Agnes

When I think of Agnes I think of our childhood. Various scenes from our childhood scroll before my eyes. In all those scenes Agnes is a happy girl. She is very positive. She is smiling. I don't think she ever cried in my presence or laughed out loud. She was well-behaved.  I don't remember her in any other way. 

In my memories, Agnes is a smart and serious girl. She intimidated me. Just before John and I started school, she was teaching us reading, writing and counting. I think she wanted us to be ahead of other kids. One day she announced that she'd give us a dictation next time she saw us. I had no idea what a 'dictation' was, so I felt rather scared. I meant to ask my mother, but I forgot the name of this thing that Agnes was going to do to us. I don't think I slept that night. I was so afraid that I'd fail and disappoint my first teacher.

As a child, Agnes was a very brave and very rational girl. Once John and I were told at school that the next day we'd go to the clinic for X-rays. We were wondering if it would hurt.  "Don't worry - Agnes told us - I guarantee you it won't hurt, but it may sting a bit".

Even as a child, Agnes was very mature, a responsible and caring person. She had a very good heart. For example: we were living in a small town surrounded by villages. People in those days (the late nineteen-fifties) were really poor, workers and farmers alike. Many children in our school, especially those from villages, were malnourished. And naturally they did not do very well at school. Agnes volunteered to tutor one particularly unfortunate girl. This girl would come to their house every day after school, have dinner with Agnes and John, then she would study and do her homework with Agnes. Thanks to Agnes she passed to the next grade, and later graduated from that school.

I was John's playmate. Agnes was older and played with her friends. But I watched her closely and imitated her to some extent. For instance, I read the same books, I also tutored poor kids. One can say that Agnes was my first role model. 

When we grew older, we went to different schools and we saw each other less often. (We did not live in the same little town anymore.) Agnes became a beautiful young woman. She was very stylish too. I remember her wearing a fashionable turban made from a headscarf, high heels and heavy make-up. (This fashion, turbans and 'Egyptian' make-up, set in after the film "Pharaoh" in the late nineteen-sixties.) At the same time she was an 'above and beyond' student. 

Agnes was unique. Almost too good to be true. I've never met anyone even remotely similar to Agnes. She was the proverbial pearl.