Puck

story by Robin H. Pugh Yi

“Sweetie, you can’t climb in there,” I call. I catch my three-year-old daughter by the waist just before she hoists herself over the low wall between us and the Smithsonian’s Neanderthal burial exhibit.
“Why?” Rachel’s favorite question.
“Honey, there are some very delicate and rare things in there. We need to leave them alone so everyone has a chance to see them.”
She accepts this.
“Mommy, how close can we get?” she asks, never taking her eyes off the Neanderthal child mannequin bent over the grave.
“This is close enough,” I whisper, sliding next to her on the wall.
A nine- or ten-year-old girl leans against the wall, declaring, “Freaky,” before moving on to the next display.
Neanderthals, I read for both of us, buried their dead in sleeping positions, with food and tools, and sometimes flowers. In the exhibit’s impressively realistic “stone cave,” an adult-size mannequin, partially clothed in animal skins, bound into fetal position with leather thongs, rests in a shallow grave.
Just in front, a ring of stones marks a hearth. Three low-browed mannequins, perhaps a nuclear family, attend the grave. Their hair leaves no doubt scissors and razors have not yet been invented. Animal skins barely cover their privates. Two boys on an elementary school field trip are elbowing each other and snickering over the parts of the woman’s breast not covered by a bear skin shawl.

We came to the museum because Rachel wanted to see the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are dragons, evidence that fairy tales are real. They stomp around, make messes, get their way. The famous ones are huge. Tyrannosaurus Rex, the perennial crowd pleaser, greeted us. We saw other favorites, stegosaurus, triceratops, velociraptor. The room-sized diplodocus, dwarfing even T. Rex, inspired Rachel to declare, “Mommy, dinosaurs were incredible.” She did a little dance, her pink boots sparking on the backbeats.
We got as far as the enormous Mesozoic sea tortoise before taking a lunch break.
She had just opened her chocolate pudding cup when she said, “I need to go potty.” The women’s room next to the cafeteria was closed for repairs. We rushed up a flight of marble stairs, through the African Voices exhibit, past an “under construction” section, and some prehistoric human displays, to the nearest potty. Rachel’s face was tense, her legs squeezed tight around my waist to avoid the humiliation of a public accident. We were both relieved when we got to the stall in time.
I broke the rules and brought the pudding with us. No food was allowed outside the cafeteria, which did not have bathrooms. It’s unfair to make a child forfeit her dessert because she needs to go potty before finishing. We rushed back to the cafeteria, where she ate the contraband pudding and we discussed what to do next.
“We can go to the fossil lab, or see the woolly mammoth,” I suggested.
“But I need to see the people with the stones.”
“Who?”
Rachel took a deep breath to summon her patience. Her eyes pleaded with me to understand. “The people with the stones.” She drew an imaginary circle of stones on the floor.
“Where did you see them?”
“By the potty. There was a boy.”
“Were they in a cave?”
She smiled and nodded.
“OK, Honey, we’ll go see the cave people next.”

When we got close enough to see them, Rachel let go of my hand to race toward the Neanderthals, boots sparkling with each step. Her jaw dropped, eyes widened. She silently absorbed the scene for a moment. Then she asked her signature barrage of questions: What are they doing? Why did he die? Why are they wearing animal fur? Why are they in the cave? Why are they putting food in the grave?
I assumed we were ready to move on after the question and answer session.
“Look, Rachel, a mastodon! Let’s go see.”
She shook her head, “Mommy, I want to stay here.”
She slid her belly along the exhibit border, her face tender as she looked up at the mourning mannequins – first the man, then the woman, then the 8- to 11-year-old child she called “the boy.” Then she started to climb into the exhibit, arms outstretched.

After agreeing to perch on the low wall bordering the exhibit, Rachel remains quiet for over 10 minutes.
Two older girls walk by, make exaggerated shivering gestures, and declare the scene, “Scary.” My daughter’s eyes scan the cave and the people, answering a call to something sacred.
“Rachel, why do you like this so much?”
She is surprised, and a little disappointed that I require an explanation.
Rachel takes one of my hands in both of hers and says, “Oh, Mommy, they’re so beautiful. They don’t have any clothes on.”

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