Later that same year Miriam receives a kaleidoscope as a gift. When she first puts it to her eye, she forgets to breathe. It is a window into the world of the perfectly thrown stone, the land of Perfectimundo. Miriam wishes she could squeeze through the eyehole and into the tube, joining the flawless symmetry. Failing that, she decides she is fully prepared to spend the rest of her life holding the cylinder to her face. When a well-meaning adult rotates the cylinder, Miriam screams so loudly her nanny fears a piece of colored glass has lodged in her charge’s eye. The kaleidoscope is grabbed away just as Miriam realizes that the movement did not destroy perfection, but created it anew. She demands the present back, spends the rest of the day frozen except for the rotation of one hand, the kaleidoscope pointed toward the sun. By the time Miriam goes to bed, the kaleidoscope clutched to her chest, she has decided that where there is a window there has to be a door. That night Miriam vows, with the solemnity of all seven of her precocious years, that even if she must spend her whole life searching for the door to Perfectimundo, she will find it.
Saul comes to breakfast with multiple copies of the
Norristown Times-Herald
and the
Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Good morning, star,” he says, presenting the papers to his daughter.
The
Times-Herald’s
front page proclaims
HUNTINGDON
GIRL
SPELLS
HER
WAY
TO
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
while the
Inquirer
places its more sedate “EYRIR”
TAKES
METRO
AREA
SPELLER
TO
NATIONALS
in its Neighbor section.
The
Times-Herald,
with its photo of Miriam, Saul, and Aaron joining Eliza in the winner’s circle, holds Eliza’s interest longer, it being one of the few family pictures ever taken. Eliza’s face is a still life of suspended disbelief, her trophy a baby she didn’t know she was about to have. Saul grasps her shoulders, his face glowing with pride and possession. Miriam stands to their left, her hand caught midway to Eliza’s arm as if unsure whether it is safe to touch. Aaron stands at the frame’s edge, face out of focus, largely concealed by the people around him. Everything is much smaller than it seemed at the time.
It is not the photo Eliza was expecting. Her family doesn’t look anything like the stuff of photography studios. Theirs is no pearl-finish portrait of interlocking hands and matching smiles. Instead, they more closely resemble odd puzzle pieces, mismatched slots and tabs jammed into each other to force a whole. Eliza examines the picture with the detachment of a stranger, seeing for the first time the way her father and mother avoid contact, her brother’s perpetual old woman slouch, and the way she freezes at Saul’s touch as if immobility will preserve the moment. Eliza spots unfamiliar hard lines around the man’s eyes, a strange emptiness to the woman’s face. Even the girl starts to look unfamiliar, her eyes a little too bright, her face a little too eager. Eliza struggles to convince herself that when she looks away from the picture she will be surrounded by familiar figures and not the strangers in the photo. Looking up from the newspaper is like walking into a darkened room from the noonday sun. It takes a moment for Eliza’s eyes to readjust. But there is her father, whistling one of his morning songs as he pages through the paper. There is her mother, head tilted to one side as she scours the pan Saul used to scramble eggs. She knows these people. She turns the
Times-Herald
photo side down.
Saul, beaming like a new father, hands out papers like cigars. When he suggests they take turns reading aloud, Aaron says something about a sore throat, gets up to make himself a cup of tea. Between mouthfuls of egg, Saul does his best sportscaster imitation.
“‘After four hours, only two remained. Chopak Singh, a three-time area champion, held his ground for a grueling ten rounds, but finally lost out to first-time speller’” — Saul performs a drum roll on the table with his fingers — “‘Eliza Naumann!’”
Miriam appears at Eliza’s side, something gift-wrapped in one hand.
“This is for you,” Miriam says.
The room goes silent as Eliza stares at the present. Saul feels ashamed of the sudden spike of jealousy he feels toward his daughter, tries to bury it in bites of toast. Miriam gives sensible presents at sensible times: birthdays, Hanukah, their anniversary. In eighteen years, she has never surprised him.
Miriam hands her daughter the gift as though she’s relaying a baton, her face concentrating entirely on the exchange. For an extended moment, both Eliza’s and Miriam’s hands hold fast to opposite ends of the gift and Eliza fears she has done something to change her mother’s mind. When Miriam finally releases her grip in a sudden flurry of fingers, it looks as if she is waving goodbye.
In addition to Miriam’s gaze, which weighs Eliza’s every move, Eliza can sense her brother’s and father’s stares. Her initial thrill at the surprise has dulled into a vague dread. She suspects she has been given a pop quiz that will be evaluated three different ways, guaranteeing at least one failing grade.
Eliza carefully unwraps, flinches when part of the paper pulls off with a piece of tape. When she uncovers the old kaleidoscope, she mistakes it for one of those fancy tubes that tights are sometimes sold in, maybe ones that aren’t so scratchy.
“No,” Miriam says perhaps a little too harshly when Eliza tries to pull off the top, freezing her daughter like an animal sensing it has been sited in crosshairs. Miriam catches herself, softens her tone. “It doesn’t come apart. It’s a kaleidoscope. It was mine when I was a girl.”
It’s nothing fancy. Once bright blue cardboard is muted by age, sun, and wear. Inside, the standard beads and baubles. Eliza holds it to the light, gives it a few turns, tries to imagine what she’s supposed to say.
“Um, thanks, Mom. It’s neat.” Miriam is staring at her so intently that she puts the toy to her eye again. Maybe her mother stuck something special inside the tube. She turns it a few more times, but no. It’s just a kaleidoscope.
Miriam can taste her disappointment, goes to the sink for a glass of water. She needs the distance to stop herself from grabbing the gift back. They’re all three watching her as she returns to the table.
“I should have given it to you sooner. I suppose you’re too old now.” She ignores Saul’s continued stare, the questions in his eyes.
Eliza’s face brightens. “No, Mom, it’s good you waited or I might have messed it up. I mean, this is
old,
right? You had it when you were a girl.”
Miriam’s last hope of recognition dies.
“Yes, Eliza, it’s old. Almost as old as me.”
Eliza smiles, pleased. She carefully places the kaleidoscope on a cushion of wrapping paper, as if it were spun glass instead of cardboard. Miriam can already envision its internment on a dusty shelf in Eliza’s room, never to be used again. Saul shakes his head and laughs.
“That’s right, Elly, it’s a real artifact. From long, long ago before there was Atari.” Unlike Eliza, who is afraid to look, Saul can see that the excitement is gone from his wife’s eyes. Even as he wonders what it was Miriam intended, he knows she won’t tell him.
Soon after the area finals, Miriam starts coming home at six forty-five instead of six o’clock. Her six o’clock arrivals had been so routine for so long that Saul could anticipate where, in the opening theme music to the
NBC
“Nightly News,” he would hear the jangle of Miriam’s keys and the click of the front door. The first time six o’clock passes without her appearance, Saul can imagine nothing less than a critical accident to have caused the delay. When she finally arrives, Saul enfolds her in his arms, surprised at the strength of feelings he had thought faded.
“Are you all right?” he asks, all concern, ready to turn whatever Miriam says into a rebirth for them both. He is ready, he thinks, for a new beginning.
“I’m fine,” she says, bemused. Saul releases her from his arms. His outburst has passed through her like a band of invisible light. “I’ll be coming home later now. Do you mind waiting dinner?”
She says it has to do with work, but there’s a flush to her face now, a barely submerged heat.
When Eliza arrives at school, the showcase in the front hallway features Sunday’s articles. Eliza avoids looking at the family photo, focusing instead on her name in print. She remains there after she has finished reading, pressing her face against the glass and uttering a few well-timed
Huhs
and
Wows
with the arrival of buses in an attempt to lure admirers. She nets a few first graders but is frustrated by having to read the articles to them and gives up.
After the pledge of allegiance, Dr. Morris announces Eliza’s name over the P.A. and Mrs. Bergermeyer makes the class applaud. Kids who have been in her class since second grade start looking at her differently. She feels the way Billy Mauger must have felt when he came in bald from chemotherapy and everyone stared even though they had been told not to.
Outside of class is more comfortable than in. At recess, Eliza is approached by a few of the girls who don’t wear designer jeans and quietly make straight A’s each quarter. Sinna Bhagudori is among them.
“What was it like?” Sinna asks, eyes bright. The other girls nod, glasses frames bouncing on their noses.
“It was like being in a movie,” Eliza replies. “It was like being famous.”
In class, Eliza feels like a specimen: this is how a spelling champion walks to class, this is how a spelling champion enters the girls’ room, this is how a spelling champion chews her pencil eraser.
The stares she receives are resentful.
You’re supposed to be one of the stupid ones,
their eyes say.
You’re supposed to be like us.
Eliza is walking to the bus when she is approached by Carrie Waxham, a stick of a girl with pinched, closely spaced eyes and stringy blond hair.
“Snob,” Carrie mutters.
She pokes Eliza in the back with her finger. Hard.
“Stuck-up.”
Eliza feels stupid about the tears that suddenly appear, wipes them away while pretending to scratch her nose. Carrie sits a row behind her and chews her gum just loud enough for the kids around her but not Ms. Bergermeyer to hear. She can’t do fractions at all. In the class bee, she got out on
PURPOSE
.
“It doesn’t matter,” Eliza whispers to herself, then freezes. They are the same words she has heard Aaron mutter so many times, walking angrily home with a new bruise or scratch. Eliza had promised herself she would never say them, never put herself in a position where she was forced to comfort herself with that lie.
Saul has spent the day rehearsing speeches in his head, playing out entire scenes between himself and his daughter. He knows the enormity of what he is taking on and knows that if it is to work at all, he must take things slowly. He must not frighten Eliza with the scale of his plans, the height of his ambitions. As much as he’d like to, he can’t start out with his bee epiphany. If Elly is to realize her enormous potential, she must realize it on her own terms.
They will start by focusing solely on spelling. Eliza must have a strong foundation from which to jump if she is to have any chance of flying. The dictionary will be their foundation. The ancients advised thorough knowledge of the texts before undertaking the Kabbalah. The national bee is approaching. They will prepare for it together.
While Eliza is at school, Saul purchases Webster’s Third International Dictionary, the English language spread among three hard-bound volumes.
He is waiting for her when she gets home. He pretends not to notice her look of surprise, as if his presence at the kitchen table upon her arrival is the most natural thing in the world.
“You look as if you could use a snack,” he says before she has a chance to say anything. “I cut up an apple for you and a little bit of cheese. You can have a cookie if you want, but too much sugar will make you crash later on, which is bad for sustained concentration. If we’re going to do this right, we need to start taking things like that into account.”
“Huh?” says Eliza, and Saul realizes that he’s already strayed from his script, so caught up in his excitement that he skipped over the part where he lets Eliza in on the plan.
“Here,” he says, leading Eliza to his study door. The far corner of the room has been magically cleared of papers and notebooks. In their place is a small wooden worktable and two chairs. The three volumes of the Third International are stacked on the table’s center.
“I thought this would work well as a study area. We don’t have as much time as I would like, but I think we can get through a lot in two months. I’ve drawn up a sample schedule that covers daily practice as well as a rough syllabus for the entire period, but it will all depend on what we find works best for us.”
He stops for breath, notices the confused expression on his daughter’s face, and shyly smiles. “So, Elly-belly, you want to give it a whirl? Can I help you study?”
For a moment, Eliza catches a glimpse of her brother in her father’s face, the dogged determination and unflagging hope of a boy waiting to get picked for the team. Though she knows it is not an option, not something she would ever dream of doing, she is filled with momentary giddiness at the idea of saying no.
“Are you sure it won’t be boring for you?”
“Elly,” Saul replies, placing his hands on her shoulders, “you have no idea how exciting this is.”
Elly nods. She manages an “Okay” in place of the jubilant “YES!!” that is inside her, fearful its intensity might scare him. She can hardly believe when Saul motions to the table and says, “This is your space, Elly. You can come here whenever you want.” When she hesitates, he insists that she be the first to sit down, the first to open a volume of the dictionary. She feels the book’s weight, smells the new paper smell bought for her nose alone.
Eliza is amazed by what she sees inside. The dictionary’s words are the exact size of those she has pictured lining the inside of her head, chest, and legs. The dictionary is her body’s knowledge made manifest. So that, as Eliza reads the words, she feels as if she has done this before, is merely ghosting with her hand and eye what her brain has been doing all along.