by Nōnen Títi
“How can someone argue for what he doesn’t believe in and have an equal chance of getting a good mark as a person who argues what he feels strongly about? That’s inequality again,” Mariette says.
“You have nothing to complain about. You get to argue against homework, but the idea is that you learn how to debate.”
“Then assign us a subject that makes sense, like if we can have a role play for civics rather than a bunch of empty words.”
Mr Shriver puts down his paper and walks to the door. “I’m tired of arguing with you. Either you leave the room or I do. But if I do, you will all stay in detention for an hour every day this week.”
Mariette doesn’t need more than a few seconds to pack up her bag and leave. I don’t see her again until recess.
MARIETTE
“Mariette, wait up.” Kathleen comes running up to me at recess. “What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”
“I’m tired of lies and humiliation. They say one thing and do another and if you point it out to them you’re a troublemaker or you don’t understand. Well, I understand fine. I understand we’re here to obey pointless rules, play childish ball games in PE, collect points debating ice-cream colours and waste every single day of our lives in the name of education. It’s wrong.”
“I thought we’d established that three years ago. Why put up a fight now?”
“I told you, I’m tired. I’m tired of doodling on paper to pass the time because the truth can’t be spoken.”
“I think you’re showing off for Jerome.”
“No Kathleen, I don’t need to. He’s my cousin. You’re welcome to him. You’re falling for the outside again but you don’t know what he’s really like.”
“I think he’s just shy.”
“You can think what you want.”
I don’t want to sound angry at Kathleen but it comes across that way. I can see it in her eyes. I’m angry at everybody all the time. I can’t stop it. Everybody likes Jerome. Half the girls have already made some remark about the way he looks and the other half like his gentle demeanour. Yeah, right. Even the guys seem to have no problem. Not that I care. I’m not competing for attention. I just don’t want to fight with Kathleen. “Are you still going to show me your project?” I ask her, since she’s wanted me to come to the woodwork room to have a look for a while.
She brightens up and puts her arm through mine.
We have geography next and we get to watch a movie about the ozone layer, so despite my moaning just now, Kathleen and I resort to doodling.
After lunch Kathleen has German while I go to history to be bored out of my wits listening to the political situation in Europe between world wars and the aftermath of the Russian revolution, which, Mr Fokker lectures, “is an excellent example of idealism with all good intentions gone wrong. Dictators took over, not just there but in many countries. The originators, like Trotsky, were kicked out. Communist China became more radical. In India, Ghandi was arrested and sentenced to six years for civil disobedience, while Hitler got five years for his attempted coup of which he served less than a year and was rewarded with German citizenship. Germany itself was totally bankrupt and quite a few socialists were murdered. Italy had already declared itself fascist and Hitler had clearly written his intentions in his book. Nevertheless, the Allied peacekeeping troops-”
Mr Fokker stops when I curse out loud. “Would you like to share?”
“No, forget it. It isn’t worth the effort,” I tell him, now convinced all men must be idiots.
He accepts that and continues. “The Allied troops were withdrawn from Germany and one after the other Italy, Japan and Germany repudiated the Versailles treaty. Hitler became more popular at home than ever, getting ninety-two percent of the democratic vote and most other countries supported or at least accepted him. Just like today, treaties and declarations were openly discarded. Just like today, the leaders announced their desire for domination and war. Just like today, the signs of danger were everywhere, yet the people lived the good life, the Roaring Twenties. They were unaware or uninterested. Maybe the world was suddenly too big for them; maybe they just couldn’t put the big picture together. They woke up with the Depression and that was the beginning of the end. A few years later everybody was out of a job, so when conscription was announced, they were only too happy to go.”
“What’s conscription?” I ask him.
“Being drafted. Compulsory military service.”
“I was afraid it was that. So all those men were really happy they could take their animalistic urges to war and go murder some kids and rape some women, right? That’s what soldiers – all men – like to do.”
Jerome bends over his desk and pretends to be writing. Mr Fokker folds his arms and looks at me to see if there’s more coming, but there isn’t. I’d hoped for a response. I don’t interrupt him anymore either, but I’m told to wait when the bell goes.
“I must say I’m happy to see that some people actually stay awake during my classes, but what you’re saying worries me.”
I shrug my shoulders. That’s his problem.
“Sometimes when people get hurt or abused they can’t say it to anybody directly, but the words come out anyway,” he says.
It takes me a moment to get his drift. “What? Because I call soldiers rapists you think I got raped or something? Nah, I just think all men are idiots for causing wars and fighting in them and I have a cousin I can’t stand and who happens to live with us, that’s all.”
He looks at me as if to see if I’m truthful.
“You’re a history teacher. You should know that all soldiers are rapists.”
“No, they’re not, but I do agree that they act on their instincts when they go to war. Will you promise to come and talk if there is a reason to do so?”
I feel a tiny bit flattered by his concern and a whole great bit embarrassed. “My only reason is Jerome, I promise.”
He lets me go to civics where Miss Coven spends the first twenty minutes describing the video we watched for Jerome and then asks him for an account of his Anzac Day weekend. I can feel his shock. He must wonder what I told her. He stumbles and forces out a non-descript answer after which she goes into another preaching session about brave young men until the bell goes.
“You’re coming to the sports day tomorrow, aren’t you?” Kathleen asks Jerome, who is sitting behind us in the bus.
“I guess so, if it’s compulsory.”
“It is, but nobody can stop half the school from suddenly coming down with a cold tomorrow,” I say, though I’d intended to never respond to him.
Jerome says he’s no good at sport and doesn’t like it but Kathleen insists. “Just come. It’ll be fun to sit together. You don’t have to compete.”
The last five minutes of the way home are silent, since neither of us talk without Kathleen there.
During dinner Mum produces a letter about the sports day being compulsory and asking parents to see that their children attend and wear their house colours.
“Fucking idiots. First they want us to all dress alike with the excuse of peer pressure and next they order us to wear different colours and act as if there’s a war on. It’s an alternative to race differences, that’s all.”
“We don’t need your comments,” Mum tells me.
“Well, I’m not going.”
“Of course you are. You’ll go, Jerome, won’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“Mummy’s boy.”
“I wouldn’t mind being a mummy’s boy if I still had one,” he tells me.
My first impulse is to say he does have a mother, but I know how he feels about her so I stay quiet.
In the meantime Mum has gone into another one of her tirades about me being obnoxious so I leave the room. The phone in the hall rings when I walk by. It’s Grandpa Will asking how things are going.
“Fine. How’s Uncle Charl?”
“A little better. What about you kids, do you get on togethe
r?”
“Why wouldn’t we? Do you want to speak to Jerome?”
“Do you think I can get a better answer out of him?”
“Eh, hang on, I’ll get Dad.”
I bring the phone to the kitchen. Dad talks to Grandpa Will and then Jerome gets the phone. He walks into the hallway with it. I hover nearby, but I can’t hear more than changes in his tone. Oh well, Grandpa Will doesn’t need Jerome to tell him how things are between us. Mum and Dad inform him, no doubt. What do I care anyway?
JEROME
I’m not comfortable going to this school on my own, but I go because I can’t stay away in the first week and I can’t do what Mariette does to her mother. I look for Fred at the bus stop but Kathleen soon tells me that he won’t come. “You’re welcome to hang around with me,” she says. She’s wearing all red clothing and she’s spray-painted her hair.
On the bus the sports teacher asks everybody to compete in a fair manner and with pride for their team. “Remember that the winning house collects a hundred points and will be exempt from yard duty for the rest of the term.” She gives each house a chance to yell their slogans out loud.
“Blue is the best, down the gutter with the rest!”
“A victorious fellow only competes for yellow!”
“We’ll beat the life out of every team; there’s only one winner and that is green!”
“Proud to be red, the rest will soon be dead!”
“And I thought nursery rhymes were violent,” I say to Kathleen when she stops to take a big gulp of water.
“I think I’ve hurt my throat,” she replies.
I have to admit that it’s kind of nice to spend the day on a blanket in the winter sun at the edge of the athletics field, not having to do anything or worry about offending Mariette and not being expected to join in. The yellow team wins the day and the students around me are quiet on the way home.
“Mariette, can you help me with my poster?” Miranda asks at dinner.
“Tomorrow.”
“But I have to bring it in tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m busy tonight. You shouldn’t have left it so long.”
“Because I don’t know how.”
“Just cut out some pictures – a flag, one of those ‘proudly made’ logos or something. Glue them all on your poster and that’s it done.”
“But that’s not what I’m proud of.”
“Who cares? It’s a school project. You don’t have to mean it.”
“Come on, Mariette. Can’t you make some time for your sister?” Aunt Karen asks.
“Why don’t you make it for her, Mum?”
“Because it would be wrong for a parent to do the homework.”
Mariette stands up and leaves the room.
“Can’t you help me, Jerome?” Miranda asks.
“What do you need to do?”
“Make a poster to show pride for our country. When I’m big I’m going to live in Iceland, because there they fight volcanoes,” she says.
“If you don’t feel proud, maybe you should just explain that.”
“No, then I can’t go outside at recess.”
“Maybe Mariette’s right then Maybe you should just tell them what they want to hear.”
“Will you help me with that?”
Aunt Karen gives us a bunch of old magazines to take upstairs. Miranda empties her school bag onto the floor, between the toys and clothes that are already there, to look for scissors and glue. Once she’s satisfied I spend two hours on my maths homework, so it’s nearly one o’clock before I get ready for bed. From under Mariette’s door some light shines onto the landing.
In the morning, when we step into Uncle Gerard’s car, she looks as if she hasn’t seen her bed at all.
“Tonight you’ll have been with us a week,” my uncle tells me and asks if I feel more at home yet.
“A little. I just worry about Dad.”
“Problems like that take time, Jerome. It isn’t a simple broken leg.”
I know that but I have this dream I can’t tell anybody about, a dream in which Dad waves goodbye to me. A dream that could easily just represent what happened two weeks ago, but I’ve had dreams before. I told Grandpa Will about it, told him I have to talk to Dad. He promised to speak to the doctor and let me know, but I feel so far away, unreachable.
Unreachable, too far; Unbridgeable, the distance; No plane or car makes the journey of a thought.
The words fall out of the pen, but the car’s moving and it makes it hard to get the letters straight. I notice Mariette looking at me just as we reach the school. Suddenly I feel stupid and put my diary away.
Once Uncle Gerard drives off, Mariette turns toward the milk bar, leaving me standing. Uncomfortable, I start into the school yard.
“Jerome?” Kathleen calls from the other side of the gate. She motions to the milk bar. “We take the first two periods off because they’re PE,” she says.
“I thought you liked PE?”
“No, I like proper sports, not half-cast games and fitness training. I’m not that old yet.”
“So where do you go?”
“There’s a spot at the back of the milk bar. Are you coming?”
“Don’t you get in trouble?”
“No, they can’t suspend the whole class and the one time they gave us a detention we all brought cookies and coke and had a party.”
“Nobody goes?”
“Just the fanatics. Didn’t Mariette tell you?”
“We don’t talk much.”
“So, I’ve noticed. Anyway, you don’t need her permission. I like your company.”
I agree to play truant with the rest of them because I’d rather get in trouble with the school than with the people who are accepting me, and because it’s PE, after all. And maybe also because I like the idea of Kathleen inviting me in spite of my cousin. Mariette doesn’t comment. The little area has benches and a playground and fills with more and more year ten students. At least a third of them are already here when the bell goes.
“Oh no,” Kathleen groans when a group of the popular girls come around the corner. “Don’t you have to cheer on the stars of the PE field?” she asks Charlotte.
“We have the same right as you do to be here.”
Charlotte is a tall, dark-haired girl who’s usually surrounded by six or seven of her followers, but this time there are only three. “Hi Jerome. I thought I’d find you playing volleyball. I mean, with your body, I guess you’re real good at it, eh?”
I hate these situations. I feel the looks of the others. I know what they think of Charlotte. “I don’t like sports,” I tell her.
“Are you really Mariette’s cousin?” Lindsey asks.
“Yes.”
“So, don’t you want to get away from your family?”
I avoid looking at Mariette. “No.”
“We’re going to Bellevue after school. Do you want to come?”
“No thanks.”
“Is your father really in a crazy institution?”
“Bugger off, Charlotte,” Mariette says suddenly, stepping closer.
“Whoa, don’t come near me, princess!” Charlotte shrieks and jumps out of the way. “Do you even own any other clothes?”
“Do you actually have a skirt that’s longer than your underpants?” Mariette retorts.
“At least I have a taste for what looks good. You have no sense of fashion.”
“Because fashion has nothing to do with looking good, only with looking like everybody else.”
This goes by faster than I can follow and ends with the four popular girls wandering away, but their words leave me feeling awkward. Both Fred and Kathleen look at me as if I’ve got some contagious disease. I don’t want to be the odd one out again – the dangler. I shake my head at Mariette because I don’t know what to say and because the hurt is too close to my eyes.
“What?” she demands.
I shrug my shoulders and start to walk away, but she yanks my arm. “Wh
at are you accusing me of? You don’t see me going four against one.”
“No, you just set everybody up against each other and spread stories.”
“I never told anybody anything. I never told Charlotte. She’s got a brother in Miranda’s class.”
“Hey, hey, stop it, both of you.” Kathleen nods into the direction of Charlotte and her friends. “Don’t let them get to you, they’re not worth it.”
I leave them to go sit somewhere away, somewhere alone where people won’t look at me. It’s too late to go to school now. First period has started.
MARIETTE
“Damn, Mariette, can’t you at least be a little nice to him if his dad’s ill? Can’t you give him some slack?”
“I’m not stopping you from going over there to dry his tears for him.”
“You’re a real bitch sometimes, you know that?” Kathleen says and walks over to Jerome, who is sitting against the wall at the side of the milk bar, writing in his precious diary.
Fred looks at me for a moment but then follows her. The rest of the group pretends to not have noticed. I’m tired already.
I spend the time reading my book. After recess I go to English alone. I ignore Mr Shriver and he doesn’t mention Wednesday. Kathleen starts a pen war by drawing Jerome at the wall. I add her sitting next to him drying his tears, after which she sticks me on the far end of the paper and I draw a cupid above them and- The paper disappears from the table, lifted by Mr Shriver’s hand.
He looks at it for half a second. “I asked about a negative way of spreading information used during wartime,” he tells us, taking a few steps to the front of the class and dropping the drawing onto Jerome’s table. “What do we call that, Kathleen?”
While she struggles to find the right word I watch Jerome. I can’t see his face, but he bends a little closer over the table. A poke on my arm tells me it’s my turn. “Propaganda,” I answer.
“We already said that. I asked who introduced those sorts of tactics to deceive his people.”
“Every government does.”
“I was talking about Hitler. He had the media use his slogans and all the school books were changed to suit his purpose.”