by Kai Kazi
When she first arrived at the school, the first thing she saw was the chapel. When she laid her eyes on its intricate patterns and dazzling colors, she was struck with how pretty it seemed. She didn’t know what the stories were on the windows, but they were made with beautiful colors; they reminded her of the art her parents made in her village. This chapel was clearly an important place, and Alba thought it would eventually become one of her favorite places.
It never turned out that way.
Before she learned that it was best to accept rather than to question, the students were led in loose filing into the chapel, and she spoke up. In a broken blend of English and her native tongue, she told the priest leading that the stories of the glass reminded her of the wooden carvings her father put such careful detail into. The reaction was like a wild cat that felt threatened by her presence; the priest wheeled around, face already swelling red, “That is a great disrespect to our Holy God.”
He insisted that she needed to repent for the sin. She didn’t understand what she had done wrong, but she felt the shame of his disapproval and anger shrinking her to nothing; she thought he would be happy to know they weren’t so different – that her father created art for the gods the same as them. The thought that what her father had created was horrible – needing to be repented from – shocked her into silence, and she repented in the precise way the priest demanded.
Even in the months that followed, she couldn’t grasp why carving wood would make her father bad.
Alba found her place on the hard wooden bench, making her back ache throughout the long service. She waited as the other students filed into their places, all wearing the same distant, unabsorbing expression as they stared forward at the scenes on the glass. Apparently the stories were depicted from the Bible, acted out with splashes of red and greens, talking of heaven and saviors and saints.
Alba understood that they wanted her to go to heaven – they said it was a beautiful, happy place. They wanted her to fit in with all of the other people in society, and the good society went to heaven. She could see the good intentions in that, but it felt like the school wanted more than for her to fit in with the new society; they wanted to keep her from ever fitting in back home.
“Children of God, please repeat after me in prayer.” The priest began, sliding his reading glasses up his thin nose and fumbling about the pulpit for his Bible.
The sermon began how it always did. The pastor assured them they could all go to heaven just like him – that Jesus would take them no matter what they had done or who they were. All they had to do was confess their sins – one by one, without neglecting a single error – and believe like he did. Alba, though she tried, never understood how that worked, or how she was supposed to pray to this three-in-one god. She knew better to ask.
Every time she tried to fold her hands and speak to this new god, she wondered if she was shunning the gods she loved in the process. Was she somehow turning her back on them – and her family, and all of the things they had taught her to hold dear? All of the things she believed to be true and important, pushed away by her own hand? She wanted to reach out to this God -- who supposedly loved her already -- but it felt like betrayal on her lips when she tried.
The sermon dragged on, as it always did, until Alba wondered if this was the sort of eternity that the priest described – the one that would stretch on forever in heaven. Alba fought to stay awake, feeling her eyes droop as she looked on at him; she’d stopped listening a long time ago. She used to strain her ears to decipher his English words, to sap them of their meaning – maybe if she could understand, she could see why they were doing this to her? But eventually she grasped what he was saying, and realized it didn’t matter. Asking questions they would be angry to answer wouldn’t matter, and listening didn’t matter either.
Alba studied the glass behind the priest’s head, seeing how the red became more intense depending on where the sun was, and how the heroes of the Bible were soft in their expressions but vibrant in their colors.
Other students’ eyes were heavy as they tried to digest the message, but, like her, became more careless by the moment. Perhaps their minds drifted like hers – to questions, to homework – what had been done? Had they forgot something? And, as thoughts always did, their memories wandered back to their families; Alba wondered what her father was doing. She wondered if he was carving wood with his careful hands or skinning a deer for its pelt or soaking up the rich sun; she hadn’t felt sun bake on her exposed arms for so long.
“Korra,” Alba muttered, her voice low in a whisper, “I’m pretty sure this is going to go on forever.”
Alba kept looking straight ahead, but she stole a sideways glance at her roommate. Korra was suppressing a smirk beside her. The final prayer was said, and the students stood from their pews, filing out in their military style – something ingrained in them more every day by this prison-turned-school.
Side-by-side with Korra, Alba followed the line of children to their first classes, watching as other girls huddled close together and chattered away. She found her seat in the classroom and looked over the children taking their places like well trained dogs – like she had done. They were being brainwashed; and she wondered if the others could see that as clearly as she.
Alba knew that no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t going to fit in with the English people – she wanted to. She wanted to make them happy so they wouldn't scold and snap at her. She wanted to obey her mother’s wishes and be good, be successful at the school; but she still couldn’t meld, blending into the group -- blending into the school’s lessons and rules.
A fear kept her awake at night; a fear that she wasn’t going to fit in with her tribe either.
Chapter Five
Nita
“I hate board games. I wish I could remember how to play some of our old games,” Pamuy muttered, sifting game pieces through one hand and resting his forehead in the other.
Nita couldn’t even remember the last time he’d played one of the games from home. There were so many, and he used to have them all catAlbagued in his head; he knew which one he’d play every morning after he’d woken up and helped his mother. If his friends were bored with it, he’d have another ready at hand. Sometimes he’d create ones of his own. He could run outside with his long black hair down over his bare shoulders, and he could laugh and tease in his own language, and he didn’t have to care for manners. Back then, he wasn’t concerned about never seeing his mother again.
Now he couldn’t bring any games to mind; or not any he could play in this place – inside these thick concrete walls. He’d need woods, he’d need great stretches of land, and streams, and rabbits to play. This prison offered nothing of the kind.
“Even if we could remember,” Nita began, darting a look to the door to see if anyone was there, “It’s not like the teachers would let us play. They would find out if made us happy and they would take it away. That’s all they care about.”
The school had tried so many ways to hide it, to deny it, to make them think otherwise, but Nita was long beyond listening to any of it. He’d tried to understand – as the days stretched on to weeks without being able to speak to his mother, or see something – even just scribbles and images – in her hand, without being able to even see his father’s face, he tried to understand the purpose to it. All he wanted was to suddenly get it, and then maybe it would be easier for him – maybe they’d see he was trying and let him have even just one letter from his mother.
Nita endeavored for a week, two weeks, three weeks, to conform to what they wanted, and then it all became too much and he broke down like the child they wanted him to be in front of Ms. Wright. He was nearly a man back home, but here he was lesser, and it wore down on him. He told her everything – things no other teacher knew. Ms. Wright looked him in the face, even after he told her about his mother, even though he begged her to let him go back home, and told him he’d be alright – to just go on and keep marching i
n their line. Even her, even kind Ms. Wright, was the same, and so he dried his tears and he felt something – that fledgling hope – scab over in his chest.
He wanted to see it the way his mother had promised it’d be – okay, worthwhile, a good thing. He wanted to believe his mother had kept her promise; but when those weeks turned into months, he knew she had broken it. She hadn’t meant to, but these white-faced administrators had made her – this government he didn’t want a part of. Her voice was fading in his mind, and the only thing he could feel now was that vibrant aversion to the white-faced people -- the way his father felt.
Every time the school administrators looked down on him, towering feet over his head, and tried to explain how much he needed to be there, the aversion grew to a real anger. To a full, encapsulating loathing. The administrators were sometimes kind, like Ms. Wright, but one thing was consistent: they said Nita wasn’t allowed to go home, and that he’d be living at the school for a very long time.
When the students first arrived at the school, standing on the sidewalk in front of the two storey building, some of the children had dried their eyes; their own optimism – or perhaps their own fear – making them smile at it. Some of their mothers had encouraged them the way Nita’s did, and some of them believed it right away. When the homesick feeling dulled for them, they were excited to go somewhere new – with tall buildings and interesting surroundings.
But that quickly faded -- like Nita’s disheartening twist in his stomach intensified -- once they learned how they were expected to behave. The school was trying to teach the tribe right out of him, and he knew it even then. Desperation tried to make him deny it, but here he was again, staring at the wall with nothing of his home or the things he loved around him.
They had taken everything from him. Even if his mother would be proud of how he behaved, Nita had gone so long without hearing her voice, or smelling the scent of her hair, or seeing her face – however sickly – and it only made something raw and cruel fester in his chest.
“Let’s just play with marbles; they let us play with marbles,” Pamuy relented, trying to lighten his tone. He pulled a small leather satchel out of his side pocket.
Pamuy had arrived so defeated, but as the weeks passed, while some had only gotten angrier – Nita only getting quieter – he’d tried for the style of indifferent; as if acting like nothing was happening around him made it not so.
It was a distraction; speaking to Pamuy was like pretending in a game – a game where they were playing being held prisoner in this school. And the longer you went without speaking of it, the greater chance you had of winning. The more time Nita spent with him, the better at the game he became.
Nita scrambled up off the floor, rooting around in his dresser to grab his own satchel-full of colorful marbles. These were toys that they were allowed to have, and was one of the only things that civilized children were allowed to do that was fun.
“I wonder if all of the others have been taken to schools like this too,” Pamuy muttered under his breath – a habit now – arranging his marbles in a circle. He broke a rule of this game; maybe it was the way a teacher slapped him across the head for muttering in his native words in class the day before. Maybe it was harder to play that game with a bruise.
Nita didn’t miss the chance – there was still so much hatred left to be let out. His voice mirrored Pamuy’s, but there was a gravelly sound of resentment masked underneath. “And I wonder if they’ll finally realize that these schools are a bad idea. We’re never really going to be English people.”
“Maybe not all of them are this bad.” Pamuy tried, “Maybe some of them are nice, and not so strict. My father said that some of the tribes were excited about the schools.”
“I don’t see how they could be. I hate this place.” Nita glared down at nothing in particular; then he heard a dull sound in the hallway. His senses came alive.
“Yeah,” Pamuy said before Nita could stop him. “Me too. Maybe other places are nice, but this school is a nightmare.”
Nita felt anxiety like the venom of a snake course through him, and he abandoned the pile of marbles, dashing up and scampering to his bed. He grabbed the book, laying discarded at the foot of his cot, and opened it sharply, pressing his face as far into it as he could -- just in time for a teacher, Mr. O’Hannigan, to enter. The footsteps rose to a stomp as he rounded the corner, and Nita didn’t need to look to see an angry glare trained on Pamuy. Nita’s own fear kept him from shifting his eyes away from the lettering; he didn’t want to see what was going to happen next.
“I can’t believe you; still not grateful for all we are doing for you here,” Mr. O’Hannigan’s voice was tight and his hand darted out, taking Pamuy by the ear. Pamuy stood up with a cry, but Nita didn’t move an inch. “I can’t believe that you would speak that way about this school – after we take our time and our resources to educate you. If I came from such a backwards, savage tribe, I would be thrilled for an opportunity to finally have a good life.” Nita could hear the footsteps of him dragging Pamuy from the room, “You’re coming with me.”
Daring a glance up, Nita caught the blank stare on Pamuy’s face as he disappeared out the door. There was only thing running through Nita’s mind – he was glad that, for once, somebody at this awful school wasn’t yelling at him.
Chapter Six
Alba
Alba’s hand was aching with cramps that tightened and twisted her muscles, making each stroke of her pencil across the paper difficult. She was required to write out her assignments in small a notebook; nothing about it felt important, but she jotted down what the English people thought manners were. She had to write down why the ways that she had done everything in the past were wrong.
“Alba, you’ve been asked to report to office of the headmaster,” a teacher’s voice called over her shoulder. Alba glanced up, noticing another girl walking into the room – her gait a little awkward -- and shakily taking her seat.
Generally, when a student was called to the office, they had done something bad. A troubling mix of confusion and anxiety rose in her and she frowned – what could she have done?
Before, the reasons had been clear – being rude to the teacher, not completing your homework, being late for class. But the reasons for being sent to the headmaster’s office were becoming more unclear lately. Some of the girls in her class, even the kindest, most obedient ones, had been sent there, and they always came back looking at the ground shamefully. Even Korra, her roommate, had gone to the office – quite a bit, actually. She hardly spoke anymore, hardly met Alba’s eyes. She must have really misbehaved.
Alba thought they had done some secret wrong and were punished – maybe with a spanking, maybe by writing out their sin on a chalkboard like the teachers insisted. But now she was unsure – what could she have done?
Still confused, Alba rose from her chair, adjusting her long skirts around her feet so her shoes would not catch. Her legs felt unsteady underneath her with every step she took, skirts shuffling as she made her way to the door.
Perhaps the girls hadn’t done anything wrong; this place was always trying to contain them, close them in, bind them up with their languages and their dresses and their hair. It was as if they were trying to destroy every piece of her home she had left. The teachers would snap at the girls sometimes; the tall men barking insults down on the smaller girls – as if they didn’t matter, as if they were lesser. Perhaps the headmaster’s office was no different; just another way to show Alba she was to cast away her former life.
Things were not like this in her tribe; the children were respectful, but so were the adults. In this new world, she realized she could only accept – that’s what these people wanted of her, of a little girl who should stand straight and speak coolly. They wanted her to simply accept however she was treated.
Out in the hallway, sound was dulled – down the corridor echoed the sound of teachers belting out their lessons, but there was no scribbling of penci
l to paper. It made her feel solitary as she trekked to the office.
Even with her heathen blood -- as they called it -- she had followed their rules as best she could; praying in church so that the administrators could hear her, writing out the assignments she didn’t see the point of, composing formal, cheerful letters to her mother she knew only they would read.
Finally, she reached the door and grabbed the brass knob, eyes flicking over the small, black plaque that read “Headmaster Morris.” Pulling open the heavy wooden door, she peered inside to see a desk that nearly dwarfed the man behind it. Like a valley surrounded by trees, a solitary chair without arms sat in front of it; lonely in the empty space. The headmaster lifted his eyes from his work on the thick desk, like a giant peeking over a mountain, and waved her in.
“I am Alba, sir,” she squeaked, taking a step into the room. “You wanted me to come see you for something.”
“Yes. Come, sit down,” the headmaster said, a kind look on his face – it was conflicting. There was a soft look in his eyes, but the feeling that she was in trouble had not left. Fear of a reprimand hung over her like a cloud threatening to pour down rain as she approached.
“Did I do something wrong?” Alba asked quietly as she sat in the small chair, her eyes not meeting his. She arranged her skirts as she’d been taught to do, lightly crossing her legs.
The man said nothing for a long moment, and then he tipped his head to the side, frowning with what looked like pity. Alba was so confused. He stood from his desk, taking long, smooth steps to round it until he was standing in front of her. He leaned back against his desk like it was a chair of his own; his eyes were still kind, but something about them seemed off to Alba. Her confusion only deepened, but tension in her shoulders rose up at his proximity.