You’re Different
Fontainebleau, France
Christmas, 1994
This month, the teacher has shaped the desks in the
classroom into a U so all of us can see each other during the lesson. I sit on
the left side of the curved shape. It’s cold in the classroom now, and the
draft from under the door bites through the thinning fabric of my pink classroom
slippers. We have to take off our shoes and change into slippers before going
into the classroom, and in the winter, it makes my toes freeze until I can’t
feel them anymore. This year, I have pink ones with little dancers on them.
Mami picked out the color; I just like the fact that they’re fuzzy inside.
My teacher is waiting for the rest of the class to
file in. She sits at her desk in the front of the classroom and plays with a
strand of her milk chocolate hair as she looks over our papers. Yesterday, we
had une dictée, and I’m anxious
to get mine back because I think that I spelled all of the words wrong. My
friends aren’t even here yet. I’m fidgeting because my left leg is
asleep, and when I try to move it, it sends armies of fire ants through my
nerves. I like the quiet time before school starts, because none of the wild
boys are here yet and I can just sit and color.
As the class starts filing in, my friend Christophe
sits down next to me at his desk and starts pulling out his pencils and notebooks.
He has hair that is the same color as the pencil I use to fill in the sun in my
picture and his skin is really pale. He’s quiet, like me, and he’s really
smart. The teacher really likes him. I pull on my hair and feel how soft it is
against my cheek. It’s almost vacation, so that means we are going to talk
about the school-wide Christmas party. Last year we had to sing songs about
trees and Santa Claus and Mami explained to me that we don’t celebrate
Christmas, but that it’s nice to respect what others celebrate. I knew that
already when she told me; I like the candles and songs and scrumptious food of
Hanukah better anyway.
“Attention,
Classe, let’s start off the day with our calendar!”
For every day in the month of December, we have been
opening a little window in a calendar that the teacher put up on the wall. In
each of these windows, there’ a chocolate and almost all of the kids in the class
have already had their turn. We are getting close to the end of the alphabet,
so it must be almost my name. After me, there are only three other kids, and
there are only four pictures left in the month.
I glance across the room to one of my good friends,
Sara, who has already had her turn. She loves chocolate almost as much as she
loves horses, so she’s excited anyway. She stretches her lips in a hungry grin
and her eyes are wide and happy. We both watch the teacher anxiously as she
strides over to the calendar in slow, deliberate steps. She’s carrying the
class grade book in her arms, and her finger is stuck between the green
cardboard covers at the page where all of our names are. The calendar is hung
up next to the blackboard at the front of the room, next to the part where
today’s date is written; Le 21 décembre,
1994. She steps up to the calendar and props the book open in
her arms. I feel tight in my shoulders and my right foot is tapping against the
floor; I know that she’s about to call my name and I’ll get to walk up to the
front of the class and get my chocolate. In my mind everyone is smiling at me, and
some of the kids are even clapping. The teacher opens her mouth and calls out,
“Verdier,
Alexis!”
I’m already half way out of my seat, but I manage to
catch myself and make it look like I was just re-adjusting. The tears are
creeping up my throat and lining up behind my eyes, but I have to be strong and
fair. I’m sure there’s a reason for why he went before me, maybe he won’t be
here tomorrow when it’s his turn. I try to calm myself down by looking down at
the desk, but a tear falls on the drawing I was working on and stains the roof
of the little house under the bright yellow sun.
Alexis, a small brown-haired boy with a pinched nose
and a fuzzy green sweater bounds from his seat and skips over to the calendar.
He has to say today’s date and how many days are left until Christmas.
“Aujourd’hui
c’est le 21 décembre, et il manque 4 jours jusqu’a Noël”
Yes, yes you’re a smart boy, it’s the 21st
and there are 4 days left. Oh yay for you, now you get a chocolate. MY
chocolate!
I can feel the heat building where my eyes meet with
my nose, and my eyebrows arch inwards. I don’t care if he has a good reason, it
was my chocolate! Alexis walks
back to his seat, happily munching on what I imagine is a milky, sugary
confection melting in his mouth. The teacher keeps going forward with the
lesson, but I’ve stopped paying attention. I don’t even care that I got all the
answers right on the spelling test.
Why didn’t I get my turn?
I don’t pay attention to the lesson, and the teacher
doesn’t even call on me so it doesn’t matter. I’m going to have to find out why
he went before me.
It’s just not fair.
We’re learning how to sing “Oh Christmas Tree” in
German, and I mumble some made up words while the rest of the class obediently
recites,
“O Tenenbaum, O
Tenenbaum…”
At ten o’clock we have a small snack and recess
break, and everyone dashes towards the hallway to get their snacks from their
backpacks. I’m still looking down at my desk, holding my head up with the palms
of my hands and the shuffle of footsteps towards the door sounds like pebbles
tumbling down a dirt hill.
“Viens,
Yali, let’s go! Let’s go play!”
Sara is pulling on my sleeve, and I shake her off, I
don’t want to go out and play.
“I’ll come out in a second”
She taps me on the shoulder and trots off to get her snack.
When I’m sure that the classroom is empty, I glance up and I see my teacher
shuffling some papers on her desk. I take a deep breath that rattles in my
throat; I’m shaking a little bit as I slide off the chair and walk up to the
front to talk to her.
Her deep-set dark eyes look upon my tear stained face
with mild curiosity. Her lips are puckered together and painted in a shade of
red that reminds me of the cherries that grow in the neighbor’s back yard.
“You should go outside now, Yali”
I grip the edge of her wooden desk. It has suffered
various cracks throughout the years that it has sat in this classroom and
probably other classrooms as well. I’m trying not to shake but my voice betrays
me when I try to speak.
“W-hhy wasn’t it m-my turn to get the chocolate
today?”
My teacher lets the papers down and pushes up the
right sleeve of her navy blue sweater, the kind that looks itchy.
“Well, isn’t it obvious why?”
Maybe I did something wrong…
I sniffle a little bit; I’m looking through my memory
to see if I got in trouble this week or if I did something that I should be
punished for, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve been behaving, and I know that I’ve
been doing all of my work.
“Am I in trouble?”
She taps the desk a couple of times with her fingers,
and she scrunches up her face a bit as if she has to really make an effort to
give me an answer.
“No, you’re Jewish.”
I feel like I’ve been hit in the chest with something
heavy and round. I’m not crying anymore, but now I really feel that it’s not
fair, and I’m angry, but I can’t yell at my teacher. I don’t really understand
why that makes a difference. I’m still in the class; my name is still on the
list. So why shouldn’t I get a chocolate too.
“So? Why can’t I play on the calendar too?”
She breathes out and turns her attention back to the
papers on her desk,
“Because you don’t celebrate Christmas, and the other
kids do.”
She looks up at me and raises her eyebrows, clearly
urging me to join my class outside and play. I don’t’ move, I’m still gripping
her desk and my nails are digging into her wood. I feel uncomfortable in my
small body; my shirt feels too hot.
“B..ut..”
“Go outside now, Yali. You have to be back on time
for the next lesson.”
I let go of the edge of her desk and I notice that my
palms are sweating; I feel nervous and a little bit scared, but I force my legs
to turn my body around and take me outside. When I get to the hallway where all
the bags are, I find mine hanging on the wall along with my coat. I grip
the sides of the red fabric with the green zippers. I pull on the zipper on the
little pockets to take out the sugar cookies that Mami put inside in the
morning. When I get the zipper open, all I see is an empty plastic bag full of
crumbs. Someone took my snack.
My eyes well up with hot, burning tears and I pull
the bag off the hook and throw it on the floor. I crouch down next to it, and
hide my head in my coat that is hanging on the hook where the bag also was.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
I don’t want anyone to see me cry. I swallow my tears
before they can fall under my chin and breathe in forcefully, clogging my
sinuses. I cough and my throat hurts because it’s dry and the tears are
stinging it. I wipe my eyes and my nose and make myself stand up, and walk
outside. When I leave the classroom, I start down the hill to the playground. I
run as fast as my 9-year old legs can take me and when it starts to hurt, I run
even faster until I get to the big tree where my friends are playing. The wind
from running has dried the tears on my face, and when I get there, I jump right
into the game.
***
This morning,
I’m awake before my family is and I go downstairs to where Mami keeps the
snacks in the kitchen. I climb up on the stove so that I can open the cupboard
above it. I’m looking for the chocolates that we brought back from Israel in
the summer. I find a bag of the small, rectangle ones with the black wrappers
and the gold elephants on them. I reach into the back of the cupboard and pull
the bag out. I stuff it in my backpack. If I can’t play with the chocolates in
the calendar, I’m going to keep my own bag in my desk, and no one can have any.
When I get to the classroom, I stuff the bag inside
my desk, behind the spelling notebook, the art notebook, and the pencil case. I
sit and color like I do every morning as I wait for the other kids to get to
the class. Christophe sits down next to me and leans over to look at my
drawing. I put my elbow over it to hide it, and push it to the other side of my
desk. I’m sitting with my legs under me, so I’m a little taller than usual;
that means I can cover the whole thing if I want to.
When my teacher gets up to call the next student to
for the calendar, I have the familiar feeling like some animal is trying to
scratch its way out of my chest. I reach my hand inside my desk and pull a
chocolate out from the bag. I get the wrapper off with one hand inside the desk
and when everyone’s attention is on the freckly girl with the long dirt colored
hair in braids, I stuff the little square into my mouth. It melts over my teeth
in a delicious mixture and my tongue feels happy with the blanket of chocolate
I’ve wrapped it in.
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