Page 37 - The Mending Season

“Did he kiss you at the altar, Miss?” (This one, for me, was the most curious.)The teacher being asked, Mrs Aleixo, had apparently left the year before as Miss Da Silva.At Ithuteng, the line dividing teachers and students was clear and everyone stayed on the right side of it. Crossing it could have meant being caned or hit with a belt. Knowing that this kind ofpunishment was against the rules in White schools brought me immeasurable relief.Veronica spoke more than anyone else. Her voice was the loudest and commanded attention. No one rolled her eyes or snickered the way people would have done with someone that loud at Ithuteng. Veronica knew and spoke to everyone - even raising her voice to yell out comments across the room - some­ thing the teacher disapproved of. She had been the first Black person in the school so everyone knew her. She sat behind me and told me everything that was going on, explaining what we had to do next and what was expected of us. As the day went on, I thought ofall the things I would tell the aunts.The regular teachers and the nuns seemed to live in differ­ ent worlds. The nuns spoke only of school and religion. The other teachers spoke of their vacations and were excited to hear what we had done in our time off. The girls seemed hun­ gry for details of the teachers’ lives, their voices competing to get their questions answered. Everyone seemed to get along well, even though everyone sat next to people of their own colour. They laughed together and asked each other questions from across the room. The whole morning all I hoped was that no one would ask me any questions about myself and, luckily, they were all too busy finding out details of each other s Christmas holidays. Most of them lived far apart - in different parts of the city and in townships all over - not like Ithuteng where everyone was from the same township and saw each other during the holidays. I had never seen so many37