Confronted with her formidable stature and presence, I whimpered out my name and my innocence, a well-worn rendition of a speech I’d already delivered too many times in my short school career.
‘So—the new girl! I had hoped for better, but expected no less from you! And that’s a ridiculous answer, “you don’t know”, you’ve done “nothing”! Don't waste my time with nonsense; just tell me plainly what you’ve done!’
Sister Ignatia indicated for to me to take a seat in front of her desk, swishing herself behind it with dire warnings that my reputation had preceded me, that the kind of behavior I’d been prone to at my other school would not be tolerated at the convent, and so on.
It was true, I’d had a fair bit of time in the principal’s office at my previous school. There, the headmaster would tap his cane on his desk and threaten to use it on me, ‘a girl nogal’, should I ever cross his path again (which I did, but he never used it). His wife—my teacher—once flew into such a rage over his leniency that she took two rulers, one in each hand, and proceeded to ‘cane’ me with these, in front of my class, for stealing a child’s lunch yet again. I’d felt incredibly humiliated by the episode, but I’d understood also that she herself had felt humiliated, and had hated me even more for making her lose her temper so badly. No; the peanut butter sandwich I’d taken to replace my own peach jam sandwich had not been worth all the awfulness that had followed. But I still felt I’d needed that sandwich, and I’d rather have faced all that humiliation than eat the sodding sandwich Mom had given me knowing how much I hated peach jam. Needless to say, I hadn’t been very popular at that school, either.
I’d given up stealing lunches since being at the convent; I was trying to be ‘good’. Sister Ignatia didn’t even know what I’d been sent to her for, but she took the opportunity to lay it on thick. She said she knew I was trouble—everyone knew I was trouble—and I’d better watch my step. She was angry in a calm and strong voice, so I didn’t mind. If a person was calm and had a nice face, it never bothered me if they were angry; there was nothing to fear. I noted a country house painting behind her head, and was transporting myself onto a pathway there, walking away from everything yucky to a beautiful place where I could be alone and free to dance and sing and breathe. So lost was I in my imagination that when Sister Ignatia’s voice broke through it was like a twig snapping. ‘You are a thoroughly disrespectful child; I expect your mother’s signature at the bottom of the one hundred lines you are going to write and bring back to me tomorrow: ‘I repent of being the devil’s hands and feet.’
One hundred lines. Easy. I knew I could get that done on the toilet during break, and as for the signature, well, I had a copy of Mom’s that I’d traced many times. True, it didn’t look quite right sometimes—a little shaky—but most teachers would chuck the paper away with a sniff and a beady-eyed look that said, ‘Don't think I don't know that’s a fake, but I can’t be bothered right now.’ I’d learned that I had to do whatever I did bravely, because bravery confused people, especially teachers, putting them on the back foot. You exasperate them enough, and it becomes too much hard work to follow through on discipline.
By the time I’d shuffled back to class, taking my time so I didn’t have to run into Sister Bemvita again, Mrs Robsyn was behind her desk. She sniffed as I entered the room, and screwed up her nose as though I smelled bad. Involuntarily I scanned the class, a reflex action, gauging the level of support I might expect. Most heads were bowed over the opening of homework books. One or two faces sneered derision at me, while Nicola maintained a blank expression that I’d come to expect from self-righteous people, a tolerant look-down-the-nose-at-an-alien expression. Meanwhile a big friendly smile from a girl called Adrianna, her round cheeks pink with pleasantness, met my scowling response; I shut her down pronto. Adrianna was too fat and her hair too greasy to be anyone’s friend, so there was no way I’d be wooed by her, either. I sat down and stuck my nose in the air, silently screaming out, ‘See if I care!’ I decided there and then that I didn’t give a damn about any religious stuff; it was all hocus-pocus drivel.
Chapter Nine
While at school, I could chuck my chin in the air and pretend not to give a damn, making out that I was tough and strong. There was no way I’d have dared to behave like that at home, so, given the choice of two shitty places to be, I’d have chosen school every time.
Returning home from school was the most dread-full part of my day, except that I got to walk home, so I knew exactly how much reprieve I’d have before—bam!—whatever would happen.
I clutched the handle of my schoolbag, silver buckle bumping against my leg, first in my left hand for ten steps, then over to my right hand for ten steps. It was vital to keep the order going, counting, along with the banging on my legs. The counting provided some rhythm, some control over my otherwise uncontrollable life.
While counting, I’d also anticipate the various situations I might find at home: what Mom’s mood might be; whether she’d know I’d been in trouble at school again; whether she’d discovered the hole in the biscuit box or noticed the missing silver. It was dangerous to relax my guard when things had been going well at home. I’d been through this before—Mom would spend time with me, laughing, smiling, shopping, talking to me about what I liked or didn’t; I’d fall into believing she’d always be like that, and then I’d allow myself to trust her again; then without warning she’d turn on me and seem to hate me more than ever. I’d learned the importance of being alert and prepared for anything that might happen. There was no saying what might set her off; only luck, which I worked at shoring up, might keep me safe. If I ever questioned the lack of positive results from my superstitious behaviors, I’d quickly set my doubts aside and continue counting: so many steps to the curb; so many steps to cross the road; my bag in the appropriate hand when I set foot on the first brick of a particular pathway.
I’d dawdle my way through the golden dry veld, where Kiewiets reigned supreme, dive-bombing and screeching, until I reached Ararat Road, where I’d cross over by the zebra crossing that led to the Dutch Reformed Church. The church stood on the corner of a large park, named after the Dutch founding father of white Afrikaans of South Africa, Jan van Riebeek. It was a mostly barren place, dry grass crunching underfoot and desperately thirsty trees struggling to stay alive in the summer heat. The Dutch Reformed Church faced-off the Anglican Church, which stood less imposingly on the opposite side of the park.
Smack between the two was ‘Die Taalmonument’, a monument to the ‘wonders of the Afrikaans language’. The monument felt like a bully’s fist to the face, a warning that the ground one was on was ‘taken’, owned by the Afrikaner for the Afrikaners, and ‘don't you forget it’. English and Afrikaans-speaking people hardly mixed at all in those days. We went to different schools and called each other disparaging names, like rock-spider (the English term for Afrikaners, implying that they lay low on the scale of evolution) and rooinek (the Afrikaans term for the English, implying that we had red necks because our sensitive skin couldn’t handle the African sun).
I had to keep my bag in my left hand in the park, always counting—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, ending on an even number with a six or an eight in it—before crossing to our sidewalk, where I had to change hands. Doing so pronto meant that things would be okay. Often a dripping sound behind my left ear would kick in at this time, a distraction from my counting, and I’d bang on my head to make it go away, or at least to drip more slowly.
It wasn’t a pleasant surprise one day when a lanky boy with close-cropped hair (the local Afrikaans school made the boys shave their heads if their team lost a rugby match) strode up to me and offered to carry my bag. ‘Dra-die-Tas,’ he said, with his hand outstretched. Unnerved, I could only stare at him in consternation. He’d interrupted my counting; my chances of good luck were disappearing the longer I didn’t move. I clutched hard to the handle of my schoolbag, worried that others were ready to pounce, that someone would see me talking to an Afrikaans boy and accuse me of ‘looking