#school fayre | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eds6ngel · 9 months

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Hi doll! I was wondering if you could write one where Steve and Alena plan a proposal please 🥹

hi, my love! i love this request and was hoping it would come up!! i've provided some new images since alena is nine now in the timeline!! i hope you enjoy the sweetest proposal ♡

warnings: dad!steve. mom!reader. fem!reader. 90s!au. use of y/n. food mentions. mentions of judgement of alena calling reader 'mom.' pet names. kissing. mentions of sex. lil bit of angst (maybe?) lots of crying. steve being a nervous wreck. just a ton of fluff and comfort!! [2.4k].

author's note: firstly, i would like to say thank you so much for the continued support on this series!! for now, i will be closing requests just based on how hectic my life is about to become. blurbs for all characters will be open, so you can request some cute lil steve blurbs if you wish (or any other characters i write for!!) but for now, requests are closed for this series, and i will add onto it when an idea pops into my head. i hope you all understand ♡

As soon as Steve heard that your school were doing customised candy canes for Christmas, he knew exactly what he had to do.

“Pumpkin?” Steve yells, Alena instantly zooming into the living room, almost crashing into her dad at lightning speed. “Woah, take a breather there.”

“Sorry, dad,” the nine-year-old apologies, “Princess Peach and He-Man just kissed!”

Steve chuckles, “Did they now, sweetpea? I hope they both enjoyed it.”

She hums in content, nodding as she swings back and forth on her feet, “Uh huh! And Peach initiated it! It took He-Man off guard, but he slowly got used to it. He was super impressed by a woman taking charge!”

Yeah, she’d definitely got her girl-boss attitude from you. The mom effect.

“That’s exactly what I like about your mom. Not afraid to take charge, is she?”

“Nope!” she pops the P, “Mom is super cool! She like…” Alena thinks for a second, “Makes me brownies after school, even though she is really tired. I always tell her to stop, but she says she does it to make me happy, and seeing me happy makes her happy.” She purses her lips, “Wish she’d rest though, I always feel super bad!”

“Me too pumpkin, me too,” he sighs, ruffling her hair. “Speaking of your mom, I have a request for you.”

Alena takes a seat next to Steve on the couch, him explaining the situation, “You know I’ve been talking about marrying your mom?”

Her eyes light up at the sentence, a grin forming on her face as she kicks her growing feet, “Yeah?”

“Well, I want you to be a part of it,” he smiles, Alena hugging him from the side, aggressively rocking them back and forth. “Yes! Yes! Yes! What do I need to do, dad? I’ll do anything!”

“Okay,” he begins, clicking on his pen, “If I tell you what to write, can you scribble it down on this card? I’m going to take you to the Christmas Fayre at Ernie Pyle and she’ll get it given to her then.”

She nods enthusiastically, “Of course, dad!”

And so it began… The planning of the proposal.

Steve had spent the previous week calling and having discussions with principals, teachers and assistants at your school, making sure that the proposal went just as he wished. Luckily, they were all on board with the plan, knowing when to give you the candy cane and how the situation would commence.

Hand in hand, Steve and Alena entered the brick building, heading down the longing hallway towards the cafeteria, where the majority of the Christmas stalls were set up. Steve knew that they handed the candy canes out in batches, so decided to spend some time visiting other stalls and drinking a well-made hot chocolate with Alena, topped with whipped cream and marshmallows.

A small hand on his shoulder alerts him, your co-worker Amelie leaning over, a pile of candy canes held between both of her hands. “Hey, Steve.”

“Hey!” he replies, turning around to look at her, “Is it almost time?”

She nods in response, “I’ll hand out the others first, give you some time to calm your nerves and talk to her.”

“Okay,” he sighs deeply, breathing out as he basks in the moment, realising that this was absolutely happening. The ring was concealed in his back jean pocket, covered over by a thick, blue, cashmere sweater. Although a busy event, he felt as if this had significant meaning. Despite being at Hawkins Elementary, a Christmas Fayre was the setting that the two of you realised your mutual feelings for each other, the first time you both complimented each other in a way that crossed the platonic boundary of teacher and parent. He can’t believe that happened almost three years ago, it felt like yesterday. Over the course of the past three years, you two had kissed, said ‘I love you,’ had your first time, moved in and Alena now finally calls you her mom. And he had to admit, it was the best three years of his life, despite the bumps along the road.

He sighs once more, throwing his empty cup into the trash along with Alena’s and holding out his hand towards her, “You ready, pumpkin?”

“Yes!” she cheeses, Amelie whispering to him, “You got this.” She pats him lightly on the back before heading over to another parent and their child.

There’s a slight queue at your table, you selling Christmas cookies, every family wanting to get a small batch. After a few minutes of your sweetest voice talking so politely to the small set of twins in front of you — who couldn’t be no older than two — they bounce off with their parents, biting into the deliciousness of the perfectly-melted chocolate chip cookies, the chocolate oozing out, smearing all over the sides of their faces.

You giggle as you watch them make a mess, turning back to see Alena waving at you, holding a stuffed animal in her arms. “I see,” you say, pretending to think by putting your fingers under your chin, “I have not been introduced to this bunny before. Are they a wonderful addition to the family?”

“Yep,” she beams, “Her name is Mrs. Hopps.”

You gasp, opening your mouth in shock as you exaggeratedly reply, “Does Mr. Hopps finally have a wife?”

“Of course,” she says, rolling her eyes dramatically, as if the answer wasn’t obvious enough, “He was feeling lonely, so I got him a wife.”

“No dating? No proposal? No wedding?”

Steve almost gulps at the mention of a proposal. Even though the two of you were talking about a literal stuffed animal, it grounded him back to reality. He could feel the palms of his hands beginning to sweat, looking behind him to see Amelie holding one remaining candy cane in her hand. It had to be yours. He was praying the mom she was currently with liked a good chit-chat, else she would be coming over any minute.

Amelie notices his staring, raising her eyebrows and giving him a quick wink, Steve flipping his head back around, wiping his palms on his jeans, a slight wet patch being left there. God, that’s embarrassing. He needed to pull himself together.

“Hey, honey. How’s the fayre been?” you ask, hands on your hips, awaiting his response. He couldn’t believe that he was going to ask you to be his forever. There you were, dolled up in your red dress, wobbly, sparkling Christmas trees perched on top of a headband, black painted nails and a bright red lip to match. You were stunning, beautiful, breathtaking.

He stutters over his words, “Y-Yeah, I, um… It’s been fun.” He points behind him, “Had some hot chocolate, made it extra fancy. Um… Oh yeah, Alena’s bunny and just looked at other things really…”

“Cool,” you nervously chuckle, his energy bouncing onto you. “Don’t worry about buying anymore, I already put some behind for us. Unless, you want to, of course. That’s totally okay too…” you say, pointing towards the cookies.

Before Steve gets the chance to reply, Amelie is appearing in front of the three of you, showing him a sympathetic smile as she passes the candy cane over to you. “Looks like you have a delivery, Y/N.”

“Ooh, what do we have here?” you giggle, looking down at Alena who is practically bouncing on her toes with excitement.

“Open it!” she shouts, a little too loudly, disturbing some of the people around you, who quickly shut up as they see what Steve is doing from behind you. Many gasps can be softly heard as you begin to read the small card attached to the candy cane, written neatly in Alena’s handwriting.

My sweetest Y/N.

You have been so awfully kind to me these past two and a half years. I hope the second year spent with us Harrington’s for Christmas will be as wonderful as the last.

And if you turn around, I may want you to join the Harrington family.

I love you.

Your Steve.

Suddenly, the gasps make sense. Turning around, Steve is down on one knee, red velvet box held out in front of him, a dazzling silver ring, accompanied by a luminous rose quartz gemstone. With your knowledge of crystals, you almost broke down into tears. A few slipped down your face, staining the apples of your cheeks as you cover your mouth in shock, eyes brightening up at the situation. Rose quartz specifically signified three things: unconditional love, emotional healing, and compassion.

You knew of Steve’s past, of his relationship with Alena’s mom. He brought it up pretty early on, worried that his unhealed trauma of her walking out and leaving him alone could effect his reactions to certain situations and instances with you. But, if you asked him now, he felt safe with you. He felt like a whole new man. And although trauma never truly goes away, it had been healed enough for him to feel the most content and carefree he had in over ten years. He was the emotional healing.

Which meant you were the compassion. You understood his suffering, his deep-rooted issues that you may not have experienced with another human being. In any argument or disagreement, he thought you would leave. During sex, he would cradle you as close to his body as possible, scared you were going to escape. Anytime you would leave the house, he would say the words, “I love you. Stay safe. I’ll see you later, beautiful girl,” no matter if you were heading off to work, or walking five minutes down the street to collect some everyday essentials from the local store. You recognised his suffering, and you gave him everything to help him feel safe, comfortable and blissful.

And together, you had unconditional love. You would accept and love each other always and forever, even on the days where Steve felt more distant, or you came home from work, wanting to be alone for a while. Maybe you threw an insult, maybe Steve said something offensive, but it never changed the foundations of your relationship built on trust, empathy and kindness. And that’s what made it unconditional.

Steve breathes out, almost choking on a sob that tried to escape his mouth, attempting to remember the half-finished speech he had pre-written in the depths of his mind. “The first time I felt an ounce of your love to me was at Hawkins Elementary’s Christmas Fayre in ‘95. The word ‘handsome’ coming out of your mouth transported me back to my youth, as if I was some giddy schoolboy with a crush on the prettiest girl in the playground. Well,” he chuckles, “Maybe I was. Except this time, it wasn’t a schoolgirl, it was my daughter’s teacher.”

He reaches for your hand, which you gladly take, his visibly shaking out of nervousness. He mouths a quick “Sorry,” to which you whisper, “It’s okay. Carry on, my love.”

“Jesus,” he mumbles, composing himself, “I had never seen someone more beautiful in my life. Not only were you such an amazing teacher to her, but…” The waterworks begin to flow, tears spilling down his cheeks, he just couldn’t help it. It was too special of a moment to him. “But, you were incredible to me. You were so sweet, and kind, and had no judgement for me being a single dad. I wanted you so bad at the time, and although it took a while for it to happen, so I’m fuc— I’m so glad it did.”

You stroke your thumb over the top of his hand, you, Steve and Alena crying in unison, your co-worker Amelie, who has been a rock throughout your relationship, was letting a few shed herself. You feel him squeeze back, “I just… I tell you everyday how much I love you, I feel like I’m just rambling at this point. Yeah, you’re wonderful, beautiful, breathtakingly gorgeous. I could not ask for a better rock throughout my life, and I want you forever. So, please marry me. You would make me so incredibly happy. Even more happy than I already am seeing your beautiful face every waking moment of my life.”

You frantically nod, holding out your left hand to him, “I would want nothing more. Of course I’ll marry you, baby. Anytime, anywhere, I don’t care. As long as it’s with you.”

He takes the ring out of the box, sliding it over your ring finger, the band fitting perfectly. You assumed he measured one of your everyday rings, the one you wear on your right ring finger. That, or he measured your finger whilst you were asleep. The thought made you giggle, despite how unrealistic it was. It was something you could somehow imagine. Just him and Alena with a tape measure around your hand.

Steve lifts you off the floor, your arms swinging around his neck and he nuzzles his face into yours, whispering over and over again, “I love you.” He places many sweet kisses to your lips, you clutching onto his face, desperate for him not to let you go.

A large wail can be heard from beside you, Alena’s voice tearing through the crowded room, you and Steve immediately looking worried as her eyes remain red raw. “Hey, hey, hey. What’s wrong, sweetpea?” you ask softly, grabbing her wrists and removing her hands from her eyes.

“It’s just—” she swallows, sniffling along, “I know you are m-my mom, but you weren’t officially my mom. And everyone would say how you aren’t actually my mom. And that really hurt me. B-But now, you are—” She breaks down once again, struggling to get out her last words, “You are gonna be my actual mom, like… by law. And n-now I won’t have to ever explain myself again.”

You coo, hugging her into your side, wrapping your arms tightly around her back, “You will always be my daughter, honey. No person, or law, or anything in this universe could tell me different, okay?”

“Exactly,” Steve says, kissing her left cheek, leaning down beside her, just like you had, “You have me, your dad, you have Y/N, your mom, and you will forever.”

She nods, the pair of you hugging your daughter tightly. With the ring on your finger glimmering in the light, and your fiancé and daughter snuggled against your sides, this was proof of your future. You didn’t need anything else in the world to be happy. As long as you had them, everything else felt completely okay.

i hope you enjoyed!! i will try and add more installments to this series in the future when i have an idea and get the time!! if you want to see more fics/blurbs from me, as well as other material, put yourself on my taglist to get updates from me! until then, request in those blurbs and i will return to steve and alena soon ♡

taglist: @livsters @bakugouswh0r3 @nix-rose @ihatepeanutss @suitelif3 @clincallyonline17 @crowssixof @starkeylover @eris-rose-86 @frostandflamesfanfic @tlclick73 @steveshairspray

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kembleford1953 · 6 months

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Series 11 episode titles and new info

Ep.01: The Kembleston Olimpicks Father Brown investigates when rivalries escalate to murderous heights at the Kembleston Olimpicks. Ep.02: The Forensic Nun Father Brown investigates when his old friend Sister Boniface is implicated in the murder of a renowned artist.

Ep.03: The Hermit of Hazelnut Cottage Brenda faces ghosts from her past and becomes embroiled in a local dispute that ends in murder.

Ep.04: The Last Supper Father Brown has a lot on his plate when a food fayre comes to Kembleford, bringing murder with it.

Ep.05: The Father, The Son Flambeau is stunned to find his estranged father at St Mary’s, who has a dangerous mission in mind.

Ep.06: The Quill of Osric Father Brown must discover the culprit when a novelist is attacked at a crime-writing festival.

Ep.07: The Word of the Condemned Lady Felicia asks Father Brown to help prove a convicted serial killer didn’t murder her beloved goddaughter.

Ep.08: The Last Tango in Kembleford Father Brown investigates when the competitive atmosphere at a local dance school leads to a dance with death.

Ep.09: The Dead of Night Father Brown is determined to unmask a mortal being when a supposed vampire strikes in the village.

Ep.10: The Scars of War Sullivan asks for Father Brown’s help when Mrs Devine’s son Eddie is framed for murder.

#father brown #bbc father brown #inspector sullivan #sister boniface #mrs devine #brenda palmer #series 11

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tiny-buzz · 9 months

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Sneak Peek at the Hottest Hot Sauce Names in 2019 😤👺🍗

- Wild Dog Presents: Angry Sauce

- Jon Hamm Has A Hot Sauce

- How's THIS for a hot take?"

- Jackass 2.5 DVD Extras The Sauce

- War of 1812: the hot sauce

- Sean Spicer Presents: Spicer's Cinnamon Sauce

- Nero's Fiddle Roman Fire Sauce

- Stinkin' Dave's "Pain = Good" Kentucky/Louisiana Hot Sauce

- Radiohead presents a concept sauce. pay what you want.

- It Will Be A Beautiful Day When The Air Force Has To Hold A Bakesale To Buy A Stealth Bomber And The School's Of America Get All The Hotsauce They Need (Garlic Edition)

- Big Butthole Bitter Bomb

- Christ is Risen and his Butthole is on FIRE! Fat Pete's Stanky Wanky 5-Alarm

- Uncle Pete's Burnin' Fire Angel Flamewar Sauce, (Nuclear Level: 5 out of 5): "Hold onto your butts!!!"

- John Cena's Five Alarm Ass Habañerocaust

- Lance Stephenson's Fireball Bucket Juice

- Buggy Bottom’s Ass Plaster

- Uncle Butthole's Nuclear Flamewar

- Señor Dave’s Poopchute Ruination

- The UNAUTHORIZED David Koresh Crucible Juice

- Uncle Eternal Torture's Flaming Holesauce

- Stinky Jim's Diarrhea Elixir

- Cousin Blitzkrieg's Bayou Assblast

- Unkle Stinkball's Bottled Butt Genocide 18+

- Barfing Randy's Bottled Felony

- This Sauce Kills Fascists . . . And Kids Under 18!!

- Ernest Goes To Your Rectum

- Roaste Sheene of Beaffe with a divers assortatione of well dressed Egge Yolkes in Syruppeh with kidnee of rabiit seasoned with Coriander, Graines of Paradise imported Aprille last on the good ship Gallante Turde from the Dutch Easte Indies and a sauce of Butthole Agonie prepared bye thee selfsame Reverend AssBlaste

- Miss Behavin’ III, the hot sauce

- El Diablo Crybaby Butthole Sauce

- Fayre Winds II: The Santa Ana Private Reserve Boathole Flamewar

- M'Lord, Your Anal Hellscape Kingdom Awaits

- Tower Defense Game but the pathway is your colon and the invaders are our patented 18+ only ID-required Schedule 1 hot sauce.

- "Put This In Your Butthole And Smoke It"

- Hootie and the Butthole Fissure

- Winking Devil Colon Hell Safari

- Buffalo Pete's Wing Sauce

#archive post #Dec 12 - 2018

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juliemurphy · 1 year

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LIVE / YN FYW : SUMMER / HAF 2023

11.05.23 : SWANSEA / ABERTAWE Galerie Elysuim Gallery : free event 8pm

https://www.elysiumgallery.com/events/event/live-music-julie-murphy-ceri-rhys-matthews/

12.05.23 : FERRYSIDE / GLAN Y FERI Gwyl Uillean Pipe Festival

https://sites.google.com/view/uilleannglanyfferi/home

29.05.23 : ST DAVIDS / TY DDEWI Pilgrims Fayre Bishops Palace

https://www.smallworld.org.uk/ancient-connections

02.06.23 : CWM YSTWYTH

Fire in the Mountain Festival / Tan yn y Mynydd

https://www.fireinthemountain.co.uk/

09.07.23 : DINEFWR

Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival

https://beyondtheborder.com/festival/

16.07.23 : TREMARCHOG

Yscolan Summer School / Ysgol Haf

https://yscolan.tumblr.com/retreat

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ellie-the-frog · 6 months

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I got this at my school christmas fayre

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nice2meetyouu · 1 year

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Some people send a message in english. So I reply back... in english. Then magtatagalog sila. I wonder tuloy kung weird ba ako mag-english. Hahaha.

Ewan ko bakit pero mej naiinsecure din ako sa strong pinoy accent. Sabi ng kaklase kong kano sa med school, hindi daw FA-DER. Fa-ttthhh-er daw dapat. Marami siyang shineshare like naiinis na raw siya kakarinig ng with regardS e wala daw dapat S. At some time last year ko lang nalaman na pag may ly pala sa dulo wala dapat hyphen. Beautifully written. Gano'n.

Ano pa ba ang mga common na issue. 'Yung student na binabasa ng principal as is-chu-dent. Pero pinakaprominent siguro talaga sa akin 'yung TH as D. Da haws is on fayr.

Sabi pala sa isang med school interview na pinuntahan ko dati, magtagalog na lang daw ako if mas comfortable ako. Mukha ba akong hindi comfortable mag-english? O considerate lang ba sila? Hahaha.

Ah speaking of, 'yung british kong kaklase sa med school, nasa seriousMD na. Hindi nga 'yun nagtatagalog (pero nakakaintindi siya I think) pero kung saan-saan nakakapunta sa Pilipinas para sa mga health-related projects at initiatives. Ang galing lang. Parang na-challenge tuloy ako. Sabi ng ka-work ko, kung gusto ko raw na own time at teleconsult, serious md is the way daw.

Pero parang hindi 'yun 'yung hinahanap ko so pass muna. And sana matanggap pala ako sa latest kong inapplyan. Wahahahaha.

#so ano na ang point #tungkol saan na #pero parang gusto ko naman damihan ang english post dito #para makaconnect sa mga ibang tao #lam mo na #di naman pinoy lahat ng finafollow ko

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partypuppynastja · 2 years

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Those pictures sure are something!!!! But I was also curious about the big leather-bound books you have - what are they? Sorry if this too weird/private to answer!

Edit: oh there's more up top! These are mostly from my grandfather's house when he died, and the one on top is the very oldest. However, Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer I stole from my school.

The [otherwise] top row are books some notably more than a hundred years old, that I got from my grandfather's house when he died. They make for some fascinating reading; sometimes for interesting knowledge otherwise broadly lost (or at least not so accessible e.g. online) these days; sometimes for their very wrong takes on science and things. When I have time, I'll have to post some excerpts.

The biggest similar-looking ones are a rather old (I seem to recall I dated them as somewhere in the 1950s, from their content—there isn't a publication date) Encyclopaedia Britannica that I got for £20 at a local summer fayre auction; mine was the only bid.

#Ask #Anon #About me #Thank you for the Ask 💕

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eds6ngel · 10 months

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✎ when i kissed the teacher | part three

summary: post-rejection, steve receives some hard relationship truths from robin and vickie. but, how will he continue to act around you with the upcoming elementary school's easter brunch?

part one ♡ part two ˚⋆｡˚ full masterlist.

warnings: dad!steve. singledad!steve. 90s!au. swearing. fem!reader. mutual pining. slow burn. fluff. angst. hurt. rovickie!! mentions of homophobia/lesbophobia. artificial insemination + adoption mentions [in regards to gay parenting options]. pregnancy mention. post-partum depression mention. mentions of alena's mother walking out. mentions of heartbreak. slight age gap [r is 24, steve is 29]. food and allergy mentions. jancy make an appearance!! more warnings in future chapters! [3.6k].

Steve would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t let a few tears shed on his way to pick up Alena from Robin’s apartment.

But, he remained calm, or as calm as his mind would allow him to. Alena was great at interpreting people’s emotions, she would clock his sadness in a heartbeat otherwise.

As he pulled up to Robin’s apartment, he slowly gets out of the car and knocks three times on her door. After hearing some shuffling and an “I’ll get it!” the door swings open to a pink-dressed Vickie, a small tiara on top of her head.

“Oh, hey!” she smiles, turning back and yelling, “Babe! It’s Steve!”

“Okay, we’re just finishing up in here!”

Steve chuckles at Vickie’s physical state, “Looks like you guys are having fun.”

Vickie signals him in with her arm, closing the door behind him as he treads inside, rubbing his hands together, warming them up from the outside cold that had infected his fingers.

“Christmas tea party,” she simply states, Steve immediately understanding what the young redhead meant. They both walk around the corner together to see Robin and Alena sat on the floor, plastic cups in hand, the pair giggling together. Like her girlfriend, Robin also was wearing a plastic tiara, golden gemstone centered in the middle as her and Alena spoke in posh accents.

“Hello father, will you care to join us for some tea?” Alena spoke, Steve trying his hardest not to burst out into a fit of laughter. God, she was such a character.

“Thank you for the grand offer Princess Alena, but I’m afraid we must head home before it gets too dark outside,” he replicates her accent, folding his arms over his chest.

She puts her hand to her heart, gasping in a faux shocked manner, “I am not the princess dad! Robin and Vickie are the princess rulers!”

“Oh, are they now?” Steve smirks, looking between the couple, “Two ladies leading the kingdom must be super powerful!”

Alena giggles, “Yeah, much more powerful than you would be daddy!”

Vickie looks down to the floor and purses her lips, trying not to let out a laugh as Robin lets it full rip, putting her hands up and saying, “Hey! I’m not arguing with that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, Buckley,” he retorts back with an exaggerated eye roll. “Come on pumpkin, time to go home!”

“But, daddy,” she whines, “We are in the middle of a tea party!”

“I know buttercup, but it’s getting late. It’s already 6PM!”

She huffs, “Fine,” lifting herself up off the floor, kicking her feet, Robin tucking her hair behind her ear and saying, “I’ll clean this up, don’t you worry.”

She cheesily grins, grabbing her bag of items which she bought at the Christmas Fayre and bouncing over to her dad, “Look at all the stuff I bought!” she exclaims, holding her bag high in the air.

He leans down and gives her a quick kiss on the head as she hugs his leg, “Thanks for taking care of her guys. And I can’t wait to see it all, pumpkin! How about you show me on the drive home?”

“Okay!” she says loudly, Robin wrapping an arm around Vickie’s waist as they all head to the door, ”No problem at all, Steve. Call us whenever if you need her to be looked after, we’re always more than happy to look after that bundle of joy,” Vickie replies.

“Dad! Can I get in the car?” Alena whines, Steve shouting over, “Sure sweet-cheeks!” as he presses his car keys, the young girl opening the door and hopping inside. Steve turns back to the couple, “You know, you two would make great moms some day. Wait,” he pauses, “Can you two even, you know… have kids together?” Steve phrases his sentence as carefully as possible, trying to not let his lack of knowledge cross over into offensive territory.

Robin sighs, “We could technically, but it would be an extremely long and potentially dangerous process.”

Vickie nods along with her girlfriend, “One of us could get artificially inseminated, but that is very expensive and not always guaranteed to work. Adoption wise, we can’t just do it. One, like anyone else, you need to be married, which is literally impossible for us. Two, we’d have to find someone willing to allow adoption for us as a lesbian couple, which is definitely not here in Hawkins that’s for sure. So again, more money…”

Steve breathes out heavily in frustration, “It’s just annoying. You got the lasting relationship, you got the stable income, stable house, all of that. If the law just allowed the marriage part, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a kid.”

Robin nods, “You’re telling me. Hawaii’s trying to get us somewhere, but that is very unlikely if we’re being realistic here.”

Vickie purses her lips, “Unfortunately. We’ll just continue living vicariously through your daughter for the time being,” Vickie laughs, laced with an awkward tone.

“I mean, go all for it,” Steve says, buzzing his lips, “You two are the closest thing to a mother figure she’s ever gonna get.”

“Well,” Robin smirks, “Unless yours and Miss. L/N’s lovebird shenanigans go anywhere that is.”

Steve didn’t know that an open wound could get any worse. The rejection was like a fresh cut, and now Robin had poured salt into it. It was an instant sting to the heart.

Steve coughs as he looks down at the floor, his feet scraping across the outside rug that reads ‘Welcome Home.’ He wishes he had the stability the two women in front of him had. His love life was so lost that a worn-out, mud-stained rug with the intention of home made him feel like a failure. Maybe love was as simple as ruining the object that defined your picture-perfect life inside. That rug had six years worth of welcoming kisses and hugs, a constant reminder that when one of the two girls stepped foot in that door, they would feel wrapped in a basket of warmth. They felt at peace.

“Yeah, well, that ain’t happening any time soon,” Steve mumbles in a bothered manner, “Or at all.”

“Are we talking about Alena’s teacher?” Vickie questions, Robin nodding as her girlfriend lets out a small “Ah.”

“You told her about this?” Steve agitatedly asks, pointing over to Vickie with his thumb.

“You think I’m not going to tell my wife about your love life?”

Even with the legality barrier, Robin would still call Vickie her wife. They never let the outside expectations of the world define their use of language. It was their relationship, they could call themselves whatever they wished. Steve, on the other hand, didn’t have a metaphorical use for the term, he had no figure in his life to call that, and with his track record, it seemed like he never would.

Steve sighs, “Look, maybe love just isn’t for me, okay? It never worked with Nancy no matter how many times I tried, Linda didn’t even attempt to make it work, Heidi just wanted sex and Katie—”

The mention of Katie sent chills down his spine. He thought she was the one. After all, they had been together since the end of 1986 until the start of 1990. Their relationship was arguably the strongest Steve had ever felt in his life, even more so than with Nancy. That was until she got pregnant. They were both elated, Steve excited to expand the family he always wanted with the love of his life, her just as much so. But, everything changed once she had given birth. After speaking with Jonathan, Steve knew that his girlfriend had Post-Partum Depression and had suggested to her many times to seek therapy, just like Nancy had been doing, yet she refused, claiming she didn’t have the mental illness. After six months of not actively seeking help, Steve came home from work one day to see her bags packed, her saying motherhood was all too difficult to handle. That night, she had left, leaving Steve with a six-month-old baby to raise entirely by himself.

“Steve,” Robin begins, “I know your love life hasn’t been… the best, so to say. But, let’s not give up hope. Did she give you a reason for you not to date her?”

Steve huffs with a roll of his eyes, “Student confidentiality, all that bullshit. Can’t date me because she’s my daughter’s teacher.”

Vickie sadly smiles, “I mean, in all honesty Steve, it makes sense. It’s like if I started dating the older brother of the kids I used to babysit. It would mess things up.”

“Besides,” Robin butts in, the couple used to their rambling natures constantly interrupting each other, it was practically their love language, “That isn’t a no because she doesn’t like you, it’s a no for safety reasons. What about in six months time when Alena moves to second grade? She’s not gonna be her teacher then.”

Steve thinks for a moment over Robin’s statement. It was true that you weren’t gonna be her teacher forever. But, Steve’s thoughts are disturbed by Vickie’s further input, “She’s still in her vicinity though, right? Alena can’t view her as your girlfriend in a school setting. It’s like when my mom worked in my elementary school, I got scolded so much for calling her ‘Mom’ instead of ‘Mrs. Wilson.’ I think it’s that problem she’s probably talking about.”

“Okay,” Robin shrugs, “So Middle School!”

“Robin, that’s not for another four years!” Steve complains.

“If you were that in love, it wouldn’t be hard to wait that long, Steve,” Robin straightforwardly says, “I waited two and a half years to even ask Vickie out, and I would’ve waited a lot longer if I had to.”

Steve sighs as the sound of “Daddy!” can be heard from behind him, turning around to see Alena’s door open and her head leaning out, “Are we going home now?”

“Just a second, pumpkin! Daddy’ll be two minutes!”

“Okay!” she yells, slamming her door shut again, her shifting through her bag of items.

“Steve,” Vickie says softly, “There’s gonna be a way around this, I promise you. From the way Robin’s described your experiences and just the way you talk about her in general, you really like her. This isn’t desperation from you, you really do feel something for her.”

He breathes out, taking in the girl’s words, “Well, you guys have a lot more optimism than I do,” he quietly chuckles, “Just… thanks for everything. Thanks for looking after Alena most of all.”

“As we always say,” Robin reminds him, “Anytime.”

“It was nice seeing you two. Always a blast hanging out with Alena,” Vickie beams, “And good luck with the potential relationship.”

“Thanks guys. Have a good Christmas.”

The three of them bid farewell as Steve heads over to his car, Alena already holding the first item in her hands as he clicks in his seatbelt. He tries his best to listen to his daughter’s rambles, but his mind is invaded by a million different questions, trying to figure out a way to get you to date him.

It was now his turn to research the same questions you had been constantly looking into for the past two months.

You were currently organising Hawkins Elementary’s annual Easter brunch. Hawkins was unique in its traditions, their Easter brunch being one of the many few events that other schools did not do. The parents would bring in their children at 10AM and would have a brunch-type event with them in your classroom.

You had the added benefit of having an extra hour to yourself with no teaching to set up. However, both Easter decorations and food were a must. You spent the hours of 7:30 until 9 pinning up various strips of hanging bunnies, little Easter egg stickers and sitting little fluffy chicks on the tables. Your next task was to lay out the pink-checkered picnic blanket on the floor and throwing pink and yellow cloths on the tables. The cafeteria staff were bringing food around to the classrooms as the teachers decorated, the platter consisting of ham sandwiches, potato chips, squares of cheese, mini sausages, strawberries, bananas and a little basket full of mini chocolate bunnies — perfect for the Easter spirit.

The first parents to arrive were Nancy and Jonathan Byers, their little girl Ashley wearing the biggest pair of white and pink bunny ears.

“Well, looks like someone’s in the Easter spirit!” you say, the girl giggling as she replies, “I put pink bows in mom’s hair!”

Nancy participates as she shows off her pink bows, twirling around and making her daughter smile, you hyping her up, “Wow! Very nice! They make your mom look very pretty, don’t they?”

Nancy turns to you and grins, “Thank you,” you nodding in response, “Take a seat anywhere you want either on the picnic blanket or on a table. Ash has no allergies to anything if I’m correct?”

Jonathan nods, “Yeah, nothing so far. We’re hoping nothing forever.”

You laugh softly, “Good to know. Yeah, just sit anywhere you want, whatever makes you feel comfiest.”

“Thank you,” they both say in unison, Ashley already seeming to take a spot on the picnic blanket, the Byers parents not having much of a choice in the matter.

Many other parents and their kids arrived soon after, spreading themselves out across your colourfully decorated Easter classroom.

Since many families were arriving at similar times, it didn’t give you much of a chance to interact with them all, which was beneficial to an extent, especially when a certain father-daughter duo appeared in front of your door.

“Hi Miss. L/N!” Alena yelled, holding a stuffed animal in the shape of a bunny between her small hands, you waving back at her.

You tried your best to avoid Steve’s gaze, although you still had to ask him about Alena’s allergies. You were stuck communicating with him in some form.

The past couple of months had been rough. No more conversations when he dropped Alena off in the morning, no more waves through the classroom window, even his friend Robin had gotten added to Alena’s permanent record of people allowed to collect her, which you noticed when the young, dark blonde-haired woman appeared outside of your classroom a lot more regularly.

But, you couldn’t risk your life for a guy. You made that loud and clear, so if he got offended by that, tough luck. Your job was much more important than a relationship right now.

“What a nice bunny you have there!” you brightly say, “What’s their name?”

“Mr. Hopps!” she smiles, “He’s very tough, but he needs a girlfriend. Daddy won’t let me find him one.”

“Oh, will he not?” you ask, looking up at Steve and acting as casual as possible, smirking at him. It’s ironic that he won’t let his daughter get her toy bunny a girlfriend, it’s almost as if that bunny was him. “Well, how about you ask him really nicely and maybe he will say yes? Be extra good for him.”

“Okay!” she shouts, giggling away to herself, you now having to focus your attention to the man who had caused all of life’s recent stresses. “Steve, good to see you,” you awkwardly say, hands held behind your back, “Have to ask, does Alena have any allergies?”

He coughs, “Uh… No. None at all.”

“Great,” you sigh out, “Sit anywhere you’d like. Table or floor.”

He mumbles a “Thanks,” before leading his daughter next to the Byers. You lean against the wall as you see the two families interact. The way Jonathan had his arm wrapped around Nancy, her head leaning on her husband’s shoulder as her daughter played Rock, Paper, Scissors with Alena made you wish that you could fill the empty space that was next to Steve. You wanted to lean into him, you wanted him to hold you tightly close to him, you wanted him.

But, life is unfair. It’s not a straight cookie cutter, it’s hand-crafted. And you had already crafted your life for this job, you spend four years in college to get to this place in your life which you had been craving since you were thirteen years old. If you chose a guy over your dream job, your younger self would be incredibly disappointed. You couldn’t hurt her like that.

The Easter brunch had been a wonderful success. Most of the food was gone, minus a few sandwiches and squares of cheese, every mini chocolate bunny emptied out of the basket, as you highly suspected.

As the parents bid farewell to the kids, they got sent out for recess, the staff organising a small Easter egg hunt for the children to enjoy.

You thought your classroom was empty, until you heard the clearing of a throat from behind you. You jumped a little in your skin, grabbing your chest as you stare at the person who had frightened you, “Jesus, Steve. You need to stop scaring me like that!”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, you noticing that his nervousness around you from before had now turned into something much more somber, as if his body couldn’t decide whether to be near you or not. “I was just wondering if you needed help clearing up?”

You peer around your classroom, realising that you could probably have a helping hand, “Um… Sure. That would be great,” you say, “Need to clear up the tables and the picnic blanket.”

He nods, blinking rapidly as he stutters out, “Yeah, sure… Sure,” walking over to the table closest to him and collecting the fluffy chicks in his large palm.

The room remains in a solemn manner, the two of you getting your task done in silence, before you suddenly speak up, “You didn’t just want to help me, did you?”

It was obvious from his change of attitude that there were ulterior motives than just simply being polite. He wouldn’t have ignored you for so long, denied so many opportunities to speak to you if the politeness was a natural thing. No, of course there had to be something more.

You can hear his sigh from across the room, the one breath filling the atmosphere, “No, not really. I just… I wanted to apologise for how I’ve been acting.”

You remove the fluffy chicks from your second table, “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to act like everything is okay. I hurt you, it’s understandable.”

Sure, it would’ve been nice if he made an effort to be a little kinder in the small moments he spent with you. But, realism was the key to understanding people’s behaviours. You had to understand how it felt from his perspective, not just your own. And, if anything, if you didn’t have to remain professional for the sake of his daughter and your other students, you would’ve avoided him like the plague too.

“It’s still not an excuse though,” he lets out, “I used to do it in high school. I left fucking Nancy in a bathroom drunk alone because she told me she didn’t love me anymore. I don’t want to become the asshole I was ten years ago.”

“Steve,” you softly say, the pair of you approaching the middle table in sync, “I promise you, you will never be like that again. You’re becoming self-critical of yourself for a simple mistake. It’s simply heartbreak, of course you wanted to avoid me as much as possible.”

As you finish your sentence, yours and Steve’s hands connect over the same fluffy chick, the both of you about to grab the small decoration, yet, Steve’s hand suddenly linked between yours, your breath hitching in your throat before you can say another word.

He turns to you, a mere few inches apart between your bodies, Steve looking you deep in the eyes, letting out, “I never want to avoid you. I wanna always be near you.”

You can see his eyes flick down to your lips, you breathing out his name as he leans in, your body involuntarily doing the same, before your lips connect in a soft kiss. He places a hand on your cheek, as if that’s where it was made to belong as you hold onto his bicep for support. You lost yourself in him, the feeling of his lips on yours melting away everything around you.

You hear him hum into the kiss, the sound bringing you back to reality as you quickly pull away. Shit, what were you doing?

“Jesus,” he mutters, you covering your face with your hands as you shake your head, “Look, I didn’t mean to do that. You just looked so beautiful and I couldn’t resist—”

You cut him off, pointing towards the door and harshly saying, “Get out of my classroom, Steve.”

He begins to ramble, “I’m sorry, all right? I promise I didn’t mean to—”

You uncover your face, full-blown rage presented across it as you shout at him through gritted teeth, “Get the hell out!”

He tries to say something, but nothing comes out, him simply huffing in defeat and turning towards the door. Once he’s exited, you try your hardest not to let the tears spill, not allowing yourself to go through that shit again. What the hell was he thinking?

More importantly, what the hell were you thinking? It was obvious by the look in his eyes what he was about to do. Why didn’t you stop him?

But, that’s the problem. It’s not that you didn’t have the capacity to stop him, you didn’t want to stop him. And if anything, for the amount of time it lasted, that was the best kiss of your life.

i'm sorry guys, but it's just rejection after rejection in this fic :')

taglist: @livsters @bakugouswh0r3 @nix-rose @ihatepeanutss @cats00089 @suitelif3 comment if you want to be added!!

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darereborn · 2 years

Text

CHAPTER I.

students, a new school year is beginning as we transcend into a beautiful fall and good times are ahead. as you begin to return to campus and begin to unpack your bags and get situated, you will find that your rooms have been spruced up over the wonderful summer months and the canteen is running a new fabulous menu. as you adjust to life back here, we will be running welcome week activities to get you in the mood to be social!

the sports hall, library, common areas around campus and sports fields are now all reopened for your personal use. please, do feel free to reach out to the administration if you have any problems settling in.

r. ahmadi

the students are moving back onto campus this week and into their respective houses (as found on the list). each house will have a teacher in charge that is determined at the end of welcome week. use your imagination as to what orientation/welcome back activities are running but this will include parties thrown by different characters in rooms, sports tournaments such as ping-pong, darts, basketball, academic fayres and arts & crafts activities ran by the sacred vow.

#plot

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paulinedorchester · 2 years

Text

The Convert, by Stefan Hertmans; translated by David McKay. New York: Pantheon Books, 2020. Originally published in 2016 (in Dutch, as De bekeerlinge), by De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam.

Perhaps I should begin by explaining that I have a fully-fledged love/hate relationship with the Middle Ages. Like many Americans of around my age (I am 60), I received a fair amount of my lower- and middle-school education from the same people who brought us the Society for Creative Anachronism and Medieval Times (not to mention Renaissance Fayres across the country): the generation born during World War II and their immediate successors, the leading-edge baby boomers. This cohort idealized the entire Medieval period as a happy alternative to the impersonality and materialism (as they saw it) of post-war life.

And why not? What we were fed was very attractive indeed: the (highly Bowdlerized) stories we read were exciting; the clothing was beautiful and looked comfortable (although the enveloping headgear that some women wore now looks a lot like erasure); and the art and music — the revival of interest in the latter was just past its earliest, experimental stage — were glorious. My mother was a generation older, but she got involved: in the early 1970s she was teaching lower-school art, and for several years each of her 4th-grade students created an illuminated letter.

For me, though, part of enthusiasm for a historical period — history fandom, if you like — involves being able to envision oneself in that period. When I began seriously reading Jewish history, I also began having serious trouble inserting myself into the Middle Ages. Medieval Jewish history is not for the faint of heart, or the weak of stomach.

Still, every so often I came across something encouraging: I discovered the existence of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts, for example. (How that happened is a good story that I really must post here sometime.) Stefan Hertmans’ novel The Convert is rooted in another such phenomenon: the early Middle Ages saw a steady trickle of conversions to Judaism among educated, mostly upper-crust Christians in Western Europe, particularly France and Italy. Their stories do not, as a rule, have happy endings. They were relentlessly hunted down, either by the Church or by knights acting on behalf of their families. If not put to death on the spot, they were tried for heresy and burned at the stake; any children they might have had were abducted, and in some instances sold into slavery in North Africa. With that in mind, I offer the following trigger warnings for this novel: murder, rape, arson, kidnapping, and all manner of mayhem, fueled largely by hatred of Judaism and Jews; disease both physical and mental; many deaths, some of them quite gruesome; detailed description of a difficult childbirth; suicidal ideations. (Also, there are some spoilers ahead.)

The Convert is true literary catnip for someone like me: a work of imaginative fiction harnessed to rigorous — obsessive, even — historical research. It imagines the life of an actual person, a woman who is referred to in at least one, and possibly a second, document discovered in the Cairo Genizah and now in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library. The first document, T-S 16.100, is a large fragment from a letter of introduction, signed by Joshua ben-Obadiah, requesting assistance for an unnamed convert “from a distant land” whose husband, Rabbi David Todros, of Narbonne, in Languedoc, has been murdered during an anti-Jewish riot and whose two older children, Jacob and Justa, have been abducted. The second, T-S 12.532, which is not only fragmentary but in two separate pieces, is in identical handwriting and uses some similar turns of phrase; it describes a woman’s further hair-raising misadventures. She is again unnamed (and what is up with that?), but this letter, too, refers to her daughter Justa. That's a highly unusual name in this context and could well indicate that both letters are about the same woman. Hertmans takes off from there.

He posits that the first letter was written in 1096 C.E. (the year of the start of the First Crusade, which, like its successors, would prove calamitous for Jews caught anywhere in its path), and that the “distant land” from which our heroine hails is Normandy — specifically Rouen, which was indeed the home of a thriving Jewish community during the 10th and 11th centuries, as was Narbonne. He gives her a birth year of 1070, names her Vigdis Adelaïs Gudbrandr, and makes her a wealthy descendant of the Norsemen who had conquered northern France a century and a half earlier. Meanwhile, David Todros is sent to Rouen in the late 1080s to study at the city’s renowned (and historical) yeshiva.

The two of them meet by chance in the Rue aux Juifs. A spark is lit. Vigdis, who struggles with her parents’ narrow expectations for her and has warned them that she’ll join a convent rather than be married off against her will, contrives to tell David that she wants to study Hebrew. (She is fully literate and has been taught enough Latin that she can be more than a passive participant in worship, so this is actually not all that implausible.) David is taken aback, but agrees to teach her.

Things move forward from there, and in 1090 they run off together, making a harrowing journey clear across France, mostly on foot. By the time they arrive in Narbonne Vigdis is pregnant. (Possibly for that reason, her conversion process is head-spinningly fast by modern standards.) She takes the name Sarah, but David has given her a nickname that sticks: Hamoutal, “warmth of the dew.” All is well for a few months; then her father’s knights show up in Narbonne, searching for her, and the couple take flight once again. Hertmans moves back and forth between Hamoutal’s imagined story and his own efforts at researching what her life might have been.

That brings me to my own reasons for feeling compelled to read this book just now.

Most of the foundational research on both Jewish history in Normandy and the conversion phenomenon was done over the course of 50 years by a long-time neighbor of mine. (This story is going to take a painful turn, so I’m going to be very vague here: no names will be named, and no dates specified.) His family and mine moved to the neighborhood at about the same time; for more than a decade we lived five minutes’ walk from each other. He and my father used to play tennis together, and I have an amusing memory of his wife and my mother trying to be polite while getting on one another’s nerves during a Jewish United Fund ladies’ luncheon (although what my mother and I were doing at such a hopelessly bourgeois event is a mystery). He is mentioned by name several times in The Convert, as is his youngest son, who seems to have been acting as his father’s amanuensis during the early 2010s.

I knew that son in school — only slightly, because he was three years ahead of me and we went to different synagogues, so we didn’t cross paths that often, but his reputation preceded him. That reputation was as someone who went out of his way to be helpful to others, and also that of a prodigy: he had been skipped ahead a year at some point; he won chess tournaments with ease and regularity; he was already fluent in French and Hebrew and proficient in Latin. (I had all of this on pretty good authority: the older brother of my closest friend of those years was another competitive chess player.)

He seems not to have lived up to his early promise. He earned both a law degree and a Ph.D. in comparative literature (the latter from a very prestigious institution), but apparently has done little with either.

And how do I know that?

My neighbor was prominent enough that, when the time came, a fair number of newspapers and general-interest magazines carried his obituary. Many of them used words like “contrarian” and “controversialist” to describe him. It's true hat one through-line in his career was that his research, which went well beyond the areas that I’ve mentioned above, did often lead him to conclusions that were quite different from those of other scholars working in the same or adjacent fields. He also managed to irritate the governments of, or influential non-governmental organizations in, several countries in which the authorities have a history of seeking to control access to historical artifacts, intellectual discourse, etc. All of this seems to have led to him and his views being excluded from that discourse at times.

Well, one day I opened my morning newspaper and learned that his son, my old schoolmate, had been arrested on more than two dozen counts of criminal impersonation, identity theft, forgery, and aggravated harassment stemming from a clandestine campaign to bolster his father’s reputation while undermining several of his leading critics.

He was convicted on most of the charges, including two felony counts, and was initially sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and five years’ probation. He did spend a day and a half in prison before his family was able to post bail, an experience about which he later wrote for a now-defunct literary magazine. Many of the convictions, including both of the felonies, were reversed on appeal, and one of the laws under which he was charged was repealed as a direct result of his case. His probation was reduced to time served. Just last year, he regained his law license. His father, who turned out to have been aware of the scheme but was never charged with a crime, was his son's staunchest defender until encroaching illness robbed him of his ability to be so.

As much as a matter of principle as for any other reason, I don’t read, let alone write, real-people fic of any kind. But it’s awfully tempting to try to construct a less sad alternative version of these events — perhaps one in which my it was schoolmate’s older siblings (both of whom, I’ve discovered, have displayed some degree of underachievement and failure-to-launch syndrome) who did this, deliberately excluding my brilliant schoolmate from their plotting.

I hadn’t thought about any of this in a long time until a few weeks ago, and I’m completely at a loss to explain what brought it back to me and sent me down this rabbit-hole. But it made me remember that I had been meaning to read The Convert after seeing a review of it early in 2020, just before lockdown began. So here we are.

Well, then, is The Convert any good? It’s certainly a fine piece of storytelling and compulsively readable, but I can recommend it only with certain reservations, all of which, I’m afraid, stem from the fact that — how shall I put this? — Hertmans is no Heidi Thomas. To begin with, the book is sprinkled with inaccuracies about Jewish practice and worldview:

Synagogues don’t have altars, nor do we set up altars for weddings (which traditionally take place out-of-doors).

It is not and never has been the case that marriage in Judaism is “for the eternity of their lives.” That’s a Christian thing.

It wasn’t only “according to the Jewish traditions of the time” (my emphasis) that a sexual encounter rendered a couple halakhically married: that’s always been true. On paper, at least, it’s still true today.

Hertmans, or his translator, also repeatedly uses pogrom, a Russian word that first appeared in print in the 1880s, to refer to events taking place in 11th-century France. (He’s not the only writer to have committed that anachronism, to be sure.)

A more serious problem is that Hertmans seems unable or unwilling to accept the idea that conversion to Judaism is, for lack of a better way of putting it, real. (Without wishing to open a can of worms, one could compare this to a refusal to accept that other types of self-identification are real.) I’ve encountered this attitude among two groups of people: secular Jews like my parents, whose only basis for Jewish self-identification was genetic (although, not atypically, this was of overwhelming importance to them — may their memory be for a blessing, but this used to drive me Up. The. Wall.); and (some, by no means all) people harboring a Christian worldview, whether they call it by that name or not. Neither cohort is willing to accept that the idea that Judaism is a religion: sure, you can convert to Christianity; you can convert to Islam; you can convert to Hinduism; but Judaism either comes with the mother’s milk or is really just a set of folkways — and you can’t convert to that, not really.

Hertmans — a Flemish-speaking Belgian, and thus likely raised as a Roman Catholic, for whatever that’s worth — starts out showing great respect for Vigdis’ intellectual process, and for Judaism:

As the weeks go by, her discussions with the young Jewish intellectual teach her that there is a religious alternative to the violence and turmoil of the Christian world. This tremendous shift in perspective throws her off balance and fascinates her. She pictures a different world, a different chronology — one that does not begin with death by torture and crucifixion. A historical sense not bewitched by apocalyptic delusions and millennial fears, by the return of the dreaded Beast, by hell and Devil and torment and Fall, but by a far more ancient calendar that begins with a creative act, the beginning of life itself: the instant when Yahweh created the world. The thought comforts her; no longer is history broken by any fault line. At the same time, she lies awake at night in her narrow alcove, agonizing over the words of the Torah, comparing them to what she has learned from the priests. ... She says nothing to her governess about her growing doubt and confusion, and she certainly never speaks of it to her parents.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned T-S 16.100 offers no indication whatsoever that "Vigdis" and David arrived in Narbonne together. One could even draw the opposite conclusion:

She went forth from the house of her father, from great wealth and a distant land, and came on behalf of the Lord ... She left her brothers and the great ones of her family, and was living in Narbonne; and Rabbi David, the deceased person just mentioned, married her.

By throwing illicit romance and elopement into the mix, Hertmans undermines the first of these passages and ignores the historical facts presented in the second. And he makes it clear that our heroine continues to struggle with identity issues for the rest of her life. Under any degree of stress, she begins murmuring the Catholic prayers of her youth; she worries constantly that she has in fact damned herself. She dies not at the hands of the Church but as a victim of her own shattered mind, broken by too much loss. Hertmans seems to be implying that she has brought her fate, her madness, onto herself by trying to do something that he sees as impossible: become Jewish.

We need a novel that shows a great deal more confidence in this process. (Admittedly, I have an axe to grind here.)

Since I’m posting this here on Tumblr (and I know who my followers are), I should add that The Convert would make a terrible feature film and an even worse mini-series. Too much interiority, not enough dialogue. But it is worth reading, if you keep its issues in mind.

#off topic #book review #personal history #a long post for sunday #very long in fact #i've used a bunch of ten-dollar words here #that's just how i am #you can look them up

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