- How ugly she is, Lynne thought, when Rosie came to see her after class. Is that grey stuff on her cheeks dirt or old make-up? And why doesn't she smile, usually they do when they ask favors ....
Rosie stood still, all quiet, didn't move, until she was sure she had caught Lynne's eye and that she didn't disrupt her work with the essays from the students. Her essay wasn't in the pile, she knew that full well, but what could she do, after all it's impossible to be in two different places at the same time.
"All right, Rosie,"Lynne said with assumed friendliness, "You wished to talk to me so how may I help you?"
Rosie stood staring at her shoes as if they were very interesting objects and she didn't have ears to hear what Lynne said. Lynne browsed one more essay and after a while she heard Rosie say: "I'm sorry I didn't have time for the essay, but ...."
"All right," Lynne said, eager to get it over with, "you know you have to prove your writing and spelling skills. Otherwise I can't let you pass. After all, people must know that you can what you're supposed to be able to do as a naturalized citizen."
"Yes, I'm very sorry," Rosie said, "but this week was impossible and then I thought that I might give you something else I wrote some time ago. It's not an essay and nobody has seen it before, but I wrote it when we read those nice English poets in class."
"Shelley, Byron and Sylvia Plath?"
"Yes, those are the ones ...."
"What do you mean that you wrote them when we read them? Did you write down what they wrote or what do you mean?"
Rosie looked at her in disgust. "No, certainly not, but I had never read English poets before and they inspired me."
Lynne looked askance at her middle-aged student, at her derelict clothes, her brownish (dirty?) hands and face. She even took in an unmistakable odor of dirty, used clothes and a not too clean human being. By doing so she felt very brave and compassionate, a real humanitarian "social worker".
"Well, woun't you sit down, Rosie and let me finish these essays. Then we can talk about it ...."
Rosie sat down at once which convinced Lynne about her being as tired as she looked. Again she looked down at her downtrodden, derelict shoes.
- Too much, she thought, to be like that, a bum no less.
Soon after having sat down Rosie's eyes closed and it was obvious that she was about to fall asleep. Lynne shrugged at her small, thin frame which made her look older than she most likely was.
After having finished reading the essays, commenting and marking them, Lynne turned to Rosie. She found her awake, but with a facial expression of utter exhaustion. When Lynne spoke to her she smiled one of those rare smiles which Lynne hadn't seen very often. To her horror she saw that she didn't have any front teeth and always being such a coward in dental matters she suddenly understood something: This woman, a refuge from a foreign country, lived a kind of life she herself wouldn't have been able to endure. All right, she was dirty and unkempt, but also she attended a night school to better her situation. Actually, she was more of a heroine than her own soldier mother, a decorated major, no less.
"Rosie," she said, "how do you get food for yourself and your family? Do you have a job?"
"No, not really, but I know some shop keepers who let me have some groceries from the day before if I help them clean the place or fetch something for them. Then they may also pay me - that is if they don't forget."
"Tough," Lynne said and this time her statement was with conviction and even regret. She suddenly felt genuine compassion and something bordering on admiration for this woman and wished she could help her. That made her think of the papers she had wanted to show her.
"All right, Rosie, what was it you wanted me to see?"
Rosie held out some papers while at the same time shyly averting her eyes. Lynne took the papers from her hand and started to read these English-inspired poems. The wording wasn't too good, but the poems themselves couldn't be shrugged off: They were good, maybe even worthy of publication.
"Very good, Rosie," Lynne said, really impressed. "Those English poets certainly were of use for you if they inspired you."
"They did - and Pablo Neruda."
"Oh, you know Pablo Neruda? What have you read by him?"
"Everything, he was a friend of my uncle ...."
Lynne stared at her student as if she had never seen her before. "Your uncle?" she stuttered, but how?"
"I'm a fugitive, remember, and my uncle was a well known politician. Besides, I too had a life, just like yours."
All of a sudden this derelict creature sounded exceedingly proud as if she wanted to compete with her affluent and smart looking teacher. Lynne was stunned. Were there any similarities between them so that she connected with this woman in more than an ordinary teacher-pupil relationship? That couldn't be!
"Yes, I was a teacher like you, and I wrote poetry and plays before I came here."
This statement of a lost identity went into the heart of Lynne like a fire from the angel's Sword of Flames.
- That can't be, she told herself. From something like my family position to living on nothing in a foreign country?!! That couldn't happen to anybody. As this thought went through her bewildered mind Rosie produced a small set of photos from her handbag and put them in front of Lynne.
In these photos she saw a happy family, seemingly orbiting around an exceedingly beautiful, young woman who bore a faint resemblance to the derelict figure by her side.
"Yes, that's me," Rosie said as her forefinger found this beautiful woman, "I'm 21-23 here and it was just before we left."
Lynne looked from her pupil to the photo and back again and she felt like weeping, however more over Fate itself than over the individual fate of this one woman.
"All right," she said, "let me think about the poems and then maybe I can use them for an individual essay, i.e. an essay on a free subject."
Rosies face split open into rare, beautiful smile. Her eyes twinkled and the sudden beauty of her face was just a setting for what lit it up: Her very soul.
Lynne whipped out her handkerchief and concealed her tears by pretending to wiper her nose.
"Rosie," she said, "let me have the poems for some days and then I shall talk to you again. If possible they may go as a free essay, but you may have to submit something more later on."
"OK," Rosie said, looking very relieved, "I hope you shall like them."
Lynne didn't make a reply, but when Rosie rose to her feet and left right away she knew that what she felt for this student - all the mixed feelings - might disrupt her judgement as a teacher.
- I don't care, she thought, no, not
in the least, am I corrupted then I'm also challenged by meeting Fate
in the workings.
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