Monday evening, Thursday afternoon

by Jenny Robson

  Monday Evening,

  Thursday Afternoon

  By Jenny Robson

  Tafelberg

  Special thanks to Mr Saadiq Davids and Mrs Faheema Hassiem of Cape Town for their guidance and advice.

  1. waghied

  Am I crazy, Faheema? Am I mad for even trying to do this?

  I wish you were here so I could ask you. But of course, the whole reason I’m doing this is because you AREN’T here. Because I CAN’T ask you. If you were here, there wouldn’t be any need for me to write this.

  Well, I now have a whole pile of notebooks that Dad brought me from his office. And how many notebooks will I fill before I’ve written down all I need to say? It’s going to take a long, long time. And after all that, will it be worth the effort? But no, I mustn’t think like that. I have to have faith. I have to believe it will make things right, the way they were before.

  I miss you so much, Faheema. I’m willing to try anything.

  Almost every afternoon after school I come here to the river, here to Gap Falls, hoping and hoping that just maybe you’ll be here waiting for me. But no! It’s been three weeks now and still no sign of you.

  So I sit all alone on our favourite rock below the waterfalls. They’re crashing down like never before, Fa­heema. On both sides. I’ve never seen so much water! Sometimes it floods right over the rocks in the ­middle and you can’t see where the one side stops and the other side starts. Remember how we used to argue about the waterfalls, about whose side looked more impressive and whose side had a better rainbow? I can’t even remember how we decided whose side was whose. Well, now there’s often a single rainbow stretching way across from one end to the other. Unbroken.

  It’s a silly thing to say, but most of all I miss arguing with you, Faheema. It was always such fun. There is no one to argue with now, no one to talk to. Not properly. No one to laugh with. Not the way we used to laugh. Sometimes I get really lonely. But I’m not going to stop hoping.

  That’s why I’ve decided to write it all down, every­thing I remember about us being best friends. I wonder how long it will take. There’s lots to write – all the way from that first day in Grade One. That’s the day we became best friends. At least we never argued about that!

  And I’m telling you, Faheema, I remember clearly how it happened. It’s no good arguing about this. And since I’m the one writing this down, it’s MY memory that counts!

  I remember all the confusion and terror of that first morning at Proper Big School. It wasn’t a very good start to my school career. But life’s not perfect: that’s something you and I both agree about too, don’t ­we?

  That first day in Grade One! My mom had disappeared, suddenly and without warning. One minute she was kneeling beside me with her arms around me so I could smell the sweetness of her familiar perfume. She was saying, “Louise, I’m so proud of you! What a big girl you are! And don’t you look smart in your uniform? You’re going to have a lovely day, doing all sorts of exciting things. You can tell me all about it when I come to collect you. Okay?”

  And the next minute she was gone, melting into the too-bright pictures along the walls. Clowns and rabbits and shiny fruit that hurt my eyes.

  Meanwhile my big brother, Kyle, had already disappeared. Hours before, or so it seemed to me. In through the dark iron gates of Riverside High, into a crowd of huge, pushing, loud-laughing, red-blazered boys. All of them turning their backs to me until I couldn’t work out which back belonged to my brother.

  And now here I was, alone and abandoned in this classroom filled to bursting with strangers in blue: girls in blue-checked dresses, boys in plain blue shirts. Blue wasn’t a colour I was used to. Back at preschool, I’d always worn bright reds or cheerful yellows.

  I remember staring down at my legs sticking out of that dull checked material and they didn’t seem like my legs at all. Especially with those white socks and black buckle-shoes clamped on at the bottom. I don’t think I’d ever worn white socks and black buckle-shoes before either. They made my feet look like alien beings from some far-off planet, creeping up on me, threatening to slowly devour my whole body.

  And then there was the strange, terribly tall woman who stood at the front of the room or who walked in front of the too-bright wall-pictures, speaking in a voice that boomed and made the windows rattle.

  “I am Miss Walker, children. I will be your teacher for this year. I hope you are all going to LISTEN WELL and WORK HARD now that you’re in BIG SCHOOL.”

  Listen well? How could I listen well when I could barely make out the words she was saying in the midst of all that booming and rattling? And what did she mean about this year? Was this going to go on for a year? That was about as long as for ever and ever!

  The chair was the worst part of that morning. Such a hard chair that dug into my back and made my legs numb! At preschool mostly we’d sat on cushions or on a soft, fluffy mat. Yet, it seemed, here I was supposed to sit STILL and not wriggle around or fidget. And WORK. And NOT get out of this chair.

  “Louise! Louise Van Rensburg! Is that you wandering around again? Sit down, dear. Get on with your colouring. It’s almost break!”

  Break? What did the tall lady mean? What was about to get broken?

  “Don’t forget, everyone, the clown needs a red nose. Green pants and a red nose.”

  That was when my heart finally thudded to a stop. Red! My clown needed a red nose and I needed my red crayon! But my red crayon was nowhere to be seen. Not on the table, not under the table, not under my chair.

  “Louise! Louise Van Rensburg! Please stop fidgeting, dear.”

  Tears were prickling my eyes. Very, very soon, I knew, they would plop over my eyelids and come flooding down my cheeks like twin waterfalls. And all these strange boys and girls would stare and point and laugh. I thought seriously about rushing out of that alien room and running back to the safety and familiarity of my home. Or my old preschool. Or even trying to find the dark, terrifying doorway that had swallowed up my brother. Kyle would help me. He would know what to do.

  But at that moment, that very moment, you spoke to me for the first time, Faheema. I’m absolutely sure of this. I hadn’t even noticed you sitting there across the table from me. You had just been part of the blue blur.

  “You can use my crayon if you want.”

  Yes, those were the first words you ever said to me. I’m telling you!

  I saw you clearly for the first time as I clutched at that red crayon you were holding out – like some magical lifeline. You were small with huge, dark, shining eyes and the longest, thickest plaits I had ever seen! They hung down from your ears to way below the edge of the table, twin braids that ended on your tummy in smart white ribbons.

  “Stupid clown,” I muttered, attacking his fat, ugly nose with your crayon. Struggling to keep the red from straying outside the thick black lines.

  “Yes! Stupid ugly stupid clown,” you answered. I looked up and you were smiling at me. And you had dimples! Well, back then I didn’t know that’s what they were called: those funny little dents at the sides of your mouth that made me want to giggle.

  That was my first happy moment of that first day in Grade One. I wanted you to be my friend more than anything in the world.

  “Louise Van Rensburg! Faheema Majait! Let’s have A LITTLE LESS TALKING from you two, please!” Beside me the window rattled again. She really was a bit of a dragon, that Miss Walker, now that I think of it. Strange that she was assigned to Grade One.

  But you still managed to whisper to me when her back was turned: “Will you sit with me when break comes? Please will you? ’Cause I don’t know anyone here to sit with.”

  And I thou
ght then that maybe school wouldn’t be such a horrible place after all. Despite the blue haze and my alien legs and the hard chair. Despite wondering what it was that was about to get broken.

  2. iethnyn

  That’s the way I remember our friendship starting. But you have a different version, don’t you, Faheema? You agree it happened that first day in Grade One. But there was no red crayon involved, not according to you. Instead it started with a pink lunchbox. And a golden crown. At break.

  I’ve always been a bit suspicious of this version of yours! Sometimes I’m convinced you invented it – just to make me feel good! You’ve done that a few times over the years. Admit it! You’ve twisted the facts or jumbled up reality a little so I would come out looking smarter or braver or more interesting and special than I truly am. Maybe you didn’t even realise you were doing that. But it always made me smile.

  Because the truth is, whenever we were together, I already felt extra special. At school, here at the river, at my home or your home. I was Louise, Faheema’s best friend in the world. And that was special enough for me!

  I miss that so much now, Faheema. School has stopped being fun without you there. I haven’t found anyone who could even begin to take your place. Some days it feels like no one would even notice if I melted away into a puddle and lay there on my desk reflecting the fluorescent lights overhead. Until someone came along with a tissue and wiped me away completely. And then threw the tissue in the bin.

  That’s what it’s like, losing the person who has always been your best friend since the very first day in Grade One! Well, that’s what it’s like for me. And for you, Faheema? I wish you could tell me how all this has felt for you.

  *

  Your first day in Miss Walker’s class! You weren’t having a happy first morning either, in your version of those events. You looked around and all you saw were children who seemed strange and different and unfamiliar. And frightening. Some children had darker, much darker, faces than yours. Other children had lighter, much lighter, arms and legs. There were children with freckles. And red hair and yellow hair, or hair that fell in complicated braids with bright beads bobbing and swinging. And they were all so BIG! Like GIANTS!

  Always before, in every situation, you’d been surrounded by first cousins, second cousins, family friends whose features reflected your own: deep, dark eyes, thick black hair, beige arms. Here in Miss Walker’s classroom you felt alone and disoriented. Opposite you at the table where you’d been told to stay seated was a girl with short blonde hair that curled wildly as though it had never been brushed. Of all the strange, alien beings swarming around you, this girl seemed the most foreign, the most disorienting.

  And this strange girl kept getting up out of her chair and wandering around, not sitting still like she was supposed to. Even when the teacher told her off. You didn’t like that one bit: things or people that didn’t stay put and under control.

  Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, came the deafening screech of the break-time bell. With horror you realised you were expected to sit outside in the bright January sunlight with all these strange, huge children rushing about, flinging balls in the air and making skipping ropes fly. Beyond the control of the teacher and the arrangement of desks. Amidst such noise from every corner. So loud that it made your ears hurt. You crouched against a wall, huddling over your new pink lunchbox. At least the food inside smelt of home and your mother.

  It was the huge red-haired, freckle-spattered boy who ran past you, snatching your lunchbox on the way. “Bet you can’t catch me,” he yelled. “Come on, just try!”

  Instantly, finally, you burst into hopeless tears.

  And that’s when the girl with the wild blonde hair supposedly appeared. Out of nowhere. She grabbed at the shirt sleeve of your red-haired tormentor. She yanked your lunchbox out of his hands, shouting at him. “Why d’you want to be so mean? Look, you made her cry. You’re horrible and mean and I’m going to tell Miss Walker on you.”

  So you say!

  But I must point out that, for one thing, my hair was not wild that first day. I am very sure of that. My mom had washed it specially the night before, using three squeezes of her most expensive conditioner.

  “Tomorrow is such a special day, Louise,” she had said as water dripped down my neck. “We want you looking really smart, don’t we?”

  And before we left the house next morning, she had brushed and brushed my hair with her own special brush until I barely recognised the girl with the sleek squashed-down hair in the mirror.

  And furthermore – as our History teacher always likes to say – furthermore, I have no memory of standing up to anyone, Faheema. It just isn’t the kind of thing I would do. When do I ever, ever try to boss people around? Or shout? I like things around me to be calm and peaceful with nobody in a state. You know that. Even when I’m angry, I’d rather just walk away. So I can’t believe that I stood up to that huge red-haired boy the way you say I did. Sean Groenewald, wasn’t that his name? I remember being afraid of him too. I’ve never been very brave.

  “Well, you’re braver than me,” you always argue.

  “Everyone in the entire universe is braver than you,” I usually answer back. Which is true!

  Yet you insist that this is how it happened. In your version, I stood holding out your lunchbox to you with the sun shining through my wild blonde curls so that it looked like a crown of gold. Just like a princess, you claim. Just like a princess, smiling down at you, saying, “Don’t cry. Everything is okay.”

  Me?! Looking like a princess? No, that doesn’t make­ sense either. I’ve always been very ordinary looking. People never noticed me much. Well, except for my brother, Kyle. But he usually called me “squashed-tomato nose” or “pumpkin head”. Definitely not any­thing royal!

  So! So that’s why I’ve always been suspicious of this Grade One memory of yours. And how many times have we argued about it? But it doesn’t matter, not really. A red crayon or a golden crown, what’s the difference? The main thing is: we became friends that very first day. That’s what counts.

  *

  I couldn’t wait to tell my mom when she came to fetch me. There in the car while she double-checked that my seatbelt was fastened, I burst out, “Mom! Mommy, I’ve got a best friend. I got her today and she sits at my table. And her name is Faheema Majait and she’s got dents next to her mouth.”

  “Faheema Majait?” my mom repeated.

  “Faheema Majait?” my dad echoed when he got back from work. And Mom and Dad passed eye messages across the kitchen table. But I was used to that. My parents were always passing eye messages, their grown-up secrets. Sometimes my brother would be included in the exchange since he was in high school already and almost grown-up too.

  He was included that night, I remember.

  “Do you know of any Majaits at school, Kyle?” Dad asked.

  I was busy with my pudding so I didn’t really pay much attention. Strawberry ice cream with hundreds and thousands and three cherries to celebrate my first day at Proper Big School.

  “Um. Yeah,” said my brother. “There used to be a guy in Grade Seven. Nazeem Majait. He was the one who always beat me at Maths. But he isn’t at Riverside High now. He’s gone somewhere else. To that Muslim school on Driscoll Street, I think.”

  “So the Majaits are Muslims then?” asked my dad.

  But I had finished my ice cream. And I’d lost interest in what they were talking about anyway. So I went to my bedroom and put my favourite doll into my brand-new school case so I could show her to you next day.

  Except my mom retrieved it before bedtime.

  “I’m sure Miss Walker doesn’t want toys at school. You’re not there to play, Louise.”

  *

  Back at your house, you told your parents all about your brand-new best friend too, didn’t you, Faheema?

  “Louise? Louise Van Rensburg?” your mother echoed­­ and you knew from the sound of her voice that maybe she wasn’t as happy a
bout it as you were.

  “Van Rensburg?” your father repeated my surname.

  Later when you were in bed, you heard your parents in the lounge still discussing my name. You felt a little edge of anxiety, the way you always did when you weren’t sure if you’d done something wrong.

  “Perhaps we were mistaken, Salama,” said your father. “Perhaps we should have sent her to Nural Islam.”

  “But Dad,” your big sister, Yasmiena, said. Your sister was already grown-up and out of school, much older even than my brother, Kyle. She was allowed to join in your parents’ conversations quite often. “But Dad, Mom, it’s good for Faheema to mix with all sorts of children, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m sure by tomorrow she’ll have another best friend. You know how little kids are.”

  At the sound of your sister’s voice, you relaxed and snuggled into your pillow. You dreamt about the two of us being two princesses in a huge castle filled with toys and sweets. With both of us wearing shiny golden crowns. And my hair turned suddenly black in your dream. And grew long and plaited, just like yours. But you still knew that it was me, your best friend.

  3. thalaatha

  She was totally wrong, your sister, Yasmiena. We stayed best friends all through Grade One. And all through Grade Two. In Mrs July’s class, remember? She let us sit wherever we wanted to. So, of course, you and I always sat together with our two desks facing each other there beside the window. And we got to do all our work together too. You were the one who always understood the Maths quickly so you helped me through all those sums. Especially that awful three times table. For some reason I never quite got the hang of that one. Which made you giggle.

  But when it came to English, you were the one need­­ing help!

  Yesterday I buyed some sweets, you would write.

  “No, Faheema. It’s not ‘buyed’! It has to be ‘bought’,” I would whisper.

  Yesterday I shaked my towel, you would write and then look across at me with your eyebrows pulled up high.