Palabras

The building administrator, I secretly call her Queenie as I don’t know her name anyway, is a big woman, a genuine amazon if I’ve ever seen one. She came into the classroom and approached my Polish instructor, delicate as the butterfly pins she wears matching the color of her outfits, today purple.  With her back to us, Queenie mumbled a few words, then her voice raised in volume, and carried ‘’… the police are here investigating.  He’s been missing for 24 hours.” Then she eyebrowed me, in the first row of desks, and nodded to follow her. I was just reaching that delightful moment when the letters on the page unite with the sound in my mind, in perfect syzygy, only to disintegrate often, unfortunately, when they come out of my mouth. 

The first time my love of words was so brusquely interrupted.

She took me to a room on the first floor, with a long table in the middle.  At the end of the table, facing the door, was a middle-aged stranger with a bunch of papers in front of him on the table. I was wondering what new words I would miss during this abrupt interruption. The man pointed to the chair across from him, and the door closed behind me and left Queenie outside, in the hallway.

Heidi, eh, Ms Atlas, we were told you were the last person to see Provost Kim.  When was that?  Anything you remember will be of great help in our investigation. 

I saw him yesterday, officer, that’s when I saw him last.  I heard his voice behind me say, “Good morning, Heidi.”  You see he no longer startles me.  He has a way of unlocking the front door of the building and closing it without making a sound.  He slides down the marble floors, which I have just finished polishing, until he is by my side.  A slight man, impeccably dressed, each day in another well-pressed suit, his thinning grey hair combed back to a sudden straight line on his nape, an imperceptible smile below his tinted gold-rimmed glasses. For three weeks now, since he moved into the Provost’s office, I have been trying to see the color of his eyes, an exercise as futile as squinting to see if there is anyone behind the wheel of those black limos with heavily tinted windows, you know what I mean…

What time would you say…

As I said, he no longer startles me when he comes in half an hour after I’ve started my shift.  He’s become my clock, striking the hour after I start mopping the main hallway, with a sort of massive marble altar in the middle, two…

Did he say anything else?

As always, the floral remark of the day. “A magnolia blossom has opened overnight in the tree by the entrance.” Each day another tree or flower, as if an entire botanical array lay between his reserved parking spot and this building. He comes in early, when few people are on campus, when he can notice… Like the bamboo shoots by the side of the old, abandoned stadium, between the rotting bleachers, a whole thick bamboo forest, odd among the tall weeds.  One morning he came in and said just like that, out of the blue, “The bamboo is resilient, Heidi, very resilient. You trample it down, and it shoots back up.  No one can crush it.”  Coming from Provost Kim, it sounded like a haiku.  It stayed on my mind all day long.  I like how he chooses his words carefully, like a poet.  He does not know though that we have this thing in common:  we love words.

So yesterday he greeted you as usual, and what…

I greeted him back: “Good morning, sir. Do you want me to vacuum and dust your office?”  I would gladly do it for him, but he said, “No, thank you, Heidi.”  I never question their reluctance to go into their offices.  I don’t burden my memory with speculation.  I need all the space I have for my beloved words.

How long have you been working at this college?

Came here four years ago.  I mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, vacuum the carpeted offices if they want me to, empty the trash cans they leave outside their doors.  A few months ago I got assigned to this building, the oldest and tallest building on campus, the Tower of Babel, I think of it…So many languages in one place.  I wonder how they can live together peacefully in one place. I am on the custodial staff, as they say, but if I had been at it long enough, I would have been called by turns a charwoman, a maid, a cleaning lady, a janitor, a member of the housekeeping team…Who does that, officer, who changes the words I don’t know, and I don’t care, for as I say, I love words to the point of epeolatry, you know, making idols out of them.

What else can you say, what else happened yesterday morning?

For me working here has been a promotion.  I can take any language class I fancy—it’s the deal the union struck for us: we take care of the buildings, and they turn care of our minds, and I my case of my heart, too. That’s where my words stay.  I’ve loved words ever since I can remember.  Have you ever heard the story with the boy who fell in love with an orange?  A real orange, a ball of peel and pulp and juice?  He kept it on his nightstand until it became old and shriveled to the size of a golf ball, brown like a tiny skull.  Then he buried it in the back yard. That’s how I fall in love with words, faithfully, one at a time, but they never shrivel up and die. I can chronicle my life, year by year, month by month, with the words I was in love at one time or another.  The month of ‘friccanaso’—not that I am nosy, I don’t have time for that—the month of ‘sbrighiamoci,’ then ‘okudasai’, and lately, since I started the Polish class, the month of ‘dziewczyna.’    Not just foreign words.  You see, ‘dainty’ is my favorite English word—a precious jewel of a word. I can easily hold it in my hand.

Heidi, please stick to what happened yesterday after Provost Kim greeted you.

Sorry, I digressed again. As I said, a couple of months ago I was assigned to the Tower.  I overheard my boss say that some people in the building have asked for me—maybe the foreign language teachers in whose classes I show up every semester. About ten languages are spoken on the second floor, a few more on the other floors, but I have only the first two, and enough languages to keep me busy for a while.  On the first floor is the administration, and their floor counts in my workload as two in a regular building.  Everything has to be spic-and-span for the visitors.  The marble floors have to shine even on rainy days.  The restrooms have to smell of flowers. Let me tell you, officer, for me working where my friends are is a bonus because I have few friends among the other charwomen.  They think I am weird taking all these classes and mumbling to myself all the while.

You were already working here when Dr. Kim started working?

As I said, I had just started a Polish class with the nice lady wearing butterfly pins. Hard work every morning practicing in my mind all those new sounds, but I keep mopping and repeating  words under my breath.  No one can hear me. One day I noticed many strangers coming and going, but since I was busy with my words, I didn’t pay much heed.  I saw people huddling in the corners of the large foyer, in twos and threes, behind the marble columns, talking, whispering rather, sometimes gesturing and rolling their eyes.  One French teacher broke out dramatically:  “Merde, zat will be the end of uz.” Maybe of him, I thought to myself, since he looked badly in need of a good meal. But then my mind went back to a tricky Polish word, ‘wczoraj,’ and I was repeating it again and again.

A few days later, while cleaning a bathroom stall, I overheard a shrill voice talking to another: “If that’s all they could come up with, I’ll resign. They could not choose a Provost from among us?! They needed bamboo shoots, eh?! They chose him because he compared himself to bamboo shoots. Idiots!” And she left the bathroom slamming the door. That very day, the guys from Maintenance came to paint the Provost’s office.  They replaced the carpeting and the furniture too.  Not that it needed replacing, but this is what they do in the administrators’ offices, like they are afraid the old occupant was touched by the plague. And three weeks ago, Dr. Kim showed up for the first time, on a Monday morning, at exactly 6:30, half an hour after I start my shift.  

He introduced himself, but I knew his name from the new plaque on the office door.  And he asked me if I was German or Spanish or both—better than simply assuming that I was Spanish, like many of the people around here,  and greeting me with ‘Hola’—and I said, “No, sir, born and bred just three blocks away from campus.”

Today is exactly three weeks and one day since I saw him for the first time.  I never see him when he leaves.  I guess my shift is over before his. 

“Heidi, have you seen Dr. Kim today?” a secretary from some office interrupted my string of Polish words, ‘robisz,’ ‘jeszcze’…

“Yes, ma’am,” I was about to say ‘tak,’ but I never use foreign words with my employers.  They may think I am mentally unstable, or cognitively challenged, or whatever word they use these day, and fire me.  Or send me off to clean the dorms, which is cruel and unusual punishment.

“Did you see him in the morning?” she went on, lowering her voice as if afraid she’s be overheard.  “Heidi, are you sure you know who I’m talking about?”   

“I sure do, ma’am,” and I resumed my mopping, and finally managed to pronounce ‘jeszcze’ without sounding like a bee, yesh-tche.  The woman left me alone and joined Queenie, who showed up as if she had been waiting behind a column, ready to pounce.  I wonder if the people around here like her or if she likes them, but she’s always smiling and polite, and they rely on her as the ultimate source of information.  They pretend a lot around her.  I’m telling you, officer, these are strange people.

So the woman who had been drilling me dashes for Queenie, and I move closer to them to make sure they don’t talk about me, that I’m missing some marbles or something.

“Listen, girl,” Queenie is red in the face and agitated, “what’s the matter with this fella?”

“Mrs. Thomas has seen him only once since he arrived here.  He told her not to disturb him, not to schedule any appointments for him, went into his office, and never came out.” Mrs. Thomas must be his secretary, the tiny woman with very high heels, who seems to be wiping off tears every time I see her.

“Three whole weeks?” Even Queenie, usually calm and collected, could not conceal her disbelief.  But she resumed her I’m-in-charge-here-and-I-know-everything posture, and offered quick advice with her usual largesse, like the magnificent queen that she is. “Why doesn’t she knock on the door to see how he is?”

“She did it once, after the first few days.  Knocked and tried to go in.  But the door was locked.  Can you believe it?  Locked! And she heard him tell her from behind the door never to do that again. Now she is so scared, she won’t approach the door again. She confessed to me because, you know, we walk at lunch time together.  The memos are piling up on her desk.  He takes them at the end of the day, after she’s left the office, but no one knows what he does with them.  They are never returned.”

“You mean he doesn’t even go to the bathroom all day long?” Queenie was losing her calm again.  “I’ll look into it to see what’s going on.” By then her face was no longer pretending to be shining with knowledge.  She was losing control of the building and the people in it. She hesitated in front of Dr. Kim’s office but walked across the hall to her own.

That’s when I had to move to the upper floor.

How long did you work on the first floor?

Must have been a bit over two hours.  Just the long hallway and the two bathrooms, no offices.  I had cleaned them on Friday, and no one was in the building during the weekend.

And during those two hours you didn’t see Dr. Kim again?

No trace of him, after he went into his office.  Just words about him in this or that corner, and of course my own words, repeated under my breath.

He couldn’t have left his office without you noticing?

That’s impossible, officer.  You see how wide the hallway is, and there are very few people at this time of the year this early in the morning. You can see everyone from one end of the hallway to the other.  When I clean the bathrooms, I keep the doors wide open, so they know I’m in.  But when I moved to the second floor…

All right.  Anything else you heard or noticed on the second floor?

There I like to clean the offices of my former teachers.  My Italian and Japanese teachers share one office.  You can’t imagine two more different people, sir.  Antonella, the Italian teacher, speaks all the time, moves her hands in all directions, gets up and down to make a point, and peppers her English with the beginning of Italian words, as if she’s ready to switch, but she realizes that it would be pointless to speak Italian to Ayu, her office mate, tinier than a small flower, more like a petal you just plucked, crisp and light. Ayu keeps her head down during Antonella’s monologues, her cheeks turn pink, and she murmurs hardly perceptible agreement to everything Antonella says.

“Ciao, Heidi!” Antonella greets me when she sees me in the doorway.

 “Buon giorno, professoressa.” I make exceptions only with my former teachers.  They know about my love for words.  Then I bow to Ayu and whisper “Konichiwa” only to get a sideways smile and flushed cheeks. Antonella resumes her tornado of words, briefly interrupted by my appearance.

“Ma che…what the hell, I don’t have time to wait. It’s my right to take a leave of absence, and if I want two years, I’ll take two years.  I just want his signature before I make my travel arrangements.  And you know what Mrs. Thomas tells me?”

Antonella does not need words to urge her to go on.  

“She never sees him.  She does not get to talk to him.  He locks himself in the office and stays there all day.  Mamma mia, stupida.  Or the man is bonkers, or both.”

Ayu’s entire blood supply goes to her face.  I like her.  She needs protection and I have decided secretly to be her protector.  I dust her tidy desk and pull down the shades to keep the sun from hurting her translucent skin.

“This is an asylum!” Antonella concludes.  She has figured out another problem, and her face is glowing with satisfaction.

Next to their office is Dr. McCleary, the Gaelic teacher, but there is nothing to vacuum there, no floor space.  It’s all taken by bookshelves, just a few inches between them, enough for him to squeeze through, but not enough for the vacuum cleaner.  Where there is a small space, it’s filled with piles of Styrofoam cups, jiffy bags, envelopes, all of them used once or twice by other owners, known or unknown to Dr. McCleary, collected from trash cans left outside the offices of his colleagues.  He’s a Gaelic squirrel, that’s what he is, and stays hidden there all day long, among dusty books and trash pickings.  I’ve never taken a class with him, but everyone knows he is a genius.

So I move on to the French office.  There is this picture on the door, a handsome young man I one of those European bathing suits, not very modest if you are asking me, gazing at his navel, and a name below it—Alain Delon—and below the picture, Ordinary Professor.  I figure if the professor thinks he looks like the guy in the picture, he might as well put it on the door, but he can’t keep the illusion for long, for you open the door and you see the real man, nothing like the picture, scrawny and hollow-cheeked, with greasy grey hair falling to his shoulders.  I don’t think he looked like that even when he was young. He doesn’t look ordinary either.

Alain Delon is on the phone, but he gestures me to come in, puts his interlocutor on hold, and asks me to water his plants—a whole row of orchids on his windowsill.  Then he continues his phone conversation.

“It’s a disgrace!” he twists his thin lips in disgust. His English sounds French. “People of my caliber make at least twice as much.  They hired me because of my stellar reputation in France. They don’t have any other man of my stature on this campus.  And now, with the latest award I received for the fourth volume of that magnificent edition you know so well, now it’s an absolute outrage. So I made an appointment on his very first day in office, to see him and ask for a substantial raise. And his secretary calls me at home half an hour before the appointment—not to mention the rudeness, total lack of consideration for my status, she interrupted my writing, my research—and tells me that he can’t see me.  Why, I ask. I can’t tell you, she says, but he’s not seeing anyone, not even me, and he doesn’t want to be disturbed.  Incredible, simplement incredible! Bureaucrats! Merde, merde, shit.”  That’s how he finished.  The last word took me aback, because it sounded more English than any of the other word, and very angry. And I had no idea he used such words. That’s when I found the watering can behind the filing cabinet, buried under some magazines.

At the fountain with the watering can I had to wait for two ladies who filled up their water bottles and then stayed on.

“Gonzales is furious,” said the young woman on my right, who looked more like a student. “I’ve never seen him like that.  He’s to go on sabbatical in the fall and found an adjunct to teach his classes and serve as acting chair while he is gone.  He found this retired faculty, everyone knows him, used to teach Portuguese, no enemies in the department—they wouldn’t have voted for anyone else to be acting chair.” 

“I know him, Professor Ferreira, a sweet old man,” the other woman smiled hopefully.  

“He retired before I joined the department, but anyway, Gonzales won’t be able to go on sabbatical because this guy downstairs won’t sign the appointment.”

“Why? He can’t possibly have anything against Ferreira…”

“That’s not it.  He doesn’t sign anything!  He’s sitting on those memos and applications.  He’s afraid or something.”

But then they saw me behind them and walked away.  I know Dr. Gonzales, I took a class with him, too.  He’s from Peru, a gentle man, who told me I reminded him of his sister who got killed by some thugs who invaded their village.  My heart jumped, though, when I heard that I could take a Portuguese class if Dr. Kim signs those man’s papers.  Well, he may still do it.

Back in Alain Delon’s office to water his orchids. He was still on the phone, with the same interlocutor or someone else, I couldn’t tell.  All I heard him say this time around was “la vessie diplomatique”—chuckle, chuckle, and he hung up.  

What does that mean?

Literally, diplomatic bladder—diplomats don’t have the luxury to interrupt their high-level talks and go to the bathroom--but it doesn’t make any sense now, does it?  Dr. Kim is not a diplomat, but maybe he was before he came here, and that’s why he never leaves his office to go to the bathroom.  Or maybe he was talking about himself as he was waiting for his salary to at least double.   That’s how words are:  you put them together and they mean more than their sum.  Do you think Dr. Kim was a diplomat before he came here, officer?

That’s irrelevant, Heidi. Go on, please, did you overhear anything else on the second floor?

All the other offices were closed.  You never know when these people come and go, or if they come at all. So I went up and down the hallway with the mop. I did hear one word coming from one of the German offices—Olga Nikolayevna Schlegel, a severe woman, with thick black-rimmed glasses, long severe skirts, and a voice that freezes you.  No telling in which camp—Soviet or German—she would have functioned better with that voice. Could have been a man’s voice, for all I know.  All I heard was “Vorbedacht” and maybe also “bambus,” so you know who she was talking about. 

What does vor- that word you just said mean?

One of two things, you know how words are.  Could be ‘forethought,’ a good thing, prudence.  That’s what these people don’t have much of, twaddling behind Dr. Kim’s back and in my earshot like that.  But it can also mean ‘premeditation,’ and that’s not good at all.  Funny how  words can tell so much.  To be prudent does not take much—just a little thinking before you leap—and you don’t harm yourself or others.  It’s like we have such easy access to goodness. It’s at our fingertips.  But to do harm we need to think long and hard, to scheme, to gossip, to turn things over in our minds, and too much devious thinking clouds the mind.  I see it here.  The sheer length of time lets things creep in and take over.  Downright creepy, isn’t it?  If we don’t give such thoughts time to sneak in, if we are prudent enough…

What do you think she meant?

Can’t tell, unless she was talking about that new German teacher everyone’s talking about.  Maria, one of my fellow cleaning women, thinks Dr. Schlegel had a crush on him.  When he arrived, Maria says, she changed overnight: shorter skirts, a bit of red lipstick, a professional haircut.  She was spending a lot of time in the new hire’s office, on the third floor, where Maria works.  She was dragging him to meetings and lectures all over campus.  They say she was mentoring him, but many thought otherwise.  While she was blossoming, the poor young man started losing weight, withering.  Last fall he did not show up, and a few days later Dr. Schlegel received a one-line letter of resignation. And then the scandal… 

What scandal?

You see, Maria says a student explained to Dr. Schlegel the reason for her failure in the German class: the young German teacher had touched her on her shoulder during the final exam and she froze and could not get any of the answers right.  Huh, she didn’t study, if you’re asking me.  The girl didn’t complain right away though.  Maria says Dr. Schlegel took her to her office and made her see what had really happened, why she failed the exam.  So you see, when she said “Vorbedacht” maybe she was talking about the girl having a premeditated excuse or the teacher not having been cautious enough, who knows?

Did this happen before or after Dr. Kim became Provost?

Before, but now, with a formal complaint and all, Dr. Kim has to look into it as a possible lawsuit. The poor young teacher has to pay for betraying Dr. Schlegel’s generous mentoring intentions.  Or maybe Dr. Schlegel was talking about Dr. Kim and his bamboo.  Did I tell you, officer, what I saw this morning on the way here?

No, what?

The bamboo grove I told you about, by the old stadium?  It was all decorated with rolled up pieces of white paper, each tied up neatly with colorful yarn.  It looked like a Buddhist temple, where people hang their wishes and prayers and thanks. Secret messages to the gods.  Beautiful—something Dr. Kim would do, and Ayu would get all teary-eyed about, reminding her of her visits to the temple with her grandfather…

The door suddenly opened, and Queenie’s unmistakable voice boomed through the hallway:  “The dozens of memos and applications hanging like Christmas ornaments on those weeds by the old stadium.  The bamboo clown!”

It was followed by a man’s voice breaking though static from the walkie-talkie on the table in front of my interlocutor:

“We found him, Captain.  Under the bleachers.  By the bamboo grove. The ambulance is on its way.”  

And I was left alone, on my chair by the door, with my words, glad they found Provost Kim.

Winter 2022