I stood, mortified into silence, in front of my second-grade class. My teacher, a tall thin woman with size 17 feet, held me so hard by the shoulders that later that day, when I got home from school and changed out of my uniform, I would find bruises from where her fingers had gouged me. The rest of the class was sitting at their desks, hands folded on top, listening to Miss Slewinski, but staring at me.
“This little girl here,” said Miss Slewinski, “is a liar. She makes up stories about her Mommy and Daddy…”
“He’s not my dad,” I said. “My real dad isn’t allowed…”
Miss Slewinski cuffed me on the side of the head.
“I called Sascha’s mother yesterday and asked her to come in and talk to me,” she said. “Her mother is a very nice woman. Do you know what she did when I told her all the terrible things Sascha has been saying?”
The entire class obediently shook their heads.
“What did your mother do when she heard about your lies, Sascha?” said Miss Slewinski, digging her fingers even deeper as she shook me. “What? Say it louder. So the whole class can hear you.”
“Cried,” I said.
“Yes. She cried. Sascha’s mother, one of the nicest women I’ve ever met, sat right here in this room and cried like her heart was broken. All because of this girl. This liar. She’s such a liar that I’m naming her the president of The Liars’ Club.”
She let go of my shoulders and stood there, glaring down at me, her arms crossed over her flat chest.
“Sascha’s going to stand here for an hour. Because she’s such a liar. Because she tells such awful stories about her parents. The rest of you aren’t going to do any work: you’re just going to sit there and stare at this terrible liar. But anybody else who wants to join The Liars’ Club can come right on up here and stand beside her.”
Miss Slewinski sat at her desk. I stood perfectly motionless in front of the class while they stared at me. Some of the girls in the class made faces at me whenever the teacher turned around to write something on the board. My hands were in such tight fists that my bones ached. My teeth were clenched so hard that my jaw throbbed. I wanted to die. I wanted them to die. I was so filled with rage that I wanted to get hold of a knife and stab every single one of them to death. Especially Miss Slewinski.
What were the terrible stories and lies I’d told which got me inducted into The Liars’ Club?
That my father did bad things to me. (I was too young to know the word “rape,” so I called it “bad things.”) That he wasn’t allowed to see me anymore because he’d done bad things to me so many times. That the judge had believed me when we were alone in his office and had asked me to show him, by pointing to my body, exactly where my father did bad things to me. That my father wasn’t allowed to even be in the same room with me when I visited his parents — my grandparents — though he’d gone back to live with them after the divorce.
What else had I told my second-grade teacher after she saw my inner thighs and asked me how I got all those terrible bruises?
That my mother’s boyfriend — who wouldn’t become her husband for at least three more years — did the same bad things to me every single night. That my mother knew all about the bad things my father and her boyfriend did to me. That my mother said it was all my fault, that she said I acted like a “cockette,” but I didn’t know what that word meant. That every time my mother caught one of them hurting me, she hurt me even worse than they did.
Miss Slewinski had promised me that she’d never tell anyone what I told her, she’d said she would help me find a new home, she said she’d do whatever it took to protect me.
Then Miss Slewinski called my mother into school and told her all the things I’d said.
“She’s such a storyteller,” said my mother, as she burst into tears. “She’s been a terrible liar since the day she was born.”
So, next day, there I was, in front of my second-grade class, during the inaugural meeting of The Liars’ Club, where I was the only member.
That first meeting lasted just an hour, yet it haunted me the rest of my life. Liar, said the girls in my ear when we were in line for religion class. Liar, said the boys when I passed them on my way to the locker in the hallway to get my coat after school. Liar, they all said when were out on the playground every day after lunch. Liar.
In that first meeting of The Liars’ Club, I learned everything there is to know about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Probably more than Einstein himself ever knew.
And that’s the truth.
♦
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© 2014, 2017, 2019 by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman. All rights reserved. No content may be copied, excerpted, or distributed without the express written consent of the author and publisher, with copyright credit to the author. Please don’t support the piracy of Intellectual Property.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of world we live in. It’s just so sad to see that those who are supposed to provide us protection and love can also do the unimaginable things. I’m so sorry that you had to go through all that in your childhood.
Thank you so much for writing about it. I’m sure it requires a lot of courage.
Thank you very much for reading and for your kind comments.
Alexandria
My heart breaks for you as a woman with these memories and for the little girl in you who endured such horror. I lived a protected life where no one wanted to hurt me. How could this happen to a child? I know so many who have suffered. I’m grateful you tell your stories. Thank you for your courage, Alexandria. Thank you for your powerful writing that takes me there and helps me stand beside your little bruised body.
My dearest Elaine,
You just brought tears to my eyes with your sensitive and loving comments.
I cannot tell you how much that means to me.
Thank you for your love,
A xoxo