by Lisa Grekul
“I also noticed,” she says, “that you haven’t been joining the other students for afternoon sport.”
She’s right. I haven’t. I don’t like sports. Neither does Rosa. So we’ve been spending our afternoons in the music room. I practice the piano, or write songs, and Rosa sits in one of the desks beside the piano, drawing in her sketchbook.
“We don’t have to do afternoon sport,” I say, trying to defend myself. “It’s optional. Isn’t it?”
“Three weeks ago,” says Mrs. McBain, ignoring me, “you and Rosalind Richardson were the only senior students who did not run in the 24-hour Relay. Every other student in your class made an effort to secure pledges and raise money for the Quedusizi Primary School at the base of the hill. Where, may I ask, were you and Rosalind?”
My face starts to get hot. We were camping at Malolotja with Siya. Rosa said that lots of students skip out on the 24-hour Relay. It’s just a big show to make the college look good.
“I’ve kept quiet about this for a long time.” Mrs. McBain moves from the armchair to sit beside me on the couch. “I’m telling you this for your own good, not for any other reason. I don’t believe that you are to blame for your behaviour. Not entirely. Rosalind Richardson is a very troubled young woman. She’s not good for you, Colleen. She’s not a good influence.”
Rosa isn’t perfect. I know that. But when I try to argue with Mrs. McBain, when I try to point out all of Rosa’s good qualities, she doesn’t listen. She says that Rosa has a history of acting out. Since Form 4, she’s been in numerous power struggles with faculty members. Mrs. McBain suspects that Rosa is experimenting with alcohol and drugs. When she was in Form 5, she ran away from the college to stay with her boyfriend in town, a coloured boy working at one of the casinos in the Ezulwini Valley.
I don’t know what to say. Rosa never mentioned running away.
“She has difficulty accepting authority,” says Mrs. McBain. “The only reason she’s still at Waterford is because her parents can’t handle her themselves. They’ve made several large donations to the college. As much as I’d like to see her go, Mr. Harrington doesn’t feel that it’s in our best interest to expel her.”
No wonder Rosa doesn’t care about breaking the rules.
“Now, I can’t speak about this Swazi boy you’ve befriended, but I find it troubling that you spend all your time with him and with Rosalind. You’ve made no attempt to get to know the other students here at Waterford. Even Katja. Katja is someone with whom you have a great deal in common, yet you have no social interactions with her whatsoever.”
“That’s not fair. I tried to be friends with Katja. Honest, I tried. She’s just impossible. You know what she’s like. She’s not exactly friendly.”
“And the other students in your class?”
She doesn’t understand. They all have their own groups. The students who have gone to Waterford all their lives aren’t interested in making new friends, and I don’t fit in with the scholarship girls. I’m lucky to have Rosa and Siya. They’re my group.
What am I supposed to do?
Mrs. McBain says that I’m supposed to think back to the reasons I came to Swaziland in the first place. She talks about the essays that I wrote when I was applying for a uwc scholarship – essays that she has on file, in case I want to reread them. What happened to the girl who wrote those essays? she wonders. What happened to the girl who wanted to extend the hand of friendship to young women and men from around the globe? Who talked about breaking down borders and building a new world, free from racism, poverty, and prejudice?
She’s not gone. I want to tell Mrs. McBain that the girl who said all those things is still here. I’m still her. I just can’t find a way to do the things that I set out to do. I think about Thandiwe at the ironing board, and the Indian girls who laughed at my accent. I think back to the day Mandela was released; how out of place I felt when the other students were celebrating. When I was writing my essays, at home in St. Paul, anything seemed possible – it was easy to talk about saving the world, or making a difference at least. Real life is different. I can’t explain to Mrs. McBain how lonely it is, and how scary. How complicated. How hard.
Mrs. McBain says that I need to spend less time with Rosa. Less and less time with Rosa over the next few weeks, and more time with the other girls in my class. It’s as simple as that.
I shake my head. I’m not giving up Rosa because Mrs. McBain has something against her. Rosa is my best friend.
But Mrs. McBain keeps talking, as though she can’t see me shaking my head. She says that I can start making new friends by selecting a different Community Service project. By joining the daycare volunteers, or the group of students who run tutoring sessions at Quedusizi.
Impossible. I tell her straight out that I’m not changing my Community Service. Even if I wanted to – which I don’t – I can’t. Rosa and I signed up for the hospital a long time ago, and all the paperwork has been done. We’ve been issued special identification tags to get into the hospital. Siya had to make special arrangements to take time off his work at the Ministry of Transport. The three of us are volunteering together. It’s all been planned.
“All right,” says Mrs. McBain. “Then you cut back on your weekend trips to Mbabane. Instead of going to town every Saturday and Sunday with Rosalind, you stay on campus. Try mixing with the students who stay on campus for soccer tournaments and evenings of watching videos.”
Now I’m starting to get angry. Mrs. McBain can’t tell me what to do. She can’t control who I’m friends with, and how I spend my free time. I haven’t done anything wrong. The last thing in the world that I want to do on weekends is watch soccer matches and outdated movies.
“I’m sorry, but I won’t do it. Rosa is my friend. I like her. You can’t stop me from being her friend.”
Mrs. McBain takes one last, long drink of her iced tea. “Unfortunately, I can.”
“How?”
I look her straight in the eye.
“Starting today, you’re banned from leaving campus. For the next eight weeks, I’m blacklisting you. No exeats, except for class-related, teacher-supervised trips to town.”
I try to stay calm as I explain to Mrs. McBain that she can’t blacklist me. I haven’t broken any rules.
“But I’m afraid you have,” she says. “It’s almost mid-year, and you haven’t made any progress on your Extended Essay. That is grounds for blacklisting.”
What’s she talking about? The research for my E2 is complete. All that’s left is for me to write the actual essay, which shouldn’t take long. Researching is the hard part, writing is easy.
When I remind Mrs. McBain that I’ve made plenty of progress of my E2, she gives me an icy look.
“You no longer have my approval for your current topic. You know that I was never keen on the topic in the first place, Colleen. It’s not challenging enough. I want you to spend the next eight weeks coming up with something more interesting and more creative. Something more provocative. Perhaps you could approach Katja. Have a look at the piece of music she’s working on. You could attempt something similar. And you could develop a friendship with her in the process.”
This isn’t happening to me. I can’t believe that this is happening to me. What can Katja Malanowski teach me about composition? She’s half the musician I am. Mrs. McBain has said it herself. I’m too angry to cry. I want to scream.
As I leave Mrs. McBain’s house, I slam the door behind me. I wish that I’d told her about Sister Maria when I had the chance. I wish that I’d told Mrs. McBain how many times I defended her when Rosa called her Mrs. McBitch – because I thought she was just like Sister Maria. Just as kind, and thoughtful, and motherly.
I was wrong. She’s nothing like Sister Maria.
I wish that I’d told Mrs. McBain how much I used to like her. Then I could tell her that I’ve changed my mind.
•••
Eight weeks is a long time to be stuck at Waterford. By myse
lf. It wouldn’t be so bad if Rosa stayed with me, but she doesn’t see why we both have to suffer. I don’t tell her the truth about why I’ve been blacklisted. Maybe I should. I just don’t want to hurt her feelings.
The first weekend of my blacklisting, Rosa says that we’re in it together. My punishment is her punishment. We’ll show Mrs. McBain that we’re tough. That we don’t need to go to town.
One weekend is enough for her, though. In fact, she doesn’t even make it until the end of the weekend. On Sunday morning, she says that she’ll go crazy if she spends another minute on campus. So she calls Siya, and he picks her up in the car park, and they wave to me as they drive away. Rosa says that she’ll bring me back a pizza from Marco’s. Siya promises me an ice cream from the mall. I don’t bother to mention that Marco’s doesn’t do takeout. That the ice cream will melt long before they reach the top of the hill.
I try not to feel sorry for myself, and jealous of Rosa and Siya, and angry at Mrs. McBain. It’s just eight weeks. Eight weekends. The time will fly by. I’ll still see Rosa during the weekdays and in the evenings. Siya and I can talk on the phone. If Mrs. McBain thinks that her plan is going to work – that she can break up my friendships with them – then she’s got another think coming. And I’m not changing my E2 topic, either. During my first weekend on campus, I spend all of my time in the music room, transcribing Ukrainian folk songs, analyzing different recordings of them. Tracing the way that the melodies and lyrics have changed over the years. I’m going to write the best Extended Essay Mrs. McBain has ever read. By the time I’ve finished, she won’t have a choice. She’ll be so impressed that she’ll have to approve it.
It’s hard, though, eating by myself again in the dining hall. Lots of the senior students leave campus to go to town on Saturday or Sunday, and the ones who stay behind sit in their usual groups at their usual tables. The scholarship girls hang out on the edge of the playing field, braiding each other’s hair, sunning themselves. Thandiwe and her friends gather in the quadrangle to do homework together. I don’t belong with any of them. When I take breaks from writing my essay, I consider watching soccer for a few minutes. I just can’t do it without Rosa. Since February, we’ve been inseparable. Without her, I feel naked.
The worst part is that Rosa doesn’t seem to feel the same way. She doesn’t think twice about calling Siya on Friday night to make plans for Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes she calls him in the middle of the week, too, for no reason. Just to talk. Now that I’m blacklisted, I only have weekdays with her, so I don’t understand why she’s wasting our precious time together on phone calls to Siya. What do they talk about? The thought occurs to me that Rosa and Siya might like each other. But it’s not possible. Rosa has never said anything to me about liking Siya, about the two of them becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. Siya’s not good-looking anyway. He’s overweight. And he has that annoying lisp.
After the fourth weekend of my blacklisting, the halfway point, I’ve almost had enough. Rosa has been disappearing most evenings after homework period and before check-in. She doesn’t tell me where she goes, but I can guess what she’s doing. She’s meeting Siya somewhere on campus, maybe in the art room. She’s with him all the time.
When I ask her straight out if something is going on between them, she shrugs. I take it as a yes.
Wonderful. So Mrs. McBain’s plan has worked. Rosa doesn’t care about our friendship anymore. She doesn’t need me. She’s got Siya now.
I pull out my trump card, to see if there’s any hope left for us.
I tell Rosa that I’m ready to start making pysanky. This weekend. I’m going to the art room to mix the dyes on Friday evening. Saturday morning, I’m getting eggs from the kitchen staff.
Rosa is excited.
“So you’re in,” I say.
“Can Siya come along? “ she asks.
I shake my head. “He’s not allowed. He can’t be on campus. It’s against the rules.”
“You’re already blacklisted,” says Rosa. “What have you got to lose?”
You, I think. I’ve got you to lose.
But I’ve already lost Rosa, really. She won’t make pysanky without Siya. It’s both of them, or neither of them.
I choose them both.
•••
It was a crazy, hopeful, desperate idea; a frantic, last-ditch effort to hang onto Rosa, and doomed from the start. She’s lost to me now. Completely won over by Siya. And it’s my fault. Why did I bring them together in the first place? If only I’d known.
The hostel is quiet and empty on Saturday afternoon, when I get back to my cubie with my pysanka. I only made one. Rosa and Siya are still in the art room, as far as I know. Or maybe they’ve left by now to grab a bite to eat in Mbabane. They hardly noticed me go. Siya was starting on his fourth egg; Rosa had just finished her third. They were giggling. Talking their stupid, lovey-dovey language. She calls him Sweetpea. He calls her Nymphet.
I should never have agreed to let Siya make pysanky with Rosa and me, but I was naive. I had no idea how in love they are. I thought that Siya would feel left out, not me. Rosa and I were supposed to study the pysanky-making books that Mom sent, mapping out our designs together. We were supposed to chat about the meanings of colours and symbols. Siya was supposed to hang around for a while, watching Rosa and me plan. I guessed that he might try to get involved. But I didn’t think that he’d actually be interested. He was supposed to see the unbreakable bond between Rosa and me – strengthened by our pysanky-making – and then he was supposed leave us alone. I wanted him to disappear, wordlessly acknowledging that Rosa is my friend first, his girlfriend second.
So I laid out newspaper on one of the art room tables, and set out the dyes – yellow, orange, green, red, black. I made three workstations – trusting that Siya wouldn’t stay long at his – each with a soft cloth to cradle the eggs, a kistka, a cake of beeswax, and a candle. I provided pencils and paper, too, so that we – so that Rosa and I – could practise our designs before drawing on our eggs. Beeswax is permanent. Once you draw with it on an egg, there’s no turning back. There’s no room for mistakes. Making pysanky is a slow, painstaking process. It takes planning and patience. I explained to Siya and Rosa that we probably wouldn’t finish in one afternoon. Some of the eggs that I made at home took three or four days to complete.
I might as well have been talking to myself. They flew through their eggs as though it were a race; like little kids, competing to see who could finish first. I hadn’t settled yet on a design for my egg and Siya was already dipping his in the yellow dye. Rosa was right behind. Later, while their first eggs were sitting side by side in the orange dye, each of them started on a second egg. They wasted no time. Oh no. No time thinking, no time planning. And all the while they jabbered together – to each other – non-stop, about politics, music, sports, the weather. They talked about anything and everything except pysanky. It’s like I wasn’t even there. I felt used. I felt insulted.
I felt invisible.
The real slap in the face, though, came later, after they’d lifted their eggs out of the black dye and started melting away the beeswax over a candle. I hadn’t paid much attention to what they were actually drawing on their eggs, I was too absorbed in my own work. I made a Forty Triangles pysanka, one of the most difficult designs to execute. The pattern looks simple enough – it’s just a series of lengthwise and widthwise bands that criss-cross around the egg, forming a mesh of forty triangles. The tricky part is spacing out the bands so that all of the triangles are identical in size. It’s harder than it looks. If a single band is out of place – even by a hair – the whole egg is ruined. Symmetry is key. Absolute symmetry.
I chose the design and the colours carefully. Among traditional pysanky designs, Forty Triangles is the most Easter-like of all. The triangle represents the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The number forty symbolizes the forty days of Lent, and the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert. I made all my li
nes yellow, which stands for youth, happiness, and wisdom. Then, after I dyed my egg orange, I filled every other triangle with beeswax. Orange stands for endurance. Red was my final colour. Red for hope and passion.
The finished product was bright and colourful: twenty orange triangles and twenty red, all outlined in a rich, warm yellow. It was perfect.
It still is. But when I look at it now, back in my cubie – my perfect, precious pysanka swaddled in paper towel and Kleenex – all I can think about are Siya’s and Rosa’s eggs. I won’t even call them pysanky, because they’re not. Neither Rosa nor Siya made any attempt at following traditional patterns. A bit of creativity I could accept – a little embryo or two in the corner, maybe; a few abstract African symbols added to the basic Ukrainian designs. Siya and Rosa didn’t so much as glance at my pysanky-making books. He drew Swazi shields on one egg, a map of Africa on another, and African animals on two more. Stylized elephants, giraffes, impala, and – of all things – warthogs. I think my jaw dropped. She stuck to embryos, of course. Weird, chicken-like embryos with spindly legs and long, skinny necks.
I didn’t say a word. I left them without saying a single word. I grabbed my pysanka and slammed the door of the art room behind me.
I try to do some homework in my cubie, try to work on my Extended Essay. I crawl into bed to take a nap, then crawl out again. I can’t stop thinking about Siya and Rosa, rubbing noses across their candles, placing their eggs in the same jar of dye. Warthogs on a pysanka. It’s ridiculous. And Rosa’s eternal embryos. I’m sick to death of them. I wish she’d grow up and move on.
I decide to take a shower. I might as well. I can’t concentrate on anything. Plus no one else is in the girls’ hostel, so I’ll have the bathroom to myself. I won’t have to worry about socializing in the nude. I gather up my shampoo and conditioner, my soap, my razor. Waiting for the hot water to kick in – it always takes a few minutes – I brush my teeth.