Chapter 14 - Draw Me A Sheep
Today, I wake with a crystal clarity about my mission. As if a hard winter ice is melting, announcing spring, my relationship with Giuseppe Lupo is now very clear. This newly revealed ‘treatment’ aspect of our relationship is somehow freeing. Now that I understand it, it gives me purpose. I can help him and his family. He tells his life’s stories and I duly record them.
The challenge of having to sift through and identify which of his stories is fiction and which real is not my burden. I am free to record his tales as closely to his own telling as I can.
Are they fantastic tall tales or his actual experiences? That no longer matters. I now enjoy the challenge, set by Professor Hans, and further elucidated by the chameleon Julia Lupo. It is up to her to explain which are which, and I admit to myself that I am enjoying that. I get to see more of her.
But I am intrigued by the note that Gio had left me with Hans. How do I file this document? Reaching to Julia for help I leave her a note. Later the same day, I find, stuck in the crack to the door of my locker, her brief response:
Dear Baksheesh,
I’m not sure about my father’s odd little dream story. That is a strange one. A new style. If I were you, I’d just remember the three memories exercise. The Keystones. Remember? Stick to those, one thing will lead to another, I’m sure. Eventually it will all make sense to you, and to us.
This is our hope.
J.
I read the three keystones, over and over. I am not able to decipher them. Their mystery remains opaque. But one thing is becoming clear. The more jaded I feel about the project, the more Julia is entering my heart. It’s like a push and pull effect on me. I decide to simply go with the flow.
Giuseppe Lupo’s Keystones:
His Earliest Impressions of:
1. Art - 'Draw me a sheep.’
2. Color - ‘The kaleidoscopes of Saturn.’
3. Music - ‘S.O.B.’
Before I head to meet Gio, I search my notes and have these three ready. I plan to do nothing but to burrow deeply into each one. His most recent stories were of his mother, the orphanage in Alexandria, and the terrible wrench of separation that he felt, like a deadly punch to his gut, at each of her regular departures.
When I see him, I will only have one question for him. “What are these so-called Keystones?”
Keystone One: Draw Me A sheep
At the St. Vincent de Paul orphanage in Alexandria, Gio spends his days wondering what is next. He is settled in his life but far from comfortable. Yet slowly, it comes to him that he must accept that this is the default of his life, as real and ugly as it feels. He realizes that in acceptance lies salvation. One day he heard an important word in his Islamic studies group class: he learns to surrender.
He begins to pray, in his mind. He repeats what he knows. Confused by his exposure to different religions at the orphanage, her repeats a phrase that he has heard the sisters continuously mumble under their breath: ‘Ave Maria.’ It becomes his mantra.
Gio dreads the regular end-of-the-month report card roll call. This is when their teacher calls out the months' results starting with the highest score and winding down to the worst score. In every classroom, the teacher’s desk stands on a platform that is higher than all the students’ desks. The teacher sits at his desk, peering down at the students, and the roll call begins.
Gio knows that he will be waiting a long for his name. Usually, he’s the last or second last. With each name called, Gio’s heart sinks further, he feels dejected. His terrible score re-confirms the messed up situation of his life.
The students line up in the order that they are called around the walls of the classroom. It becomes customary for the leading students, the ones with the Top Ten scores to look down at, to laugh at and mock the low scorers. For Gio, not only will he score badly and be mocked, he will not have a parent to show his results to. It’s a lose-lose situation.
One dreaded end-of-the-month report card day, a new teacher arrives. She is a young pencil-thin nun, tall with a pale pink face and pale pink hands. Gio notices a tiny braid of blond hair peeking from her cornette. Her first words charge the boys with an electric energy.
“Today we will not read that report card list. No Messieurs. No report card horse race,” she announces. “No need for it, and it doesn’t matter. You will each pick up your report card after class and take it to your parents to sign. That is all.”
And with this simple proclamation, she upends their pecking order routine.
Gio can’t believe that he has been spared the monthly report card embarrassment, all in a delightful instant. He sees the top scorers look around at each other, and at him, unhappy that they will not have their day of gleeful glory.
“My name is Sister Katarina. I come from the great city of Copenhagen, in Denmark.”
She turns to the large chalkboard and draws a tilted oblong shape.
“This is Europe. And here…” She adds an upside-down U shape at the top of Europe. “And these are the Scandinavian countries. Have you heard of these?”
She adds a chalk spot where the two shapes meet. “This is Denmark. Right here. Our capital city is named Copenhagen. Do you know what Copenhagen means? J'aime imaginer que ça veut dire ‘Cité des Copains’.”
To Gio, the idea that somewhere there is a city named as a place of fellowship and friendship is fascinating. For the first time in his life, a crack in the veil of his reality is lifted and he feels something new, hope of a better world. It electrifies him that somewhere in the world, his world, there is a place for fellowship and camaraderie.
Sister Katarina pulls the chair down from the raised teacher’s platform, and to the shock of the boys, the second shock this morning, she turns it around and sits in it backwards with her chest against the back of the chair. She then lifts her frock so that her legs straddle the seat. The boys snicker at the way she sits and at seeing her boots and high bright yellow socks, now clearly revealed.
Gio notices a small hole in her left sock. Oh, she’s just like me, incomplete.
Sister Katarina retrieves a small dark blue book from her identically colored frock. To Gio, it looks like a magic trick. In her left hand, she lifts the book high above her, like a manifesto. The boys giggle at the strange sight: a frocked nun holding a tiny book above her, smiling at them.
“Le Petit Prince. This, boys, is a most wonderful book by a most wonderful man. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.”
She lowers the book, carefully opens it, wets a finger, and turns to the first page.
“To practice your French, I will read you a few pages every day. OK with you boys?”
Gio smiles… This is the first time a teacher has asked them their opinion. This is a most peculiar and very new feeling, like fresh air, and not just any fresh air. It feels like super clean, oxygenated crisp fresh air.
“OK boys? Now then, first we will read the book’s dedication, to a friend of the author.” She opens the book, holds it at arm’s length and reads. She does this theatrically, as if performing. Gio is mesmerized. He has never seen or experienced anything like this. Is this like a holy ghost?
“To Leon Werth
I ask children to forgive me for dedicating this book to a grown-up.
I have a serious excuse: this grown-up is the best friend I have in the world.
I have another excuse: this grown-up can understand everything, even books for children. I have a third excuse: he lives in France where he is hungry and cold.
He needs to be comforted.
If all these excuses are not enough then I want to dedicate this book to the child whom this grown-up once was.
All grown-ups were children first. (But few of them remember it.)
So I correct my dedication:
To Leon Werth,
When he was a little boy.”
Gio settles in his chair, charmed by the magic of the words. An adult honoring a small boy. This is new. He remembers his secret ailment: his throat always hurts with words aching to be released, with a need to express himself and spill out his mind’s jumble. Sometimes he is unable to sleep from the pain in his neck. Now, in an instant, hearing her words, he feels relief. The pain in my throat is gone.
The book starts with drawings made by the author as a child, that he shows to adults who do not understand them. When he shows them an elephant swallowed by a boa constrictor, they see a hat. The author is frustrated and explains that eventually he gave up on art, grew into an adult and became a pilot instead.
One day, his plane crashes in the Sahara Desert. After days of looking for help, he sees an apparition. A short, golden haired boy, a prince, appears to him and asks him to draw him a sheep. Now being an adult and no longer a boy, he draws one sheep after another, but the little prince is not satisfied.
Finally, frustrated, he draws this, telling the Little Prince: “This is his box. The sheep you want is inside!”
“That’s exactly how I want him.” The Little Prince explains, to the surprise of the author.
After reading this segment, Sister Katarina pauses. She neatly puts the book away into her frock, where it disappears, again like magic, and looks up at the boys. She scans them one by one as she speaks, locking eyes with each of them for a moment, as if to allow her words to sink in, before moving on to the next boy.
Gio notices that she looks emotional and not stern like all the other sisters.
“You see my dear messieurs, what is important is not always apparent. Use your imagination.”
She eventually arrives at Gio, and addresses him.
“Our fate is not written in the stars, not totally. We add color to the black pencil sketch of life that we are given. We are only given an outline. But it is our job in life to add our own unique color. Wherever we go and whatever we do. We add color.”
She slowly pats the book, now hidden inside her frock.
“Here is the amazing thing. Do you know where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had the vision for this story? Where he crashed his plane and saw The Little Prince?”
The boys shake their heads.
“Well, it was right here, in Egypt, in your country, in the deserts between Alexandria and Cairo. His plane crashed and he wandered in the desert alone for days until he was rescued. During these days, he had the visions of the Little Prince, and then he wrote the book before he could forget.”
She looks at the boys and tells them. “That was his color.”
During the next days and weeks, Sister Katarina continues to read chapters from The Little Prince. It became the boy’s favorite class.
Gio remembers her recount the story of The Little Prince’s red rose, who charms him when she, upon opening her petals for the first time at sunrise, thinks she is as old as the sun. As Sister Katarina reads, he imagines in his mind’s eye how beautiful that rose is, how it is unique for The Little Prince among a million other similar roses, and wishes that he had a rose of his own to care for.
And so, Gio is deeply, permanently impacted by the story of The Little Prince and the invitation to imagine, all in one Keystone sentence ‘Draw me a sheep.’
One day, Sister Katarina startles them.
“Boys. Young Men. My dear, dear, young friends, I am so sorry, but I must go back to Copenhagen.”
The class, now so used to the ease of her presence and the familiar atmosphere of her classes, erupts in havoc. Gio imagines her taking him with her, to Copenhagen, this fantasy city of fellowship and friendship. He would spend his life listening to her stories.
“Boys, boys, no. Wait.” Sister Katarina pleads just as the head sister opens the door to see what the commotion is about. Seeing her enter, the boys grow silent and resigned once again.
“Sister Katarina? Weren’t you about to leave?” The head sister asks, firmly.
Sister Katarina pretends not to notice and continues speaking to the boys.
“Let me tell you a parting story and I want you to promise me to always remember it. OK? I’ll tell you the story and then I’ll go.”
The boys nod. The head sister sighs with disappointment and crosses her arms.
Gio notices the tension. The boys next to him whisper: “It must be because Katarina cancelled the report card day,” another proclaims “no, stupid. It’s the yellow socks.”
“There was once, in a faraway land, a ruthless tribal leader. His name was Leif Andor. Horrible man. He owned all the land of his fiefdom. Do you know what fiefdom means?” Katarina side glances at the head sister. She sees her tapping her toe, not happy.
“Well, it means he owned everything in a very large piece of land, and he made all the rules for everyone living there. Anything they planted and grew, all their food, and anything anyone wished to do, well Leif Andor had to approve it first. Even building their own homes.
Imagine, he did this to his own tribe. He was an awful, bullying leader.
“One day, his wife’s brother wanted to build his own house. Just a small house for himself, his wife and family. He asked the Leif Andor for permission but the ruler refused. He asked again and again but the request was rejected.
So Leif Andor’s wife said to her husband, why are you refusing this? The ruler answered her, well if everyone builds a house then I will have no more land. His wife answered him dear oh dear, I have a solution. Allow any gown man to build a house as long as he is only allowed to use one thousand bricks, and not one single brick more than a thousand. That’s only enough for a couple of rooms. This way you can control what happens. She knew what Leif Andor really feared: This way, you will always have the largest house, your palace.
Leif Andor agreed and issued a rule that any grown man could build a house of no larger than a thousand bricks, and as long as they stayed within a thousand bricks or less, no harm would come to them.
Now, this ruler, Leif Andor, although he was ruthless, he always stuck to his word whenever he issued a law. His word was final, set in stone. His tribe was delighted at this rule and went about building small family homes.
A week later, the ruler looked out the window of his palace bedroom and saw a huge home had been built. The house was higher and bigger than his palace and obstructed his view of the fiefdom. He screamed at his wife, look at what your brother has done, he blocked my view and built a huge house. He didn’t stick to the rules and I will punish him with death. No, I will torture him first. No, I will make him eat all the extra bricks that he used.
The wife looked out the window and smiled. No, he has not used more than what you allowed him. Look, he just added a lot of windows and doors everywhere. That’s why his house is larger than your palace, but you set the rules and he didn’t break them.”
Sister Katharine gathers her things. She straightens her frock.
“So, boys, remember, always use your imagination. You see, he took the thousand bricks but made himself happy, he added lots of windows and ours, his color. Remember. In our imagination, in our art and in our story-telling is the magic of our freedom. Always add color!”
And with that story, Sister Katarina planted the first keystone inside Gio’s soul. She became his favorite person, his ray of hope. Although Sister Katarina only taught for a few months, she affected Gio’s life in ways that stay with him for the rest of his days. She fed the active imagination in his mind.
He had been creating fantasies in his mind to escape the harsh realities of his existence but now she showed him that there is a whole other world, just as real, in fantasy and in storytelling.