The old woman stood by the door of the classroom. The room was filled with college freshmen, she and one other would have to sit in the doorway. She studied each young face. They were easy to see from the place where she was standing. The sunlight filled the air and poured through the window upon the faces of the eager students of which she was one. The students had come to learn Spanish. Some studied to earn their degrees, while others came because they traveled to Mexico or because they were in the medical profession. The old woman had come to learn her own language. She had been born in a small village in southern Mexico but had come to America when she was six years old with her mother and father. They had traveled up the Pacific coastline, working the fruit and had settled in Oregon. This had been many years before. Now she was old and she wanted to learn her language, perhaps she would decide to stay there, to die there, of this possibility she was thinking.
That September morning was fair. She fixed her attention on the professor who was sitting on the edge of his desk. He was a small man and very handsome. He spoke with a thick accent. "I am from Spain, he told the class, southern Spain," he added proudly. "Seville."
The old woman wondered what Seville was like and why he had traveled so far from home. Of course, everyone wanted to come to America, didn't they? Even her own parents had wanted to come to America and they had come, just as this little Spaniard had come.
One afternoon during a class discussion she had asked him just that, why? He spoke only in Spanish during these discussions. "I came for money and to study the theater. In Spain one is only able to study the theater for six months and then no more. Also the libraries in America are extensive, unlike those in Spain." Well, she thought, her parents had not come for this reason.
She had often wondered how old the Spaniard was. Some days he looked quite young, somewhere in his twenties, but other days...older,in his forties. On these days his otherwise handsome face could almost appear ugly. His beautiful expressive eyes would take on an almond shape and wrinkles circled them and spread across his forehead. There were some days, she felt, that the Spaniard was not happy. On these days he could be extremely harsh with his students. She watched him carefully, until she began to wonder at herself and at the way that she would watch him. "Surely this old heart of mine feels alive again," she thought. But she put this out of her mind most of the time because she was practically a dead old woman and he was a young, handsome man.
It was true, the Spaniard was a handsome man. His dark hair curled about the nap of his neck and his voice was rich and deep. His eyes were expressive of all that he felt and this was enough to make any woman fall in love with him, which many woman were, this the old woman could see. But these were not the only things that attracted the old woman to him, for there were many handsome men walking around on the face of the earth but her heart had been dead for a long time. Until now. No, it was not only his physical beauty that attracted her, what she saw over a period of time was his great intelligence and his great sensitivity. These were his valuable things and even his cruelty, yes, his quick anger, could not spoil what he had been gifted with and these were the qualities that she watched day by day and grew to love.
As the school year progressed all of his students grew to love him more, although he became more frequently unhappy and there were bad days with him as well as good.
Early in the fall it became known that the little Spaniard would return to Spain. This seemed far off but made sense to the old woman who was herself planning a return to her own people. "He will be happier," she thought, "although I will miss him."
Once during the year the Spanish class met in the park for games and a picnic. There the young people played soccer. At this the little Spaniard was very good. He took off his shoes and ran in his naked feet. He ran very fast. The old woman had heard of this game but had never seen it played. She sat under a big tree with some other woman. They spoke part English and part Spanish with each other. When one man came running in from the field to rest, sweat poured from his body and he gasped for air. "You look just like an animal." The old woman had spoken to him in Spanish. The man had not understood. Then she watched the little Spaniard run and felt sad to think that some day she would see him no more. She wondered more at herself for feeling this. Why would nature play a trick on her now, when she was a shiveled up old woman and even a blind man would not want her now? Some days she felt very angry over this and could only hope that the love in her heart would not show on her face, the love she had, unwillingly, for the Spaniard.
Finally the end of spring came and the beginning of summer. All the young students were tired from school and this was especially true of the old woman. She understood enough of her language now to go back to her people unashamed that she had lived so many years in America.There was only one sadness in her life and it cut through her with a pain that she would never have imagined possible, this pain was the handsome little Spaniard."Surely I will not say goodbye to him or I may cry" she thought. "And then everyone will wonder at an old woman wanting a young man." Never had life seemed so cruel. She worked quietly in her garden as she thought. She plucked the last dead buds off her rose bush and tossed them to the ground. This rosebush was her favorite the flowers were a deep pink and they had a strong aroma. She snipped off five stems that had multiple blossoms and filled a blue china vase with them. "They never last, " she spoke aloud to a white cat that played with the petals as they fell from the branch. "The petals drop off and make a terrible mess, but the fresh ones are always beautiful." She carried the vase into the house, set it on the table and locked the door.
written in Ashland, Oregon 1987
© 2009 Wendy Martin
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