Free A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

grade was in line.
    Sister Lourdes was the principal. She had hired me, reluctantly having to pay someone to teach, since none of the nuns spoke Spanish.
    “So, as a lay teacher,” she had said, “the first one at San Marco, it may be hard for you to control the students, especially since many of them are almost as old as you. You must not make the mistake that many of my young nuns do. Do not try to be their friend. These students think in terms of power and weakness. You must keep your power … through aloofness, discipline, punishment, control. Spanish is an elective, give as many Fs as you like. During the first three weeks you may transfer any of your pupils to my Latin class. I have had no volunteers,” she smiled. “You will find this a great help.”
    The first month had gone well. The threat of the Latin class was an advantage; by the end of the second week I had eliminated seven students. It was a luxury to teach such a relatively small class, and a class with the lower quarter removed. My native Spanish helped a great deal. It was a surprise to them that a “gringa” could speak as well as their parents, better even than they. They were impressed that I recognized their obscene words, their slang for marijuana and police. They worked hard. Spanish was close, important to them. They behaved well, but their sullen obedience and their automatic response were an affront to me.
    They mocked words and expressions that I used and began to use them as much as I. “La Piña,” they jeered, because of my hair, and soon the girls cut their hair like mine. “The idiot can’t write,” they whispered, when I printed on the blackboard, but they began to print all of their papers.
    These were not yet the pachucos, the hoods that they tried hard to be, flipping a switchblade into a desk, blushing when it slipped and fell. They were not yet saying: “You can’t show me nothing.” They waited, with a shrug, to be shown. So what could I show them? The world I knew was no better than the one they had the courage to defy.
    I watched Sister Lourdes whose strength was not, as mine, a front for their respect. The students saw her faith in the God, in the life that she had chosen; they honored it, never letting her know their tolerance for the harshness she used for control.
    She couldn’t laugh with them either. They laughed only in derision, only when someone revealed himself with a question, with a smile, a mistake, a fart. Always, as I silenced their mirthless laughter, I thought of the giggles, the shouts, the grade school counterpoint of joy.
    Once a week I laughed with the ninth grade. On Mondays, when suddenly there would be a banging on the flimsy metal door, an imperious BOOM BOOM BOOM that rattled the windows and echoed through the building. Always at the tremendous noise I would jump, and the class would laugh at me.
    “Come in!” I called, and the knocking would stop, and we laughed, when it was only a tiny first grader. He would pad in sneakers to my desk. “Good morning,” he whispered, “may I have the cafeteria list?” Then he would tiptoe away and slam the door, which was funny, too.
    *   *   *
    “Mrs. Lawrence, would you come inside for a minute?” I followed Sister Lourdes into her office and waited while she rang the bell.
    “Timothy Sanchez is coming back to school.” She paused, as if I should react. “He has been in the detention home, one of many times—for theft and narcotics. They feel that he should finish school as quickly as possible. He is much older than his class, and according to their tests he is an exceptionally bright boy. It says here that he should be ‘encouraged and challenged.’”
    “Is there any particular thing you want me to do?”
    “No, in fact, I can’t advise you at all … he is quite a different problem. I thought I should mention it. His parole officer will be checking on his progress.”
    The next morning was Halloween, and the grade school had