Museum of Natural History
I don’t know what overcame me but my hand shot up.
I was used to raising my hand in class. I often knew the answer to the question, no matter the subject and loved to engage with the teacher.
But this time, I immediately felt I had overstepped.
I was 13 years old, in ninth grade General Science class. I was the youngest in my class, having skipped the eighth grade.
Out of the corner of my eye, I searched to see if anyone else had extended their arm.
I was alone.
“Yes?” the teacher asked.
My thoughts roiled in my brain.
“My mother will do,” I said, trying to sound confident.
“Thank you.”
When the bell rang and class was dismissed, I gathered my books. “Why didn’t you say you had to ask her first?” I agonized.
I arrived home and as usual, did my homework, but then uncharacteristically fussed about. I finally approached my mother, busily chopping onions in the kitchen.
I swallowed.
“My science class is going on a trip to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.”
“Zere nice,” she said.
English was her third or fourth language and she often mangled her words.
I knew she was attending school at the “Y” to study English. She dutifully wrote sentences in her black and white speckled notebook but to my eyes, she did not seem to be making any progress at all.
She was a modest, humble woman but spoke with a strong accent reminiscent of her pre-war life in Romania.
What would my friends think?
What would I say to them if they asked “Where is she from?”
“At least she isn’t Hungarian”, I thought, consoling myself. To my ears, Hungarians sounded like rude Draculas. And she wasn’t Polish, like my father and his relatives who took took turns amusing each other in an escalating vortex of irony and sarcasm. Once, when a family friend, who had become wealthy, waxed on and on about her manicures and pedicures, my father riposted “Back home, you also had manicures and pedicures.”
My mother would never make jokes.
In fact, she seemed to have no sense of humor at all.
I remained motionless and went on.
“The teacher asked for a parent to come with us and I said that you would do it.”
I secretly hoped that she would decline.
Instead she looked up and smiled.
“You did? Ven is it?”
That was that.
The die was cast.
In days to come, I heard my mother excitedly telephone her sisters and tell them that she was going on a school trip with my class.
I grew more and more morose.
The day arrived.
My mother wore a two-piece fitted suit, heels and hat.
We walked to the school.
I introduced her to the teacher.
I wondered if anyone noticed her accent.
The students excitedly walked to the elevated train station.
I glanced at my mother.
She stood in the rear, taking her guardianship duties seriously.
At the museum, we were greeted by the fossilized skeleton of an enormous dinosaur, its neck reaching to the ceiling of the domed entrance hall.
“What is she thinking?” I mused.
We wandered from room to room.
The students seemed to be engaged by the dioramas of prehistoric families gathered around a campfire.
“Fire is also big,” I though and then, chastised, realized I was mixing Yiddish and English with a dash of Jewish hyperbole.
My mother, with wonder, looked at the mineral cabinets.
“How does she reconcile the scientific l world with her world?” I wondered.
I saw her speaking with the children.
I realized that she was the best dressed woman in the museum.
The day ended but her radiance continued.
It lasted for a long time.