Among School Children (30 page)

An islander who emigrates from an outpost of empire to its mainland stands an excellent chance of being far less insular than many mainlanders. From an early age, Efrain had immersed himself in the art and history both of Puerto Rico and the world. He had come to Massachusetts for graduate school and had settled in Holyoke. He had landed, it didn't take him long to discover, in one of a parochial nation's bastions of parochialism. The sort of Holyoker who wanted to speak respectfully of Efrain's origins, he noticed, would refer to him as Hispanic. The sort who wanted to insult him called him Puerto Rican. He found that a social studies text in use in the city's schools designated Jamestown as the first settlement in the new world, and he wondered, "What happened to St. Augustine? What happened to California? What happened to San Juan?"

Efrain didn't get paid for his arduous work as a tour guide. Local ignorance, more than an islander's pride, caused Efrain to launch his one-man campaign to edify the educators of Holyoke. This year not enough teachers signed up for the tour, and Holyokers mainly interested in a vacation, including a number of Puerto Ricans, filled the vacancies. Among others on the tour were the assistant superintendent (a native Holyoker of Irish descent who spoke fluent Spanish), several teachers, and the Zajacs—Chris, Billy, and their son. Kate stayed behind with Chris's mother.

The bus had just dropped the group at their hotel in San Juan, in the tourist quarter, when Chris said to Billy, "It's nice, but I couldn't live here." She felt silly saying that, as if Billy might decide to move to Puerto Rico, but the need for reassurance doesn't follow logic.

Billy laughed. "That's because you couldn't live anywhere but Holyoke."

"Well, maybe when all our friends and relatives are dead," Chris said, still feeling a little silly but comforted.

The next morning, on the way to Easter Mass, Chris told the Puerto Rican taxi driver that she came from a place where a lot of Puerto Ricans had settled. The driver said, "People go there to be on welfare. They don't want to work," and for a moment she felt as if she really were at home. But the heat, the tropical breezes, the palm trees, the musty smell in the hotel room, all made her feel too far from home. She missed her daughter. She kept comparing what she saw to things back home, as tourists do and immigrants must. She had a hard time relaxing. The second day, during the tour of old San Juan, inside the second oldest church in the western hemisphere, Chris separated herself briefly from the company and, kneeling in a pew, prayed that everyone get safely through this trip and that they have a safe flight home. After that, she felt readier to enjoy the holiday.

Efrain was the sort of tour guide who makes it easy to learn something. The story of the island's colonization reminded Chris of her unit on the American Revolution. "I think they should have a San Juan Tea Party." She felt worn out from the last weeks of school, and she skipped the trip to the city of Ponce. But San Juan was too hot for snoozing, and a lot of the American tourists around the hotel pool spoke rudely to the Puerto Rican waiters, so she felt uncomfortable hanging around there. "I've got to get out of my little cocoon," she kept saying to herself.

They took a trip around the island. At a seaside restaurant on a cliff, looking out the window at the rolling blue Atlantic, Chris said, "Thank God." She'd begun to think she didn't like Puerto Rico, because she didn't really care for what she'd seen of hot San Juan. They stopped in Cayey to visit some of Felipe's relatives. The conversation didn't go beyond pleasantries, but just to be behind the private walls of another culture, in a living room as neat and cozy as her own, felt like enlightenment.

The best part of the trip for Chris was the visit to the mountain town of Comerio. Efrain had gotten the island's school authorities to provide the transportation. A school bus picked up the group at the hotel in San Juan. The bus bounced along into the mountains, Chris, sunglasses perched in her hair, bobbing in her seat like a posting horseback rider. "No wonder my kids are bouncing off the walls when they come in to me."

An official from the Puerto Rican Department of Instruction was on board. He identified himself as a "curriculum advisor." ("Oh," thought Chris, "a coffee-drinking job.") She changed seats so she could talk to the official. Maybe he could tell her something about the fate of Alejandro, which was, in a way, what she'd come here to find out. She told the official about the handsome little boy. "What will happen to him?" she asked.

The official said that Alejandro's new classmates might shun him for a while, but would probably accept him once he had his Spanish back. Returning Puerto Rican children created problems, the official said. Many needed bilingual programs in reverse, to relearn Spanish. Some were known as
calientes
—"hot ones"—and posed the threat of infecting classmates with mainland ways. Other children teased repatriated kids sometimes, calling them "
newyorquinos
" and "
new-yorricans.
" Chris looked off into the middle distance. Poor Alejandro. But anyway, she told herself, the girls would like him.

About a dozen people rode on the bus into the mountains. Hundreds welcomed them when they arrived in Comerio. The town describes itself accurately as
montaña en flor—
"mountain in bloom." Banners hung across the streets around Comerio's village square:
WELCOME TO TEACHERS FROM HOLYOKE
. The place amazed Chris. Craning her neck at the bus window, she saw green hillsides rising at impossible-looking angles on all sides above the buildings of the town. From the windows and doorways around the square many curious faces peered at the bus. A throng of citizens stood in the shade in a corner of the square. A grade school band in red uniforms struck up the Marine Corps hymn, hitting many sour notes on the way from Montezuma. (Was some gentle irony intended in the choice of music?) "This is their first semester, and they are learning," explained one of the speakers. There were many speakers. Too many for Chris.

The dignitaries, the uniformed chiefs of police and the fire department among them, sat out in the square in a row of folding chairs, removing their hats now and then to mop their brows. Another row of folding chairs, also in the blazing mountain sunshine, awaited the honored guests. The local priest, a local school principal, Comerio's mayor, and Holyoke's assistant superintendent, Tim Barrett (who had brought gifts of T-shirts that said, "Holyoke, Birthplace of Volleyball"), all took turns at the podium. Chris sat in the sun, listening. Her face started growing ruddy at once. She could feel it—instant sunburn.

Politicians everywhere like to talk, Chris thought. That one now returning to the microphone for a second time, for instance—he had many counterparts in Holyoke. Each speaker, when finished, headed for the shade, Chris noticed. She looked around. Most of the other honored guests had fled for the shade, too. Only she and another Holyoke teacher remained out in the sun. She would not get up and follow the others. The
comerieños
might think her a rude gringo if she did. She would see this through, even though most of the speeches were in Spanish.

Later, Chris asked Tim Barrett to translate. Tim said the mayor had spoken yearningly of the prospect of a highway that would bring new jobs to Comerio and with them perhaps an end to the shuttling of children between Comerio and Holyoke. That was a good speech, Chris thought.

The day's schedule had already slipped, and now their hosts debated a new change in plans. Why didn't they hurry up? She'd like to see the schools. Nobody around here seemed to keep schedules. "Me and my precious schedules," she thought. "I've got to lighten up. Chill out, Mrs. Zajac, as my kids say." Finally, back on the bus. The road was narrow, twisty, winding upward. The driver honked at every turn. Chris clutched the handrail on the seat in front of her. "I'm glad I went to church on Easter Sunday." At last they arrived at an elementary school, a collection of red and yellow barracks-like buildings up on a breezy, lofty mountaintop. Evidently, the wealthier
comerienos
lived up here. "It's just like Holyoke," said Billy to Chris. "The higher the ground, the more money."

The school was in recess. Again, banners hung everywhere:
WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL. DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, WE FEEL HONORED. PEOPLE FROM HOLYOKE, WELCOME.
Chris checked out the playground first. Standing in grass near a swing set, she gazed out across the peaks of the Cordillera Central, every imaginable hue of green before her, the colors shifting with the fluttering of two-sided
yagrumo
leaves across the peaks and valleys, and a brisk wind in her face. "Mr. Barrett," she said to the assistant superintendent, "can we do something about improving the view from the Kelly School playground?"

Tim Barrett gazed out at the shimmering mountains, too. "We'll need some earth-moving equipment."

Now, for the first extended period of the trip, Chris felt fully at ease. She had her son in tow, and a crowd of uniformed schoolchildren followed them around, staring open-mouthed at their small North American counterpart. One little girl, who kept following them, caught Chris's eye. The child had freckles and flaming red hair. Chris waylaid Efrain and asked for an explanation. He said that slaves had been clustered near the coasts and that lighter-skinned Spanish coffee growers had gone into the mountains. "So it's not uncommon to see redheads here. But," Efrain added, "we come in all shades and sizes."

Many children asked Chris for autographs. A blond-haired girl pursued her ardently, and in just the same easy-going style she employed for Friday chats up at her desk, Chris questioned her. The girl had grown up in Miami. She told Chris that when she'd come to Comerio, she hadn't known Spanish and had been kept back a year. "I had a boy like that," Chris said to her. "I'm afraid that's going to happen to him." She lowered her head a little, to get her eyes close to the girl's. "But that doesn't mean you're not smart." The usual pep talk ensued.

Chris ambled around, visiting classrooms. The first-grade teacher wrapped her arms around Chris's son from behind and introduced him to her class, and Chris decided right away that this teacher passed her test—Chris would feel comfortable having her son in this classroom.

"Think they have Judy Blume?" said Chris, exploring the library. "Oh, look. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Here's
David Copperfield.
By
Carlos
Dickens." Chris chuckled to herself. Many little faces peered in through the library's louvered windows. Chris peered back at them and, smiling, said, "Hello. What are your names?"

The fifth-grade teacher wasn't in his room. "I can tell it's a man," said Chris, looking in the door. "There isn't very much junk on the walls." She stepped inside the classroom.

For a moment, it seemed as if Mrs. Zajac would take over and start a lesson. The children were all hooting and hollering. She eyed them with a knowing and slightly sardonic smile, then lifted her voice above the babble. She asked them what they were studying. Although they evidently didn't understand her question, they did understand her voice, and they quieted down directly.

"You're wearin' jeans!" said Jimmy to Mrs. Zajac.

"And Reeboks!" said Arnie.

"Even old ladies wear Reeboks," said Chris.

"You're wearin' jeans," said Jimmy again.

"You're not the same," said Arnie.

"I am the same."

"You look about twenty," said Arnie.

"I am about twenty," said Chris.

Her Puerto Rican sunburn had faded. It was a morning in early May. She smiled as she led her class down the hall. But when she got near the office, Chris frowned. Robert's mother was standing there talking to Al. Chris moved on briskly, averting her eyes. She would deal with Robert again tomorrow. Robert wasn't going on the class trip to Old Sturbridge Village. Al had said he couldn't—Robert had been misbehaving again, and besides, he hadn't brought back the permission slip. Chris wasn't entirely sorry. She wasn't going to have to raise her voice once today, not even in her thoughts.

The class, in shirtsleeves, walked out into sunshine. A couple of the girls skipped. They climbed into their bus. Chris spied and eavesdropped on the children for a while. Jimmy took a seat by himself and promptly fell asleep. She peeked around her seat at him, she smiled, and she left him alone. The boys sat in the back, of course, except for Felipe, who sat among the girls. Felipe, she thought, would not lack for girlfriends in junior high. She listened, smiling, as several of the children made the astonishing discovery that there were faces of other children from Kelly School in the windows of another bus. Someone made a crack about Claude and fishing, and Judith dealt with that. "It's America," Judith said loudly. "You're allowed to be whatever you want to be."

Felipe spotted a McDonald's and cried out, "Take us there! It's better than the school food!"

"Manure is better than the school's food," said Judith's voice.

Chris heard Judith say to Arabella, "My mother gave me the
tenth
degree. Don't talk to any strangers and stay with the teacher and if you can prevent it, don't go in any bathrooms."

Chris had a cozy feeling about Judith's future these days. Obviously, Judith's parents had done well by her. Chris thought of how hot the Flats would be in another month or so. She wished she had it in her power to move Judith's family out of there. Anyway, Chris was moving her class out of there for today. The bus was peaceful, the children in a holiday mood. Back in the room, the boys rarely gave her a chance to spend much time with her girls. She got up and sat down across the aisle from Judith and Arabella. Mariposa and Judith sang jump rope songs for Chris most of the rest of the way.

At the orientation, the guide explained to all of the fifth-grade classes that in a moment they would walk out into Sturbridge Village and travel back to the year 1830. "We're English," the guide said, to get them in the spirit. Chris remembered vividly her own fifth-grade trip here, and how transported she'd felt. The guide released them. Chris gathered her class around her outside, at the edge of the bridge into the village, and reminded them that they had already studied this era. Now they would see it come to life. They should stick close to her, she added.