Bessie

I have been thinking about the invisible among us.  Bessie was the maid at the boarding house, owned by Mrs. Harris, where I spent vacations from boarding school in England.  At that time, I never considered her or thought much about what her life might be like, but a few months ago I was reading Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, a novel about a char woman who saves her money to go to the House of Dior to buy a beautiful gown.  I thought of Bessie.

Bessie would have never dreamt of such an adventure. She was old and walked in a stiff-ankled stomp.  She was skinny with grizzled hair that escaped her cap, part of the uniform she wore, a black dress under a white apron—an unkempt imitation of the maids in the estates of England at the turn of the 20^th century. She lived in the underbelly of the house and served as cook and housekeeper. I never bothered to find out exactly where Bessie “lived”, where she slept or passed her off time, if she had any, but she may have had a room in the basement somewhere or she may have even slept on the floor in the dining room.  On the rare occasions that I woke in time for breakfast, she would bring me a plate of bacon and eggs and toast.  Infrequently, the students who stayed at the boarding house would also have dinner there, generally on Christmas day or some other holiday when London shut down, and Bessie would serve us dinner. Nobody paid attention to her.  I never had a conversation with her and have no idea if she had any family anywhere. 

Her realm was a tiny kitchen in the basement with an adjoining drab dining area. When I think back on it now, it is impressive that she could produce a holiday dinner in that space.  Most of the guests at the boarding house during school holidays were foreign students who couldn’t go home.  Occasionally there were other guests who would stay for a few days.  The students didn’t have their rooms cleaned; we made our own beds, and the rooms and bathrooms were only cleaned after we left.  Bessie took care of the rest of the house, the three landings and the wide staircase that led up to them, the entry hall, and the communal living room.

In the evenings, if we were in, the foreign students could go to Mrs. Harris’s small bedroom in the basement where she had a television set, and we would all find a seat on her bed or on the two chairs there and watch television. Bessie would also come in and find a corner by the wall and sit on the floor.  Sometimes at Christmas or New Year’s, Mrs. Harris would celebrate with us in the lounge, allowing us to drink orange juice with a dash of gin (we were all under the age of 18).   Bessie would take a drink with us, silently gulping the drink down in a couple of swigs.  She was a shadow we ignored. 

In Iran, we had maids who cooked and cleaned too.  The difference was that we knew about their families, what village they came from and where they went on their days off.  Their families would sometimes visit them at our house. In the evenings, if we were watching television, they would sit with us and there was constant commentary on what was happening on the screen.  Our lives were quite entwined.  I wonder if Mrs. Harris knew much about Bessie; it didn’t seem that way.

My son, Peter, introduced me to a documentary about Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a Mexican-Canadian artist. He has initiated a project called Border Tuner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX-VXlweApI).  Lozano-Hemer now lives in Montreal, a city that was divided between French and English language speakers when I lived there in the 1970s.  I suspect some of that divisiveness still exists. So, Lozano-Hemmer is a binational, living in a bilingual, divided city.

The Border Tuner project uses searchlights and radio transmissions between Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso in Texas to connect people on either side of the border.  According to the documentary about this project, Juarez/El Paso is the biggest binational metropolis in the world. At one time citizens of both cities could freely travel across the border.  Now there is a barrier between the two sides, and searchlights are used along the border to find migrants entering the United States illegally. 

Lozano-Hemmer uses his searchlights and radio transmissions to connect people. They do not know each other but they have conversations between Juarez and El Paso, often about how their families have been divided. They connect through their voices but also can hear their own heartbeat and the heartbeat of the person they are connecting with.  It is a poignant reminder that people need relationships.  Governments and circumstances can divide, but humans need community and find a way to connect.  Interestingly, it took an exile to develop this program.

The documentary made me think about invisible people and the need for connectedness. Isolation and loneliness are heart-wrenchingly painful.  One can feel isolated and alone in a crowd because there is a yearning for connection, which may still be unattainable in a roomful of people.

I think of Bessie as totally unconnected. Maybe she was lucky to have shelter and food, but she seemed like the loneliest person I ever knew.  A few of my posts here have been about exile and lacking a place in the world, but you do not have to be an exile or a foreigner to feel disconnected from others.  Bessie was as English as Mrs. Harris, but she seemed to have no place.  I wish I had reached out to her and learned her story.  We all have a story we yearn to share.  Just ask anyone.