The city woke up crying. I walked out to the clamor. Down the street men on scooters stopped to unload food then disappear into buildings. Children wearing uniforms under backpacks walked into computer rooms. The great apartment across the street was waking up. Trucks backed to the ground floor furniture store. People came down from their cells, walking through the aisles of new beds and tables to shop under the fluorescent lights of the adjacent grocery store. The rented world was awake.
I sat on the ledge of our landing writing report cards when the boy came over. He wore a brown, hooded-coat with the fur-lined hood up over his black hair. He looked at me with large, black eyes. His eyes were remarkable. In every other way he looked like an average Korean boy.
I said hello and smiled. Although he could not have stood closer without standing upon me he did not acknowledge my greeting. When I said hello again, this time in Korean, I received the same stare. He just stared, inches from my face, with those big black eyes.
“What’s your name?” I said. He leaned in closer to look at the letters I was placing together on the paper on my lap.
“Irumun buot iyaeyo?”
No use. He wasn’t going to disrupt his role as detached observer to offer a word, in any language. I wrote: Kristy is improving. Her reading and speaking skills are getting better everyday. We need to work on her pronunciation but overall she is a great student. I enjoy having her in my class.
He reached across my lap to touch the hand I wrote with and the beads on my wrist. I feared he might begin to pet me. But no matter how awkward it got I wasn’t going to be pushed from my seat, or my work, by a 10-year-old boy. The report cards were due by the beginning of school and I had these minutes before the bus came, then the quick ride to finish them. So I sat my ground, writing—-all the while under the scrutiny of this silent boy, his face inches from mine.
There are those in Eastern thought that believe silence is a form of conversation. If that is true then we were getting to the bottom of many things. I wasn’t making the best eye contact, and wasn’t sure how good of listening skills I displayed as I sat there scrawling, but the boy was intent on our interaction. He seemed to speak passionately about something that didn’t need verbalized.
Karina came out to wait with me. Although she dresses far more interestingly, and is quite prettier than I am, she did not take the boy’s interest. “I’ve made a friend,” I told her as she sat down. I looked up and smiled at the boy. He continued to stare.
The white van stopped and the door opened. I had a sense that the boy was there for some purpose but I could not uncover it. It was cold. I told him goodbye, that I would wait in the van where it was warm. Still he said nothing. Still he looked at me with those eyes. In time the other teachers came. Before we drove off I looked for him. He was standing on the sidewalk, watching me leave.
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