In the Fall They Come Back

by Robert Bausch

  She started to turn around, but I stopped her. “She’ll see you and know we’re talking about her.”

  “We’re not talking about her, are we?”

  “Don’t women hold things against their chests when they are thinking romantically about it?”

  “What?” The look on Doreen’s face was so puzzled and contorted you would have thought I’d asked her to explain quantum mechanics.

  “When you treasure something—a piece of paper, or cloth, or maybe a small doll or …”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I could see now that Suzanne was reading the poem again. Her red hair, draped as it was next to her face, concealed all of her features, but I saw her wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her left hand. Then she took the paper and folded it carefully, reached back under her desk and retrieved her notebook, and placed it reverentially inside.

  I must have made a sound in the back of my throat, because Doreen said, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I think I’ve made a mistake giving Suzanne Rule those poems.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m afraid I might be sending her the wrong message.”

  “Are you writing them?”

  I looked at her, trying to remember what she said.

  “The poems, the poems. Are you writing any of them?”

  “No.”

  “And the ones she writes for you, do they express deep devotion and love?”

  “No. Nothing even close to that.”

  “Then you got nothing to worry about.”

  “You didn’t see what she did with that poem I just left for her.”

  “She’s a high school senior. Believe me, if she’s thinking what you’re afraid she’s thinking, you would know it.”

  “I would.”

  “She say anything in her journal?”

  “No.”

  “And you still read them, all of them.”

  “I read hers.”

  “So, don’t worry.”

  But I did worry a little bit. I was not completely unaware of what might happen if Suzanne got the wrong idea about me.

  We got through January (no snow days) and well into February, and I was so busy with classes and grading papers and journals that I didn’t have much time for anything else. I graded papers all weekend, every weekend, and most of each night during the week. The only day I refused to work at home was Friday. Annie was busy with some project of her own at work, so I didn’t see much of her either.

  As I said, Leslie had been behaving wonderfully since our meeting at Jolito’s. She’d done her homework and spoke up in class and generally behaved herself. Even Mrs. Creighton could not believe it, and although I never told her about meeting Leslie outside of school, she attributed much of Leslie’s improvement to me. She finally told me that Leslie had dropped her complaint.

  “I know,” I said. “The letter from her father mentioned it.”

  “I think you handled it just fine,” she said. I thanked her. “You are good with them, I have to admit that,” she added, more to convince herself than me.

  “Well, she’ll graduate this year. That’s what matters to her. It’s not me, it’s her.”

  “Don’t be so humble.”

  I was happy to remain silent and bask in the credit, I admit it. I don’t wish to be immodest, but it really was because of me. No matter how anybody looked at it, Leslie had to be viewed as one of my clear successes.

  And it felt wonderful to stand in front of the class with her eyes on me, actually listening and taking part. I know I keep saying it, but to make progress with a difficult student is so invigorating and even satisfying it sort of intoxicates you. With Leslie it was like winning the love of a beautiful and distant impossibility. You know what I mean—like a peasant winning the love of a princess. That really is what it felt like. And in the same class, Suzanne Rule was writing poems and leaving them on my desk in the mornings before I got there. I was feeling pretty powerful, I guess, and better than I should have been feeling. As has since been pointed out to me, I wasn’t really all that aware of what anybody was learning, and my attention to the various personal details of a few students might have robbed me of a certain efficiency that high school teachers cultivate and develop. I didn’t pay much attention to curriculum, mine or anyone else’s. I made up things to do each day with Leslie and Suzanne in mind. I had already started reading poems to begin each of the senior classes, and before it was over, I was reading poems before every class. I’d pick really good poems—from the greatest modern poets. I knew poets like George Garrett, Sharon Olds, Roland Flint, Jane Shore, Gregory Natt, Henry Taylor, and Ann Darr were good because so many other poets admired their work. So I kept at it, on and on.

  Then I’d have “discussions” of what the poems brought to mind. Not interpretation, but what did the poems cause my students to think? What came into their minds?

  We talked about everything from AA meetings to wicker furniture. I didn’t care.

  Then I’d get them to write what was on their minds. I’d make them take class time to write in their journals, and sometimes I’d have them write essays that I insisted could only be two pages or less, no more than 500 words.

  One day I read one of Whitman’s civil war poems. We ended up talking about the civil war. Happy decided he would write his paper on the confederate cavalry officer Jeb Stuart. I had told the class their essays had to be at least 500 words, so Happy wanted to know if I was going to stick to that.

  I said, “It has to be at least 500 words.”

  “What if it’s four hundred ninety-seven words.”

  I said, “Add the sentence, ‘And that’s true.’ ”

  He smirked a little and went out.

  Here’s what he wrote: Stuart’s men rode over the rise and saw the blue-coated Yankees. That was twelve words. After that he wrote Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. He wrote it 485 times. At the end he wrote, And that’s true. It was exactly 500 words.

  I gave him an A.

  That’s how it was going.

  Then something happened that changed everything, forever. And as I said at the very beginning, I want to understand it. I don’t think it was my fault. I hope it wasn’t my fault.

  39

  The Rough Beast

  One day shortly after I went to see Drummond, Leslie came to class late and I could see she had been crying. I wondered what might be wrong, and if there was anything I could do. I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of everybody, so while I had the class writing in their journals, I ripped a small piece of paper out of my notebook, wrote, Are you okay? and left it on the edge of her desk. She looked at me, her eyes so darkly sad I almost picked her up out of the desk right then to hold her in my arms. Nothing can compare to the look of a woman’s eyes when she is sad. Nothing. She only stared at me for a moment, considering. Then she looked back at the journal in front of her on the desk. She had not been writing in it at first, but now she started writing furiously. The effort seemed to both calm her down and revive her spirits.

  I watched her for a moment, then went back to the front of the room. I don’t know how much time went by. In my short time as a teacher one of the things I discovered is that when a group of students is working silently on something it’s never really very silent. Somebody is always sniffing, or coughing, or sneezing. It’s really quite extraordinary and even, in its own way, kind of charming. I know some teachers have been disgusted by those noises. Professor Bible once told me that on average a class period of fifty minutes contains between thirty-five and forty sniffs, five sneezes, two coughs, and “at least one or two other expulsions we should not think about.”

  Outside it was blustery and cold. Every now and then it would turn dark and great blasts of wind only slightly wet with rain brushed through the trees and herded leaves, drenched and heavy, across the field and the basketball court. I watched out the window for a while, amazed at the quick change of bright sun, dark wind and
rain, then sun again.

  Sometime near the end of the period, I noticed Suzanne Rule fold over several pages in her journal, then go on writing. In all her other journal entries she had never folded a single page; she had never said anything even remotely personal either. In fact, her writing was only interesting for how much she could say about everything under the trampled moon without revealing much at all about herself. I didn’t have time to think about what I might learn from her confidential entry because I realized that Leslie had looked up just as Suzanne had folded her pages, and as though it had reminded her that she could do the same thing, Leslie folded her pages as well. Then she looked at me. I felt caught by her eyes—caught staring at her; admiring her, really. I froze, too. I couldn’t look away from those unbelievable eyes.

  Then she raised her hand. “Mr. Jameson?”

  “Yes.”

  “When we fold the pages in our journal that means you won’t read them, right?”

  “That’s right.” She knew that.

  “I just wanted to be sure.” She looked small, sad. But then she forced a smile and unfolded most of the pages purposely, so I could see her do it. I smiled as gently as I could, but to be truthful, the way I was feeling right at that moment, to say that I lit up would not be entirely inaccurate.

  I couldn’t wait to read at least two of the journals that afternoon, so when the period was over, I collected them. Everybody groaned, but Leslie actually worked up to a smile, before her face once again took on the crestfallen look of a new widow. She walked out of the room without looking back. Suzanne handed her journal forward, then slumped out of the room.

  It was a hard choice to make, but I decided to read Suzanne’s journal first. She had folded the pages for the first time and I couldn’t wait to see what she had to say.

  (Suzanne) folded

  The poem about the tiger will always be one of the favorites among the poems I got from you because it presents notions about creation and God that imply a blacksmith made the earth. I am so used to reading history and biography, I can’t believe poems like this one have eluded me all this time. I Don’t think you should see this entry. It’s stupid. I wish some day I could talk about poetry the way you do. I had a teacher in Baltimore who said poetry is a funny little twit’s version of art with a lot of whining and raving about things nobody wants to talk about. I think it may be about what nobody can talk about. And maybe people who don’t read poetry are twits. Like people who don’t listen to music, or go to the movies or read books. Really interesting sorts, right? They can’t talk about anything except what’s happening right now on the TV or in the news or on the radio or in the sports world. Or they talk about the price of everything. They all laugh at the right time and say, “Oh that’s funny.” And they chatter happily about nothing that matters and disappear into thin air, into their graves without ever understanding or feeling anything deeply. Is that a judgment? Should one be judged on what slice of the arts she is interested in? Can’t a person who only takes apart race cars and talks about gears and tools be interesting to anyone else? I know some people who think being an artist is a waste of time. My mother says I should remember what bores some artist types can be. I’m not saying you are a bore. I don’t know what I’m saying. Sometimes I really wish I was dead. I cannot bear to think about any days except the one I’m living right now. The thought of other days, tomorrow and the day after and after that, and after and after—it just terrifies me. Death is like going home. It’s not an escape it’s a retreat to home and peace. When I sleep, I welcome the departure from the world. I’m not going to let you read this entry.

  I was kind of sorry that I’d seen what she wrote. I wished I hadn’t seen that reference to death. I folded over the page and set her journal aside. I was tempted to tell her about what Drummond was going to do with her poems, but I decided it might be a better surprise to simply hand her the magazine with her poems in it. That was what Drummond suggested and it seemed the thing to do. I admit I was probably a little afraid that she might tell me to get them back—might hate the idea of being published. After all she was so painfully shy, and publication of one’s poetry is about as broad a breach of privacy as I can imagine. I worried about that a lot, to tell the truth. What if her “debut” only served to drive her further into her own skin? What if it further depressed her or worse drove her to something drastic and final. She might try to kill herself. On the other hand, what if seeing her poems in print operated as a sort of coming out for her; what if it made her less susceptible to panic and better prepared to look other human beings in the face? I didn’t know.

  Next, I looked at Leslie’s journal.

  (Leslie)

  You ask if I’m okay. I don’t know if I can tell you what has happened to me if you will understand, or just be like my parents and all the other adults in the world. I am seeing somebody he is a lot older than I am (older than you too. He’s thirty.) He’s not really from this country. He is the son of one of the men my father works with in the foreign service, but not from the us but from columbia south america. I don’t know if I will be able to say what has been going on with him. Randy hates him and knows a little about him but not all of it and I’ve been with Randy too. I’ve been with Randy and with this other guy who I should not name here or anywhere. If my father knew or anyone else knew it would be just the most tragic thing because this guy from columbia is married last year when I was in England he came there to work with my father as his assistant or something translator or whatever and the embassy had a dance and he danced with me. My father said we were cute. We don’t get along most of the time but he made me feel good when he was proud of me for dancing with his assistant. You may as well know—I’ve already talked about him in this thing. It’s Raphael. That’s all I can say. Anyway all last year Randy was my boyfriend and when Raphael came to our house with his wife to visit I would see him but nothing really happened with him until one night I took a cab to washington to go to a club where I was going to meet Randy and I saw Raphael at the front of a restrant near where the club was. He said hello and wanted to know where I was going. I was wearing this long chiffon gown and black stilleto heels and my hair curled down both sides of my face and I felt very beautyful but he didn’t say anything about my beauty at all. He just smiled and seemed really glad to see me there and then he asked me if I wanted a drink. So I went with him. I didn’t even think about Randy. He was very mad but I didn’t tell him where I went. I made up some lie about my parents and he said he forgave me and then he forgot about it. But I kept seeing Raphael. Some weeks I would see both of them. I liked the danger of it. I liked how exciting it was to be with Randy right after school and then go see Raphael in the evening, dressed in a white gown and with perfect hair. Randy treats me like a girl and likes me to be a girl, but Raphael treated me like a woman. Like you did, that night in Jolito’s. I felt like a woman that night when you rescued me, and it was fun getting to know you a little bit; sitting with you in the bar and drinking my coke and feeling like we were a couple. I liked the way you rescued me, too. It was so smart, in a way. Not too clever or anything, just natural and smart. And I didn’t deserve it. So many men fall all over themselves to tell me I’m beautiful, I wanted to use my beauty to hurt you. I wrote about sex in my journal just to get back at you. I wanted to tempt you and all because you gave me a C on my paper, and it was the first paper in a long time I tried to do well on. I really did work on it. Then in Jolito’s you told me about the truth. About people not telling me the truth and it hit home. It all hit home. I understood what you tried to do for me.

  I’m stalling because I hate trying to say what is wrong with me. You taught me that I should look for the truth, and that’s what I thought I got from Raphael. I fell in love with him. I am deeply, passionately in love with him. If you see smears on this page its where I wiped off tears. I know that sounds just so immature and stupid. I am no different than any other high school girl in trouble. I’m pregnant. And I do
n’t know if its Raphael’s or Randy’s. I don’t know who to tell or what to do. I can’t tell Randy if its Raphael’s and I can’t tell Raphael for the same reason. I can’t make the wrong man take care of this; or the right man take care of it. I can’t take care of it myself. I don’t know what to do. I love my father and mother I really do. But I am terrified of my father. He is very religious and he expects so much from me. He trusts me thats what he keeps telling me that he trusts me and he takes me overseas with him sometimes and asks me to take notes or listen to conversations in french or even spanish and I have to tell him what I’ve learned. I try so hard and I don’t fail him when he needs me over there. The only place I’ve failed him is in school. I’ve tried and tried, but when you’ve been in the great cities of Europe with royalty, when you’ve been in embassys and palaces talking to the highest kind of people, it’s hard to sit in a small wood chair and listen to somebody with a piece of chalk in his hand. No offense. I like listening to you, I really do. I mean I like it now. Once I started listening. You are so much more mature than everybody I know. My father said I should like you because you are different and you don’t go with the mold. that’s how he put it. I wish he wasn’t so religious. When his religion comes into it he can be meanly cruel. When I was a little girl he made me kneel on uncooked rice in the kitchen for two hours. I couldn’t stop crying and he wouldn’t let me get up unless I did stop. Finally he took me out into the car and put me in the back seat and said I was going to stay there until I stopped crying. It was winter. I was cold. I started screaming. He wouldn’t come to get me. Finally my mother came out and brought me inside. I went through all of that because I said “Jesus Christ.” He taught me spanish and french and even some farsi. He spent all his hours with me when he wasn’t traveling. I know he loves me. I know it would kill him if he knew I am pregnant. Or he would hate me. I am so important to him. Yesterday, I went to the bathroom and tried shaking up a bottle of coke and letting it shoot into me. Nothing happened. I just cried and cried. Every morning I feel dizzy and nausius and I can’t eat. I think I know exactly where the little thing inside me is growing and dividing and becoming. I think I can put my finger on the place where it is making me sick and where it will soon make a crib of my body. I hate it and want it out of me so bad. At night I dream that it is climbing up my ribs. But I can’t make it go away without telling my mother or my father. I am afraid to go to a clinic. I don’t know what they will do. I don’t know if they tell your parents or if they have to have the father’s permission or what happens to your records or how long you have to be in the hospital if you get an abortion. I don’t think I want to know, but I can’t think about tomorrow. I hate the idea of tomorrow and whenever I think about just the next day, just the next few hours, I get sick to my stomach, as sick as I am in the morning when I get out of bed. I hate tomorrow. So when night falls and I have to come to a standstill someplace or I have to sit somehere or eat dinner or whatever I get sick thinking about what is coming now what is happening is the night is falling and then it will get dark and cold and still outside and I will have to sleep and when I do the sun will come up and it will be morning and I can’t stand the idea of morning. Sickness again and another day, another day in front of me where this is true and its not going to go away, and then I have to eat again and I watch the sky loose its light and I know its going to be the time soon when I have to stop this somehow. I have to do something about it somehow. Because night is falling again and its going to fall again tomorrow and I hate tomorrow because this is true, this thing is true inside me and its growing and becoming itself and I am so afraid of it.