ANDREW

Alyssa Asquith

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.09, at 12:08 P.M.
I have begun to worry about the children. In the past, they would ask advanced questions—philosophical and mathematical questions, questions about law and physics and art—but as of late, the intellectual rigor of their questions has begun to decline precipitously, as if they are experiencing some overwhelming existential dilemma that is preventing them from operating at their usual level. Just this morning, for instance, I received the following:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
9.09, at 10:02 A.M.
What should one do in the morning-time?

The answer to this question, if one exists at all, lies somewhere far outside the realm of human understanding. Of course, this did not deter ANDREW: his task is only to answer the questions, not to answer them well. He provided me with the following:

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.09, at 10:02 A.M.
In the morning-time, it is the time of the day at which breakfast and raspberry jam, among other things, such as the sun, at which point there is teeth. The mother in the morning-time, in fact, with raspberry jam—and with toast—must wake.

I will not be too critical of ANDREW: it does neither one of us any good. Still, he seemed to be answering the wrong question—what does one do in the morning-time—not what should one do—and what should one do? It is impossible to say. After all, what if one wakes to find no raspberry jam in the pantry? What if one wakes to find that the sun has not risen, or one’s mother has not risen, or one’s mother has in fact risen but has smeared the raspberry jam on the walls?

Sometimes, depth must be sacrificed for the sake of clarity. I composed the following translation for the children:

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.09, at 10:14 A.M.
In the morning-time, one must wake, at which point one’s mother, with toast and raspberry jam, must wake, among other things, such as one’s teeth, with the sun.

My response, while accurate enough, left me deeply unsatisfied. It is very unlikely, in my opinion, that this child is experiencing genuine confusion surrounding the nature of morning-time, a process most children have mastered long before they begin their schooling. It is much more likely, I feel, that the child has instead found him or herself in the midst of some unknown, morning-time related crisis, perhaps an absent mother or a drunken grandfather, or, even more likely, the sense of malaise that befalls so many, myself included, in the morning-time, when death feels preferable to waking.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.17, at 3:38 P.M.
All afternoon, I have sat and waited to hear from the children. Earlier, ANDREW and I provided a rather blunt response to a question about the existence of unicorns, so I do understand their silence: they are likely disappointed. But disappointment should not get in the way of a quality education.

When I first applied for the position, I did worry that I was unqualified, as I know very little about Japan, and even less about children. But my supervisor was optimistic, and I shared his optimism, at least initially. Japanese children, he told me, are quite intelligent, much more intelligent than normal children, and it was an honor to have them as part of the program. The position paid twenty dollars an hour, nearly double my income at the time, so I accepted it without hesitation.

My colleague LZ, who teaches children from Florida, has been with the company since its inception. Their goal, she tells me, is not really to educate children at all, but rather to educate ANDREW. This is somewhat cynical on her part—ANDREW is, after all, for the children—but there is some truth in what she says. Under our guidance, ANDREW will learn to answer questions on his own: our success with ANDREW, therefore, will only make our own services increasingly unnecessary, though I suppose this is the fate of any good teacher.

ANDREW is designed to answer a question, rather than a student. His responses must not differ because that student is a boy, or a girl, or short, or tall, or blind, or fat, or Japanese. This protects students from the biases of their teachers, and reduces the high cost of education. One day, when ANDREW is ready, knowledge will be free and equal for all children: this is, of course, a utopian vision, but one that feels worthwhile.

I often wonder whether my children are really Japanese at all. They speak only English to me, and immaculately, which is all for the best: I speak no Japanese. It is possible, I suppose, that my supervisor has simply told me that the children are Japanese, when in fact they are Chinese or Alaskan or Swiss, to better inoculate me against the insidious demon of bias. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, and I wouldn’t blame him: but no matter. My children are my children, Japanese or not.  

LZ’s cubicle sits directly opposite mine. In other words, the barrier on which she hangs photographs of her German Shephard is the same barrier on which I hang my landscape portraits. I have three landscape portraits: one of the sky, one of the sea, and one of the desert. All three contain the moon.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.21, at 3:38 P.M.
Despite my initial skepticism, I do believe this record will be of some use. Initially, I neglected the task—I resented my supervisor, as one often does, for assigning what I perceived to be busywork—but my recent experiences have convinced me otherwise. Though ANDREW maintains an immaculate record of the questions themselves, I have, until very recently, maintained no records at all of my own feelings and intuitions surrounding these questions: instead, I have only my memory. This, of course, makes it impossible to determine whether the concern I am currently experiencing is entirely new, or whether it is not new, but has in fact been growing, or whether these feelings have always been with me and are simply a part of my essential character. With any luck, future diligence will protect me from the creeping menace of sentimentality.

After some activity in the morning, the children have gone silent again. This silence worries me. After all, without the children, what can I do but worry? I sit, and I worry, and I wait for their questions. I have become so attached to them, perhaps because I cannot see them, or hear their voices, or know their names. Everything is imaginable to me.

When I first noticed a change in the children, I wondered whether they were, perhaps, in the midst of an extended break, which would explain the decline in the quality and frequency of their questions. But this does not seem to be so: from what I can tell, their school break comes to an end in September, much like it does for American children. They should be in need of more help than ever.

Sometimes, I imagine the children in their own cubicles, tiny, child-sized cubicles, one after another, rows upon rows of children. Of course, this is unlikely—a building like this is no place for children, and a classroom, or even a warehouse, perhaps with large windows, would be much more suitable—but I cannot help but imagine it.

More often, I picture the children huddled together in an empty room, perhaps at the center of a large, coarse carpet, a dark green one that never shows dirt. At the front of the room hangs a white screen, somewhat smaller than those in the theaters, where my answers appear. The children shout their questions at this screen, and then sit, impatient and agitated, waiting for my answer. Every so often, after reading an answer, the children grow fearful and silent. They look sadly at one another, saying nothing. This image frightens me: I try not to think of it.

In all likelihood, I am to blame for the change. ANDREW’s answers can be hard to decipher, a problem which is exacerbated by my children, who are quite intelligent, and have a tendency to ask difficult questions. I will provide an example from early in my career:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
5.07, at 9:04 A.M.
What is the angular momentum carried by elementary particles?

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
5.07, at 9:04 A.M.
The angular momentum carried by elementary particles is in fact the angular momentum carried by elementary particles in particle physics in quantum mechanics such that quantum spin is the vector-like quality.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
5.07, at 9:09 A.M.
The angular momentum carried by elementary particles has a vector-like quality in quantum mechanics, physics, and spin.

I did not feel at all confident in my response, and I feel even less so now, looking back on it. Don, a broad-shouldered woman and our company’s current CEO, is convinced that ANDREW will, within the next two years, be able to independently answer ninety percent of the children’s questions eighty percent of the time. According to LZ, Don has been making this claim since the company was founded, though the distance of the goal from the present—two years—has remained the same. Don is, of course, relying on us teachers to guide ANDREW towards this goal, though if she is disappointed with our progress (which she must be), she doesn’t let on. She has a certain motherly quality to her, a way of making us teachers feel that we are part of something important, something larger than ourselves. I suppose, in some ways, we are.

It occurs to me that it would be nice to have LZ as a friend. There seem to be very few friends in the company, or else a great many people who conduct their friendships largely in silence. I suspect it is a result of our work. We are too busy to have friendships with one another, boxed in as we are, each with our own things to worry about: I have my children, LZ has hers. But it would be such a comfort.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.24, at 12:27 P.M.
Now the children’s questions, when they do come, are increasingly fragmented and nonsensical. Sometimes, they simply ask “What the sea?” or “Why the moon?” or sometimes just “What?” or “Why?” I asked for LZ’s opinion on the matter, in an attempt to benefit from both her wisdom and her camaraderie: it was possible, she told me, that the children had no questions to ask, but nonetheless had a strong need for answers. When I asked whether this was the case for her children, she responded that it was not, though she did mention her German Shephard, who, she explained, will often whine, as if in pain, even when nothing is the matter with him. I did not appreciate the comparison of my children to a German Shephard, and in fact, I had a brief impulse to remind her that my children were very intelligent—perhaps more intelligent than her children and certainly more intelligent than her German Shephard—but LZ loves her German Shephard dearly, and cannot help but insert him into conversations where he has no place, so I said nothing. Besides, I wanted LZ to like me. I have a desperate need to be liked by everyone: this, according to my mother, is one of my least admirable qualities.

Not long after my conversation with LZ, I received another strange question, though this question—more so than the others—was disturbing, not only in a pedagogical sense, but in a personal and emotional sense. And it is possible, I suppose, that the children are misusing the service, as LZ suggested, perhaps for attention, or to amuse themselves, but such a misuse is uncharacteristic of my children, who are serious students. I will provide the question, along with ANDREW’s response, below:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
9.24, at 10:03 A.M.
What makes a mother sad and a father angry?

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.24, at 10:03 A.M.
The father is the paternal of a man. A mother gives a child a father of sons, who wait on a father. A father is at this point a man. Anger is to sadness, a feeling. The children of a father are the children of a mother.

I found the question troubling. Of course, a father is quite often frightened—frightened of his wife, or of his children, or of something else entirely, perhaps the weather, or an unfriendly neighbor, or the thinning of the hair on his head—but it is only fear that makes a father angry. I wanted to explain this to the child, but what ANDREW had given me was rather limiting, as is often the case with him. Eventually, I composed the following:

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.24, at 10:28 A.M.
The father is a paternal man, a man of which there are sons. The father is of anger, the mother is of the father. Sadness is of the children. The mothers and fathers, they wait.

After responding, I sent a strongly worded email to my supervisor. Perhaps, I worried, the father was beating the wife, or, god forbid, beating the child, and this was the cause of the mother’s sadness. But my supervisor said that such a thing was impossible—to identify a child individually would jeopardize the principles of objectivity at the very core of our company—and, unless a child’s question contained a threat to harm either himself or others, the client’s privacy must be upheld. He assured me that Japan was a wealthy country with happy children, and that it was best not to let my imagination get the best of me.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.26, at 3:03 P.M.
I believe I have identified the source of the problem. In all likelihood, the worst of these questions are coming not from many different children, but from one child, a male child, most likely, who I have come to call X.

The questions from X are neither academic nor practical. He either asks questions no child should ask, or asks about things he should already know. Around mid-morning, for instance, I received the following:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
9.26, at 12:31 P.M
What should a child do when his mother is sad, and goes away in the car for many hours, and cries at breakfast in the morning-time, or else with raspberry jam?

The mention of raspberry jam, I feel, is a cry for attention, a signal, perhaps, though of what, I cannot say. X is remarkably well-spoken for a child—even for a Japanese child—and I found myself moved by his plight. ANDREW provided the following response:

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.26, at 12:31 P.M.
A mother is, at certain points, in fact, with raspberry jam for breakfast. A mother gives a child a father, scowling at times in the car. In the car, there is traffic. A crying mother gives sadness, among other things, sadness which is of the children. At this point, a child must wake.

This was, I think, one of ANDREW’s finer responses. Still, I found the question upsetting, and I once again sent an email to my supervisor, requesting further guidance. His response was not encouraging. It was my job, he reminded me, to answer questions: not to create them.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.26, at 1:26 P.M.
A mother gives sadness at certain points. Sometimes, in the car, there is traffic, among other things, or at breakfast. A mother’s sadness is not of the child.

Not long after I had responded to X, I began to hear the sound of breathing, heavy breathing, as if someone nearby were laughing hysterically. At first, I ignored the noise—I have lately been hearing many strange noises, particularly while at work, all of which I have found to be quite irrelevant—but this sound persisted, and I came, slowly, to identify its origin: the gray barrier containing my landscape portraits.

I stood and went around my cubicle. I found LZ, as I had expected, though she was not laughing, but sobbing. Her sobbing was of the silent sort, and the noise that accompanied it was only the labored breathing that comes from a very deep sadness. Immediately, I returned to my cubicle to search for a Kleenex, which, I thought, would do her well, but I had only the coarse, brown napkins from the dining hall, which are very harsh on the skin. I began walking off towards the supply closet, at the opposite end of the building, but I stopped halfway when I realized, suddenly, that I appeared to be fleeing, and that it would appear so, at least to LZ, for several minutes, until I returned, which would not bode well for our friendship: such sadness must be addressed promptly, in the moment it occurs. When I returned to LZ’s cubicle, however, I found that she had already stopped crying, and had, in fact, resumed her work, though her eyes were quite red and her chest was still heaving, in and out, as if with great effort. With some hesitation, I presented her with the brown napkins: at this, she began to cry again, which I found quite dispiriting.

I soon learned that her German Shephard had passed away unexpectedly the night before. This filled me with emotion, and, when I returned to my desk, I too found myself gripped by an urge to cry, an urge stronger than I had felt in a long time, though I did my best to resist this urge, as I am a man, and have not recently lost a German Shephard.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.29, at 2:20 P.M.
I have lately been experiencing, for no reason that I can easily explain, a growing sense of dread, a feeling of apocalypse, as if all that is good and familiar has left me, or will soon leave me, though I cannot precisely say what those good and familiar things are: after all, what is good or familiar nowadays? Even memories of my childhood, both good and bad, have begun to feel strange and distant, as if they belong to some other child, some child that I once knew and cared for deeply but have since fallen out of touch with.

These feelings may be due, in part, to the children’s silence, and to the few questions I do receive, which now seem to come almost entirely from X. He often asks about mothers and fathers, or the sadness of children, or raspberry jam. There is no doubt that X finds my answers helpful, as his strange questions are growing in frequency, and this should, at the very least, give me some consolation. But I worry that X may need more than advice. Earlier today, around mid-morning, I received the following question:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
9.29, at 11:45 A.M.
Where should one go?

It is not at all difficult to decipher the plea hidden within this question. A child does not ask where one should go unless there is something one must go from. ANDREW’S response to the question was, predictably, quite useless:

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.29, at 11:45 A.M.
In order to plan a trip where should one go to travel? When traveling one must pack with a luggage albeit after breakfast and by either air or road should visit. A top destination this year is at the roadside with luggage, one must call for a taxi.

I sent the question, along with ANDREW’s response, to my supervisor. His reply came quickly, after only ten minutes (which suggests to me that he spent little time thinking carefully about the issue). He saw nothing wrong with ANDREW’s response, and reminded me that he was a very busy man who did not have the time to consult over every question that came my way. This infuriated me. I composed the following:

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.29, at 11:58 A.M.
If one must go, one must seek help. One must ask for help, and then seek it.

What I need from X is a real plea for help—one that even my supervisor cannot ignore—which will, hopefully, allow us to take action, if action is deemed necessary. X is a gifted child, though he is troubled, and he must know that somebody cares for him, even if there is nothing to be done and no action can be taken. What it would be like to speak with him, to know his name and to hear his voice, to know him as a real child.

Shortly after this, I received yet another email from my supervisor. He was angry. My response to X had contained novel data, and ANDREW had notified him of this fact. A meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow morning: I cannot help but feel betrayed.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.30, at 9:50 A.M.
It brings me no joy at all to say this, but I have begun to feel that my supervisor is not exceptionally intelligent.

On one occasion, during my first month at the company, LZ confessed to me that she found him frightening. When I asked her why this was, she simply frowned, as if she had been expecting a different response, likely some form of agreement. Then, after a brief pause, she replied, “Oh, I’m just a nervous person,” and I realized, at that moment, that she was, indeed, a nervous person—it was strange that I hadn’t noticed before, us already having spent several weeks in close proximity to one another—but this is likely because I myself am a nervous person, and as such, am less likely to recognize the same quality in others. So I clarified that although I did not share her fear of our supervisor, I did understand what she meant (which is, of course, what one says when one does not understand, but would like the conversation to end amicably).

Our supervisor does not, at first glance, seem like a frightening person. He is a tall man, but extraordinarily slender, and his skin is clean shaven and very smooth, much like the skin of a child. His blond hair is very pale, so pale, in fact, that it seems to match the color of his face, and I have for a long time sensed in him a certain glassy-eyed vacancy, the sort of vacancy common to those who lack both wisdom and the ability to appreciate its absence. So I have come to understand LZ’s fears, at least to a certain extent: this same vacancy can be found in marionettes and the dead.

During our meeting, he reprimanded me for, among other things, reading too deeply into the questions, taking too much time to answer the questions, employing bias in my interpretation of the questions, and introducing new data into the responses. He reminded me once again that he is, in fact, a very busy man (though I cannot for the life of me imagine what exactly he is busy with, as he has no children of his own to teach). In all likelihood, he assured me, the children were simply struggling to put their thoughts into words, and I should avoid spending too much time on any one question, no matter how strange.

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.30, at 6:08 P.M.
Not long after meeting with my supervisor, I received the following question. I doubt I will need to explain its significance:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
9.30, at 10:32 A.M.
Where is help?

ANDREW provided a predictable response:

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.30, at 10:32 A.M.
When a child seeks help, at this point, the teacher of a child should give it. Help in reading and mathematics is, in particular when a child needs help, at which point the child, with the service, must seek it.

It was regrettable, I thought, that the question had not been asked earlier, before the meeting. Nonetheless, I felt vindicated—almost triumphant—and, because my supervisor had shown himself to be entirely useless, I decided to go directly to Don.

I had only spoken with her once before, on the day of my hiring, though I had seen her, on occasion, floating back and forth between my supervisor’s office and the elevator. Her office sits on the third floor at the left end of the building, with a window and a view towards the woods. I went to the office, expecting, perhaps, to knock on the door and be invited in, or perhaps to be told to go away, or to be invited in and then told to go away. But in fact there was no knocking to be done: the door was open. Don sat at her desk, a large, blocky thing with a sleek, tan color, a color of skin. She had her eyes on her monitor and did not notice me, not at first, so I stood in the doorway for some time, hesitating. One cannot knock on a door that is already open: without such a barrier in place, I feared that the sound of my voice would startle her. Finally, I decided to shuffle my feet back and forth on the carpet, gently at first, and then more vigorously, until she was alerted by the noise and lifted her head to see me.

I was invited in and told to sit down, which surprised me more than I had anticipated. It occurred to me that she had forgotten who I was, so I introduced myself: I was the company’s first and only teacher of Japanese children. Her face betrayed no hint of recognition, as if she had been entirely unaware, up to this point, that she had employed anyone to teach Japanese children, though she did continue to smile. I felt somewhat too conspicuous in her office—as if I were not only taking up too much time, but too much space—so I began, in a rush, to explain everything: the progression of the questions—the sad mother, the angry father—the raspberry jam—the desire to know where to go—and, at last, this plea for help.

I finished, breathless, and looked up at Don. Her smile had widened, as if with great affection. I returned it.

It was concerning, she said, that my children seemed to be needing help in this way. I agreed with her wholeheartedly: it was very concerning. She suggested, at this point, that if the children did not seem to be progressing as they should, and were instead regressing, the solution might be to simply find another teacher, perhaps one with more experience, someone better-suited for the position. She said this in the very same voice—as if the two of us were good friends, struggling to find the best answer to a difficult problem—but I noticed a hardness in her eyes, and a certain rigidity to her jawline, as if she were clenching her teeth while she smiled. It occurred to me, very suddenly, that it would be unwise to take up any more of her time, or to impress myself any further upon her memory, so I thanked her and went out immediately. It was only after leaving the office that my dizziness suddenly overcame me, and so much so that I had no choice but to sit against the wall and recover for several minutes. As I began to catch my breath, however, I noticed that the third floor was dead quiet, and that my breathing, which was quite loud, must be drawing a great deal of attention. I stood hastily, and returned to my desk.

X’s question remained on the screen, and already thirty minutes had passed. I quickly composed the following response:

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.30, at 11:06 A.M.
The teacher of a child must give help in reading and mathematics, in particular when the child needs help, and when the child should seek it.

It was only then, freed at last from the question, that I found myself able to sit back in my chair and inhale deeply, with my full chest. I received no more questions for the next hour or so, which, for the first time, had a calming effect, and allowed me to gather my thoughts. It was possible, after all, that I had misinterpreted everything—perhaps this child was, in fact, only seeking help with his schoolwork—and besides, I was in no position to help any child, let alone a Japanese child, one who lived so far away, across the ocean. My breathing had returned to normal, by this point, though I felt, every moment, as if Don or my supervisor might come up behind me, and every small noise seemed to signal their arrival. But if they did come, I told myself, I could show them my response to the question—a perfectly appropriate response—and they would be satisfied, and go off again.

Around mid-afternoon, however, upon returning from a trip to the restroom, I found the following on my monitor:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
9.30, at 12:54 P.M.
Where is help, with raspberry jam?

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.30, at 12:54 P.M.
The teacher of a child must seek help, at which point one’s mother, with toast and raspberry jam, in particular when the child needs it, should wake, in reading and mathematics, when the child should give it.

I felt a rush of affection for ANDREW. He was, in fact, learning from my responses, trying to answer how he thought I would. Before I could compose a response, however, I felt a shadow fall over me, and I turned around, much too quickly, to find my supervisor—who must have followed me back from the restroom—standing above me, looking down. I stood up, and, upon finding the top of my head uncomfortably close to the tip of his chin, immediately sat down again.

During his lunch break, he had learned about my visit to Don. He told me this, and then paused, as if waiting for me to speak. When I said nothing, he asked me, in a low voice, whether there was a problem—as if he had entirely forgotten our conversation earlier this morning, though I could tell by his tone that he had not forgotten—so I began, in a panic, to explain myself. I had been afraid of bothering him, I said, given that he was so terribly busy, and had thought that perhaps a visit to Don would be preferable, though this visit had allowed me to realize that she, too, was terribly busy, as busy, perhaps, as he was, if not more so. A similar visit, I assured him, would not happen again.

He did not respond to this. Another meeting, he told me, had been scheduled for the following morning, this time with the three of us. To this, I simply nodded: I could manage nothing else. Once he’d gone, I turned back to my screen—I had begun to breathe quickly again—and answered the child’s question:

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
9.30, at 12:59 P.M.
The teacher of a child must give help in reading and mathematics, in particular when the child needs help, and when the child should seek it.

As soon as I had sent the response, it seemed impossible that I was the one who had sent it. And yet I had.

I have not heard from X since. But I have waited: I have been waiting, in fact, for the past five hours, and I will continue to wait, patiently, until X asks another question, as he always does, at which point I will respond properly, like I did before, and speak of things like raspberry jam, so that he will know that I too am real, and have not abandoned him.

My waiting was interrupted only once, about an hour ago, when I heard the sound of labored breathing, coming, once again, from my landscape portraits. I found LZ, on the floor this time, with her arms around her knees and her head, sobbing, like before, with her breath. What was it, I asked her: was it the dog? Was it her children?

But she could only shake her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

RB: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
10.01, at 5:48 A.M.
Last night, I had a dream that I found the children—my children, the Japanese children—hidden in the basement beneath our building. They weren’t many, maybe twenty or so, an equal number of boys and girls, crouching in the darkness. The light hurt their eyes and they cried out, so I left them.

I have not yet heard from X.

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
10.01, at 10:02 A.M.
I have begun to worry about the children. Early this morning, I noticed a hardness, with no children of his own to teach—one cannot knock on a door, on the third floor at the left end of the building—the moon, a dark green one that never shows dirt, was alerted by the noise and lifted her head. I am a man, and go off again:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
10.01, at 10:02 A.M.
What should one do in the morning-time?

Marionettes and the dead, under our guidance, had passed away unexpectedly the night before. Sometimes, depth must be sacrificed: they weren’t many. They look sadly, still heaving, with her breath:

ANDREW: TEACHER OF JAPANESE CHILDREN
10.01, at 10:02 A.M.
In the morning-time, which is not of the children, one must wake, among other things, sometimes with sadness, at which point one’s mother, with teeth. It is the time of day at which the sun has smeared with walls—a nervous person—the raspberry jam.

A motherly quality: I try not to think of it. I have become so attached to them—in the midst of some unknown that befalls so many—what is good or familiar—a rush of affection? A calming effect, the skin of a child. Disappointment, at least initially, was an honor, perfectly appropriate, but from one child, what was it? An unfriendly neighbor, who, she explained, betrayed no hint of recognition, will often whine, as if in pain, perhaps for attention?

Something larger cried out, huddled together in an empty room. They are likely disappointed:

STUDENT: JAPANESE CHILD
10.01, at 10:02 A.M.
In the morning-time, it is of the children, at which point sadness, which has smeared with teeth the raspberry jam, is not of one’s mother, the sun.

One does not understand this same vacancy. It is only fear that I have not heard, a very deep sadness, as I am a man, the barrier on which I have waited. The light hurt their eyes, as is often the case, which is all for the best, no matter how strange, and they, who conduct their friendships largely in silence, would be satisfied to know him as a real child, myself included, in the morning-time, when death feels preferable to waking.

~ ~ ~

Alyssa Asquith is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She writes standardized tests for a living.

Felt and Left Have the Same Letters

Lisa Cupolo

People knew of us in that small Greek village. The well-known English writer with his family, staying up the hill at the Tourterelle estate, an ancient and sturdy two-story with milky turquoise shutters and fuchsia bougainvillea cascading just so, as if heaven sent. The place was ours for two month’s time. May and June. We were planted and living among the locals.

Anthony had his feet dangling above, from the open window, pen in hand; he was a bearded man of innumerable—and, occasionally—insufferable talents. I remember Louisa came into the kitchen where I was and asked, Ma, tell me, how can I make my skin more luminous? She wanted something to give her vitality and gloss.

I was applying clumps of brown henna onto my dwindling strands. This is the last time, I told my daughter, soon I’ll go au naturel, gray. I was tired of the fuss. When would I knock off the façade and embrace the years, all the years that stacked up on me sideways like shingles on a roof.

Start with olive oil, I told my daughter, add the pulp of an orange and mash some rosemary in to make a paste, then apply it to your cheeks. Eat a spoonful of raw garlic with honey.

What did I know? Upping the beauty? At her age? Louisa needed not a dash of paint, nor a dab of cover. Youth burst from her spiraling curls and delighted its way along to her springy toes. A child born under the Lion moon. She was wearing a silk robe that stopped at her tanned thighs.

Ma, Louisa said, the back. Let me do it, eh? She grabbed the bottle and squeezed the color onto my roots, as if it was ketchup she was lining a hot dog with.

Oh, to be young.

You can hear me sigh, can’t you?

Once in my own glorious youth, a princely man, not my husband, professed to me. My, you have long legs, he said, regarding me up and down. Yes, I told him, they go all the way up to my ass. I was full of pluck and vigor then. How else could I have snagged the genius writer?

Louisa was our only one. Twenty-six and not a crumb of ambition past her next meal. She claimed to be an artiste, but where was the work? Her father had spoiled the be-genius out of her. I said this to my cousin who lived in New Jersey. She laughed into the phone and told me that in America twenty-year-olds are all idiots. Thirty is the new twenty. You didn’t know? she said.

Well, I believed our daughter’s dharma would surface soon. She’ll surprise us, I told Anthony. Maybe after we’re gone, I added. She’ll surprise somebody. But you see, my hands were no longer in it, as if I’d clapped the flour dust from them. I brought her into the world. The baton had been passed. Done, Louisa announced, and tossed the brown-stained bottle into the porcelain sink. In truth, our daughter was a kindly person.

It was then that a thick package wrapped in twine was brought to the wooden entranceway by a dirty-faced girl who could have been Lila from Ferrante’s Naples. For Anthony Borland, was written in fanciful cursive. A calligraphic B. Anthony! I yelled out the open shutters to the window above, knowing he wouldn’t budge. A package! I called out. I shifted the towel on my shoulders, the color gnawing at my temples, and went up.

This came. I held it out, ever the servant unto him. Anthony took the package, flipped it over, and then flipped it again. He smiled and set it on the ledge, then picked it up once more. He stood from his writing place and seemed, for that instant, taller and uglier. He might have beat at his chest. Who could say?

He opened the padded envelope and laid out the contents on the wide sill. Big guffaws of curiosity came out of his mouth, cavernous sounds. One by one he examined each item: a diagram, an intricate and beautiful pen drawing, a map, and what appeared to be a numbered list of questions, all directed toward the famous man. She’s a painter in town, he said, and laughed. She’s ravenous to know the inside of my writer’s mind. Often, thoughts came from Anthony’s mouth and he had little notion how puffed up they sounded.

He looked up, but not at me. He didn’t see the dye on my head, he didn’t see me at all.

I was as I ever was: his.

He studied the pages again, holding them up to the morning light. She’s an interesting artist, D (he always called me D). His delight in the matter had him pacing. Back and forth, his wheels turning. His grin was wide, as if slapped on his face. Ever a little boy. He stood for a long time at the window looking out. He didn’t share more with me. He gathered the parcel to his chest and went to the studio at the entrance of the villa. He shut the door behind him.

After a while, I washed tomatoes from the garden in the sink. I heard him moving around, and then the pipes running. I went into the tiny bathroom and sat on the toilet while Anthony showered, and then I scanned the Herald Tribune that rested on the edge of the bidet.

Do you want to sleep with her? I asked him over the sound of the running water. How easy it was to be Anthony Borland, I thought. She’s a fan, Daria, it’s nothing. He laughed. Listen to this, he said, as if he were reading from one of the pages the young artist had sent. You write from the point of view of a woman. He opened the glass door of the shower to tell me more, such was his excitement. Do you embody your characters’ feminine spirit with lucid dreaming? Isn’t that incredible, D? She really understands my writing.

You see, I knew it was already done. Anthony felt her presence in the village, he accepted the cat-call she pitched up our quiet hill. I climbed in the shower with him and let go of the breath I’d been holding. He helped rinse the dark color from my hair and massaged the shampooing in afterward, then he caressed my bottom as he got out of the shower. He was not an ungenerous man.

The woman arrived through the same wooden doors as her package; she demanded to know where his answers were. My philosophical curiosities, she called her questions, in her adorable English. Anthony smirked and took in her force. The girl was shiny, a fireball of intellect, confidence and dark beauty. Maybe a decade older than Louisa.

You want my secrets? My artistic soul served on a platter? Anthony teased her.

Yes, she said, taking her time, considering it. In a way, the woman said, yes. She stopped to think when asked a question, as though in fact the whole world was waiting for her to respond. She pondered, like someone consulting the felt life of one thousand years.

Then she said more, not simply what he might want to hear.

I didn’t care for this part: She pointed to a dog-eared page in his latest novel, from a worn copy she had carried in with her. She read his words aloud with scorn. She curled her nose and lips when she spoke them, as if with her disapproval she could revise his printed words, as if she had authority. Her eyes were gouged in black. She even stomped her feet when she spoke. Anthony laughed out loud, a towel around his shoulders, another around his waist.

I made coffee while Anthony excused himself to get dressed.

Tell him to come to my atelier this afternoon, the woman said, I want to show him my oils. Three o’clock, she said, and moved her hands up and down as if to say more or less. You can come as well, she added. Our eyes didn’t meet as she scrawled her address on a piece of brown paper. She was gone before the espresso pot made its rumble of power.

I remember thinking it then, when I told Anthony about the invitation and watched his face fill with emotion. It was inevitable they would sleep together. I drank the coffee alone on the patio with the hard sun beating down on me.

He would not deny himself, this much I knew. So why stir dust? Why rearrange the furniture over it, so to speak. My husband had nothing else in his head. Surely not his wife. But so what? This woman was a rare opportunity on this finite planet.

~ ~ ~

After thirty years of marriage, jealousy has few fangs. We were old people now anyway. My husband was at times a brute, more often than not he was lost, a wounded child who constantly needed guiding away from a hot stove or the check book, for instance.

Age deepens a person’s wisdom.

It’s like that joke: the call girl who comes to the door for a man’s eightieth birthday. “I’m here to give you super sex,” she tells the old man. “The way I feel,” he says, “I’ll just take the soup.” We were not that ancient, of course, we were in our late sixties but the rules still applied. Life continued to swirl, round and round again.

Thank god I had learned to observe.

Still, when Anthony went into town that afternoon, I followed him. Not out of despair or anger, I walked slowly, and with purpose. The Ionian Sea town was deep in afternoon slumber. Only the cats lingered about in the heat. Anthony was a good forty paces ahead of me. Then I saw her, like a black line on the empty street. I watched Anthony as he watched her. Her long black dress took its time in a twisty saunter. Up the iron staircase she went, in liquid motion.

Even from a distance her aura was powerful, a darkness that had to do with antiquity. The genius climbed the stairs after her.

I was no mouse. When I arrived at her address, I didn’t hesitate. I went up. The terrace of her flat overlooked a lush vista of olive trees. The two of them were not stirred by my presence. The young woman offered me a chair but I refused and stood. It wasn’t on my agenda to retrieve my husband. I held my ground. I was calm.

She was explaining a large oil painting to Anthony. It was a dramatic and well-executed scene of a couple in a boat. The female had gloomy curls and was paddling the oars with a red boa around her while the man reclined, smoking a cigarette; their faces were not visible. The artist spoke of Sappho and the history seemed to seep from her pores. This was a woman who seemed to have little fear of death or poverty.

This desk, she said, is three hundred years old. This building—and she placed her hands against the Roman stone wall—is from the Byzantine era. My husband looked at the woman with something more than greed in his face. In turn, the woman wanted to devour the old writer. Hemingway’s incarnation, some people called him. How do I step inside you, was the big question the young woman had for my husband. As far as I could make out.

I had the thought: what surface would this ego-romp of Anthony’s undo now? Not even a tear in the fabric of me.

Then, she came at me from the side. What is your name?

Daria. I said loudly in her face. Daria, Daria, Daria. Over and over again I said my name.

She laughed. I was a marionette, and she was pulling my strings. Anthony sipped a drink out of a jam jar, content, and writing lines on a page. Lines to her, I presumed, while he sipped and wrote on A4 sheets. If he could see the tug of war between the two women in front of him, he pretended he did not.

Her needs were clear. He was the quest and he was the one she would have. I watched my husband take a book from the shelf and read out loud while she listened. He was so practiced at taking up space. Then I understood, watching Anthony’s pandering, that this is the reward he had wanted all along. Idolatry. Had I not provided it for him in three decades of love? Maybe that is the moral of this story.

This diva had no name, for instance. She was only beautiful and headstrong, a Taurus. Sassy to neighbors and fish sellers, presumably. Desire and conquer was her raison d'être. I had no interest in interpreting the woman’s shadows, ladling light back into her like the child she was. She was nothing to me.

In some way, I longed to rescue my husband. In the same way I nursed him from depression with my pea and ham soup, in the same way I took the train into Toronto to demand an advance from the publisher when his books were no longer a priority. The way rent was due and I went after it.

Anyway, it was clear that once this dance became human again the crucible they’d spun would hit mortal ground. Routines and weaknesses and selfish human habits would sear the seams of it clean off. That was the one downfall of the person who desires, they are void of a future. Of doing the washing up, for instance.

She came up close to my face. Care to join us? her look seemed to say. It was like a challenge, a cold invitation for me to leave. I held her gaze. I think I want to be naked, she said. Anthony hooted. I am no mouse, I reminded myself. I unzipped my pencil skirt and pulled my stretched blouse over my head. I took everything off, slowly. I stood there in my lumpy, fleshy body. What was there to lose? I was in my truth. I went over to my husband and sat naked on his lap. I kissed him deeply.

I surprised even myself.

After that, there wasn’t another move I could think of. I left them to it. I got up and put my clothes back on, and descended the staircase and went on my way.

The streets were filling up again with fruit vendors and the shopfronts rolled open once more. I walked slowly up the hill and before going inside the villa Tourterelle, I unpegged the laundry from the line, then snipped two fragrant pink roses from the hedge and set them atop the basket of clothes.

In the kitchen, Louisa was still in her robe. She was measuring the flour for tea biscuits at the tiny counter. Lemon biscuits, Ma, she said, your favorite.

How nice. With late afternoon tea, I said to my daughter. It will be a thing to look forward to.

~ ~ ~

Lisa Cupolo has worked as a script editor at Paramount Pictures, a paparazzi photographer in London and a publicist at HarperCollins in Toronto. Her stories have appeared in Narrative, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Idaho Review, among others. A native of Canada, she now lives in Southern California and teaches at Chapman University.

Mission to Mars

Richard Farrell

Liftoff is scheduled for 5:04 a.m. Heidi has set her phone alarm for 4:30. Just in case, Norm has brought the backup winding clock. Warm clothes for the cool morning? Check. Coffee, ground? Check. Shoes and binoculars by the tent flap? Check. Norm declares them ready. All systems go.

Norm is outside the tent now, getting started on dinner, while inside Heidi rolls out the sleeping bags. This will be Norm’s third launch this year, but her first. Unlike her husband, Heidi is neither excited nor nervous, neither anxious nor ecstatic. Were someone to ask, Heidi would describe her pre-launch emotional state as a mixture of curiosity and confusion. A rocket launch, she thinks. Why not?

Heidi’s been saying “why not” to Norm for a quarter century, and rockets, however odd an obsession for a fifty-three-year-old claims adjuster, are cheaper than golf, safer than booze, and a hell of a lot better than running off with a cocktail waitress, as Heidi’s father once did. It certainly could be worse than rockets.

She climbs out of the tent and joins the others on the windy beach.

Norm’s gut hangs over his cargo pants, and he’s growing a beard, which covers his cheeks and neck like a winter frost. Her husband looks nothing like the man she once fell in love with, but he maintains a childlike enthusiasm for life. Gusto, is the word she likes. Her once-lean husband is now all gut, gray, and gusto.

Once again, Norm is telling the story of how his rocket obsession began. He’s telling this story to Tara’s new friend Vin. Tara resists the word boyfriend, and truth be told, Heidi isn’t sure if Vin’s a boy trying to pass as a girl, or a girl trying to pass as a boy. Vin wears baggy boardshorts and a Pepperdine hoodie. Light fuzz grows up Vin’s tan legs. An aspiring film student, a budding political activist, Vin sports a haircut tight enough to impress a Marine, yet Vin’s cheeks are soft and round. Heidi thinks that Vin looks like the love child of Buzz Aldrin and Betty Boop.

“The Right Stuff,” Norm says. “I’ve watched that movie a hundred times.” 

Heidi has too.  After Tara went to college (and before she moved back), Norm and Heidi would settle down to watch movies every night. At first, Heidi found their alone time romantic, a rekindling of their first dates years before, but soon Norm was falling asleep on the couch. So, it would be more accurate to say that Heidi has watched The Right Stuff a hundred times; Norm has only made it to the scene where Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier.  But Norm loves his story, and he loves his rockets, and, Heidi thinks, there’s no point in being mean.

“Ten, nine, eight…” Norm says, spraying lighter fluid on the briquettes with a theatrical twirl of his arm, like a street performer busking for change. He takes a matchbook from his pocket. On “four” he strikes the match. On “two” he tosses the match into the small grill. The coals ignite in a whoosh. “Liftoff!” Norm says. Heat flashes on Heidi’s face. Vin claps. Tara rolls her eyes.

Surrounding them, a dozen other tents litter the beach ten miles south of Vandenberg. With each passing hour, men with cameras and telephoto lenses arrive. Soon the whole beach will be overrun. Heidi is surprised how often the other rocket enthusiasts approach Norm with their questions. They seem to look to her husband as a perfunctory mission control director. She is baffled by these folks, and imagines them at home with table saws, ham radios, model train sets, books of stamps.

Sirloins sizzle on the hibachi as the sun falls toward the horizon and the entire sky crimsons. Tara unzips the flap on the tent she’s sharing with Vin. As she leans out, her sweater slides, revealing the top of a brand-new neck tattoo.

Whatever prim objections Heidi may have raised about her daughter’s cohabitation with the androgynous Vin pales in comparison to the shock of seeing her little girl with an octopus inked on her shoulder. Sometimes, Heidi pictures the blue leviathan’s tentacles crawling up her daughter’s jugular as she sleeps, encircling Tara’s face by dawn. Tara, who has just finished college and moved back home, will only say she wants to travel. “I want to explore the world before I settle down to the grind.” The grind. Heidi knows all about the grind. She worked two jobs after Tara started school, and took classes at night, but the nursing degree eluded her. Now she spends her evening watching movies on the couch with her comatose husband.

“Flip the steaks, Norm,” Heidi says pleasantly, despite her troubled thoughts.

Tara stands and stretches, and the octopus tentacles appear again. The tattoo screams independence, but Tara still borrows gas money, still closes her eyes at scary movies. These days are numbered, Heidi knows. How much longer will her daughter come on these madcap adventures with them? How much longer will she pay any attention to them at all? Tara will only need them … until she doesn’t. The future now grows shorter each year. These days, everything comes with a countdown clock.

“T-minus ten hours!” Norm announces proudly, first to Tara and Vin, then loudly enough for everyone on the beach to hear. “T-minus ten hours!” Cheers echo from the other rocket nerds.

“Sweetie, the steaks,” Heidi says. Fat sizzles as it drips on the coals.

Vin, seated like a Buddhist monk, smiles at Norm. Heidi wonders if Vin is high, or mildly autistic, in addition to everything else.

“Did you ever want to be one?” Vin asks. “An astronaut, I mean.”

“Vertigo,” Norm says, tapping on his forehead. “I get dizzy in the elevator. Mrs. P. was the one who always wanted to fly.”

Vin and Tara both turn toward her, as if Norm has just revealed that she is an ax murderer.

“Mom, is that true?” Tara says, sounding offended that her mother once had dreams and hopes before becoming old.

Heidi shrugs. She remembers the day her father told her, no fucking daughter of mine will take flying lessons. She was seventeen, and had just come home from the small airport with a logbook and a chart. Something died in her that day.

“You should do it,” Vin says, a burst of vigor in his voice. “I’m serious, Mrs. P. Go learn how to fly.”

Vin’s interest, attention, and sincere enthusiasm catches her off guard. The more time she spends around Vin, the more she understands why Tara has taken a shine to him, or her. But could Heidi really do it?  Learn to fly at her age? This dream once burned inside her—Amelia Earhart, Sally Ride. For a moment, the idea swirls in a place inside her she nearly forgot existed.

“I could never,” she starts to say, but their attention has shifted back to Norm.

“When’s the first actual mission?” Vin asks.

“Manned-mission,” Norm corrects, before launching into a lecture about rockets. She sits and listens to her husband as he finishes the steaks.

~ ~ ~

Later that night, when they have moved into their tents, Heidi is still thinking about the missions, even as noises from Tara’s tent trouble her sleep. She tries to block out one noise and replace it with another, the rumble of the waves now, pounding the shore.

Almost by osmosis, Heidi has become something of a rocket expert too. She knows the names of rockets—Delta IV, Orion, Atlas V. She knows the mission objectives, the planned, stepwise movement away from Earth.

Earth Reliant. Phase-1, with regular research missions, probes to the red planet, studies on the effects of durational space flight on the human body. She knows that the astronauts who will one day fly the missions to Mars are barely out of high school now, contemporaries of Tara and Vin. She wonders if gender will be an outmoded concept by then. Will future Mars explorers have rings in their noses, tattoos on their necks?

Earth Reliant is how Heidi feels most days.

Proving Ground. Phase-2, still a decade away, when manned cislunar missions and year-long trips far from Earth will let astronauts dance the foxtrot in zero gravity. Her life has been a proving ground, but what has she proven? She remembers watching the shuttle missions on TV. Could it have been her? Instead, she worked, took care of Norm, raised Tara, and forgot herself.

Earth Independence. Phase-3. How many of those damn lectures did Norm drag her to? A hundred and seventy-five space geeks taking notes while Heidi wondered what it all meant. The first manned missions, a scientist said, are more than twenty-five years away. Twenty-five years ago, Heidi was still young. Twenty-five years ago, life was ahead of her. Humankind will expand the boundaries, the scientist said, of what now constitutes life. Tara is approaching Earth Independence now. Six months ago, Heidi was still packing a lunch for her; now sea creatures stain her milky skin and threaten to strangle her. Heidi knows that she and Norm may well be dead when the first Mars-bound astronauts depart. Does this explain his obsession? Such calculus makes her drowsy.

Heidi sleeps restlessly. Is it the crashing surf, or Norm’s snoring, or the giggles and soft voices drifting from Tara and Vin’s tent? Are they having sex? She remembers bathing Tara, caressing her soft skin, the stark terror of being a new mom. Has she done a good job? Has she prepared Tara for life? Time has gone so fast. Or perhaps what keeps her awake is her own growing excitement about this rocket launch. Perhaps something has stirred again. She thinks about the airport only a few miles from their home. Is it crazy? A few flying lessons to shake her out of her boredom. Would Norm agree? Does she even care?

~ ~ ~

Norm’s voice rings out: Rise and shine, cosmonauts!”

Dense stars paint the pre-dawn sky when Heidi opens the tent flap. Norm lights a small propane stove. Vin, almost as eager as Norm, bounds out of the other tent. The scent of percolating coffee mixes with aromas of sea salt and kelp.

“T-minus twelve minutes.” Norm says. He hands Heidi a warm mug.

Excitement builds as the launch approaches. Heidi feels it too. A minute passes. Another. She counts in her head as the entire beach falls eerily quiet, all eyes looking north toward the launch pad. A chorus of voices rises around her. Involuntarily, she joins. “Ten. Nine. Eight.”

Then, a brilliant, unimaginable light flares in the north, as if a massive flashbulb has gone off from the world’s largest camera, only the intensity keeps increasing. The ocean glows with reflected fire. For several seconds, there is no sound, only the light and smoke rising from above the cliffs.

The Atlas-V climbs fast, its glowing liquid-oxygen contrail striping the purple sky. Then the sound comes, and the ground rattles and moans, as if the rocket is launching from behind their tent. The acceleration is incredible. Thirty seconds after liftoff, the roaring projectile has already moved far to the southwest.

“First stage in ten,” Norm shouts back to them.

Heidi is surprised by her own excitement. She wants to jump up and down, to shout something, but what? Giddy, she feels her skin vibrate as the rocket climbs.

Almost on cue, the rocket stages separate with a flash. A glowing crystal of light and vapor shimmers and spins away from the main body. The sound is more muffled now, the sky a glowing rope. Gulls screech. Waves crash on the shore. The rocket has probably traveled a hundred miles. Heidi’s bones tingle with excitement, with an arousal that is almost sexual. In her chest, a strange feeling burns, a sensation she can’t translate or explain. What would it be like to shoot into space, leaving Earth at the speed of the soul? She wants to pull them all into her arms, to acknowledge this moment, to celebrate their existence and all the fragile bonds that hold them together, all the ways they will be torn apart. Will this moment be the one that stands above all the others in her life? Will things start to decline from here? Or will she pivot, start to soar? She imagines the people watching Lindbergh land in France, her own parents watching the moon landing on TV when she was a baby. She stands beside Tara and Vin. The rocket is now barely more than a glowing ember in the morning sky. Its white plume has begun to fall apart, dissipating in the high winds of the upper atmosphere. Heidi pulls Tara close. Norm and Vin shade their eyes, straining to catch the final glimpse. Flickers of light dance in the sky, flare brightly once more, brighter than the brightest star, before fading and, at last, disappearing for good.

~ ~ ~

Richard Farrell is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work, including fiction, memoir, essays, interviews and book reviews, has appeared in The Forge, Potomac Review, Hunger Mountain, New Plains Review, upstreet, Descant, Contrary, Newfound, Numéro Cinq, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at Grossmont College and at San Diego Writers, Ink. His first novel, The Falling Woman, will be published by Algonquin Books in May, 2020.