Love Or Liberation

Chapter 6

Elaine was happy with her classes and seeing Jack on Saturdays, and she had friends she talked to and ate with, but worried about what Sartre referred to as being "de trop" in the novel Nausea. The word seemed to refer to living a meaningless life, of being superfluous.

One day, Elaine noticed a paper posted on a bulletin board that advertised an organization called the Citizenship Council, which connected Columbia and Barnard students with underprivileged children for tutoring. She got in touch with the Citizenship Council and was assigned to a third grader named Emily who lived further uptown from the Barnard campus. Four stops uptown on the subway took Elaine to Emily's walk-up.

When Elaine knocked on the door, she heard, "Who is there?"

"Elaine."

"We don't know anyone named Elaine."

"I'm here to tutor Emily."

The door unlocked and Elaine faced three kids who were dressed nicely, as if they were going to church, except for their bare feet. The two older kids had small afros. The youngest had her hair pomaded into several asymmetrical pony tales which were twisted and clipped at the ends with colorful barrettes. She was wearing a pink floral dress.

The youngest one said, "I thought your name was Lillian."

"Well, is your name Emily?"

Emily had a brother, Todd, who was two years older than her and a sister, Christine, who was in high school. Their mother was at work when Elaine arrived.

Emily led Elaine into the living room. There was a worn couch in front of a coffee table. Elaine and Emily sat down on the couch. Her brother and sister disappeared into another room. Elaine didn't hear them again.

"Do you have your textbooks?"

Emily scowled. "I don't take them home."

Elaine looked at Emily sympathetically. "Well, I understand you're not doing well in your classes."

Emily turned away and said, "I hate school! Who would want to take schoolwork home?"

Elaine kept her gaze on Emily. "Well it's hard to like something you don't understand. Learning can be fun, though. If you'll bring your textbooks home I can help you. What subjects are they teaching you?"

Emily turned back to Elaine and, smiling, said in a sing-song voice, "Reading, writing, 'rithmetic."

Elaine smiled back at Emily. "Do you study science or social studies or history?"

Emily hung her head and said, "Yeah, the teacher talks about science and America's history. It's boring."

Elaine nodded. "Can you read?"

Emily scowled again. "Reading is hard."

"What can you do in math?"

Emily looked like she might cry.

"I can't do anything, unless I use my fingers to count. My teacher tells me not to do that."

"If I make flash cards, with an addition problem on one side, and the answer on the other, you can make a game of seeing how many you can get right. If you don't get one right, just repeat the equation with the answer several times, so you'll remember it later. How does that sound? You can keep that up until you remember them all."

Emily looked a little bit hopeful. "It's like a game?"

Elaine smiled. "Yes. When you remember all the addition problems, we can do the same thing with subtraction problems. Are you doing multiplication yet in school?"

"Yeah, but I don't get it."

"We'll do those, too. You'll see, you'll learn them quickly if you keep using the flash cards." Elaine patted Emily on the back. "Do you have anything to read here?"

Emily frowned again. "I don't read unless I have to. It's too hard."

"Does your family have any books in the apartment?"

Emily shrugged. "Just the Bible."

Elaine continued to be cheerful. "That will do. Could you get it and bring it over to me?"

"Okay. It's in my parents' room." Emily got up and went out of the room.

Elaine looked around. The furniture was all comfortable but worn and frayed. She noticed there was no television there. There was a console with a record turntable, radio, and speakers.

Emily came back with the King James Version of the Bible and handed it to Elaine before sitting next to her on the couch again. Elaine opened the Bible to Proverbs and handed it back to Emily.

"There. Read that aloud to me. Just sound it out and read it as well as you can."

Emily stuttered and stumbled over the words, but she slowly sounded them out with Elaine occasionally telling her a word. Sometimes, Emily would ask what a word meant and Elaine would explain as well as she could. After Emily had read two pages, Elaine asked her if she understood what she had read.

"I think so. I remember the preacher talking about it."

Elaine told Emily that she would be tutoring her every Tuesday and Thursday and made her promise to have textbooks to read from on the days Elaine would be there. Elaine made a mental note to herself to get a book suitable for Emily to read for pleasure. She couldn't imagine growing up without reading books for entertainment.

Before Emily closed the door behind her Elaine said, "You did well today. Your textbooks will probably be much easier than the Bible for you to read by sounding out and easier to understand."

Emily smiled and said, "Maybe this won't be so bad."