1° Kapitel:Ich bin kein kind! ...~l.i.e.b.e.. v.2.0
It's raining over Munich today. A thick, persistent rain. Today is definitely
the kind of cold day when anyone would only like to stay in one's warm,
sweet home, relaxing on the couch while reading a good old classic…
But…I'm here…in front of the "RegenBogen Kindergarten", one of the best private nursery schools in Munchen, waiting for her to come out, the fact that she certainly won't appreciate it..
It's thundering loudly, some dazzling lightning tracing the grey sky like falling stars in broad daylight….
Who knows if she gets scared when it's thundering outside, like all
the children of the world.…maybe she considers herself too grown-up to
let herself be caught by such a "childish trifle"..
She had answered me this way yesterday night, when I asked her if she
wanted me to leave the bedside table little lamp on...…
"I'm way too grown-up to worry about such a childish trifle!"'>>
Yeah…this is a complex sentence…and it sounds even weirder while being pronounced by a child who's only five years old.…
I'm switching off my car's engine, since I've noticed my wristwatch
hands say 18:25..
It's late…
Usually, her coming out of the kindergarten is scheduled for 18:00
o' clock…I really guess that it's happening, the unpleasant sense of foreboding
I had when she didn't come back home with the school bus as her usual.…
I'm sighing, while unwillingly rising from the relaxed position I was
sitting in, then preparing myself to get out of my car.. I'm taking with
me the umbrella I placed on the seat nearby; I open it when my shoes lean
on the wet street asphalt. I find a shelter just before the rain succeeds
in wasting my hair style; finally I head towards the Kindergarten entrance
with quick paces.
I succeed in entering the building easily.… the door is ajar...
I'm slowly shutting it, while looking about. It seems there's nobody
here, at first sight...still I know for sure that somebody 's got to be
inside here.. …
"Entschuldigen? Ist niemand da bei?" (*)
My question finds a quick answer. I become aware of it when I
hear the noise of an opening lock from a classroom not far away.
I'm pretending to look less tense and dismayed when I catch sight of
a middle-aged woman coming in…
She's the Kindergarten principal: Ms. Gleich. The way she's getting
near to me makes me suspect that she has been waiting for me for some time…
"Gutten Morgen, Mrs. Lieslie…", she says. Her opening lets me hope she
has no complaints to put forward..complaints about her behaviour, I mean..
"Gutten Morgen…", I answer warmly. But her look doesn't seem to soften
at all, unlike mine. She stands there serious and impassive, till she brings
herself to go on with her speech.. …
"I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind…" I was wrong. The things are like I imagined first... She has just been waiting for me, in order to talk to me about her…
I can figure what she's going to tell me…Gott in Himmel, I'm so tired
of hearing the same things from anyone who happens to have something to
do with her…
The neighbours, the baby-sitter, the relatives…and now even the kindergarten
manager..…
Anybody has done nothing but complaining to me about her, blaming me
as if I were the one responsible for her arbitrary acts. The hell! She's
not even my daughter, after all! Hell! I'm not the one who educated
her this way; it wasn't my fault that I fell in love with a married man,
who even has got a daughter!
..but surely…I can't blame her for her behaviour…she's only a five years old child, and what she saw is way too enormous for her. Definitely too enormous.
The manager gazes at me for a while with a worried look; she almost
looks like being in a daze while staring at me. Still she seems to "awaken"
after some seconds, making a sign to me to follow her to the classroom
she has just come out of.…
"Come this way, please. I would show you something…", she explains to me, making her way into the classroom. She gives way to me, so I'm the first to get in. What a warm atmosphere...the one surrounding a kindergarten classroom....
Flowers, butterflies, coloured stars fixed to the wall and the ceiling…truly a paradise for children. I feel like smiling at seeing such a merry corner…just think she has never liked the nurseries.She didn't enjoy even when I took her to the hospital paediatrics playground, to let her kill the time while waiting for my shift to be over.
' "I hate all this useless rubbish! They are of no use to me!! ICH BIN KEIN KIND!! HAST DU VERSTANDEN?? " >> (**)
It's happened almost a week ago, but her words are still ringing in
my ears, as if I've heard her just a short time ago..
Her voice sounded thin and childish, but in that moment the things
were like she was trying to deny something evident..…
If she says she's not a child…what does she think she is?… I don't dare make her such an question.… our relationship is already tormented enough; two months have already passed since I married her father, but since then we have been only quarrelling. As a psychiatrist, I'm ashamed of saying it: yet, in this case, that's how the things are like...we can't get on…
It seems like she doesn't want to accept me as her 'new mother'..…it's
understandable, after all …
This is the reason why I didn't mean to speed up…
In the beginning I used to be very optimistic. I clung to the idea
that she would forget even such a big trauma, since she is only a
little child; but I was wrong, evidently…
I tried by all means to meet her half-way, remembering that my personage
should have appeared to her not as a psychiatrist, but as a mother..
Nothing was of any use…
Two months without any progress…
I keep on pretending to be indifferent, looking around, assuming an
almost totally different look from the one my mood suggests to me…
Even if I'm aware of what she's to say to me, I don't want to look
as a prejudiced person…
"Wow! This room is so cheerful! It's the classroom…"
"Perfect.This class happens to be attended by your daughter, Mrs. Lieslie
Haselnuß Inger …" That's the way how Director Gleich interrupts my
speech, before I can even pronounce the interested party's
name...
"On the contrary…by now I should say Lieslie Haselnuß Langley..",
she wants on.
From this point on, I can see why Ms. Gleich is still a spinster …
It seems like she has an intention to come to the point… I'm eager to hear what she has got to say to me …
"What has she done again?…" I answer , my attitude suddenly turning firm yet sorrowful, which better expresses my emotional inclination in this very moment…
Director Gleich looks at me with that enigmatic glance of hers. It's
quite impossible to perceive what kind of thoughts are crossing her
mind in this moment. She just turns, as if she means to show me the way
towards a corner of the classroom where I can possibly find an answer for
my question…
I was right…
"Just take a look for yourself…"I was right, she has something to show
me…
Her last indications make me aware of a child curled up into a ball,
sitting down on the floor, next to a shelf in a corner of the classroom,
as if sheltering behind it.
I watch her once again to make sure it's really her: this long
sleek carrot hair, looking almost totally messed up, is unmistakable, despite
the fact that here in Germany there are thousands of children looking the
same...
"ASUKA!" I can't restrain myself anymore, on seeing the suffering child.
She claps her knees to her bosom,
burying her face in her legs. She must have cried for sure…
It's always like this, whenever she cries. No-one is allowed to see
her tears …
Even when I give up my self-possessed demeanour, then run towards the
child, letting myself be driven only by my instinct, Ms. Gleich keeps on
posing as usual…
I quickly kneel down next to her, not succeeding in hiding my apprehension even this time..
"Asuka!Was ist en loss*!?" I lean my hand on her tiny shoulder; yet my gesture doesn't look like it will induce her to move from her place- on the contrary, I can argue from her moves that my gesture's only made her stiffen even more. Same old story…
No answer from her. Neither by her voice, nor by her gestures.
Slowly, gently, I'm trying to make her release hold of her knees.I know what would await me, if only I made a wrong move. In such occasions she becomes a time-bomb…
Strange. Despite the fact that her arms have stiffened so much,
this time it seems that she feels like satisfying my gentle requests.…
"Komm her, Asuka…", I whisper in a low voice. Following something like
a spontaneous impulse, I stretch my hands in a cautious attempt to take
her in my own arms; but I'd should have been more careful, while behaving
this way towards her…
"GO AWAY!!!" Whit a sudden spring which makes me tremble, Asuka jumps on her feet, trying to move my arms away first, as if she's trying to protect herself. Typical of her…
Yet it always succeeds in amazing me…it's frightening, and saddening
to see all this load of anger and terror coming from a five years child…
Director Gleich is about to arrive there, volunteering
to help me in calming down the little rebellious child, but she halts once
she realizes Asuka has no intention of running away..
I don't recover easily from the surprise, while keeping on looking at
my step-daughter, who finds herself with her back to the wall now. Her
big blue eyes are doing their best to assume the most threatening look
ever, but maybe she's already become aware that it's difficult to endure
posing like this while choking between sobs.…
Our eyes met, showing two opposite feelings: menacing anger for her
part, sorrow filled with understanding for my part…
I stand still staring at her for some moments, and maybe I would have kept on looking at her for some more, if only a slight noise had not broken the surrounding silence, catching my attention at once…
A creak…as if a glass had suddenly shattered …
"What puzzles more is that the creak comes from her hands…whereon I
get a glimpse of blood rivulets..
"What..…" I don't care about the 'safe distance' from her which Asuka
wanted me to respect; all that I can do is focus my look, and approaching
her with a worried attitude, or to say it better with an alarmed attitude
…
"What's wrong with your hand, Asuka!?!" I finally take hold of her arm, and almost forgetful of her former reaction, I want her to show me why she's bleeding. I succeed in opening her hand easily, but her resoluteness is not less than mine …I can argue it from her face, when I turn my look towards her again, waiting for her answer…
What puzzles me more than everything is not the wound itself,
but what caused it, that is what Asuka holds fast in his hand: Glass.
A real piece of deadly sharp glass.
I realize it once when I get a part of it from her trembling hand,
and I too get my finger scratched to end up with...
Without dismissing her frightening look, she starts fixing her eyes
on me. I turn my eyes towards her. She gets vexed, so she turns her
look on the other side.This is the last thing bothering me in such a moment.
My look turns resolute again, yet it's not Asuka that I'm addressing;
it's the callous director, who has been witnessing the scene impassively
till now, as if she were watching a drama …
My right hand is still busy with holding Asuka's arm, but I can use my right hand to raise the small sheet of glass, then lift it up like a trophy before director Gleich.
"Are you out of toys, by chance!? Since when are children supposed to play with glass like this while staying at the Kindergarten!??"
More than worried about Asuka's wound, I'm furious. Furious against the director of this fucking Kindergarten, where children are even allowed to play with a dangerous thing like glass!
Still Director Gleichdoesn't seem so frightened by my words…
I can't understand how she can keep her temper and calmness in such
an occurrence!
She clears her voice, then she sets out for me with slow, yet resolute
paces,with her fingers intertwined. My look changes once again. It is impossible
for me not to feel deeply and totally anguished with fear, while looking
at her expressionless, furrowed visage.
"Please, don't get me wrong, Mrs. Lieslie. This is what I wanted to
show you…"
"Make your meaning clearer, please…." I can't understand the meaning
of her sentence. Neither I intend to lose in stupid thoughts. What's more,
I think my silence is inducing the old director to furnish me with another
explanation , which I ardently hope will be more exhaustive than her first
one …
*
Was I searching for an exhaustive answer? Well, I can say I got it.
What calls it to my mind is my wristwatch, whose hands indicate 8:00 PM,
just in the moment when we reach the threshold of the kindergarten exit
…
Wow…she sure had to tell me a lot of things …on the contrary.
I can argue by her words that all the orthodox answers she gave me
first, were only some silly subterfuges she made use of, to finally
result in the "big deal"…
Still maybe I've not just reacted according to her schedule.
I can't help but smile while thinking over it. To see an old maid like
director Gleich get even more angry and then huffily turn away in front
of my calm demeanour; it makes me feel strange…is this a kind of satisfaction?
I take Asuka's hand when both of us have to cross the fork which divides
us from the place where I parked my car. Asuka never likes to be
seized by her hand …
Just like being taken in one's arms: this is one of the things she
seems to hate.
But I can't help but holding her by her hand, while we cross the crowded
street on the zebra crossings.
Despite her lack of enthusiasm, in such moments she seems understanding…
When my hand clasps Asuka's, I feel at once the thin bandages
that the kindergarten nurse applied while I was talking with the director..
…
This is what gives me a good pretext for breaking the icy silence reigning
over us since when we left the nursery-school…
"Do you see? Once you wipe away the blood stain, there's only a scratch left!" I'm trying to look merry while pronouncing these words, in order to show her that I'm not angry at her, despite her not so good report…
Her big blue eyes turn their attention towards me. Despite the fact
that I was intent on looking at the street before, I can perceive them,
together with their menacing expression.
"Ja…", she nods in assent. Maybe she can camouflage her look well,
but her voice sounds insecure and frightened to me.
We keep silent during the rest of the course which divides us from my car … as if we had nothing to say to each other…
I should tell her so many things, to say the truth…as I rule, I delay
doing it till the right moment…
Delaying, delaying, always delaying… By now, I think I'll never find
the right time to give her a good talking; the one I've never succeeded
in giving her, since she came into my life, together with her father …
"Dummkopf! "Like a bolt from the blue, Asuka's sharp voice makes me
come down to earth, letting my thoughts get lost to nothingness…
I stop for a second, then I turn and look at her questioningly through
my glasses lenses.
"What? " I ask in dismay. What's up with her? Why did she address me so bluntly? Asuka almost seems to look for the occasion to blame me about something, even when it's about a trivial thing. Her look, turned grumpy again, corroborates my thesis.
"Did you get blind?!? Your car is there, we've already passed
it!" , she exclaims, then, with a sudden pull, she frees herself
of my grip on her bandaged left hand . Finally she points at my BMW-ZX
not far away.
Unbelievable. I'm surprised at myself. Just before I was totally rapt
in thought, so that I didn't notice my car, and went on …
How silly I am. Asuka was right, this time…
I smile while realizing it, then I caress the grumpy child's red hair "You're right, mein Schatz. I'm definitely absent-minded today!", I utter, turning on my heel then covering the short distance which divides me from my car.
The child's not following me; she goes on looking at me for some seconds, with a furious look on her face. I open the door on the driver side, then I start to stare the child who looks at me with a scary look from under her yellow umbrella…
I instinctually lean my arm on the border of the door, then I rest on
it my chin too, I rest my arm upon the door edge; immediately aftewards,
I lean also my chin on it assuming a relaxed, almost sarcastic air. …
"So what? What's wrong with you? Will you stand there for ever?" My
ironic tone of voice does not affect her at all, or at least this is what
she wants to make me believe.
She puffs, then she closes her eyes for a moment. Then she approaches
me with slow paces and almost by force. She comes near to the door, which
I keep opened, then she hands her wet umbrella to me, sneaking in
the car like a ferret, passing on all fours from the driver's seat to the
passenger's side.
I spontaneously smile at this gesture. She can keep on 'pretending to
be an adult' as much as she likes, but she will never be able to forcedly
change the child inside of her soul…
I wait for her to settle down on the passenger's seat for good, then
I also ape her gestures and sit down on the driver's seat. Without turning
my her side, I can make out she hasn't stopped yet staring at me…as if
she meant to find in me something like an answer to her inner questions..
First I decide on pretending to stand indifferent before her glance;
but after having manoeuvred to get out of the parking, I can suffer no
more me to ignore these blue eyes, looking so deep and piercing…
I instinctually turn to see her for one moment, then I turn back to
pay attention to the street.
"Why are you keeping on staring at me, Asuka? Is there something wrong
with my face?", I ask her in a shrill, merry voice. Before this last
question of mine, the child arches her brows contemptuously, then she turns
towards the car window, turning her back on me.
There's nothing left to do…
That child always has some reason to hate me from the bottom of her
heart….
Still, there's a topic I can't avoid to talk to her about…
"Asuka…" Taking advantage of the traffic jam we've ended up in, I finally
take my 'courage' in both hands to speak again.
I stop. Before going on I'd like to get from her a slight hint of attention.
And I get it. The child slowly turns towards me, then she looks at
me.
Possibly she imagined what I was to tell her…
I'm taking a deep breath before speaking. "Director Gleich…told me everything…about
what you did today at the Kindergarten…", I go on. My tone of voice
doesn't mean to be reproachful, and I think she got it. I'm trying to express
my sadness and disappointment, more than anything else.
Asuka keeps on looking at me, but she gives me no answer. Maybe she
has not realized it yet, but you can see she has changed…
She can't bear anymore the mask of aggressiveness she has been
wearing till now; by now, she looks almost scared by my words.. …
I turn the engine off, then I rest my elbow on the steering wheel.
"Oh my, Asuka, we have already talked about this, a few days ago!"
Again. My tone doesn't sound reprehensive. I promised to myself I would
make her notice her arbitrary gesture, so something like this wouldn't
happen anymore, but I can't be so rude to her….possibly because I know
she can be much more rude than me…
I'm really useless…
Once again, I receive silence as an answer.
I just believe she has no will of talking with me, for a change …
She sighs, while starting to stare at something before her; maybe at her pink shoes tip…
"Ich…"
I turn round. Unglaublich.…
She has just spoken to me by her own will…
I can't believe it!
She decided on answering to a question from me, once in her life!
"…ich hasse ihn…" Asuka frowns. I can barely believe she pronounced these words to resolutely…
"Asuka, I can understand you hate him! Still you should have not gone
so far!", I'm exclaiming firmly.
Despite of the safety-belt, I instinctually lean out towards
Asuka's seat, so hat my words can be heard well…
Again, her eyes filled with anger are resting on me…
"Do you realize what might have happened, if you had hit him in the eye, instead of the cheek? Both us and him would have been!" I finish my speech in dismay. For the first time in my life I can make her notice one arbitrary action of hers, even if it's not of a big use, according to her unchanged look…
She turns her face away once again, so that her eyes stop meeting mine…
"Jörg deserved a rebuke, and I gave one to him!…"
"A…rebuke?…"
She nods firmly, still ignoring my incredulous look. "Yup…that rascal
played tricks on me! She called me
"wetting-pants", for what happened at the Kindergarten trip last week…."
She blushes for shame
For a short moment I stand still while trying to analyse each of the
words she has just said to me……
I don't think they're lies, it's not the right moment to say them.
Asuka rarely lies about something which bothered her.. …
Despite I have known her for a short time, I'd realize at once if she
were lying…
Then why was her version of the facts different from director
Gleich's ?…
"Director Gleich tell you that I was the one who picked the quarrel,
didn't she? That idiot always blames me for everything! Then, how can she
know what happened, since she wasn't even in the classroom in that moment!?"
I was right. It was anger that she was feeling inside. By now, anger
has rooted in the soil of her soil so deeply that it's not supposed
to be eradicated by means of an impromptu outburst…
I try to resort to a different strategy, even if I can't foresee its
consequences…
"Well…Director Gleich saw the glass in your hand, not in Jörg's..."
"So what?! Look at me! I too got hurt with the glass! Yet I did receive none of the kindnesses she gave Jörg! So much the less that jackass underwent three hours of punishment like me!!"
She pronounces these words stretching her hand out towards me, as if
she wanted to show me the wound she inflicted on herself, just to balance
her classmate's one…
Once she finishes her speech, I can glimpse an unusual sparkling in
her crystal eyes, which slowly makes its way through her pink cheeks..
She's crying.
Once she realizes what's going on, Asuka lowers his head, hoping her
long bang could shelter her reaction from my eyes.
I'm smiling sadly. Even if I'm a psychiatrist… there are moments
like this which explain to me better why I cannot hate a child like her…
She's not bad, she's only exhausted because of her life…being five
years old and having to pass through all this is not a pleasant thing,
of course …
What was hidden in her past was not unimportant, I know it very well.
I understood it when I found her in that room.. then I realized that I
only gained the second place by entering in there…
She had conquered the first place, but I imagine it wasn't the kind
of victory she expected…
That was when I saw her for the first time:
I was one of the psychiatrist treating her mother…
Asuka had just seen her mother's death, when I met her first…
It wasn't the best moment to make her new mother's acquaintance…If
one thinks over it, her behaviour towards me is not so exaggerated…
I tried to win her sympathy by the classic trick of making her presents,
as her father suggested to me. I imagined from the beginning she wasn't
the kind of person who would have let herself be taken in through a teddy-bear
or a trip to the funfair…
With her another strategy is required…but which one? What?
I skim over her shoulder with my hand, while whispering "Asuka"
"DON'T TOUCH ME!!" she yells, then with a sudden outburst, she shifts
her shoulder from me, as if I touched her by a red-hot iron.
.
She's crying for real.
I can see better than ever her big blue eyes wet with tears. Maybe
this can justify her sudden outburst.
Nobody was allowed to see her crying
And now, that's it
She looks at me.
She sighs, trying to restrain what's definitely weeping. She struggles
pretending to look resolute the same.
Sadness-Resoluteness, Sadness-Resoluteness, Sadness-Resoluteness…
Which of the two feelings is hidden in the child's heart?
I think I know the answer …
Even if I would not stake my life on it..
Speaking of Asuka knowing something for certain is unthinkable…
Only doubts and possibilities. Nothing else…
This is what is making Asuka get angry, then fall a prey to nervousness by grinding her teeth and clenching her fists.
"All of you! I…I hate all of you!!! You never understand me!!"
With anger, she brings her hands to her face in order to hide
her eyes. She is having the fidgets. Her pale face is suddenly becoming
purple. I'm under the impression that she she's just used those words to
protect herself, more than to attack someone else…
Possibly, with my sympathetic still sad look, I'm only making her angrier.
She looks at me for a moment, then confusedly fixes my eyes, as if she
hopes to catch a glimpse of a grudge against herself …
Nothing.
Her look hardens even more.
"Ich… ich haße Jörg! ich haße Frau Gleich, abe zuallererest ich haße dich* !!!I hate you!! I hate you!! I hate you all!!!" She stumbles over her words more than once, maybe because her behaviour was already planned. What deals is that I would never expect Asuka going as far as to open the door of my car, then spring out of it, taking advantage of the fact that we were still caught in a traffic jam.
"Mein Gott!! ASUKA!!" I feel an instinctive impulse to stretch
my arm towards her: to no avail. So I press down the foot-brake pedal,
to decelerate. It all comes natural to me: I realize at once this
is not the best moment to be lost in thought.
No matter if it will involve protests from the other motorists, I switch
off the engine, then spring out of my car in my turn, in order
to get the 'runaway child' back…
She's only a child. She can't go for a stroll all alone…
No matter if it's raining outside; just like her, who doesn't seem to
care about it.
I don't mind my wearing shoes that are not so suitable for running,
as she doesn't seem to mind.
It was to be expected: the other car drivers don't fail to protest!
What the hell!! I gotta worry about Asuka! I've got to get her back! Christ,
she's my daughter now! Why does anybody pretend not to understand it!?!
Translations:
I suppose you grasped that a Kindergarten is a Nursery school.
"RegenBogen" means in German "Rainbow"…It's the first name which crossed my mind, thinking about a Nursery school! ^__^; (and it was also one of the few names which sounded good in German, so..…)
"Mein Schatz" is an affectionate expression; its meaning is "My Treasure"
(*) "Sorry? Is anybody in here?"
(**) "I'M NOT A CHILD!! UNDERSTOOD???"
(***) "What's up?"
(***) "Come here, Asuka"
(****) "Go away!"
(*****) "Ja" As anybody knows, it means "Yes" in German.
(******) "Idiot!"
(*******) "Unbelievable!"
(********) "I hate her…"
(*********)"I hate Jörg, I hate Ms. Gleich, but most of all I
hate You!"