Fields of Exile

by Nora Gold

“No, I’m not,” said Judith. But she blushed and felt gratified. She wanted Suzy to like her best of all. She got her wish, too: at the end of that class, she lingered behind to ask Suzy a question, and Suzy invited her to once again walk back with her to her office. Then this became something of a tradition between them, every week after class walking together down that dingy serpentine corridor (which each time made Judith think, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”), to the sounds of Suzy’s heels click-click-clicking, and their voices echoing eerily off the dismal walls, and Suzy’s tinkly laugh. That day in Suzy’s office, they were standing under the ferns near her desk, and Judith, who had never seen mistletoe, wondered if this was mistletoe, and if so, isn’t that what people kiss under? They talked for almost an hour about all sorts of things. Judith discovered to her delight that Suzy, like her, was religious. Christian, of course, not Jewish, but that didn’t matter. In many ways, she thought, religious people from two different faiths have more in common than a religious and secular person from the same one. Religious people understand each other: they can talk about faith, holiness, and God — they can use the “G word”! — without apology. Without having to be embarrassed or ashamed of that love. Just as Judith isn’t embarrassed or ashamed of her growing affection for Suzy. They also talked that day about Judith’s work in Israel with Jewish and Arab kids, and about some of the teachers at Dunhill. Suzy was professional enough not to say anything against anyone. But Judith could tell from her body language — her kinesics, as Suzy had taught them — which people Suzy did or didn’t like. All it took was a little shrug of her petite right shoulder, naked that day in a sleeveless yellow blouse, or a roll of her expressive eyes. It was quickly obvious Suzy couldn’t stand Marie Green, the former Director of the school whom Judith had never met. Judith felt privileged to be let into what Suzy truly felt. To be a trusted insider.

  Now Suzy says to the class, “Many people, maybe even most people, are afraid of their feelings. But there is no reason to be, because there’s no such thing as a wrong feeling. I mean it. Some of you are looking at me like you don’t believe me. Okay, then — give me an example of a feeling that’s ‘wrong.’”

  A few hands fly up. Suzy points at Martin, whose family lives in Ethiopia. “Anger,” he says.

  Suzy nods and points again. “Hate,” says Genya.

  “Fear,” says someone else.

  “Right,” says Suzy. “These are all unpleasant feelings — negative emotions, if you will. But they are also perfectly normal, and they are, after all, just feelings, part of being human. We need to learn how to accept these emotions in ourselves and in our clients. Otherwise, they’ll feel we are judging them and they won’t be able to open up to us. They’ll feel we are not accepting them for who they are. And they’ll be right.”

  It’s true, thinks Judith.

  Suzy is writing on the blackboard now, in a flowing, feminine script:

  UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD

  “We’ll discuss this concept more in a little while,” she says, turning back toward the class, still holding the chalk in her right hand as she gestures. “But this is what we have to strive for. To truly accept our clients in spite of the things about them we don’t like, whether these are emotions or behaviours. This is probably the hardest thing you’ll ever have to learn. But it’s also absolutely necessary for working effectively with clients.”

  Suzy has brought a guest with her today, an acting student from Dunhill’s Theatre Arts department. Judith gazes at the square-faced woman sitting sullenly at the front table: she reminds her of a picture she once saw of a kapo. That’s one tough broad, she thinks. Suzy is explaining to the class that soon one of them will get to role-play a social worker working with a “resistant” client — a great opportunity to practise all the interviewing skills they’ve learned in this class, including Unconditional Positive Regard. She scans the room and selects Margie, a skinny redhead from Halifax, to take the hot seat. Margie sits nervously across the table from her “client.” Cordelia is a crack addict on welfare who, according to Suzy, has just had her two kids taken away, a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, because a week ago she left them alone in the house for a whole weekend, without any food, so she could go off on a holiday with her crack-pusher boyfriend. During Cordelia’s absence, the two-year-old, Tommy, fell down the basement stairs and is now in hospital with a severe concussion and possibly permanent brain damage. Cordelia hasn’t visited him even once and appears completely unconcerned about him. She also, on her return home from that weekend, hit her three-year-old daughter Angela repeatedly, leaving marks and bruises, for “not taking care of her brother,” and for getting her in trouble with the authorities.

  Margie looks anxious. She approaches Cordelia gingerly, trying in a soft timid voice three friendly and empathic openers, such as, “It must be awfully hard having your kids taken away from you,” but each time Cordelia just slaps her down. After her fourth attempt, to which Cordelia responds, “Why don’t you just go fuck yourself?,” Margie looks helpless and pale, her freckles standing out like so many tiny failures, as she tries to come up with what to say next. A long silence is finally broken by the click-click-clicking of Suzy’s heels as she goes and stands beside Margie.

  “At this moment,” Suzy asks her, “how do you feel about this client?”

  Margie looks confused by the question. She glances at Cordelia as if afraid to answer in front of her. Then she looks away and shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says.

  “You don’t much like her right now, do you?”

  Margie laughs and shakes her head. “No.”

  “Of course you don’t,” says Suzy. “She frightens you. She angers and repulses you, and she makes you feel incompetent. Right now you feel totally alienated from her and I’ll bet you can’t think of one single thing about her you like or respect. Am I right?”

  Margie looks sheepish. “Pretty much,” she says. “Am I really that transparent?”

  Suzy laughs that charming laugh of hers. “No,” she says. “That’s what most people would feel in this situation.”

  But Judith can see Margie is a bit spooked.

  “Now I’m going to give this a try,” says Suzy. “Watch what happens when you make use of Unconditional Positive Regard. Thanks, Margie.” Margie stands, looking relieved her turn is over, and Suzy replaces her in the hot seat facing Cordelia, who is now staring at Suzy as blankly and impassively as she stared at Margie. But Suzy doesn’t seem fazed by it: she’s smiling at her kindly, encouragingly.

  Judith starts taking notes — “smile encouragingly at client.” But soon the pen is forgotten, and she watches enthralled as Suzy once again works her magic. And magic it seems to be. Cordelia’s face softens. Then she starts pouring out her heart to Suzy about how hard it was being a young mother, only sixteen when the first baby was born, alone all day and all night with that baby, and then there were two of them, two crying babies, and they just cried and cried all the time, no matter what she did. They demanded and demanded, and there was nothing left for her, not five minutes for herself, to watch TV or just sit and have a smoke. If one of them was finally sleeping, the other one was still awake, crying, wanting her, needing her, and she couldn’t stand it anymore, she had to have a break, she had to have something for her for a change, even if it was only a weekend, one weekend away in three and a half years. Cordelia is wiping tears from her face with the palms of her hands. This woman sitting across the table from Suzy is now a fully human person. A pained, mixed-up, maybe even messed-up person, but a real person all the same. Suzy has accomplished this — she has gotten to Cordelia’s “story” — in under ten minutes.

  Suzy turns away from Cordelia and faces the class. “This,” she says, “is the power of Unconditional Positive Regard,” and dismisses them, earlier than usual, for their break.

  Judith files out slowly with the others. Many of the students around her are talking excitedly about wha
t just happened and a few are laughing. But everyone gives Cordelia a wide berth, even though they know intellectually she is just an actor. Only one student, Lola, goes up to her and starts a conversation. On her way past Suzy, Judith says, “That was amazing.”

  “Thanks,” says Suzy. Then she adds, “Judith, can you stay behind after class today? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Sure,” says Judith. But walking to the cafeteria, she feels worried. Has she done something wrong? Was there a problem with the logs she handed in last week? Has she perhaps offended Suzy? Throughout the entire fifteen-minute break, while Cindy, Pam, and Aliza talk, Judith sits silently at the square table, nursing a coffee and fretting. Finally she tells them what Suzy said.

  “Maybe it’s something good,” says Cindy.

  “Yeah,” says Aliza. “You can see how much she likes you. Why do you assume it’s something negative?”

  “You’re right,” says Judith, surprised, and brightens. “It’s probably not.”

  But just the same, the second half of the class passes interminably. They are still on the topic of Unconditional Positive Regard — or as Judith has now acronymed it in her mind, UPR, or “upper.” Suzy has embarked on a long lecture about it, telling them among other things that this is “the sine qua non of any good counselling relationship,” and that with a little effort it is always possible to find the place in oneself that is non-judgmental, that accepts each client as a valid and valuable human being, regardless of what they may have done during their lives.

  “It’s like, ‘Hate the sin, but love the sinner,’” Suzy says cheerfully. Sinner? thinks Judith. We don’t have sinners in Judaism. Or even sin. The word translated into English as sin — chet, in Hebrew — just means an error. We have people who get off track, people who make mistakes. But in Judaism there is no original sin — or even any unoriginal kind. Still, in her stomach now, there’s a sick, dread-filled feeling about her upcoming meeting with Suzy, as though Judaism is wrong and there is such a thing as sin, and she has committed one. Eventually 3:30 rolls around. She waits impatiently as Suzy deals with a long line of students, and after twenty-five minutes, the two of them are alone at last. Judith compliments Suzy again on her interview with Cordelia.

  “Thanks,” Suzy says. “You’ll be able to do that too, one day, with some practice. It’s incredible, the power of Unconditional Positive Regard.” Then she asks Judith if she knows what SWAK is.

  “I think so,” says Judith. SWAK is short for Sealed With A Kiss: what she and her friends in high school wrote on the backs of birthday card envelopes after they’d licked them shut, with the letters SWAK inside a picture of two lips. But as Suzy continues to look at her eagerly, she understands it must also mean something else. Then she remembers SWAK with a “C” is the acronym for a committee at the school. The most important one. The Social Work Anti-oppression Committee, which coordinates all the school’s anti-oppression activities, publishes an evaluation every spring of each professor’s handling of anti-oppression issues in their classes, and is always co-chaired by a faculty member and a student.

  “What I wanted to talk to you about,” says Suzy, “is being my co-chair for the coming year. The peace work you’ve done in Israel is very impressive, and also very relevant to SWAC — encouraging people to work across difference, etcetera. Plus, I think you’d be terrific. If you’re interested, that is.”

  Judith nearly laughs with relief. She feels flattered, too: this is a great honour, especially for a first-year student.

  “Of course!” she says. “I’d love to.”

  “That’s great,” says Suzy, looking pleased. “It’ll be a lot of fun doing this together. Our first meeting is on October 17. Is that okay for you?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Good. What are you doing now? If you’re free, we could go over a few things. I have an orientation package for you in my office.”

  “Sure. No problem.” Judith’s cheeks are burning hot, and she feels she can’t control her face.

  “Great. Let me just stop by the main office for a second — I have to pick something up. Then we can get started.”

  They walk down the hall to the main office. But just outside the door, Suzy gets stopped by a tall, gaunt woman. Suzy excuses herself from Judith, and starts talking with this woman in a low voice. Judith goes partway down the hall and waits near the bulletin board, feeling useless and not sure what to do with herself. There’s no one else in the hallway to talk to, and nothing to read on the bulletin board she hasn’t already read. So, for lack of anything else to do, she watches Suzy and the tall, gaunt woman. They’re too far away for her to hear what they’re saying, so she practises “observing their nonverbals,” as Suzy called it in class last week. She notices how intensely Suzy is talking, leaning forward with her face very close to the other woman’s, and also putting a hand on her arm, on the pale green sleeve of an exquisite silk jacket. Suzy smiles and the woman smiles back. They say things to each other, and both of them laugh. Clearly a warm and friendly relationship, thinks Judith. Suzy was right: “It’s astonishing how much you can learn without hearing a single word.” A moment later they draw slightly apart, and Suzy starts looking around the hallway.

  “Judith,” she calls when she spots her, and beckons. Judith trots over, self-conscious under the gaze of the two older women. “I’d like you to meet someone. This is Marie Green, the former Director of the School, who has just returned from research leave in China. Judith,” Suzy says to Marie, “has just agreed to be my co-chair this year on SWAC.”

  “Congratulations!” says Marie Green, vigorously shaking Suzy’s hand. “Good for you!”

  Judith, startled, is already muttering “Thank you” when she realizes with a jolt that this is Marie Green — the same one Suzy dislikes, who Suzy has rolled her eyes about several times during their after-class chats in her office. But no — I must have misunderstood something. Misread what I saw. Suzy’s not a phony. She and Suzy walk together to Suzy’s office. On the way, Suzy explains that the committee meets every second Thursday night at seven o’clock — sometimes, if need be, slightly more often — and is composed of students, faculty, and community people. They organize one major event per year: Anti-oppression Day, the core of which is usually a lecture by a prominent guest speaker — hopefully a star whose name will draw a good turnout — and constellations of other events surrounding that star. Suzy suggests, if it’s convenient for Judith, that they get together before each meeting at around five or six, perhaps over an early supper, to review the agenda. The thought of supper alone with Suzy every second Thursday causes Judith’s stomach to somersault with excitement, and not trusting herself to speak, she just nods in agreement. They reach Suzy’s office and sit at her desk side by side for a half-hour going over some of the background and basic information about SWAC. Then Suzy takes from one of the bookshelves a fat binder containing all of last year’s minutes, and hands it to Judith to read at home. When they’re standing by the door, Suzy asks brightly, “So we’re all set, then?”

  “Yes,” says Judith.

  Suzy beams at her. “Great!” she says. Then she reaches out her hand, and shakes Judith’s. Half-mockingly, but also half-seriously — ceremoniously, even. “Welcome to SWAC.”

  “Thanks,” says Judith, their hands still clasped. Last week Suzy taught them about contracting with clients in social work, and it feels now like she and Suzy have just formalized an important and solemn contract. Or even more than that: like hands and lips are in a way interchangeable, and this contract is being Sealed With A Kiss.

  Driving off the campus and through downtown Dunhill, Judith is grinning from ear to ear. “Me!” she crows to herself. “She picked me out of everyone!”

  Turning onto the highway toward Toronto, she can see herself sitting with Suzy in Le Petit Café, the mini-cafeteria at Dunhill — not the main, big cafeteria in FRANK, but the smaller, quieter, less crowded one a few buildings ov
er, where you go if you want to be able to hear the other person and have a real conversation. They’ll sit at one of the small, round aqua-and-pink tables, like knightesses at the Round Table, while they work together, tête-à-tête, their dirty dishes from onion soup, salad, or pizza pushed to one side. After their work is done, and the agenda for that night’s meeting all worked out, there will still be a half-hour or even more till the meeting begins. So they’ll linger over coffee and talk about more personal things. Suzy will confide in her about Natalie, and about the rest of her family, too; maybe Judith will confide in her about her problems with Bobby. It won’t take long, she’s sure, just a few of these dinners, before they’re talking intimately and become real friends.

  The traffic moves slowly, but Judith doesn’t mind — she’s happily daydreaming about her dinners with Suzy. Eventually, on her right, the huge Brick warehouse appears, telling her she’s already halfway to Toronto. Suddenly she feels tired and her elation starts to fade. She reflects now more soberly on how much work the SWAC committee will entail. Probably more than the “few hours a week” Suzy mentioned — committees usually do. And what exactly will be expected of her as co-chair? Suzy wasn’t very specific. Though she did say that one reason she picked Judith was that she had a strong sense of social justice. It’s true, she thinks. But it’s funny, because she has no idea where she got this from. Bobby’s asked her about this: “Why do you burn like this over social and political issues? Why does injustice bother you so much?” She’s never had an answer for him. No terrible injustice or “oppression” has ever personally happened to her. But now, driving past farms, silos, white fences, and grazing horses, she remembers her beloved grandparents, Bubba and Zayda, and the stories they told her when she was little about when they first came to Canada from Russia, fleeing the pogroms. And it seems to her that maybe all of that is still in her — in her blood or her heart, in a place so deep she never even knew it was there. The place of stories buried in the blood. She can hear the hoofbeats of the Cossacks as they ride into her grandmother’s shtetl, and sees them sitting high on their horses as they beat, spear, and murder Jews. Then they pillage, loot, and set fire to everything, and through it all they’re laughing their drunken laughs. As they ride off, they’re singing boisterous carefree songs, leaving behind them the lingering stench of smoke, blood, sweat, vodka, dying bodies, destruction, and fear. Mingling with this smell, there are sounds: the wailing of women and children, dogs barking, and the moans of the wounded. Her heart is pounding now. We need a safe place, she thinks. That’s what people need — especially the vulnerable, persecuted, and powerless. She glances around her with a hunted look. That’s what SWAC is for. To be a safe haven. An island of justice. A place to stand up against oppression in every form.