Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

  “Are you all right?” I feel Arturo’s hand on my shoulder and without thinking I shake myself away from it.

  “Yes. I would like to lift the weights now.”

  I can feel Arturo looking at me, wondering what I’m thinking. I stop and say to him: “You asked some questions of me before that I did not answer.”

  “Which ones?”

  “You asked how I was doing at work. Then you asked how I was getting along with Jasmine.”

  “That’s right. Good memory.”

  “I would like to answer your questions now. I am doing okay at the law firm. I can do the tasks that are given to me, although some of them I do slower than what is expected. I still do not like working there. With regards to your second question: Jasmine and I get along in the sense that we do not disagree with each other and she is kind to me and does not reproach me for the mistakes I make. I am pretty sure that she would still rather have Belinda. It was not right to give her Marcelo when she had been promised Belinda.”

  “Well, that’s a pretty good summary of how things stand. Don’t worry about Belinda. And there is no need for you and Jasmine to be friends or even to talk to each other about anything other than the task at hand. You should make friends with Wendell. He can be helpful to you. Go ahead. Go lift your weights. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go back.”

  I move on to the section where the free weights are located. I am not sure if my father and I had the kind of chat he was hoping for, as in father and son spending a little time together talking about nothing in particular.

  CHAPTER 11

  Probably the most stressful assignment at the law firm is the filing of documents at the courthouse. The assignment is stressful because the lawyers for some reason are not able to have the documents ready until the last possible second. It takes Jasmine at least thirty minutes going full speed to get the documents over to the courthouse and get the clerk to stamp them with the date and time. It takes me double that time. That is why Jasmine handles the real, real rushes or comes with me, like today.

  Once you get to the courthouse you need to go to the Clerk’s Office, where there are always people in line. It seems that waiting until the last minute is a rule universal to all law firms. Jasmine and I are standing behind three other persons looking at the black hands of a white clock tick closer to five. We came together today because Juliet did not get us the documents until 4:35.

  “She did it on purpose, I’m sure of it,” Jasmine says. She is talking about Juliet.

  “Why would she do that?” I ask. “If the documents are not filed on time, it is Stephen Holmes and his client that are harmed.”

  “To get us in trouble. I wouldn’t put it past her. ‘I gave it to them with plenty of time to get there.’” Jasmine imitates Juliet’s high-pitched voice.

  I am not worried about filing the papers before five. I have been to the Clerk’s Office with Jasmine before and I have seen the assistant clerk, whose name is Al, talk to Jasmine. He is always very friendly to her. The last time we were here, he accepted her documents at 5:03 but somehow managed to have the time stamped on the documents read 4:59. Now I can see him looking up at Jasmine and smiling as he stamps other people’s documents.

  “Is Al your boyfriend?” I ask.

  Jasmine looks at me as if I had just appeared out of nowhere. “Noooo,” she says.

  “He likes you,” I say.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He is always looking at you and smiling at you, and he is nice to you in a way that he is not to other people. When I came by myself last Wednesday, I tried on purpose to see whether he was as nice to me as he is to you and he wasn’t. He did not smile at me. Not even once.”

  We move up the line. “Really? Mmm. I always thought he was nice to everyone.”

  “Does Jasmine know that she is beautiful?”

  “‘Does Jasmine know that she is beautiful?’ What kind of question is that? How is a person supposed to answer that?”

  “It is just a question.”

  We are going to make it with plenty of time. Al is working incredibly fast. He has just time-stamped fifteen documents from the woman ahead of us in about thirty seconds. He is now nodding and smiling at Jasmine. Jasmine doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to him. Maybe she is thinking about my question.

  “How am I supposed to answer that? It’s kind of a stupid question,” she says, but she doesn’t seem to be mad.

  We are up next and I decide to watch Al as carefully as possible. I have this way of seeing where my head is down but my eyes move up or sideways. People think I’m not paying attention to them but I am. It is something that I need to work on because it confuses people, but sometimes it is helpful. It allows me to observe undetected.

  Al seems nervous in Jasmine’s presence. He holds a document with both hands while he asks how her day has been going and I see the document tremble.

  “I’m sorry to get here at the last minute,” Jasmine tells him. “You know how it is.”

  “Oh, no problem, my pleasure. No problem at all.” I can actually see Al’s cheeks deepen in color from shades of pink to light red. He seems to be unable to lift his eyes and look at Jasmine directly, as if Jasmine were the sun. Then I turn my gaze toward Jasmine. She is exactly the same with Al as she is with every other person that she talks to. She rarely smiles at anyone. Her concentration is like a laser on whatever it is she is doing. She is courteous with people, says “please” and “thank you” when the occasion requires it, jokes with people or snaps at them when provoked, but she always seems to be reacting rather than initiating and her reaction is extended only to the point that it is necessary and no further. It is as if the sun did not want to shine too much.

  Outside, once we are down the steps of the courthouse, she says, “If we hurry, you can still catch your train.”

  “I am driving home with Arturo today.” It is time again for a periodic assessment of Marcelo’s progress.

  “Your father works late.” I notice that Jasmine is not walking at her usual fast pace.

  “I brought a book to read.”

  Jasmine nods. We walk side by side without talking. It occurs to me that at this very moment Jasmine is thinking. What is she thinking about? Does she see her thoughts go by on a screen the way I see mine?

  “What are you reading?”

  Her question startles me. I was expecting our trip back to the law firm to be in silence as it usually is. But also, it is not a question that I thought Jasmine would ever ask me. “It is a book that Rabbi Heschel lent to me. It is called God in Search of Man. It is written by a man named Abraham Joshua Heschel, but Rabbi Heschel is not related to him.”

  “Who’s Rabbi Heschel? I thought you were Catholic. I’ve seen you pray the Rosary at your desk…when you thought no one was looking.”

  “Oh,” I say. I feel a sensation of heat travel through my body. It is as if I have been caught doing something bad. How strange that I now feel this way about something I always thought was good.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your father,” she says, smiling. She must have seen a look of worry on my face.

  I nod. I am grateful that she saw me say the Rosary and did not say anything to me at the time. “My family goes to Catholic church. Not all the family, Aurora does not come with us. She is religious in her own way. She just doesn’t go to church. Ever since Marcelo was a child he has liked to read about religions. Rabbi Heschel works with Aurora at St. Elizabeth’s. I go to see her every couple of weeks. We talk about the religious texts I read. Sometimes we concentrate on particular texts and sometimes we jump around. Now we are reading the Psalms.”

  “My mother loved the Psalms. She had many of them memorized,” she says.

  “I memorize many of them myself,” I say. It is great to talk about my special interest. I warn myself not to monopolize the conversation, like I tend to do when talking about what I love the most, but to ask questions as well. I wonder if Jasmin
e is religious, but then I think of something else I want to ask her. “You used the past tense when you talked about your mother. You said your mother loved the Psalms.”

  “She died four years ago.” Jasmine is looking at a red stoplight. When people tell you that a relative of theirs has died, you are supposed to say that you are sorry. I am about to say that when Jasmine says, “You are doing better in the mailroom.”

  She is changing the subject, but sometimes people need to do that, to avoid memories that are painful. I follow along with her. “Is Marcelo better than Belinda?”

  “No.” Jasmine’s response is very quick, quicker than I expected. Then she adds, “But Marcelo’s work is okay.” I can see a smile trying to form on her lips, but then it disappears. “Are you liking it better? Working at the law firm, I mean?”

  “No.” It surprises me that my “no” is as quick as Jasmine’s. Then I think of asking, “Does Jasmine like working at the law firm?”

  “Ehhh.” Again her response is immediate.

  “What does ‘ehhh’ mean?” I wrinkle my nose when I say this, the same way she did.

  “It means it’s okay. It means it’s a job. All things considered, it’s not so bad. There are worse jobs. When I started working there a couple of years ago, I was the assistant to this older woman, Rose, who had been doing the job since your father founded the firm. Then about a year after I started working there, Rose retired to be with her husband. I applied for her job. I had seen Rose do her job and I knew I could do it, but a lot of people in the firm didn’t think an eighteen-year-old was old enough to handle the responsibility of paying bills on time, sending out invoices for legal work, keeping track of supplies, all those things we do. I convinced your father to let me try and he gave me a chance.”

  “You did not disappoint him.”

  “There have been moments. It was hard with Ron. He was only there six months but it was difficult. He was older than me, and it was difficult to be a boss and earn someone’s respect.”

  Jasmine and I walk in silence for a full block. I think of the words that are written on the wall in front of my desk.

  “Ron didn’t like to work at the firm.”

  “No.” I see Jasmine look at me as if she’s trying to make a decision. When she speaks, she speaks in a way I’ve never heard her speak before. Tentative. That’s what I think of when I hear her speak. “There’s a park nearby that I like to go to. Do you want to go? I want to show you something. You’ll be back in time to meet up with your father, but you probably won’t have time to read your book. Is that all right?”

  “Okay.” It is not scary at all to walk the city streets with Jasmine, and I think that choosing to walk with Jasmine, seeing the sights of the city, hearing its sounds, smelling its smells, is something that Abraham Joshua Heschel himself would do. I want to hold on to her arm so that I can walk and talk more comfortably, but I do not know the rules regarding touching someone like Jasmine. What is Jasmine anyway? Is she a friend or my boss? Am I to her what Ron was to her? Only there is no need for her to earn my respect.

  “The park I want to show you is a few blocks from here.”

  We are walking on the sidewalks next to streets clogged with cars. The sidewalks themselves are difficult to walk because of the number of people rushing to catch trains and buses, I suppose, or just to get away from their jobs as fast as they can. But then, as we move from the center of town, there is more room and I can walk next to Jasmine without having to dodge rushing people. I decide to tell her what has been stuck in a corner of my mind since we walked into the courthouse. “It was not a stupid question.”

  “What?”

  “Marcelo was truly interested in knowing whether Jasmine knew she was beautiful.”

  “It is so a stupid question. Why do you ask that?”

  “Men find Jasmine beautiful.”

  “What men?”

  “Wendell.”

  “Be still my beating heart!” She places her hand over her chest and palpitates it like a heart.

  “That is called sarcasm,” I say. There is no need to be proud of myself for recognizing it, but I am.

  “If you’re asking all this because of Wendell, forget it. Wendell has a few marbles missing when it comes to women.”

  I like that expression very much, even though I disagree. If anything, Wendell has more marbles than he needs when it comes to women. I say to Jasmine, “Other men look at Jasmine. Al, all the lawyers at the law firm. They look at you the way one looks at the stars at night.”

  “And you’re a poet now?” Jasmine is laughing. Her laugh is new to me. It is a little girl’s laugh. I slow down. It is hard for me to talk and walk at the same time. Jasmine slows down as well. “Is that what makes a woman beautiful? That men look at her?”

  “I do not know.” I am suddenly at a loss as to what to say. Then something occurs to me. Assuming that Jasmine is indeed beautiful, it must be hard for her to go about always being noticed. To have people stare at her.

  “You do not know?”

  I sense that maybe Jasmine is making fun of me, but she begins to walk faster and I am unable to see the expression on her face. I catch up to her and try to keep up as best I can. I want to say something in response to her question. We are talking about a mystery that maybe she can help me unravel, since by all accounts she is supposed to be beautiful. But in order to articulate this I need to be still. Talking about what makes a woman beautiful and walking is something that is beyond all my powers.

  “There it is,” she says.

  When she said we were going to a park, I imagined a large field of grass and trees and flowers and paths and benches. Her “park” is a chain-linked square of cement not much larger than our tennis court at home. It seems like every inch of space is full of children. There are tiny creatures climbing the jungle gym and sliding down a metal slide. The noise coming from the park is like the buzz inside a beehive amplified a hundred times. By the chain-link fence there is a row of benches. Jasmine opens the gate and walks over to an empty space.

  I sit on the edge of the bench next to her. “This is where you come?”

  “Look at the faces,” she says, pointing at the kids.

  I look and see dozens of faces beaming and yelling and squealing and laughing.

  “They are Chinese,” I say. I recognize their facial features from my geography class at Paterson.

  “Mostly. The school and day care centers are just around the corner so they bring them here to play. I like it when they walk here. They either come two-by-two holding hands or else they come single file, each holding on to a rope, like little prisoners.”

  I think that maybe now that we are sitting down, I can continue my conversation. “I do not know what makes a woman beautiful,” I tell her.

  “You’re still on that?”

  “I need to know.”

  “Why?”

  I swallow hard. “When I look at Jasmine I do not know whether she is beautiful or not beautiful. I do not feel that she is beautiful. I do not feel that she is not beautiful.”

  “Hmm. That’s bad.”

  This time I know she is making fun of me.

  “I never thought there was anything wrong with how I felt. But…maybe there is something wrong with me. Maybe I will never feel that someone is beautiful.”

  “Maybe.”

  A little girl with pigtails comes over to a woman sitting next to Jasmine. The little girl squeezes in between the legs of the woman and begins to suck her thumb. The woman strokes her hair and bends down to tell her something in a language I don’t understand. “It is something that is on my mind,” I say. Did I break a rule by talking about what is inside of me with Jasmine? Every time I glance at Jasmine she is intent on watching the different activities of the kids. Just when I decide to not to pursue the topic of our conversation anymore, I hear Jasmine ask: “What is it that you find beautiful?”

  “Beautiful? I do not find any person beautiful.”

&n
bsp; “Not just people. Is there something you can say ‘That’s beautiful’?”

  “Yes. I think I can. I can say it about music. There is some music I can call beautiful.”

  She nods. I am expecting her to ask me to describe the music, but she doesn’t ask. It is as if she knows exactly what I mean.

  “You know what else is beautiful?” she asks me.

  “No.”

  “That,” she says.

  She waves her hand across the noisy playground.

  CHAPTER 12

  After my session with Rabbi Heschel is over, we walk outside and sit on the concrete steps that lead to the back door of Temple Emanuel. The parking lot is empty except for Rabbi Heschel’s car, a red Volkswagen Beetle she calls Habbie, after the prophet Habakkuk, because, she says, the car, like the prophet, has been crying for years without anyone paying attention. “I wish I had a cigarette,” she says, sitting down on the back steps.

  “Smoking is bad.”

  “I know it. But sometimes I get so nervous I wish I had one.”

  The side of the building shades the steps. That’s good because it is a hot afternoon. Rabbi Heschel is wearing bright orange pants and a phosphorescent lime-green blouse. When it is cold outside she wears a hat that reminds me of the cat in Dr. Seuss’s books. Her black, fluffy hair has patches of white that resemble snowflakes.

  “Do you know,” she says without looking at me, “why Aurora brought you here—how long ago was it? Seven years ago? Gosh, you were only ten at the time.”

  “She didn’t want Marcelo to misread the holy books.”

  She sighs. “Remember that little boy Joseph that loved you so much? When he died, she said she brought you because she was worried about you. But I think she was worried about me. His death, for some reason, hit me so hard, and you seemed so at peace with it.”

  “Aurora brought Marcelo to Rabbi Heschel because you are a holy man. A holy man that is a woman.”

  “Ha! This holy man that is a woman, as you say, is not sure she can teach you much more.”