It is a beautiful spring afternoon and a eurythmix class in my beloved PUBLIC school. Six-year-olds around me. The room rather fatigued after the whole day of classes. Desks far from the initial order, some chalk dust in the air, also I – not at all in a perfect shape. To be honest, after all these classes I’m done and always want to cancel the last one and go home. But I can’t – and so I wait for my fellow-passenger. He is so neat and dutiful that he has probably never fleed from anything (OK, maybe apart form his own wedding, he really made off then...). Life. It rings for my entrée.
The youngest generation of the Polish intelligentsia walks in the room. Walks in? They simply fly in. I hold a teacher’s PC – a real state of the art, but a couple of years ago. Have to deal with it, smartly register attendance, type the topic in and manage to hit “enter”. Phew.
And here comes my favourite pupil, number 9. I absolutely cannot understand why Ignatius is his given name, not Henry. The sharp “i” and broken “gn” are a complete mistake. Harry fits perfectly. He always looks like as if he was fixing something in a sandbox and was kind enough to drop his gig, come to the music class and go through it. I, the teacher, have to deal with it and carry this burden. There are some more like him in the upper grades...
He usually behaves in the characteristic COOL FELLA way. He would probably eagerly rearrange the desks if he could, but because he cannot, he jumps under the chair instead, convinced that he is invisible and that I am too blind and too old to spot him anyway. I don’t have the heart to ask him to crawl out. His face says it all, “Hah! She can’t see me! Hah! I’m so smart, one more minute and she’s gonna look for me!” – and who knows why he really does it...
Harry doesn’t wait for too long, he takes his fate into his own work-worn and grimy hands and... joins in the fun when he hears the music. Hooray! Of course, as usual, I sincerely believe that I show them what the beauty of art really means. I myself get excited with the sounds I pull out from the half dead school piano. I tell them a story. The spring tunes us in to the metaphysical atmosphere... We are searching for the treasure. There are a lot of adventures on our way, completely made up, sometimes they’d better not exist. Finally, we make it to find a seed. Everybody is absolutely disappointed, ‘cause what kind of treasure is that? – to be returned to the shop (on presentation of the receipt). Meanwhile, I scale the heights of metaphor: spring, life, rebirth, a new thought, logos, dia-logos, ugh...
Harry zones out, so he bumps into each and every person as wild expression is getting out of his thin and small body. Eventually, we decide to plant the seed. A hole is needed. Harry digs in the parquet. In the end he stops, his feet spread and his arms akimbo, looking into the invisible hole, totally convinced that it really exists - after all, he himself made it, so he knows it does!
- Miss, we’re not gonna make it that way – he gasps – I need a spade. D’YA have one, Miss? – these are the moments when I know that I’m alive.
- I do, take the biggest one with a red handle. It is there, by the mirror – I answer with a poker face.
- Cool (!) – responds Harry raising his hand to show “thanks” while running for the spade. All is clear. There is no doubt which spade to choose, if one of them has a red handle. Full understanding. The seed planted. Harry finishes burying it with his foot, there is “no way he’d dURty his hands”. And I still keep on playing. And I say that now the seed sprouts into a fantabulous plant, never seen in this world before. Again I reach the heights of my wisdom – it is them who are the plant, they are a clean page, they sprout to life - and so on, and so on... I start to get emotional.
But HARRY interrupts.
- Hang on a sec, Miss! What about the rain?
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