by Kai Kazi
They knew.
Lunch the next day was as quiet and tasteless as ever; she choked down her food, which took more effort every day, and when her plate was empty, no void inside her was filled. A teacher Alba knew to be Ms. Wright wandered through the crowded room, and Alba didn’t notice her proximity until she stood beside her. Her presence made Alba’s awareness resurface and she felt the weight in her middle like a stone as Ms. Wright sat beside her. Alba draped her arm across her middle, breathing in to make the lump less noticeable, but the shallowness of her lungs demanded more air and she let it out.
Ms. Wright smiled at her as she set in front of Alba a plate filled with the day’s lunch. Confusion struck first and Alba looked up at her, not quite meeting her eyes.
“Hello, Alba.” She said softly but with an ever-present firmness all the teachers possessed. “I am not very hungry today; I was wondering if you could do me a kindness and take mine? I wouldn’t want to insult the cook.”
Alba kept her eyes down; she couldn’t bring herself to speak, as if her voice was too untrained to awaken in a moment.
Ms. Wright shifted the plate closer to her, insisting though she received no response, moving the fork closer as well. Without waiting for anything else -- as if Alba had accepted -- she brushed her hand over her skirt, straightening her back with the ease she’d been teaching the girls for months. Alba’s shoulders hunched, the only way to make herself seem smaller and the baby smaller with her; she waited for a reprimand, but nothing came.
Ms. Wright began, as if there was no obvious error in front of her. “Your dress looks very lovely.”
The wider cloth no longer strained around her; the larger size obvious but free of tears. She knew in an instant where the dresses had appeared from, and by whose hand. Alba felt judgment on her, waiting like the crack of lightning.
Ms. Wright continued, oblivious. “Headmaster Morris has left. He’s been relieved of his duties,” The mention of his name made Alba feel cold; feel naked under Ms. Wright’s eyes. She felt as if her dress had been stripped away, revealing the roundness of her belly and the shame it proclaimed. Ms. Wright took in a breath, as if steadying herself as well. “Due to some very, very un-Christian behavior. He’ll never be allowed here again; that is something I know for certain. What else awaits him, I’m not aware of.”
Alba’s head hung lower, as if she could hide from her teacher’s sight. She felt the wetness of tears in her eyes, but she bit her lip, trying to hold them back.
Ms. Wright’s voice quieted, softening. “I’m very sorry, Alba. I wish there was more I-“ Her voice hesitated, hanging in the air with unsaid things. “I thought you should know.” Alba felt tears streaking down her cheeks; her hands clenched in her dress, but she never looked up. “Please eat. I’ll see you in class.” Ms. Wright said, her voice tight, and she rose with a grace she endeavored to instill in Korra and Alba since the moment they arrived.
She was gone when Alba felt Korra’s hand on hers. There were no words said between them, but when Alba managed to catch her breath, she took the fork in her hand and put bite after bite in her mouth, trying to fill the void with tasteless food. She lifted a fork-full to her quiet roommate beside her, but Korra shook her head. Her plate sat full in front of her, and only her glass of water had been touched. That was the third day the plate before Korra had remained full, unwanted. The swell of her belly was too much, she’d said. The thing inside her was going to be the headmaster’s, it was going to be the end of her; she’d rather it dead.
Alba had tried to turn away the food – for two days she’d left her stomach empty except for the life remaining. But then the craving was too much, and the dizziness that made her stagger through the hall, holding the wall for balance became more than she could manage, and food found its way back between her lips. Alba hung her head as she ate the second meal; she wasn’t strong enough to resist the headmaster, and she wasn’t strong enough to kill his child.
When she finished, Alba felt a wholeness to her stomach she hadn’t known in weeks. She placed a hand on her belly. Too thick, too obvious, but finally sated.
A pressure pushed back.
Alba’s half-lidded eyes flew open; wide, shocked, afraid. She pressed her hand in further, feeling a mix of elation and fear course through her when it kicked back. There was a human being inside of her; a second presence that breathed when she breathed, ate when she ate, and now it moved at her touch. The thought made her body come alive and shrink back in fear. Her eyes darted to Korra at her side, who through distracted eyes glanced at her belly and her friend’s alarmed expression. She nodded without enthusiasm, knowing; the surprise was no longer a surprise for her. Then she looked back at her plate, pushing it away and gazing down at the table without seeing.
“They hate us,” Korra whispered; there was loathing in her voice, but her tone could summon up no voice. “He may be gone, but it doesn’t matter. We didn’t do anything and they put us here. They’re just like him. All of them.”
Alba felt color coming back to her eyes; sounds coming back to life and objects becoming sharper in a way they hadn’t been in days. But she still didn’t say a word to disagree. Alba wanted to say something – even a whisper – to make Korra sit up and smile. She wanted to tell her it’d be alright; they’d get through it. But she remained silent, because she knew they wouldn’t.
Ms. Wright had smiled at her, given her food and a dress, but the girth of her waist was too insistent to be forgotten with more cloth and a second plate. They’d sent the headmaster away, but they hadn’t killed him – they hadn’t fallen to their knees, begging for Alba to forgive them of this sin while she was forced to repent for hers.
They’d let her belly swell while he called girl after girl to his office, and they’d watched with sympathy as the child drained out Alba’s life. They’d taken Alba away from her family, and they’d taken her language out of her mouth, and her clothes from her back, and her father’s teachings from her mind, and they’d filled it with what they wanted.
Ms. Wright wanted to do more, but she hadn’t; no one had. The energy that came back to Alba’s veins with the food turned sour at the kick from her stomach.
Since the moment Korra had walked into the school, her eyes had lost their light. Now her skin was losing its light, and her breaths were shallow, and her cheek sunken. She was dying inside before, and now she was dying outside too. Perhaps Ms. Wright was sorry. But no one else was. When Korra rose time after time in class to use the restroom, no one stopped her and no one said a word; they glanced at her, tension in their faces, and let her go though no one else was allowed. Maybe they wouldn’t punish Alba if they found out; maybe instead they were afraid. Afraid to draw attention; afraid to take the blame. Afraid someone would know, like she was afraid they’d know.
When Korra first refused her food, she laid that night in her cot, Alba beside her, and whispered through tears. “It won’t be long now. But I won’t look this baby in the eyes.” She had looked up at the ceiling with tears in her eyes, and told Alba that she’d kill it, and herself with it, before she ever had to see its face.
“They don’t hate us,” Alba managed, finally; she wished she could close her eyes and never open them again. “They just don’t know us and they don’t care to.”
Chapter Fifteen
Nita
Hakan was asked to join the school’s sports team, and for once, he seemed to like something they had to offer. He was taller than Nita, with arms thicker and a chest that was broader, and when they asked him, the thought of sunshine and running and a distraction for the homesickness made him accept without struggle. The sports the school offered made Nita decline with all the manners they taught him; they weren’t games he knew from home, and Nita didn’t want anything more than what they forced him to do. They already put English into his mouth and boots onto his feet and white-man ways into his head -- he didn’t want anything else.
The English they forced in his mouth betray
ed him, yet again, and his place as Hakan’s translator put him on the sidelines; the last place he wanted to be.
“I’ve never liked that game they play,” said Nita, leaning against the wall while Hakan dressed. The frustration of one more thing being forced on him made him glare at the wall, ready to lash out. “And when they play against other schools, lots of white people show up, and I always hear that they say strange things about us.” Nita’s words came as fast and as harsh as his words; Hakan never dissuaded his anger like Pamuy. “It’s like they think we’re animals or something, and they’re shocked that we’re even capable of playing their game.”
Hakan adjusted the strange and colorful uniform, trying to make the shirt lay properly. “Maybe I’ll give them something to think about,” He said, his English finally stronger, and Nita could see a smile growing over his features. “And maybe the school will be so distracted that they don’t notice anything else?”
Nita furrowed his brow at him. “What do you mean?”
Hakan stopped fixing the material at his arms, and when he looked at Nita, there was something wild in his eyes. “If we went to a different city to play against a different school, that means the teachers wouldn’t know the area, right? And there would only be a few teachers there, right?”
Nita nodded uncertainly.
“Meaning there won’t be many teachers to watch us.” He pressed, his eyes searching Nita’s face for his reaction. When Nita’s confusion didn’t waver, he continued. “If we were to run away, they wouldn’t be able to catch us as easily, right?”
The meaning caught Nita like the aroma of a delicious meal, setting his senses alive. Nita’s face bloomed into a smile that spanned his entire face, and a short laugh burst from his throat. He’d been right; Hakan did have a better idea for the plan of escape.
They kept their idea to themselves and their smiles firmly suppressed as they walked to the field. The remaining sunlight was spent with Nita on the sidelines, the sun shining down on his paled skin as he watched Hakan run back and forth across the field, obeying the sharp orders of the teacher and following the cues of his team. Sometimes the teacher would call out direction to Hakan and he’d pause on the field, wearing confusion like a second skin, and Nita would be up on his feet before the teacher ever waved him over. Hand signals, a mesh of English words Hakan would understand, and the rare whispered translation in their native tongue put the game back in motion, leaving Nita waiting on the side.
Nita should have been angry, but instead he was excited. As the sun moved across the sky, Nita found himself more and more impressed with how quickly Hakan picked up the game. Eventually the orders the teacher called didn’t require translation. They burned themselves into Hakan’s memory as individual instructions, more crucial than sentences or meanings. Nita didn’t know the game, the rules, or what exactly he was watching, but at the end of the day, the teacher was a little less frustrated than when they had started.
After practice, Nita had to wait until Pamuy returned from his art class to tell him the plan. Pamuy was smaller than Nita, lacking the strength and the size that would make him a candidate for the football team – one hit from a kid the size of Hakan would cripple him. Painting the way his uncle had done in his tribe, or crafting pots the way he’d seen some of his elders do made him think of home; it was the small connection to his home that the school didn’t rip away from him. They let Pamuy sculpt and paint and draw. They taught some of the children to strum creations called guitars and breathe out haunting songs with clarinets; they could pour out their homesickness onto paper and into music.
They forced his drawings to mirror styles they liked – the ones found on the stained glass of the church, depicting saints and doves. The music had to be soft and dull, and nothing like what Nita knew from home. But the letters would never reach their families, and their games were taken away; it was something. It took the scowls off some of the children’s faces; maybe they would be the ones to become civilized.
Nita didn’t want their attempts to distract him; he wanted the hate that swirled inside him to fester. The hate reminded him of how beautiful his home was, and how badly his mother needed him. The hate would push their civilization out. The school wanted him to forget home; to give up and become one of them. Nita would never give up.
When nightfall came and Nita found Pamuy in their room after class, he could hardly keep his voice the whisper it was trained to be. Pamuy’s painting fell out of his hand, forgotten, and energy Nita’d never seen in his eyes bloomed over his face.
They were actually going to do it.
If Hakan could get better and they could play against other teams, they’d do it. The next day, Nita sat on the edge of the field and watched him practice, and the improvement was the same – frustrated at first, but satisfied by the end of the day. It repeated the day after, and the day after. Nita still didn’t know what he was watching, but gauging the teacher’s reactions told him the team was getting better – and Hakan was the best of all.
Days blended into weeks and weeks, until other teams came to their field from other schools. They’d kept their distance, as if Hakan’s darker skin was infectious, and rowdy laughs carried their insults across the distance. The games started, and the pale-skinned opponents burst into action, dead set on putting the darker skinned rivals in their place. Practice and determination held out, and the civilized for once lost against the heathens. They left in a mix of shock and outrage, and Hakan and Nita’s pride wasn’t from winning – it was from getting closer to their freedom.
Weeks passed with every game getting better, until Hakan looked up at Nita from his bed one evening.
“It has to happen at this next game.” Hakan said with that coy smile that just barely held back his excitement. “We’re going to another school to play this time.”
Nita felt a chill rush through his body, and he stepped backwards, sitting on his bed with a smile that was as shocked as it was encapsulating. It was finally going to happen. He laid back on the mattress, looking up at the ceiling as anticipation covered him like light snow settling on the ground in early winter.
Joshua sprung to mind, unwanted, and the shiver that shook Nita wasn’t excitement; it was a sudden dread. What if his family didn’t want him? What if his English was too strong, and his native tongue too stunted in his mouth? What if his skin was too pale, and his hair too short, and the way he ate and walked and greeted others too English? What if he didn’t remember how to hunt with his father? What if his mother curled up in pain and he didn’t remember what to do? How would he make pots for her, or find berries in the forest for her? Did he remember how to tell the season by the moon, or know the crops by the positions of the stars?
His family would love him, he assured himself; but what if he was too different? This new kind of fear pulled the breath out of his lungs, making a rush of tears flood to his eyes as he looked up at the concrete ceiling. The school used to be a prison before it was remade; maybe Nita had been a prisoner too long to change? Maybe he would be so out of step with his tribe – as much an invalid as his mother, who vomited blood and could barely walk and lay with a sickly grey in her skin. Maybe he’d be so unable to care for his mother that he’d lose her – if he hadn’t already lost her.
The thought made tears streak from the corners of his eyes.
His only thought since the moment he came to the school was his family. When it became too much, the only thing that made him rise from bed every morning was the thought of going back to them. For the first time in his entire life, he was afraid of his family. Nita bit his lip and breathed in deeply to hold back the tears – he couldn’t cry in front of Hakan. But he was afraid; and for the first time, he didn’t think his mother would be able to comfort him. No one could comfort him.
Nita felt Albane as he looked up at the ceiling that sheltered him. He sat on his bed where he could sleep throughout the night. He wore clothes that kept him cool in the warm months, and shoes to prote
ct his feet. The next day, he would sit at a table and they would give him food and water, and even if it was tasteless, he wouldn’t be hungry.
The school gave him security; and for one treacherous moment, Nita’s thoughts betrayed him. He was afraid to leave.
The thought scared him sober, and he shook his head, sitting up. His hand wiped away his tears as he looked at his feet, not meeting Hakan’s eyes. Nita called forward all the thoughts that had convinced him of the plan – he knew how to speak English. He knew how to act English. He could get a job and make money until he found his tribe. He could build a shelter in the woods the way his father had taught him, and work in the days to put food in his mouth. If his people had been moved, he could ask until he found where they had gone.
Doubts and holes in his plans surfaced in his mind, but he pushed them away – he couldn’t think of them.
“We just have to walk away and nobody will notice.” Nita said, and he focused on his words until they felt real to him. “Then we’ll see our families again.”
Chapter Sixteen
Alba
Sleep for Alba was as restless as ever. Flitting dreams of teachers pinning to her desk, ripping away her clothes, bruising her skin while the others watched, tortured her in the darkness. The priest watched, telling her to repent of her shame; Ms. Wright looked away, focusing her eyes on the distant wall; Mrs. Greenspan reclined against the chalkboard, careless of her screams.
A scream pierced the air, jolting Alba to bring her out of her nightmare, and she burst into consciousness like breathlessly surfacing from water. The nightmare clung to her like ghostly Albane, and reality shifted until she was on the table in front of the teachers and Albane in her room in the dark. A splitting shriek that rattled her ears cut through the air beside her, and a scream tore its way from Alba’s throat in response. Her eyes darted to Korra’s bed, across the room.