by Nōnen Títi
I plan to mail the first two letters from Nikos’ neighbourhood when we go for dinner there, just in case. The last one will need to be copied and I’ll need Pat’s address list, so I make a few phone calls to arrange a core group meeting at Kathleen’s house for Sunday afternoon. I tell Fred by e-mail, since his father has taken away his mobile and his mother turned Jerome away when he tried to visit.
Thursday and Friday feel like the weekend. I spend nearly the entire time reading that book Mr Fokker gave me, but now I finally have something worth the ink, I find it hard to read.
At five o’clock on Friday we arrive at Nikos’ house. Jerome acts nervous, as if he’s the host. Uncle Charl opens the door, looking about a million times better than the last time I saw him. Funny that he acts so much like a hippie and Jerome is so proper. The familiar smell of cigar smoke greets me. My mind has just finished painting an image of Nikos with a big, fat Cuban when I get a surprise.
“Grandpa Will?”
“Don’t I get a kiss anymore?” he asks.
I give him the kiss he wants, but I feel like he didn’t come just for a friendly visit or they’d have told me.
Dinner is great and consists of several Turkish dishes I’ve never heard of before. Even Jerome relaxes and the evening passes with light conversation about trivial things which I normally don’t care about, but I’m thankful that Mum doesn’t bring up school. So maybe Grandpa Will is only here to visit his son, maybe to check out his future son-in-law. That logic falls through when Grandpa Will comes home to spend the night with us, while Jerome stays behind for a weekend with his parents. When I ask him, Jerome says he wouldn’t have wanted to go to the Sunday meeting anyway.
Miranda claims Grandpa Will on Saturday and they all go shopping together leaving me some peace, which I use to finish my report for Mr Fokker, which is now a seventeen-page book I bind together with string and electrical tape. He won’t have time to read it, but I don’t have time to edit.
I try to read a bit more of the book by Plato he assigned me, but I’m tired, so next thing I know it’s suddenly Sunday morning. After a late breakfast I get ready to go to Kathleen.
“How about I come with you?” Grandpa Will asks.
“To see Kathleen?”
“To see her father. We talked on the phone a few days ago.”
“You did?”
“Is that forbidden?”
“No, but… does she know?”
“I don’t imagine she will.”
“So are we in trouble?” I ask him when we’re on the bus, just to make sure I can prepare myself.
Of course, Grandpa Will doesn’t answer straight. “Do you think you ought to be?”
I can do what he does and ask a question in return. “Did you call him or did he call you?”
“I called him.”
“So who told you?”
“Jerome did, Mariette. He’s worried about you. He also worries that you’ll take this out on him now. Is he right to do so?”
“I never told him to leave, he did that himself. He’s not being forced and I never blamed him for staying away last Sunday.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“We need to get out at the next stop.”
He picks up the conversation as we walk. “Does he have reason to be afraid?”
“No.”
“And I can count on these other people confirming that?”
“…Yes.” I’m not totally sure about Charlotte and Mick. “It’s probably better if you don’t mention it.”
Kathleen’s dad opens the door and shakes hands with Grandpa Will as if they’ve known each other for years. I leave them to it and join Pat, Mick, Charlotte and Kathleen around the dining room table.
Pat warns us not to expect any more support and reports that the only queries on the website are about the rumours.
“What do you say to them?”
“I tell people to take it up with the school. I have no idea why we’re fighting anymore.”
She’s right. We need to align our responses and our purpose. “Should we insist on police clearance?”
“I think we should focus on the abuse Shriver threatened you with,” Mick says.
“There was no threat. I’m not making it up for the sake of trouble. Besides, I told Mr Fokker the truth.”
“So what the hell are we doing here if you’re too busy protecting their sorry butts to take action?” Mick asks, raising his voice so I worry about Grandpa Will hearing him. “We may as well quit right now.”
“There’s a difference between making things up and taking action against injustices,” Kathleen says.
“Is that so, Mariette? You wouldn’t make things up now, would you?” Mick asks.
“This is different. I’m not accusing Mr Shriver of what he didn’t do. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“I saw him raise his hand and that wasn’t the first time,” Charlotte says. “Next time he might really do it. We can’t risk students’ safety. We should get him kicked out.”
“I don’t want him kicked out. I just want PM dead.”
“Mariette, come here will you?” Grandpa Will calls from his chair in the next room.
Shit. “I didn’t mean ‘dead’, dead-like. It was a figure of speech,” I tell him.
“Come here.”
“How come you brought a chaperone?” Charlotte asks.
“Kathleen’s dad invited him; I couldn’t say no,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry if my presence here embarrasses you, Mariette. I’ve never had the pleasure of being embarrassed by parents or grandparents, so I wouldn’t know,” Grandpa Will says.
Of course he knows damn fine. He also knows I won’t ignore him, so he sits back until I drag myself out of the chair while my friends all watch. “Do you know what a dilemma is?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Right; you have to decide whether to go on or go back. Will you risk getting hurt or losing face? Can you be the lion?”
He’s not just talking to me. He stands up, as does Kathleen’s dad who I suppose is in on this, and walks into the dining room. I follow and shrug at my friends to say that I have no idea what he’s planning.
“Do you remember when I asked what you felt when you stuffed the sleeping bags full of worms? Do you feel that at school too, maybe? Power, Mariette, is what drives people, but it also destroys, and it injures others. Sit down.”
“We’re not teasing him. Sometimes people say stupid things.”
Charlotte glares at me.
“These are the people who follow your lead in this quest, the soldiers? Between the five of you, can’t you control them?”
“They’re not soldiers.”
“Aren’t you planning a coup d’état? Don’t you need soldiers for that?”
“We’re not playing war.”
“You are not playing war, but you want the head of the school replaced and dead. You’re right that you’re not playing. This is no longer a game, Mariette. This is no longer an embarrassing situation born of a misguided prank. Heaven knows sending the police after you kids was wrong, but wars are not only about soldiers and bombs. They’re not only about people you don’t know in camps. They’re about people living and working under the same roof. Wars have to do with revenge and unresolved arguments. They have to do with short-sightedness and intolerance, with power and the wilful hurting of others. Wars are vicious and people suffer.”
“We’re not trying to cause a war,” I repeat.
By now he’s leaning on the table between Pat and me. “A coup d’état most often results in civil war. You’re trying to fight an existing system that is strong, well-networked, and has the backup of the soldiers of the real world. What do you kids think will happen?”
“But that system is corrupt,” Kathleen answers.
“Which is why it will win.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“What gives you the notion that wars are about being fair? That you f
ight for what is right and therefore you should win? Who told you that – the hero movies, the honour stories? Well, they’re wrong! It’s about power and the rest is balderdash. It’s nice to have ideals about how things should be, but ideals have a habit of getting out of control.”
He straightens up and looks around at the rest of us. “You did a really good job with that demonstration. You scored a big win, a succès fou, an extraordinary success, but watch out for that last word. Don’t be foolish enough to believe that you can’t lose. You are already doing what nine-hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand have done before they failed. You start squabbling, you get upset and you start vengeful attacks over petty things.”
“It wasn’t petty.”
“So what will happen now? Are you ready for the next step? Are you one hundred percent sure you want to take it, every one of you? Are you ready for the consequences? Will you sacrifice your future?” Grandpa Will is walking around us as if delivering a sentence in a courtroom. He pauses every few steps and looks at someone. “Are you willing to risk Miranda’s future?” he asks me and then turns to Charlotte without waiting for a reply. “Do you have siblings? Will they appreciate losing their place in school or their club because of what you do? How about your parents; have you thought about the gossip?”
“No,” Charlotte answers.
“What will your parents do if the police get seriously involved, if you get arrested?” he asks Pat.
“What about you; will you go all the way? Who has to get hurt before you stop?” he wants to know of Mick.
Slowly they all get restless.
“It isn’t like that, Grandpa Will. We’ll be careful.”
“I wasn’t referring to the things you do. I was referring to what the other side will do to maintain their power. Do you know about the ten percent rule?” he asks Charlotte.
“No.”
“Do you?” he asks me.
“No.”
“I bet you know what I mean,” he says to Kathleen’s dad, who says he does.
“So, are you willing to take the risk?”
“I’ve promised Kathleen I’d stand behind her all the way.”
“And therein lies the problem, doesn’t it?”
Now also berated, Kathleen’s dad says, “Yes, but it’s only a school.”
“We don’t need this. We’re not stupid. We can deal with them as we did before,” Mick tells my grandfather.
“Yes, we’re having this meeting to make sure we all stand together,” Kathleen agrees.
“So you’re all together? And tomorrow when you’ve ousted the principal and you’re called into the office, alone? There will be maybe two policemen there, a member of the school board, a member of the education board, a new principal, maybe some other official and they’ll start asking questions. Not only that, but they’ll ask the same thing over and over and won’t give you time to think. Then they’ll change their sentences a little and you’ll have to keep your story straight. Then they’ll tell you that one of your friends said something different. Will you still manage?”
“As long as we stick to what really happened and don’t lie,” Charlotte says.
“Sure, no big lies. What about little lies? Did you mean you wanted him dead when you said that?” he asks me.
“No.”
“But you used the word?”
“Yes.”
“So you meant it?”
“No.”
“Did you hear her say she wanted him dead?” he asks Kathleen.
“No, I mean yes, but she didn’t mean it.”
“Did you hear it?”
“No.”
“You said yes.”
“Yes.”
“Stop it, Grandpa Will.”
“What about you?” he asks Pat. “Did she use the word ‘dead’?”
“Yes.”
“So it follows that she wanted him dead?”
“No.”
“What does the word mean?”
“Please stop. You’re tearing us apart, Grandpa Will.”
“If you can’t handle me talking to you like this, here, when you’re all together, you will never survive the rest. And this is a school. You’re not in the real world yet. Here they can’t touch you physically.”
I should have known Grandpa Will didn’t come here for just some lighthearted chat. He stops for a breath and continues more quietly. “The ten percent rule is what keeps institutions alive and their inhabitants obedient, whether they are the army, a country or a school. Take out the one of ten people who speak their opinion and the rest will do as you say. The five of you represent the ten percent in your school – what’s left of it. So far they’ve been pretty lenient. I doubt it will stay that way. And like I said, you’re looking at expulsion. Just imagine what this would mean for those opposing a prison regime or a dictator.”
“There is a way to defend yourself against that kind of interrogation, though,” Kathleen’s dad says, no doubt ruining Grandpa Will’s intent to scare the wits out of us. “Once they start separating you – and you have to be prepared for that – you must not respond to any of their questions. You have to emotionally distance yourself from the situation and from their words. You do that by taking one line, unrelated to your cause and keep saying it. Something like ‘you’re using torture techniques’ or ‘you’re acting like a Nazi’. One sentence you will use to answer any question with, over and over again, until they let you go. You’d have to practice it, each taking turns, never giving up, never thinking about what they say or ask and never answering.”
Grandpa Will nods. “That privilege may exist in their case, seeing as it’s not a real prison, but remember, if things go wrong they need to blame somebody. Every train wreck sends somebody to jail even if the accident was caused by the weather. It gives those who have suffered a loss a sense of revenge. They’ll call it ‘justice’ but it never is. Equally so, once the police are involved they will not rest until somebody is put away or they’d look like the failures. It doesn’t matter if that somebody was guilty. That’s the reality; ideals don’t come into it. So before you carry on taking over the school, you may want to find out if you’re all capable. Now, I think I would like that drink after all,” he says to Kathleen’s dad and the two men leave the room.
“It won’t be like that, will it?” Charlotte asks.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Pat says.
“Does he make up tall stories?” Mick asks me.
“It wasn’t a story.”
“But we’re not planning to take over the school,” Kathleen says.
“Are we?”
What were we planning? In all honesty, we didn’t really have a goal this time. In all honesty, we were just angry.
Pat leaves first, followed by Mick and then Charlotte. “We’ll see you tomorrow,” is all that’s left of our plans.
“You sure know how to ruin a perfectly good day,” Kathleen says to my grandfather.
“Do I? I was trying to save you from ruining a pretty good year.”
JEROME
Rowan insists he’s envious of me being with Dad and Nikos, but they’re just his words. My brother sounds most enthusiastic about his new life, though that could change when they visit Uncle Alistair’s next week. In the meantime I’m happy with the arrangement we have at the moment. Uncle Gerard brings me on Friday night, Nikos drops me off for lit group on Sunday afternoon and Palmer drives me back to Uncle Gerard’s.
But today Dad and Nikos are with me when I ring the bell on Sunday. For a moment I have the feeling I’m bringing in work for inspection when Palmer opens the door. I quickly introduce Dad and Nikos. Palmer, in turn, introduces us to Cheryl, Jessica and Carla, his wife, their daughter, “and Carla is her partner. The baby is their son and they’ve named him Palmer,” he says proudly and puts his hand on my shoulder. “I told you I used to have the same problem accepting certain situations.”
Knowing glances and smiles are exchanged by bot
h sides, so I figure he didn’t tell his family about Dad and Nikos. Now there’s amusement in his eyes over the set-up. “Cheryl was never as judgmental as I am, but until I talked to you I could blame it on my age,” he says and explains that his wife is nine years younger.
She laughs at him and invites us to the table. “I’m very glad to meet you,” she says to me. From then on the visit is like any normal visit with friends. In the two hours before lit group, the conversation covers everything from New Age books and philosophies to world politics and I suddenly realize that my aunt and uncle don’t discuss these things at home. They watch the news every night at the same time and they read the newspapers but they don’t talk about any of it. They avoid disagreements by avoiding the subjects.
Here, everybody has an opinion, even if they’re different. I get the mental image of a water hole, a depth in which all ideas float at all levels and you can swim between them and meet people to share them with. On the shore is Flatland where every village is a separate unit, imprisoned by their own moral or cultural doctrine, the way the original book imprisoned Flatlanders with a simple circle. They look at the water people with the same suspicion they see each other with, like the suburbs Nikos mentioned. No wonder Mariette needs to jump over the fence and shout out loud sometimes. She isn’t being heard at home.
One of the topics is lit group and the reason I came to visit here in the first place.
“We have a friend who publishes a literary magazine. He puts in a short story or a selection of poems from unknown writers every month. It could be worth showing him yours,” Cheryl says.
I decline; they’re not that good.
“Palmer thinks they are.”
I can feel Dad looking at me. I’ve never shown him any of my work. Does he feel left out? But he smiles when I look at him. “Some people are natural-born writers. It isn’t a choice,” he says. “Jerome has been writing since he was able to hold a pen; most of it is too symbolic for me. He and Mariette used to share that when they were children.”