by Lisa Grekul
Katja leads me through the hostel corridor.
“Who’s gone? Gone where?”
“Rosa,” says Katja, as we pass through the hostel doors. “She’s been sent home. After you left campus, while the rest of us were in class, Mrs. McBain escorted her to the car park. I saw it with my own eyes. Rosa had all of her belongings in her arms, she was crying. There was a taxi waiting for her.”
My heart races as we follow the dirt path that leads to Mrs. McBain’s front door. Mrs. McBain sent Rosa away. She must have arranged it all. That was her urgent hostel business. I feel dizzy.
“We’ll talk to her together, and find out what’s happened. Don’t worry. I’m staying right here with you. Maybe we can reason with her. Maybe it’s not too late.”
As Katja knocks on Mrs. McBain’s door I’m thinking about drugs. Rosa smoked a lot of dagga. The General Information Brochure is clear about the penalty for being caught with drugs. Or alcohol. Rosa had a half-empty, twenty-six-ounce bottle of Southern Comfort in her cubie. If Mrs. McBain wanted to, she could find plenty of reasons to expel Rosa, no questions asked. The Brochure is crystal clear about no questions asked.
Then, as Mrs. McBain opens her front door, I wonder about Katja. Why is Katja helping me?
“There has been an injustice,” says Katja, pulling me by the arm into Mrs. McBain’s foyer.
Mrs. McBain tries to invite us into her sitting room, where we’ll all be more comfortable. Katja refuses to budge.
“Rosalind Richardson is gone,” Katja continues, “and we have the right to know why. All of us. Every one of us in the senior hostel has a right to know why. Colleen, especially. She is Rosa’s closest friend here.”
Tears come to my eyes when I hear the words Rosalind and she’s gone. In the same sentence.
“You are out of line, young lady. What went on with Rosalind is between Rosalind Richardson, her parents, and the administrators of this college.”
“Was it alcohol?” says Katja. “Was that it? Because all of the senior students drink. If you expel Rosa for drinking alcohol, you might as well expel the entire hostel, every last one of us.”
“Don’t you dare presume to tell me,” says Mrs. McBain, pointing her finger at Katja, “that you or anyone else in the senior hostel has no idea why Rosalind Richardson was asked to leave.”
“Drugs?” says Katja.
“Ask Rosa’s closest friend.” Mrs. McBain turns to face me. “Go ahead, Colleen. Katja claims to be in the dark, so to speak. Enlighten her. Explain to her why Rosa was suddenly asked to leave.”
With Katja’s eyes and Mrs. McBain’s eyes on me, I feel my face turning red. I have nothing to say. I don’t know why she was asked to leave. I’m in the dark, too.
“Suffice it to say,” says Mrs. McBain, “that as a result of particular steps taken on my part – steps I was in no way obliged to take – Rosa will return to Waterford. I am permitting her to come back to write her final exams.”
I feel myself smiling. Rosa hasn’t been expelled at all. She’ll be back. We’ll still be able to go on our trip.
“So she will be back?” I ask. “For sure?”
“Under normal circumstances, Rosa would never again be permitted to set foot on campus. However – and I urge you to keep this to yourselves, girls – I have withheld the details of the matter from the headmaster, opting instead to contact Rosa’s parents, both of whom are doctors, as you know. Having made them fully aware of the situation, I was able to extract from them the assurance that her condition, so to speak, would be taken care of as efficiently and as quietly as possible. She will be back, yes, provided all goes well.”
At the mention of her condition, I start to lose my balance. Katja grabs hold of my hand.
“Consider it,” says Mrs. McBain, “a personal favour to you, Colleen. In return for the performance you gave today at the Rotary Club luncheon. Another girl in Rosa’s position would be treated – less generously. So to speak.”
“And the father?” Katja asks, tightening her grip on my hand. “What happens to the father? Is he punished as well?”
Katja assumes that he’s another Waterford student.
“Unfortunately,” says Mrs. McBain, looking me straight in the eye, “we have no way of knowing who the father is. Rosa wouldn’t come forward with a name. She is protecting him, it seems, from any embarrassment.”
From Mrs. McBain’s house to the senior hostel, Katja walks beside me, offering to sit with me awhile, saying that she has vodka and that Mrs. McBain would think twice, today, about punishing us for drinking. Katja says, too, that Rosa is a lucky girl, to have been granted such a break. We should celebrate the second chance Rosa’s been given. But I decline Katja’s company. Katja doesn’t know Rosa like I do. Taken care of. Efficiently. Quietly. Rosa won’t agree to it. What will she do?
Slipped under the door of my cubie is a memo from the college secretary, a note stating that there’s a package for me in the General Office. My costume has finally arrived, a day too late. And there’s a drawing under my door, too, small and untitled, with a signature at the bottom in Rosa’s handwriting.
It’s a sketch of a girl-embryo facing forward, her face blank. Her embryo abdomen is round and distended. The fingers of both hands touching to form a heart-shape over her midsection. She’s encased in a rose-shaped womb; the umbilical cord, thick with barbs and thorns, winds twice around her neck. If I look closely at the centre of the picture, I can see a second embryo. A tiny, baby embryo in the belly of the first.
With the tips of my fingers, I run my hand along the surface of the paper, to touch Rosa. To feel her on the page.
But the charcoal smudges, and my tears drop onto the drawing, smearing Rosa’s signature into the petals of the womb, and I have to put away the picture before I ruin it completely.
Seven
I have no place to go after Rosa is sent away. Everywhere I turn, I’m reminded of her. My cubie is the worst. We spent hours together in my room, and I have embryo pictures on all of my walls. The music room isn’t much better. She used to sketch there beside me, while I practised the piano. The dining hall, the courtyard, the classroom block – they’re all the same. There isn’t an inch of campus that we didn’t share. Even sick bay. Especially sick bay. On my first day without Rosa, I go to the school nurse with a headache. Only I can’t stay. Being in the infirmary makes me feel worse.
Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t I see? I keep asking myself the same questions, over and over again. Classes are over now. I’m supposed to be putting the finishing touches on my E2, and studying for final exams, but I can’t concentrate. Does Siya know? Did Rosa tell him before he left? I wish that I could talk to him. That he’d left a phone number in London, or an address, at least. Mrs. McBain says that Rosa will return to write her exams. I hope so. I hope that she listens to her parents. I don’t think that they’ll really give her a choice. She’s not ready to have a child. She’s still a child herself.
Most of my essay is written. All that’s left for me to write is the conclusion. One or two pages. Three, at the most. I want to wrap up the paper with a discussion of folk music and pysanky, to connect my title page to the rest of the essay. I’ve placed a photograph of my Forty Triangles egg on the title page – but unless I explain it, the picture won’t make sense; the person who is reading my essay won’t understand the significance of the Easter egg.
In fact, the whole concluding section of the paper is supposed to be like a story. It’s the part of the essay where I explain my reasons for writing about Ukrainian folk music. I want to say something about my grandparents immigrating from Ukraine, and how they struggled to keep their culture alive, and what my parents have taught me about my heritage. Folk songs are an important part of it. But they’re not everything. That’s what I really want to say. Then I introduce my pysanky. Because they’re a part of it, too.
I can’t write it, though. Every time I try writing the conclusion, I get stuck. I have too much to say. It doesn�
�t seem like enough, talking about folk songs and pysanky. There’s more to it than that. I consider adding a paragraph or two about Ukrainian dancing, and the Ukrainian costumes that my mother made. A few sentences about embroidery, maybe, which is related to costumes. Still, I feel as though something is missing. Food? I could write ten pages on Ukrainian food if I wanted to, and another ten on what it’s like to sit through an Orthodox church service. Then I’d need to explain that my family hardly ever goes to church, except for weddings and funerals, and why.
The problem is that, if I’m not careful, my conclusion will turn into a separate essay altogether. At some point, I’d like to mention Sister Maria and the Ukrainian music that she worked on. How she came to St. Paul after the war, why she left Europe. I can’t discuss my Ukrainian heritage without talking about her because she’s a part of it, too, even though she wasn’t interested in folk songs. I’m just not sure how much I should say about her, how far back I should go. Someone could write a book about Sister Maria. Where do I begin?
Or maybe I should drop the story conclusion – drop the pysanky altogether – and just write a regular conclusion to my essay, focused on the music and nothing else.
But Rosa was crazy about the pysanky. I have to include the pysanky in my essay. They were her idea, after all. She thought that my essay wouldn’t be complete without them, and she’ll be crushed if I leave them out. I just wish that I’d told her more before she left, that we’d talked more about being Ukrainian. It would have helped me figure out my conclusion. We could have sorted out what I should and shouldn’t say.
I wish that Rosa had talked to me about Siya, too, before she was sent away. I wish that she’d told me about her pregnancy. We could have come up with a solution, together; a way to hide it until the end of the school year. I could have talked to Mrs. McBain, tried to reason with her. Sitting at my desk, staring at my Extended Essay, I run through a dozen different scenarios. Siya and I could have approached one of the doctors at the hospital. We could have taken Rosa to the hospital in Malkerns, or the clinic near Manzini. I could have talked to her about her options, Siya would have lent her money. I wish that Rosa had talked to me months ago. Birth control pills are sold over the counter in Swaziland. You don’t need a prescription. Rosa knew it. Why didn’t she use them?
After a week has passed, and I still haven’t settled on an ending to my essay, I set it aside. I set my books aside, too, since I haven’t gotten much studying done either. Then I take a pad of paper and a pen to Rosa’s old cubie, and I sit at her old desk to write her a letter. I tell her that I need her here. That I miss her, and that I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend.
But everything will be all right, I write. Just come home.
Come home soon.
•••
A week before final exams begin, Mrs. McBain asks me over to her house again.
I’d like to believe that she’s concerned about me. That she’s worried about how my studying has been going since she sent Rosa away. But I know that Mrs. McBain has another reason for seeing me. Our Extended Essays were due yesterday. All senior students were supposed to hand in their papers to their supervising teachers. Mine isn’t finished.
With classes over, Mrs. McBain and I haven’t seen much of each other. I try to avoid her as much as possible, and she hasn’t exactly gone out of her way to check up on me. A few times, when she’s been on duty, she’s asked if my studying is going well. I’ve nodded, politely. Otherwise, we’ve hardly spoken.
As I make my way through Mrs. McBain’s garden, I run through the little speech that I’ve prepared for her. A speech that’s long overdue. I think back to the way that she blacklisted me for being friends with Rosa, and how she tried to tell me how to write my Extended Essay. The way she forced me to sing at the Rotary Club luncheon in Katja’s costume, and then sent Rosa away behind my back. I haven’t forgotten any of it, and I won’t. While I’ve been at Waterford, Mrs. McBain has been nothing but heartless and mean, trying to control me. Always telling me what to do. I’m going to give her a piece of my mind once and for all. I have nothing to lose. My essay is almost finished. I’ll show her everything that I’ve written, all seventy pages, and then I’ll explain that I’m waiting for Rosa to return before I write my conclusion. It’s Mrs. McBain’s fault that the essay isn’t complete. I just can’t finish it while Rosa is away.
Once I’ve submitted my E2, and written my final exams, I’ll never have to deal with Mrs. McBain again. I can’t wait. I’m sad about leaving Swaziland, but I’m looking forward to getting away from her. And backpacking in South Africa with Rosa. Any day now, Rosa should be back. I’m counting on her to go through with our plans. I’ll convince her, if I have to. The trip will do her good. We’ll have lots of time together to talk about what’s happened, and I’ll give her plenty of time alone to sketch. Drawing will help her heal. Like the children at the hospital.
When I arrive at Mrs. McBain’s house, she and her husband are in the kitchen, setting out a pitcher of iced tea, two glasses, a plate of chocolate cupcakes. Mr. McBain says a quick hello, then disappears. As Mrs. McBain pours me a glass of iced tea, she offers me a cupcake. I sit, but I don’t touch the glass in front of me. I don’t take a cupcake.
“This must be a difficult time for you, Colleen.”
I say nothing, keeping my eyes on the floor.
“It’s difficult for all of us,” she says, shifting in her chair. “The end of the year. It’s a terrible time. And I am sorry that we needed to send Rosalind away. I know that you two were very close.”
When Mrs. McBain mentions Rosa, I look up from the floor, to glare at her across the kitchen table. Then I stare down at the floor again.
“I suppose you want to talk about my essay.”
“Partly. Yes, partly. I haven’t received it yet. But I understand that you’re having some trouble finishing it. I understand that you’ve chosen not to write an original composition after all.”
I raise my eyes. “Katja?”
Mrs. McBain nods.
Now I’m not sure how to proceed with my speech. Katja has already told her about my Extended Essay. I should never have confided in her.
“You should know, Colleen, that you are far and away the most talented student I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching. I shall miss you.”
I look up again, briefly. Long enough to see that there are tears welling up in Mrs. McBain’s eyes.
“You have always done excellent work. First-rate work. And I’m sure that your Extended Essay is no exception. You can hand it to me when you’ve finished it. There’s no rush. I know that Rosalind’s situation has been hard on you. Perhaps I haven’t been as supportive as I could have been.”
I’m speechless. I wasn’t expecting this.
“I’m sorry,” says Mrs. McBain, touching my arm.
How can I tell her off now?
“Actually, I didn’t really call you here to talk about your essay. I called you here to talk about Rosalind.”
Mrs. McBain gets up from the table, then moves toward the kitchen counter, leaning against it as though she needs something to hold her up.
“There is no easy way to tell you this, and I wanted to avoid upsetting you before the exam period. But I know that you’re anxious for news about her.”
“You’ve heard from Rosa? How is she?”
“Colleen,” she says, sitting down again, “I’m afraid that Rosalind won’t be coming back.”
“What do you mean? She’s not going to write her exams?”
From the drawer in her desk beside the kitchen counter, Mrs. McBain pulls out a small, cream-coloured envelope. She presses it into my hand. “I think you should have this.”
“What is it? A letter from Rosa?”
So far, I’ve sent three letters to Rosa in Zambia. She hasn’t answered any of them.
“Read it,” says Mrs. McBain, sighing. “Please.”
I open the envelope, unfold the sheet of paper inside.
It’s a letter, handwritten on fancy, gold-embossed letterhead. The name on the letterhead is Florence Richardson, m.d. I scan the contents of the letter quickly once, then I scan it again. And then I read it a third time, slowly, carefully, from start to finish, pausing on every word. It doesn’t take long. The letter is just a short note, really. To the point.
When I’ve finished, I refold the letter. I push it across the table.
“This must be a joke.”
“No. It’s not a joke.”
The letter says that they found her shortly after she arrived home, and that she was laid to rest in a cemetery in Lusaka. In time, the Richardsons intend to establish a scholarship at Waterford in her memory, for art students.
I get up from the table, numb. Mrs. McBain tells me to take some time before I go. She follows me to the door, asking me to stay awhile and talk with her. I keep walking. She calls out for me to stop, to come back. But I walk straight out the door of her house, and through her garden, and across the playing field toward the hostel.
When I reach the hostel doors, though, I turn. I don’t want to see the other girls, don’t want to walk past Rosa’s old cubie, don’t want to go back to my room. Her embryos are still up on my walls.
So I head out along the path beside the senior hostel, past the college water reservoir that’s still low with the dry weather, and deep into the hills behind the school, where Rosa liked to walk. From here, high above the college, the world looks different. The buildings are like doll’s houses. Miniature paths, miniature trees, all neat and orderly, everything in its place.
I know, of course, that I can’t sit here forever, rocking back and forth with my knees pressed to my chest. Eventually, I have to come down from the hill. Sooner or later, I have to go back to my cubie and face Rosa’s drawings. Not just her drawings. The photos of her that I’ve taken over the past year, the stone carvings that we bought at the market downtown. All of the ticket stubs that I saved from movies we watched at the theatre in Mbabane, and the brochures from the universities in South Africa that we were thinking about applying to.