Out of Shadows (19 page)

Less than a week had passed
since Kasanka's departure and the jokes and rumors were still fresh. As it happened, we were laughing about it on our way to history after break, but it was a lesson that was never going to take place.

We were over by the chapel when we heard the commotion. It was coming from Mr. van Hout's classroom. Instantly we knew it must be serious because if it had been a couple of boys fighting it would have drawn a crowd, but the guys who were close by took one look and moved quickly away.

We picked up our pace.

The shouting suddenly got louder and a cloud of papers burst from the open door. Darkness fell across Ivan's face. He dropped his books and ran, the rest of us dutifully on his tail.

We crushed our bodies around the door. I could see the back of Mr. van Hout's blond head, while at the rear of the classroom Mr. Mafiti stood with fear all over his face.

“
Get out of my classroom
,” Mr. van Hout yelled at him. “
I'm fed up with you messing up my blackboard. Go on, get out!
”

Only Mr. Mafiti
couldn't
get out. If he went left, Mr. van Hout mirrored him and cut off his path; if he went right, Mr. van Hout went that way, too. Eventually our chemistry teacher made a bolt for it anyway down the side, but white hands snagged his jacket and pulled him back in.

Mr. van Hout spun him and held his lapels. For a couple of seconds Mr. Mafiti's feet even left the floor.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Mr. van Hout glowed with rage. He didn't care that he was spitting into the other man's face with each word. “This classroom is
mine
. It was given to
me
. You do not belong here and I don't want you interfering in here
ever again
, you stupid . . .”

Numb, unable to move, I could sense what was coming and I willed him to stop as other teachers began to move near.

Mr. van Hout shook Mr. Mafiti hard. The chemistry teacher's eyes searched desperately toward us for help.

“. . . gormless, grinning . . .”

With each word, Mr. van Hout shoved Mr. Mafiti against the wall.

“. . . stinking, dirty . . .”

Someone was pushing behind us. Mr. Dunn, trying to get through, but it was too late. A sound stung the air—Mr. van Hout had hit Mr. Mafiti with the back of his hand, and behind it came an unstoppable surge.

“. . . 
Kaffir
.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. I don't know which of us it was, but there was one thing we certainly all knew: The shining light we'd enjoyed during the otherwise drudgery of classes had just been extinguished.

We gathered for the emergency assembly
.

The silence was absolute as Bully walked slow, funereal steps down the middle of the hall and onto the stage.

Before he began he coughed into his hand, finding his voice, making sure it was still there.

“I'm not,” he began, already hesitant. “I'm not going to recap on the ghastly events of yesterday morning. I will, however, quell any rumors and fill you in on the details. Mr. van Hout is no longer considered an employee of this school and is currently being detained by the police. What will happen to him is a matter for the law; what I know for sure is that he will never be welcome here and shall not return.”

He paused. If he was expecting an interruption of whispers he didn't get it, the silence continued to hum.

“For those of you who witnessed Mr. van Hout's actions, I advise you blot it from your minds after the police have asked their questions. The rest of you: I advise the same. Haven School needs to move on from this dim chapter, and as quickly as possible, or else . . .”

Bully wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. The words wouldn't come.

We sat literally on edge. Or else what?

“. . . Or else we . . . That is, assuming they don't . . .”

Ivan, especially, looked like he might burst:
What?

“I am pleased to announce,” Bully said instead, “that Mr. Mafiti was not badly hurt and will return to teaching duties tomorrow. We should remember him in our prayers and thank the Lord things weren't more serious than they were.”

And in case the Lord or we had temporarily forgotten who it was that had stepped in, Mr. Dunn sat straight in his chair and lifted his head above the other staff members.

It was weird going back into the classroom. It felt strange to think Mr. van Hout wasn't going to step through the door and surprise us all in some way or other. We missed him already.

On the other hand, it was as though he hadn't actually gone anywhere, although I didn't know that yet.

Bully was going to stand in and be our history teacher from now on, at least until a replacement had been found. He sat at the desk with a weary slump.

“Someone tell me where in the textbook Mr. van Hout had got to.” He opened his own copy as if something horrible might fly out.

Fairford volunteered an arm. “Mr. van Hout didn't really use the textbook, sir.”

Bully merely looked at him.

“He said books like this are full of rubbish, that we would only learn how much of a wan . . . how unclever the author is. Sir.”

Bully waited, then sighed.

“ ‘Unclever' isn't a word. Turn to chapter four and copy out paragraphs one to five, then eight, ten, and twelve. I seem
to remember there's some good information there. If you finish, get on with some reading.
No
talking, Osterberg. Yes, Hascott?”

Beside me, Ivan had raised his eyes from his desk, though only just. His skin was pale.

“Can I be excused, please, sir?”

The same question at any time in the past would have got Ivan a task, maybe two strokes. Now Bully simply wafted his hand in the air and told Ivan sure, he could do what he wanted, and we didn't see Ivan again until I found him deep into the afternoon.

He was down at the Cliffs. I hadn't doubted for a second I'd find him there. He was sitting right on the edge in a patch of sun with his feet dangling over, occasionally throwing stones out into the drop.

He didn't acknowledge me. In the end I had to say something.

“Are you okay?”

He made me jump by snatching two envelopes from his pocket. One of them had, I thought, Mr. van Hout's handwriting on it. He put that one quickly back and showed me the other.

“I got this from my folks this morning,” he spoke into the open air. “My Old Queen says the sale has gone through. They'll be packed up and gone to my aunt and uncle's in 'Maritzburg by the end of the month.”

He let that hang.

“Blacks have stolen our home and no one gives a shit, because
Mugabe
made it legal.”

I could find absolutely nothing to say.

In the end the best I could do was, “Are you going with them? Is that it, then?”

To my relief and amazement he shook his head.

“I told you, I'm staying for as long as I can. I have to. Don't you see?”

See what?
I thought.

“What will you do? At exeat weekends, I mean.”

“I'll have to become a sad-o like Button and drift around here like a lost fart. I don't care. And I can stay with Klompie sometimes. His aunt and uncle are loaded. Maybe I'll even come out to the sticks with you and your old man, if you ever ask me. Come stay in your spare room and keep you two company. I guess it must be lonely for you guys. You know, since your mum died.”

But Matilda now lived in our house, and the thought of Ivan finding out about that terrified me. I was scared for myself. More than that, and despite everything, I suddenly felt an overpowering need to protect my father. So I acted like he was cracking a joke.

“What do you reckon will happen to Sir?” I asked.

Ivan threw a big stone and we watched the rings it made fan out across the water. His eyes were intense.

“That guy's an idiot. Pulling a stunt like that, after everything he taught me. He might have ruined everything.”

“Yes, but—”

“I won't make the same mistake.”

He wasn't making any sense.

His voice softened. “Jacko?”

“
Ja?
”

“How do you know if you're ready for something? If there's something you know you want to do, only you've never done it before, how do you know you'll see it through when the time comes?”

I could only imagine he was talking about exams.

“You just have to tell yourself you can do it,” I told him, pleased to be offering him help for once. “And test yourself,
of course, that's the most important thing. The more you do it the easier it gets.”

And with that I saw the trace of a smile.

“
Ja
. I thought so, too.”

I couldn't have known it, then, but he wasn't talking about exams at all.

From my first days in the house I was often plagued with a dream I never told anyone about, in which I would wake up in the dead hours and see a load of seniors, all of them looking like Greet, rushing into the dorm and beating people up, and I'd be powerless to say or do anything except wait my turn.

On this occasion the nightmare was disturbingly different.

The shapes came slowly this time, smooth and silent, drifting like ghosts. I had to blink to make sure I'd seen them, but when I looked directly at them they seemed to blur and appear somewhere else. I knew on some level that this was another dream, but a bit of me wondered.

The intruders spread through the dorm, hovering over the sleeping shapes of the other boys. Something about them terrified me so I hid and lay still, praying desperately they wouldn't come to me. When the fear got too much I dared a peek over my blanket.

The shapes knew at once and turned where they stood, and I saw faces I recognized: my father, my mother, Matilda, Mr. van Hout, the ambassador, Mr. Bullman . . .

I squeaked and ducked back under the covers. My breath swelled.

Then I heard it, the first
whump
of someone getting it. Hard and heavy. And again. And another.

But then came a different noise, a soft sliding across the polished floor. This sound of dragging followed every hit, and when it had all gone quiet I ventured another look to find the
shapes had gone. All the other boys had vanished, too, their bloody sheets and blankets ripped and strewn on the floor. I was completely alone.

I woke with a gasp.

The night was deep and black. That time where people shouldn't be.

Only someone was. I heard movement in the corner where Ivan's bed was. A rustling of clothes, the indistinct glow of a white shirt being removed.

“Is that you?” I whispered.

He paused, and then came a step closer. Now I could see his face through the gloom. I thought, though couldn't be certain, there was a smudge down the side of it.

“
Ja
, it's me,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

“Where've you been?”

“Nowhere. Shut up and go back to sleep.”

In the morning, a sleep-drugged Anderson ambled down the line, calling out names and warming his balls with his spare hand.

“Ginn.”

“Yes.”

“Hodges.”

“Yes.”

“McGill.”

“Yes.”

About halfway down there was a pause. A gap.

“Ndube,” he repeated, irritation quickly replacing the boredom in his voice.

He glanced up. Nelson Ndube wasn't there.

“Someone go upstairs and kick his lazy arse and tell him he's got a double task.”

“He's not there,” one of the Agostinho cousins told him.

“Well, where the hell is he?” Anderson demanded to know.

Christos Agostinho shook his head. No one had seen him, his bed had been empty at rising bell. Nelson had just gone.

At first everyone thought
Nelson must have headed out for an early run and lost track of time—his watch was still in his locker.

By start of breakfast he still wasn't back, and Mr. Craven worried he'd gone for a run and hurt himself so he sent a group of boys to go looking along the usual cross-country routes. There was no sign, and when chapel had finished and the start of classes had failed to bring him back it was decided that he must have simply run away.

If that was the case he deserved all the ribbing he was going to get for turning his back on the school, we concluded.

All through break time, Ivan sat reticently in his cubicle. After ten minutes he threw his pen down and swatted his mug to the floor.

“Can't you guys talk about anything else?” His feet crunched over the pieces. He was self-consciously touching his face. What I'd thought had been a smudge was actually a fresh scratch running two inches down his cheek. He said he'd done it to himself in his sleep. “Jislaaik! I'm trying to
write to Adele and all I can hear is your jabber about Nelson bloody Ndube. Just lorse it, okay?”

He slammed the door behind him.

We thought it must have been because of the guilt, seeing as it was Ivan who'd picked on Nelson the most.

We didn't hear anything more and assumed we probably wouldn't, that Nelson had made it home and his parents weren't going to force him back like some did. But eight days later we saw his folks going into Mr. Craven's.

Was Nelson back?

Apparently not. His mother cried constantly, occasionally breaking into a wail, while his poor father had gained a decade.

So where was he?

“Who gives a monkey's?” Although Ivan looked nervous as he said it and for some reason he wanted to stay in the dorm that afternoon. “What's with all the concern? He ran away and got lost, and now they can't find him. It's his fault. Was he your bum chum or something?”

The winter dragged on through July, day after day of an insipid sun in clear skies that pulled at our shadows.