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MURIEL ROBINSON, AT the International School, has a
female geography teacher whom she finds very strange.
When the other one left in May, three years ago, because
she had got pregnant and did not want to work any more, everybody
noticed that Caroline Matthews was not a geography specialist, and she
was a very awkward teacher, as if she had not taught for many years.
Maybe she was returning to work after raising her children. But no, she
was not married, she did not wear a ring. It was possible that she had
recently become an unmarried mother, or divorced, and needed to work
now, at thirty-six. They had probably appointed her, because she knew
French very well, and some Italian, and she could draw beautiful maps.
In any case, after a while, you could see that she was a very bright woman;
she learnt the subject in only a few weeks, you could test her, ask her all
sorts of questions. She could pull the ropes. And she was very helpful
with the students. But Muriel and some of her friends still found her
definitely strange. Her sense of humour was different from all the other
teachers. You could never know whether she was speaking in earnest,
unless you made her cry. It had happened a couple of times, for example
when Otto, the big German boy, had asked her whether she had travelled
overseas a lot, adding that a geography teacher should have visited all
the countries of the world, if she wanted to explain things as they really
were. She said “No, I couldn’t. I did not have the opportunity.” Then
there were tears in her eyes, and she had to leave the room fast, as if she
was running for help. Most teachers hated Otto, but she had always been
nice with him, publicly acknowledging his least progress, in spite of his
aggressive attitude. Anyone would think she was frightened. Otto said
that she had been shut in a madhouse, that’s why she had not travelled.
Muriel was infuriated: “Shut up, you stupid liar,” she shouted at him. She
was fascinated by Caroline Matthews. Nevertheless she had to confess
that she herself had doubts about her. Some girls thought that she was
a lesbian, or a virgin, or that she had been raped. Muriel did not believe
any of these rumours, because she did not want to. She would have been
delighted to be another Caroline Matthews when she was her age. She
thought that men were bound to fall in love with a woman like her. But
there were other things about her behaviour that remained a mystery:
her way of walking, silently, lifting her heels very high, as if she were
always barefoot. You never knew she had arrived until she was right in
front of you, and then you could feel a radiating presence. Or the velvety
tessitura of her voice, deep and warm, seductive, almost invasive, and
then suddenly shy, like the murmur of a guilty child. Muriel was terribly
curious about her. She was the best student in the subject, she wanted
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