Out of Shadows (14 page)

We waited eagerly for what he had to say.

“Thirdly, it has formed your opinion of me, and has therefore molded the shape of our learning over the coming year: Already you trust me, consciously or subconsciously you know I won't regurgitate shit from the textbooks because I'm here to show you what history is
really
about.”

He moved back to the board and began to wipe it clean, stopping when only the HOUT part of his name was left.

“One more thing, Hascott: The
course
of history is never set. It's changing all the time. I have no doubt you find my name amusing and intend to circulate a nickname for me on that note I saw you scribbling, probably ‘houtie' or a similar derogatory slang term for an African person. You can make fun of my name in any way you want—I'm a teacher, it comes with the territory—but I advise you at least to be informed. Find out what my name actually means and write it out a hundred times. See?
I've
altered the course of history already.”

A quick swipe and his name was gone.

“And whether I fought in the war is no concern of yours.” He thumped the board rubber down.

We found him in a photograph up on the wall in Burnett House. (We never called the houses by their newer African names except to take the piss, so that Sithole became “Shit-hole,” Takanira became “Wanker-Nearer” . . . that sort of thing.) Frozen in black and white, he was sitting in 1973. Those were the days when each house only had about three dozen boys because of the war.

He was in the middle row. He looked different without his mustache and a lot skinnier, and they all had funny straight fringes and shaved temples, but it was definitely him. We could tell from the eyes.

“Looks as much of a chop as now,” Ivan scowled, still sulking, and pressed his middle finger to the glass. “He didn't fight, he looks like a K-loving objector if ever there was one.”

“What a wuss,” Pittman said.

De Klomp mumbled. “
Ja
, and history's stupid.”

He pretended to punch the young Mr. van Hout, only he was standing closer than he realized and almost broke the glass. One of the Burnett sixth formers told us to piss off to our own houses.

We ran back laughing, but Ivan needed to work off steam and said he was going to beat the first junior he saw, then virtually tripped over Nelson in the corridor. Nelson had grown a lot in the last year, not yet sixteen and already a flea's kneecap under six feet. Still thin, but all his training with the Junior Team was making him stronger. Not that it really mattered how strong he was because he hadn't ever forgotten the day of the scorpion down at the Cliffs, and with a sudden look of terror he jumped right out of the way.

For anyone else it would have been a futile escape attempt.
Ivan, however, walked harmlessly by as though he hadn't seen him. As he always did these days. I often thought maybe he
couldn't
see him, or if he did he saw Kasanka lurking somewhere nearby, because Kasanka hadn't forgotten the day of the scorpion, either. Kasanka was Head of House this year; he could do whatever he wanted, and Ivan knew he only had to raise an eyebrow at Nelson and he'd get a mauling.

Ivan went to find someone else to pick on instead.

In no time
history was the one class we would look forward to. It was different from anything we'd had before, but I got the feeling some of the older masters didn't like Mr. van Hout too much because none of them really talked to him and gave him sidelong glances when they walked past him. Every so often our class would erupt in laughter and doors to other classrooms would close. We reckoned they were just jealous.

When we had a double, Mr. van Hout let us lie on the grass during the break for ages, and now and again he told us to close our books and he recounted stories of what it was like when
he
was at Haven. The best lessons were when he put his head around the door and curled his finger for us to follow, and we would go and sit under a tree and talk, not about history or about him but about us, because he wanted to know, he said.

Now and again, however, he would come in and we knew straightaway there would be no fun. We just had to sit and wait for those lessons to pass, like when the horizon turns gray and you hear thunder crashing toward you.

One day Mr. van Hout threw the door shut with enough force to almost split the wood, and then attacked the board with the rubber. Mr. Mafiti had started sharing Mr. van Hout's classroom because one of Mr. Pines's experiments had almost burned down the chemistry lab. Yet again the board was covered with Mr. Mafiti's equations with missing numbers and letters for some other class's test, and the words PLEASE LEAVE across the top.

When it was all gone, Mr. van Hout slammed the rubber on the desk so hard a huge white cloud blew up.

“Tell me,” he said, “if I stood you in front of a man, pressed the cold metal of a gun into your palm and told you to squeeze the trigger, would you do it?”

He seemed to be looking at me as he said it. Only me. I felt my ears start to go pink.

“No, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, sir. No ways!”

Slowly, he sat. His eyes continued to smolder.

“What if I then told you we'd gone back in time and his name was Adolf Hitler? Would you do it then? Would you?
Would
you?”

My mouth moved silently.

“I would, sir.”

I turned to Ivan, cut by a flash of anger because he'd stolen my answer even though I hadn't known what that answer was. Sir had been talking to
me
.

“I'd slot him one in the gonads, then in the neck so he still knew what was going on, then in the head, but only after he'd begged.” Ivan met my glance and I had to look away. “What about you, sir? What would you do? Would you have the
guts
?”

The air bristled. We all thought Mr. van Hout was going to go penga but instead he got up and stared out the window.
He seemed calm but we could see his jaw muscles working big-time.

In the end he said, “That's something you can think about yourself while you write me an essay on how much better the world would have been if someone
had
killed the world's most notorious bastard before he came to power. A thousand words by the end of the week. In fact, that goes for the whole class.”

Everyone groaned. Ivan just glared.

Sir didn't like it.

“Stay behind after class, Hascott.”

“He doesn't care.” Pittman stated the obvious as we waited on the low wall in front of the chapel, although it was starting to look like Mr. van Hout was going to keep Ivan for the whole of break.

“Do you reck he's beating him?” Klompie wondered aloud.

“What with, you idiot? He doesn't have a cane in there.”

“He might be using his boot.”

“Don't be a dufus all your life.”

“He might be.”

“I said, shut up, okay?” Pittman delivered a swift dead arm. “You're treading on my pubes, man. If he is getting beaten then he bloody deserves it.”

“I reck he's trying to get expelled,” I offered.

Both Pittman and Klompie seized me with a look of fear and loathing.

“He hates school, hates lessons. All he wants is to work on the farm but his old man won't let him until he's finished here.”

They thought about it.

“If he does then he's an idiot,” Pittman said at last. I knew he didn't mean it.

Over by the Admin Block a black Mercedes pulled up, and a chauffeur opened up the door to let out two black men in
snazzy suits and shades. We could see Bully coming to greet them as quickly as he could, smiling stupidly.

“Fucking government.
Now
what do they want?” Klompie spoke for all of us.

Pittman grabbed his books and stood.

“I'm going to head.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“Back to
Heyman
, of course,” he said deliberately, no doubt hoping the inspectors would hear. “Break's over in ten and I'm not getting into more trouble on Ivan's account today.”

By morning all pictures of the prime minister around the school had been changed to include an important new detail.

Mr. van Hout came into class holding a newspaper and reading about it, shaking his head and frowning.

“ ‘An honorary degree from Edinburgh University' ”—as though he didn't know we were there—“ ‘for services to education in Africa.' Give me a break! They've got to be bloody joking.”

He trailed off, folded the paper and tossed it in the bin.

“A black and mysterious world.” Then he acknowledged us. “Still, what do the Scots know, hey? Let our great leader have his degree; he can't get one any other way.”

He laughed, so we laughed. Yesterday was a long time ago.

“Okay, essays. Hand them to the front.” And when we balked: “Jeez, guys, I was joking. Forget about the essays. If you've already started them I apologize, just think of it as a chance to practice your handwriting.”

He started to clear the board—more of Mr. Mafiti's equations. I think Sir found satisfaction in erasing them now.

“Except you, Hascott.” He didn't even pause to turn. “Don't look so pleased with yourself, I still want yours.”

I swear, the guy must have had eyes in the back of his head.

Ivan gave him the finger, but only from under his desk.

It was turning out
to be an achingly hot term.

Maybe because of it, Ivan walked slowly to class most mornings just so that he could target juniors who overtook us. I remember one day in particular, when he was pushing books out of boys' hands and slapping the backs of their legs with his ruler. One pair tried to take a wide berth, but they were both black and Kasanka was nearby so Ivan let them get away and got the next lot instead.

He shoved one deep into the hedge while Klompie tripped the other one up. I had to do something.

“What's my name?” I demanded of the one in the hedge.

“Jack . . . Jacklin,” he spluttered.

“And don't forget it,” I said. “Next time,
ask
if you want to pass. You guys get it too easy; we had it harder.”

Pittman joined us. Never wanting to miss out on the chance for fun, he bit a hole in the packet of milk he'd just got from the tuck shop and squirted it at any junior or black that came close. When Nelson walked by, however, Ivan suddenly
grabbed Pittman's arm because over by the chapel steps Kasanka was still there.

“Leave that one alone.”

Pittman yanked away. “What are you talking about, man?”

“Just let him go, okay?
Lorse
.”

“Why should I?” Pittman looked keen to battle.

Ivan couldn't say. Only I knew his secret and I was never going to let it out.

“You got new friends you haven't told us about?” Pittman goaded, a challenge to the throne.

Ivan squared up and I thought it would kick off when we noticed Mr. van Hout watching, standing with hands on hips.

The bell sounded and he disappeared slowly into his classroom.

When we got there he wouldn't look up or even meet us in the eye, and in the lesson he paced up and down and just read. He sounded bored with it.
We
were bored with it. Everyone was restless and uncomfortable, and I don't think it was because of the heat.

After a while Sir snapped the book shut mid-sentence and flipped it out of the window. We watched in disbelief.

He sat and threw his feet onto the desk. He was wearing shorts that day, and teachers never wore shorts to lessons.

“The first rule of nature,” he told us, “is inequality.”

He leaned back, scratched the word INEQUALITY in chalk then slapped the board with his hand.

“That's not opinion. That's fact.”

He looked at our faces.

“Jesus, the blinds are down today, aren't they? Bloody idiots. A cheetah can outrun a zebra, a dog can outrun a cat . . . Some things in life are meant to be, the strongest are meant to survive. It's how it works.”

We stayed under the cover of silence and I thought he might throw his chair at us or something.

“Wake up, people.
Think
, you morons! Have you learned nothing? It's 1914, and Germany has the stronger army and wipes its arse with Europe . . .”

“But Germany lost the war,” Osterberg offered bravely.

“Hallelujah! One of you gets it.” Sir slow-clapped, really heavily. “They did lose, but only because the Brits learned, in their sorry little corner, that they were the best and so they'd better get organized and shit right back.”

He shot Osterberg with a finger gun.

“That's called evolution. You have to evolve. The Brits did, and Germany subsequently got their arses severely caned and were left in the ditch. While the world wasn't watching, however, Hitler turned it all around and tried for a second go and the Brits had to prove themselves again.”

Mr. van Hout scored about a hundred lines under INEQUALITY.

“None of us is equal. Yet everyone's fighting for the top of the pile. The sooner you learn this the better, or you'll spend the rest of your sorry lives at the bottom of the heap and not where you belong. Shit back!”

He let that settle around us. I found myself thinking about my grandmother and England and my mother and how she had broken her promise, and I saw how I should have stood up to her. I
should
stand up to her—she shouldn't have done what she did—and I decided then and there that the next time I saw her, finally, I would.

I felt better about myself already. Sir was right.

He went on.

“Look at our own country. The Poms came shooting guns and the blacks tried to defend themselves with soft fruits. Quite rightly, only one side was ever going to win that battle: the
superior
side. But years later the blacks saw that what
we'd
built was good and wanted what
we'd
worked so hard for, and they tried to take it. They became violent, and because no one was
willing to help us, they struggled long and viciously and dirtily enough to steal what was
ours
. Now look where we are.”