Before long, the door behind the fish counter swings open and a man in a suit, maybe someone important, maybe the supermarket manager, comes out, and the man who was yelling is now mumbling and complaining, but not yelling any more, and everyone starts to go about their own business again. The store’s music has probably been playing the whole time but I can hear it now. I thought the man had pretty much calmed down but now he starts up again, turning his anger on the manager, which it seems the man in the suit is, and the manager has this worried look on his face and is bowing and apologizing over and over.
While this was going on, I found myself standing in front of the eggs, where I started to notice that next to me there is someone, a grown-up I knew, but didn’t know, well, kind of knew from somewhere, and he noticed me too. It was Tutti’s dad. His hair was sort of long, like a girl’s, and all messy, and he was wearing glasses and a raggedy old T-shirt and shorts, and he was holding a yellow wallet. What a fool, making a scene like that, he said with a smile. I didn’t feel like smiling back, so I didn’t and just kept quiet. Then he said, Stress… that’s the only excuse… zero manners… none… at all, and grinned again, but I couldn’t tell if he was talking to himself or to me. Anyway that was the kind of thing he was muttering, that’s right, Tutti’s dad always had that strange way of talking with all those pauses between his words, and when he spoke to you, you never knew what to say back to him, and anyway there wasn’t really any way to know the timing of when to say you’re right and I know and stuff like that, so I didn’t say anything. The two of us stood for a while there in front of the eggs without speaking. And then Tutti’s dad reached down and picked up a carton of eggs and said, Do you like eggs? I shook my head as hard as I could.
Pulling myself together, I left Tutti’s dad by the eggs and went back to Ms Ice Sandwich’s glass case. While all the fuss was calming down, a whole new queue had formed, and I took my place at the end of it. After about ten minutes, my turn finally came, but then, again suddenly, there’s this hoarse shouting, You still need to apologize! from somewhere. I automatically turn my head. The man’s almost at the front door of the supermarket but it’s like he can’t give it up and had to have the last word before he left.
Ms Ice Sandwich just stands where she is, barely acknowledging the man, though she might have laughed a little. Uh-oh, I think, as in a flash the man comes storming back to the glass case, the manager chasing after him. Is she taking the piss? the man screams at the manager, then he looks square at Ms Ice Sandwich—speaking loudly and clearly, Listen to me, you ugly cow. I come here every day to buy my groceries, and every day I have to see your painted monster face. Butt-ugly females like you, you think you’re better than anybody else with your facial reconstruction crap. You shouldn’t even be allowed out in public. That’s what the man said to her.
BACK AT HOME that night, the scene replayed over and over, the yelling, the terrified women, the music that seemed to stop and then start up again, the tension in the air, everything, like live action. I couldn’t fall asleep, I tried, I couldn’t. I kept seeing Ms Ice Sandwich standing there, staring at the man, daring him.
The next morning I couldn’t wait to get to school. I figured Tutti would know about what happened from her dad and we could talk and she could tell me what she thought. I get to school way early and wait in the classroom for Tutti, who gets there at the usual time. I rush over and I say, Hey, I met your dad yesterday. But she doesn’t say, Oh yeah, he told me about the stuff at the supermarket, or anything like that, she just says, Oh yeah? with a kind of blank look on her face. And I say, Yeah, but then I don’t know how to go about starting to tell her the story, and she doesn’t ask me questions, so I just say, Yeah one more time and nod, That’s right, and I don’t even know why I’m saying what I’m saying, and I notice I’m laughing even though there’s nothing funny. Tutti’s looking at me like she doesn’t have a clue, and I stand there a few moments before heading over to my own desk to put down my backpack and my gym bag. I start to pretend there’s nothing wrong, and walk over to the blackboard and, even though it’s not my turn to be classroom monitor today, I begin cleaning the board and laying out the chalk neatly, before going back and sitting down.
The whole day I don’t really feel like myself (though, to tell the truth, I don’t really know what it means to feel like myself), and today is the worst day of the week for lessons, because it’s Tuesday, and we have Maths, followed by Science, and then PE, and then after it in fourth period, Music. I can’t believe whoever made that schedule: they know nothing about kids and how they feel through the day, what were they thinking, putting things in that order? I suppose it’s made by teachers to suit the teachers, but I have to admit, although I have the perfect schedule in my head, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist anywhere on this earth, so I know there’s no point in blaming everything on Tuesday, but now that I think about it, at least after lunch there’s Art class, which makes the day bearable. I like Art. We don’t even have to stand up and bow when the bell goes off for class; I can just go over and collect my art project and work on it at my own pace over several weeks and draw whatever I like, and I wish that every day’s schedule could be made up of Tuesday afternoons. I’m absolutely serious about this.
Last week I finished sketching so finally I’m up to the next step, which is colouring it in with paint, which I’m a little nervous about. If I make a mistake, I can paint over it, but if I do that too much, it weakens the paper. I have to take extra care when I use black. Black in a painting looks really cool, but if you make a mistake there’s no way to go back and fix it. After putting bluish-green and a little bit of white on my palette, I glance over at Tutti, and she’s just picked up her water container and is going to fill it. I pick up my own container and follow her out of the classroom.
“Hey,” I say, standing next to her, slowly filling the different compartments under the tap, “are you starting on the painting today?”
“Yep,” she answers, glancing up at me.
“What are you painting?”
“A gunfight.”
“Huh?” For a moment, I thought I heard her say the word gun so I ask her again, “What are you painting?”
“I’m painting a gunfight.”
I wasn’t wrong, she did say gun, so now I ask her another question, a little excited, “What kind of gunfight?”
“They shoot each other,” said Tutti, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “What are you painting?”
“I’m… well… scenery.”
“Huh.”
The conversation gets interrupted for a moment as she balances her water container on the palms of her hands. We both set off very slowly and carefully back to the classroom, trying not to spill any water.
“Why are you painting a gunfight?” I ask casually.
“Why are you painting scenery?” she answers.
“Well,” I say, thinking for a moment. “Maybe because it’s beautiful?”
Tutti looks me in the eye for a second and then just says huh, again, with a kind of bored expression on her face, and goes back to her desk.
A kind of film has begun to form over the top of my bluish-green and white paints, so I dip my small paintbrush in the water and gently try to brush it away, then the colours start to dissolve and bleed. It looks like the paints trapped underneath the film are trying to escape, and as I press down on the tip of my brush, trying not to break the film, I have this gloomy feeling in my heart. It’s because of the conversation I just had with Tutti. I shouldn’t have told her that was my reason for painting scenery, I mean I should have thought about it more so that I could explain it properly to her. And I just said scenery off the top of my head without thinking, but is it really scenery that I’m painting? Up until last week, I was really concentrating on drawing the glass windows of a greenhouse and all the leaves on the olive tree next to it. I want to paint all the different colours on the surface of the glass that change with the light, and I w
ant to use a thick layer of bluish-green paint to show how thick and strong the olive leaves look, and so that’s why I chose those two things to paint. Now that I think about it that’s not really scenery, or anything else. At least I could have told Tutti all this stuff that’s in my head right now. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s not it at all. To start with, my question Why are you painting a gunfight? wasn’t a good one. It was probably too nosy, and it was none of my business. Nobody should have to explain what they choose to paint and how they feel about painting it. And this makes my heart turn one shade darker. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to apologize to Tutti, or at least explain. Probably not. This whole thing will probably just fade away. People always forget about these little things, but I believe that each one stays somewhere deep in everyone’s heart, and without noticing it they grow and harden, until one day they cause something terrible to happen. And as I’m thinking about this, I get depressed, and now all of these things that I thought I’d done such a good job of drawing begin to fade and grow dull—even though I haven’t even started painting them yet.
Except for my mood, the whole classroom is bright and noisy right now. Art is different from all the other lessons, and for some reason this kind of atmosphere is OK. The three dance girls are the worst, they’re barely even holding their paintbrushes, and they’re sitting with all their desks pushed together, and they’re talking about something completely different from painting, loudly, and it must be something really funny because they keep on shrieking with laughter. I’m thinking how annoying they are, but I don’t tell them off or anything—well, to tell the truth I’m kind of scared to. So I decide to pretend the three girls don’t even exist, and to pay attention to the tiny leaves in front of me, and take my brush and dab them with bluish-green paint. This moment, this feeling. When you first look at it, the surface of the drawing paper looks totally flat, but if you look carefully there are bumps and pits in the surface. Like the bumpy, rocky surface of a mountain. Coloured rain pours down on it, and before you realize it, the surface has completely changed. I pick up my brush, which I’ve soaked in this rain, take a slight breath, and swallow.
“Yes, I know! The sandwich lady. I know who you mean. She’s such a freak.”
I’m leaning forward over my painting, about to touch the tip of the brush to it when I hear a voice saying the word sandwich. I immediately turn to look and it’s the blonde-haired girl and she’s shaking her head and laughing and saying, No way! My chest gets all hot at the word sandwich, and for a moment I can’t move. Then all the nerves in my body are focused in my ears so I don’t miss the rest of the conversation, and my hand grips the paintbrush really tightly. Sandwich… The sandwich lady… Who are they talking about?
“You know I always wonder how they can make a mistake like that these days. It’s really scary.”
“Yeah, but she’s got to be brave. Think about it, she’s going to look like that for the rest of her life.”
“You know, ever since she took over, I haven’t bought anything there.”
“Me neither. I can’t even look at her.”
“Right. So creepy!”
“She looks like some kind of monster.”
“Her hair’s weird too. But her eyes are the worst.”
“Her nose is kind of messed up as well. When you end up looking like that—well, there’s no way she’s ever going to get married, no way she’s ever going to be able to do anything. It’s like her life’s over. She’s a freak.”
“Right. You know, if it was me…”
“What would you do?”
“Er, hello? I’d die of course.”
Shrieks of laughter again.
I stand there, paintbrush in hand, waiting for whatever they’re going to say next. But their talk seems to disappear along with their laughter, all swallowed up by the general noise of the classroom, but long after I stop hearing their voices, my heart is still pounding. They had to be talking about Ms Ice Sandwich, which I never imagined people would do, for some reason. And worst of all, it wasn’t nice at all, it was all totally mean, and I remember the stuff that angry man said yesterday before he walked out of the supermarket, and I picture Ms Ice Sandwich’s face. Ms Ice Sandwich with her big eyes and her ice-blue eyelids. I wonder for a while if I dare go over to the three girls and very casually get them to keep talking about her, but in the end I don’t do it.
I still feel depressed after I get home. Of course I don’t feel like doing any homework. Whenever I feel this way, I sit at the table in Grandma’s room and try to write a list of what’s on my mind. And then it feels as if the stuff that I don’t understand, everything’s that’s too foggy, turns into words and leaves my body.
One: Everybody is saying bad things about Ms Ice Sandwich. And somehow it’s all about Ms Ice Sandwich’s face. Two: I heard them say it, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak up. And this happened twice.
What did they mean by mistake? And what is facial reconstruction? I mean I kind of know what plastic surgery is, but I never would have guessed in a million years that there might be someone who had that done living so close, the words plastic surgery seem like something very far away from me. I don’t really understand, but it’s like they’re saying that Ms Ice Sandwich has had this plastic surgery done, and somehow it failed. So Ms Ice Sandwich’s face that I look at almost every day was made by plastic surgery. That’s not Ms Ice Sandwich’s real face? And if it’s not, why did she do plastic surgery? Was there some reason why she had to change her face? But I can’t imagine what that reason might be. And does this mean that anybody can have plastic surgery? And then if Ms Ice Sandwich’s face was made by plastic surgery, how did those three girls and the angry man from yesterday know that? And they didn’t just know that she had surgery, they were saying that it failed. What does failed plastic surgery mean? One of the girls said that if it was her, she’d die. And that Ms Ice Sandwich would never be able to get married, and that her life was over. They definitely said that. But why would they say that about Ms Ice Sandwich? All my thoughts are getting more and more tangled up inside my head, so I go into the kitchen and get a glass of water and drink it down in one gulp.
When I get back to Grandma’s room, I can tell from her breathing that she’s asleep. It’s weird but although I know she’s been there lying in the exact same position the whole time, it feels as if I’m looking at her for the first time. The little bit of golden sun that shines through the shoji screens on the window lights up the white areas of Grandma’s quilt, making a faint shadow of leaves, and each time the wind blows outside, the shadow pattern of leaves shakes a little bit. I go over to Grandma and I hold my breath for a moment. The room goes very quiet.
I think maybe Grandma’s going to die soon, and then she won’t be here any more. Sometimes when I find myself starting to think that way, I immediately try to stop it, but now I feel the thought slowly creeping out again. I picture a dent in the pillow where her head used to be and I squeeze my eyes tight for a moment. Grandma is sleeping. Peacefully. Her mouth is slightly open, she’s making little breathing noises. Grandma’s who’s asleep and Grandma who’s going to die. Are these the same Grandma?
I stare at sleeping Grandma’s face and remember a photo I have of me on a swing with her when she wasn’t so skinny and was much more healthy. Her loud laugh. The light purple sweater without sleeves that she always used to wear. Her hair long and tied back. Those Grandmas and this Grandma. The Grandmas I have in my head and the Grandma lying here with her eyes closed, quietly sleeping. Which is the real Grandma? The Grandma who used to pick me up from nursery school? The Grandma who made me her special veggie meatballs? Breakfast-time Grandma when she dipped her bread in coffee before eating it? Gentle Grandma who, whenever Mum scolded me and pushed me away, would sit next to me and let me talk? When Grandma goes away from this earth, where will she go? It’s not happened yet, but I’m thinking about it now because I know that one day it’s definitely, for sure, going to happen. And wh
en I think about it, the air inside my chest gets heavier and heavier and it feels as if there’s no escape. Grandma’s still here, it’s not like she’s already died or anything, so why do I keep thinking this way?
“Hey, Grandma,” I say quietly. Grandma doesn’t wake up but I keep on talking.
“Today in Art I started painting in the colours.”
My voice comes out really tiny and weak. I try to distract attention from it by fiddling with the edge of her quilt.
“And there’s a rumour going around about Ms Ice Sandwich, I heard it today. You remember Ms Ice Sandwich? But this isn’t the usual stuff I tell you, this is a bad thing. About her face and whatever.”
But then I find that I can’t say any more and I stop talking. It’s silent in the room, like time has just stopped, but after a bit I can hear a bird chirping. It feels like it’s coming from so close by that I spin around to check, but there are no birds anywhere.
“YOU MET MY DAD the other day.”
When Tutti comes over and says that to me, I’m crouching down pulling on the broken end of my shoelace so that I can tie it, and I’m really trying to concentrate. She’s standing behind me, and when I look up fast, it’s at a weird angle and my neck makes this snapping noise. It hurts a little.
Ms Ice Sandwich Page 3