After the Hurricane(89)
By the time Santiago had come into her classroom, she had been teaching at the same school for four years. The principal’s doubts might have been dispelled that first day, but every year was the same with the students. They looked at her and saw someone they could easily dismiss, someone who understood nothing of their lives. What did she have to offer them? It took time, each time, for them to understand what she was giving them, for them to care. Some of them never did, and it hurt her heart. But the ones who learned to trust her, who looked to her for more, more information, more knowledge, whose minds opened to her like flowers at dawn, they were precious to her. They became hers. And he, Santiago, was hers most of all.
He sat in the first row, in the corner. He had large glasses, like her own, and his hair was a mass of wild curls that had been smoothed down with something, but were rebelling, springing up, trying to break free. His clothing was old and worn but perfectly clean, his shirt neatly pressed, his threadbare trousers creased. He did not say a word for that first week, did not answer a question, but he drank in everything she said about the book they had been asked to read that summer, Macbeth, his pencil moving along his paper like a flowing stream. Then, as they were closing their discussion of the novel, he raised his hand.
“Please, Mrs. Schultz, I have a question. Did the witches make Macbeth do those things, or did he choose them? What I mean to say is, does evil live inside of people, or does it come from the outside? And if it comes from the outside, then what are we responsible for, as human beings? How can our actions have meaning if we aren’t the ones who choose them?”
Pearl stared at him. It was clear from the look on his face that the answer mattered to him, that he truly wanted to know. She responded quickly, with something vague, disappointing him, and asked him to stay after class. She apologized to him, then, telling him the truth, that she did not know where evil came from, only that it was real, she had known it, seen it, and it was as human as anything else. Santiago nodded, slowly, and thanked her, his voice solemn, calm. When she asked him why he had asked that question, he had told her, My mother needs to know.
Over the last two years, Pearl had learned bits and pieces of Santiago’s life, putting together a mosaic image of his existence. She doubted anyone but she at the school knew that his mother was in and out of an institution, that he was living alone. He came from a poor and violent family, like many of her students, and his brain was eager for worlds beyond his own, he was eager to talk about justice and truth and humanity through Shakespeare and Dickens and Faulkner and Melville.
She had given him what she gave any talented motivated student who came across her path—her time, her guidance, more books to read, more conversations after class—but now she was giving him more. It was September, and school had begun a few weeks ago. Santiago had worked all summer and read every book on the list that she had given him, and told her yes, he wanted to go to school, he would go to school, but he needed her help. So they were sitting together in a little place in Chinatown that served hot tea and hotter pork dumplings, may God forgive her, may she forgive God, with five college applications in front of them, and they were not leaving until they were done.
“I was thinking maybe somewhere far away. Maybe somewhere in Chicago or, or California,” he said, responding to her question. He didn’t list schools, just areas, and she wondered if he even knew what colleges were out there, or if he just wanted to go as far away from his life as possible.
“California,” Pearl repeated. “Why do you want to go to California?” Junior reached into his bag and pulled out a library book, one off the list she had given him, The Grapes of Wrath. Pearl smiled, wryly. “I would think that book would be an argument against going to California, not an incentive.”
“It’s not the Great Depression anymore,” Junior said, earnestly. “I hear it’s a lot better there now.”
“From whom?” Pearl asked, amused. Junior shrugged.
“It sounds nice there. Sunny. They make movies out there, and it’s always warm, and people seem happy, don’t you think?”
Pearl sighed. He was a brilliant kid, but he was a kid, who had seen very little of the world outside of New York, who barely seemed to understand that there was a world outside of New York. What was he going to do in California?
“Do any of those schools give people any money? Ones in California?” he asked, his eyes intent. Pearl studied him. He smiled his normal smile, the one that hid the missing front tooth he told her had been knocked out of his mouth, but didn’t tell her how. He’d grown over the summer, and he was a little too tall for his pants, his ankles poked out of them, knobby and bare. He had such hope in his eyes.
Pearl reached into her bag. She had some other applications, things she had picked up for other students, schools she wanted him to consider. He had never heard of any of them, so asking him to choose was telling him to pick something at random. She thumbed through the papers, looking for one place in particular, one she thought might fund him. It was a long shot, but weren’t all of them? Santiago was smart, and hardworking, but the other students who would apply would come from money, from pedigrees that would guild them into these schools, into these lives. All he had was her.
“‘Stanford,’” Santiago said, reading the top of the application, testing the word out in his mouth.
“It’s near San Francisco,” Pearl said. She had studied maps of the United States when she first moved to the country, wanting to know everything about this new place, wanting to erase the old names of old towns and villages and streets that lingered in her, haunting her, wanting to become new in the New World.