388
PARTISAN REVIEW
I stood near his desk and watched him set down the letters of his
name. Terror and wonder made him grip the stubby pencil till his
knuckles were white. I touched his shoulder lightly. All at once his
uncertainty passed into belief. The boy looked up at me , gaze
softened. A miracle had befallen him. He accepted. He entered
Canaan boldly. He bore down on the pencil and reproduced with
intense joyful movements his full name. Then he lifted the paper and
gave it to me, as though making a gift of himself.
"It's very well done."
The child was bursting with pride. Allied now, we undertook
to
make peace with the outer world.
"You must apologize to Pedro ."
Daniel glanced quickly at his neighbor, who had passed these
few, mortal minutes in ordinary ways. Pedro had wiped his tears ,
blown his nose, put his mangled plane on a corner of his desk within
eyeshot, to keep the wound open. He had returned to his writing and
was now pressing and grinding the pencil into the paper, producing
black, severe lines that often went clear through the paper.
Daniel rummaged in his desk. Spitballs, broken pencils,
Crayola stubs, a cold hard wad of bubble gum, two pebbles, and a
Coca-Cola cap were rapidly scattered. He found at last his treasure.
"Here, Pedro." He leaned over the boy with a sudden rush of
feeling. "I'll give you this," and he pressed upon Pedro a small red
metal toy soldier. Love had made him generous.
"Here," he insisted, "it was in the Cracker Jacks."
The explanation carried great weight. Pedro accepted the
soldier gravely. He understood it to be a just reward for all he had
suffered.
"And I didn't
mean
it. I didn't
mean
it about your mother." Daniel
was eager to wash away the sins of an earlier, darker period. He was
a new man. Pedro, his anguish turned to sudden triumph, was
pacified. Daniel had settled his old scores. He returned to his seat.
He was ready to begin his new life .
Addition was very hard for them all. The regular teacher had
left them a page of sums. There is a prize for the first correct paper, I
was informed. A gold star is pasted near one's name on the bulletin
board chart. The competition was fierce. Anxiety heated the room.
They struggled in silence with 2
+
1
=
,3
+
3
= .
Daniel crouched
over his desk, a man possessed, cudgeling his brain, pushing the
stub in haste to record his calculations. His need
to
win tensed and
twisted his frail body. From my desk I prayed for him. There was a
