The Bahá’i School
It stood at the top of a steep hill that sloped all the way down to the Pisquataqua River, which even then I knew was tidal. I was visiting on a field trip with my church, a very liberal church that wanted to introduce us to many different religions. By the time we arrived it was almost sunset, and light was spiking between the hundreds of dark needles on a single pine, which stood at the bottom of the hill and had grown so tall its uppermost branches brushed the school’s highest windows.
The building itself was massive and was composed almost entirely of prayer rooms: sparse, white places with faded blue rag rugs that looked too small for the floors. Sometimes there were framed paintings of prophets, which also looked too small for the walls. The too-smallness was pleasing, and seemed to suggest something about the nature of God. In one of these rooms, seashells were laid out on a shelf, all gleaming faintly through a fine layer of dust. We had been studying marine biology in school, and I felt a quiet delight when I realized I could name each one: dogwinkle, periwinkle, conch, and scallop. Gazing out through the round window, I could glimpse the river, which from that distance looked like the sea.
Our tour guide explained little. At each room, she stood to the side of the doorframe as we looked in (we were not allowed to enter), and said nothing. In turn, none of us asked any questions, not even the chaperones. I liked that we all said nothing. I could pretend that I was alone, discovering each room for myself.
We ended our tour on the bottom floor, in a large and empty hall, where there was a table bearing a tray of pumpkin muffins we weren’t allowed to eat. I imagined tearing one open, saw steam rising from the inside, and thought of how quickly a slip of butter would melt into the cake of it. We never had butter out for eating at home. It was always kept in the freezer, preserved until it was needed for baking. In that moment, I held the vanishing smear of it in my mind, and the imagined taste against the spices of the muffin was like the light from a match struck in the dark.
I’ve finally endeavored to preserve this memory on paper, as I preserved it for years in my mind. In doing so, perhaps I’ve offered only a shell of the truth: fragile and plain. In any case, I see now as I write it out that it is too small for me to climb inside, though there were times during that visit when I believed that I could, if my parents would only let me, stay—that it would be enough to bow down every day on my too-small rug, curled into the shape of those yet to be born.
