The rest of the world might have move on without us, but I didn't know that.
"Shit man get a load of that!" my school friend, Helen, proclaimed, newly returned from a vacation in Europe.
"Why are you talking like that? I said. "Everyone in Europe swears," Helen said proudly.
"Shit, its common practice now." I decided to steer clear of Helen and her newfound sophistication. It seemed like her language had become autonomous, set apart, separate from our own.
We were permitted look at the editions of Paris Match, on the reading table in the library, but only individually, which would have been no fun. So we would play the psychological game again -- the game you played with authorities. This involved sauntering forward to the reading desk with an air of nonchalance, as if you might be going anywhere. Then you would flip quickly through the various editions looking for something provocative. We found a nude wedding and an execution. Since we all felt that we shouldn't have been gazing upon such material, the tight huddle we had formed, the whispering voices, would all disintegrate into sheepish looks whenever a teacher approached. We would flip closed the magazine cover and disperse in an unconvincing, since failing to be sedate, flurry.
The other thing that gave us pause for thought were Mills and Boone cheap paperback romances. Mrs Lillywhite was kind enough to introduce us to that genre, and Rosemary soon made it her practice to sit under the large oak tree in the school grounds, before and after class, reading one book after another. A couple of the students also passed these to each other in Chemistry class, with pen marks signifying the bits they considered to be naughty.
The music we listened to did not challenge us, but served our purposes. "Le Freak C'est Chic" was among other many soulful tunes appearing on the top ten, which seemed to long outlive its welcome as an emergence of the late 70s. It's message was clear. We ought to simply "freak out!" Queen's "We will rock you!" gave us a similar message. The class in unison beat out its rhythm and its vocals with martial robustness, amidst a slamming in time of wooden desk lids and blackboard rubbers on the resilient concrete walls, to mark the end of one school year.
"We don't often talk about politics because it is forbidden to speak about it in the school," our art teacher, Pip Curling, ventured once. However, we have just had a war in which thousands of people have died. The kind of installation art I make is to assure these people will not be forgotten." The newspaper that week had featured our school teacher's art. The military had exhumed her art work, which consisted of bandaged hands and heads appearing from the ground. They'd thought it had been the scene of a mass grave -- she, in turn, had been pilloried for her comparative frivolity. Art, after all, was not as serious an engagement churning up a new found site forf a mass grave.
My parents said we might have to leave Zimbabwe, but we could stay for the time being. It was funny. Mercedes cars kept ending up being planted in the storm-water ditches -- one at the end of our street. It stayed there for several weeks. The word from my school friend was that the new politicians liked to buy a lot of fancy cars, and get drunk and drive them around. Her father was in the police force. He said that one of the new ministers was particularly inclined to this behaviour. His name was Rubber dingy Sithole -- however, don't tell anyone, but my father calls him "shit hole" she whispered under her breath. "What is that?" I asked. She said it again, still more quietly
"I still don't get it," I whispered back.
We didn't swear. It was wrong to do so, my mother had warned me, predicting that at the age of 13-- the very cusp of puberty (in her view) -- the swear words would come churning out. I once decided it was funny to make up a word, one that nobody had ever heard of before. "What was that? What was that you said!" my mother shouted, getting ready to throttle me. "I was making up a word. I was saying something like "churrrrrr...chussit!" I pronounced. She slapped me hard. "Don't ever say anything like that again!" I learned never to make up words again.
My practical education about the complexities of life could have filled a very tiny notebook.
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