Fields of Exile

by Nora Gold

And it’s true, she didn’t. Her mother never understood her. But now, ten years later, Judith reconsiders her mother’s point of view. Of course Mummy’s right, she thinks, that I could live reasonably happily in Toronto if I absolutely had to. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m not walking around crying. I’m finding things to enjoy, and making friends, and if I were staying here, I’d even find a man to love — either Bobby or someone else. But that isn’t what I want my life to be. Galut is okay as far as it goes, but fundamentally it’s empty at the core. It’s life minus the jewel in the crown, and why live without this jewel when you can have it?

  The street lamps whiz by as she turns off the highway and enters the city limits of Toronto. Her hands are cold: the left one she inserts into her pocket for warmth, and she steers with just the right one. My right hand, she thinks — “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning.” Then for the rest of the trip she drives automatically, unthinkingly, through familiar streets. She barrels through the neighbourhood where she grew up, past trees she walked under on her way to elementary school, past stores where as a child she lined up, coin in sweaty hand, waiting her turn to buy candy. As she swerves onto her own street, the sky ahead of her is sprayed with stars and there is a swirl of glowing galaxy at its centre.

  Magnificent. But pulling into the driveway, she misses her parents intensely, with a sharp stab. Whenever they pulled into this driveway after a long trip, her father always said the same thing in his warm, guttural voice, and she, as a child and teenager, said it with him, timed together like a duet. But tonight she just listens to his voice alone in the cold, dark night, as he says to her with happiness, “Home sweet home.”

  FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

  — 1 —

  The following Monday there are no classes — it’s midterm break — so the Monday after that there’s a feeling of joy at school: the jubilation of reuniting after two weeks apart. People wave gleefully to each other in the halls. Aliza throws her arms around Judith, Pam slaps her a high five, and Cindy gives her a piece of cake with creamy icing saved from Mikey’s birthday party yesterday, along with one of the library books she promised to pass on. Judith feels happy and warm with belonging. Within her gang, but also within the school as a whole. By now she knows everyone in her class by name. There are only twenty-eight students in year one of the M.S.W. — twenty in the Practice stream, and eight in Policy — and in year two there are only sixteen more. It feels like a small community.

  “Don’t forget to send me your names for the keynote,” says Chris when he passes Judith in the hall.

  “Right,” she says. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  She’d completely forgotten. Like everyone on SWAC, she has only until this Thursday to suggest at least one speaker for Anti-oppression Day. Michael Brier seems to be everyone’s first choice, but “in the interest of democratic process” other names are also being collected. She continues down the hall, smiling and waving at people, glad Chris invited her to submit a name. She’s grateful to be included. Even though she doesn’t know anyone here in Canada to suggest. If this were Israel, that would be another matter. There she knows all the activists. She knows the scene. But Canada? A total blank. Which reminds her she forgot to look up Michael Brier over the weekend. She’d better do that before the next meeting.

  She wiggles into her seat near Cindy, Pam, and Aliza. Aliza is telling a joke about a Jewish boy from New York in the thirties who works for one of the big unions then, maybe the ILGWU. They send him to Tennessee to organize the workers in the South. So he gets on a train —

  Thump, thump, thump. Weick is standing behind the long table at the front of the room, pounding on the desk, calling for silence to begin his class. “Tell you later,” whispers Aliza, and Judith straightens up in her seat.

  As usual, Weick is wearing his trademark green cardigan, lecturing in a monotone from dog-eared notes, and making corny puns no one laughs at. But today Judith is so happy, surrounded by the affection of her friends, that she doesn’t care. He seems now more pathetic than any sort of threat. He is dull, slow-witted, awkward, and out-of-touch, and he still gazes at her sometimes in that odd manner. But other than this, nothing weird has happened between them. Today, he’s saying, they are just past the halfway point in the first term, so they’re going to do a review of everything covered in class so far.

  Oh shit. The first time Weick taught this stuff she learned nothing; now she is going to learn nothing for the second time. Two times zero is zero. She tries briefly to pay attention, but she can’t. Not even for one minute. His voice makes her feel dead. So she summons Moshe. Like calling forth a genie by rubbing an ancient lamp. One of those old Aladdin lamps, its front protruding like a penis. Moshe will occupy me, she thinks. Occupy me, as in keep me busy — but also occupy me physically: enter my body and fill me up. Fill my emptiness. He is a kind of occupation, but a different kind from the Israeli one — not a military occupation. Also not an occupation as in a career: last week in the doctor’s office they gave her a form to complete that asked for her occupation, and she wrote student. No, Moshe’s occupation of her is not an occupation of force or of status, but of love. “Make Love, Not War.” She wants him to occupy not just her West Bank, her left flank, but all of her: her north, south, east, and west. So now Moshe comes to her, and they begin making love. But then, as soon as they’re getting into it, she tells herself, I’d better stop this. I could lose control of myself, right here in Weick’s class, in front of everyone …

  So she pushes Moshe away and tries to refocus on Weick who, in all this time, hasn’t moved an inch and is still droning on. Two students in the back row have fallen asleep, one of them lightly snoring. Judith does her best to stay awake.

  But then at 10:36 a.m., with only twenty-four minutes left to go, the class suddenly flares to life like a damp match still containing some fire no one could have guessed at. Darra puts up her hand, and in a vibrant, totally unsleepy voice offers abortion as an example of how the values of a social worker who is pro-life can conflict with those of the client, and interfere with effectively helping a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy.

  “In this one case I know,” she says, “the worker was Catholic and, because of this, she kept pressuring her client not to have an abortion. This young woman, let’s call her Linda, was only sixteen and couldn’t decide what to do. But in the end, since her worker kept telling her to wait, she put it off for so long she had no choice but to have the baby. Then, to care for it, she dropped out of high school and married the baby’s father, who was seventeen, and also, as it turns out, violent, so Linda got beaten up by him for three years straight until one night she finally fled with the baby to the shelter where I’m doing my practicum.”

  The whole class is now wide awake and listening.

  “This should never have happened to this young woman,” Darra says passionately, “and I hold that social worker personally responsible. I think it’s disgusting and dishonest and unethical what she did, and she should never be allowed to practise social work in this province again.”

  Immediately several hands shoot up in the air and wave energetically at Weick. After some dithering, he points to the closest one.

  “I agree with you 100 percent,” Genya says to Darra. “Social workers who are pro-life have a professional responsibility to neutralize their values in the workplace, so as not to limit their clients’ life choices.”

  Tyler agrees. So do Lola, Mike, Tammy, and Samantha. Then Weick points to Mary Martha.

  “Well,” says Mary Martha in a high-pitched voice, “I don’t agree.”

  Mary Martha has spoken in class only once before, and Judith looks at her curiously. She’s a pink-cheeked girl with blond pigtails, from a small town somewhere in rural Ontario. Rumour has it she is part of some sect, Amish or maybe Mennonite. Mary Martha’s pale white skin is now flushed a deep pink.

  “I don’t believe in abortion,” she says. “And I’m not go
ing to pretend I do, just to fit in with the rest of you. You’re all very liberal and that’s fine. I respect your right to believe what you believe. But you don’t respect my right to hold my values, and that’s not right.”

  Mary Martha’s words are strong but her voice turns shaky toward the end and she looks like she might cry. Several people begin talking at once, but Weick, laughing, says “Hey!” and holds up his hand like a traffic cop. Then he points to the far corner of the room.

  “No one’s saying you aren’t entitled to your values,” says Roberta. “It’s just that you don’t have a right to impose them on others.”

  “Yeah,” pipes up Anna without waiting for Weick’s permission. “Especially if your values could hurt them. Clients come to you for help when they’re at their most vulnerable. You’re not there to tell them they can’t do something they need to, just because you’re uncomfortable with it.”

  Mary Martha is shaking her head. But the arguments keep coming, everyone trying to convince her she’s wrong. It’s the whole class against Mary Martha, and Judith feels sorry for her. But she can’t leap to her defence because she thinks her position is from the Dark Ages. Weick stands uselessly at the front of the class. He’s visibly happy, though — relieved to have something, anything, happening in his class for a change.

  Now Cindy speaks, more gently and slowly than anyone preceding her. “Mary Martha,” she says, talking directly to her, rather than the whole class. “Of course you have a right to your own values. But what people are trying to say is that none of us has the right to impose our values on other people. Especially our clients. So here’s a possible solution. What about transferring this young girl to another social worker — someone who doesn’t share your … beliefs, and can help this girl get an abortion, if that’s what she wants?”

  Sweet Cindy, thinks Judith. Always trying to find a middle ground to bridge the gaps between people, and make things turn out all right. The room falls silent while Mary Martha considers Cindy’s suggestion. She is struggling with herself. Her cheeks are even brighter now, a real apple-red, and they contrast strangely with her pale blond braids.

  “No,” she answers finally. “I couldn’t do that. It’s nice of you, Cindy, to try and find a compromise. But some things can’t be compromised on. I could never transfer this girl to someone else when I know this person is just going to help her get an abortion. If I pass her on to someone else to do something, it’s the same as if I did it myself. It’s still my personal responsibility. I believe my most important responsibility is to make sure this girl doesn’t burn in hell for all eternity for having had an abortion.”

  There is a shocked silence. Somebody giggles nervously. Then at least half of the class is frantically waving their hands at Weick. My God, thinks Judith. She really believes this stuff. What a nutcase.

  But as Mary Martha is attacked by one person after another, with Weick doing nothing to stop them, and as she continues to hold her ground, Judith begins to feel a grudging admiration for her. Mary Martha may be a nutcase, but she is a principled and determined nutcase.

  Mary Martha now has tears in her eyes, and her voice is wobbling, but she doesn’t back down. Daniella in the lions’ den. Judith recalls Pastor Niemoller’s poem and once again considers jumping in to defend Mary Martha, but she can’t. To her, pro-lifers are not only misguided people; they’re dangerous and destructive. Six weeks ago a group of them went crazy and smashed up Toronto’s largest abortion clinic, and nearly killed the doctor, too. These people scare her. But she watches Mary Martha facing down the whole room, and thinks: I wish I had that sort of courage.

  The back and forth, push and pull between Mary Martha and the rest of the class goes on and on. Finally the bell rings, releasing them all. Gratefully, they file out of the room, everyone talking, rolling their eyes and laughing, except for Mary Martha, who sits by herself, inserting her notes into her schoolbag. Pam, Aliza, Cindy, and Judith head toward the elevators.

  “These kinds of people,” spits out Pam, “don’t believe in compromise. Never compromising is a point of pride with them. They’re no different than the guys who flew into the Twin Towers. They’re religious fanatics.”

  Well, not necessarily, thinks Judith. You can be religious, like me, without being a religious fanatic. But she doesn’t say this out loud. She doesn’t feel like getting into an argument with Pam, who always seems so certain about everything.

  But Cindy ventures, “Mary Martha does seem kind of nice, though.”

  “Well, what’s that got to do with it?” says Pam. “Niceness has nothing to do with anything. If you’re a religious fanatic, you’re a religious fanatic. And that’s that.”

  You’re sounding pretty fanatical yourself, Judith thinks, but again doesn’t speak. She watches the numbers of the floors as the elevator gradually descends. Just before it reaches their floor and goes “bing!” she touches Cindy’s arm and says, “I forgot something. You guys go ahead, I’ll meet you in Greg’s class.”

  “Should we wait for you?” asks Cindy.

  “No. Go ahead.”

  Cindy enters the elevator. Then, just as the doors are closing, she calls out, “Do you want a donut?”

  Judith shouts back to the almost closed doors, into the crack: “No, thanks.”

  Back in the classroom, Mary Martha is alone, sitting in the same seat, eating a sandwich. She looks at Judith. Her eyes are pink — like a rabbit’s, thinks Judith. Mary Martha has obviously been crying.

  “I forgot something,” Judith says.

  Mary Martha nods and returns to her sandwich. Judith goes to where she was sitting and pretends to be looking for something. She crouches down, peering all over the place and groping around on the floor under what was her chair. Then, as if talking to the floor, she asks, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” says Mary Martha. “Thanks.” Judith glances up and their eyes meet. Then Judith gets to her feet.

  “I must’ve lost it somewhere else,” she says. “Are you coming to Greg’s class?”

  “In a minute,” says Mary Martha.

  “Okay. See you there.”

  Judith walks back to the elevator and looks at her reflection in the metal doors. She looks young to herself, definitely younger than her age. Maybe, she thinks, it’s because I don’t wear makeup. Or maybe it’s the way I dress: T-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, and sneakers. Anyway, I look more like twenty-six than thirty-two. And I look like someone who has never fought in a war.

  When Judith arrives at Greg’s class, he isn’t there yet, but all the students are talking excitedly and laughing, and there’s an electric charge in the air. Probably because of what just happened in Weick’s class, she thinks. The lions have tasted blood. She waves to her gang and sits with them.

  Greg sails into the class with a grin. He waves back at Mike who’s just waved to him casually, almost as though Greg were just another student. So different, thinks Judith, from when Weick enters a room and silence immediately descends like a pall. Greg senses her watching him and smiles at her, and she smiles back. Gradually the room quietens. Greg, jubilantly, like Robin Williams crowing “Good morning, Vietnam!,” calls out: “Good morning, everybody!”

  “Good morning, Greg!” shout back Tyler and several female students sitting around him. Some others answer too, though more quietly, including Judith.

  “You seem happy today,” Greg says, laughing. “That’s great! Here we are halfway through ‘Introduction to Social Justice.’ Last class, we completed the first module of this course: Intersecting Oppressions and Social Justice (and Injustice) in Canada. So before moving on, let’s do a brief recap of what we’ve covered till now. First, we showed how race, gender, class, sexual orientation, ageism, and ableism all interact to oppress Canada’s most vulnerable and marginalized citizens, thus keeping this segment of the population — Canada’s underclass, in essence — in its place …”

  Judith has heard all this before — every week, in fact — and doesn�
�t feel like hearing it again. She looks around the class. She catches sight of Mary Martha, sitting at the edge of the room near the door, looking down at her desk. Then she scans the faces of her classmates. Some of them, as they listen raptly to Greg, remind her of the baby animals in the early Disney films, like Bambi or Chip ’n’ Dale: wide-eyed, innocent, and adoring. Greg continues talking without saying anything new, and only half-listening, she doodles happily, filling two pages with drawings of humans, animals, and creatures that are part-animal and part-human. She draws a half-human-half-chipmunk. A half-human-half-deer. A half-human-half-chicken. Just as she’s completing a half-human-half-bird, she hears Greg winding up his review and dismissing them for a break. After they return, knowing Greg will introduce some new material now, she gives him her full attention.

  “Okay,” says Greg. “So now I’d like to move beyond the borders of Canada and into the global context. Here the question becomes: How do the same oppressions and social injustices that we’ve been talking about manifest themselves outside of Canada? How do they play themselves out in the international arena? I have my own ideas, obviously. But first I’d like to hear what you think. Like when you feel concerned about oppression or social injustice around the world, what places come to mind?”

  Uh-oh, thinks Judith. Uh-oh.

  “Also, when you pick a country,” Greg continues, “ask yourselves why there is oppression there. What social structures and policies in these countries make it possible for these abuses and injustices to occur? When you reflect on oppression, think, of course, about racism, classism, sexism, all of the ‘isms.’ But I also want you to include political oppression, where citizens’ human or civil rights are violated on a regular basis. This may not involve, or be directed against, a country’s whole citizenry; maybe just against certain segments of it. Perhaps groups that are ethnically or religiously different from the majority, or from the government.”