Mad Hope

by Heather Birrell

  ‘Class, your attention up here at the front, please. Quiet, please.’

  The nattering and jostling subsided. They were not unruly, really, just young, coursing with hormones and full of french fries from the cafeteria. And once he began to speak, they listened, or at least appeared to, their faces tipped up towards the blackboard, then back down to their notebooks, as they scrawled down the lesson.

  He suspected it was his ghost of an accent that kept them rapt. It was reassuring, the not-quite-rightness of his English; they were not native either, or at least their families were not. What they were was Diverse. Which, as one might imagine, could mean many things. Mostly, people used it to mean Black, although sometimes it also meant Poor, or Neglected, or 100% Likely to Do or Deal Drugs in the Next Five Years. It was language used to cloak and gentle the truth. Never mind. He understood the power of naming, the great mess of meaning that trailed after a word like cans clanking along behind the bride and groom’s car. And, it was true, there was a kindness in this gentling that at times it found its proper mark.

  But in his classroom, Diverse meant Vietnamese, Jamaican, Guyanese, Somali, Albanian, Portuguese, Iranian, Indian, Afghani. It meant Christian, Muslim, Hindu, varying levels of devotion. It meant On Welfare and Working Hard and Striving for the Comfortable Middle Ground. And it meant Canadian. Which was another word with its own cans clanking. And trumping all this Diversity was Youth – its arrogance, energy and lovely obliviousness. He witnessed it all the time, eavesdropping, observing:

  ‘Ugh, I never want to turn twenty.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s when you have to start watching the news.’

  And:

  ‘Man, that girl is so haunted.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I, like, totally booked her talking to Bryan, standing totally close and all up in his face, while Sha-shauna was, like, right behind her. Afterwards Sha-shauna was looking for her and she just dipped.’

  Their dramas were all-consuming and extreme; they were ridiculous and charming and seemed to find their roots in daytime talk shows. He could understand why they did not want him to interrupt. But interrupt he did.

  ‘Please be prepared for the frog dissection next class. You will need to make sure you have reviewed the chapter in your textbook regarding amphibian physiology – chapter 12. You must also go over the handout regarding proper procedure for dissection. Remember also that you will be evaluated on the precision of your technique.’ He paused to allow some chatter to subside. ‘It is no small thing to use another living creature in this way. You should arrive with an attitude of reverence, of respect.’

  The students gazed at him, saucer-eyed. He had deviated from the script, had dared to speak not as a teacher but as a spirit guide of sorts. It entranced them for a moment.

  Vasile was alone in the science office when Naadiya knocked. The two colleagues with whom he shared the space had sprinted out the door seconds after the bell rang. He understood it, the pressing desire to put distance between the overwhelming stimuli of the school and the shaky sanctity of the self. But minutes after dismissal, there was a new quiet in the school – a deflated sense of contentedness, as if the building had digested something, then belched up its essence. It was not like this of course on the main floor, near the drama and music wing, or in the basement gym, where rehearsals and practices went on, causing a ruckus with bleating trumpets and bouncing balls and proclamations of love and victory. Here on the second floor was a different story. A calmer, emptier story.

  Naadiya knocked again. When Vasile opened the door, she was searching for something in her backpack, one hand submerged in the large main pocket.

  ‘Hi, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Hello,’ he replied.

  She uncapped a chapstick – the backpack loot! – and ran the tip along her mouth several times. Then she threw the chapstick back in the bag, zipped up the pocket and slung the bag over one shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Naadiya,’ Vasile said again. ‘Come in, won’t you? Have a seat.’ What must they think of him, with his strange gentleman’s diction? It was nervousness that prompted it; he did not think in these words, they just made themselves when he opened his mouth.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, stepping into the room. It was a wheelie chair he had gestured towards and she took her place in it gingerly, using her feet to move back and forth, back and forth in the small space between his desk and the recycling bin. So they were both nervous. He understood then that she had something to ask of him, a favour of some kind. Advice? This seemed unlikely.

  ‘Do you need some extra help, Naadiya? I know your last test results were perhaps not as satisfying as you would have liked.’

  Naadiya looked down at her backpack, which was now at her feet, then up at the bulletin board behind Vasile.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean, yes! I totally sucked at that test. I didn’t study. Is that your family?’ She pointed at the snapshot he had tacked above his timetable and a coupon for the pizza place across the street. Vasile swivelled his own chair around to check, although the same photo had occupied the position for the past three years. He could close his eyes and conjure the lines around his wife’s eyes – how they extended out towards the entire world when she smiled. His son and daughter’s easy lean – Maria between him and Caterina, Marcel on tiptoes, with one arm draped around Vasile’s shoulder as if they were army comrades on leave. There was an unthinking kind of leaning that was as good as love, as joyful and unthinking. He missed that lean – the leaning love of young children.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘My daughter, Maria, and my son, Marcel.’

  ‘Huh,’ Naadiya said. ‘You guys liked the letter M, eh?’

  ‘I suppose we did,’ Vasile said. ‘I suppose we did. They are grown up now. Maria is living in Montreal and Marcel has gone back to Romania.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Then, ‘Romania. Is that where vampires are from?’

  Vasile contemplated a number of responses to this query, then settled on one. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  But she was not really interested. She had stopped wheeling the chair and was staring out the tiny window.

  ‘Naadiya,’ Vasile said. ‘What can I help you with?’

  She stopped wheeling and looked up at him ever so briefly, then up at the photo again and back at him. Her eyes had filled with tears in the space between the photo and his face. What was wrong with her?

  ‘Perhaps ... ’ he began. ‘Perhaps you’d like to speak with the school counsellor?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ Almost absently.

  It reminded Vasile of his daughter as a toddler, how she’d ­waddled around with that word perpetually on her tongue, already cataloguing forbidden objects and pathways. He looked at Naadiya, who was looking out the window again. The silence between them grew. Vasile didn’t mind; he was good at silence. And it was what they said was correct: not to judge or advise, merely to listen, to – in therapy-speak – be there.

  Naadiya sighed, but barely. She was not breathing properly. There was not much left in her lungs to exhale. Then she pulled her shoulders back and turned towards him. The tears were gone.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

  Vasile stared at her. She was not blinking, and it seemed he could do nothing but blink.

  Blink.

  What was she saying?

  Blink, blink.

  The words had been spoken as a challenge of sorts. Could she possibly think that he was somehow ... Blink. Responsible? He should say something. Do something.

  Blink.

  He cleared his throat.

  Naadiya just kept looking at him. He knew he had gone bulgy-eyed, incredulous, and that it was unbecoming, inappropriate.

 
Vasile fell back on his medical training, pulling out a notebook from the desk drawer. Although he had no intention of taking notes, he opened the cover, picked up a pen.

  ‘How far?’ he said.

  She leaned back in the wheelie chair, exhaled more deeply this time. He had said the right thing.

  ‘I’m not sure. I think, like, almost three months.’ She lay one hand on her belly, an instinctive gesture Vasile had witnessed thousands of times. But she was so slim, not yet curvy with child. He envisioned the tadpole-like fetus, its size and viability. Then he looked into her face, so open and frightened and young.

  ‘What will you do?’ he said. Not: Have you told your parents? Obviously not. Not: Who is the father? A boy. The father was a boy, skittering and beautiful and mistaken. Like Naadiya. Or perhaps not. Was the father himself already a father, someone who knew better? Don’t go there, is what Vasile thought, surprising himself with the lingo.

  ‘I can’t,’ Naadiya said. She began to cry in earnest. ‘I can’t let it out.’

  Babies and secrets. If you held them, they could be the most difficult things in the world to release – Vasile recognized this better than most. And to hold the two in combination. Well.

  ‘Naadiya,’ he said. ‘Don’t cry. I will help you. But are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk to someone else? A woman?’

  ‘No,’ she said. She sniffed, then wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. ‘I know you were a doctor. I know you understand these things.’

  He nodded. ‘You have options, Naadiya.’

  ‘I have one option,’ she said.

  ‘I will find out for you.’ Vasile reached out to pat her on the shoulder, but she was already standing up, hoisting the bag onto her back.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll come see you tomorrow, same time.’

  ‘I’ll be in my classroom,’ Vasile said.

  Naadiya nodded.

  Vasile understood she had no need to enter this new appointment into her electronic device.

  The next day Caterina needed the car, so he rode the subway and bus to work, camouflaged behind a newspaper and his own rumpled, oblivious look. He let staff and students believe he was clueless; this misapprehension on their part provided him a shield and a power.

  A few stops away from the school, two students he recognized boarded and took seats just ahead of him. It was a white boy, a white girl, the girl’s hair dyed a russet colour with black streaks, the boy tall and athletic-looking, save for the shaggy hair and jaunty red scarf. The girl was wearing a pair of turquoise spectacles with a 1950s cat’s-eye shape. As soon as they sat, the boy leaned over towards Spectacles so that his lips – which were full and red to match his scarf – very nearly touched her ear. Then, in a sultry stage whisper, he spoke. Vasile, intrigued, also leaned towards Spectacles, and tilted his head in to hear.

  ‘Well,’ the boy said. ‘You’ll never guess what happened this past summer.’ He smirked and breathed into Spectacles’ ear.

  Spectacles, unfazed, pushed her glasses up and did not pull away. ‘What?’ she said, then sighed.

  The boy maintained his position and paused for a moment before speaking again. ‘I deflowered someone,’ he said. Vasile was surprised at the use of the term before he was shocked at its meaning; how difficult it was tell who was being ironic, and when!

  The choice of vocabulary seemed also to have piqued the girl’s attention. Her sigh turned into something more breathily anxious and eager. ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘Who?’

  The boy slouched back into himself, having created, for the moment, a stunningly desirable effect in his seatmate. He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Some ugly girl. Afterwards she was all, like, wanting to be my girlfriend and everything.’ He looked out the window, then tapped it angrily.

  Spectacles craned towards him so she could see what he saw, feel as he felt. But nonchalance escaped her. ‘So did you? Were you?’ she said, looking intently into his youthful, sharp-angled face.

  The boy turned back towards her. ‘No way. I was, like, welcome to camp.’ He looked down at his hands.

  Was he ashamed, Vasile wondered, or simply bored? This was not Naadiya’s boy; summer camp was a third- or fourth-generation thing, not designed with the observant Muslim in mind.

  The girl gave his shoulder a fleeting pat. ‘Totally. It’s not like you assaulted her or anything,’ she said.

  The boy appeared rueful, then gleeful, then a combination of the two. ‘No, I mean, she totally dragged me into the bushes,’ he said.

  Spectacles nodded understandingly, back in control. She, like the boy, was a callow youth, it was true, but Vasile did not believe she would outgrow this egotism; it pleased her too much.

  ‘And then, you know ... ’ The boy looked down at his hands again, out the window, then back at the girl. ‘The brain stops working after a while,’ he said.

  Spectacles nodded again, and kept nodding until the boy turned back to the window. Outside, the sky seemed to have swollen; it gave off a harsh grey glow that bled into the overpass up ahead. It could have been pollution or the beginnings of precipitation. It could be the end of the world, Vasile thought.

  At school, he busied himself readying the frogs for first period. There was very little time for the students to complete the dissection; his choreography of the whole affair would have to be efficient and graceful. He lined the creatures up on his lab bench. The students would be responsible for picking them up and carrying them to their respective work areas. He would sort the instruments next, check to make sure there was nothing missing or defective.

  But first, he walked to the back of the room to visit the rabbits. The students were responsible for cleaning the cage, making sure the animals had food and water, and they were conscientious in this regard, devoid of brashness or boastfulness. All was well in the hutch, the rabbits sleeping in innocent heaps in piles of sawdust. He surveyed the rest of the classroom. Vasile knew a place was not its people; still, a room could wait, breathlessly, for its occupants, a prison’s hold on its inmates could be both loving and cruel, a field could feel itself being tilled or stampeded. He opened a window. The room needed air. The frogs needed air.

  Once the students had placed their specimens on their desks, Vasile began to instruct, leading them through the procedure as quickly and clinically as possible. There would be few opportunities for ‘teachable moments’ on this day, there was simply no time. This learning would be purely experiential. It was less difficult to calm the class today; they were eager to get started. Vasile began.

  ‘Step one. Make a lateral incision on both lymph nodes of your frog. Lymph nodes are found under the jaw on either side.’ He demonstrated on his own frog at the front, two tiny perfect slits. The students, who had been brandishing their tools confidently, suddenly became shy and serious.

  ‘Like this, Mr. D?’ a boy sitting near the back – Richard – called out. Vasile walked down the aisle towards him, observed his work, and that of the others, who had been released, it seemed, by Richard’s question.

  Next they were required to cut through the abdominal ­muscles and bones, disconnecting the bones that linked to the shoulders, freeing the sternum.

  ‘Free the sternum,’ he said. It was absurd-sounding, but they did not notice, so intent were they on their work. Vasile continued.

  ‘If your frog is a female, you’ll have to remove the black eggs that sit in her abdomen.’

  ‘Is this like caviar, Mr. D?’ Richard piped up again. ‘Can you, like, sell this for major cash?’ He held several of the eggs aloft on one gloved finger for the rest of the class to see.

  ‘No, Richard,’ Vasile answered. ‘No, you’re thinking fish eggs. Feel free to sample these eggs if you desire. Although I am sure you will soon understand why they are not considered a delicacy.’
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  Richard brought the eggs to his mouth and waggled his tongue. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’m still full from breakfast.’ The class laughed.

  And then they found their rhythm: the liver, the small green orb of the gall bladder, the coilings of the small intestine, the stomach, the pancreas. Vasile paused in his instructions to allow some of the more fastidious students to catch up.

  After Maria left for university, there had been a spate of letters demanding justification of his role – however small – in his country’s history and in the smaller, more vital history of their family. The letters were long, handwritten – the script reaching ambitiously, rebelliously to the edges of the page – outlining her stance: pro-choice. The text was bursting with a young woman’s righteousness and conviction. Maria’s fervour tended towards the revolutionary; when she came home at Christmas, her head was shaved and she wore pointy boots with buckles – restrictive footwear designed to attract the eye and bind the user. It was masochism for show, in Vasile’s opinion. So overstated, like her opinions, which she wore proudly on her sleeve: pro-choice. Over turkey and tofu, she elaborated: ‘You have to weigh up the suffering. It’s about the suffering. For example, I’m not a vegetarian because I believe we should never eat meat – it’s that the means of killing for food are so inhumane, so vicious. I would eat an oyster! Oysters do not suffer when they die. They don’t have brains or nerves. You have to weigh up the suffering. You have to consider all the parties involved.’

  He answered her letters, a note of pleading in his tone, a forced eloquence he thought might refine his sense of guilt. The news reports from the Romanian revolution were writ large in her consciousness, inscribed on her childhood, he knew. His status, which had not always protected his family, had allowed him to purchase documents that facilitated their escape before people took to the streets. She was only ten when they arrived in Toronto, but old enough to note that the differences between she and her new friends went beyond funny accents and pop-star preferences. When he was not fielding her epistolary missives from Montreal, they spoke on the phone. He recalled a particularly heated exchange: