"As you know, I'm the principal of this school and I take special pleasure in watching you kids grow and learn. Well, I've been watching you, Holly, for these past two years and I've really noticed something special about you."
"What's that, sir?" I have a feeling he hasn't noticed any of my wonderful hidden talents.
"Well, you're a sharp girl, as I mentioned, and you are very active in extracurricular activities and maybe this is why you think you're better than everyone else."
"What are you talking about, sir?"
"I'm talking about exactly this, Holly, the tone of your voice right now, the way you are looking at me. You have what is called an attitude problem, and I feel that it is my responsibility to let you know that in the real world, in high school, no one likes a show-off."
I sit up straight. My hands are drenched with sweat. I search my mind for things Ford might have seen to come to this conclusion and, coming up with nothing, I look at him straight in the eye and finally stop smiling.
"Can you just tell me what this is about, Mr. Ford? Because I really don't—"
"This is what I'm talking about, your disrespectful attitude."
We sit in silence for an uncomfortable stretch; I give up on the idea of talking. I focus instead on the half-inch ash of his cigarette and decide against telling him it's about to topple onto his tie.
"What is it about you that makes you think you're so special? I mean . . ." He pauses and flips through my folder.
I get a queasy feeling in the pit of my gut, thinking that this folder will follow me for the rest of my life, that this man, this weaselly little God-fearing man, can write things in my folder that will affect me, and my High School Career, for the Rest of My Life. But the not-snark, as Giselle calls it, the not-snark says: Suck it up Hoi. Suck it up. Don't say anything. Don't ruin this with your big fat mouth, please, Hoi, and I wrestle down the part of me that wants to scream.
"Do you think that you deserve to be treated differently, Holly?"
I say nothing.
"Can you hear me, dear? Is your hearing aid on?"
"No sir, yes sir, I hear you."
"So why, why, Holly, do I see you rolling your eyes during closing prayers? Why do you think you may waltz in a good five minutes after the rest of us have filed into class and are ready for morning prayers? Do you think you need a different set of rules?"
"No, sir."
"Do you know what happens to people that think they are special, Holly?"
"No, sir." '
"They die in car crashes, in drug overdoses. You see, they never learn that they mean nothing at all. They think too much of themselves, of their worldly needs, and they don't think enough about God."
The ashen colour of his skeletal face is slightly pink, he is beginning to frighten me. I'm afraid he might have a heart attack but then he slows down, catches himself, and looks at me, sees me, for the first time.
"I have a daughter too, Holly, your age. She's at St. Mary's, so I know this is a hard time for you girls, that there are many changes happening in your mind, in your body." He gives me an almost friendly look and whispers, "I know, also, that you lost your father at a very young age, that things might be a bit more difficult for you without that guidance."
I blink at him as a single fat tear rolls out of my left eyeball and into my mouth. That didn't happen, you didn't see that. He looks at me as if he wants to say something else but decides against it. Then he rolls his office chair behind his desk efficiently, switching into another person entirely. He butts out the filter of the cigarette that's been smouldering in his grip for the past couple of minutes and dashes off his initials on the transcript in my folder. His hands are shaking.
"You may go now, Holly, I have other students to see."
I open the door a crack, trying, with all my energy, not to let loose the rest of the scratching wave of tears at the back of my throat.
"How is your sister?"
"Fine. Terrific."
"Tell her I say hello. Is she getting married soon? I've seen her with, what's his name, Abraham?"
"Solomon."
"Of course, Solomon, that wonderful Old Testament name . . . Anyway, goodbye, Holly, and good luck to you."
God's luck to you. The world moves in slow motion as I roll my forehead against the cool, painted, concrete-block walls of the corridor. I stay there for a while, pressing my hot cheek against the texture, breathing. Then I make my way down the calico-coloured floors of the school, looking in every now and then at everyone inside their classrooms. I hear the gummed sound of running shoes coming towards me and duck instinctively. It's Jen. She wraps her arm around my shoulders and gives me a friendly headlock.
"So, how'd it go?" Her face is close to mine and, I think, for a second, how pretty she is even with two crazy ponytails coming out the top of her head like geraniums and blue sparkles all over her face. Accessorized, Jen likes to call it.
I stare at Jen dumbly, but I don't need to talk, Jen knows exactly what happened.
"What? That crazy Ford . . . Look, don't worry about it, he gave me the same you're-going-to-burn-in-hell lecture. Once we get out of this shit-hole place, it's all new."
"Right." That wave of scratching pain-tears comes back into my throat and my mouth and it's all I can do not to cry.
"You OK?"
"Yeah, fine," I say, struggling out of her hold.
"Listen—" she snaps a yellow, fluorescent wad of bubble gum in my ear. The smell of pina colada washes over us "—I got some excellent news."
"What's that?"
Jen's got that mad-glee look in her eyes. "Listen, chickie, guess who Saleri said is starting for the final game of the season?"
"Me?"
"No, Magic Johnson, yeah you, and me, your left-hand man, Woman!" She gives me a big crazy smile and we start high-fiving each other and jumping up and down, until we get too loud and someone comes out of the nearest classroom.
"You ladies have to be somewhere?"
It's Mr. Saleri. He's smiling a little bit, looking pleased with himself. The shiny open pores on his nose suddenly look great. I want to kiss his pale mouth hiding underneath his little moustache. He leans against the doorway casually as Jen and I pounce on him.
"Is it true, sir? You're going to let me play?"
He clears his throat, almost shyly. "Jennifer seems to think we need you." Jen pinches me in the ass, hard.
"Ow!" I slap her hand away and she goes skipping away down the hall singing "We Are the Champions" and pushing her hands up into the air.
"But. . . um, sir, have you cleared this with Mr. Ford?"
Both of us looked toward his office door.
Saleri shrugs. "Don't worry, I'll talk to him, you just make it to practice and keep doing your homework. Focus on your game." He leans back on his heels, looks into his empty classroom and then back at me.
"Hey." He sticks his hand in my hair awkwardly, like a hairdresser, trying to arrange the short little tufts in front into some kind of order.
"You OK, Holly? Something upset you?" I get the feeling like I got. when my nose was broken: the snotty, teary smell of pain crunching my sinuses.
"I'm just fine, sir, thank you," I whisper, walking away from him backwards, giving him a silly little smile as he waves at me like a sad clown and goes back inside his empty classroom.
. . .
As soon as I get home from school I crawl into Giselle's bed. Her head's propped between two large books on her desk. As she reads stuff, she draws a picture of a skeleton, absently, then scrolls in the muscles alongside the bones and then, using her ruler, she makes lines coming out of different parts and writes down the names of the parts. She then draws a heart from memory and labels it quickly: left ventricle, right ventricle, aortic cavity. She does it mindlessly the way some people doodle; Giselle's known the name of every bone and everything since forever. She's in a mood, all quiet and inside herself and has got bags under her eyes. She stares at the tiny skull Da
d gave her when she was a kid. Besides her schoolbooks and her mauve silk dress, it's her most prized possession. I lie on her bed, sniffing her pillows. When she starts to shade in one area of the heart, I lean over and pull on her sleeve to get her attention.
"What are you studying for?"
"Nothing really, just reading, so I don't forget everything. What's up with you?"
So I tell her, first, the good news, about the game, about Jen and Mr. Saleri, then about Ford, his tie, his smoking, the picture of little Henry that made me almost like him. The words come out quicker and quicker till I get to the part where he tells me that I think I'm better than everyone else and the stuff about my soul and drug overdoses and people dying in fiery crashes. It all gets so mixed up in my head snot bubbles drop out of my nose while I try to explain and then I'm gasping, and Giselle sits next to me on the bed and pulls my face to her bony shoulder. I bury my eyes in her long, scratchy hair.
"Hey, hey! It's all right, Holly, shhhh . . . what an asshole."
"Ow."
"What is it?"
"My nose hurts, Giselle."
"I'm sorry, honey, don't cry, please."
"Do you think I think I'm better than everyone else?" I spit out.
"I don't know. Do you?"
I shake my head as she smooths back my hair. She holds my head in her hands, watching the tears stream down with a serious look on her face.
"I know that you are better, at a lot of things, than most people, except math."
"I don't know." I stuff a pillow over my face.
"Sometimes it sucks, being good, because if you make a mistake, then everybody makes a mistake and if something goes wrong it's your fault, it falls on your shoulders. Like a bad play, you know, timing, sports has a lot to do with timing, right?"
"Yeh, yeh, yeeess . . . " I blubber.
Giselle puts a Kleenex up to my nose and says, "Blow slowly."
"Ow." A little blood comes out when I blow into the tissue. Giselle inspects the goop in my Kleenex and, without missing a beat, goes on.
"Here, take another Kleenex . . . Listen." She pulls her chair up to the bed and puts her forehead onto mine. "If your timing is good you pass the ball to Jen, right? She knows what to do, she can tell you want to steal into the key, make a layup, or shoot a hoopie, is that right?" I start laughing, sputtering liquid out from just about every orifice in my face. Hoopie.
"OK, sorry, I don't know all the technical terminology. My point is, I'm trying to draw an analogy here, whether you get the shot or Jen gets the shot doesn't matter. It's not just about how you play, Holly, it's about how you make everyone else play, too. That's why they need you."
Giselle comes on the bed and sits next to me.
"But sometimes things go wrong, you miss the shot, you get pounded in the parking lot, whatever, it's hard sometimes." She pauses. "Are you going to tell Mom about Ford?"
"I'm telling you, now."
"Holly, nothing, nothing he said was true. Do you understand me?"
I nod at Giselle and curl into a tiny ball on her bed, blowing my nose into my T-shirt.
"Ow, Gizzy, my nose hurts, my head hurts."
"I know, I'm sorry, here, take one of these." She grabs a bottle of pills from her dresser and gets a glass of water from the bathroom.
I try to control my breathing and let Giselle wipe the blood and snot from my nose and feed me pills. I feel the ache floating in my head subside and sleep coming on. Giselle peels off my runners and puts a blanket over me and I stick a piece of Kleenex up my nostril.
She lets out one of her long, slow sighs, sits back at her desk, picks up her pencil, and returns to her secret work.
chapter 19
TB epidemiology: The wave of the European epidemic began in 1780, during the industrial revolution, and peaked in the early 1800s. By the 1960s, huge control of the disease resulted in the shifting of demographics. Eighty percent of active TB were elderly, and cases declined to about 30,000 per annum.
While Holly drools on my pillows, I read the pages of the TB chapter till my eyes are swimming. Finally, I close my book and, when I'm certain Holly's asleep, I pull out the green clothbound book I found among Mom's old photographs while we were housecleaning. It belongs to Dad. If Mom won't tell me the details of their escape, I'll have to find out on my own. It doesn't matter now, I don't need her co-operation, I have this new-found evidence and from it I can reconstruct the night they left. Mom thinks I can't read Hungarian but she doesn't remember Dad sitting me down and explaining phonetics, the vowels, and the consonant combinations, just like I would do with Holly, in English, several years later. Pushing my tongue to the roof of my mouth, I try pronouncing the words in my best imitation of my parents' exchanges. Nem ertem. Nagyon finom. Kosönöm steepen. Maybe she thinks my memory of these words has been lost like this little book.
As I go through the aged, yellowed pages, I feel something strange flicker up inside me, which is what? Understanding? Proximity?
—So what? He taught you a couple of foreign words when you were a kid. Big deal.
—He tried.
Armed with a brand-new Hungarian-English dictionary, these last couple of nights I've been piecing together their past from my father's professional and personal notes, and their old-world documents.
—So what?
So what indeed. Why do I want to get into it? Why do I torture myself? If Mom's hiding something, she's probably trying to protect me. Why do I want to know about his big fat stupid heart? What possible fascination could ancient notes in a forgotten language about the blood-sugar levels of his patients and what Mom was wearing the night they escaped hold for me? His heart never did anything except keep me out when he was alive and then shut down when I was twelve. So what? Why should I care?
Because, like some dogged old detective, I am convinced that there are clues that connect us, me and Dad. Convinced there's something concrete that held him back from me. A man doesn't just wake up one morning and stop loving his daughter, just like that, his flesh and blood, his
——Why do you always have to push? Why can't you just accept that you hated each other's guts?
—Because it's not supposed to be that way.
Because now I don't need her, or his ghost. I only need his heart's words, and tonight seems as good a night as any to take on the challenge of the group therapy assignment to write about our families. So, after a lot of pacing, looking up words in the dictionary, and trying to pronounce their foreign textures in my mouth, eating half a rotten apple from the bottom of Holly's school bag, smoking a cigarette, and writing three ragged drafts, this is what I come up with:
The Story of Your Flight
On this balmy June night in 1971, outside a small village in northwestern Hungary, Thomas takes Vesla by the arm, detects the flush of excitement from the surge of Chanel perfume off her neck, one of Misha's last gifts to his young bride-to-be, he thinks. He reaches into his jacket pocket for his notebook and the pile of cash. After a little research, he's discovered that rather than getting fake passports, it's more practical to arrive at the border without any documents. He has burned their passports, along with all evidence of their identities: they've become untraceable. He is buying their freedom and has already destroyed their past.
Reaching for the thick wad of cash—money he has carefully collected over the years—he withdraws it from his right breast pocket. There's the fruit money: saved from summers when he was fifteen and plucked chalk-blue plums and pink peaches from trees on his uncle's fields. Factory money: the mindless two-year stint where he greased and moulded mysterious bits of heavy metal together in a village with a population of five hundred, when oil clotted under his nails like black seaweed stuck on a shoreline. Finally, the greatest dividend: the blood money. After endless intern nights at the country's largest city hospital, where he did not sleep for three years, he conceded, taking up a friend's offer of easy hours tending to the medical problems of ranking party members.
He slips the money, the years of his past life stacked and accounted for, into Vesla's pocket; it will be safer with her. He wonders, as he does almost every day of his life, about his decision not to join the party.
Years later, in Canada, in the mid-1970s, colleagues, friends, strangers at dinner parties will peer at him curiously and ask, "Why did you leave?" He will smile back at them, pulling his lip self-consciously over his yellowed bottom teeth, while running his tongue over the top stack of his brand-new dentures. He will take a sip of his cocktail and smile at these British descendants, who recall only black-and-white images of smartly dressed women holding guns during the Hungarian revolution, and a paprikas recipe, but who have no context, not really. Nobody has thought about his country since the October Revolution, since the newsreel images showed Russian tanks rolling over cobbled streets. He will try to explain that success, in medicine, in academics, in any field, was reserved only for those with Communist connections, with money, or those willing to become good Communists. He will try to explain but the words will fail to come. Misha's name will not rise to his lips. He will not ever say the words "murder" or "suicide" out loud. Instead, he will run his tongue over his smooth teeth and say, "Economic reasons."
He knew politics intimately enough, he saw its bile clogging the arteries of the men he treated. Rich food, drink, and cigarettes: the occupational hazards of powerful men. He measured their political clout according to their too-high heart rates, and, listening to their fat hearts in their fat chests, he heard the echo of a thousand unknown stresses; this was the sound of manifestos, the great levelling of class. At night he tempered the clang of their heartbeats by assisting at an illegal abortion clinic. As he cleaned the women and pulled sheets over their hips, he noticed their collective silence and how the undetected burst of a heart flame quelled offset the wild hearts that pounded out his days. And one day he woke up and thought, "This is not me, this is not my life. My life is somewhere else."