Quarantine Reflections across Two Worlds

2. Kindergarten Crumbs
When I was five, I attended kindergarten. While some teachers were warm and humane, the Communist directive mandated that children be indoctrinated and humiliated every step of the way; this would serve as an instructive preview early on of what was to come in adulthood.
We sang a song about the Party being our one true mother; it went like this: “You love your mother, and she may be a very fine person, but she only cares about you and your sister. We all, however, have one true mother—the Communist Party that cares for us all.”
One day, we were finishing up the usual morning snack titled “People’s bun.” The kindergarten principal then proceeded to count how many crumbs each child had generated. My pals quickly gobbled up their crumbs, but being foolishly honest, I left mine as they were—a Goldilocks amount of crumbs, not too many, not too few. I was publicly shamed for having the most crumbs of the class.
My first day at school was no different. We were seated in alphabetical order and assigned numbers, to be referred to impersonally and not by our own names. I ended up next to a boy named Nicky, who impishly urged me to throw pebbles at the ostentatious ficus tree container near the teacher’s desk.
The teacher happened to walk in that very instant; she dragged us both by our ears and slapped our faces before the entire class. I started crying, which incensed her even more. “Why the tears?” she asked, “I didn’t even hit you that hard.” As the only child of academic parents, I knew some big words and had begun to read at the age of three. I looked her in the eyes and retorted: “I am not crying on account of physical pain but public humiliation.” She was speechless.
In third grade, I was attending an extra-curricular English class. The boy next to me, named Lucky, was about to be flunked and consequently beaten up at home, so I tutored him and helped him get an A. In an innocent burst of joyous gratitude, he kissed me on the cheek. The next period my regular deskmate Nicky accused me of being “Lucky’s mistress.” He used a word that has the same derivation in Bulgarian as the English word “lover.” I had no idea what mistress meant but vigorously denied the accusation.
The teacher walked in amid the heated argument: “What is going on here?” “Comrade teacher,” I responded, “Nicky accused me of being ‘Lucky’s mistress.’” The teacher slapped my right cheek: “Do you know what that means?” “Not exactly,” I admitted, “but it shouldn’t be that bad since it derives from the word for love.” Needless to say, I was now slapped on the left cheek, for symmetry and good measure.
Disgraced, Lucky and I left school together and walked hand-in-hand into the sunset—or so it seemed. He picked a velveteen pink rose and gave it to me. We passed by a woman’s dimly lit basement: she was Lucky’s neighbor and was fashioning variegated pottery, which we admired from the minuscule window. “Is this your wife?” she benevolently teased Lucky. “She sure is,” he beamed proudly. I felt vindicated and fully convinced that “love conquers all.”