by Kai Kazi
He didn’t know what kind of discretion the new student would have. He’d never be able to sidestep him for long – especially not at night, when they shared a room, when the darkness was a perfect cover for Nita and Pamuy to slip away. Nita’d never be able to pawn him off onto someone else; the frustration of translating without a language to share as a base was too frustrating a task for anyone. Nita glowered – he’d have to wait it out.
The new kid walked beside him, awkwardly taller but still trailing after Nita like a younger brother. They both looked straight ahead as they walked, and Nita broke the silence.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t asked. What is your name?” His words were English, and when no response came, he glanced over to see the boy squinting.
The temptation to step close and whisper the words in his native language – perhaps the same the boy knew – was strong enough to make him sway to the side, mid-step. Nita halted himself, stepping back away; he couldn’t trust this boy with anything yet. Certainly not with breaking the rules unnoticed.
He wracked his mind for something to make the new boy understand, until he grimaced. Nita placed his hand on his own chest, saying “Nicholas,” though it tasted bad in his mouth. He pointed at the boy, “Your name?”
Puzzlement looked back at him, before the boy opened his mouth, broken, jagged English following out. “I am Hakan.” He followed with words too malformed to understand until he finally huffed, glancing around before leaning down to Nita’s level. A rounded language that sounded close to Pamuy’s came forth. “My name is Hakan. And I do not belong in this place.”
The rhythm of the language was enveloping, like the tide of a river or the breeze through a tree, washing over Nita until the homesickness that battled in his gut tensed and dragged him down. His own language pulled at his tongue, begging to respond, to ease the pain – to not be the treacherous tribal boy turning into the civilized white-face they wanted him to be; who addressed people with structure, who wore his collar properly, who only spoke in English. He wanted to speak in the language he knew Hakan would understand, as if that Albane could flicker the fire of his heritage back to life.
Nita opened his mouth, his tongue already curving in a way English never let it, but then he stopped, clamping his mouth shut.
He had to go home. Whispering his language to this boy could make him be sent to the headmaster for punishment; it could make them watch him more closely, or maybe do something to make it harder to leave. Another boy had fled the day before; it wouldn’t be long before they did something to keep them from leaving. He couldn’t risk it. If he waited too long, his tribe would leave him behind. He would become Joshua -- too English to return, too Indian to remain.
His tongue wanted to speak his language, so he could hear his native voice and know he wasn’t too English; but if he waited too long, his voice would mean nothing.
So Nita kept his mouth closed, and kept walking. The day went past in a series of frustrating, inefficient hand signals. Nita showed Hakan where they would eat, where they would sleep, which classes he needed to attend and at what times. Hakan nodded, but his eyes seemed as blank as ever, and Nita wondered if he was listening at all. Each time he pointed to a place, trying to wave his hands and point in a way that could convey anything but nonsense, speaking English though he knew Hakan wouldn’t understand, Nita saw Hakan close down slowly, like a rose blooming in reverse.
New students reminded him, more than ever, how this school was killing them. The ashen look of girls who passed him by had become commonplace;, the careless look in boys older than him and the blankness of those younger wasn’t unusual. Pamuy had once sat dejected on his bed, but before this plan of theirs that had brought light back to his eyes, it had been normal, like the uniforms on their backs or the cut of their hair.
New students came with light in their faces, energy in their voices, but with fear and anger. Watching that slowly dim inside them was like arriving for the first time all over again. Nita watched Hakan shut down, like he had once shut down.
Their plan for escape, their hope of going home, had been the only thing to wake them up from months of a sleep-like existence.
Hakan sat on his new cot, which appeared in Nita’s room after class as if by magic. “Does this get any easier the longer you’re here?” Hakan asked in his native tongue, and the look he gave Nita was hopeful.
“Not really,” Nita said in English, shaking his head. He couldn’t look at Hakan, who was begging for hope, and still keep this plan of his hidden away, so he averted his eyes. “I mean, you know what the days are going to be like. But sometimes that makes it worse.” He didn’t know how to translate his words with movement, so he let them fade into the silent air.
Hakan made a small sound of understanding anyways, nodding as he leaned back against the wall. Nita noticed out of the corner of his eye that Hakan ran his hand across his scalp. A deep crease formed in between his eyebrows when the short crop slid through his hands instead of long, thick hair. Nita had found that one of the hardest things when he first arrived.
He didn’t have the heart to tell the boy that soon they’d be changing his name.
Chapter Twelve
Alba
Alba could barely rise out of bed in the morning. Shallow breathes racked through her body as she tried to sit up, feeling her head swim and strength flee her body; dizziness knocked her back down and she stared up at the ceiling with a quiet, frustrated sob.
Sometimes Korra’s hand would be at her arm, helping her up from her cot, putting an arm around her shoulder so she could breathe and let her senses come back to her. Sometimes Alba would find the strength to climb from bed, pulling the dress loosely around her middle, and help Korra.
Sickness would flush through her and Alba’d retch into her chamber pot, though nothing would come; it was routine as her monthly bleeding had been, and it made her dizzy with exhaustion.
Hunger panged in her stomach as Alba combed a brush through her hair, trying to tie it up behind her head, though her arms were too weak to stay up for long. She ate her meals every day, but her hunger could not be sated; she knew her mother had eaten more when she was carrying Alba’s baby brother. The baby must be taking more, she thought. Alba let the hunger pang, twisting; she couldn’t ask for more – maybe the teachers would know babies wanted more food too. Then they would know.
When Alba tied her bun tightly, her hand pulled away with thick strands of hair wrapped around her fingers. Her hairbrush was black with her hair, fresh from that morning, and a panicky feeling that made Alba wanted to whisper for her mother, as if that could summon her. Her hands went to work, tearing little rips at the seams of her dress so it would hang looser; hiding the thickness of her waist, the swelling of her chest.
As routine as her monthly bleeding had been, as routine as the sickness of the morning had become, Alba walked into the classroom, taking her seat; hands draped over her middle as if her arms could hide the evidence. The teacher wandered throughout the classroom, speaking, teaching, and Alba let her eyes follow the woman like a viper hypnotized by the movement – back and forth, back and forth – but her vision blurred the longer she looked, and her eyelids drooped. She bit her lip, all but drawing blood, and the pain that spiked kept her eyes open; she couldn’t draw attention to herself. Fatigue too strong to be fought filled her bones, but having someone’s eyes on her, looking at her, examining her – knowing and telling, and maybe punishing her for having this child inside her – was greater than the exhaustion.
Alba felt shame like a second skin as she wrapped her arms tighter around herself. When her mother’s belly had swelled with her brother inside, she had smiled and her face had been radiant. Alba’s grandmother had hugged her, placing her hand on her belly, cooing her congratulations. Her father had been happy – it’d be a good thing.
Alba felt no radiance on her cheeks; she felt dirt like a film across her skin, tainting her, infecting those around her. The throbbing between
her legs had left, fading after days of the headmaster’s absence from her room; new girls had arrived at the school, and Alba didn’t want to think of how those two facts could be related. But as if anyone could see the bruises on her thighs, she felt humiliation creeping up her cheeks as she sat, balancing her weight so she wouldn’t ache.
She was dirty, used; they’d punish her for it. A lady didn’t carry someone else’s child; they weren’t pinned to the table and told they were filthy things. They slapped her hands for not crossing her legs as she sat, and they would kill her for being those filthy things.
The class came to an end, and a letter was placed before her. It was blank, and on it would go her love and her assurance to her family. Alba didn’t have any love inside her; no energy to sum it up. It had been sapped from her, draining away like her hair and her life. She felt shame tainting her fingers, as if it could bleed out onto the paper and her family would know what had happened to her – what she was now. She couldn’t tell them she was alright in a language they didn’t know; because she wasn’t alright. She had a baby inside her, weighing her down like an eating sickness, and it made her filthy.
Alba left the letter blank, leaving it on the table as the teacher watched her file out with the other children. Alba caught something looking like sympathy across the teacher’s face, and Alba hung her head, shuffling out faster.
She ate a meal that wouldn’t fill her, and attended classes that were deaf to her ears. The children glanced at her a little more directly, and the teacher’s eyes lingered longer than before. When the sun finally dipped low enough for all the classes to end, Alba didn’t raise her eyes to see anyone as she and Korra made their way to their room. They took to their beds, as clockwork as ever, pulling their thin sheets up to their chins. They waited for morning, where they’d do it again.
Chapter Thirteen
Nita
Hakan was miserable, and his struggle to learn English was becoming more desperate and frustrating by the day. The new students who were older -- already men in their tribes -- couldn’t make their tongue wrap the way the younger ones managed. Like Nita had managed, newly an adult in his people’s eyes.
It didn’t take Hakan long at all to master lowering his voice, listening for footsteps, watching for teachers, so he could lean close to Nita and whisper in a language he knew. “It’s insufferable never knowing what everyone else is saying.”
He may not have had any luck with English, but he quickly took up a hatred for the teachers. The way he ducked his head away when they glanced at him, or stepped into a nearby room to avoid another walking by, was building faith in Nita.
Finally when they sat in their room, with Hakan grabbing at his short hair in frustration, unable to understand the equation their class had instructed them to learn, Nita took a chance. He listened for the sound of footsteps before leaning in and letting his native tongue come out as a whispered hush. Hakan looked at him, almost startled, but smiled. Nita’s mouth felt thick and full once more, like tasting water after hours of thirst, and for the first time in weeks, he explained the equation to Hakan in a way he could grasp.
Nita could tell by the look on Hakan’s face – the boy had wondered if Nita even remembered his native tongue. He wondered if the school had finally turned him into a civilized boy who only knew their manners, their rules, and their language.
The thought made something that felt like a sting of betrayal spark in Nita’s chest – as if Hakan’s thoughts made it true. Every day he was there was one more day they kept his voice hostage, and his heritage, and his life.
Hakan thanked him, smiling in a way he hadn’t in weeks, and Nita nodded, moving away to address his own homework before Hakan could remind him of anything else he was losing.
Pamuy liked Hakan, and when Hakan muttered his unusual but familiar language to him, Pamuy’s eyes lit up. Their late nights or their games over marbles didn’t contain conversation of escaping, of seeing their families again; it was Pamuy and Hakan, leaned close together and whispering in their rapid fire shared language, talking of people they’d known, places they’d seen, things they’d done in the same village with the same families.
Nita listened, sitting aside quietly. A spark of something feeling remotely like jeAlbausy had him focused on his hands or the marbles or the paper reports the teachers demanded of him, listening to the two speak of their families while every day passed with him far from his.
Finally, after too many nights with the aching pain in his chest, calling him home, telling him he’d never see home again, Nita couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to get home -- Hakan or no Hakan.
Sitting on his bed, Nita set down his book firmly. “Hakan,” Nita began, looking down at his two roommates on the floor. He felt hesitance catch in his throat as they looked back at him. He took a breath; maybe having another person – bigger and stronger -- would make it easier to run away. Maybe it was a good choice. He dropped his voice to a whisper, his native voice coming in. “How long do you think you’ll be living in this place?”
A long pause followed as Hakan looked at him, listening for teachers. “Only until I can find a big enough hole in the wall to crawl through.” He smiled, but it had bitterness to it. Hakan looked back down, shooting a marble into the set, making them snap and roll.
“That’s what we want to do.” Nita said, and it was all at once serious, direct. “Pamuy and I are going to run away.”
Hakan’s head shot up, and his eyes were wild as they darted to Nita. Their gazes locked with each other for a moment, and when Nita didn’t falter, a crazed smile spread over his face. Hakan nodded furiously. “I want to come – I have to come.” Marbles discarded, Hakan turned around so he was facing Nita entirely, looking up to him on the bed. “We’ll just have to make sure nobody finds us once we leave.”
The hesitance in Nita left; perhaps Hakan had useful plans of his own for running away.
Nita slipped off the bed, huddling into their circle of three around the marbles, heads together as their whispers lowered to barely a sound. It was silent, save the wisp of their native tongues as Nita told him of his plan. Hakan’s smile couldn’t be pried from his face; his cheeks stretching until they couldn’t any further as he absorbed the details.
Then, without warning, the smile faltered; a crease came between his eyebrows. “But… what if our tribes have moved?”
It stopped Nita in place, confusing him at first. Then, like the poison of a snake working through his body, fear began to fester. “What do you mean?”
“Some of our tribes were moved.” Hakan supplied, as if he was surprised they didn’t know. “The white people took them somewhere else; put our people all on different land, so they could have our land.”
Nita looked at him like he’d been slapped.
He accepted that bad things would happen. Maybe it would take months for him to get back home, and he’d have to survive as the white people wanted him to until then. Maybe his mother had not been strong enough to hold on until he came back, and he’d find her place on the bed empty, never to be filled again. Maybe his people would hate him for his voice and his hair and his clothes.
But his people being gone, cast from their homes… he never considered it.
When Nita’s shaken expression didn’t falter, Hakan nodded. He listed tribes; people Nita had heard of, tribes his father had loved, had hated, had no interest in. Moved; taken away from their land and their home.
Nita looked down, shaking his head. “No. No, our people wouldn’t move. They’re alright.” He said, though he didn’t believe the words. He looked across to Pamuy, who looked as pale as Nita felt.
“I’m sure they’re all fine,” Pamuy echoed, trying a smile while his eyes bordered on tears. “And we’ll get back to them as soon as we can.”
Chapter Fourteen
Alba
The sashes couldn’t be pulled any looser. Alba felt the pressure of the dress around her like a suffocating blanket, being pulled
more and more taunt as the days stretched into weeks like a bland wash of color, all becoming grey. Tearing her dress any further would draw the attention of the teachers, criticizing the flaws in her dress code. Some teachers already gave her a look, almost regretful. Others’ expressions were either ignoring or unnoticing. Others’ looked on with pursed lips and distaste.
Alba couldn’t tell if her mind was becoming thin like her hands and arms, taking meanings in their glances that didn’t exist. She saw disapproval in the faces of other girls, who inched away from her as she took her seat for lunch, as if what was broadening her girth was contagious. Alba wasn’t sure if the width of other girl’s waists meant the same as it did for her, for Korra, or if they were simply eating too much. Perhaps the teachers would think the same of her? Unladylike, unseemly, but not shameful – not horrible.
She kept her head down as she ate, as she went through class, feeling judgement on her like the sun’s heat, touching every part of her. She sat close to Korra, hardly speaking at all, because the only thing on her mind was the presence in her belly, growing more and more noticeable by the moment, proclaiming her shame with every passing day.
When they returned to their room that night, there were dresses laid out on their beds – two or three, identical to the ones they wore each day, but larger. A mix of relief and shame filled Alba as she picked them up, not letting her smile and not letting her cry; simply rocking her with sickness she would purge into her chamber pot in her normal routine.
