Madame Leclerc, why is there a dirty sweater in my cubby?

(Written on Feb 12th 2010)


On a bright morning in the month of May, I was woken up by birds who chirped by my window. As custom, I ran across our shared room to enthusiastically nudge my twin brother on the shoulder, knowing that today just had to be the day.
“David, David! Get up!! The sun’s shining, and we need to do this –now–, before Mom and Dad wake up!” He groaned and looked at his Superman watch
“Andréa, you slime-head, not this again? We still have an hour to sleep before breakfast. Go back to bed, and leave me alone. This is stupid anyway.”

He rolled over and pulled his bedspread over his head. Clearly, he did not understand how important this was, so I repeated while enunciating more, hoping he might have just misheard me the first time. “Go to bed, Andréa. I don’t want to get up now, and I told you already!”
I jumped up and a down a little, pleading,
“but David, it’s now or never and I want my Spice Mice tee-shirt, TODAY!”
“Oh who cares, about the Spice Girls anyways? Superman can fly, at least. All they do is sing and dance around –Yooppi...”
“I care!! I know mom and dad bought me a tee-shirt with grandma’s heritage money; I heard them talking about how guilty and bad they felt about it last week! If we do something really really nice they’ll want to reward us, so that rids them of the guilt, and I get my tee-shirt today! Now get up!”

He studied me carefully before saying,
“Well, what do I get if I help you sweep all of this winter’s sand out of the driveway?”

I beamed, pretty proud that my master plan was starting to work out. “You, David, get the brand new remote controlled car I spotted Dad with in the garage, yesterday. And if you help me convince them it is warm enough out to let us go to school without a coat today, so everybody can see my pretty tee-shirt right when I walk in, I won’t tell you like Joanie Richards and that you got in trouble at school for pushing her at recess.” Suddenly, I had all of his attention.

“ Andreeeeeeaa!” he squealed, “You can’t tell I got in trouble or else I’ll have to wait ages to get my car! And I don’t even like Joanie, girls have major cooties!” I grinned.

“So, it doesn’t really matter if I tell her you like her, then?” I asked.
“Fine. Let’s do this. But you better pinky-swear to not tell on me!”
“Done!” I replied.

As I sat an hour later eating breakfast in my super amazing cool tee-shirt, the news played on the radio. I saw Dad’s thick eyebrows frown and he put down his fork to listen, but I didn’t make anything of it at the time. On my way to the bus stop I dribbled with rocks on the sidewalk, and sang to my purple puppet gloves, ecstatic that today we’d finally get to finish the art project we had started the previous Friday.

Our bus was always early and when I got to school, the classroom was empty aside from my third grade teacher, Madame Leclerc. I dashed to my little wooden locker in the hallway and shoved my lunch box in my cubby, but it fell right back out. So I tried a second time, and it fell back out again. Getting annoyed, I reached in to see what was in the way, and pulled out a light blue sweater that looked gray, and had holes in it. It stunk ten times worst then my bowling shoes, so pinching my nose, I brought it to my teacher and asked
“Madame Leclerc, why is there a dirty sweater in my cubby? I cleaned it on Friday like you told me to, and this is not mine.”

“Hi, Andréa. Nice tee-shirt! Look, I have someone for you to meet.” She walked me to my desk beside which another orange plastic chair had been brought. A scrawny and frightened girl about my height sat in it. Madame Leclerc made us shake hands, but neither of us had spoken yet, so she took the lead.
“Andréa, far far away from here, there’s a country called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and one of its provinces is called Kosovo”.
I interrupted before she even had the chance to tell me: “Why is she here, Madame Leclerc?”

“You see, Andréa, in Canada we are all of different ethnicities and live in peace, but this little girl’s name is Besa, and her country has been at war for a very long time, now. She’s eight years old too, but she lost her family in bomb explosions last week, and has been chased out of her country by soldiers, along with almost one million more of her country’s people. The military base where your Daddy works has a big aircraft hangar where 300 refugees are sleeping and living right now, until their hospitality requests are processed by our immigration system. They arrived this morning, and the Red Cross thought it best to keep her busy here while they searched for a surviving family member. The older children are in other classes.”

My mouth hung open as I tried to process all this. Only two words stuck out: war, and hangar. “So you need to be nice to her, okay? I’ll be right back”, said Madame Leclerc. I was left alone with her, and I didn’t know what to do. We stared at one another in complete silence for what must have been the longest time ever. Her tee-shirt was ripped, she had odd slippers on that were too big for her feet; and her hair was matted with blood and dirt. I feared if I looked longer, that I would offend her. So I looked down and whispered “bonjour”, but she didn’t answer. I had no idea what language she spoke, so I hesitantly smiled. Though her lips did not move fully upwards, I could see a hint of a smirk at the corners of her mouth.

I tried thinking as hard as I could about what all this meant to me. The only thing I understood of faraway wars was that for six to eight months at a time, I only got to talk to my Dad once every second week on a staticky line, and that this made my mom cry a great deal. My brothers and I knew better then to put up a fuss about taking a bath, or to fake sick to skip school when mom cried. No, during what we called “Dad’s adventures”, we had to complete our homework straight upon our arrival from school, and could only play after dinner if our chores were done and if we remained quiet until bedtime crept around. When Dad wasn’t there, nobody read to me at night. So instead, I often stared out the window wondering how many tied sheets I would have to throw as high up in the sky as I could, in order for it to hook on a star and allow me to climb up to the moon. I thought about how it would feel to sleep in a big and dark hangar with a lot of other people in it, but I couldn’t imagine it.

Pulling me out of my distant thoughts as she gently tugged on my sleeve, Besa pointed to the crayon drawing of my dog I had scotched-taped to my desk the month before. I thought she might want to color, so I took out my construction paper and crayons, and suddenly realized I didn’t feel like working on my art project at all anymore, so I just looked at her as she drew a little figure in a yellow dress in front of a small wooden house, and wrote on top “Home”. She drew several other little figures and two dogs on the picture, and all of them had a big red question mark on top of their heads. Her dark and sunken eyes filled with tears, and my heart tightened. I didn’t know how to speak English or her own language, but I just reached out for her hand and held it tight.

Madame Leclerc eventually came back, and Besa was brought to the school infirmary to bathe and change. Just before lunch time and the end of our science class, Madame Leclerc said to follow her to the hallway, where a Red Cross worker invited us to join the refugee’s barbecue in the school yard. Besa ran to the hot-dog station, looked at them uncertainly, and began wolfing the hot-dogs down even without ketchup on them. Every one else also seemed really hungry, but I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I sat alone on a nearby playground bench, and watched them all for a long while. Quiet, hatched conversations; filthy hands and clothes, and an overwhelming joy to be here, seemed like the most apparent features in the large group of refugees.

I just wanted to rush home and throw out all of my brothers’ play war action figures because it didn’t seem fun anymore, but I didn’t move. Now I understood why Dad never talked much about his UN peace making and keeping missions. I had never known war was so ugly, and couldn’t believe this was Besa’s daily life. I felt ashamed of sticking out like a sore thumb in my new t-shirt, and wished I had my coat to cover it up. As I sat there, I remember thinking this was the first time I felt so intensely what I later came to know as “despair. ”

The next few days are a blur, as I spent them playing outside with Besa, in class, in the cafeteria sharing my lunch, and at the hangar listening to the elderly refugee’s singing. I had taught Besa a few French words, and she walked around repeating them to everyone even though no one else understood her. It kind of warmed my heart a little that she found joy in doing so. In return, she had drawn several pictures of the war in her country for me, and had taught me two traditional songs. On Friday of the second week after Besa’s arrival, I was cleaning my cubby before heading home for the week-end, and decided to fold my new Spice Mice tee-shirt and hand it to Besa before getting on the bus. I had noticed how much she stared at it in class, and wanted to share even though I knew I would miss it a lot. It just didn’t matter, in comparison to the warm smile my small gesture put on her face.

As I waved her “later” from the school bus’ rear window, her drawing still in my hand, I thought I was lending her my tee-shirt just for three nights so she could feel special too. I thought she would be my friend forever because she was the only one in our whole class who didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t like Sailor Moon, and who didn’t tease me because of my wild hair. I thought we would soon learn each other’s languages to be able to play something else than mime games and drawing interpretations.

When I came back on Monday morning eager to see my friend again, Madame Leclerc took me outside the class and told me Besa had been sent back to her country until our government could find the appropriate papers to prove her identity. I burst into uncontrollable tears at the news, because I knew that wherever she was, Besa was alone and afraid. Madame Leclerc then brought me to the Principal’s office to wait for my Mom to bring me back home. While waiting, I sang one of her songs to my purple gloves, but it brought me no comfort. I wished I had at least gotten to say goodbye.

Ever since, I wonder if she found her family and dogs. I wonder if she was allowed to come back to Canada as a permanent citizen, and I wonder if she remembers me a little bit. I also wonder if someone cared enough about her to clean or replace her dirty sweater, and if she still has my shirt. I wonder if she’s sort of happy, but mostly, I wonder if she’s still alive and safe. I just hope she doesn't remember my disgusting ignorance of her and her people’s brutal reality, prior to my exposure to them. Because I didn’t want her to make her feel like she didn’t belong here, as a result of being too privileged to take interest in other’s misery unless it directly affected me.

Two months later, I learned Dad would have to go over there to help make the peace, and for eight months, I desperately hoped he would see her again. When he came back, Dad told me he had heard from Red Cross officials that Besa had received Brazilian citizenship, and was doing well. But I’ve never had enough courage to ask him for the truth.