"Some Fostering Star"

SOME FOSTERING STAR

When I was seven years old, Time and Circumstance aligned themselves with Destiny to present me with a comely wonder of a year.

The Second World War was over. Jerusalem was still under the British protectorate. There was danger but it had not yet arrived at our house. And at our house, there was a great effort being made to win all sides to friendship, to avoid this unnecessary danger. My mother and father were Americans and unbelievers but they felt that Jerusalem was indeed the Holy City and not to be defiled. My brother had gone to Arab school and then to a Catholic monastery school. The latter suited him better. It suited my father exactly. My father became friends with the Franciscan brothers, a very serious though jolly lot. Consequently, our house was always full of monks. This would have annoyed our neighbors, as we lived in the Jewish sector, except for the fact that the house was also always full of neighbors.

Since it would not be acceptable for me to attend the nearby school, I was sent instead across town to a British Catholic convent school. It was the chance choice of this school that I consider fortuitous. It shaped in the few months I was there, my attitude towards education, reinforced my suspicions on the question of my fellowman, and in moments of despair, remains in memory to remind me that “exquisite” is not an inappropriate word to combine with “Life.” Had I not had this experience, I might never have been able to pin down why I am so at odds with what people generally refer to as a good school. I would not have understood why I must throw the progressives, the reactionaries, the liberals, the conservatives, the Krishnas, the Montessories into the same bin and I wouldn't not have had the handy measuring stick by which I judge how to divide schools into jam and stained glass windows as opposed to those with no jam and stained glass windows.

My day began early. At 6:30 a.m., my dad would drive me to school. He had no use for conversation with a seven year old, so he drove me chauffeur style. I would lie down in the back seat, my feet propped so that from the outside they looked like quotation marks sticking up over the Great Seal of the United States. I would sing 27 verses of “I Knew an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” to get us going and then I'd be quiet. We drove in a westerly direction in such a slow manner that I felt as though we were towing the sun. By 7:30, I was there. The school day began with the bells of the angelus which for the others had been at 6. I had a dispensation to come at 7:30 because I was not from a Catholic family, and because of my having been recently ill. I cannot remember the exact order of the day. I do remember the content. I had spelling, English money, astronomy, penmanship, geology, anatomy, English kings, solfeggio, drama, piano, philosophy, French, Latin and geography. Each subject had its own teacher. There was much to be learned and learned with excellence. I was in the second grade but was not allowed to write in script because I had not perfected printing. If it took fifty years for me to perfect printing, I was entitled to fifty years of practice; under no circumstances was I to go on with any task till I had mastered its forerunner. This was extremely difficult for me because I had not attended first grade and kindergarten had made no mention of excellence as a way of life. I also discovered that I am by nature sloppy. I rebelled only once, during spelling. The word was “examination” and I thought that was a bit much for a seven-year-old. I grumbled to the Sweet Lamb of Jesus. No one else would have listened. I told Him I had no choice but to cheat, which I did.

Penmanship, in my case printing, was done in French. One page to one word. I remember painstakingly drawing “la maison” in small even letters for a solid hour. The page when done was very pretty; all the “l's” were like chimneys lined up with the flat “maisons” making a tranquil picture of houses and streets.

Classes were shuffled around from room to room during the day. My piano lesson was in a very dark alcove where the sound on the stone walls echoed disapprovingly. Up until this time, I had never been punished, never spanked, never scolded. The first time Sister Ethelberta's ruler came tapping down on my hand, I screamed and ran to the chapel and cried out for St. Michael to grant me refuge. Sister Ethelberta strolled in calmly and explained that the piano was an instrument of hosannahs. I was not to touch it without reverence. I had made a mistake but that was not what bothered her. I had been neglectful. I could not, she said, make music if I had no music in my heart. I made mistakes after that but the ruler never came to Sister Ethelbertas's aid because I never came to the alcove without a sense of awesome responsibility.

In the afternoon Sister Marta read to us. We could have read to ourselves but it was an entirely different, a wonderfully cherishing feeling to be read to instead. The stories were full of dragons and witches' spells and waking dreams.

There seemed to be a constant movement throughout the day in the sense that the shuffling of the classes provided a kind of swelling and receding hum and rhythm. I felt very often that we were all in a dance where we each took turns pirouetting and keeping still, bowing and rising.

At four o'clock, the whole school met at a long table in a center chamber; it was the kind of hall room that one would expect to house a spiral staircase. It didn't. Instead it was a high ceilinged wide place with the sole purpose of showing to advantage several immense stained glass windows. I sat across from the window of Santa Rita in whose forehead was embedded a diamond-shaped chunk of metal the color of pewter; her hands were across her chest, turned outward to show the embeddings in her palms. From each piece of metal came several drops of blood. From her eyes came several drops, also of blood.

The table was of rough cedar with no cloth. Tea was served in delicate cups without saucers. The tea was steamy and strong; there were two slices of toast and in front of each place, a small dish of jam.

We sat in tall cedar chairs. Before we began, we had ten minutes of meditation. We were permitted to close our eyes or not as we chose but we were not allowed to speak. By four o'clock, I was so tired from the exhilaration of study and weak from lack of food that I could hardly sit up. The chair supported me. I generally kept my eyes open and stared at Santa Rita. She seemed lonely yet content. She was enchantingly beautiful; her sacrifice was so large compared to mine that by the time the bell rang to eat, I had given up wanting to. Until I tasted it. I had never, before this school, had jam. Sugar had been so rationed as to be nonexistent. We had a half-hour to drink our tea and eat and again, meditate. I used every second of it tasting the jam. I pushed it slowly with my tongue into every crevice in my teeth. The tiny fibers and seeds I would force into a pattern—a relief map of the land I knew. I tried to always make the Jordan run clear across the top in an unbroken winding line. The Dead Sea on the right side. Just over a molar was the last to be swallowed.

There was something special about the waiting, the windows, the tiredness and the fact that I was never disappointed in the taste of the jam. It was always equally new-found.

I haven't had jam since the night we had to leave Jerusalem. It wasn't saying goodbye, though, to that radiant time. It was only the circumstances weren't quite right. The jam was available but I refused it. I have not since those days had such an alignment, where time and the windows came together with a little dish of jam; or have I?

Recently in class, during the lulling hum of being read to, I felt my back straightening up and heard a quiet shuffling on the drive like the sound of novices on their rounds. I once or twice closed my eyes and reached tentatively to touch the rough wood table. I opened my eyes slowly wondering what I would see.

I was asked last week, why I have come to the Village to take the same class three times. I answered inexplicably, “For the windows and the jam.”