Thanks, J, for forwarding along this piece by our mutual friend Sarah, only a year away from finishing the interminable training that is the path towards physicianhood. She wrote it for a creative nonfiction class that she took at Penn. Excellent stuff.
Rush Hour by Sarah Chu
It was past five, and the platform was crowded with people waiting for the train. I stood at one end with my suitcase and assumed the bored expression of an experienced traveler of the world, while my father, complaining about the train being late, went over to the benches and sat down. Cheerfully oblivious to discreet grimaces and full-fledged gawks alike, he hoisted his left leg onto the bench, rolled up the pant cuff, and proceeded to rub his ankle with lavish dabs of menthol balm. The Chinese musty-minty odor soon overpowered even the stench of the Paris underground, and a woman covered her nose and went away.
I stared at the whiskey ad on the opposite side of the tracks.
A fresh whiff of menthol passed under my nose, and indeed, my father was standing next to me and looking at the ad. He read aloud the warning inscription underneath it, enunciating each syllable slowly and deliberately in his broad, exaggerated accent:
“L’abus d’alcool est dangereux pour la santé. Consummez avec modération.”
He frowned, puzzled, and read it again. Then he threw his head back and laughed and laughed. “Funny, you look Yvonne! You see that? Whiskey. Consumez avec modération! The French, haha!”
I permitted myself to smile—my father always had had a keen, if somewhat inconsistent, appreciation of irony.
Fortunately the train was pulling in.
“Bye Daddy,” I said, relieved and ashamed that I was relieved.
“No, I go with you. I already pay fifty francs to come down here.”
“And you can pay another nine hundred francs to see me to Edinburgh.”
He ignored the sarcastic inflection in my voice, and pulled me and my luggage onto the train, using his arms as a sort of battering ram against the crowds. Pouncing on an empty seat, brushing off imaginary debris with his newspaper, and glaring warningly at the man sitting next to it, he ordered,
“Sit.”
I resigned myself, sat down and looked out the window.
As soon as we got off at Charles de Gaulle he began again,
“When you get to the ticket counter you ask for a good seat. The Asians, they always take advantage of and give them bad seats. Your mom nearly choke to death when they put her next to smoking section, even she tell them she has asthma.”
“I don’t think smoking flights exist anymore.”
“Don’t let them give you one in row thirteen or fourteen like you got last time.”
“Don’t be superstitious. That was one of the best flights I ever had.”
“Don’t forget the frequent flyer mileage. They never remind you. Why, I lost eight thousand miles just because I don’t remember to show card at counter. They smart, yes they smart.”
“Daddy.”
“Chérie.”
“You have your pant leg stuffed into your sock.”
He bent down a little haltingly—arthritis—and pulled it out; the sock was a conspicuously green one, provided with the compliments of Lufthansa.
“That better?”
“Yes. Please tie your shoelaces.”
“There. Now I find a bathroom.”
“No, no, I’m late as it is. You can go after I leave. Let’s just say bye here.”
But he was already gone, a clumsy figure weaving his way with curious agility through the throngs of people. I, who had almost run from the train with unnecessary haste, now stopped impatiently at the turn stiles. He does this every time. Bathroom. Drink of water. Call Uncle Ivan to check up on the shop. And always the minute before the movie starts, or when you’re up next in line to order at McD’s and he’s got the wallet. Or, in this case, just catching a plane. Despite what you might think, Dad, they don’t wait for you. If the movie can start without you, so can the plane take off without me. And I can take off without you. I can’t possibly ditch you, I really really don’t want to, but the evil little possibility still manages to flit through my brain.
Come on, come on, vite, kuai dian la.
“Yvonne.”
He had come up noiselessly from behind me, and in his hand he held a little brown bag. Peeping out from the moist-darkened edges were ten comical looking chestnuts. Before I could open my mouth to rant, he had pushed the bag into my palm.
“I know you don’t like airplane food.”
The cough, mingled with a semi-laugh, comes out as a gargle. Inevitable lump-in-the-throat, there you are. I hold the piping hot chestnuts and begin to laugh and cry. Yet, he does this every time. Drives you up the wall, then soothes you with candy and flowers and chestnuts and docile, apologetic smiles, cajoling you into remorse and good humor with maddening success. This is my father. So I laugh and laugh, and it is he who hisses, Sssshhhhh. They are looking at you.
I only laugh louder and more hysterically, my father’s daughter leaving home for the millionth time, and he, not understanding, smiled his indulgent smile that was already brave in its loneliness. I said something about refusing to disgrace myself by cracking chestnuts on the plane, and so we did the next best thing: cracked chestnuts in the airport train station. I then crossed the turnstile, and as I turned around one last time, my father was running to catch the train back to the city, his face averted, but still waving backwards at me, chestnut shells in hand, and now it was he who was urging me—which way, Daddy?—to hurry.
Rush Hour by Sarah Chu
Thanks, J, for forwarding along this piece by our mutual friend Sarah, only a year away from finishing the interminable training that is the path towards physicianhood. She wrote it for a creative nonfiction class that she took at Penn. Excellent stuff.
Rush Hour by Sarah Chu
It was past five, and the platform was crowded with people waiting for the train. I stood at one end with my suitcase and assumed the bored expression of an experienced traveler of the world, while my father, complaining about the train being late, went over to the benches and sat down. Cheerfully oblivious to discreet grimaces and full-fledged gawks alike, he hoisted his left leg onto the bench, rolled up the pant cuff, and proceeded to rub his ankle with lavish dabs of menthol balm. The Chinese musty-minty odor soon overpowered even the stench of the Paris underground, and a woman covered her nose and went away.
I stared at the whiskey ad on the opposite side of the tracks.
A fresh whiff of menthol passed under my nose, and indeed, my father was standing next to me and looking at the ad. He read aloud the warning inscription underneath it, enunciating each syllable slowly and deliberately in his broad, exaggerated accent:
“L’abus d’alcool est dangereux pour la santé. Consummez avec modération.”
He frowned, puzzled, and read it again. Then he threw his head back and laughed and laughed. “Funny, you look Yvonne! You see that? Whiskey. Consumez avec modération! The French, haha!”
I permitted myself to smile—my father always had had a keen, if somewhat inconsistent, appreciation of irony.
Fortunately the train was pulling in.
“Bye Daddy,” I said, relieved and ashamed that I was relieved.
“No, I go with you. I already pay fifty francs to come down here.”
“And you can pay another nine hundred francs to see me to Edinburgh.”
He ignored the sarcastic inflection in my voice, and pulled me and my luggage onto the train, using his arms as a sort of battering ram against the crowds. Pouncing on an empty seat, brushing off imaginary debris with his newspaper, and glaring warningly at the man sitting next to it, he ordered,
“Sit.”
I resigned myself, sat down and looked out the window.
As soon as we got off at Charles de Gaulle he began again,
“When you get to the ticket counter you ask for a good seat. The Asians, they always take advantage of and give them bad seats. Your mom nearly choke to death when they put her next to smoking section, even she tell them she has asthma.”
“I don’t think smoking flights exist anymore.”
“Don’t let them give you one in row thirteen or fourteen like you got last time.”
“Don’t be superstitious. That was one of the best flights I ever had.”
“Don’t forget the frequent flyer mileage. They never remind you. Why, I lost eight thousand miles just because I don’t remember to show card at counter. They smart, yes they smart.”
“Daddy.”
“Chérie.”
“You have your pant leg stuffed into your sock.”
He bent down a little haltingly—arthritis—and pulled it out; the sock was a conspicuously green one, provided with the compliments of Lufthansa.
“That better?”
“Yes. Please tie your shoelaces.”
“There. Now I find a bathroom.”
“No, no, I’m late as it is. You can go after I leave. Let’s just say bye here.”
But he was already gone, a clumsy figure weaving his way with curious agility through the throngs of people. I, who had almost run from the train with unnecessary haste, now stopped impatiently at the turn stiles. He does this every time. Bathroom. Drink of water. Call Uncle Ivan to check up on the shop. And always the minute before the movie starts, or when you’re up next in line to order at McD’s and he’s got the wallet. Or, in this case, just catching a plane. Despite what you might think, Dad, they don’t wait for you. If the movie can start without you, so can the plane take off without me. And I can take off without you. I can’t possibly ditch you, I really really don’t want to, but the evil little possibility still manages to flit through my brain.
Come on, come on, vite, kuai dian la.
“Yvonne.”
He had come up noiselessly from behind me, and in his hand he held a little brown bag. Peeping out from the moist-darkened edges were ten comical looking chestnuts. Before I could open my mouth to rant, he had pushed the bag into my palm.
“I know you don’t like airplane food.”
The cough, mingled with a semi-laugh, comes out as a gargle. Inevitable lump-in-the-throat, there you are. I hold the piping hot chestnuts and begin to laugh and cry. Yet, he does this every time. Drives you up the wall, then soothes you with candy and flowers and chestnuts and docile, apologetic smiles, cajoling you into remorse and good humor with maddening success. This is my father. So I laugh and laugh, and it is he who hisses, Sssshhhhh. They are looking at you.
I only laugh louder and more hysterically, my father’s daughter leaving home for the millionth time, and he, not understanding, smiled his indulgent smile that was already brave in its loneliness. I said something about refusing to disgrace myself by cracking chestnuts on the plane, and so we did the next best thing: cracked chestnuts in the airport train station. I then crossed the turnstile, and as I turned around one last time, my father was running to catch the train back to the city, his face averted, but still waving backwards at me, chestnut shells in hand, and now it was he who was urging me—which way, Daddy?—to hurry.