Babushka

Miriam was well aware that most people had solved the problem of beggars by the time they reached her “mature” age of fifty-five. Why couldn’t she exhibit the same firmness and righteousness as her closest acquaintances? (She couldn’t use the word “friend” anymore; she had run out of that commodity except for Sally in the Dordogne and Lynda, who had moved back to the States ten years ago.) Sue, nearby on the rue de Paris, claimed with a knowing air that all beggars were fakes; she’d read an article somewhere that explained how they pretended to be blind or lame, while raking in more money during a day than Miriam earned in a week as English teacher in a French school. And colleague Ellen reasoned with logic that one individual could simply not hope to solve the problems of the poor; therefore one should let the generous French government deal with them.

Yet Miriam felt a pain in her heart and a pang in her conscience every time some disheveled creature got on the métro and began a loud “messieurs, dames, excusez-moi de vous déranger”, followed by some woeful tale of how he or she had ended up in the streets. So what if they were all liars; it still wasn’t easy to repeat the same speech twenty times an hour for … how many hours a day did they panhandle, she wondered? The pathetic speechmakers tended to be the lowest of the low, except, perhaps, for those deaf and dumb (or those pretending to be so), who scurried from seat to seat, slapping down tacky Mickey Mouse key chains along with a little card that explained their infirmity.

Way above them – in Miriam’s reckoning at any rate – were the performers. When she was younger she had had a policy of paying a couple of francs to any accordion player or saxophonist who got in the same RER or métro car (and for some reason they always chose the car Miriam was riding in). But several years later she had had to reassess her procedures. For one thing, by the time she rode from her little town west of Paris into the center of the city, at least eight different performers and beggars would have passed through her car, and she simply couldn’t oblige all of them. Secondly, the performers often seemed to be well-fed young kids having a good time in Europe, whereas those without any talent whatsoever looked much more needy. So she tried different strategies, sometimes giving her francs to the first five beggars, other times being charitable at random (to the fat young girl with the baby – whether borrowed or not; to the man who asked for ticket-restaurants before accepting coins (which might be spent only on wine), to the clever young black fellow who gave the day’s weather report in poetic form and asked for either a smile or a franc in return.

Then, some time after the fall of the Berlin wall, the eastern Europeans began to arrive. This group made the previous sets of beggars look positively affluent. Some were so pathetic as to be counter-productive. There was one creature with a melted face who kept showing up; Miriam couldn’t even bring herself to look at him (it was a he, wasn’t it?), feeling that a few francs would in no way even begin to assuage his suffering. Later, she read in l’Exprès that there was a gang of Romanians who imported paraplegics and victims of third-degree burns, keeping them in virtual slavery and taking all the money they earned begging. How could one individual, or even everybody in the entire subway car, begin to deal with tragedies of this nature? Ellen was right: a larger organization, such as the state, a church, or a philanthropic group was needed. Thus, Miriam stopped giving francs, except to an occasional burly snub-nosed Russian accordion player whose schmaltzy Kalinkas made her want to tear off her clothes and dance madly up and down the length of the aisle.

It wasn’t only on the RER and metro that one encountered beggars; they were sitting on the sidewalks of her little town of Le Pecq or the more opulent Saint Germain-en-Laye up the hill, eyeing all the people returning from the open-air market with shopping carts full of melons and cherries or boxes of patisseries tied with gaily-colored ribbons; there was a group of clochards who spent the night in the corridors of the RER and who usually were too drunk to even ask for money; there was a neatly-dressed homeless man at the sliding doors of her supermarket standing there all through the winter and becoming a sort of in-house pet.

And then one day in the underground garage of the same supermarket, Babushka appeared. That was the name Miriam gave to the woman, for all that was apparent at first was a head covered by a scarf and an outstretched hand.

“Where will they turn up next?” she wondered crossly. “In front of my apartment door, perhaps?” She was suspicious. She had just read about the Romanian gang and wondered if Babushka might be part of a band of thieves, keeping an eye on those people who had forgotten to lock their cars. Miriam went back and double-checked her little Citroën Saxo. Later, when she had finished her shopping she walked by the scarf and hand without a second glance.

The next time Miriam went to the supermarket, Babushka was there again, shorter than the last time – perhaps she was sitting on a stool. She was so hunched over it was hard to tell; only her scarfed head and boney begging hand were visible. Miriam noted that the nice-looking homeless man had disappeared from his usual spot by the sliding doors on the main level. Had he changed places with Babushka, so to speak? Why didn’t she stay outside, as he did? Surely light and fresh air, even nippy as it was on that April day, would be preferable to the dark, gas-fumy underground cavern of the parking lot.

The third time Miriam passed by Babushka, the woman looked up. Miriam stopped in her tracks. She beheld a wrinkled peasant face, browned and leathered from the outdoors. Laugh lines by the honey-brown eyes were counteracted by chasms of suffering by the mouth. Decades of toil and pain were displayed, yet there was kindness, too – not bitterness or hatred. The woman cracked a tender smile – she must have been pretty in her youth – and Miriam smiled back, embarrassed. She already had a euro in her hand that she was going to insert in the top of her shopping cart. (By now francs were obsolete and the euro reigned, worth 6.55957 times its predecessor.) Instinctively, she handed the coin to the woman, who bowed, crossed herself and mumbled something in a language Miriam didn’t understand. When Miriam got to the line of shopping carts, she discovered that she didn’t have any more one-euro coins, so she had to wait at the main cashier’s desk until the pert manageress with the bright blue crew cut gave her a token to fit in.

But Miriam felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She now knew what to do about the begging question: she would make Babushka her personal and exclusive concern. There was something about that face that spoke to her. It was a grandmotherly face, a face of infinite wisdom, infinite suffering. She decided that each time she drove into the underground garage she would give the woman one euro. Let’s see, she thought … she usually went at least two times a week, even more if she was having friends to dinner or if she was particularly forgetful (which was happening more and more often). Two times a week and fifty-two weeks in a year … that would be a hundred and four euros. But then, she wasn’t there in the summer, so it would be less … but wouldn’t that be counteracted by those forgetful weeks when she went every day but Sunday? No matter, she could afford to spend up to two hundred euros a year on this woman.

Would it do any good? Well, it seemed better than giving one euro to random people here and there. And combined with the efforts of other shoppers it would undoubtedly serve to keep Babushka afloat. If thirty people a day gave a euro, which surely was a very low estimate, she would have a hundred and eighty euros in a six-day week. That times fifty-two weeks a year amounted to 9,360 euros. Not enough to be very comfortable, but enough to live on. Miriam wondered where, indeed, this woman lived. Not under bridges – there was a cleanliness about her shabby brown clothes – but perhaps in one room somewhere, crowded with sons, daughters and grandchildren? Somehow she seemed too old to have a living husband; with wrinkles like that she must be a widow. She must have come with a family; no woman of such an age would have walked out of wherever it was alone. What were her sons or daughters doing? Were they also begging? Working at black-market jobs (for surely nobody had papers)? Did someone have a car? Did they leave Babushka off in the morning and pick her up at night? It didn’t look as if she could walk very far. How could they afford gas? Or rent?

Miriam had more questions than could possibly be answered. But she had her plan, which she put into effect and which soon became a routine. And every time Miriam put the euro into the outstretched palm, Babushka would cross herself, mumble a long prayer of thankfulness, or something, and then kiss her hand. Miriam would rather not have had her hand kissed, but how could she convey this? There was a definite language barrier.

Summer came, and Miriam went off hiking with Sally in the Jura. They stayed in herders’ cabins that had neither electricity nor running water. Her acquaintances admired her for ‘roughing it’. Miriam knew, however, that she could always return to her apartment in Le Pecq. Or could take a plane and visit her son in Boston. Or hop a train and visit her ex-husband’s family in Trinité-sur-Mer. She thought of Babushka from time to time, wondering if there was running water in her apartment. Or if there was an apartment at all.

In September they found each other again. Miriam was happy to see that Babushka looked straighter and in better spirits than she had in the spring. Babushka embarrassed her by kissing her hand again and making gesticulations between their hearts before launching into her thanks to the saints or the Virgin Mary or God and Jesus up in Heaven – there were definite motions towards the sky. Miriam gave Babushka a two-euro coin to celebrate their reunion. She even ventured to ask, “Quelle nationalité?” After three tries, the woman’s face lit up, and she answered, “Yugoslav.”

Ah yes. What had produced those lines in the face was not just poverty but war. What horrors had the poor woman seen? Perhaps her neighbors had burned down her house, murdered her husband or maybe even her sons. Perhaps she had fled, not with her family but with the only remaining people in her village. It little mattered whether she was Serb, Croat, Bosnian, Herzogovinian, or a member of another group that had been involved in the fighting; all those ethnicities had Babushkas with lined faces and suffering eyes.

Miriam decided to pursue her luck with communication. “Quel âge?” she tried.

The woman showed signs of incomprehension, so Miriam made a second attempt at “Age?” then pointed to herself and held up her ten fingers five times and her right hand once. She repeated the gestures again, then asked, “Age?” and pointed to the woman. A light went on behind the honey-brown eyes, and Babushka held up her ten fingers four times and then, slowly, the index and middle finger of her right hand. It was now Miriam’s turn to show signs of incomprehension. She must have missed a few hand flashes. “Age?” she asked again, pointing to Babushka. Again the woman held up her two hands four times and the two fingers of her right hand once. Well, Babushka must have misunderstood what Miriam wanted. Could it possibly be that this aged grandmother was thirteen years younger than Miriam herself?

In October, when the rains began, Babushka’s spirits began to flag. Her wrinkled face developed red blotches, and she winced in pain from time to time. Miriam considered making an appointment with Doctor Lemaire but then decided against it. Who knew what ailed Babushka; it might be something that would involve an operation, and surely she had no health insurance. Also, perhaps Babushka would be suspicious of doctors in general, or certainly of doctors with whom she couldn’t communicate. Besides, how would Miriam even begin to convey the idea of going to a doctor to this woman? Miriam had a long talk with herself that night, saying that she had only resolved to give euros to the lady, not to save her life.

The rains continued. Weather was going haywire in France, and perhaps around the world. There either was a drought or a flood – nothing in between. It rained every day from October twenty-seventh until December tenth, when there was one afternoon of sunshine. Then it rained again. By now the underground garage of the supermarket had pools of water that had seeped in from somewhere – probably the Seine across the road; some areas were cordoned off. Yet Babushka continued to sit on her flimsy stool, in the midst of the water and the gasoline fumes. Miriam decided that a good dose of vitamin C was needed and resolved to make a Christmas basket, full of oranges at least. She carried the idea around in the back of her mind for a few days, alternating between thinking it was silly and thinking it would be a nice gesture. Babushka was obviously a devout Christian; why not do something for the Christians’ joyous holiday? But then, if Babushka was a Serb she would celebrate Christmas two weeks later, like the Russians … Miriam decided not to worry about that; it was the spirit that counted, not exact dates. She hemmed and hawed, wondering if a Christmas basket would make her look like a Dickensian character from the upper classes condescending to the poor on one measly day out of the year. Well, was that any worse than not helping the poor at all? Somebody had to take action! It was really disgusting the way people were loading their cars with turkeys, foie gras, and baskets of oysters while Babushka stood in the water. And whereas Miriam was being very moderate herself that year since son Don was staying with his significant other in Boston, she knew perfectly well that she was just as capable as the others of gluttonous shopping sprees.

Suddenly it was the afternoon of December 24th. It would have to be that day or never. Miriam rushed around the apartment looking for an appropriate container for her act of charity. She didn’t want to give up the basket she herself used for food shopping, nor did she want to buy something special. She had several varieties of sacks she had acquired at one time or another and finally settled for a sturdy canvas bag with Harvard colors and insignia that had been given out at a workshop she had taken the previous summer. Armed with Harvard, which was now looped with a red ribbon and a bow, she drove into the underground parking area. Babushka was there but had moved her stool two meters to the right to avoid the latest pool of water. Miriam nodded and made her way into the supermarket. She first bought a string bag of oranges, feeling that Babushka definitely needed something for her health and wondering how often the woman had actually eaten oranges in her life; she recalled tales from various epochs (the Depression in the U.S., World War II in France,) when parents scrimped and saved to buy a simple orange for a child’s Christmas stocking. She then made her way to the poultry counter, where her original idea of buying a turkey disappeared under doubt as to what kind of cooking facilities might prevail chez Babushka; she settled for a smoked chicken that could be eaten cold as well as warm. A bottle of wine, a box of cookies, a bar of chocolate and a head of lettuce (in order to be healthy one needed green and leafy vegetables in addition to oranges) made up the rest of the purchases. For her own solitary Christmas dinner Miriam bought one slice of foie gras and an already-prepared dish consisting of slices of canard à l’orange.

When she pushed her cart out of the elevator that took her to the underground lot, she glanced to see if Babushka was there; wouldn’t it be ironic if she had been whisked off while Miriam was making her purchases! But no, she was still sitting on her flimsy stool composed of canvas slung over three metal legs. Miriam hurriedly went to her car and separated the purchases for Babushka from her own, and then arranged them in the gaily-decorated Harvard bag. Feeling more and more stupid, she rushed over to the woman, almost throwing the sack at her. Babushka looked into it, then up at Miriam with a puzzled expression on her face. Miriam quickly made the heart-to-heart hand-signals they had been using, shouted “Joyeux Noël!” and rushed back to her car. As she drove down the exit corridor she saw that the woman had at last comprehended and was throwing frantic kisses towards her and crossing herself many times. Miriam almost drove into the exit barrier in her haste to be away. She didn’t want gratitude and decidedly felt out of place in the role she had created for herself.

She didn’t have the courage to face Babushka again during the school’s entire Christmas vacation. She had some friends over on the 27th and on New Year’s Eve but did her shopping at another supermarket six kilometers away. It was cheaper, anyway.

The new year brought a return to old habits. Babushka was in her usual place, for the supermarket must have pumped out the underground garage; there was less water in spite of more rain, although there were signs in the corners that it was seeping back in. In spite of dryer territory, the old woman did not seem to have profited much from the vitamin C of the oranges; her face had more red blotches, and she had trouble rising from her flimsy stool when Miriam passed by. Yet rise she did, grabbing Miriam’s arm and gabbing in whatever language it was. Then she displayed a plastic bag that on closer inspection proved to be full of old sweaters and skirts. From the woman’s heart-to-heart signals, Miriam gathered that she was asking for used clothes. It was impossible to determine whether she wanted them for herself, for her immediate entourage, or for resale value, but Miriam nodded and thought, “Why not? It’s time I cleaned out my closets, anyway.” Still, she couldn’t help feeling put upon and then hating herself for it. What exactly was irking her? Didn’t the old woman have the right to ask for something that would be useful to her? Miriam had the right to refuse, after all. Did Miriam think she should have received more thanks for her Christmas basket before such a request was made? Did she really want more hands over the heart and blessing from the sky? Or was Miriam, perhaps, worried that the old woman would up the ante each time until Miriam would finally have to refuse? If so, why was Miriam so worried about refusing something? Hadn’t she already done a lot?

In spite of a vague feeling of misgiving, she did take the opportunity to clean out her closets, finally admitting that she was never going to fit into those size 10’s again. A lot of those sweaters and skirts didn’t seem to go with Babushka’s brownish personality, but perhaps her daughters or acquaintances could use them. And there was a winter coat that kept ripping under the arm but was very warm – anyone would be happy to have that. Miriam arrived at the underground garage with two huge plastic sacks of clothes. Babushka wasn’t there! Miriam was nonplussed, but shrugged and later put her groceries in the back seat, since the sacks took up most of the trunk. She drove around with the sacks for a couple of weeks, without a sign of Babushka, then finally carted them up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, for she really needed the space in the trunk for her extra school books, the six-packs of water, and her own grocery shopping.

No sooner had she done this than Babushka showed up at her post in the underground garage. Miriam expressed concern: “Malade?” The woman seemed to understand and answered with a string of Serbo-Croatian words interspersed with “malade malade” and “genoux, genoux”, pointing to her knees. Miriam commiserated and gave her two euros instead of one, for she’d missed a couple of weeks. Two days later she put the sacks of clothes back in the trunk of the car, but when she pulled into the underground parking lot, the woman wasn’t there again. She was annoyed. Then she was annoyed with herself for being annoyed. Why should she find going up and down three flights of stairs with the heavy plastic bags to be such a burden when the poor woman was finding simple existence a burden? What was a little huffing and puffing compared to sitting all day long in a damp dank underground garage?

It was nothing, of course. But then, where did one stop in one’s reasoning? Miriam’s life was a thousand times better than the lives of ninety-eight percent of humanity on earth in spite of the fact that her college friends in the States, all of whom had become millionaires, thought that Miriam lived in poverty. Compared to the Ugandans she had seen sleeping on the ground at night in the marketplace of Kampala or the Vietnamese crowded into one room in the back of six-foot deep street-front shops, she lived the life of a queen. Yet what could she do about these suffering people, about the Babushkas of the world? Just wash her hands of them? She couldn’t. However, sending ten euros a month to save little children from dysentery didn’t seem to do the trick, either. And she wasn’t doing much better with her attempts at personal charity here. She carried the sacks up the stairs one at a time and threw them in the middle of the living room.

The next time Miriam drove towards her supermarket, she happened to see a parking place on the street next to it, and since she didn’t have many things to buy, she pulled in. She sailed through the doors with an easy conscience and sailed out with a bag full of food in each hand, humming to herself. How much better she felt when she didn’t have to deal with Babushka in (or not in) the underground garage! For several weeks she continued to find parking places on the street and bought food in small quantities, avoiding the six-packs of water and paying the extra cents for one bottle at a time.

Then one day when she was extremely tired and depressed after a faculty meeting discussing salary negotiations, she went on automatic pilot and found herself pulling into the underground garage. It was too late to turn around. Besides, it was ridiculous, this business of avoiding a poor old woman or her absence. This time it was the poor old woman herself, and a most distraught poor old woman. When she saw Miriam she clasped her hands and launched into a vehement explanation. When she had calmed down and used some sign language, it appeared that someone had stolen her stool, that flimsy blue-canvas thing on white metallic legs. Standing up was obviously painful for her, she who was malade with knee problems. Well, what was Miriam to do? Go out and buy a stool? The woman seemed to be demanding immediate action, but Miriam herself was dead tired and didn’t feel like walking to the hardware store three blocks away; besides, who knew if they sold stools there? Any other stool-selling place would be several kilometers away, out on route 13. She rummaged through the supermarket, hoping to find something that would serve as a seat, but the store was a small one with very few household items other than food. Finally she found a sturdy plastic pail. If one turned it over one could sit on it; it looked even sturdier than the canvas contraption the woman had been using. She bought it for six euros and gave it to Babushka, who was dubiously grateful but who obviously had hoped for a real stool. Again, Miriam was momentarily annoyed: why should this woman expect anything more? Yet she felt guilty immediately afterwards: how could she, Miriam, be so petty as to not want to walk three blocks when this woman had obviously been through the terrible Balkan slaughters? The entire episode left both parties dissatisfied, and Miriam resolved to park in the street again.

Still, three weeks later in March she found herself in the underground garage one more time. She was going to have people over to dinner and needed a shopping cart full of goods. She had left the bag of clothes in her apartment, not knowing if Babushka was around or not. She was and appeared to be in a crisis situation yet again, clasping her hands and wailing something over and over. Miriam tried to figure out what the problem was. It did not involve a stool; Miriam noted that the woman had another one, as flimsy as the first, not the pail Miriam had bought. (Had she sold the pail for a couple of euros, or was she using it in whatever place she inhabited?) The woman continued to plead with Miriam. She pointed to her own mouth, then made and cutting motions. Miriam couldn’t make out what was needed. “Manger?” she tried. Did the woman need something to eat? No, she gave a negative shake to her head. Then she made the cutting motion again. “Couteau?” Miriam tried. The woman nodded her head vigorously. Oh, she wanted a knife. “Grand? Ou petit?” Miriam enclosed different amounts of space with her hands. The woman put her hands around a small amount of air. So Miriam bought a set of three steak knives, for the store didn’t sell any individually. But when Babushka saw them she threw up her hands and wailed “Non, non,” plus several incomprehensible words. So it wasn’t knives that were needed. Miriam shrugged and mimed that the woman was not to worry; she would keep and use the knives herself. But she had no desire to hang around and try and figure out what was really wanted. Let some other kind heart spend time on the matter! Let the woman learn some French so they could communicate. Or so she could communicate with the French authorities. Miriam’s friend Donna said that there were organizations that helped refugees without papers, but the refugees had to apply for aid. Yet how could they apply if they didn’t know the language, didn’t know the procedures? Surely some workers in the town hall that was just down the street shopped in this store; surely they saw this woman weekly; surely they should/would do something? Or was Miriam just trying to justify her own selfishness? She resolved to stop by the town hall and have a chat with the friendly receptionist, who had had a long talk with her about Franco-American relations during the Iraq War.

But she kept putting it off.

And then Babushka wasn’t at her place anymore.

At first Miriam was just plain relieved.

Then she began to worry.

One week passed, then two, three, and four …

One month passed, then two, three and four …

What had happened?

The plastic bags full of clothes sat in her back bedroom, where she had moved them the night of the March dinner party. They took up a lot of space, but she kept them there, in hopes that Babushka would reappear, so she could at least give her the clothes, perhaps as a sort of amends for not having been able to satisfy all the woman’s requests properly. But there was only an empty space where Babushka had sat in the underground garage. And then son Don and his significant other said they were coming to visit in August. So Miriam prepared the back bedroom for them and gave the bags of clothes to the Sisters of Mercy who had the habit of coming by the apartment complex once a month. She felt a pain in her heart when she left the big gray sacks by the front door, as if she had just killed part of herself.