Black British (8 page)

In time I settled down and eventually made friends in school, though I was always conscious of being the odd man out because of my different mother tongue, my different religion, my big home and garden, and our totally different way of life. Even my name was different. I was the only girl in my class with an English first name and a Portuguese surname.

The difference was never mentioned, never referred to. There is little point in stating the glaringly obvious. I gradually learnt a smattering of Hindi but the foundation remained unstable. Given that children are notorious for the ease with which they pick up language from their peers, it remains a mystery why Hindi, a phonetic language, was so difficult to master. From a flawed start with insensitive adults and a defective system, I was left, to my detriment, with the lifelong belief that I am minus the ability to learn another language. I wonder how many others are in the same boat?

The nuns never forgave me. My reputation was set. Over the years they regularly reminded me: “
You!
You were twice sent to school and twice returned with ‘no thanks'.”

CHAPTER 5

THE BOOK OF SINS

The school bell rings and I jump. The amorphous mass in front of me swirls and curls and morphs into a two-by-two line of navy shorts and white shirts.

“They are lining up to go into church for Confession,” my companion tells me.

Oh yes. Confession! I think.
That ubiquitous Catholic practice of Confession
.

“I don't see why I have to go to confession. Again!” I screwed up my face to emphasise my disdain, knowing my protest would go unheeded. I had voiced similar objections umpteen times before, even though my six years of schooling had taught me that Saturday morning Confession was a time-honoured ritual during school terms.

That particular morning I spoke under my breath, just loud enough to register an objection but soft enough so my mother could pretend she hadn't heard, and ignore me. She wouldn't buy into a fray when one could be avoided.

Knowing I wasn't allowed out of the home compound alone, I called to my ayah whose presence gave me an air of respectability on the roads as I walked to school. It was similar to the role played by “Mammie” in
Gone with the Wind
when her attendance lent propriety to Scarlett O'Hara's visit to Rhett Butler in prison. In the same way, my ayah's role was a deterrent against
eve-teasing
from young
chokra
s and hooligans.

Entering the school compound, I looked up at buildings constructed in low maintenance, locally made, sun-baked bricks. These were mortared together and rendered with cement on both sides, making the structure expensive and resistant to wear. A deep verandah with classic Romanesque arches shaded all the buildings and at the front entrance stood a porch large enough to house two motorised vehicles.

A long driveway curved past vast playing fields and a grotto that was an imitation of the cave of Massabielle. Manicured lawn bordered the porch so that the whole image of the school was grand and intimidating. That might not have been the intention of the founding nuns but was the picture presented in the seventh decade of the twentieth century.

It was fine for rich parents wanting to take advantage of the excellent reputation of a convent education for their daughters but different for the not-so-rich. Those with improved circumstances in a postcolonial era, who were still struggling amidst the chaos left behind by exploitive rulers and who aspired to a respected schooling for their daughters, must have found it hard. Travelling up the long driveway by bicycle, rickshaw or on foot, they had plenty of time to recognise the status of the institution and be in no doubt of the magnitude of their daring. Gratitude was expected for the enormous favour the school was bestowing by even considering their child for admission.

My sisters and I didn't have that concern. We were Catholic girls, which meant the nuns were obliged to enrol us. If they didn't, they ran the risk that we'd attend the rival American missionary school, convert to the Methodist faith and lose the Church some of its victims.

As I waited on the verandah outside the chapel that day when I was eleven years old, a nun called Ann condescended to speak as she went past.

“Good girl. You'll feel better when you've confessed your sins.”

What sins? I thought. I haven't done anything. Mentally scowling I tried to maintain an impassive expression but the nuns and I had never been friends. Having blotted my copy-book during my first year in school I had compounded my reputation the following year when I questioned the nuns' conventional titles. The underlings were addressed by the prefix “Sister” with the head honcho called “Mother”.

“You're not my sister,” I advised my teacher Kanesia, concerned that her error arose because she was from Germany and therefore didn't understand how things worked in Kanpur. “I have two sisters. Lori – her real name is Lorraine but we call her Lori for short – who is in class six and Lily in class four.”

Kanesia smiled with her mouth. “I'm your spiritual sister just as God is your spiritual father and Mary your spiritual mother.”

I was bewildered. Nebulous concepts resident in the ether I could cope with since they were overshadowed by strong, real parents. My confusion came from the hard, cold reality of the person standing in front of me who, to my six-year-old eyes, was clothed in a drab dressing-gown-like garment that was meant to be white. This person had colourless skin and stormy grey eyes, didn't look anything like we did, and yet insisted on claiming kinship.

I tried again. I knew Germany was far away, which might explain why their customs were so different and why they called each other “sister” when there was no blood relationship. Perhaps they didn't have sisters of their own and needed some. I also knew English was Kanesia's second language. Maybe she hadn't understood. So, puffing out my chest to show how clever I was, I said, “I shall call you ‘Miss Kanesia' like I did with Mrs Saunders last year.”

Instead of appreciating precocious behaviour, Kanesia narrowed her eyes, resembling my pet parrot when I pulled its tail. She decided to exercise her power.

My mother was called in to face a triumvirate. The Reverend Mother Melita was tall and bony with steel blue eyes in a thin, pinched face. She looked like a mean, repressed woman with no joy in her life. To demonstrate her importance, she sat behind an enormous desk and fastened a frigid stare on my mother.

Ursula, the music teacher, was only a few centimetres taller than Melita, usually had round shoulders and a forward protruding head from too many hours spent at a piano. That day she looked haunted, as though she wanted to be anywhere else rather than sitting on Melita's right. She held herself rigid, with shoulders straight and head erect to show off her height advantage over Melita. Looking at them I suddenly understood that despite the united front they presented, and despite the message of love and friendship they preached, they actively disliked one another and each would use any opportunity to covertly undermine the other. Even in a convent where the nuns have rejected the greed and vagaries of the outside world to devote their lives to God, petty jealousies and hatred abound. It was an illuminating moment for me.

Kanesia was obviously enjoying herself. Buoyed up with an inflated sense of her own importance, she sat on Melita's left. Since she was short and dumpy, spherical in outline, she gave the tableau a lopsided, ridiculous appearance. The three of them reminded me of pictures of the Holy Trinity that hung around the school and I wondered if Melita was fantasising about being God-the-Father.

It must have been daunting for my mother but to her great credit she refused to be intimidated. Though she was hopelessly outnumbered she looked relaxed, made eye contact with Melita and gave every appearance of attentiveness.

“Your daughter is a very naughty girl. She is consistently defiant and disobedient. She is extremely wilful and doesn't respect her elders and betters. She will come to a bad end if she doesn't mend her ways. A Bad End.” Melita spat a litany of similar words while my mother made no effort to agree, disagree, explain or defend. Just heard the nuns out.

Disarmed by dignity instead of the cowering response they expected, perhaps wanted, Melita's face took on a beetroot hue before she resorted to her trump card of threatening expulsion. Sermons from the pulpit in those days thundered of automatic ex-communication should parents refuse to send their children to Catholic schools, so the nuns thought they had us over a barrel.

Little did they know.

My mother's look of scorn replaced her surprise.
Expulsion? A six-year-old? For refusing, quite logically, to call you “Mother”?
She then allowed a moment of silence to accumulate before she stood up to end the interview and taking my hand said, “I'll talk to Lucy.”

She tried to talk to me.

She tried again.

“It's convention,” she explained to my blank expression.

“It's tradition,” she coaxed.

“Everyone does it.” She'd became desperate.

But no amount of persuasion could out-argue my solid logic. From instinct I performed the broken record routine. To her every statement I responded with the same indelible fact. “But Mummy, Lori and Lily are my sisters.” Sometimes I added with glee, because it was such a lovely fact: “And you are my mummy and Daddy is my daddy.”

Intuitively I knew the word “mother” is a precious one, not something to be bandied about casually. For each of us it belongs to one person and one person alone. Allowing it to be usurped by a complete stranger was never part of my ethos.

My father was consulted.

“For God's sake!” I heard him from my hiding place among the plants behind the piano. “Ninety-nine per cent of the country is starving and these women are worried about how a six-year-old addresses them.” The incredulity in his voice told me that my parents were amused and perhaps a little proud of my logical thinking.

“That child will
go far
,” he groaned, “or end up in prison and either way send me to an early grave.” Like most people I heard only what I wanted to hear, the first part of the sentence. I was intrigued. Go far – did that mean go to England like my mother had done?

I knew my father wasn't unduly concerned. As always, he relied on my mother, so he could afford to be banal. “Pay her,” the financier in him proposed. “Tell her it's worth two
annas
a day to call the nuns ‘sister'. By the end of the year she'll have over twenty rupees in the bank, which is a large sum for anyone.”

My mother ignored the idea. Instead she mused, “The child has to learn to choose her battles. Some just aren't worth the energy.”

And learn I did – an important lesson in life. Disputes such as these are seldom won by the least powerful person. I agreed (without the bribe) to use the prefix “Sister” when addressing a nun. But I did it under sufferance. In my mind, that all-powerful place, I continued to think “miss” instead of “sister”.

The nuns of course behaved as if they had a victory, as though winning over a six-year-old was an achievement, something to crow about.

“Thank you,” I said, receiving my class book.

“Thank you,
who
?” Kanesia's stare dared me to use “Miss”.

I paused, looked down to gather mental strength and summon up the most innocent expression I could. To a background of hushed expectations from my classmates I gazed up at Kanesia and intoned in a sing-song voice, “Thank you
Sister
Kanesia.” My efforts were rewarded with a grunt. She was obviously in two minds about how she should react, but there was nothing she could do. I had fulfilled the standard requirement for decorum and obedience.

The nuns were not known for their emotional intelligence while I had learnt another useful lesson. Subtle guerrilla tactics can be more effective than open warfare.

And now, five years later, I nodded an acknowledgement to the passing nun while I waited for Lily and our friends Peggy Biswas and Anna Koti. I had our
Book of Sins
to help with Confession.