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From then on, I am kinder.
You aren’t entirely unskilled at clay sculpture, but I’m more encouraging than I would have been.
‘That’s a fine cow,’ I say.
You look at me doubtfully. ‘It’s meant to be a horse.’
Hastily, I give a talk on how art lies in the eye of the beholder.
‘So it doesn’t matter what I’m trying to do?’ another student asks.
‘It does. But you cannot control how others choose to see.’
You stay back in class, hanging around until the others leave. I wonder why. I don’t think you’re about to ask me about the subjectivity of interpretation. You shuffle up to my desk, papers and books in hand. Your hair, usually braided in plaits, has come undone, your ribbon trailing down your arm. You are twelve, but your limbs seem at odds with your age, like they will settle only a decade later. You will be tall and beautiful, I’m sure, even if now you’re gangly and awkward and coltish. You glance at me, your eyes dark as paint.
‘Have you always wanted to do this?’
I ask what you mean.
‘This.’ You gesture around the room.
I lean back in my chair. No one has asked me this. At least not here. I could tell you many things. That of course it was a dream to work with children, to teach them about beauty, and how to make beautiful things. But I decide to tell you the truth.
‘No.’
You don’t seem surprised.
I look down at my hands, hold them up in front of me. ‘I wanted to be a pianist.’
‘Did you go to a music school?’
I nod. I did, for many years. I even began performing recitals here and there. Not much scope in this small town that we live in, so I would also give lessons at people’s homes, trying to save up to move to a big city.
‘Then what happened?’ Or in other words, get to the point, why was I here.
‘I was in an accident … I hurt my hands.’
With the cold pragmatism of a child, you look at me and say, ‘But you still paint.’
I tell you it is all I can do.
‘Oh,’ you say, and leave. Maybe there was no reason for me to have been honest. You’re a child. With limited understanding. What had I been hoping for? Sympathy? Concern?
I am left alone in the room, feeling, for some reason, decidedly silly.
In the next class, you are missing. And the next.
And even though I try and feign indifference, I’m concerned. What’s happened, I ask the others. What’s happened to you? A bronchial infection, apparently. One accompanied by a cough and high fever. I wrestle with myself, wanting to send you ‘get well’ wishes, yet wishing to keep a distance. I know your classmates have made cards for you, but I don’t jointly sign any of them. I don’t send enquiries from my side. In ten days you return, paler, wan, still coughing. You’ve lost weight. I make you a little clay flower, paint it red, and leave it at your corner. I do it for all my students who’ve been ill. You thank me at the end of class, and don’t linger like you usually do. It leaves me, uncomfortably, wondering why.
I find you quieter than usual.
You have stopped with the paper animals and clay figures, and instead are painting sheet after sheet of paper in deep, unvarying blue. Then orange. Then green. I joke that you’re an abstractionist, but you do not laugh.
One day, I catch you in the corridor and ask how you are.
You don’t look at me when you say you are fine.
‘I heard you’ve been unwell …’
‘Better now, thank you.’
‘Is anything the matter?’ I can’t help asking.
You shake your head, your eyes still fixed to the floor.
I want to say that you can tell me, that you have someone you can talk to. That I know you live in a house with two old people, that you might feel alone. But I don’t. I give you a perfunctory pat on the shoulder, and you’re on your way.
It’s odd, but I miss you staying back in class, chatting in your sharp, inquisitive way. I miss your singing, your flowers, your incessant questions, your attentiveness to everything I say, even the merest, most mundane instruction. I hope it might revive at the end of term. Especially when I make the announcement that we’re to hold an exhibition of all we’ve made over the past year. Most of the students are excited, whispering to each other, debating which of their works they’d like to display. Some have much to choose from. You look as though you haven’t even heard me.
I allow a few classes to pass before I ask you. That afternoon, you’ve lingered, unintentionally, because a sheaf of your painted papers fell to the floor, scattering like leaves.
‘Have you thought about it …?’
You stare up at me. Startled.
‘What you’d like to display … for the end-of-year exhibition …’
You still look blank. It’s exasperating.
‘Yes …’
‘Oh good. And …?’
‘I’m still thinking … I don’t know …’
I begin to make a few suggestions, and then stop. What am I doing? This is undoubtedly the best way to get you to not participate. ‘Well … let me know if you need any help …’
You nod, and shuffle out of the room.
One day, when I’ve given up on any hope of you returning to your old self, you stay back in class. I’m at my desk examining some paintings for our show.
‘What happened?’
I look at you, puzzled.
You come closer, clutching your books to your chest. You’ve never really recovered your weight since your illness, and your cheeks remain pale and hollow.
‘What do you mean?’
You gesture at the paintings.
‘I’m trying to choose frames …’ I begin.
‘No,’ you interrupt. ‘I mean your hands. What happened?’
I think I understand, but I don’t want to answer. You persist.
‘You told me you had an accident … and you couldn’t play the piano any more …’
‘I can still play,’ I say, and add, ‘But only a little.’
You stay silent, waiting for me to explain.
I push the paintings aside. ‘I got a job with a choir … wonderful bunch of young kids … voices like angels and all that. It wasn’t …’ I laugh. ‘We played mostly hymns, but it paid well and helped supplement my music lessons …’
You haven’t taken your eyes off me. I don’t know where to look, at you, at my hands. I settle for the window, where the late afternoon sun is streaming through and falling in patterns on the floor.
‘We were travelling … for a concert in a nearby town. All of us in a bus … it was raining … I must have dozed off … but I remember waking up to a lurch … a terrible crash … the bus crumpling like tin … and the seat in front of us suddenly pinning us back. If I hadn’t put my … put my arms between the boy next to me and the metal, I think he would’ve been crushed …’
‘You saved his life?’
‘That’s the thing … I’d like to think I did … but I don’t know.’
‘Your bones were broken?’
I nod. Grateful in a way for your stoic lack of emotion. By now most adults would be voicing profuse commiseration, and I would never know what to say to their ‘I’m sorry … I’m so sorry … that’s just terrible … what a tragedy …’ I’d usually end up awkwardly saying ‘thank you’ and resigning myself to silence.
‘Broken in several places …’ I hold up my left arm. ‘There’s a steel rod running through this one.’
‘Do you beep at airport security?’
I laugh, you laugh, and suddenly the room fills with light.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Sometimes.’
Then you ask me something else no one has asked me before.
‘If you were in that bus, would you do it again? What you did.’
It takes me a moment to reply. ‘I’d like to say yes … but in truth, I’m not sure.’
You don’t seem disappointed. In fact, you nod briskly, as though this is a business conversation. I want to ask you several questions in turn, about you, your home. But this is akin to having a bird finally sit on your hands and peck at crumbs. Now is not the time to make sudden movements or loud noises and frighten it away.
As you walk out of the classroom, you turn back. ‘You know,’ you say, ‘I think you would.’
Soon enough it’s end of term, and we’re setting up the exhibition hall. You haven’t submitted anything. I’m disappointed, yes, but not immensely surprised. I can’t even use the line I do with the other kids – ‘Wouldn’t you want your parents to see your work and be proud of you?’ I’m not sure yours are coming. And I don’t want to hazard saying ‘grandparents’ instead. I don’t know why, but I feel it’s a delicate situation. Or at least I treat it so.
While the work is being put up, you hang around.
Because I think you expect it, I don’t ask you where your contribution is. I ask you what you think.
‘About?’
‘All this …’ I gesture around the room, filling up with paintings, sketches, sculpture.
‘I want to see what it looks like when it’s finished.’
And I find it hard to get another word out of you. But I see that you watch carefully, where everything is being placed. Right now I have no time to question why or wonder. This is my first event, it must be impressive, and it must somehow validate … something.
I leave late that evening, after all the children’s artworks have been put up. It’s looking, I think, quite lovely. What a pity you aren’t part of it. I’m tempted to place some of the paper figures you’ve gifted me in a corner, but desist. This is your choice and I must respect it. You did not feel involved enough in this class to wish to participate.
The next day, I arrive early at school and head to the exhibition hall. But someone else has been there earlier. Or that’s what the security guard tells me. ‘One of your students,’ he says. ‘Said she had your permission … special permission … to place something in the room. She had a lot of stuff with her …’
‘What do you mean?’ Panic pricks my chest. ‘Which student? What was she carrying?’
He shrugs. Clearly not comprehending why I would be worried. ‘Scissors … paper … art stuff like that …’
‘I didn’t give anyone permission to do anything.’
Finally, he seems a touch concerned. ‘You didn’t?’
I shake my head.
He fumbles with the door, unlocking it and drawing it open. We make our way briskly down the corridor.
In my head, I imagine everything in ruins. Paintings ripped out of their frames, shredded and sliced to strips. Canvas torn, sculpture thrown across the floor, smashed to pieces. I can barely conceal my anger. Who could have done this? And why? For a flickering moment I think of you, and force myself to discard the idea. I have no proof. And why would the first person I think of be you? Perhaps because of your sullenness, your plummeting moods, your aloofness. But you haven’t been that way all the time. You’ve never struck me as vindictive. Still, who knows? Children can be strange creatures. I try to shake it out of my head before we enter the hall. The security guard and I are silent.
I step in and everything is in its place, just as we left it the previous evening. Nothing seems to have been touched or broken or moved.
‘All okay?’ asks the guard.
I nod.
‘Well, that’s a relief.’
And then I see it. What you’d come in for, earlier this morning.
At the door leading outside, on the other side of the room, a curtain of white.
I can’t really tell what it is, fabric or ribbon, until I walk closer.
Paper cranes. String after string. I stir them gently, and they rustle against my hand. Pristine white. Neat and even. Made with industrious care.
They are a thousand, I am certain even without counting.
They say folding a thousand cranes will grant you a wish.
