Sword and Sorcery of Avondale

by Kai Kazi

  Sometimes Alba would speak her native tongue anyways, huddling close to her roommate, Korra, late at night after the lights were out. Alba’s eyes would ache in the dimness to try and make out a shape. Eventually the strain would be too much and she’d close her eyes, letting her hands trace over the edge of her bed, and then reach out in front of her like watchmen to catch the edge of Korra’s bedframe. They’d huddle close together under the blanket – the chill in the room making her skin prickle and her muscles tightened – and she’d whisper words that felt whole and calm in her mouth.

  Their ears were becoming more trained each day for the clicking of heels down the hall. If the whisper of footprints caught their attention, Alba would fly from the bed, her feet carrying her in a careful mix of running and staggering back to her blankets, where she’d curl up and hold her breath. Only after Greenspan peeked in and left again would Alba’s heartbeat slow down.

  The last time she’d slipped up and used her native tongue in class, Greenspan had her up at the chalkboard afterwards, writing out the same sentence over and over -- one hundred times in total. Her hand was cramped too badly to hold a cup for hours afterwards.

  She never slipped again.

  Once when Korra raised her hand during class, innocently asking a question but starting the first half in their native tongue, Alba felt anxiety flood over her like it had been her own mouth that betrayed her. Alba carried Korra’s schoolbooks for her after that, when her hands were too crippled to manage, and instantly they were friends; bonded over their mutual fear of the chalkboard, of Greenspan, and their own treacherous mouths.

  Alba wished she could write back to her mother and tell her about the cramp in her hand; about the blisters on her feet from shoes too tight, too tough; about the church, and the cold. Though, that would never happen. Even if she managed to write in a form her mother could understand, Alba knew the school would snatch up a letter speaking badly of them like an admittance of a crime; perhaps it was a crime. There were so many rules in this school, Alba couldn’t be sure.

  “Korra, what are you going to tell your mother?” Alba leaned over to peer at the table beside her, squinting to make out her roommate’s paper.

  “Well, I’m going to tell her I miss her. But then I’m going to draw a few pictures so that she can see what I mean,” Korra replied softly, inclining her head in thought, her pencil pressed to her lips.

  Alba watched for a moment and then frowned; she wasn’t sure that would be permitted. If their speech wasn’t allowed, then how could anything artistic be either? Alba relented finally -- she had nothing else to do – and pressed her pencil to paper, sketching away at something she hoped her mother would interpret as her well-being.

  The hour came and went and the children filed to the front of the class, setting their carefully folded letters onto Mrs. Greenspan’s table. Alba turned in hers, feeling a reluctance settle over her; as long as she held the letter, she had a voice intended for her mother. She had words and messages and a connection. When she set it down, the connection was gone.

  As she returned to her desk, the thought came to her – too truth to ignore: They likely wouldn’t send it. Why would they? The school stripped them of the clothes they arrived with; they tied up their hair, and took away the beads her mother had woven into her dark locks. They banished her language and cursed her manners. This school had done everything to sever the connection between her and her home – why would they offer one now?

  Alba sat, hands folded in front of her, and tried her best to listen as the teaching began, but somehow her mind couldn’t drift from the letter sitting only feet from her. She’d never see it again, and neither would her mother.

  Days turned to weeks, then to months, and no letter in response came from home. Not for Korra, not for her, not for any of the children. It wasn’t allowed; nothing could remind them of home, and every day, home seemed farther and farther away. It was like a chasm opening up in front of her; every day she woke up and thought of her mother, and every evening she laid down thinking of her tribe. And every day she wouldn’t be able to reach them.

  Her hair was tied tightly on her head, like something to be ashamed of. The material of her long dresses swished at her feet, stretching far beyond anything she ever wore at home. It caught at her ankles, nearly tripping her when she stepped up stairs and slid into her classroom chair; it contained her like she was something to be hidden. They tried to hide her, to contain her, to contain this shameful, embarrassing element she was born as – a savage, a heathen. How could she have been born a heathen, she wondered? How could her father be a savage when there was so much good about him? Just because he left his chest bare, or his hair long like Mrs. Greenspan’s?

  They contained her, imprisoning her in material and in pins to hide this horrible, sinful side born into her. They wanted to work it out of her, like she was a dog that misbehaved. So how could she have ever imagined -- for even a second -- that they would allow a letter back? They probably didn’t even send the first.

  They wanted to train out this evil side to her, and train it out of all the children like her. The school wanted to tell them at every turn that they were not the same people who had arrived. They had walked into the school red, but they would walk out of it white, and contained, and soft spoken; skilled at sewing and baking, with a fine walk, and ready for bearing children. The school said they were making them into better people. Alba didn’t know what was better about that.

  But her mother told her to be good, and to learn as much as she could. There had been something held back behind her mother’s eyes, like when Alba’s father and her fought, but she made Alba repeat it back to her. “I’ll be good.” So Alba’d be good, and maybe, in time, she’d understand what she had done bad in the first place.

  Chapter Three

  Nita

  It had been weeks. Nita fussed, voice rising to a whine, “These shirts are so itchy,” His expression was marred with a profound snarl as he tugged at his collar in frustration. His skin felt ablaze from the irritation; he couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Stop fidgeting, you’re just going to make it worse,” Ms. Wright corrected, her voice surprisingly even as she reached out, gentle fingers undoing the top button to grant him some relief. She glanced down the hall, perhaps checking if an administrator was nearby, waiting to snap at the sight of a student breaking the dress code. Her tight, thin lips – making her look older than she perhaps was – pressed together as she straightened his collar to disguise the alteration, patting him on the shoulder. “Go inside, dear.” She waved a hand at her classroom door, and Nita complied.

  Ms. Wright always waited beside her door to welcome in the children as they arrived. Nita could see the tired, irritated expression crossing her features when new students walked into the classroom; new students were hard on everyone, Nita realized as he entered another week of surviving this prison.

  For Ms. Wright, Nita could see the way she looked on in sympathy at their poor, hollow faces. Nita saw them as just another to suffer – it felt like adding one to the ranks, in this school that was more military than civilian. He didn’t feel sorry for them; there was barely enough grief for himself.

  But Ms. Wright, speaking of how she loved her God, and how she wanted to help them all, seemed to find it harder. Perhaps she wanted to wash away that cold, distant look in children as young as ten – the same as Nita. She always frowned deeply, thin lips pressed together in an expression of pain when one child would glare at her -- angry, fuming, but contained like a pit of embers.

  She was hurt. Nita could tell – it was the same look his grandmother held every time she glanced at his mother. It was like his mother’s suffering transferred to his grandmother every time she entered the room. Nita wondered how someone as young as Ms. Wright could have a look like that.

  And if she felt the pain, why did she let it go on?

  She’d say it time and time again, “This is for your benefit, children. You�
�ll be so grateful.” And after each day, it began to sound like a chant more than a statement.

  Ms. Wright would assure them they’d be happier. Other teachers would assure them they’d simply be better -- careless of their happiness. Apparently the man who had first dragged children from their homes had said words these teachers loved -- “Kill the Indian, save the man.” And they believed it.

  Nita didn’t know the difference, and it scared him. Ms. Wright never said those words; she’d smile at him when he glanced across the room. She’d listen patiently as he struggled through English words. She’d wish him a good morning as she entered for class. But she didn’t stop this.

  Nita hadn’t seen his mother in so long, and the pain of that twisted in his chest, tight enough to bring tears to his eyes – which he buried in the pillow, muffling his sounds so his roommate wouldn’t hear, but more so the teachers wouldn’t hear. His mother was sick – he needed to be there with her. Who was helping her? Who was fetching the water and helping her out of bed? It had been weeks now – weeks of this monotonous routine that was slowly chipping away at his strength, and he’d heard nothing about his mother. She was too sick, and he wasn’t there; it made Nita feel ill.

  Seeing Ms. Wright’s smile every time he glanced at her made it easier. Some mornings he would only climb up and make his bed for three reasons. One, fear of punishment, should he refuse. Two, so he could make it through the school, and one day see his mother again – he had to; she needed him. He couldn’t doubt because she needed him. And three, because Ms. Wright would smile at him, and tell him how well he did in his penmanship.

  Then what he’d said to Ms. Wright, all those days ago, had made it change. Nita still rose from bed to see his mother, to avoid the punishment, to see Ms. Wright’s approval, but her smile wasn’t enough anymore.

  Nita settled into his desk and waited as the other children filed into the room in short order. Ms. Wright entered, closing the door behind her and taking her seat behind the thick desk. Nita looked up, fully expecting to see her smile beaming back at him, and maybe it’d make the day easier – no matter what he felt about her. For once, she wasn’t. She was straight-faced, and she stood, beginning the lesson.

  He could tell that today his teacher was stressed; something was troubling her. The absence of the smile hit him like a slap to the face and he narrowed his eyes in confusion before looking down at his book. He had to face a truth -- something he learned when he first told Ms. Wright everything; things no one at the school knew. Any problem he faced would be his own, and he’d have to deal with it himself.

  So he listened, taking in how he was supposed to dress and how he was supposed to speak. He would replay what she had said in his head over and over again, trying to understand, trying to process how this would help him. How would this somehow make him better, and more successful, and survive -- as his race was apparently not?

  Had they never seen his tribe? They were not dying; they were happy, without English, without pale colors, without trousers, and without boots. A spike of homesickness drove up under his ribs, in a way that was becoming routine as he listened to the white-faced teacher’s instructions.

  Nita was divided right up the middle; he wanted to cast away the thoughts so they wouldn’t twist and burn in his chest. He wanted to sit and learn what they wanted him to say, so they wouldn’t scold him, so they wouldn’t call him a heathen. But he couldn’t bear to let the thoughts go; he wanted to cling to them like a dream fleeting away as he awoke, because letting go was what they wanted him to do. They wanted him to forget, until his feet molded to the shape of their boots and his tongue molded into English, like his thoughts, like his skin.

  He had a suspicion that he might have to live in this strange world for the rest of his life. The school said they’d one day return, but Nita wasn’t sure he would.

  They all needed an education, they all needed to know how to act; Indians were a dying race, they said, and the government was going to help them adapt. He could see the lightly veiled terror on the face of his father when they took him away. Nita’s mother had placed her hand on his cheek, forcing a smile even beyond her pain, and told him it might be a good thing. She repeated the words the government had used; he could get an education, a job, a life in the adapting world. He could excel.

  But he didn’t want to excel. He wanted to go home, and he was afraid he never would.

  Ms. Wright

  “So, students, remember how important it is to use proper grammar,” Ms. Wright carried on, staring out into her clearly bored set of students.

  It was disheartening to watch the blank looks on their face; it was invalidating. She kept her features schooled and continued, turning back to the blackboard to write out an example; most of them could not read it, but they had to begin somewhere.

  When she became a teacher, she never thought she’d wind up teaching only Native American students. She understood the objective; they were trying to give them better lives, trying to equip them with the same opportunities she had been given -- with an education and a chance to provide for herself. But sometimes she questioned her mission; how could she not, as she watched them glare at her as she walked by? She watched them look on with blank eyes – not just sad, not just rebellious as any child’s might be after leaving their parents. Defeated.

  She had always wanted to change lives -- she wanted to help these children -- but she just didn’t know if this was the right way to do it. Every time a new student arrived, she could watch them wither like a flower’s bloom in reverse. They came in scared, but with energy, and that energy slowly caved in on itself.

  It’d always start the same; they’d come in nervous and barely able to speak English, if at all. Given that the other children weren’t allowed to speak their native tongue, the new child became quickly isolated. Based on the last few groups of children who passed through her doors, it took a few months before they were even able to communicate with their peers clearly -- and the time lost counted for everything.

  It hurt her to watch them; it brought a weight down on her shoulders that she couldn’t shake. She’d smile at them, take a little longer to help them spell out the letters, and let them carefully work through the foreign English words. She poured out all the tenderness she could manage, but it never seemed to be enough.

  “Alright, students,” Ms. Wright finished, setting down the chalk; her approach wasn’t very effective today, “Go ahead and work on your penmanship,”

  She tried to send a small, warm smile to Nita, but his head was already down, already busy at his penmanship. The swirling thoughts in her head had made it hard to keep her emotions from her face; Nita was an observant child, perhaps he had noticed. He was beginning to close up, she could tell, and she had to suppress a disappointed grimace.

  He was clearly struggling to cope; but he was such a quiet child, so it was always hard to tell. It made all her efforts more difficult with him – older children might glare or cry or show some sign of their thoughts, but Nita kept that entire storm inside of him. She couldn’t tell if this was purposeful or just his way – but it made her try even harder to reach him. She hoped her sour disposition hadn’t reached him. He could cut her off in a second, and she’d never know.

  It had been weeks after he first arrived when he cracked, and she had never suspected a thing wrong with him. She imagined he was handling the adjustment fine – perhaps quieter than others, but smoothly. Then one morning as he stood in front of her desk, she went over his penmanship with him, complimenting his improvements; she told him how proud she was. He smiled half-heartedly and she made the mistake of telling him what a handsome young man he was. Tears rose up in his eyes before she could realize what was wrong, and then he was sobbing.

  He told her of his mother; how she was sick, how he wasn’t there, how he didn’t know if she was okay. He told her of all the things he helped his mother with, and how much she needed him. He begged her to let him go back, but Ms. Wright held
him, brushing his hair and whispering that his mother would be okay; she’d be glad to see him so smart when he returned.

  The way Nita spoke, Ms. Wright suspected that the woman was suffering from some sort of strange illness – one that would eat you from the inside out. Ms. Wright felt a tugging that made her doubt her place as a teacher in the school, stronger than ever before. She always wanted students to have the advantages in life they needed, but she knew that a child should have time with their mother before they pass away.

  In the end, she held him until he calmed, and helped him dry his eyes, and sent him on with the other children. Like all the children, she could see him closing up and it twisted her heart. Ms. Wright looked at Nita, head down as he persisted in his penmanship; his mother far away and, for all she knew, dead. The rift grew wider in Ms. Wright’s chest, but she put her head down and graded papers, because that’s the only thing that she knew was right.

  Chapter Four

  Alba

  Alba walked into the chapel, as she was instructed to every day, and looked up at the crucifix set in front of the stained glass. It was still not something she quite understood. She had been used to spirituality in her tribe, but nothing ever so rigid as here, with these Christians.

  Back home, she understood that the earth was important. She understood that her family was important. She understood that there were many gods, and that they all worked together in harmony. Here, there were three gods but there was also only one god; it was perplexing. Alba rolled the thought in her mind until it ached, and then she finally asked. The explanation was just as confusing, and she asked again, and again, and the sharp rebuff – “You stupid heathen, can’t you learn?” – made her decide it wasn’t so important to know.