Bit O' Lizzie

A big burly, if gentle, dog with a tagged ear roamed between people, flopping down comfortably every few minutes until he spotted a cat.

Of course I didn't get a picture of the little girl.

In my mind, that cat is its perpetual nemesis. They are locked in a roadrunner/coyote or Tom/Jerry scenario- the dog the perpetual loser. He stalked that cat, a fraction of his burly size, and the cat managed victory each time. Two paws perched comfortably on the basket under a stroller, no one shooed her away, instead the dog- lumbered low and barking loudly if not at all aggressively. The children that were gathered near, the parents positioning themselves between dog beast and child, paid no mind to the cat that seemed almost to taunt its furry foe.

This passes for entertainment at 6:45 am when fatigue plagues you, dog chasing cat and people watching. The line was already beginning to snake behind us. The chill surprised me. I wrapped my arms around myself, the fleece hoodie Lizzie had encouraged me to grab soft under my fingers, relieved to be warmer -or at least less cold than I would have been.

I didn’t hear much English from the other people huddled in familial knots along the line. French, to be expected because August is France’s holiday season; Dutch, or maybe Afrikaans – I heard a “futsaak a less than polite expression common in South African villages; maybe German. A comforting cornucopia of country distinctions and the people to match.

My head swiveled, following sounds and imagined dramas, settling for a moment on a small blond child. She was maybe eight years old. Her eyes were an ice blue framed by blond hair that ran beyond her shoulders...and she stared. She stared at me so intensely- no smile- no change in her stoic face. So I smiled. I might have waved a bit; something I do when children in other countries stare at me.

I know I'm often the most foreign of sights. It used to be my brown skin and grand crown of curly twisted locks- now I imagine it is the extreme opposite- still the brownness, now accompanied by shorn curls and big earrings (twine feathers brushing my shoulders on this day). So I smile and possibly wave and usually kids either grin sheepishly and return the wave or hide behind a parent or turn their heads away.

This girl. This young version of what I imagine Lizzie to have looked like in her younger days, instead stared coldly at me for another beat and then turned her head slowly away. It reminded me more of what I get from staring adults. They stare and when I make eye contact they keep it a moment, as if to show me they weren’t staring at me or they aren’t embarrassed, and then they turn away. She did just that – an odd reaction from someone so young but whatever.

A few minutes later I felt her eyes on me again and so I repeated the exercise: smile, possible wave – and she repeated hers: a moment longer staring with unsmiling eyes or lips and then a turned head.

She repeated this for 15 minutes – the staring. It unsettled me.

I turned to Lizzie to see if I was imagining the whole thing, making more out of it than what should have been made. Lizzie smiled sympathetically at me, she noticed too, she thought it strange, too.

Croatia is a whiter country than I had expected. Or rather, I hadn’t really expected anything in particular but it is rare that I have been in place so very white that I noticed the contrast of myself so intensely. The summer in Iowa comes to mind and not much else. I had anticipated this sense of racial distinction in Amsterdam, only to be foiled by my own ignorance of the place- flush with people of all hues and a myriad of languages singing in my ears. But Croatia, even standing in line at one of its most popular tourist attractions during its busy season, showcased a sea of whiteness without a second brown face in the mix.

I get that I might have been a strange sight to the little girl. An anomaly to what she sees in her daily life. Still, the piercing blue eyes seemed to bore into me. Her joyless face surprised me. No childish curiosity or mirth or even fear – simply the stare of...I'm not even sure what.

I dubbed her Bit-O-Lizzie because she resembled what I imagine lizzie looked like at her age. And soon the line moved and we made it inside the park. But I didn’t forget her, I couldn’t quite shake her stare.