anymore. He can have them. Even the stupid girls can have them.
April 9
This morning in assembly, Miss Rood read Ernessa’s name again, for the fourth week in a row, for cutting gym. Miss Bobbie is out to get Ernessa. Miss Rood tolerates Jews, even though she doesn’t like them, but Miss Bobbie hates them. She’ll go after Ernessa. She’s done the same thing to Dora and me. For a while, Dora stopped wearing a bra, and Miss Bobbie used to come up behind her and run her finger up her back to check for the strap. She gave her so many comments for not wearing a bra. I don’t even think there’s a rule that says we have to wear a bra. Once I didn’t have a clean white shirt, and I just wore a sweater on top. Lots of girls do that. She caught me first thing in the morning and gave me a comment for being out of uniform. She’s given me so many comments on Monday morning for dirty shoes. That’s her life.
Maybe Miss Rood makes sure there are always a few Jews at school to keep Miss Bobbie occupied.
I looked at Ernessa after Miss Rood called her name. As usual, she turned to glare at Miss Bobbie, who always sits next to the doors to the assembly room. She was furious. She refused to stop staring at her. After assembly, Mrs. Halton
pulled her aside to talk to her. I couldn’t hear what she said to Ernessa.
April 10
No one ever talks about Ernessa in front of me. Sometimes they even stop talking when I come into a room. I know what they’ve been talking about. This afternoon, when I was in Sofia’s room, I overheard a conversation between Sofia and Carol about Ernessa. I was reading in Sofia’s big chair, and they were lying on her bed. They forgot I was in the room. I stuck my head deeper into my book and held my breath. I was afraid they would remember I was there and stop talking.
“Miss Bobbie is making Ernessa swim laps every day after school next week. It’s punishment for cutting gym,” said Carol. “Lucy says that she hates to swim. It’s a torture for her.”
“Why doesn’t Ernessa just say she has her period and can’t swim?” asked Sofia. “I’d do that.”
“She doesn’t want to go to the nurse and get a note. Then she has to deal with the nurse, too. Besides, Miss Bobbie will just make her do it the next week. She can’t have her period forever.”
“Then she should say that she can’t swim.”
“But she passed the swim test last fall. Otherwise she would have had to take a class.”
“She could say she isn’t very good.”
“Apparently Miss Bobbie told Ernessa, ‘If you can swim one lap, you can swim ten. This will be good practice for you.’ What a bitch that woman is!”
Miss Bobbie has tortured me plenty; now it’s Ernessa’s turn. But I can’t enjoy it. Lucy’s sympathy infuriates me.
I imagined Ernessa going into the locker room next to the pool, where all the bathing suits are arranged on shelves according to size. It doesn’t make any difference what size you choose, because once you get into the water, the cotton loses its shape immediately and hangs from your body. Some of the suits are newer, a deeper blue, and others faded almost to white, but they are all like bags, exposing your breasts and the pale skin under your arms.
There are always girls changing in the locker room. There’s no place to hide. She’ll have to change in front of them, to show them that she has a real body underneath her long sleeves and long skirts and long socks. She even wears her gym tunic down to her knees. No one does that. She’ll have to expose her nipples, her pubic hair, her belly, her ass, if only for a few seconds while she pulls on the suit. Someone will be sure to see her nakedness as she struggles to pull up her suit. That’s the torture for her. The other girls will see that her breasts are completely flat like a little girl’s. The nipples don’t even rise above the surface of the skin. They barely make a mark; they look like a shadow on her skin. It won’t be a secret any longer. They will be forced to admit her strangeness.
In ninth grade, when I had to change with older girls for swimming, I couldn’t help staring at them. My eyes were always drawn to that dark curly patch of hair between their legs, above the soft flesh of the thighs. On a little girl’s body, the smooth fold of skin is no different from an eyelid. It’s the hair that transforms it. The coarse hair hides the entrance to a secret place. My breasts were pathetic little mounds, and some of these girls had big round breasts with huge nipples that were pink and purple and brown. They had the bodies of women. They would catch me looking and accuse me of staring at them. Then everyone would look in my direction and see my puny body.
April 11
It’s the second day of Passover, and I’ve pretty much stopped eating. I haven’t told anyone. I just say that I’m not hungry. The only other person who would keep Passover is Ernessa, and she never eats anyway. Certainly not sweet things like cinnamon buns and angel food cake with whipped cream. There is something pleasurable about giving up what you want. My father always kept Passover and fasted on Yom Kippur. He loved to observe any kind of ritual, even though he didn’t believe in religion.
I’m drinking a lot of coffee and water.
April 12
New tables. For the first time, I’m at the same table as Ernessa, with Miss Bombay, no less. They put the two Jews at the same table during Passover.
April 13
After dinner
Another dinner with Ernessa. It’s hard not to stare at her the whole time. It’s either that or watch Miss Bombay shovel the food into her mouth. She’s even bigger than she used to be, like a beached whale. After dinner it takes her forever to get up from the table and walk over to the elevator. Without the elevator, she wouldn’t make it back to her room. All the time that she’s eating, she’s looking around the table to make sure that we are all eating well and drinking milk. Tonight she noticed that Ernessa was only pretending to eat and that she hadn’t touched her milk.
“Is there something the matter with the food, Ernessa?” she asked her. “It doesn’t suit you?”
“I’m not in the least hungry tonight,” said Ernessa.
“But we must eat to keep up our strength. Especially growing girls. We’re in no hurry at this table. We’ll wait for you to finish.”
“I don’t want any more,” said Ernessa.
“But you must eat unless you don’t feel well. In which case you’ll have to report to the infirmary after dinner.”
“What about her?” asked Ernessa, pointing her finger at me.
Miss Bombay followed her finger, along with everyone else at the table. They all stared at me and my plate, which was piled high with spaghetti. I had eaten the meatballs and finished my milk.
“Well, what about you? We’ll wait for you too.”
“I have a reason not to eat this,” I said very softly.
“And what is the reason?” asked Miss Bombay.
“It’s Passover.”
“Yes …”
“Well, I can’t eat spaghetti on Passover. It’s not allowed. I ate my meatballs. See?”
It was embarrassing to have to confess this in front of all the other girls. My face was burning red. But no one paid any attention to me. They were concentrating on Miss Bombay’s efforts to get Ernessa to eat some of her dinner and to drink milk. Ernessa took a few bites and some sips of her milk, and that seemed to satisfy Miss Bombay, who only wanted to see some food go into her. Ernessa put down her fork, and Miss Bombay told the clearers to take away the plates. There was a huge clatter of dishes, since everyone was in a hurry to finish by now. Most of the other tables were already dismissed, and girls were drinking coffee. The two of us were no longer the subject of everyone’s attention. I turned to look at Ernessa. This was the first time I had ever seen her eat or drink anything.
“Don’t you feel better now?” asked Miss Bombay.
“No,” answered Ernessa. “I wasn’t hungry.”
I looked over at her as she spoke, and there were drops of sweat on her forehead. When she spoke, I saw that the inside of her mouth was bluish black, even the bottom of her tongue, and that her teeth were stained the same color, especially the tips of the teeth. She looked the way we do in the summer when we eat fresh blueberry pie.
April 14
After dinner
Ernessa wasn’t at our table tonight. She managed to get herself switched with a tenth grader who was at Mrs. Halton’s table. I’ve never known anyone to get out of sitting at a certain table. You can’t even get out of setting up if you play sports and have a late game. But I guess no one ever tried before. I wonder what excuse she used. No one even commented on it. The other girls acted as if it were perfectly normal. I asked the tenth grader why she had switched places with Ernessa, and she said something about a “conflict.”
She didn’t look well tonight. I watched her as she left the dining room. She looked weak. She reminded me of Annie Patterson.
It’s the swimming, I’m sure. Today was her third day.
This afternoon after last period, I saw Ernessa go into the locker room by the pool. I waited awhile at the water fountain, pretending to drink, before I followed her in. She was already gone. I walked through the showers, across the damp, mildewy cement floor, to the stairs that lead up to the pool. Sometimes we go through t
he pool to get to our lockers by the gym when we don’t feel like going outside, if it’s raining or cold. It’s not an unusual thing to do. The smell of chlorine had seeped into the shower room, but when I opened the door to the pool and stepped out into the warm, humid air, it made me gag. Ernessa was standing by the window, carefully placing her tiny white towel on the sill.
“Shower!” shouted Miss Bobbie.
We have to shower in front of the gym teacher before we are allowed in the pool. I hate that jolt of freezing cold water. I always run in and out of the water without really getting wet. Ernessa walked over to the shower, pulled the chain, and stood under the stream of water without flinching. The water ran off her body onto the floor, and her faded bathing suit turned a dark blue. She would have stayed there much longer, but Miss Bobbie interrupted her: “Now into the pool!”
Ernessa let go of the chain and walked slowly to the end of the pool. She hugged herself tightly. Lucy was right. There is something the matter with her. Her face was flushed a deep red, but the skin of her upper arms and thighs was very white, as if it had never been exposed to the sun, and it was covered with little brown splotches. It looked like the skin of a snake.
She didn’t look over at me as I walked along the pool. There was only the water.
“Into the water. We don’t have all afternoon,” barked Miss Bobbie, even though she was standing right next to Ernessa. Her voice hung in the air. I waited for a shrill blast from the silver whistle that hangs from a chain around her neck.
Ernessa dropped off the edge into the water. Her arms were still crossed tightly; her fingers dug into the skin of her upper arms. She barely made a ripple in the surface. Her body sank right to the bottom of the pool and remained there, immobile, for a long time. It was too long. Miss Bobbie was unconcerned as she watched Ernessa rise slowly, slowly up toward the surface, as if she were caught in thick, heavy oil. I thought she would never break the surface, but her head, covered by a white bathing cap, finally rose above the water. She tilted it to one side, to breathe. After a few seconds, she started to move forward through the water. She flailed her arms and flung her head from side to side. She wasn’t swimming. She was panicking. Miss Bobbie acted as if nothing were happening. She walked over the slick green tiled floor, close to the edge of the pool. Water splashed onto her white sneakers and navy blue knee socks, but she ignored it as she leaned over the water and called out useless instructions: “Keep your legs up. Head down. Bend your elbows. Point your toes.” Ernessa continued to thrash.