Cafeteria

"We want peace — there is something that we are occupied with: growing wheat . . ."

— Soviet president Yuri Andropov, April 1983, in response to American Samantha Smith, 10, whose correspondence with Andropov resulted in international celebrity. In August 1985, a plane carrying Samantha and her father home from a TV appearance crashed, killing everyone aboard.

The kindergarteners are hystericalon the recess field. It seems to themthe right thing to be. They mimicthe way their parents dancewhen grieving: all armsand bobbing heads, a cattle kind of song.We've been drinking frosted bottles of popon the high school side, spreading jamon bread. The bees keep gatheringin our bottle caps, flying infrom the still-green trees. I've been paradingmy work around, peacocking for Bo.He says Don't show methat contact sheet. I can't standwhen my friends make art.So brazen! Don't question this, he sayswhen we hear the news. I'm shaking,taking a seat on the cold benchacross from him. Just accept.Such bad advice, but he's older, larger,has been kicked out of school twicefor filling the Erlenmeyer flasksafter hours with milk. I lovehis fingers, the asterisks of lineson the backs of his hands, his fat palms where his life lines break brieflybefore continuing, signaling some future,recoverable blow.

No word can bring Samantha back."Congratulations on your new job,"she wrote to Andropov. "I have been worryingabout Russia and the United Statesgetting into a nuclear war."I don't care what Bo says; I show himwhat I've made with math. I show himhow I shot my bedroom in 25 steps,so that the contact sheet made a mosaicof the room, with black-bordered gridsreading Kodak Tri-X. It's good film,good grain. Even the mistakesare good. Look how I've made my worldinto measurable space. I have no talent yetfor subtlety. "It seems to me —,"wrote Andropov. "I can tell by your letter —that you are a courageous and honest girl,resembling Becky, the friend of Tom Sawyerin the famous book of your compatriot Mark Twain."Bo says all artists should be silenced:art's long need for protagonistsbirths each human's vanity. I'm embarrassedfor myself. I close my eyes. I see the waySamantha twirled before the cameras,how she burned herself into film.See the white wings descendingbelow glide slope. The captain's hatturning East.