This Little One

I've been listening to This American Life for most of the day. When I haven't been watching Rome and eating pancakes. Pancakes are best on weekends.

The week resolved itself just fine. It was an immensely busy week, but I managed. The professor I'm working for continues in his gruff manner. It has become a source of comedy for me. He offered a one time extension on papers to all students- to be used at any point during the term. Many students took the extension this time. The only rule was that both of us, the instructors, had to be notified by email prior to the due date. He felt the need to respond to each and every email and CC me as well. This flooded my inbox with gmail conversations that should've just been one time clipped missives.

I did check one of his responses. A freshman frizzy haired piano performance major emailed him a couple days before the due date with an excuse, which was unnecessary in this case but included nonetheless, that she couldn't finish the paper on time because she had a deep emotional investment in last week's Bears game. It was her brother's alma mater, she said. Curious.

Georgi curtly replied, "PERMISSION GRANTED. ONE WEEK!" I pictured him saying this, banging his open palm on a hardwood table top after the first phrase, and pointing at her in warning of the time ticking away after the second. I laughed out loud alone in my department's computer lab.

The entire affair reminded me of a moment during my childhood with my paternal grandmother. We all call her Mimi. After listening to an episode of This American Life concerning two children and their strange relationship to their mother, I remembered the pain of growing up with my own mother's confusing combination of great love and sadistic malice for me.

And I remembered how there were these few shining moments during those dismal years when my grandmother would come steal me away for weeks in the summertime.

And I remembered that with her things were always more fun, brighter, safer, with much more magical.

I told her once that I thought her elaborate cupboard, which consisted of a system of hinged shelves and cabinets that unfolded to reveal an extremely efficient system of organization and space management, was in fact, the last doorway to Narnia. I only told her this when I was an older teenager about to leave for college. By then I doubted I was going to find Narnia. Probably too old for it, and too jaded. She laughed and her eyes became wet when I mentioned this to her over a farewell lunch she had made me. When she asked me why I thought I had conjured this tale, I didn't have an answer immediately; beyond the fact that the cupboard in question seemed magical to a child to begin with because you couldn't see the back, and there was no real telling how the thing was packed into a small space. I eventually told her that it was perhaps also that her house was always full of books and art projects, and hence a great deal of imaginative energy. In reality, I think the strongest reason is that she made me feel like the world had color and spark. She made me feel like there were doorways beyond doorways, out of the tenuous life I had at home everyday.

But back to how this relates to a gruff professor.

Beyond being a woman of great skill in playing with and caring for children, Mimi has an unshakable steely core. She was and still is, a tiny woman. Short, thin, with penetrating blue eyes and slender hands. She hates to sit still and is always busy accomplishing some task or starting some new project. She had the voice of a bird once, recorded on an old reel to reel tape recorder my father brought home from college when he was a young man. It is lost now, but when I was a little girl I begged Mimi to play it for me just once. She did, and I heard my grandmother as she was in her late 30s. Still a nymph-like beauty, perhaps with rougher hands than in her girlhood, but with a melodic and vibrato laden soprano. She sang "Sentimental Journey." Her eyes went far away while I laid on my stomach on her sofa, chin on my raised arms, balancing a sandal on one upheld foot. I was watching her, but she was watching something else. Perhaps an image of herself a long time ago. We both started when the recording ended. I think we felt embarrassed about returning to real time.

The song only reminded me of the fact that my grandmother was always a proud woman. Sometimes her pride made her ugly and drove her jealous possession of grudges for years as though they were heirloom quality gems. But more commonly, she was a good natured terrier. Small, tough, feisty, and a bit of a social butterfly. As long as all was quiet on the range, of course.

Once during one of these summer holidays to Mimi and Papa's house, she and I decided to take a day trip into the mall. This was called, "going into town," which really makes our lives sound much more rural than they really were. The fact was, they lived in a town, but it was a small one. And the closest grouping of large numbers of people, shops, and thus a mall, was a thirty to forty minute drive.

I was only a little girl, but I loved going to the mall with Mimi. She was still teaching school during that time. So, unlike my own mother she worked outside the home and was a very stylish woman. Or so I thought. We would sift through racks and racks of lovely clothes at Bergner's and Famous Barr while she asked for my opinion on this or that article, and whether or not I thought pink or red suited her better.

I took these questions very seriously, and was deeply flattered by her attention. I felt like we were girlfriends sharing some ritual of being female. My own mother took me with her on errands, but had a habit of making a scenes in public or forgetting to properly wash herself for days and leaving the house looking unkempt and dirty, drawing stares from people. Mimi and I had never had a salesperson ask us to leave a store. In face, the sales people smiled when they saw us. The lack of stigma was relaxing.

Our trip to the mall was going well. Mimi couldn't decide between two sweaters and I convinced her to be naughty and buy both. We giggled about this and she made me promise not to tell Papa what she'd done, even though I knew she would show him what she bought the moment we got home. He is not the point of this story, but suffice to say that he was and is a great big bear of a man and just as warm and gentle as he is physically imposing. He loved nothing more than to see his wife and in particular his granddaughters (they had no female children of their own) spoiled absolutely rotten. No way were either of those sweaters going back to the store.

After making this grand decision, we both decided we needed lunch and were going to eat some pizza. We got in line somewhere near the Cookie on a Stick and Pretzel Hut. Our mall was older and at that point food courts were only in bigger malls in bigger cities. We had small shop fronts that served food, and had a handful of tables in them. People would line up at each one, spilling out in to the general area of the mall. This place had just opened and we took our place in line.

As we got near the front, I could see that the counter was set on a dais of sorts- higher than the customers by several feet. The men behind the counter were taking orders and working dough. They were all as you'd expect form a Brooklyn pizza shop rather than something in a po-dunk Midwestern mall. They wore white pizza aprons, white undershirts, and were sweating like pigs. They were all big men with short black curly hair and red cheeks. And they were all native speakers of Italian.

I was only six or so at the time, and was pretty unworldly even as six year olds go. My obsession with staying out of direct sunlight and reading books all day had given me a strange combination of knowledge without any real world context. As a result, these people looked like exotic creatures to me.

Reaching for something in my mind to connect them with, to make sense out of their accents and larger than life appearance looming over me, I pictured them having sailed to our little town with Magellan or having ridden here on a horse with Marco Polo. I wondered if they thought we were exotic, too, and I wanted to ask them if they knew that Americans eat cookies on a stick. There were very good ones at the shop next door. Or that we don't live at the mall even though there are clothes, food, and beds here. I wondered if I should tell them that this was not the spice road and that they had not found a special way to get to China.

As I pondered this, the line kept moving forward with my grandmother's hand on my shoulder. I began to picture their reactions to my information. What if it was shocking to them? What if they asked me where China actually was, then? I tried to think of which way I would point. Beyond Happy Wok near Sears, I couldn't think of how to direct them. Worse, what if they asked me things I didn't understand? What if they mistook my benign attempt at assistance for deceit, and became angry? Weren't sailors untrustworthy? Or were those just pirates? And were these people pirates or just explorers? Looking back, I am unsure as to exactly when in the few moments we were waiting in line it was that I decided these people fit into the category of "men of the Renaissance maritime," but it was all I had and I ran with it.

As we neared the head of the line, my grandmother asked me what I wanted. I choked and couldn't answer. What did this place serve, anyway? I had completely forgotten. I tried to find a menu board somewhere with pictures that would indicate what was available here, but all I saw were fluorescent lights gleaming on oily semi bald heads above me. I had no idea what to do and we were fast approaching the register where the fattest, loudest, and sweatiest man waited, gesticulating wildly over a protruding belly stained with red tomato sauce.

My grandmother asked me again, and all I could do was shake my head. She would have to decide for me, as I had allowed my imagination to totally overwhelm me.

My heart had begun to occupy some new quarters in my neck when my grandmother finally reached the head of the line and began interacting with this booming man. She looked even smaller than she usually did as he filled up the space around him with sound and gleaming flesh. His belly looked like it was looking down at Mimi- its horrible great red stain sizing her up somehow. I grew even more nervous at her interaction with this possible scallywag fresh off the high seas.

However, my grandmother seemed to have no fear of this man and stated our order plainly and primly. She paid the man and nodded to him as he handed her her change. I saw only a slight look of distaste on her face as he nearly deafened her with his pronouncement that, I hoped, was an invitation to enjoy our food and return at some future point. She began to step away from the counter when, sensing I was not following her, she turned and took a half step back to retrieve my hand. She then led me forward in my debilitating state of shock brought on by an excessively active inner monologue.

As she drew me past the counter, the giant red and tan man shoved a large sausage like finger in my direction. Startled, we both stopped in our tracks. I felt that this was going to be my moment of- something. One of those moments in books where the character changes forever, or the thing sought is found, or the food runs out and the matches are wet. That type of thing.
The man's booming voice rained down on my head from what seemed like miles above. "WHAT CAN I GET FOR YOU, MY FRIEND?" And then he brought that same hand down, palm open, on the counter in a wet *crack* to punctuate his aggressive demand for information.

Still frozen and with an open mouth, I heard a sudden intake of breath in what amounted to a gasp. It was coming from me, and I thought I was going to wet my pants. Time stood still and all the sound ceased for a just a moment. In this little pizza nook in the mall, a spotlight shone on me, this man, and the space between us while all else faded into black.

In what I'm sure wasn't even the space of a second in real time, my grandmother emerged from these shadows and stepped into my mental frame next to me. She laid a tiny hand on my shoulder, and the steely strength in those fine bones gripped my collarbone firmly. She leaned into the man behind the counter and proclaimed simply, "this little one is with me." And then we moved out of the way of the customers behind us, who had suddenly materialized out of no where, and beyond the purview of the busy men and their monumental counter.

We were both silent for the remaining minutes in which we waited for our food that we would take to a plastic table somewhere and eat with the soft cloth napkins my grandmother carried in her purse (she did not approve of napkins that came from dispensers, as she was convinced they could not be trusted to be totally clean). In the time that we stood there, my grandmother's hand had remained on my shoulder, fanning out over my chest as she kept me pulled near her, out of the way of the other bustling customers.

Just as our food was called by another of the white clad men, my grandmother stroked the top of my head, something she would only do for the short period of years in my life before I surpassed her in height. I looked up at her and she said, "I got cheese pizza for you. I hope that is okay. I think most of you kids like that." I said that I did, and it was true.

She went to collect the food while I was sent to scout us "just the right table." Hardly a herculean task considering there were only three options and each was an identical molded plastic affair with a table and booth seating arrangements for two. But I liked that she asked me to do this while she took on the braver task of approaching the counter again. That way I wouldn't have to either die and/or wet myself in my recovery of our food, or worse yet, admit that I was scared.

A note about being scared. Being scared was not an option in my own home growing up. Tears and the fear that stood behind them were signs of weakness that my mother would not tolerate. As an intensely shy and bookish child, ordinary social interaction mortally terrified me. Once, my mother sent me to a new neighbor's house to ask them for a few things she needed for baking. Actually, it was to ask for half the ingredients to make brownies for my brother's school bake sale. She insisted that it was I who had stolen the flour, brown sugar, eggs, and milk she knew she would not have forgotten to buy. Therefore, it was I who would have to recover them.

I begged her with tears in my eyes not to send me out to confront the unknown for the sake of a request that seemed unlikely to be an appropriate one, even among adults. She pushed me out of the door, disgusted at my obsecene display. The door locked behind me and I didn't come back until after dark. My mother had finished making the brownies by then, but was no less displeased to see me in a decidedly eggless state. I spent the day in a tree in our backyard.

It was this kind of experience, and many more even stranger and more incomprehensible, that I brought with me every year to Mimi and Papa's house in the summertime. And it was these small moments of what I later knew to be empathic understanding of the strangeness of the world to its children, that my grandmother made sure I took back with me.

Later that day, she told me she didn't think we would go back there, to the pizza place. She said she didn't like her food that much. But, she said, I had chosen a very good place to sit which was something. I agreed.

I think it was, in the end, my professor's clipped, two phrase shouting response that reminded me so much of that sensory rich moment in childhood when I was accosted by an exotic shipmate of Magellan's over an altar-like counter at the local mall. The accent of someone from far outside my own upbringing, the dark hair and tanned skin and the heavy belly became an outline of a man that had now come into my life twice- once as the man at the pizza shop, once as this professor barking orders from behind a desk littered with Soviet era Russian army relics.

In the process of getting over my tears in his office when I had to beg to keep my teaching job, I am discovering the lighter side of what it means to work for this curious and gruff individual. And I smile to myself now, if I don't laugh outright, when the students in the front row insensitively jerk backwards in their chairs when he attempts to imitate Napoleonic cannon fire or demands to know why it is they have never heard of such and such a Turkish general or Polish war correspondent.

I just imagine my diminutive grandmother, striding into that classroom in one of her impeccable outfits, gold bracelet swinging from her minute wrist, placing her hand over the heartbeat of one of those startled kids, and pronouncing, "this little one is with me."