The class, p.18
The Class, page 18
It was too calm. No movement distracted from the scene. The walls were drawing together and would crush us all.
“Hakim you must know this—when exactly is the opening game?”
He lifted his nose out of his paper, interrupted in his count of the scenes in Act II.
“It’s Saturday. At five o’clock. Portugal-Greece.”
Aissatou, black bandanna with a whole planetarium underneath it,
“M’sieur, who you for?”
I walked down into the aisle and answered only when I was leaning against the closet at the back.
“I’m for Spain.”
Would Faiza get the life she dreamed of?
“You not even for France?”
“Well no, not really.”
Hinda resembled somebody or other and letters spelling INACCESSIBLE striped across her chest.
“On the life of my grandmother back in the bled, they’re too handsome the players on the French team.”
Soumaya cried out as if someone had snatched off her cellphone pendant.
“You are crazy in the head, they’re just too ugly!”
Zidane really looked like a macaque-head with that hair. But nobody cares how he looks, the important thing is he plays real good and that’s all, and even if he would be all green all over it’s the same thing you shouden be sayin nothin about how he looks, if he’s a martian or if he stinks from shit or anything. Yeah but still they’re too handsome. England they’re more handsome that’s why me I’m for them. That one there she makes me laugh those guys all so ugly with they old heads, they look like they got messed up in they momma’s belly. Beckham was he messed up in his momma’s belly? If Beckham got messed up then you, it’s a waste a time you even got born. Henry he’s too handsome. You kiddin his head it isn’t even straight, looks crazy like he come out butt end first. How his head looks I don’t give a shit pardon m’sieur.
No problem.
The bellies on Geraldine and Sylvie were now equally large, the former having caught up with the latter because it was twins. If they were boys, she would be naming them Leo, Lucas, Clement. If it was girls, Lea, Marguerite, Manon. Chantal wasn’t pregnant, and she charged into the room in a fury, her breasts ahead of the rest of her.
“It’s intolerable to stand for that. These two kids walk into my classroom and call me a dirty whore, very pleasant, I swear.”
Jean-Philippe shook his head in misery.
“Some of them, we’ve got to tell them straight out just not to come in anymore except for counseling. Like during Ramadan, it would be better if they just stayed home.”
Geraldine thought that it was probably harder to keep the fast staying home, saying,
“It’s the 7-As who should be forbidden to come in.”
Leopold would have signed onto that with both hands.
“You can’t do a thing with them, that’s how it is.”
“No listen, there’s no reason to blame anyone. Like my mother used to say, You don’t make stallions out of workhorses.”
“Me, next year I’m not taking any eighth grade, you can believe me on that.”
Sylvie turned to me with a mischievous little look I detested.
“You, you always have eighth grades, you’ll get to discover the whole lot. We’ll see what you’re made of.”
“Yeah, right, we’ll see what I’m made of. I’ll take two classes, even—two eighth grades—so I can be sure to get a maximum of pissers. First I’ll calm the pissers down and then I’ll make them into students who’re comfortable with grammar and inventive at writing. I’ll take workhorses and make them into stallions, that’s my specialty. I’m a teaching genius, I am. I invented the pedagogue’s stone, okay?”
In the courtyard a swarm of ninth-grade girls buzzed around Rachel.
“That’s really not right, mam.”
“Really mam that’s not right.”
“Mam that’s really not right.”
With a look Rachel told me I don’t know what to do, this morning I suggested every student should leave some mark behind in the school, here on this wall. The problem is, half of them painted the characters from their countries of origin, and the next period I had to ask the sixth-graders to cover them up, and look now, it’s World War III.
“Really mam that’s going too far.”
“It’s going too far really mam.”
“Mam that’s really going too far.”
On the wall, twenty handprints in all colors crowded over one another. Here and there were names, designs, coded word-forms, and yes, a few scribbles meant to cover something over, which Rachel was trying to justify.
“National names in a secular institution—it’s just not allowed, that’s all.”
Off to one side, Soumaya was fulminating.
“That’s it. Rilly all you want us to do is write France or nothing. But me if I feel like putting Tunisia I’m putting Tunisia, you want everybody should be like you that’s no good, hear.”
Salimata was arguing further as she tore leaves off a lowhanging branch.
“Honest mam that’s not right to ask the sixth grade kids to come cross out Mali and Senegal and all, it’s like you’re crossing out students that come from there it’s not right.”
Rachel’s feet were tiny in her erotic pink thong sandals.
“I told you at the beginning, I said no countries.”
Katia was wearing pink shoes too, but they were Converses with ALL STAR written in a circle on the ankle.
“M’sieur you agree with us like it’s not right to cross students out?”
“I don’t know if it’s right, but couldn’t you find anything more original to write than names of countries? If it was me in the circumstances, if somebody asked me to make up some sign to represent myself, I wouldn’t have put France or Vendée, you know?”
ALL STAR.
“What’s that mean, surcummstan, m’sieur?”
“It’s a country. There are people who live in Surcummstan.”
“You’re always kidding around m’sieur, that’s not right.”
“‘In this circumstance’ means in this case, in this situation, here and now, within these walls—in these circumstances, on that wall there.”
From the start, Aissatou was listening without joining in. Directly under the full sun, her ears cocked, she concentrated on all the terms of the debate. My whole life I will remember Aissatou.
“So what you woulda put m’sieur?
“I don’t know. The name of some singer I like. Or somebody in sports. Or a writer. I would’ve put Rimbaud, that’s it.”
“Who’s that?”
“A guy your age.”
Over near the restrooms, Soumaya was a boxer being held back from fighting.
“That teacher she says free expression but we can’t even put down what we want, that’s not free expression, that stinks that’s all.”
Rachel was paralyzed with impotence. However, Salimata had swallowed her own resentment a little by now.
“M’sieur, what’s that thing you said before?”
“What thing?”
“I dunno, you said France and then some other thing I dunno what.”
“I must have said France and the Vendée.”
“That’s it. What is that, that vonday?”
“It’s a département, a region of France. That’s where I was born. What I meant was I kind of don’t care about it all that much, see?”
“Is it far away?”
“You see this wall? Well it’s past that. Way way past that.”
Katia spoke up:
“Isn’t it kind of like where the peasants live, m’sieur?”
“Yes, sort of.”
For the last individual help session, I asked them to list twenty things they’d learned over the year in eighth grade. Twenty things that they didn’t know before and knew now. They set to work without fuss. Walking through the rows, craning over shoulders, I realized that they were only partly fulfilling the assignment.
“Don’t stop with just telling me you learned Pythagoras’s theorem. I want you to write it out, too. Sofiane, I saw that you wrote the term ‘sans-culottes’ and nothing more. That won’t do at all, you’ve got to tell me who those people were. Especially when two lines farther on you list ‘the French Revolution’ as a separate item. Maybe there’s some connection.”
Reading Mody’s sheet when he turned it in half an hour later, I was forced to observe that he hadn’t adjusted his shot. It was a string of chapter titles, all kinds of topics jumbled together, but without specifics on the knowledge they implied. All the papers were like that, except for Katia’s.
“I learned Pythagoras’s theorem: in the triangle ABC right angle at B, there is: CA (squared) = AB (squared) + CB (squared). I learned about absolute rule, the reign of Louis XIV, the trade triangle: commerce among European merchants, with black slaves traded for products that were rare in Europe. In French I learned the passive and the active voices, example: the dog bit the girl, the girl was bitten by the dog. I learned how to say ‘il y a’ in English: ‘ago.’ I learned some chemical terms: Oxygen = O, Nitrogen = N, Iron = Fe. I learned some Spanish vocabulary: collège = colegio, ilya= hay, vivre = vivir, cachette = escondite, and also conjugation in Spanish, e.g. the endings in the present tense: e-as-a-amos-ais-an. I learned the English irregular verbs: sing sang sung = chanter; drive drove driven = conduire; meet met met = rencontrer; be was been = être; do did done = faire. Also the present perfect in English, e.g.: she has just driven the water = elle vient juste de boire de l’eau. I learned that in physics you always have to put a voltmeter in an electric shunt. I learned about cubist art: drawing that has several viewpoints.”
Ming finished after everyone else and only turned in his paper when the ninth-graders, with Gibran and Arthur in front giggling over something, started into the room for the next period. I would read it the next day.
“Eighth grade is a most important year in the middle schools, so a person must work harder and I learned many thing in eighth grade. French is the most difficult material for me, but I have worked hard so I have learned things in french class. I capable to understand small books, I have learned some vocabularies that I was not knowing before. Because of french class I believe I have augmented my ability in the writings. The mathe is a not a very hard subject for me. In mathe I learned what is the Pythagoras: in the triangle ABC where B is a right angle, there is: CA (squared) = AB (squared) + CB (squared). History is a hard subject for me also, but I have learned things also, I know what is the triangular commerce. It is a commerce between Europe, Africa, and America, they exchange cloth and slaves. I know what is the new machines of communications in the 19th century, it is the electric telegraph and cable under water. In English I have learn many things too. I know what is the present perfective. It is HAVE (in the present) + the past participle. I also know how to make the future, it is S + will + V + Comp. And I learn many other thing.”
The world is only a bottomless sewer where formless creatures creep and writhe upon mountains of muck.
“Well? What’s the figure of speech in this passage?”
Mezut looked as though he hadn’t slept for a hundred years.
“A main clause.”
“Yes, there is a main clause in the sentence, quite right, but that’s not what I’m asking for.”
Alyssa will have taken everything in.
“It’s a metaphor.”
“Yes. And we’d say an extended metaphor, because it stretches over a whole lexical field—this one could be called a lexical field of decay.”
Under unceasing dental assault, Alyssa’s pencil had wound up twisted into a question mark.
“But m’sieur that’s not true what they’re saying there.”
“What he’s saying, not what they are saying. Perdican is speaking alone. What’s not true?”
“How the world is rotten and all.”
“Ah but that’s not the only thing he’s saying, actually. Look at the last sentence: ‘It is I who have lived and not some factitious being created by my pride and my ennui.’”
“Factitious, I don’t know what that is.”
“Factitious means false, artificial, fraudulent. But to really understand the reversal from one sentence to the next, we have to reread the whole tirade right through. We’ll do that next time, now I’d like to finish looking for metaphors.”
Alyssa was already devouring the tirade with her silent lips moving. Djibril hadn’t glanced at the thing once throughout the period, nor opened his mouth until now, without warning, like a punctual time bomb.
“’Nyhow this a school fulla corpses.”
“I don’t see the connection, Djibril.”
Cellphone on a pendant.
“Just issa school fulla corpses.”
“If it’s a school full of corpses, why do you keep on coming in, when you know that this late in the school year nobody’s going to ask you for explanations?”
A MALIAN SOCCER FEDERATION badge was sewn to the right breast of his satin pullover.
“All a bunch a corpses, no arguing about it, that’s all.”
“I’m not arguing, I’m saying why do you keep coming in to a school full of corpses when nobody’s making you?”
“I’ll do what I want. That’s all.”
“But it’s not what you want, that’s what I’m saying.You can’t want to come in to a school full of corpses.”
“How you know what I want? You just talking that’s all.”
He stood up. Pulled his summertime cap down to his eyebrows. Opened the door with no roughness. Closed it without slamming and that’s all.
I was supposed to stay available in a room on the third floor. I hoped that no student would come in for review. It’s something unpredictable but in the end it’s right, I hope you had the time of your life. At eleven o’clock the sound of footsteps grew louder in the stairway. Four feet. Two pairs. Katia and Sandra.
“Hello, m’sieur.”
“You want to work?”
“Yes m’sieur.”
“Sit down, I’ll give you an exercise.”
They sat down, I gave them an exercise on the conditional, which they ended up not doing. They had come to talk, Katia excited like a flea in CONVERSE ALL STARS and Sandra plugged in to a dozen power grids.
“M’sieur are we gonna pass the exam?”
“No.”
“M’sieur you shouldn’t kid about that, will we pass it or not?”
“Look if you work a little you’ve got a chance. That’s why it’s good that you came in.”
Darting in breathless came Hakim, Imani, Mohammed Ali, Haj, Habiba, Aissatou. And Hinda. They sat down without opening their bags.
“M’sieur can we have a debate?”
“What about the exam, nobody cares?”
“Debates is better.”
“Yes, but there’s no debate in the exam.”
They began talking about same-sex marriage, the girls weren’t against it, the boys totally, with Hakim making a disgusted face as he gave his opinion. Aissatou was considering, Mohammed Ali said that’s not the way to make love, Sandra said that in the bled girls would let themselves be sodomized so they would still be virgins when they married, you know? It’s crazy, the guys go like oh, they don’t want no vulgar girls, when them they’re animals themselves, you know. The girls sometimes they even go get sewed up again, Katia added, just even kissing in public you can’t do that in Morocco, said Hinda-looking-like-somebody-I-don’t-know-who, and then Sandra gave her a sly, allusive look.
“Not like in France, huh Hinda?”
Hinda pretended not to understand so as to keep alive a teasing that brought her only pleasure. Sandra persisted, rolling her eyes like a pastry eater.
“M’sieur Hinda’s in love.”
“Ah?”
Picking up speed as she went on like a turbine, Sandra was unstoppable.
“M’sieur don’t you think she’s beautiful, Hinda?”
“She is very pretty.”
Katia gave a my oh, my! and took up the cry.
“Don’t you think she looks like Jenifer in Star Ac, y’know, on TV? Everybody says so, I think it’s too true she really does look like her.”
The bell made them converge mechanically toward the door while continuing to discuss the matter and wishing me happy vacation between sentences.
“You too. But you’ve still got a week of review to do, don’t forget.”
I was hoping Aissatou, Sandra and Hinda would say a special goodbye, but no.
“Some reunion, it was really worth it bringing us all back for this. Okay I’m outa here.”
Jean-Philippe was not happy. His unmarked backpack disappeared through the blue door. On Leopold’s T-shirt an unappealing eagle glided above the letters of RHAPSODY.
“You had a lot of people come in yesterday for the review sessions?”
Marie had just discovered the front/back function on the photocopier.
“Yes, maybe twenty or so out of my two ninth grades.”
“Dico there?”
“No. I don’t think we’re going to see any more of him.”
Elise had gotten fat.
“If he wants to pass he’d better get a lot less lousy in physics.”
Having set his gaze on Elise to listen to her, Claude went on.
“Did you get yourself a good rest over these two months?”
“Don’t ask. I slept, ate, ate, slept. A dream. I got fat, in fact.”
The unappealing eagle would soon land on the letter H.
