is swathed in white. A pulsing red light emanates from the cloud’s whiteness. Aaron stares, awestruck. With each pulse of light the cloud is transformed into something magical. Aaron wonders if God lives in all clouds, or if his plane just happened to pick the right one. The experience is so intensely personal that it never occurs to Aaron to share it with anyone, thus extending his belief in an all-knowing, all-present God five years longer than if someone had had the opportunity to inform him he’d only witnessed the red blinker of the plane’s wing.
The spelling bee registrar’s face has a worn-out shoe leather softness to it specific to upper middle-aged women. She holds Eliza’s library card in her hands. “Eliza Naumann.” Her eyes scan her list. She crosses through Eliza’s name with a red pen. The soft folds of her neck remind Eliza of turtle skin. “Do you happen to have a picture ID?”
“A picture ID?”
The registrar’s glasses have slipped to the end of her nose, magnifying the age spots on her cheeks. One of them is shaped like Ohio. “You didn’t hear about Bucks County?”
Eliza shakes her head.
“A boy takes fifth place and it turns out he wasn’t even on the list. Turns out he lost his school bee but Mom wanted him to try again at the district. So I’m supposed to ask for a picture, but it’s okay if you don’t have one. What kind of little kid carries a picture ID? Besides, I can tell you belong.”
She winks. The air current created by her arm as she points Eliza in the direction of the auditorium smells of cigars and talcum powder.
The auditorium has cushy seats, a balcony, and a large stage concealed by a heavy purple curtain. Aaron chooses a seat toward the back, figuring it will be easier to make a quick exit without attracting notice. He expects they will be leaving early.
The bee contestants are split according to gender between two backstage dressing rooms. The girls’ has large mirrors along one cinder block wall, each mirror framed by light bulbs. A thick layer of dust has settled along each bulb, few of which are actually lit. One flickers like an amorous lightning bug.
A group of girls crowds around one mirror, mechanically brushing and rebrushing their bangs. One of the smaller girls seems to be praying. A few stand frozen as their mouths form strings of silent, hopeful letters. The only adult in the room is a badged bee chaperone. She sits ineffectually in the corner, splitting the silence at irregular intervals to remind the girls to pee.
Eliza is the only one not wearing a skirt or a dress. She sees word booklets and spelling lists from which girls are quizzing each other. She can’t believe she wasted the week waiting for her father’s nod when she could have been studying. She is suddenly grateful for Saul’s absence, realizes that having him here would have meant watching his face fold into disappointment on a larger scale than ever before.
When it is time for the bee to begin, the children are led onstage and told to take their seats according to their numbers. It’s a much bigger stage than the one in McKinley’s cafeteria, the first real stage Eliza has ever been on. She grasps her number tightly in her hands and gazes at the Times-Herald Spelling Bee banner for reassurance.
Children shuffle to their seats like convalescents who have hopelessly strayed from the hospital grounds and are waiting to be retrieved. A small boy in the back row quietly hyperventilates. Two rows up, a girl tears her cuticles with her teeth. Another energetically sucks her hair.
The curtain opens with a whoosh of heavy fabric, the creak of rusty pulleys, and isolated gasps from startled children. The impression of the audience as a wave about to crash over them is heightened by the sound of applause. One startled fifth grader cries out, “Mo-,” stopping himself before the incriminating final M, his gaffe mercifully concealed by the clapping. The same woman who moments ago had been exhorting Eliza and the others to urinate approaches the microphone. Her voice sounds like a soft-focus greeting card cover.
“Hello. I’m Katherine Rai and I’d like to welcome all of you here today to the Times-Herald District Spelling Bee.” More applause. “The spelling bee is a truly American tradition, one that encourages learning and greater familiarity with our language. Each young person sitting on this stage is a winner. Each is here because he or she has exhibited superior abilities and knowledge. Each is an example of the best and brightest in our area. We are not competing against each other today. This is not a competition. It’s a celebration. Of spelling and of achievement. Parents, remember that no matter what place your child comes in today, he or she is a winner. Spellers, be proud. Be proud of yourselves and be proud that you are here.”
More applause. Eliza isn’t sure if people are applauding because they feel they should or because they actually believe this woman’s lies.
The woman continues, her voice the live embodiment of gently curved Hallmark lettering in a gender-appropriate pastel. “I’d like to introduce our word pronouncer for today’s bee. Mr. Stanley Julien, Norristown Area High’s own principal, has graciously volunteered his time and vocal talents to these youngsters. Stan?”
Mr. Julien walk-jogs onstage like a late night talk show host with his own theme song. More applause. Mr. Julien smiles and waves his way to where a book, a microphone, and a gavel are waiting.
“Thank you, Kathy. Ms. Rai is our school’s resource counselor and she does a great job, a great job. I also understand she was once a spelling bee contestant herself, isn’t that right, Kathy?”
Every year, the same script. Katherine still remembers the mortification of having to pee midway through the sixth round. By round eight, when she could hold it no longer, she misspelled her word just for the chance to get offstage. She smiles too broadly at Stanley in response, her teeth luminous in the stage lights.
In the wake of his airplane wing experience, Aaron becomes an avid sky watcher. Saul sees in his son’s ardency a precocious appetite for astronomy, but Aaron’s favorite nights reveal the fewest stars. More clouds mean more places for God to be. When Aaron lifts his eyes to the sky, he looks for a soft pulsing glow, nothing too dramatic or everyone would notice. He knows not to expect too much. Even Moses only got to see God once in a while.
During the Silent Amidah, the time of the Shabbat service meant for personal prayer, Aaron tenders up his own question, too shy to more than whisper the words inside his head: There were a lot of people on that plane. Were You showing Yourself to me or did I just happen to be looking out the window as You were showing Yourself to someone else?
He decides that maybe God can only be seen from the sky. He begins saving his weekly quarter until he learns that it would take sixteen years of saved allowances to afford even a cheap round-trip fare. If there is to be another sighting, God will have to come to him after all. He widens the scope of his God-watch accordingly. If God can be in a cloud or a burning bush, there’s no reason to think God can’t be in a car or a cookie. The intensity with which Aaron begins looking at the world gives him headaches. Concerned, Saul takes him to get his eyes tested. Aaron is a little disappointed to learn that his vision is fine. He had begun to hope that all he needed to see God was a pair of glasses.
As Ms. Rai lowers herself into the seat beside Mr. Julien, her fuzzy demeanor and calligraphic voice are replaced by a primal predator hunting its next meal. Ms. Rai’s manicured hand becomes a bloodied talon, her gavel rising like a guillotine blade waiting to descend upon the trembling, outstretched neck of the next spelling victim. When the gavel comes crashing down and Ms. Rai growls “Incorrect,” all sweetness and light are gone from her voice. Her victims sometimes limp offstage as if the gavel has smashed the smaller bones of their feet.
But not Eliza. From the first
