From Sleep Unbound. Andrée Chedid
doors of the boarding school opened at seven, and Ali was anxious that I be on time. He drove quickly. . . .
Those Sunday evenings!
In the winters especially when darkness seemed to fall so swiftly, and images of the city were reflected, distorted, onto the gleaming hood of the limousine.
My brother Antoun accompanied me. He felt that it was his duty to do so. At sixteen, he was reliable. Seated beside me, he would dig into his pockets and bring out newspaper clippings about stocks and bonds. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses he read them with a serious air. Often, his mood would become heavy, dignified, as if he were assuming the years that would turn him into the man he was to become.
It was cold sitting beside my brother.
The car sped onward. I looked out at the houses. They fled past at a dizzying pace with their crowded balconies, flowers like patches of color hurled against the walls. The edges of the sidewalks resembled hard gray lines sharply intersected by alleys. With a sharp braking motion, Ali stopped the car in front of a tall gate.
We had arrived at the school.
The murky flame of a solitary street lamp was reflected against Ali’s black scarred cheek. My brother shook off his torpor and embraced me. Older than me by two years, he felt obliged to give me some advice before giving me the bag containing the sweets or nuts he always kept hidden until the last minute. Nuts were forbidden, but Antoun never remembered this. One had to be very clever to dispose of the shells. His white teeth gleaming, Ali smiled as if to say: “We’ll be back to pick you up again next Sunday.”
The gate was tall. I saw nothing but that. With the bag of sweets in one hand and my overnight bag in the other, I raised the latch with my elbow, pushing open the gate with my shoulder. It gave way easily but instantly closed behind me with a sharp metallic click. And now, where was my brother? The motor car? The shiny cheek of Ali?
I tried to postpone looking at the heavy somber facade of the school, which reminded me, somehow, of a widow’s garb. For a time I lingered in the garden, crunching the gravel beneath my feet, imagining that they were pebbles of sand at the beach. I wanted to turn back and run, to run, to open the gate, to flee into the street. But where would I go?
I could hear the gate opening, then closing, the sound of footsteps hurrying. How much longer could I remain outside? I took a few halting steps. Standing on tiptoe, I allowed myself one last glimpse of the city.
Very tense, my shoulders tightly hunched up, I made myself go inside. The sister on duty at the door nodded as I passed by. And then I was swallowed up in the corridor, which seemed full of muffled whispers, and of silence.
Sometimes the idea came to me that I should simply let myself fall to the ground and refuse to move. Perhaps everything else would also stop moving then. But I was accustomed to following my own footsteps, and I walked on until I reached the coatroom.
. . .
All week my beret and my coat, which was too small, hung under a pink label which bore my name in neat proper handwriting.
My skirt was the regulation length. At home Zariffa had spent the day unstitching and restitching the hem. Because of her bad eyes she kept calling me to thread the needle for her. Then she made me kneel to see if the skirt touched the floor evenly. So my skirt fell correctly, and I could feel the stiff wool with each step. My black stockings were wrinkled around my ankles. In winter, I wore several undershirts beneath my blouse. My sleeves were too tight at the wrists, and my inkstained fingers seemed too long.
The doors of the cupboards squeaked when they were closed. A voice called the roll:
“Thirty-eight . . . Fifty-four . . . One hundred and twenty-two. . . .”
“Present. Present. Present.” The voices seemed to be complaining.
“Fifty-six . . . Sixty-eight. . . . One hundred and twenty . . .”
“Present. Present. Present.”
So practical for book-keeping, for marking the linen, for saving time. What did one do with the time that was saved?
The electric bulb gave off a weak light which blurred the framed image of a saint. The light was reflected on the varnished cupboards, playing over the grooves of wood, creating monstrous heads. Like flowers that open to the light, memories of home were beginning to blossom inside me.
“Fourteen . . . Thirty-four. . . .”
It was my turn: “Present.”
I saw again the sunlight on the carpet; I smelled food and heard Zariffa’s voice: “Go and get ready! Your father will soon be back!”
“Quickly! Quickly! Go get your veils, you’ll be late,” ordered the proctors, the supervisors, and nuns.
They bustled around, crossly, and the taps on their shoes went “click-clack” on the floor.
“Quickly! Quickly! Get your veils. Don’t forget your veils. Don’t forget your rosaries. Hurry up! Oh heavens! Hurry! Get in line for chapel. Silence, please.”
In the classroom the half-open desks held notepads, textbooks, our black veils and our white cotton gloves. A few girls hid pieces of mirror among the wastepaper in their desks and tried to peek at their faces. I didn’t want to look at myself. The veil hung down over my face, imprisoning me. The cotton gloves separated me from everything, even from the rosary whose rough wooden surface I liked to feel.
“Hurry! Hurry! Get in line! Silence! The same girls are always late!”
Josephine ran to her place, giggling. I was obedient. The veil, the black stockings, the walls. I couldn’t shrug them away. I was suffocating. I would have liked to fight against all this, and yet I felt a strange fear. So I followed my own footsteps. I went forward with the others. I obeyed the commands. I remained within the ranks. I followed orders.
“Click-clack.” The hem of my skirt beat against my legs. The ranks were tightening; there wasn’t enough room for my shadow.
I moved along. “Click-clack.” I heard nothing except this noise and the sounds of our moving feet on the large stones.
Once a year I went to the cemetery to place flowers on my mother’s grave. My father, standing next to me, would bend toward me, place his hand on my shoulder and murmur: “It is a great loss for a girl!”
We advanced in a narrow file. The walls rose before us; they would never stop rising before us. And adults envied our youth.
. . .
The chapel always seemed to me so light, so high, so spacious.
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