Manikanetish by Naomi Fontaine

Author:Naomi Fontaine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2021-09-13T15:23:25+00:00

When night falls

The cold had been intense since January. From forty below at night to thirty below by midday. I especially hated the wind from the north. Blasts that blew out the cigarette I’d only just lit up nine metres away from the main door. I would run from my car to the school, pulling my hood in tight around my head.

The principal’s voice came on the PA system as I arrived in the staff room, asking all personnel to assemble there immediately. Some of the teachers were taking off their coats, their enormous scarves, and slipping into woollen jackets. Others, disrupted in their last-minute tasks, arrived with a Thermos in one hand, a wad of photocopies in the other. Steadily, the noise grew. Monsieur Boulanger checked to see if we were all there, calling out the names of those he figured would be late. Which made us laugh, though he simply nodded in disdain. Quiet spread through the room. He closed the door behind him.

“What I have to tell you this morning is very difficult, so I won’t beat around the bush. Marithée killed herself last night.”

Breathing stopped. Total silence. All of us in its grip. Marithée had left school at the beginning of the year. She felt she was too old, and I’d gathered she wasn’t managing to pass the basic courses. She’d shown up a few times since to visit with her teachers, her two-year-old son in a new stroller. A strikingly beautiful girl. Tall and pale-skinned.

From where I was sitting I could see that our typically unflappable principal’s face was distant and misty-eyed. He took some time before he went on.

“Most of the students must already know. Her family and friends found out in the night. You know how news travels in this community. It’s possible some students haven’t heard yet. It is our job to be tactful.”

He paused, and the teachers looked down at the floor, nodding. One of us couldn’t hold back her tears. Kept wiping her eyes between sobs. She taught in the individual education program. I gathered that Marithée had been her student, probably for several years.

My mind quickly turned to Myriam. Her younger sister, my sweet Chimène. Where was she right now? With her family? Her boyfriend? Close, very close to the people she loved? I imagined her pain. Her heart breaking. The nightmare of someone waking her up in the middle of the night to tell her . . . tell her what, exactly? My eyes welled up as I thought of her. And of mortality. Of the suffering that prompts death. And the fear. The irrepressible yearning to be somewhere else.

“What I’m asking is for you to be steadfast. Do what you would normally do. I expect I’ll be managing crises all day today. Please do your part, do what you can to keep the students in class.”

He cleared his throat noisily.

“We’ll try to see this day through the best we can. The best way possible.”

He had no right to walk away.

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