Chapter 12
The Door I Was Afraid to Open
Mr. Kato's office was at the end of the corridor, beside the staff toilets, in a room so small that it had once been a store.
It had a desk, and two chairs, and a shelf of pamphlets in coloured folders, and a window that looked out on a wall. There was a poster of a mountain with a line of text about perseverance, which had been put up by somebody else and which he had never taken down. There was a kettle, with a cracked flex, and a tin of tea. There was a very small plant, in a plastic cup, which he watered every morning, from a bottle, and which had never, in the three years that he had owned it, put out more than two leaves.
Sarah stood outside it for eleven minutes.
She knew, because she counted. She stood with her back against the wall of the corridor, in the thin yellow light of a Thursday afternoon, with Miriam beside her, and her bag in both arms, and her eyes fixed on a door with a brass plate on it. GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING. MR. D. KATO. Please Knock. There was a small hand-lettered card pinned underneath. If I am not here, I am in the library.
The corridor was empty. Everybody had gone. A bell had rung, twenty minutes ago, and the school had emptied out, in a long roar, and left a silence that rang. Somewhere a broom was scraping. The sun came in at the far end, low and gold, and lay on the floor in a long bar, with the dust turning in it.
"You can go in," said Miriam.
"I know."
"Or I can go. I could knock for you."
"No."
"Or we could leave. We can come tomorrow."
"If we leave," said Sarah, "I'll never come."
She said it flatly. She had known it, since the chapel, as a plain, cold fact. She had known it every day, for nine days, in the long grey hours at the back of the class, with her hands in her lap. It was a door. It was only a door. But she had walked past it eleven times, in the last week, on her way to the library, and each time she had felt the pull, and the fear, and the little voice, so reasonable, so quiet, that said, Tomorrow.
It is the most dangerous word in the language.
She did not know where she had read that. She thought, perhaps, that she had made it up.
"Then knock," said Miriam.
She knocked.
It was a small sound. It was three taps, with a knuckle, on a wooden panel. She stood with her fist in the air, and her heart going, and listened, and a voice on the other side, mild and unhurried, said, "Come in."
He was reading.
That was what she saw first. He was sitting at the desk, with his chair pushed back, and a book on his knee, and one leg crossed over the other. He was a man of about forty, long and loose, with a thin pleasant face, and an untidy fringe, and rimless glasses. He wore a brown cardigan, with a button missing. He had ink on his cuff. There was a mug of tea at his elbow, going cold. And when he looked up, over the top of the book, his expression, at first, was one of vague, courteous, slightly absent enquiry, like a man being asked the way by a stranger.
Then he saw their faces, and put the book down.
"Sarah," he said. "Miriam. Come in. Sit."
He did not stand. He did not hurry. He moved the chairs, a little, with a sweep of his hand, so that they faced each other, rather than the desk, and sat back, and waited. He did it so smoothly that they were sitting down before they had thought about it. And as they sat, Sarah noticed that he had drawn his own chair a little to one side, away from the door, so that the way out was clear.
He has done this before.
"Would you like tea?"
"No, thank you."
"A glass of water? The tap is bad, but I've a bottle."
"No."
"Then I will have mine, if you do not mind. It's cold, but I paid for it." He picked it up, and drank, and made a small face. "Terrible. It was always going to be." He put it down. "What can I do for you?"
She did not know where to begin.
She had planned it. She had rehearsed it, on the way up the corridor, in her head, in a series of neat clear paragraphs. But they were gone. She sat on the edge of the plastic chair with her hands clasped between her knees and her mouth open, and nothing came. The little plant in its cup sat on the sill. A fly buzzed. She heard Miriam's breathing, beside her, loud and quick.
"It's..." She stopped. "It's about something at home."
"Yes."
"I don't... I'm not sure how to say it."
"That's all right."
"It's not... I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble. I only..."
"Sarah." He said it gently. "You don't have to say it in any particular way. Or in any particular order. You do not have to be sure. You can say it badly. You can say it in pieces. You can stop, and start again. Nothing you say in this room will be the wrong thing." He took off his glasses, and polished them on the corner of his cardigan. "I'll tell you one thing, before you begin. So you know where you stand."
"What?"
"If you tell me that somebody is hurting you, I cannot keep it to myself."
Her stomach dropped.
"I want to be clear," said Mr. Kato. He put the glasses back on. His eyes behind them were mild and grey and perfectly steady. "I'm not going to lie to you. I could say, It is between us. A lot of people do. It would be a kind thing to say. But it would not be true, and you would find out, and then you'd never trust anyone again." He paused. "I am required to report it. To the headmistress. To the district Probation Officer. To the police, if it's a crime. It is the law. And, more than that, it is what I'd choose. I do not think a child should have to carry a thing like that alone."
"I know."
"But I'm also telling you this. I will not do it behind your back." He leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees. "I'll tell you before. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, and who I am going to tell, and why. You'll know at every step. You will be asked. And if you say, Wait, I will wait, as long as I safely can." A small pause. "I will not promise it will be easy. I cannot. But I promise that it will not be a surprise."
She stared at him.
No adult had ever spoken to her like that. She sat, with her fingers knotted, in the plastic chair, and looked at a thin kind tired face, and understood, with a shock, that he was treating her as a person with a say. It was not what she had expected. She had expected a speech, or a sermon, or a hand on the shoulder. She had expected to be told, in a bright, firm, soothing voice, that everything would be all right.
He had not said that.
He had said, It will not be easy.
It was the first thing anyone had told her in three years that she believed.
"Okay," said Sarah.
"Okay?"
"I'll tell you."
"Good." He nodded. "Take your time. I've nowhere to be."
It was the hardest thing she had ever done, and it did not look like anything.
It looked like a girl in a blue uniform, sitting in a plastic chair, with her hands in her lap, speaking in a low flat voice for about twenty minutes. It looked like a boy's pencil case on the desk, and a plant with two leaves, and a clock ticking on the wall. It looked, if anyone had come to the door, like a teacher listening to a pupil with a problem. There was no violence in it. There were no tears. She did not cry once. She had thought that she would. She had thought that when it came to it she would break. But she sat there, with her back straight, and said it, in order, in short sentences, as her father had taught her, and it came out as dry and plain as a statement to a clerk.
She did not tell it all. She left out things she could not say. She gave dates. She gave the names. She said that it had begun in the August after her father died, in the first week in the new house, and had continued, at intervals, since. She said, I told my mother in the second week. She said what her mother had said.
At that, he stopped her.
It was the only time. He put up one hand, gently, and said, "Forgive me. May I ask you to say that again?"
"What?"
"What your mother said."
She said it.
He sat still. His face did not change. But she saw something go across it, very fast, behind the glasses, like the shadow of a bird crossing a window. His mouth tightened. His hand, which was lying on his knee, closed, slowly, and opened.
"Thank you," he said. "Go on."
She went on.
When she had finished, there was a silence. It was a long one. The clock ticked. The broom had stopped, in the corridor, and somewhere, outside, a bell was ringing for the end of the evening prep. Mr. Kato sat with his hands loosely clasped between his knees, and his eyes on the floor. He seemed, for a long time, to be thinking very carefully about something a long way off.
"Sarah," he said, at last.
"Yes?"
"I'd like to tell you three things."
"All right."
"The first." He raised his head. "I believe you. I want you to hear that, before anything else. I'm not going to ask whether you're sure. I'm not going to ask why you did not say sooner. I don't need you to prove it. I believe you."
She could not speak.
"The second. It is not your fault. Not any part of it." His voice was quiet and absolutely level. "Not what you wore, not what you said, not where you were, not what you did or did not do. You were a child. He was an adult in a position of trust. The responsibility is his. Only his. I have been teaching for seventeen years, and I've never been more certain of anything."
"Thank you."
"And the third." He paused. "It took a great deal of courage to come in here. I do not mean it as a compliment. I mean it as a fact. Most people don't. Most people sit in a chair like that, and say, It's nothing, and go away, and carry it for twenty years." A faint dry smile. "You have done the thing that the rest of us find hardest. You said it out loud. To a person. And you're still sitting up."
She did not realise that she was crying until Miriam put a handkerchief in her hand.
It was Miriam who spoke, in the end, when the thing was said.
She had been sitting rigid, throughout, with her hands gripped on her knees, her mouth shut, her eyes fixed on a point on the wall. She had not made a sound. She had kept her promise. And now, in the quiet, she cleared her throat, and said, in a small gruff voice, "What happens next?"
"A good question." Mr. Kato took a pad of paper from the drawer, and a pen. "I'll tell you what I propose. And you will tell me if you don't like it."
"All right."
"Today, nothing is done without your agreement. But I do need to take it to someone. Soon. Within a day or two. There is a woman at the district office called Ms. Namusoke. She's the Senior Probation and Social Welfare Officer. She deals with cases of this kind. I have worked with her before. She is overworked, and rather brisk, but she's honest, and she takes children seriously." He wrote the name. "She would come and speak to you. Here, in this room, with me. Not at home. She'd ask what happened. She'd write it down. And then she'd decide, with her colleagues, what to do."
"What might she do?"
"A number of things." He did not soften. "She might speak to your mother. She might visit the house. She could refer it to the police Child and Family Protection Unit. She might arrange for you to stay somewhere else, for a time. That would depend. On what she finds. On what your mother says. On what is possible."
"My mother will say it's not true."
"She might."
"She will."
"Then we'll deal with that." He laid down the pen. "Sarah. I won't pretend. There are cases where this goes straight. A mother says, I believe my child, and a man is arrested, and the child is taken somewhere safe. It happens. And there are cases where it does not. Where a parent denies, and a stepfather has a good name, and there's no medical evidence, and no witness, and the case is said to be unproven." He looked at her squarely. "I do not want you to expect the first, and be broken by the second. I'd rather you were ready."
"What do I do, if it's the second?"
"We keep going."
"How?"
"We write things down. We find other people who have noticed. We build, slowly, until it can't be ignored." A small, crooked, tired smile. "I'm a teacher. We're good at slow."
"I've written it down."
"You have?"
"Dates." She swallowed. "In a book. Under my mattress. Since the first October."
He sat very still.
"All of them?"
"I don't know. I think so. I have made a mark, every time." She held out her hands, helplessly, as if the book were in them. "I did not know why. I only... I wanted it to exist somewhere."
"Sarah." His voice had changed. It had gone low and rough. He took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and finger, and put them back. "That is... that's very important. I want you to keep it safe. Don't show it to anyone. Don't take it to school. Don't let anyone find it." He drew a long breath. "That book may matter more than you know."
It went the way he said.
It went as he had warned her, step by step, in the order that he named. He told her what he would do, and he did it. On the Friday, he took her to the headmistress. She was a large stately woman with a hooked nose, Mrs. Nakato, who sat behind a huge desk and listened with her hands folded and her mouth drawn down. She said, This is very grave. She said, We must proceed with the greatest caution. She said that a man in Mr. Ssemanda's position was a patron of the school, a generous donor to the new library, and it would be necessary to proceed with delicacy. Mr. Kato said, quietly, "With respect, Madam, the child's position is the delicate one." There was a silence. She cleared her throat. She said that, of course, the law was the law.
On the Monday, Ms. Namusoke came.
She was a short brisk plump woman in a navy suit, about fifty, with a leather satchel and glasses on a chain. She had arrived on a motorcycle. She took off her helmet in the corridor, shook out her hair, and said, "Which room?" in the voice of one who has seen forty cases that month and will see forty more. She sat in the plastic chair, in the small office, with a notebook on her knee, and asked her questions. They were direct, and kind, and rapid. She did not flinch at the answers. She wrote, in a quick scribbling hand, for an hour and ten minutes. And at the end, she laid down her pen, and looked at Sarah over her glasses, with sharp, tired, humorous, dark eyes.
"You are a very clear witness," she said.
"Thank you."
"It is not a compliment. It is an inconvenience." She smiled, very slightly. "A clear witness makes people uncomfortable. It's much easier if a child is confused. Then one can say, She misunderstood." She capped the pen. "I'll go to your home on Wednesday. With a police officer, a woman, from the CFPU. We will speak to your mother. And to Mr. Ssemanda."
"He'll say it's not true."
"Naturally."
"He'll cry."
"They sometimes do." She said it flatly. "I will tell you what I tell all the children, Sarah. Do not expect it to be resolved on Wednesday. It almost never is. A visit is the beginning of a process, not the end. There'll be a file. There will be a record, with your name on it, in an office. That in itself has some effect. People are more careful, when they know they're watched." She took a card from her satchel. It was white, with a blue stripe, and a number. "You'll keep this. It is the Child Helpline. It's free. You can call it from any phone. If you ever feel that you are in danger, you ring it. You do not wait for a meeting. You ring."
She took it.
It was small, and slightly bent. It had a number on it, three digits, in black. She held it between her finger and thumb, and looked at it, and thought, This is what a rope looks like.
It is very thin.
Wednesday was dry and bright.
She did not go to school. She had been told to stay away, for the day, and to go instead to Miriam's. She sat in the flat above the bakery, at the long table, with a cup of sweet tea, and a plate of buns she did not touch, and listened to the clock. It was a clock with a loud tick. Mama Miriam moved about the kitchen, quietly, in her yellow gomesi, frying something, and did not ask a single question. She had been told, in a single sentence, by her daughter, at the door, on Monday evening. She had said nothing. She had put her arms round Sarah, in the middle of the flat, in the smell of bread, and held her for a very long time, and rocked, as one rocks a baby, and then gone back to the stove.
The phone rang at four.
It was Mr. Kato. Miriam took it. She held it against her ear, and her face changed, and changed, and she said, "Yes," and "Yes," and "I see," and then, very low, "Thank you, sir." She put it down. She turned.
"It's done," she said.
"What did they say?"
"They went to the house." She came and sat. She took Sarah's hand. "Your mother was there. And Peter. They were polite. They offered tea."
"They did not."
"They did."
"Of course."
"Ms. Namusoke said it was the most civilised interview she's had all year." Miriam's mouth twisted. "He wept. She said so. He sat in his chair, in a clean white shirt, and he wept. He said he was a Christian. He said he had been a father to you. He said that he could not understand how you could say such a thing, but that he was not angry, and that he forgave you, and that he'd pray for you."
"Oh."
"And your mother..."
"What?"
"She sat there," said Miriam. "She did not say anything. For a long time. The officer asked her straight. Did your daughter ever tell you about this? And she said..." She stopped.
"Say it."
"She said, No."
The clock ticked.
Sarah sat very still. She looked at the cup, and the steam going up from it, in a thin white thread, and the buns on the plate, like small brown stones. She thought she would feel something. She had been waiting for it. She had thought it would be a blow, like the first. But there was nothing. There was only a flat grey stillness, and a faint detached surprise, like a person who has been told that it has rained in a place she does not know.
She said no.
Of course she did.
She said it in front of a stranger, to a woman with a notebook, in my own house. She looked at her and said, no.
"They found no basis for removal," said Miriam. She was reading, now, from a scrap of paper in her fist, in a stiff, careful voice. "Ms. Namusoke said that she was concerned. She says the matter will be kept under review. She'll visit again. In a month." Her voice cracked. "She said that you must ring the number if there is any... any..."
"I know."
"Sarah."
"I'm all right."
"You are not."
"No." She looked up. "But I'm not surprised." She picked up the tea, and drank it, and set it down. "That is the strange thing. I thought I would be. I'm only... tired." She gave a small, odd, shaky laugh. "He said it would be like this."
"Mr. Kato?"
"He said, Be ready for the second."
"What do we do?"
"We keep going," said Sarah. "We write things down."
He came for her at eight.
It was Peter. He drove, in the silver car, to the corner by the bakery, and sat in it, with the engine running. He did not get out. He did not come in. She saw him from the window, a broad shape behind the glass, in the yellow light of the lamp, with both hands on the wheel. He did not look up. He sat still. He was waiting.
"You do not have to go," said Mama Miriam.
"I do."
"There is a bed here. There's food. My husband will speak to him."
"If I do not go, he will know that I'm afraid."
"You are afraid."
"I know." She picked up her bag. "But I'm not going to let him know it." She looked at the big, round, anxious, beautiful woman in the yellow gomesi, and put her arms round her, and held on, for as long as she dared. "Thank you. For today. For everything."
"My child..."
"I'll be all right."
She went out.
The car door was open when she reached it. She got in. She did not look at him. She put her bag on her knees, and her hands on the bag, and stared through the windscreen at the dark.
He did not speak.
He drove up the hill, with great care, at exactly the speed limit, and the lights of the town slid past, red and yellow and green, on the dashboard, on his hands. She counted the street lamps. She counted nine. At the gate, he stopped. He sat for a moment, with the engine idling, and the dashboard light on his heavy dark face. And he said, very softly, without turning his head:
"I want you to know that I forgive you."
She did not answer.
"I am a Christian man. I turn the other cheek. I'm not a person who bears a grudge." The engine ticked. "But I want to say a thing. One time. Not in anger. As a father."
"Yes."
"You have been very foolish."
She said nothing.
"You've humiliated your mother. In front of strangers. You made her sit in her own house and be asked questions by a fat woman in a suit. She cried. Did you know that? After they left. She went to the bedroom, and wept for an hour." He sighed. "I hope that you're proud."
"I did not..."
"I know what you did." The voice did not change. It was gentle, and slow, and sad. "I know exactly who you spoke to. I know about the teacher with the cardigan. I know about the little friend, with the plaits." A small pause. "I know where she lives."
The skin went tight on the back of her neck.
"I do not say it to frighten you. I say it so that you understand. This is a small town. People talk. And I'm a man with a great many friends." He turned his head, at last. His eyes, in the green glow, were very dark and calm. "It would be a pity, if your friend's father were to find that his licence was not renewed. Or that his flour supplier had made a mistake with an invoice. Or that a certain teacher was found to have been... indiscreet. With a student."
"He has not done anything."
"No. Of course not." He smiled. "But a rumour is a very powerful thing. You are an intelligent girl. You'll think about it."
"Please."
"I only want what is best." His hand came off the wheel. It came across the dark, and laid itself, lightly, over hers, where it lay on the bag. It was warm, and heavy, and dry. "I only want a peaceful house. I want us all to be happy. Is that so much?"
She did not breathe.
"Next term," said Peter, in his warm kind voice, "we shall see about the school. I think perhaps it is too much for you. All this pressure. The debating, the netball. I think perhaps you'd be happier at home. With your mother. In the quiet." His thumb moved, once, across her knuckles. "I shall speak to the headmistress."
He is taking it.
He is taking all of it.
It went through her slowly, like a long cold needle. She sat still, in the seat of the car, with his hand on hers, and looked at the green iron of the gate through the windscreen, and saw, with perfect clearness, what he was doing. He was closing the doors. He was doing it one at a time, courteously, with a smile, as he had closed them for her mother. The school. The friend. The teacher. The bakery. He was not threatening her. He was only showing her the floor plan. He was showing her how small the house could be made.
He has won, she thought.
He has won, and he does not even need to say so.
"Do you understand me?" said Peter.
She looked at him.
She turned her head. She looked him full in the face, in the dark of the car, in the dashboard glow, at a round dark handsome kindly countenance, with a neat moustache, and eyes that did not blink. She looked at it as one looks at a thing one has seen all one's life and never seen. She looked at it, steadily, for a long time.
And she felt, very deep down, under the cold, under the fear, under the long numbness of three years, something stir. It was a very small thing. It was no bigger than a seed. It was not courage. It was not even anger. It was a kind of dry flat clarity, like the first light before morning, when the shapes of things come up out of the dark and one sees that they are only shapes.
I do not have to agree.
She had not known it before. It came to her whole. I do not have to nod. I don't have to say, yes, Peter. I do not have to say anything at all. She had spent three years trying to be good. She had learned every trick of being small. And it had not worked. It had never worked. It had only made her smaller.
"I understand," she said.
She said it in a voice so quiet and so level that he did not hear what was in it.
"Good girl."
She lifted her hand, from under his. She did it slowly. She laid it on the handle of the car door. And she said, as one says a thing in a court, in a clear voice, to the room:
"I understand exactly."
She got out.
She lay awake all night, in the small white room, with the tin of gravel on the floor.
She did not cry. She lay on her back, with her hands folded on her chest, and her eyes open, looking at the ceiling. The moon had risen. It threw a thin bar of silver across the plaster, on the long wavering crack that looked like a river. She watched it travel, very slowly, from one wall to the other.
He is going to take me out of school.
He is going to close the door.
And I told, and it did not work.
She went over it in her head. She went over it as her father had taught her, with a pencil, in order. What do I have? She had a book, under a mattress. She had a friend. She had a teacher with a cardigan. She had a woman with a motorcycle, and a card with a number on it, three digits, in black. She had a green volume, with a pencil in the binding, that said, in black and white, that it was a crime.
And what do I not have?
A mother.
A house.
A door that locks.
She turned on her side. She looked at the small tin frame on the shelf. The light from the window lay on the glass, and made it a pale blur, so that she could not see his face. But she knew it. She knew it perfectly. It was a long, thin, stooping, tired, humorous face, in a crooked tie, turned a little to one side.
I'm afraid, Taata.
I am afraid, and I did it anyway.
That's what you said. You said, you do it afraid.
It was true. She had done it afraid. She had stood outside a door, for eleven minutes, and then knocked. She had said it, aloud, in a plastic chair. She had sat in a house, that day, with a cup of tea, and a plate of buns, while a stranger asked her mother whether she had known. And she had sat there, in the middle of it, in a stranger's kitchen, and not run.
It did not fix it.
But I did it.
She lay still.
It was a curious thing. She had thought that if she told, and it was not enough, she would be crushed. She had thought that it was the last card, and that when it was played, and lost, there would be nothing. But it was not so. She lay in the moonlight and found that she was not crushed. She was clear. She had told, and it had not worked, and she was still here. And somewhere in the middle of her, in a place she had thought was empty, a plain, hard, steady small voice said, calmly, as one reads a line from a list:
Now I know what I have to do.
I will have to keep myself safe.
Not hope. Not wait. Do it.
She did not yet know what that meant. She did not know that it would end in a kitchen, in March, with a knife on a table. She did not know what it would cost. She only knew that it was the first honest sentence that she had ever said to herself, and that, once said, it could not be unsaid.
Even if it changes everything.
Even if it changes my whole life.
She closed her eyes.
Outside the window, the moon went down behind the mango tree. A cock crowed, far off, and was silent. And in the grey of the first light, before the house had stirred, a girl of seventeen lay on a pink daisy cover, with her fists open at her sides, and slept for the first time in a month.