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the janitor’s pail into Balestieri’s galoshes. And once, when she discovered
that Zaccardi had been drawing beautiful pencil sketches of birds instead
of recording her awkward homilies, she tore the page from his notebook,
ripped it into small pieces, and made him eat them in front of the class. I
knew I could outsmart her, she wasn’t that bright; but I had to make my
case completely irrefutable. Her capacity for humiliating retribution was
so fiendishly inventive I feared it might provoke my Sant’Arsenese temper,
and how could I prosper in life if it became known that I’d stabbed a pudgy
nun through the gut with a blackboard pointer?
After a few weeks of excruciating pretense I went to see Mother
Superior about my condition. She was very kind and sent me to the
school nurse, a nervous, myopic woman who kept looking over my head as
though she were waiting for a bus. When she asked me to read the chart,
I squinched up my eyes and tilted my head and pretended I couldn’t see
the third line while I memorized it so I could say it right off while partially
blinded by the first set of lenses she made me try on.
And so I was given a pair of spectacles, ugly things with wire frames
buried in transparent orange plastic. They made me dizzy, but after a while
I got so I could wear them most of the day without throwing up, though
the world they showed me looked like it was ten feet under water. I was
ecstatic. Phase one of my plan had gone off without a hitch, if you don’t
count the fact that the boys in the schoolyard at recess called me foureyes
and celebrated my new status by knocking my glasses off then tossing
them around while I pretended to be half blind, clawing the air wildly and
whining pitifully till my shameless pleading disgusted them and they gave
up.
Because I had practised at home, I read the Italian book now like
an angel, though I could only see blurred smudges on the page. Those silly
little paragraphs about Coniglio and Orso and other animals rolled off my
tongue. But I could honestly say I had some trouble reading the blackboard.
One day after school, I explained to Sister Miranda that I suffered from farsightedness,
and asked her again if I could have the empty seat beside Rita
McCrae. She looked at me with a shrewd expression and her small eyes
seemed to glitter. She said that since I was doomed to carry the outward
sign of my spiritual imperfection around on my nose for the rest of my
life, it would be uncharitable not to grant such a modest request, though
she warned me that I should expect no special privileges because of my …
Hellenic Canadian Literature 