English for Life Reader Grade 9 Home Language. Elaine Ridge
at the swift passage of electric trains.
When the train to Cape Town arrived I found an empty compartment for her. I sat down beside her and spoke of some people I knew in Cape Town.
‘I shall be glad to meet them,’ she said, ‘I spent some school holidays there once, so I should be able to find them.’
‘Please go to them if you need any help,’ I said, taking my notebook out of my pocket and jotting down a few names and addresses on a page.
When I looked up to hand her what I had written, I saw her holding her embroidered handkerchief to her eyes.
‘You will be happy again, Noorjehan,’ I said.
I looked around the compartment, at the green leather seats, the cramped space, the oval mirror above the washstand. She would be incarcerated in here for many hours, carrying with her the memory of unfeeling parents and her fear of an uncertain future in a distant city.
She took the handkerchief away from her face, pushed back a few strands of hair with her fingers and looked at me with her dark moist eyes.
As it was about time for the train to depart, I alighted and stood on the platform next to her compartment window.
Punctually at half-past eight the train gave its initial jerk and then began to move slowly. Noorjehan gave me her hand for a moment, then lifted it and shouted in a strident schoolgirl’s voice: ‘Good-bye sir! Good-bye sir!’ as the train gathered speed and left the station.
Stunned by the formality of her last words, recalling the academic atmosphere of the classroom, I failed for a moment to register her meaning. Then I was overwhelmed by the rebuke implicit in them, and experienced a trenchant sense of guilt for having been so blind to the romantic image of me which she had conceived.
Her words resonated in my mind as I made my way home. I began to feel that they were not only a rebuke, but a cathartic rejection of me from her inner most self.
cathartic – freeing herself of strong emotions and so healing
impeccably – without flaw
implicated – involved
oblique – indirect
occult – supernatural
precocious – gifted
rebuke – a telling off
resonated – echoed
strident – shrill, loud
| Post-reading | |
| 4. | Noorjehan calls her forthcoming marriage “a marriage of obliteration”. |
| a) | What does she mean? |
| b) | Do you believe that her longings for rescue from her situation are in fact, “silly, romantic and sentimental”? |
| 5. | The teacher shares Noorjehan’s views on arranged marriages. |
| a) | Quote a sentence that shows the teacher’s view. |
| b) | Why does he not do anything to help her? |
| 6.a) | Why has Noorjehan told only her teacher of her plans? |
| b) | Why does she suddenly revert to calling him “sir” saying “Goodbye sir” as the train starts to move away? |
| c) | What does the teacher realise at that point about Noorjehan’s hopes and romantic longings? |
| d) | What effect do Noorjehan’s parting words have on him? |
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