15.2 Luna Mar

Few days later, he passed me an address of that firm on Avenida Medio, in the Florina half, in quarter mile walking distance from Huvafen. I located that house. He said that she was a Jamaican immigrant and soon I learnt that Abraham, with hair grown on his ears, was her uncle. Sabo lied. She was not a relative of Usi who was a Nadine. I still do not know where Sabo comes from. He is certainly not a Nadine.

A blindsight. Shalin was thirty-two years old with a nine-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. She was raised in moral grounds by an aristocrat family. Shalin graduated as an architect from the University of Queensland in Australia. She filled a post at the Housing Development Corporation besides running a private firm.

I wanted to meet Shalin. So, just in case, to make an excuse or if she asked, I put five thousand bucks into my wallet in fives and tens, a thick bundle. And that was almost all the money I had. I scooted to 11 47.

I did not tell anyone and I was a bit hasty about doing things. I parked my bike outside 11 47 and entered that office to come across Shalin in the lobby with some clients. Three tall guys stared down at me. Shalin wore a yellow helmet, yellow knickerbockers and a white top.

“Kawla!” she was surprised, “What are you doing here?”

I could think of no excuse but shook my wallet from my back pocket and said, “Your security deposit.”

“I was going to go to your place to collect it.”

I passed her that thick bundle of five thousand bucks and she said, “Thank you,” holding it in her hand and bothered not to count them, “I will see you soon!”

“Count!”

“It will be just fine.”

“Alright.” I knew it was not the right timing.

“Goodbye!”

“Bye!” And I just walked out empty-handed.

With all that money gone, I focused on to mend the east wing with help from Jokey and Simon. Meanwhile that movie titled ‘Titanic’ was going on at Bolinus Theatre and houseful every night.

“Why are you so quiet today?” asked Jokey.

“I am tired, just tired,” I could not respond when I got a phone call. It was Marissa, our Spanish Language Teacher, calling from Hilly High. I jumped down from the bench and stepped out of the east wing to respond to the call.

“Hola!” she greeted, “Come join me at Hilly High to form teams for beach cleaning and picking flowers.”

“Now?” I asked.

“Right now.”

I called back to my folks, “I have to go urgently. I be back in an hour.”

I rode to Hilly Side High. This school located in Mercado near the foothill of Aural stood in a narrow lane paved of cobblestone. A Spanish-looking neighbourhood with medieval buildings and interiors finished in the 17^th century Baroque. The walls were thick with every layer of brick two feet tall. Windows barred with corroded iron grids and tall walls on both sides with projecting cornices in the architectural stonework. No vehicle was allowed in this lane. Trees with sparse leaves planted in big ceramic vases and placed on both sides abreast the road.

I parked my bike on Calle 13 and stepped in the lane on foot. There were people. As I reached the tall gate, I saw a small group of shirtless guys out there. They were short and dark-toned. Some of them popped their eyes at me as I went in through the gate. Two old streetlamps lit above the gate. Normally, nobody enters a school in a pair of shorts but I did.

It was a large premise deserted at the hour when classes were over. Some kids might still be there playing volleyball or engaged in some extra-curriculum. I ran to an inner quarter to come across some girl students and a couple of teachers. They were closing a drill on safety measures during radiation hazards in a classroom.

Nizu was there in a mauve top and a silvery grey skirt. She was tall and skinny. She rolled her big eyes at me. Lady Marissa was not in sight but two other teachers called me up. Apparently, those shirtless guys out there caused nuisance to schoolgirls whole day but they didn’t enter the schoolyard, I was told.

At that moment, girls were asked to get behind a stack of desks placed by the wall and hide under as part of the drill. It was partially dark in the classroom without any light switched on.

Right there this crowd entered through the gate and shouting at me, “Kawla! If you enter, we enter! If you sleep with them, we sleep with them!”

It was an unexpected confrontation. I cried, “No one sleeps with Hilly High girls! These girls are innocent! I never touched anyone!” For what am I fighting?

“Liar! You are a liar! We maintain good discipline and never crossed this boundary until you did!”

Now it was I who took blame in the centre circle. “I came because Lady Marissa called!”

“You came looking for Nizu! You’re a forty-year-old guy dressed like a boy scout! Shame on you! Who the hell do you think you are?”

It was all about me. I was standing on the wrong side in the middle of the crowd and a squabble. Teachers faced them and ironically defended me. I had very little to say. Their argument was inappropriate to discuss here and particularly irrelevant with regard to those teen girls. They were calling me a babysitter. It lasted a good twenty minutes before they pulled out.

One of the girls among the students was Laisha who was listening to this grim altercation. She whispered in my ear, “I will sleep with you anytime. I am not a virgin as you think.” I stood dumbstruck. I did not want to hear that and I did not come with a wrong intention. But here I was in the middle of utter chaos. The things they called at me was unbearable.

They were gone and the drill teachers began to dismantle the pile of desks and chairs. Nizu was behind a desk all this time. She was shaken so badly and crying in fear to sit under a desk blocked on all sides and in the dark. Sobbing and trembling in that thin figure. She was a more matured girl but that inferiority I observed in her gave me some strength to go and deal with it.

I tried to comfort her but she continued to sob. She grabbed me and leaned on my shoulder. She was few inches taller than me. I carried her with the other girls on their way home. I never touched her like this before. On the back of my mind, I was planning and waiting for the moment to ask about those black and lace green knickers she sent me by post.

We came out of the gate and the pack of shirtless guys followed us hooting and calling names. At that point I insisted on Nizu to go home with other students. It took some tenacity to split her up but she did eventually and joined Clara and Laisha.

Later, I met Lady Marissa and I was assigned to a team for beach cleaning in Nativa. I was demoted, I felt, for not giving a chance to go pick flowers with the school kids. Unlike previous times, I won’t be in a team to thread the girdles and bouquets this time. I would miss the bus ride with Hilly High students from Mercado to Eden Well, one-and-a-half-mile drive, and camp for the night to pick flowers and go to Nativa, another two miles further. After that unpleasant incident that took place in the school, they’d probably be scared out of wits to call me here. As a ‘well-behaved boy’, I made no complaint.

Those shirtless guys were still there when I came out of the school and immediately began to provoke me. “You love to pick flowers for the old lady!” I heard their voices, “And with those girls! Are you going to sleep with them?”

I uttered, “Go sleep with them!”

“We want Nizu. Is she your girlfriend?”

“Leave her alone!”

“Hey Kawla! What will you say if I tell you she is not a virgin! We have tested her!”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“You don’t believe us! We have tested Clara and Laisha too! Do they drop out of your favourites? Is it only about Nizu? Have you slept with her?”

I climbed my motorbike and kicked off. Who the hell were those guys!