The best thing I could have done for our boys and girls would have been to teach them sex education — we were, after all, keeping them there to grow up before going out to become parents — but that was taboo. Our biggest problem was not alcohol or drugs, but unwanted pregnancies. Strangely enough, many parents believed that sex education would only exacerbate the problem. Most parents did not want their daughters swallowing pills or interfering with the procreative process in any way, and they resented anybody who divulged such information to their little ones. The good reverend, supported by the conservative element among the parents, resisted the introduction of “godless information” into his school with all his might. That just about sealed it.
Under the circumstances, the school could only expel pregnant girls. The culture of shame and secrecy had a lot to do with it all. Most parents never talked about sex to their children — good Christians left such matters to sort themselves out. In the past, paternal aunts used to take their nephews and nieces aside and tell them everything, but with the breakup of extended-family structures, the gap had been left yawning. For the majority of youths, peers were the educators. I now and then intercepted chits and cuttings from pornographic magazines and love letters as they changed hands. They reminded me of Cane lecturing us, and making us complete sentences with words like “penis” or “vagina.” I was not such a hypocrite as to feign anger or shock. I often made one student read a chit aloud. Then I would ask if there was anybody with questions on the subject of sex, pregnancy, contraception or abortion. Suddenly everyone would become alert. Once, the deputy took me aside and requested that I not corrupt young minds. I bowed my head, but did the same thing when I intercepted the next chit.
A few hundred meters from SIMC was a small primary school, kickstarted for the sons and daughters of the area who could not afford better Muslim schools. Behind the compound was a small, dilapidated mosque, where the faithful held prayers on Friday. The imam, who taught Koran education at the school, lived nearby and ran both places. Looking at the rough mud walls and the leprous roofing set in a bare, pebbly compound chipped out of solid rock, one would think that nothing good could creep out of this wretched environment. Compared with dear old SIMC, and the Catholic school and church not so far away on the same ridge, the place looked dismal and oozed decay. It seemed like a sandy island awaiting the storm that would blow it to oblivion. At break time, however, the joyous screeches of the children filled the air, and their pink uniforms fluttered in the wind like so many large flags. They played and sang almost as hard as the imam drove them to memorize the Koran and the Arabic texts he wrote on the chipped blackboard.
On school days, he would strut from class to class, stick in hand, a frown on his face, and woe to anyone found messing around. The secular teachers who found themselves at the place often gave him a wide berth, not because he would beat them too, but because he believed in respect and discipline more than the teachers did, and he was not into theoretical discussions. “I am a man of action,” he always said. If pupils did something wrong, they got punished on the spot. They could plead, and maybe even get a reduced sentence, but the punishment came all the same. “Action, character, responsibility, is all I teach,” he always said before and after dishing out punishment.
A friend who taught at this dusty place to supplement his SIMC salary asked me to accompany him to the school. It was among the prancing, rope-skipping, screeching multitude that I first saw Jo Nakabiri. I stared. Her dark face was gleaming in the sun, as though she had used too much facial cream that morning. I looked at her limbs and frame, and I found myself wondering if she was Lusanani’s sister or cousin. Her wasp waist and solid bum had me bursting with excitement. Sweat broke out in my armpits. I was intrigued by the uncanny feeling that I knew this person, had at least seen her somewhere before. But where?
We found her shouting at a group of little girls, and when she saw us, her voice dropped, as though we had caught her saying obscene words. It was then that I saw her eyes: large orbs full of bottomless joys and sorrows and mysteries I suddenly felt eager to explore. She extracted herself from the group with the stiff grace of one being watched, then came and greeted my friend and me, in that order. They ignored me for some time as they recited the litany of inadequate salaries, unfulfilled plans, impending holidays, local weddings and the like. She seemed uneasy, as though talking about school affairs, the imam and the pupils in the presence of a stranger were a breach of trust or a form of betrayal. I kept looking at her and at my friend, camouflaging my desire to look only at her. I was already thinking that I had enough money to take this girl away from this place and maintain her in relative comfort.
My impression was that she was working here for respectability, and probably because it was her profession. If so, who was paying her bills? Ten government dollars, which came after three months, was hardly enough for a tenth of monthly expenses. It was likely that she had a man or was living with her parents. If she was a refugee, there was a big possibility that Husband had joined the guerrillas and was somewhere in the Triangle facing the elements, the Katyushas, the helicopters and the army. The idea shook me up a bit. Some of those guys returned with bloodlust in the head and the maddening suspicion that their wives had been screwing all over the place, and they would not think twice before putting a bullet between another man’s eyes. In a few of those cases, the woman never divulged that she had a husband; you only saw the fellow standing in the doorway furious as hell and lethal, like a wounded buffalo. Maybe her man had died in action and she was a young widow. There were many juicy widows walking around these days, some from the Triangle, and since they wore no distinctive dress, few people got to know who they really were. I would not mind dating a young widow, or a woman whose husband was fighting in the bush, as long as she told me the whole truth from the beginning.
I decided to ask my friend. Friends helped each other out in this way, even if it was their sister in question. He knew something about her; they lived in the same area. He owed me for bailing him out of endless financial problems.
He told me the little he knew. Yes, she had come from the Triangle two years back and now lived with her grandmother. She had been married once, but no one knew the whereabouts of Husband or whether there had been any children. I would have preferred to hear that the man had died, since now I did not know whether he was alive and still interested in her. That type was quite dangerous: they first mistreated the woman, and when she left them, they realized what they were missing and tried to get her back. When, in many cases, the wives refused to go back, the men grew bitter. Some turned to sending emissaries or to witchcraft, some to stalking or writing threatening letters. What about the other possibility? Maybe this girl was ill-mannered, loose and mean-tempered, and her man had got tired of her bad ways and moved on. Maybe she was the one trying to go back to her old life. In which case the man was waiting and making her stew a little bit longer in the juices of her iniquity.
The campaign to win Jo took many weeks. She rejected all my friend’s efforts, saying that she was through with men. I did not believe her. If it had been true, she would have been in a convent flagellating herself and removing devil hair with her bare fingers like the Padlock of old. I wrote her letters, but she returned them unread. Taking into account the ease with which Triangle girls surrendered themselves, her behavior was annoying. I asked my friend to give up the assignment, but he was determined to see it through. He finally succeeded, after I had given up hope. He got her to invite me to the end-of-term concert given by the children of her school.