All the Silent Spaces

by Christine Ristaino

  Retrogression 20:

  September 15, 2007, 7:32 p.m.

  We are standing on the sidewalk in front of the store. A police car pulls into the parking lot. The officer gets out of his car and approaches us. Who is the victim? He turns and begins to ask me question after question. What did he look like? How did he strike? What was he wearing? How long did it last? What was in my purse? Were the children hurt? He writes everything on a pad of yellow paper. My children stand, planted next to me, uncharacteristically still.

  Chapter 20:

  Eitan

  Eitan and I are driving five children under the age of seven to Edisto Island—a six-hour trip. A few days after we had put a deposit on a rental house for the two families to vacation together, both our spouses discovered they had to work until Wednesday of that week. On Monday evening Eitan and I pack up his minivan and head out.

  Eitan is six foot five, even taller than my husband. He runs every day and is muscular and thin. He’s dark—dark-eyed, tan-skinned, with black, short hair. He is always animated and his brown eyes reflect his mood. He is patient and kind to his children. Eitan is from Israel, and although he enjoys his life in the United States and has done very well—a top scholar in his field—he longs to return to his native country. He battles himself constantly since he is armed with the knowledge that moving back would most likely result in taking on a job with less prestige, a cut in pay, and a drop in his family’s quality of life. Eitan might have a job offer in Israel, and he tells me this staccato, in between bathroom stops, children asking for juice boxes, battle cries from the seats behind me, and the buckling and unbuckling of my seat belt as I illegally jump from front to back, trying to soothe all five of them.

  After two hours, we stop to eat a late dinner at a Wendy’s. We are in Augusta, Georgia. I spend most of our restaurant break in the bathroom trying to clean my son, who has pooped all over himself. After what seems like an endless round of wiping feces off of his rear end, feet, ankles, lower back, and, yes, hands too, I take his pants and underpants, wrap them in paper towels, and throw them into the trash, replacing them with fresh clothes. While we are in the bathroom, the sky goes from a murky blue to black. Samuel and I enter the eating area as the kids busy themselves with fries and other unhealthy delights. Eitan and I speak about a strategy to get them back into the car, and I hand Samuel cold chicken fingers and fries already slopped in ketchup.

  We put the children into a line at the door. Eitan holds his son, his youngest, in his arms and the hand of one of his daughters. My daughter and Eitan’s oldest link arms and skip in unison behind Eitan. I carry my son and a purple bag full of backup clothes, wipes, and snacks to tide us over. As we approach the car, Eitan comments that the atmosphere outside the Wendy’s is considerably different than when we went in. A van is parked next to ours, doors open and loud music playing. Our daughters begin to sway and move their hips, giggling and stepping on each other’s feet, almost falling at one point into the three men by the van.

  “Come on, girls,” Eitan says with uncharacteristic impatience. “Let’s get into the car.”

  As we buckle in the children, two more men walk past us and join the three who are talking, and other cars circle the parking lot, windows open, loud music, and animated voices.

  “I don’t like black culture here in the South,” Eitan says under his breath as he snaps his son into his seat.

  “Really?” I respond, jerking my head up, still fumbling with my daughter’s belt. Eitan surveys our five children and then slides the door closed. I jump into the front seat next to him and he starts the car.

  “Black culture in the South scares me.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I don’t understand it. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before.”

  A few hours later we arrive safely. We unpack the car and our sleeping children and spend the next two days maneuvering beach trips, meals, naps, and children’s movies.

  When our spouses arrive, my husband and Eitan pick up the conversation about black culture over dinner. We sit around a table eating a delicious sausage and zucchini dish made by Eitan. The zucchini has soaked up the flavor of the sausage and it’s just right. I have never tasted anything like it, and I try to remember exactly how Eitan made it as he describes our trip. “The ride was good,” Eitan says. “But there was one moment that scared me. We were leaving the Wendy’s in Augusta and the girls were skipping to the car, but really close to this van playing loud music. Only here in the South is there such a thing as black culture. Anywhere else you don’t run into it. I’ve become more prejudiced because I’ve come face-to-face with black culture and I don’t like it. It scares me.”

  Mark thinks about this for a moment and says, “When you live in a place like Seattle, you can be an idealist about race because there’s not a big African American presence. But once you arrive in the South, it becomes real. You’re faced with the good and the bad and you have to take a position.”

  “So you agree with me about black culture, then?” Eitan says.

  “It’s really not black culture at all,” my husband responds. “It’s a matter of economics. It’s black and white poor culture. The kids you and Christine teach, for example, they are well off. They’ve had a support system. Christine won’t admit what I’m talking about when I say that those students who the school classifies as average or below average usually don’t have a strong support system. The black kids I teach at the advanced level, though, I think they have had to work harder to overcome things than most students. By the time they arrive at your doorstep, they’ve made it.”

  “I think what you are talking about is affirmative action,” Eitan says.

  “But this is the thing. This is why affirmative action works. There was a Vietnamese student who studied with me. I think she graduated valedictorian of her class, but at the time when I wrote her a recommendation letter, I didn’t know this yet. I wrote three letters, in fact. Two were for students who were from upper class, wealthy families and they seemed fairly pampered by life, although it’s impossible to tell for sure. This student of mine who was Vietnamese, she had to basically be the translator and the only link her parents had to this country. Without her, they couldn’t communicate. She went on every shopping trip with them, helped them pay their bills, everything. She must have spent seventy percent of her time helping her parents survive. I wrote in my letter that she was one of the top three students of the school, but I would rank her the highest because of the obstacles she has had to overcome to get where she is. The other two students, well, they were from the upper class. Things had been easier for them. This is why I think affirmative action works.”

  We stand and begin to clear the table. Eitan continues, “Mark, you’re an idealist, though, and idealists are what make affirmative action work. I had a black graduate student assistant when I first arrived here. She was horrible. She wasn’t doing any of the work. I wanted to kick her out of the program, but when I met with her committee, they said it was nearly impossible. They all skated around the issue, but finally I got them to say it—it’s because she was black. They told me I had to document everything, so I did. It took hours. Finally, we did let her go. Now will I hire another black student? Probably not. I have three children. I have to find grants to pay my salary. I am running from one thing to another every day and my kids crawl into bed with us each night. Do I have time to document? No. Now for an idealist like Mark, maybe he would have taken the time to help this black student get back on track. But I just don’t have time for these things.”

  I try to ask Eitan if he thinks his uneasiness with black people might have affected the way he viewed this graduate student’s work or affected her and how she worked for him, but Eitan responds that he wasn’t the only person who had documented poor work habits. Soon my husband and he are onto another topic. My eyelids are heavy and I feel as though I’ve had a lobotomy. I have so much to say on this topic, but t
hree days of parenting five small children has wiped every combination of words out of my head. After muttering a few unintelligible phrases to my husband and placing the last dish in the dishwasher, I kiss Mark on the cheek and go to bed. In the safety of twilight sleep, I can hear pieces of conversations: Hillary and Barack, Israel and Palestine, standardized testing in schools. The cadences of their language rise and fall as I struggle to keep my eyes open for just one more word.

  Retrogression 21:

  September 15, 2007, 7:15 p.m.

  Donna calls somebody on her phone and I touch the tops of my children’s heads. Soon there is a woman running toward us. She is running, yes, running. It’s Louise from my congregation. I feel her body, warm and solid, surround mine. She stays there and hugs me.

  Chapter 21:

  Did She Just Say That?

  Summer evenings in Atlanta are balmy, but the season was beginning to change and so it often cooled at sunset. One evening I found myself at Zivah and Eitan’s house. Zivah is dear for many reasons, but one thing I particularly appreciate is that she throws the best children’s birthday parties in the world—delicious Israeli dishes, enough food to feed the whole neighborhood, people from different ethnic backgrounds, music, and mayhem. Her approach to child-rearing mirrors the state of her parties—chaotic, passionate parenting. Zivah and I were on our way to meet a friend of mine for a drink at a local pub, but first we had to say goodbye to Zivah’s family.

  Zivah is a delight to watch with her children. She speaks to them in Hebrew unless I am there, and then she peppers her conversations with English for my benefit. When she leaves her house for a visit to the drugstore, a beer and a snack, or even a trip to the mailbox, it’s as though she’s going away for months. The children gather around. There are embraces, sometimes even tears.

  After a few goodbyes and false starts, we drove away. We fell into easy conversation, and when we arrived, a few minutes late, we saw that Camilla, an Italian friend of mine who worked at a college nearby, had saved us a table outside the restaurant. Camilla and Zivah had already met at my home, twice, and they both expressed interest in knowing each other better.

  We sat and talked for over an hour and soon Camilla was leaning toward us, about to reveal a secret.

  “You know,” she said with a slight Italian accent. “You are really making me change my mind about Jews. Up until now I had a little bit of a problem. Just a little bit.” As she said this, Camilla put up two of her fingers to show just how small.

  I looked uncomfortably at Zivah. This was something I hadn’t heard before from Camilla in the eleven years I’d known her.

  She continued, “I was at this workshop and they asked us to talk about our prejudices. Well, I couldn’t think of any and then I remembered—Jewish,” she said in a sentence that was more Italian than English-sounding. “Two of my students were Jewish and I gave them a B+ and they wanted an A, but they didn’t work that hard and I didn’t want to give them an A. Then lawyers called me and said my students were going to sue me. So I had this prejudice against Jewish based on these two students. And I really didn’t know any other Jews. But you wouldn’t believe it, in this workshop guess who the two best friends I made were? Jewish!” she said.

  Zivah and I listened quietly. Neither of us said much. After Camilla finished her story, I tried to tell them something funny about my son, but it came out sounding flat.

  “I’m tired,” Zivah said. “Could you take me home?”

  “Sure,” I said. We hugged Camilla. “Will you join us next week?” Camilla asked.

  “Yes, I will,” Zivah replied.

  On the way home Zivah and I talked about her job, which suddenly seemed fraught with difficulty. At her house, Zivah said, “I had a great time. Thank you so much.”

  As soon as I arrived home, I called Camilla. I had felt Camilla’s discomfort as we left the restaurant and I wanted to talk with her about what she had said. “Zivah didn’t mention anything on the way home,” I told her. “I don’t think she’s upset.”

  “I don’t know. She became tired right after I spoke and she seemed unhappy. What do you think? Was what I said bad?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I understood your message. I never knew you felt this way about Jewish people.”

  “But I don’t. I love everyone. You know that,” Camilla said.

  It was true. Camilla did love everyone. She was always marching or fighting for a cause. She cooked for janitors and housekeepers to thank them for their help all year. She traveled everywhere so she could learn about new cultures. She was friends with everyone.

  The next day Zivah called to ask me a question, but our conversation was stilted.

  “Were you uncomfortable with what Camilla said last night?” I finally asked.

  Zivah paused. “Yes, I was. Christine, I know Camilla is your friend, but I was upset and offended by what she said. I’m not joining you next week. I don’t feel comfortable.”

  “Zivah, I know what it sounded like, but I think it came out wrong. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m going to talk to her about it again.”

  I called Camilla and she told me the story again, with the same outcome. Camilla didn’t like Jewish people? It still didn’t make sense.

  “It just sounds as though you are saying you don’t like Jews, but you met a few Jewish people recently who were nice. This doesn’t sound like you at all,” I told her.

  “No,” Camilla said. “I like everyone! It’s not true I don’t like Jewish people.”

  Camilla began to speak rapidly in Italian rather than English. In a passionate entreaty, she told me that when the workshop leader had asked them to discuss a particular prejudice they held, at first she couldn’t think of a single one. Then she remembered how angry she was at these two students and decided she would focus on them—but they were only two students and she was angry at them because they had tried to sue her. Her feelings had nothing to do with the fact they were Jewish. It was a coincidence, but for the purpose of the workshop, she had grouped them together. The ironic thing about her grouping was that the two people she had befriended during the workshop happened to be Jewish.

  I called Zivah, excited about my discovery, and Zivah’s husband, Eitan, answered the phone. Zivah wasn’t home, but Eitan brought up Camilla’s conversation.

  “I keep telling Zivah to let it go,” he said.

  “Eitan,” I responded. “Something was lost in the translation. Camilla didn’t communicate in English what she had wanted to say.”

  I told him a translated version of what Camilla had said in Italian.

  “You know, Christine, I hear what you are saying, but deep down she probably doesn’t like Jews and that’s okay.”

  “No, Eitan,” I said. “It’s not okay to dislike Jews, but that’s not the point. The point is I’m certain it was a misunderstanding.”

  “I’m not as optimistic as you are, Christine. But look, all of us are prejudiced. We should just acknowledge it and move on. It doesn’t even mean we can’t see Camilla and have a good conversation with her.”

  Zivah called me later. “I’m still upset,” she said. “I’m not as sure about it as you are.”

  Camilla emailed Zivah, apologizing for the misunderstanding and asking if she wanted to have coffee and talk more about it, and Zivah responded, saying she’d like to, but they never did.

  During a conversation months later, Camilla added a new complexity to our discussion.

  “I don’t think what I said about the students bothered Zivah at all, Christine,” Camilla told me over lunch one day. “It was my comment about Palestine.”

  “What comment about Palestine?” I asked her.

  “Do you remember? I told her I sympathized more with Palestine than with Israel. Zivah didn’t respond, but I think that’s what upset her.”

  “Camilla, I don’t remember that part of the conversation at all.”

  “Maybe you were too focused on what came before. You know, I have a
friend. She’s from Israel, too, but she feels the same way as I do about Palestine. She was really bothered by the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip last December. I don’t think I’m going against Jewish people or Israelis, just policy decisions I don’t believe are fair. But I’m glad I said this to Zivah, even if it did upset her, because it’s what I believe and we all should say what we believe, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  I showed Zivah what I had written about our evening with Camilla.

  “Christine,” she said. “You remembered this conversation so differently than I did. Camilla’s words about Jews were more harsh than what you wrote. And like you, I don’t remember anything about Palestine coming into the conversation.”

  Perhaps, I admitted to myself, I had made Camilla softer than she had sounded, closer to the image I had of her. Zivah had prefaced her comments by telling me how much our friendship meant to her. Then her words tumbled out with urgency, as though I had missed something vital about her.

  Retrogression 22:

  September 15, 2007, 7:10 p.m.

  I hug Ada to my side. Samuel rubs my cheek with his hand. Donna from my Unitarian congregation walks in our direction from the parking lot. I wave. I had just said goodbye to her—how long ago? Minutes? Hours? Days? She begins to smile and then changes expression midstream. “What happened?” I don’t know—can’t put it into words. “We were just mugged—or assaulted. I’m not sure.” “Are you okay?” Donna drops down past my face and kneels in front of my daughter. “Are you all right, Ada?” she asks, wiping away Ada’s tears.