The Solace of Trees

by Robert Madrygin

  “I’ll keep it in mind. I think what you’re doing is wonderful, and I applaud your agency’s efforts.”

  During the next twenty-four hours, Margaret Morgan’s conversation with the children’s program administrator played back in her mind several times. The weight of her own words, while externally polite and correct, internally felt superficial, the complacency they implied leaving a feeling of shallowness that pained her conscience.

  At home alone on the evening following her phone conversation with Jane Coleman, Margaret sat drinking a glass of wine, her conversation with the director of children’s programs replaying in her mind yet another time. My god, she thought, is tossing money like a bone the best that I can do? Will I spend this last leg of my lifetime only in the pursuit of self-comfort? Can’t I afford to give something more? Certainly, she could help the charitable agency on an occasional basis by offering her professional services, if they had use of them. And what about becoming a foster parent? Was the noted academic too exalted a personality to take on that role? Wasn’t she the teacher, the coach who sat on the sidelines and instructed others how to play, never dirtying herself in the game? Here in her thoughts, Margaret’s irritation with herself turned to a smile, a caricature coming to mind: the pompous professor tripping over her own feet as she walked to the podium. Her humor lightening her mood, Margaret thought back upon her recently abandoned career. You were a good teacher, a voice inside of her acknowledged. You were diligent, caring, and dedicated, the voice continued.

  A second voice, doubtful and unsure, entered the conversation: Should I really have retired? Had it been a terrible mistake to leave a lifetime of professional identity behind with nothing there to take its place?

  No, the first voice answered, it had been right for you to stand down and make way for new talent. In any case, it said in finality, retirement didn’t have to be an ending. Yet the doubting voice was not comforted. But if not an ending, then what is it?

  Margaret Morgan had grown up in a wealthy family, never wanting for anything except for the experience of living in a world away from the fenced-off grounds of her privileged, safe haven. As she grew into her adolescence she longed for an opportunity to join the world at large, not be sheltered from it. But her parents and the times didn’t allow for any experimentation in the integration of class or race or culture. Her childhood might have been without material struggle of any kind, but emotionally it had been just the opposite. Small fissures of unhappiness, unnoticed by any but herself, began to appear beneath the enviable, gilded lifestyle that held her up.

  In her adulthood, Margaret worked diligently to free herself of the bounds of the propriety her parents had imposed on her childhood. But the postwar years of the 1950s were not encouraging of women who wanted to pursue an independent path. Her parents never expected her to complete her college education; her attendance was, after all, more to find her a good husband than to procure a degree, which would have little use in her future as a mother and homemaker. Yet Margaret had other ideas. She was bright, she had an inquisitive mind, and she cared about others and the world. As the times and social mores changed, Margaret was among those who fought to bring the progression about. She graduated from college and went on to pursue a postgraduate degree, ultimately earning her doctorate and, eventually, even her parents’ grudging admiration. After she fell in love with a young, successful attorney, got married, and gave birth to a child, they felt everything had finally fallen rightly into place.

  But if Margaret believed she had broken free from the confines of a life of stifling security, she was never quite sure whether or not she had escaped the grounds of the prison itself. Her years in her chosen profession had taught her that internal enclosures were no less difficult to free oneself of than their external material counterparts. Had she escaped the conditions of her past only to find that now, years later, she had walked in circles and ended up back in the very place from which she had sought to free herself?

  Several days after her conversation with Jane, Margaret found herself picking up the phone. “Hello, Jane,” she said. “I’m calling to see if you might tell me a little more about what’s involved in hosting a child.”

  Happy to hear of Margaret’s interest, Jane Coleman explained the process involved in becoming a foster parent and answered the retired professor’s questions. She then added that the agency was in need of someone of Margaret’s professional capacity who could volunteer time to consult on several of their more complicated cases. It was, she suggested, a good way for Margaret to see firsthand some of the issues that might be involved in being a caregiver to a child before she made a final decision whether or not to enter their program.

  There was, Jane mentioned, a case they were having particular difficulty with. The program director had remembered, from her conversation with Margaret at the party, that the retired professor had experience working with hearing-impaired persons and was conversant in American Sign Language. The child in question was a war orphan from Bosnia, a deaf-mute boy who had been placed in a temporary residence and was having trouble adjusting. Would Margaret be willing to meet with the child and give her professional opinion of his condition to help the agency determine the most appropriate setting for his permanent placement?

  “I’d be happy to,” Margaret readily replied, though a part of her was caught off guard at how quickly she’d gone from an exploratory phone call to actual involvement.

  “That’s great, Margaret. Thanks so much,” Jane said. “As you might be aware, all refugees entering the country go through a standard health screening. The results from this boy’s screening have left us with more questions than answers. If it’s OK with you, I’ll forward the case file to you today so you’ll have all of the necessary background information, and then, if you’re willing, we can set up an appointment for you to meet with the child. His name is Amir Beganović.”

  When Margaret received the Bosnian orphan’s file, she was struck more by what information it didn’t contain than that which it did. The general and cursory medical report described his health and sensory impairments. There was scant information concerning his history before arriving in his host country. The file stated he had been transferred from a refugee camp in Bosnia, yet there was nothing of detail pertaining to how he had come to be there or what his life had been like before the war.

  Driving to the foster home to meet with the boy, Margaret considered her role in the case. For a number of years early in her career she had maintained a small private practice while teaching at the university as an adjunct professor. But after working her way up the ladder to become a tenured professor, her responsibilities at the school grew, and she had let the practice go. It felt good to be back in that role again. The sun was out and the sky clear, the beginnings of a beautiful Indian-summer day. Margaret felt more enlivened than she had in a long time. After meeting with the boy, she would continue into Cambridge to visit with her daughter, who lived there. As she pulled into the Thorensons’ driveway, Margaret felt at ease and as if, once again, she had something to offer the world other than the forced contentment of her smile.

  Chapter 11

  The retired psychology professor’s first visit with the Bosnian war orphan went well. The child had not been particularly responsive, nor had he exhibited much emotional reaction during their time together, but he had been polite and respectful and displayed, from her experienced perspective, an intelligent demeanor. Margaret’s initial impression of the boy came from the simplicity of her practiced, uncomplicated observational skill. As Amir entered the room, led by his foster father, she had noted the way he carried his body, how he held his head, the musculature of his face and mouth, and the movement of his eyes. He was slight of body, his face passive in its expression, and his eyes, as they briefly met hers, were shielded by a reserve that maintained their distance.

  Amir watched as Margaret introduced herself, signing “hello” with a wave of her hand. She introduced herself by spell
ing her name with her fingers, but he wasn’t sure of all its letters. He signed back “hello,” the movement of his hand timid, and then he sat down at the kitchen table with Margaret and his foster parents.

  His foster parents served tea and cookies to their guest. His foster mother poured him a glass of milk, then put some cookies on a plate and placed it in front of him. Amir looked on passively as the woman visitor sipped her tea and spoke with his foster parents. Even though she knew his signing skills were limited, Margaret signed her words as she talked and glanced in his direction so that he might feel included in the conversation. Though he added no comment of his own, she would occasionally smile at him as if he had spoken, yet never with the look of expectation that he need actually do so.

  Amir ate his cookies with his eyes directed at his plate, stealing a look at the woman for only the briefest of moments. He could see that she was aware of his glances, just as he was aware that, although none of the adults at the table directed more than casual attention in his direction, he was the reason the visitor was there.

  “How school today?” his foster mother signed, attempting to engage the boy in the conversation.

  “OK,” Amir’s hands replied, spelling out the two letters, their movement reflecting the ambivalence of his feelings.

  Joy Thorenson nodded her head and searched his eyes for a brief second. “Good, or just OK?” she asked with a smile.

  Amir shrugged in reply and looked briefly downward as if the answer to the question was to be found written on the ground by his feet. He then raised his head and once more signed the letters o and k.

  “School big or small?” Margaret asked, signing her question as she spoke. Her face expressed a casual curiosity, her head tilted to the right, her eyebrows arched, and her shoulders raised upward.

  “Big,” Amir responded, bringing his hands close together and then spreading them wide apart, his gesture indicating that he considered the place very large indeed.

  “I see,” Margaret signed back, her face showing her curiosity satisfied.

  With the ice broken between the boy and the visitor, the conversation at the table continued on more at ease until, after a time, Margaret could see Amir’s attention beginning to wane. She excused herself and thanked the Thorensons for their hospitality. As she drove toward Cambridge she considered the myths many people held about foster parents and the children they cared for. The children themselves were often considered “damaged goods” beyond repair and the foster parents in it just for the money. The truth was that the great majority of children under foster care, though struggling to overcome very difficult circumstances, were resilient, polite, and bright children just like you’d find in the homes of your friends. And if the Thorensons were any example, the idea that foster parents were in it simply for the money was uninformed. In fact, for the Thorensens it was just the opposite. Both held jobs. She was a nurse and he was a real estate appraiser. The truth was they financially augmented the charity’s foster program and not the other way around.

  By their third meeting together, Margaret felt Amir beginning to become more responsive to her. They had passed the point of being strangers, and the comfort of familiarity had begun to grow between the woman and the boy.

  “We have a fun project today,” Margaret signed. “Want to try?”

  Amir looked back at the woman, his brows furrowed and his face showing he didn’t understand her.

  Realizing her signing had been beyond the boy’s still-basic skills, Margaret signaled for him to watch. Taking a stack of tissue papers of assorted colors from her bag, she placed it on the table. She then removed a small tub of glue and brought it over to the Thorensons’ kitchen sink, where she diluted it with water. Sitting back at the table with Amir, she demonstrated what they were to do.

  “Take any color paper you like,” she signed. “Cut or tear big or little, then put in glue and place on the poster board. See, just like that. It’s simple.”

  Amir was not sure. It wasn’t the woman’s signing that confused him now, nor the process itself. It was the end product he didn’t understand. What was he supposed to make by putting the tissue paper on the poster board?

  “I don’t understand.”

  Margaret smiled at the quizzical look on the boy’s face, the tilt of his head and the ever-so-light lift of his shoulders that spoke his thoughts as clear as any words.

  “You can make picture,” Margaret signed.

  “What kind?”

  “Any kind. Anything you like.”

  “But what kind?”

  “The picture makes itself. Don’t worry. Just have fun.”

  Amir looked at Margaret doubtfully but began to work on his project all the same. Reaching for a pair of scissors, he cut out pieces of tissue paper of various colors, laying them out on the notebook-size sheet of poster board the woman had placed in front of him. Margaret could see that the pieces he was cutting would make the pattern of a landscape. The boy was carefully laying out each piece and putting it in place in preparation for gluing it down. The retired psychology professor smiled but said nothing. The art process she had chosen to engage in with the boy was not a medium meant for replication of the literal but rather one intended to open the imagination to forms whose meanings were beneath the surface of conscious thought.

  Instead of showing Amir what he might do with the materials at hand, Margaret focused on her own work and allowed him to continue unimpeded. Still not quite sure of how he was to proceed once he’d cut out the pieces to his picture, Amir looked to the woman to see if he should begin gluing his cut-outs one at a time, as he made them, or finish cutting all of them and then glue them down in sequence. What he saw surprised him. The woman was tearing off bits of tissue paper without the scissor’s help, dipping them in the glue solution, and then placing them in seemingly random locations upon her sheet of poster board. Only occasionally did she use the scissors to cut the tissue, and even then, when she placed it on the poster board, she didn’t lay it down flat in a position that might make sense with the others around it, but rather, she let it soak in the glue solution until it was saturated and completely pliable. She then bunched it up, swirling the material about so that some of it was elevated on the sheet and looked like a small hill rising from the ground beneath it.

  His face expressing both his curiosity in what the woman might be doing and his doubt about his own process, Amir looked to Margaret.

  Margaret, seeing the boy hover between the world of the literal and that of the imagination, smiled in response. But she did nothing more, leaving him to choose which realm he wished to enter.

  “But I don’t understand,” the look on the boy’s face spoke.

  “Just have fun,” Margaret signed to Amir.

  “What are you making?” Amir signed back.

  “Don’t know. I am waiting to see what the picture wants to be.”

  Amir paused momentarily to ponder what the woman had signed, not sure what she meant. “How do you do that?” his hands asked, pointing to a textured rise in Margaret’s creation.

  “This?” Margaret queried, pointing to where her tissue paper bunched, intermingling one piece with the next.

  “Yes, there.”

  “I don’t remember. I think something like this,” she said, attempting to recreate the spontaneous technique.

  Amir turned away from the woman and considered the ordered pieces of tissue paper that lay in front of him and the idea that they could be set in place by no other mandate than his whimsy. Hesitantly taking hold of a piece of paper, he submerged it in the diluted glue solution and let it soak for a few seconds as he had seen the woman do. Lifting it, he then laid it on the sheet of heavy paper. It didn’t look right to him sitting all alone by itself. It seemed out of place. Nevertheless, he continued, gluing one piece at a time, his poster board soon beginning to look less like an empty, disjointed canvas. But still, he could feel no fun in what he was doing…until he accidentally caught the edge of th
e last piece he’d placed, bunching it up with the one he was currently laying down.

  Just as a feeling of frustration began to rise at the mistake, he saw the woman glancing in his direction. Looking at his sheet of paper, where the two pieces, one blue and the other green, had accidentally merged, she gave him a thumbs-up, as if his fumbling of the tissue had been an artistic triumph. Amir turned his gaze back at his botched work and saw that where the two differently colored pieces of tissue paper met, a third color had been created, turquoise, and that the wrinkling of the bunched paper gave it a texture that made it look like gentle waves gracefully traveling across a pond. Strangely, it looked more real to him than an actual photo of ripples on a body of water.

  Taking another piece of tissue paper, Amir let it soak extra long in the solution. He laid it down on the poster board and then, doing as he’d seen the woman do earlier, swirled it around on itself in a circle. It didn’t create the rise of a small hill, as it had in the woman’s piece, so much as it did the roll of sand dunes you might see in a desert. It looked good, and he liked the feel of it under his fingers.

  “Like this?” he signed.

  “Are you having fun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, yes. Just like that.”

  After Amir had finished using all of the pieces he had cut out for his landscape, now spread about his poster board in what seemed to him a disordered chaos, he began tearing additional strips from the sheets of the tissue paper with his hands, leaving the scissors resting on the table. While his mind still sought to make some sense from the mix of colors and shapes that had grown upon his canvas, his hands continued their work.

  As he placed the new pieces of torn and irregular shapes on the board, Amir began to see how they took on a life of their own, revealing a hidden world beneath the veil of the obvious. It was just like looking at clouds moving slowly across the sky. At first, all you saw were great white puffs standing out against the backdrop of the blue ceiling high above them. But then, the more you looked, the more you could see. Curious shapes would begin to emerge within the amorphous billows of white, vague images that soon took on the appearance of the familiar: eyes, noses, cheeks, and hair—human, animal, and other shapes arising in phantasmagoric shiftings of scenes that set his imagination free to wander in magical realms. It was just like that with the picture growing from the pieces of colored tissue paper he placed on the poster board, Amir’s mind no longer directing the action, his eyes watching, waiting to see what emerged from his imagination’s flight.