Shadow Sister (22 page)

‘What are you talking about?’ Suddenly Elisa is in the doorway. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but asks a new question. ‘Did you tell them anyway?’

I nod.

‘Were you going to keep it a secret from us?’ my mother says.

‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ I say. ‘But it’s so hard keeping things in when they’re going round in your head all the time.’

‘You don’t have to keep things in.’ The pressure of my father’s hand on my shoulder is what I’ve been longing for all week. I’ve felt that pressure on my shoulder every time I’ve had to go through something difficult in life. It’s amazing how long you need your parents for, even into your adult years.

Now that we can talk about it, I can’t stop. We discuss it over the aperitif, during the meal and when we have coffee. All possible solutions to the problem are thrown on the table and my parents apply all their experience and training. It’s already getting darker and a cool breeze has risen by the time we leave.

‘Do you feel a bit better now?’ Elisa asks as we part.

‘I do,’ I say. ‘It does help to talk about it.’

‘As I said,’ she says as she bends down to give Valerie a hug.

After a long ritual of kisses and goodbyes we set off.

‘So, home,’ I sigh as we drive down the street. ‘I’m shattered.’

‘From all that talking,’ Raoul says. ‘You must have a sore jaw. You went on the whole afternoon.’

‘But it did do me some good. I really needed that.’ I turn to Valerie who is sitting in her car seat pouting.

‘What’s eating you, sweetie? Are you tired?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I wanted to tell that joke about Sam and Moose but nobody listened.’

‘Sorry.’ I look in the mirror at her unhappy face and realise that we haven’t paid Valerie much attention. ‘Do you want to tell us the joke now?’

‘No, I don’t have to anymore,’ Valerie replies. ‘I told it to Lola.’ She closes her eyes, yawns and falls asleep.

Lola is Valerie’s imaginary friend. She invented her when she was three and since then Lola’s been an integral part of our lives. Lola sits next to Valerie at school, sleeps with her in her bed and has to be lifted up onto the bike so that she can squeeze in next to Valerie on her seat. Sometimes there will be a period when Valerie doesn’t talk about her, but then she’ll suddenly reappear, out of nowhere.

I think it’s amusing until I want to watch the evening news and I have to spend time cleaning Lola’s teeth and singing her a lullaby. Raoul’s got more patience than me and takes over the Lola activities. I’ve always admired his patience when it comes to Valerie.

‘Lola is real to Valerie,’ he said once when I complained about her. ‘That makes her real enough for me to pay attention to her.’

Elisa also had an imaginary friend for a while. A few of them in fact. I read somewhere that most children grow out of it, but I don’t see it wearing off with Valerie and Elisa’s invisible friend was also very persistent.

She always argued that it wasn’t a fantasy, that she could see real people. Spirits, she meant. I’m not sure what to think about that. When we were about ten she got interested in spirituality
for a while, but that passed. My parents believed that such quirks only got worse if you paid attention to them. Their attitude helped Elisa through her spiritual phase – that was good, at times she became quite strange.

Around that age we’d go to the graveyard every September to collect chestnuts. There weren’t any chestnut trees in our neighbourhood, but the graveyard was full of them. Each rush of wind would send the shiny brown balls raining down, they’d fall with dull thuds onto the gravel and the gravestones.

I would always run through the wrought-iron gates to pick them up, but Elisa would follow slowly.

‘You can’t get anything from that grave,’ she’d say, pointing at one next to the path where the prettiest and largest chestnuts lay.

‘Here then?’ I’d ask.

Elisa would close her eyes and shake her head, or she’d nod and smile. Usually she’d point out the places we could carry on unbothered.

‘Here is all right, those people like us to be here,’ she’d say then.

That was the kind of comment I was used to. When we were babies, Elisa was calmer and more serious. She would lie calmly in the playpen and could spend so much time just looking around that you almost forgot about her. She’d often stare at a fixed point, her face screwed up in surprise; other times she’d chuckle with delight and reach her hands out towards nothing in particular.

I believe she had imaginary friends even back then.

I don’t spot them at first. It’s another sunny Monday morning, much too nice to spend trapped in the school building, and I park my car reluctantly. I still haven’t decided whether to tell my colleagues about the threatening letter, and I cross the car park thinking about it. It’s not until I enter the playground that I see the cameras; they flash in my face and a journalist comes up to me and shoves a microphone under my nose.

‘Mrs Salentijn, could I ask you something? According to our sources, a student held a knife to your throat last week, and at the weekend you received a threatening letter. Is that right?’

I’m so flabbergasted I begin to stutter. ‘H-how do you…’

Wrong! Of course I should have said, ‘No comment,’ and hurried inside. Instead, I’d admitted it right away, and the cameras begin to flash again. To my amazement, I think I see Thomas standing behind them. What is he doing here?

I ignore the reporter, who fires a new round of questions at
me, and walk towards Thomas. He gives me a sheepish smile, gets into his car and drives off.

That prick! How could Elisa have been stupid enough to have told Thomas about it? I reach for my mobile to call her, but the reporter asks, ‘Could you tell us exactly what happened on the morning concerned? And have you ever been attacked by a student before?’

‘No comment,’ I snarl and move on. Clusters of students divide to let me pass and strike poses for the photographer. As I hurry up the steps to the main entrance, I glance back over my shoulder and see that the students are also under fire.

With a deep sigh I go inside and prepare myself for the storm. And it hits.

The staffroom falls silent as I enter, and then everyone starts at once. How in god’s name could I have been so stupid? They’d expected a bit more discretion from me. I’ve disappointed them. Hadn’t I stopped to think that this wasn’t just about me but about the entire school?

I do my very best to make it clear that I haven’t blabbed, that I didn’t go looking for publicity in any way, that I’m just as surprised as they are, but it’s no use. Only one person seems to believe me and gives me a sympathetic look, the rest just keep on going.

Jan van Osnabrugge walks into the fray and the attention turns to him. Jan lifts up his arms, like a Roman senator trying to calm a restless crowd.

‘Silence please! You’ve all noticed the commotion. Unfortunately we’ve drawn the attention of the media, but if we all ignore them, their interest will lessen. I’ve refused them entrance to the school building and staff are doing their best to keep the press away from the students. Go to your classes and try to avoid saying anything if the students ask questions. We need to avoid internal unrest at all costs.’

We listen and nod. Quite a few of my colleagues continue to
stare at me and I don’t have the strength to stare back at them. I look at Jan and nod clearly a couple of times to show that I completely agree with him, and that I’m a victim of this too. The result is a volley of scornful looks, grimly set mouths and whispering.

The bell goes and we disperse. I go towards Jasmine and Luke, who are standing talking in a corner, but Jan stops me.

‘Lydia, I’d like to have a quick word with you,’ he says.

‘There’s not much to say, Jan,’ I answer. ‘We can cover it in one sentence. No, I didn’t go to the press. I was just as surprised as everyone else.’

‘Shocked would be a better word,’ Jan comments. ‘Have you any idea how I felt when I saw that photographer standing there?’

My resignation makes way for anger and I look Jan in the eye. ‘Have you any idea how I felt when they all came rushing at me, Jan? Have you any idea how I felt when I found a threatening letter on my doormat on Saturday afternoon?’

‘A what?’ Jan queries, his eyebrows raised.

‘An anonymous letter. A genuine threat, in cut-out letters,’ I say.

Colleagues are standing around us eavesdropping. Jasmine and Luke join me.

‘Come on, we’ll discuss this in my office.’ Jan grabs me by the elbow, but I pull free.

‘No, let’s discuss it here. Of course we don’t want any internal unrest, but I’d rather that everyone knew what was happening to me. On Saturday afternoon I bumped into Bilal and his friends in town. I was able to shake them off by jumping on a bus and asking the driver to shut the doors on them. When I got home there was an anonymous letter on the mat. YOU ARE A WHORE. I WILL KILL YOU, it said. I took it to the police station because I was terrified. Jan, this can’t go on. This is not an isolated incident, something has to be done about this.’

‘I see.’ Jan strokes his chin. ‘I can’t blame you for reporting it. It’s gone quite far, indeed. Where is the letter now? Can I see it?’

‘I’m not trying to press charges, I just reported it and the police have got the letter. It’s going to be checked for fingerprints,’ I answer.

‘So if it goes well, they’ll be arriving soon at the school to take Bilal’s fingerprints. The press will love that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘Hang on! You’re sorry? Why in god’s name? What could you have done about it?’ Luke butts in. ‘The school should be sorry that this has happened to you and that it can’t give you better protection. Let’s talk about that!’

There are a few mutters of agreement around the room, but I’m not sure from whom.

‘There’s something to be said for that,’ Jan responds. ‘And if I’d known about this anonymous letter earlier, Lydia, I would have come along to the police with you. Don’t think I’m blaming you, because I’m not. I just don’t understand why you had to get the press involved. What did you think you’d achieve by that?’ He gives me a look of incomprehension and I stare back, speechless.

‘I didn’t get the press involved! Why would I?!’

‘I’m asking myself the same question,’ Jan says as he turns around and leaves the staffroom.

I haven’t even entered the classroom when I realise that I’m not going to be able to do much teaching. The clamour and arguing meets me in the corridor and as I stand in the doorway, I see that the class has divided itself into two camps – Funda’s and Ismael’s.

Funda is supported by her gang of female friends, Ismael is being egged on by a group of jeering boys. That’s half of the class, the other half is made up of silent but interested spectators, standing on chairs to get a better view. The children have clearly missed the fact that there are journalists outside the school, or they’re not interested because they’re wrapped up in their own problems.

‘I’m going to tell your dad, Ismael! And when he hears what you’ve been saying, he’s going to break your legs!’ Funda threatens shrilly.

Ismael’s reply is lost in the boys’ gibing. I pull my students apart and raise my voice, ‘All right, what’s going on here?’

‘Miss, Miss! Do you know what Ismael said to Funda? You have to hear!’ The girls press around me, their eyes wide with scandal. ‘He really can’t say that, Miss! You have to do something about it!’

‘Quiet,’ I say, my hand raised in the air. ‘What is going on? Funda, tell me what the problem is.’

‘I was just walking across the playground with Rose and Naima,’ Funda cries out. ‘And when we went past the boys, Ismael shouted, “Hey, look at that tasty slut!” And it’s not the first time. He’s been saying it to me all day and I’m sick of it!’

She goes to punch Ismael who nimbly avoids the attack and sticks up his middle finger. His friends laugh and the girls hiss back.

I sigh. A headache is on its way, complete with rolling drums and waving banners. I’m surrounded by accusing brown eyes and high voices that reverberate inside my skull.

‘Anyone who doesn’t shut up and go back to their seat in the next minute is going to get thirty lines,’ I say, without raising my voice.

My words are lost in the tumult, so I put up a chalk and write in large capitals on the blackboard. WRITE THE FOLLOWING LINES.

They are the magic words. The threat buzzes through the room and before I know it, everyone is back in their place. I’d prefer to just get on with the lesson, but I know that it’s not practical. The children are all worked up, they won’t be able to concentrate. I look at them sitting at their desks giving each other dirty looks and then glancing over at me. There’s nothing for it, we’ll have to address this. I could talk to the two ringleaders, but it would be better to discuss this as a class. The problem isn’t just between Funda and Ismael.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘What happened exactly, Funda?’

‘Ismael insults me every day. He calls me “chickie” and “slut” and other things and if he does it again…’ She throws daggers
at Ismael who responds with an air kiss. His friends laugh, but not as loudly as before.

I give Ismael a stern look until the smile slides from his face.

‘Why did you insult Funda, Ismael? You’ve got a sister, haven’t you? How would you like it if a group of boys called her a slut?’

Ismael looks at me for a couple of seconds and produces an apologetic grin. ‘Aw, Miss, it’s just street talk. I’m not insulting Funda. That’s how we talk to each other. We’re always hustling chicks.’

‘According to the Koran, women deserve respect,’ Funda calls out. ‘And if Ismael calls me that one more time, I’m going to tell my brother. You know what will happen then.’ She juts out her chin and looks around the class; there are nods. Clearly Funda’s brother has quite a reputation.

I rest my arms on the table and lean towards the class. ‘You know what, I don’t understand you lot. There’s so much trouble in the world, in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam. There are so many problems between white people and immigrants, between Muslims and non-Muslims. You’re all Muslims. What’s the world coming to when you fly at each other’s throats? What does that achieve?’