Reminiscenses

Just the other day, in class, Flora and I were talking about events that happened in our childhood. She mentioned her first day at school and I was impressed by her eidetic memory. My visual memory is way worse than hers. Now, please let me tell you the figments that I still remember about my first day at primary school. It was 1968. Exactly the year that we saw bunches of students out in the streets protesting and, according to my father, making a big mess. Of course I didn't understand a thing, but in a a way I could sense there was something really weird going on. Something in the air, that made adults lower their voices or even stop talking when children were around. Furthermore, there was a moment of profound grief when a young nextdoor who used to play ball with us simply disappear, vanished from university, went to class and never came back. There was a general mourning, very similar to the one I had just seen when my granny died, except for the boy's body strangely never showed up. On that year, an uncle came to live with us for a while because he had been approved as a student at medical school. My parents used to host young relatives who came to study in the "big city". The thing is, on the day that I thought was my uncle's first day of class, he came home barely standing on his own feet, smelling like a pig, covered with flour and eggs, paint and godknowswhatelse! It took me some time to recover from the shock, especially because of his lovely Roberto Carlos hairstyle totally shaved! If you know this Brazilian students tradition, you will picture it. In my mind my uncle had done a huge mess. This time, we all heard my father talking to him, out, loud and clear. Students shouldn't talk too much, or be friends with people they did not know well. My father would always advise us to stay out of trouble, whilst my mother would remind us to take a jacket along. A few days later it was my turn to start school. Up till then I had gone to kinder garden - as preschool used to be called. It doesn't count as school because it was only playing, says my eldest brother. One year and a half of "knowing-it-all" ahead of me, my brother had told me about school rules and punishment (he was expert in the latter). I knew from the beginning there was going to be trouble because, so far, I had never been able to remember rules or behave like a lady. Can you imagine me at the age of 6 or 7, having to stand still, in line, without talking, or, worse still, without smiling too much? I felt was sure to come back home bald, painted and so miserable I would not stand upright. I did not want to talk to anybody, or look at no one. I was so terrified that they would make me disappear if I said something that was not to be said, or if I were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Well, there I was, tinny and skinny, standing in line, holding hands with my uncle, trembling so much that people could hear my knees clicking against each other. So said my uncle. I remember it slightly. As this has become one of the family's favourite tales, I'm quite sure my uncle exaggerates when he acts it out, year after year in the annual family get together. Although I can almost feel my knees shaking when I think back about those days. Who wouldn't have imagined things? And, besides, who isn't a bit afraid of what is yet to come? To Flora