MY LITTLE LIFE
Monday 2 September 1957 - 5
Especially, the swans with whipped cream, which we did not see much on the table at home, were just the ones I liked the most.
With my eyes full of cravings, I licked, like a dog ice cream, the shop window till fat Ria pulled me so roughly away from it, that I almost cut my tongue on the window sill. Ria reminded me on the fact that I was a dirty little fellow and her friend acted as if she had to vomit. Together, we turned the last corner.
The closer we came to my school, the more it looked that every foot step forward started asking more effort of my will power. Before the small grocery store not far away from the school gate, decided the girls that I could look after myself from there on, and started running. Ria waved a couple of times in my direction but I did not wave back. I was somewhere else with my mind.
That there would be so many women folk with crying children, standing in front of the school gate, I did not expect. I asked myself, more insecure than I was ever in my short life, how in God’s name would I be able to get through the mass.
Why grandfather never came with me I knew for long. He had to work or was busy in the pub. But why grandmother did not made an effort to accompany me even once, was something I could not accept so easy. All good and well, that she did not like to show her face in public and enjoyed it more to sit on her own, busy with her knitting and stitching but it did not bring me one step closer to where I wanted to be.
In thoughts, I saw myself crawling on hands and knees between all the women’s legs, saying, “pardon, let me pass here, I have to get in the school”. But in practice, I have to say to my regret, that I did not have the courage to do this. I tried to be bold by trying to convince myself not to act like a baby but take the bull with the horns. It did not help. It was like my soles got stuck on the street tiles. Not knowing what to do, I decided to wait patiently in front of the house of the policeman, who lived next to the school, till all the mothers delivered their cry babies.
After the last madam pushed me by accident, with her big shopping bag from the footpath, excused herself in a friendly manner for doing so and told me to hurry up if I did not want to come too late in school, I launched a sprint.
With all my might I pushed the heavy school gate open, looked wide-eyed wondering over the play ground and did not understand anything anymore.
I expected boys playing football or hide and seek, running up and down. Teachers, in light brown dust coats, standing there talking with each other, just like I had seen more than once before, when I curiously peeked inside the school gate of the boy’s school, when I passed by on my way to kinder garden. But nothing of this sort. The play garden lay there, completely deserted.
I halted in the middle of the school yard, laid with concrete street tiles, to pull my socks up. I recognized these tiles immediately, because we had the same ones in our garden. I asked myself for a moment if the schoolmasters too, stole them from the town hall.
If I had a choice, I would have turned around instantly and ran home, but you didn’t have to be a psychic to know that this could only bring me from the drops into the rain. I felt myself in the same position as my old uncle from Ekeren, who during the Great War was caught by mustard gas while hiding in the trenches. I heard him telling once, that when they pulled out of the trenches to attack the German defence, French speaking officers and military police shot on anyone who dared to turn around. I saw this as a good comparison with the situation I found myself in at the moment.
I made my heart a stone, what my uncle could do in 1914, I dared to do in 1957. With my pocket full of courage, I ran towards the dark red brick stone school building.
To gain a little more confidence, I wanted to pick up a glimpse of what was going on in the classrooms. I did my utmost best to pull myself up on the window sill but could not reach high enough to see anything, because of my stupid new shoes, which did not give me any grip on the cement between the bricks. I walked disappointed that I could not get to see something, from one window to another> i heard the voices of the teachers, they resounded almost the same as the voice of our priest’s on the pulpit, in the middle of the church on Sundays, something that discouraged me seriously.
With my eyes full of cravings, I licked, like a dog ice cream, the shop window till fat Ria pulled me so roughly away from it, that I almost cut my tongue on the window sill. Ria reminded me on the fact that I was a dirty little fellow and her friend acted as if she had to vomit. Together, we turned the last corner.
The closer we came to my school, the more it looked that every foot step forward started asking more effort of my will power. Before the small grocery store not far away from the school gate, decided the girls that I could look after myself from there on, and started running. Ria waved a couple of times in my direction but I did not wave back. I was somewhere else with my mind.
That there would be so many women folk with crying children, standing in front of the school gate, I did not expect. I asked myself, more insecure than I was ever in my short life, how in God’s name would I be able to get through the mass.
Why grandfather never came with me I knew for long. He had to work or was busy in the pub. But why grandmother did not made an effort to accompany me even once, was something I could not accept so easy. All good and well, that she did not like to show her face in public and enjoyed it more to sit on her own, busy with her knitting and stitching but it did not bring me one step closer to where I wanted to be.
In thoughts, I saw myself crawling on hands and knees between all the women’s legs, saying, “pardon, let me pass here, I have to get in the school”. But in practice, I have to say to my regret, that I did not have the courage to do this. I tried to be bold by trying to convince myself not to act like a baby but take the bull with the horns. It did not help. It was like my soles got stuck on the street tiles. Not knowing what to do, I decided to wait patiently in front of the house of the policeman, who lived next to the school, till all the mothers delivered their cry babies.
After the last madam pushed me by accident, with her big shopping bag from the footpath, excused herself in a friendly manner for doing so and told me to hurry up if I did not want to come too late in school, I launched a sprint.
With all my might I pushed the heavy school gate open, looked wide-eyed wondering over the play ground and did not understand anything anymore.
I expected boys playing football or hide and seek, running up and down. Teachers, in light brown dust coats, standing there talking with each other, just like I had seen more than once before, when I curiously peeked inside the school gate of the boy’s school, when I passed by on my way to kinder garden. But nothing of this sort. The play garden lay there, completely deserted.
I halted in the middle of the school yard, laid with concrete street tiles, to pull my socks up. I recognized these tiles immediately, because we had the same ones in our garden. I asked myself for a moment if the schoolmasters too, stole them from the town hall.
If I had a choice, I would have turned around instantly and ran home, but you didn’t have to be a psychic to know that this could only bring me from the drops into the rain. I felt myself in the same position as my old uncle from Ekeren, who during the Great War was caught by mustard gas while hiding in the trenches. I heard him telling once, that when they pulled out of the trenches to attack the German defence, French speaking officers and military police shot on anyone who dared to turn around. I saw this as a good comparison with the situation I found myself in at the moment.
I made my heart a stone, what my uncle could do in 1914, I dared to do in 1957. With my pocket full of courage, I ran towards the dark red brick stone school building.
To gain a little more confidence, I wanted to pick up a glimpse of what was going on in the classrooms. I did my utmost best to pull myself up on the window sill but could not reach high enough to see anything, because of my stupid new shoes, which did not give me any grip on the cement between the bricks. I walked disappointed that I could not get to see something, from one window to another> i heard the voices of the teachers, they resounded almost the same as the voice of our priest’s on the pulpit, in the middle of the church on Sundays, something that discouraged me seriously.
