The Bigness of the World (21 page)

On the third afternoon, shortly after the five of them convene and order their first round of drinks, a sweaty woman approaches their table and asks whether they have seen Martin. “Martin?” they repeat in a sort of lackadaisical chorus.

“Yes,” she says impatiently. “Martin. I saw him having drinks with you yesterday. I’m his wife.”

They look at one another nervously. Martin had not mentioned a wife. “We haven’t seen Martin today,” Joe says at last.

Martin’s wife picks up a napkin from their table and wipes her face with it. “I’ve been out all day with friends,” she explains. “Man, is this place muggy.” She studies the napkin for a moment, then says, “Well, I better run up to the room and get myself into a shower.” But she does not commit herself to action; instead, she continues to hover over them, and so they feel obligated to ask her to sit down.

“I must look a fright,” she says, falling quickly into a chair. She eyes them suspiciously, as though she suspects them of harboring a loyalty to Martin, and then launches immediately into the story of
how Martin ordered frog legs in Ubud. Amanda, with a drawn-out Canadian “oh” that almost gives her secret away, shrieks, “Oh no, the poor frogs.” The others say nothing, especially Calvin, who does not think that Amanda would be impressed by a joke about the dead, legless frogs.

In the midst of this, the front desk man appears beside their table. “Mrs. Stein,” he says quietly, addressing Martin’s wife and mispronouncing her name.

“Stein,” she corrects him curtly.

“Stein,” he repeats dully. “I am very sorry, Mrs. Stein. I do not know how to say this, but the plane has crashed.” He does not know when he decided to begin in this way, by referring to
the
plane, a pretense suggesting that they share between them the knowledge of her husband’s departure.

“I’m afraid that you must have me confused with another guest. I don’t know anything about a plane,” says Martin’s wife, speaking stiffly, almost angrily.

He puts his hand nervously into his pocket, seeking out Martin’s twenty-dollar bill, which feels different from Indonesian money, sturdier. Yes, it’s there. It exists, which means that everything else exists — Martin, the flight change, the plane — but, he realizes as he gets to the end of this chain of associations, what this means is that none of them exists.

“The plane that your husband was on,” he croaks. “I switched him yesterday because he was nervous about flying our local airline. I called the Singapore office myself. He flew to Jakarta this morning, and from there he was going to Singapore.” His seemingly lidless eyes blink once, slowly, and then focus on the table.

“It’s true,” says Noreen. “Martin told us yesterday that he was leaving this morning, that he had just changed his flight because Garuda made him nervous.”

“Why didn’t you mention this a minute ago when I asked?” Martin’s wife asks, widening the scope of her anger to include all of them.

“I guess we thought that maybe he’d changed his mind,” explains Calvin.

“He did not,” says the manager sadly. “I took him in the hotel van myself.”

“It really was none of our business,” adds Joe.

Martin’s wife stands then, stands and takes another napkin from the table and passes it across her face, and when she is done, it is as though she has wiped away the angry expression, and in its place a new expression struggles to take shape, her face like a television screen as one fiddles with the antennae, all blurs and fuzziness and glimpses.

The manager has begun to cry, quietly and without embarrassment. “Come,” he says to Martin’s wife gently, reaching for her arm. “The families are gathering at the airport to grieve. I will take you.”

The five Americans watch them walk away from the table together, too shocked to speak. They order one round of drinks and then another, and finally Calvin says, “That front desk guy’s a heck of a nice guy,” and because they are a little tipsy by now, they drink a toast to the front desk guy.

“His English is really good also,” says Sylvie. “I mean, he knows a word like
grieve
?” She holds up her glass, and they drink a second toast — this time, to the front desk man’s English.

Only then do they discuss Martin, shaking their heads finally at the irony of the situation: how Martin died as a result of his desire to live. “Yep, old Martin would have liked that,” Calvin says, and they nod together, agreeing that their friend would have appreciated the irony, for that is how they have come to think of Martin — as a friend — because he is dead and they were the last to know him.

“Well,” says Noreen after a moment, stretching to signal that she
is done for the night. She stands, and Sylvie rises as well. “It was nice meeting you all. We’re leaving for Bali tomorrow.” She does not look at Sylvie as she says this.

“Idyllic little Bali,” Joe replies.

“What?” says Noreen.

“Idyllic little Bali,” repeats Joe. “Don’t you remember yesterday, when Martin first sat down and I asked him where he was coming from? He said: ‘I’ve just spent eight days in idyllic little Bali.’” From very far away, which is how yesterday seems now that it has become a time when Martin was still alive, Noreen can hear him intoning the words, like a man in a trance, like a man exhausted by the task of putting paradise into words.

Dr. Deneau’s Punishment

dr. dunno
.
THAT IS WHAT THE BOYS CALL ME, WHAT THEY
write on desks and in bathroom stalls, a play on my name — which is Deneau — and on the fact that, day after day, that is how they respond to my questions. “Dunno,” they say with an elaborate shrug and the limp, unarticulated drawl that has become ubiquitous among teenagers in a classroom setting; they cannot even be bothered to claim their ignorance in the form of a complete sentence, to say, “I don’t know,” a less than desirable response to be sure, but one that does not smack of apathy and laziness and disdain.

They arrive each day with matted hair and soiled faces, a lifetime of wax and dirt spilling from their ears. “Ear rice,” the Koreans call it, referring, no doubt, to the tiny balls that a normal person, one who attends to his ears on a regular basis, is likely to produce — not to the prodigious amounts produced by thirteen-year-old boys oblivious to hygiene. However, I cannot sit beside them each morning as they prepare for school, coaxing them to apply just a bit more soap, to consider a cleaner shirt. No. My realm is the classroom, my only concern that when they leave it, they possess at least a modicum of proficiency in that much-maligned subject to which I have devoted my life: mathematics.

Would it surprise you to know that I have students who do not understand the concept of ten, who, when given the task of adding some multiple of 10 to a number ending in, let us say, 4, cannot predict that the sum will also end in 4? This, of course, suggests a much bigger problem — an ignorance of zero itself. The Romans developed no concept of zero and we see where that got them, the Roman numeral system in all its past glory relegated to the role of placeholder in complex outlines and on the faces of clocks.

“Imagine your lives without zero,” I once challenged my students in a moment of folly, thinking that I was offering inspiration, a new window onto the world, but they had stared back at me blandly, no doubt wondering what zero could possibly have to do with eating and sleeping and unabated nose picking.

“You mean like sports?” said James Nyquist. I had not meant sports, for
sports
is a topic to which I never allude.

“Kindly elaborate, Mr. Nyquist. I have yet to see your point.”

“Like in the beginning when no one’s scored,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, and then, more forcefully, “Yes!” for I meant precisely this.

“We’d just start at one, I guess,” he said.

“One?” I repeated. “But
one
implies that you’ve already scored.”

“You said to imagine our lives without zero,” he pointed out. “That means it doesn’t exist, right? And if both sides start at one, it’s the same as starting at zero.”

It was as though I had eliminated Pringles from their lives. Fine, they would eat Ruffles instead. That easily was zero dispensed with.

This week, we are discussing averages, concerning ourselves only with
mean
averages, the general consensus among my colleagues being that
median
and
mode
would simply muddy the already none-too-clear waters. Toward this end, I gave young Mr. Stuart the following task: to average five test scores ranging from 77% to 94%. After much button pushing (for no task can be performed without a calculator firmly in hand), he announced that the average score was 264%.

“That, sir, is impossible,” I replied. I have found that few things annoy an eighth-grade boy like being referred to as
sir
by a grown man.

He, however, was quick to provide me with incontrovertible proof. “See for yourself,” he said, surprisingly smug for one whose chin still bore a dusting of toast crumbs, and thrust the calculator in my face.
Indeed, through some mismanagement of the keys, he had arrived at 264%.

“Do you not understand what
average
means?” I asked.

“It means you’re like everyone else,” he said.

“Well,” I replied. “Yes. Except for those who are above average. And, of course, those who are below.” I did not make it personal, did not point out his obvious qualifications for the latter category; I am, after all, an educator. Moreover, I have been reprimanded for such things in the past. Just last month, it was brought to my attention that the names I had given to the three math groups in the class were inappropriate. The most proficient, and not incidentally smallest, group I chose to call the Superheroes, a name that I considered attractive (dare I say motivational) to boys of this age. The middle group was dubbed the Bluebirds, an innocuous but not unflattering moniker. It was the name that I selected for the third group that raised some ire. The Donkeys.

“But didn’t you consider the implication?” the principal asked. “Donkeys are slow animals.”

“I am quite familiar with the characteristics of the donkey,” I replied indignantly. “In short, I found the comparison apt.”

“Well, perhaps you would like to explain that to the boys’ parents?” he said.

Although I was spared having to answer to that particular pack of irate mothers and fathers, I was required to submit a list of three appropriate replacements for “the Donkeys” by the following morning, a request with which I complied; by noon, I had been invited back to the principal’s office to discuss my suggestions.

A word about Thorqvist, my principal. First, I find him an affable fellow, though a bit less affability would work wonders with some of these boys. I also cannot object to his sartorial choices nor to the fact that he is always well pressed, a state of affairs that his wife is surely behind. He is somewhat of a malapropist, particularly in regard to
clichés, which he uses liberally and generally manages to botch. On one occasion — and here I said nothing because I supported his cause if not his phrasing — he urged the faculty to be careful in making sweeping curriculum changes, lest they “throw the baby out with the dishwater.” Another time, during an assembly when it would have been inappropriate to correct him, I had literally to take my tongue between thumb and index finger as he cautioned the boys not once but thrice: “Each of you must learn to take responsibility for your educations if you do not wish to find yourselves up a creek without a ladder.”

Lastly, there is Thorqvist’s habitual misuse of the reflexive pronoun “myself,” which he insists on employing as a subject, a task for which it was never intended. (Forgive me for stating the obvious.) Thus, he began our discussion of my suggestions for a replacement name as follows: “The vice principal and myself have reviewed your list and find your suggestions no less objectionable than ‘the Donkeys.’”

I removed my spectacles and cleaned them thoroughly, and when I resumed wearing them, I found that my list had appeared in front of me. Across the top, I had typed “Suggested Name Replacements for the Slow-Learners’ Group” and beneath this, in slightly smaller print, “Submitted by Dr. Michael Deneau.” In the middle of the page, indented and prefaced by bullets, were my suggestions:

• the Mongrels

• the Chain Gang

• the Spuds

“I am not sure that I understand your objections, sir,” I said after pretending to review the list. “First, I doubt that the boys, even their parents for that matter, will be familiar with the first two. Most people prefer the simpler term
mutt
, and chain gangs have long since fallen out of favor, at least in this country. That leaves only
Spuds
, and what, may I ask, is objectionable about the potato?”

He peered at me for a moment, hoping to decipher my tone. “Well,” he said at last. “First, there is the question of why, out of all possible names, you are drawn to a nickname for the potato. There is also the matter of sound, Dr. Deneau. Have you not considered that
Spuds
sounds a great deal like
Duds
?”

“Surely you are not telling me that we must consider rhyming?” I gasped.

“I am not saying that we must consider rhyming per se, but we must consider implications.” He sighed heavily, a familiar enough sigh, for it was the same sigh that I produce when dealing with some particularly obtuse student, Peterson, for example, to whom I had applied this sigh just the day before after a long and unsuccessful attempt to teach him basic test-taking skills.

“Quickly now, Peterson,” I had cried out in a fit of exasperation. “If I were to wad this test of yours into a ball and throw it, where would it land? A. across the room, B. in North Dakota, C. in India.” As you can see, I was not above stacking the deck, but Peterson looked back at me as though I had asked him to calculate the precise distance from his desk to the sun.

“Well?” I pressed him. “What strikes you as obviously wrong?” My point, as it always is in regard to multiple choice, was that he should begin by eliminating; therein lies my objection to the format, for when does life itself proceed in such a fashion, offering us just one correct option presented amidst a limited number of others that are so patently wrong?