The Secret of Clouds

by Alyson Richman

  I wasn’t sure if he actually said what I thought I heard him say next, because then the bell struck, its sound shrill and loud. But I was pretty sure he said, “Maggie, you’re pretty cool, too.”

  52

  THERE were days when Sasha was driving to work at the laboratory that he felt outside of his body, as if he had become suspended in the air and his actions were being observed through an analytical lens.

  The dark plastic steering wheel of his Pontiac was clutched by two pale hands; the catch of his reflection in the rearview mirror seemed to belong to someone else. He had recently required the assistance of glasses, and his once full hairline had started to thin.

  To make himself as efficient as possible, Sasha worked hard to keep his professional and private lives separate. He published papers on neutrino oscillation in scientific journals that had received critical praise. His colleagues had come to like him. He was now known to be able to talk about baseball as well as any native New Yorker. No one knew the game’s statistics better than he did.

  But he never shared the burden of Yuri’s heart defect with his coworkers. He kept that anguish to himself, bottled tight and stored at a distance. He was grateful for the health insurance he had through his job, for it enabled Yuri to have the best care. But he kept all the fragile details between him and Katya. But his worst fears, he did not share with his wife. He refused to let her know that he dreaded every cold or chest pain that afflicted his son. Or that the second he got back into his car for the ride home, his mind was no longer filled with his latest scientific data, but rather brimming with thoughts of Yuri.

  * * *

  • • •

  DESPITE his worries, Sasha was still amazed by how much he himself had changed. The thoughts that now swirled within him were so different than the ones he had in his youth. Before he met Katya, he thought that a home was only a structure with four walls and a roof over one’s head. He never gave much significance to a stove that was always warm or a bed that was filled with heat from another’s body. He was lucky he got into university, where he could bury himself in his books and enjoy the comfort of science, where almost anything could be clinically explained.

  Back in those days, he had prided himself in his ability to see facts clearly. But now he realized that the truth wasn’t always black and white, and instead could be discovered somewhere in the soft shades of gray. At age thirty-eight, Sasha had come to believe that the most beautiful things in life defied explanation. How could one honestly explain how a soul feels the pull of another before a single word is exchanged? How could one believe that a child will defy his doctor’s grim diagnosis and grow to be not just a little boy but a bright and curious young man?

  At some point, from the jaded young man that Katya had first dated back in Ukraine to the man he was now, he had become infinitely hopeful. Fatherhood had made his heart beat stronger. His emotions no longer frightened him. Instead, they fortified his need to fully protect his wife and son. At night when he pulled Katya to his hips, she would beg him to take off his newly acquired glasses and to dim the lights low. “No, I want to see you,” he insisted. Despite over a decade of marriage, he still marveled at the sight of his wife hovering above him. He loved the sweet smell that lifted off her skin and the flash of her eyes. The twist of her body as it curled into his like a snail seeking shelter. After Yuri was born, he sensed Katya preferred the modesty of darkness, a forgiving cloak of shadows where she would not be judged. Katya saw flaws in herself where he saw perfection. And while he made love to her with his eyes wide open, hers were nearly always closed.

  * * *

  • • •

  SASHA was forever curious about what floated behind shut eyelids. When he walked in the door each night and he saw his little boy sleeping in his chair, the television broadcasting men running around the bases to a stadium of applause, he couldn’t help but wish he were privy to the dreams now floating through his son’s head. He would have done anything in the world to exchange hearts with his son, just so Yuri could know the thrill of the dirt beneath his cleats and the wind whipping through his hair.

  Still, the sight of a sleeping child never ceased to fill him with warmth. He scooped his son up in his arms and walked down the corridor, then laid him on the bed. As he pulled the blanket over Yuri, he studied the image of his son a little bit longer, just as he had when he slept in his crib as an infant. Adjusting his glasses, Sasha made sure the memory of him was pressed into his mind. He wanted to capture what he knew was transient and fleeting. Innocence and boyhood were not infinite stages in any life.

  The only constant was a parent’s love.

  53

  YURI seemed to grow stronger after the snow began to thaw. His body, which had appeared so frail and younger than his years when I first met him, was now filling out. At first, I had seen so much of Katya in his face. The large blue eyes, the high round forehead and sharp cheekbones. But now, I could see parts of his father, Sasha, also emerging. Even his laugh, which used to sound like a giggle, became throatier and more like that of a young man than that of a little boy.

  But then a strange thing happened. Out of nowhere, Yuri became withdrawn and restless. For all the weeks that Finn had been visiting, Yuri always seemed hungry for Finn to talk about his activities, as though he was living vicariously through them. But now I saw how he seemed to almost resent it. He appeared particularly agitated when Finn mentioned tryouts for spring baseball. His schoolwork also seemed to suffer. When I collected his writing notebook, I saw he had skipped an entire week of writing assignments yet felt no need to explain why he had chosen not to do the work.

  Every time I tried to gently prod Yuri about what was bothering him, I was rebuffed. I pulled Katya to the side and asked her if she had any idea, but she didn’t have any explanation, either. Even Finn now seemed hesitant to come to his weekly sessions at Yuri’s house. “I don’t know, Ms. Topper,” he said to me after class at Franklin one afternoon. “I’m starting to think Yuri may not want me there anymore.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case, Finn,” I replied, trying to soothe his concern. “There’s something going on with him that he doesn’t want to share right now. But I don’t think it has anything to do with you, honey. Even his mother is perplexed why he’s suddenly so irritable.”

  Finn gave me a shrug. “My mom always says everyone’s entitled to be in a bad mood every now and then.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I know I’ve sure had my share of bad moods.”

  “Me too,” Finn laughed. “But if it’s okay with you, my mom thought I should give Yuri some space this week. If he does still want me to come, I can visit next Thursday.”

  My heart sank a little after Finn left. I knew he was trying to put on a brave face. I, too, had picked up that Yuri seemed to be creating distance between them.

  Yuri’s change in demeanor weighed heavily on me. I was so distracted by it that one morning, I nearly walked into Florence Konig in the corridor as my third-period class went off to gym.

  “You need to look up from your feet when you’re walking,” Florence chided me. “You nearly ran me over.”

  I raised my head. She was right. I hadn’t even seen her walking straight in front of me. I saw her eyes study me for a second. “Everything okay with you, Maggie?”

  “Fine, fine. Just got a lot on my mind.”

  “Are you sure?” she persisted. “I’ve got a second sense about these things, and it looks like you’re having a rough time.”

  I paused for a moment. The hallway in Franklin was no longer crowded with children, and Suzie was nowhere to be found. It was just the two of us standing there alone, and suddenly, Florence, in her sensible pantsuit and with a rhinestone butterfly pin neatly secured on her blouse, didn’t seem so hard and jaded as I had previously thought. She actually seemed kind.

  “It’s a long story,” I muttered to myself
.

  She glanced at her thin gold watch, and her gray eyes met mine. “Looks like we both have forty minutes until our next class. I think that gives me plenty of time to hear all about it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ON the door to Florence’s classroom she had taped a banner that read in big purple letters, Life Is About Learning.

  She saw me glance at the words and waved me inside. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, very much so.” I sighed. “I’m still trying to learn every day how to do this job. But some days, I feel like I’m utterly failing.”

  Florence gave me a surprisingly sympathetic look, one that was free of judgment. “Maggie, we all feel that way sometimes, and I’ve been doing it for a lot longer than you have, trust me.”

  But this time, Florence’s reference to her tenure and seniority didn’t bother me. At this point, I realized, if she had any wisdom to offer, who was I not to take it? I nodded and slid into one of the student chairs and looked around her classroom. The room appeared identical to the way it was last September. There were butterflies scattered across the four walls: paper butterflies cut out from construction paper, images of butterflies taken from magazines like Scientific American or National Geographic, and photos of butterflies emerging from their chrysalises. On her bulletin board, Florence had written the names of each of her students on neon-colored butterfly decals.

  “You certainly like your butterflies,” I remarked, looking around the room.

  “Yes, I do.” Florence turned around and admired her handiwork. “There’s a long story behind why I like them so much.” She paused and looked at me softly. “But why don’t you tell me your story first.”

  * * *

  • • •

  IT felt almost like a confessional. Me sitting at one of the low student desks, Florence in her high-back chair, her helmet of silver curls framing her pink cheeks and her hands clasped in front. I found myself telling her about my whole journey with Yuri since September—the initial rocky start, the joy I found when I discovered his love of baseball, and then my introducing Finn to him.

  “But suddenly I feel like I’m in the dark again,” I said hopelessly. “It’s like I’m back at the beginning, with a student who doesn’t want me there. And I have no clue what to do about it.”

  Florence’s face, which I had always thought looked upon me with an air of disdain, had transformed into a visage of kindness and understanding.

  “This job is hard, Maggie. Every child has a story that is always unfolding.” She cleared her throat. “And, as their teachers, we have one as well.” She reached into one of the metal drawers in her desk and opened it, retrieving a slender paperback book.

  “You probably don’t know why I love butterflies so much or why I don’t rotate my decorations every season like all the other teachers do. But there’s a reason behind it. It’s a large part of my story.”

  She walked over and put the book in front of me.

  “Have you ever read this? It’s called I Never Saw Another Butterfly.”

  I picked up the book and glanced at it quickly. On the cover, which looked like a child’s collage, it read, Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp.

  “My parents are Holocaust survivors,” she said, her voice instinctively lowered. “My mother gave birth to me in a DP camp in Czechoslovakia after she was liberated from the concentration camp Terezín. She and my father had been deported there from a small village near Brno. Luckily, they were never transported farther east than that, because most of the people there were eventually sent on to death camps like Auschwitz.”

  I felt my body grow numb. “I had no idea, Florence.”

  “Few people do. Angela knows, of course.” She took a deep breath. “My mother became a teacher nearly a decade after she got to America. She went back to school, learned English, and eventually taught in the Westbury school system for thirty years. She was a complete inspiration to me.”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  “But the reason I’m sharing this book with you now is that my mother actually knew the woman at Terezín who encouraged these children to write their poetry and create their drawings, even on the smallest scraps of paper, even when they were starving or freezing and had only the rags on their back. She believed with all her heart that a teacher’s job is to make children feel safe, to make them believe their ability is boundless.” Florence steadied her voice. “Her name was Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. The poetry and drawings inside this book exist today because this teacher encouraged the children to use their minds—and their imaginations—in their darkest hour. And that, Maggie, was an extraordinary gift. Friedl was a fearless woman and she put her students above all else. She believed nothing was more important than to ask these children, even in the most horrific circumstances, ‘What are you thinking? What’s in your imagination and in your mind?’ At the end of the war, they found over seven hundred drawings and poems by these children, most of whom had perished.”

  I shuddered and felt tears forming in my eyes, thinking about all of those children.

  “The title, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, is taken from one of the poems.” Florence said.

  “I surround myself with butterflies each day, Maggie, to remember why I do this job. And to remember that there is nothing more important than opening up a child’s mind to infinite possibility.”

  I nodded. I knew I needed to hear that reminder.

  “Take the book home, Maggie. Read it, and maybe even share it with Yuri. I know something good will come of it. As I tell my kids each year, nothing can stop a butterfly from spreading its wings.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I read the book that evening from cover to cover. Absorbing the words of the children whose voices were silenced far too soon. The next day, when I visited Yuri, I asked Katya if we might be able to go outside on the deck and do our classwork there.

  “Sure,” she said. “Some sunshine would do him good.”

  I was pleased. I wanted to be around nature and not trapped inside with Yuri when I gave him the book.

  Outside the birds were singing, and two frisky squirrels ran alongside the edge of the wooden banister.

  Yuri and I sat on two of the teak chairs.

  “I don’t know what’s in your mind lately, but I miss the ease of our old conversations,” I said gently. “A friend of mine gave me this book the other day, and I thought you might find it interesting. Most of the poems in it were written by children, many who were close in age to you.

  “I really want you to read it, Yuri. It shows how even with physical limitations, even with great suffering, the human mind and one’s imagination cannot be contained.”

  Yuri studied the book, pausing over the reproductions of the children’s artwork and reading some of the lines of poetry.

  In the soft daylight, I saw his face change. “What happened to those kids?” he asked. “They were Jewish, right?”

  “Yes,” I said softly.

  “So they died in the Holocaust?”

  “Most of them did, Yuri. Yes.”

  “My dad lost a lot of family in World War II.”

  “Many people did. But it was particularly devastating for the Jewish people.”

  Yuri nodded. His eyes traveled to a small white butterfly on one of the geranium plants hanging by the sliding door.

  “You know, my father has always loved butterflies. When I was a really little kid, he told me about this theory he believes in . . . It’s called the butterfly effect. One single thing can change the destiny of everything. Something as small as a butterfly’s wings flapping in South America can start a chain of events and alter the rest of the universe.”

  “That’s so interesting,” I said. Yuri had no idea how my heart leapt in my chest to have him opening up to
me again and responding to the themes of the book.

  “One small thing can change the course of an entire life,” I said.

  “Exactly.” His eyes now flashed with that distinct light that had first drawn me to him all those months ago.

  I wanted to tell him that being his teacher had changed my life, but before I could, he said something I wasn’t expecting.

  “I want to go back to school, Ms. Topper. Having Finn here has been great, but it only shows me what I’ve been missing. I want to be with other kids. I want to be like that butterfly.” He took a deep breath. “I want to be free.”

  * * *

  • • •

  MY conversation with Yuri had left me more determined than ever. I needed to be his advocate, his champion rooting for him to spread his wings as much as he was physically able. The book Florence had loaned to me served as a reminder of why I had chosen to become a teacher. Even though I had not decorated my room with butterflies, I did see each of my students as those beautiful winged creatures, whom I wanted to see make the most of their wings and fly.

  And so, on my next visit, I asked to speak to Katya in private about the possibility of Yuri returning to school. “He’s been relatively healthy all year,” she acknowledged. Katya draped her fingertips over the rim of her teacup and let the vapors of steam travel through her open hands. “As I told you, he was always sick in the fifth grade. The constant colds. And for Sasha and me it was hell . . . not knowing if Yuri’s difficulty breathing was just related to his cold or whether it was from his heart condition . . .” She took her hands off the cup and wrung them in her lap. “You have no idea how it feels to constantly worry about the life of your child.” She lowered her head. “I don’t think I know what it’s like not to worry anymore.” Her voice broke on the last words, and she lifted the napkin from her lap to dry her tears.