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#Post#: 126--------------------------------------------------
Run, Run, Run Away II
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: January 11, 2020, 7:41 pm
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Albina counted six pink dots among the sea of green ones
crowding the Cerni-Al-Saigh penthouse. One of those dots was
Tikvah who was doing homework in the large study lounge along
with her roommate. Homework to kill time was a good idea.
Albina picked up her phone and dialed Tikvah's father. He
answered her in flawless, American English as usual.
"Yes, what do you want?"
"I'd like an ETA." He'd know what that was though he might have
to jog his memory, or would he?
"I'm stuck in traffic in Tarrytown. I forget how built up
Westchester is."
"OK, can we talk?"
"If you want."
"Good, I'm sending you a gate code. It's 0-9-5-6-6. You'll say
those numbers when you press the button on the gate, and it will
open. Then you need to drive to Cerny-Al-Saigh. You drive
through Parking Lot A, that's the lot below the academic quad,
past Rapinoe-McConolly-Brinker, that's our gym. There are six
high rise dormitories, side by side in two rows of three.The
last dormitory on the right is Cerny-Al-Saigh. I'll be on the
ground floor to let you in, and we'll ride the elevator to the
thirteenth floor where the station party is. You'll get a tour
and we do have kosher food."
"I'm not hungry."
"Fine, then don't eat. I'll be seeing you in half an hour. Call
my number if you don't see me." Albina checked her laptop again
and slipped her phone back into her purse. She came out of the
lounge and found an aimless group of girls. There was time for a
round of Dumb Dumb Dodo and Ms. Lucie with the curse words left
i, followed by Kadie coaching nerf kickball and a chance to do
door duty for Tikvah.
Tikvah and Corianne of course skipped the Chinese jump rope game
and kickball. Jetta and Shayla went to do rubber stamping with
Athena, the Suite Advisor with the tortoise shell headband and a
taste for lingering over coffee.
Albina thought about Athena as she took the elevator to the
ground floor and began the lonely vigil by the Cerni-Al-Saigh
entrance. She hated waiting. She counseled patience to herself,
but she still hated waiting. It seemed to be forever, but her
phone told her it was twelve long minutes, and Abraham Goldberg,
Tikvah's father drove like a person finding his way and not
making much success over it, but he found Cerni-Al-Saigh, and
even secured a parking space. He and a buchur, one who was
positively round and wore thick glasses, walked slowly up the
path. Albina wondered if they were wearing the same suits they
had worn the previous Sunday. The buchur looked like he had
slept in his.
"Welcome to Kotiah-Yovanovitch," Albina smiled her speech. "I'm
so glad you came."
"ברוכים
הבאים צו
קאָטיאַה-יאָוואַנאָוויטש.
איך בין
אַזוי
צופרידן
איר
געקומען," translated
Mr. Goldberg.
איז די
דאַמע
ייִדיש?" the buchur asked.
"My friend would like to know if you are Jewish," explained Mr.
Goldberg.
"I'm Jewish but not Orthodox," replied Albina as the elevator
reached the thirteenth floor. No one got on because nearly all
the kids were upstairs already.
Mr. Goldberg translated and Albina began her tour. "Welcome to
culture shock 101," she thought. "Now outside you saw this was a
very tall building. It's tall because all the fifth graders live
here. There are forty eight kids on a floor and twelve floors of
them. That comes out to about six hundred kids. Now when you
have dormitories, or residence hall, if you build them as
dormitories, and don't retrofit an old house, you include common
space. That's where the commons and penthouses come in. Even
grades have a commons on the first floor. Odd grades have a
penthouse on the thirteenth floor."
That gave Mr. Goldberg a lot to translate.
"קוק בייַ
אַז
פֿענצטער!"
exclaimed the buchur pointing up to the top of the atrium.
"Itzi is impressed by the skylight," Mr. Goldberg explained.
"We call a room like this an atrium," Albina decided to build
Itzi's English vocabulary.
"Now all of this looks very fancy, but that's mostly because it
is new. This school was built less than ten years ago. If you
look at the furnishings, they are typical dormitory and
classroom furnishings. There are no fancy artworks, or
wallpaper. It's nice because it is purpose-built. Mostly though
it's just empty space...."
"וואס איז
דאס!" exclaimed Itzi pointing to kids playing
Twister.
Albina explained about games. Kids needed games as well as
school, even if school included electives. Albina realized she
would have to explain about electives too. When general courses
were the only kind offered, as opposed to general and religious
studies, there was time for Team Project and electives.
Electives were another kind of general education when you
thought about it, and general education for ten year olds was
important. Albina wondered if she should have shown Itzi and Mr.
Goldberg the social dance lessons followed by actual social
dancing and the handicraft area. She decided, however, that they
weren't here to cultureshock Itzi, so she opened the study
lounge door and poked in her head. She only had to say two
words: "He's here."
#Post#: 127--------------------------------------------------
Re: Run, Run, Run Away II
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: January 11, 2020, 8:28 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
"Tati!" screamed Tikvah who left her math and Team Project
lessons on the table as she raced to embrace her father. "You
really came!"
"דאָך איך
האט דאָס," he
answered. "דאס אָרט
איז אַ
טורמע
געמאכט פון
גלאז."
"עס איז די
דאַכ - דירע."
"זיי זאָגן
אַז צו
מאַכן איר
פילן בעסער
וועגן אים.
"מיר מוזן
רעכענען
אויס אַ
וועג צו
באַקומען
איר פֿון
דאָ. די
פּראָבלעם
איז אַז
קיין
איינער
טראַסטיד
מיר."
"אויב עס
גייט נישט
דורך די
קאָרץ,
טאטי, די
פּאָליצייַ
באַקומען
ינוואַלווד."
"וואָס
וועט איר
טאָן וועגן
ראש השנה?"
"איך וועל
טראָגן
מיין גרוי
רעקל און
בורגונדי
סוועטער
מיט
גלייַכן
טייץ, אויב
מיין טייץ
באַקומען
דאָ."
"איך טאָן
ניט מיינען
קליידער!"
"איך בין
געגאנגען
צו יונגע
ישראל פון
ווייסע
פּליינז.
דאָס איז
אַן
אָרטאָדאָקסישע
שוהל."
"איך טרעפן
דאָס וועט
האָבן צו
טאָן."
עס איז
בעסער ווי
לעצט יאָר."
[QUOTE]TRANSLATION
"Of course I did," Tikvah's father told her daught. "This is a
glass prison."
"They call it a penthouse."
"That's just to make you feel better about it. We have to figure
out a way to get you out of here. The problem is no one trusts
me."
"If it doesn't go through the courts, Tati, the police get
involved."
"So what are you going to do about Rosh HaShannah?" asked
Tikvah's father.
"I'm going to wear my gray skirt and burgundy sweater with
matching tights, if my tights get here."
"I don't mean clothes!" Mr. Goldberg thundered.
"I'm going to Young Israel of White Plains. It's an Orthodox
synagogue," Tikvah replied.
"I guess that will have to do."
"It's better than last year."
[/QUOTE]
Mercifully, the conversation shifted after that point. Tikvah
showed her father her math and Team Project. She explained that
Team Project was extra school to help the other subjects make
sense. She explained about angles in a triangle, and angles on
an axis, and parallel lines. She said she used that in metal
shop, but it had other uses. Geometry would be in ninth grade.
Her father asked if she would still be here in ninth grade.
It would be more than possible, Tikvah replied.
Tikvah also showed her father her book from the high school
library about light. She was nearly finished. She got a magic
marker and paper and showed both men about frequency and
amplitude and length of waves. Of course this meant light wasn't
spiritual any more. It just came in different sizes, and divine
light might not even be visible. Besides light pollution was a
thing.
Albina heard Itzi say the word, "narishkeit" to Tikvah's father,
and Tikvah shook her head. "Science is not narishkeit. Cartoons
and soap operas are narishkeit."
"Is Twister narishkeit?" Itzi asked in Yiddish.
"It would be if grownups played it," Tikvah supplied an
interesting answer.
#Post#: 128--------------------------------------------------
Re: Run, Run, Run Away II
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: January 11, 2020, 8:41 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
As promised, Albina gave Tikvah, her father, and the bochur a
tour of Al-Saigh 11B. She explained about the lounge with its
kitchen and about the lack of vending machines and 7/3 or
twenty meal plans. The bochur was impressed. If Mr. Goldberg's
translation was to be believed this was twenty times more
luxurious than most ysehivot.
Albina explained that adequately feeding middle schoolers was a
necessity not a luxury. Itzi was also impressed that girls slept
two to a room. "They need places to put their stuff," Albina
offered. "Also there is security in having a door that locks."
"And their drawings are all over their walls," Itzi commented in
Yiddish.
"A lot of girls like to make art,"Albina explained.
Then after Albina showed Itzi and Mr. Goldberg the plastic
container of ice cream, the reused soda bottles of beverages,
and the pantry boxes and bowls, she gathered up a plastic bag of
cookies and a shopping bag of fruit and a half gallon bottle of
lemonade and brought it back to the thirteenth floor. "Your
daughter checks hecshers on the cookie boxes," Albina told Mr.
Goldberg.
"It's not holov Israel," explained Mr. Goldberg who politely
refused the food. Meanwhile, hungry kids began to crowd around
the table and it was time to coach a long string of clapping
games. Homework time was over and Tikvah was not going to dance
socially in front of her father and neither she nor Corianne had
much interest in laser tag or rubber stamping. Games on Saturday
night meant about fifty kids and several circles going. Other
Suite Advisors had their own expertise in schoolyard games and
the games went on until after midnight. By then the food was
gone and the children tired.
"I'm not getting up for shachris, in the morning," Itzi
complained in Yiddish. Mr. Goldberg almost forgot to translate.
Albina asked another Suite Advisor to watch her kids while she
took Tikvah downstairs to say goodbye to her father. This was
that moment all over again. When Albina took Tikvah's hand, the
girl did not dislodge it. They walked out into the cold wet
night. Itzi complained about the rain. Tikvah and Albina said
nothing.
"Want to do this again next week. There's only so many shopping
trips to White Plains I can stand."
"What happens when these children grow up?" asked Mr. Goldberg.
"They remember the games just like I did," answered Albina.
"I love you tati!" Tikvah cried out.
Mr. Goldberg blinked.Tikvah squeezed Albina's hand hard.
"איצט איז
די צייט," Mr.Goldberg said.
"Now is not the time!" Tikvah switched to English. "We're not
going to get in trouble with the police again."
Albina reflected after Mr. Goldberg and Itzy drove away, that
the second time was easier than the first. "I'm all wet," sighed
Tikvah when she and Albina got inside.
"You're not made of spun sugar," Albina answered.
"My mother used to say that."
"She probably still does."
"Do you want me to go back to her?" Tikvah asked.
"Do you want to?"
"Not the way she is now. I want...freedom of religion," Tikvah
selected the words carefully. "I want not to get in trouble with
the police too," Tikvah added.
"Knowing what one wants," thought Albina "is half the battle."
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