Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [74]
“I, uh, I’ve been told that I have to take, uh, attendance,” I say, wondering why my voice sounds so thin and apologetic, how I can stop my hands from shaking. The attendance list contains several Nepali names which I have not seen before. How do you say Bahadur? Bah-hay-der? Bay-hah-der? I settle on Badder, which elicits a few snickers and an outright snort.
Enough of this. I launch into my lecture. Who was Shakespeare, what is tragedy, why do we study it. I ramble on and on. After several long minutes, someone calls out from the back, “We finished Macbeth last term.”
They have finished Macbeth and I still have forty minutes left before the end of class. “Oh dear,” I say, chewing on a thumbnail, and someone repeats mockingly, “Oh dear.” I scan the rows: one student meets my gaze. He has longish hair and a proud handsome face, and he is leaning back in his seat, legs stretched out in the aisle. For a brief moment, I think he is going to smile but it turns into a smirk.
Now what? I think. We cannot very well draw pictures or sing the “Momo Song.” “All right,” I say, “then ... write me a composition.”
There is much scuffling and rummaging for paper and pens.
“On what topic?” someone asks.
“On anything,” I say.
“Anything?” someone echoes. It is Smirk.
I am suddenly very tired. This is not class II C. This is not fun. I should have stayed where I was. I sit at the front of the class, watching the students write and waiting for the bell to release me.
My next period is a batch of new admissions. At least they cannot have finished Macbeth last term, I console myself, but when I push open the door, I am unnerved. The long, narrow classroom is packed. As far back as I can observe, students are squashed together on the wooden benches. I cannot even see the back rows. I pull out the attendance list: nine girls, seventy boys.
“Good morning,” I say, and the response is deafening. Benches are pushed back as the class rises and the room echoes with “good mornings.” Someone misses the seat on the way back down, a desk is overturned, and laughter rises up in a wave. “We’ll take attendance first,” I say, but they cannot hear me. I can barely hear me. “Class Eleven,” I say. “Class Eleven! ” Finally I shout, “Class Eleven!!”
The noise subsides, but there is still some kind of disturbance going on in a back corner. Two students have straitjacketed another with the sleeves of his gho. “Class Eleven! Untie him! Don’t tie each other up with the sleeves of your ghos.” And then I am laughing because it’s just like class II C, only there are more of them and some of them have mustaches. I stand at the front of the room, staring at the class. Seventy-nine students! “It’s a zoo,” I marvel aloud. They seem pleased with this description.
After class, I find Catherine from Rangthangwoong and Pat, a Dutch nurse posted in Tashigang, sitting on my doorstep. “We’ve come for afternoon tea,” Catherine says, “and then we’re going back to Tashigang on the four o’clock bus.”
“But how did you find out so fast that I was here?” I am pleased to have company already.
“There are no secrets in eastern Bhutan,” Catherine says. “Come on, let’s go visit the Fantomes.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see.”
Behind the infirmary is a cottage hidden by cypress trees. On the wooden verandah, dozens of orchids grow out of clay pots and mossy logs, the names of the flowers inscribed neatly in English and Latin on wooden plaques. I stop to examine a spray of delicate white blossoms with scarlet tongues. Lady’s Slipper. “People eat this one,” Pat says. “Orchid curry. It’s a great delicacy.”
In a book-lined sitting room, Mrs. Fantome, a plump woman in a crisp, apple-green sari, pours tea into porcelain cups. “Cream or lemon, dear?” she asks. Cucumber sandwiches cut into dainty triangles and slices of vanilla pound cake are passed around. Mr. Fantome wears white