A Lesson in Englishness

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838950187
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

There are only five other black girls in our class of twenty-six...
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From the author of the critically-acclaimed House of Stone, listed for the Folio Prize, is a short story about growing up in Zimbabwe
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A country school girl attends the prestigious Girls' College in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and she learns how to be English. She learns pronunciations, learns to pour, sip, and hold tea, and even learns to laugh the English way - Hahaha!...Hahaha... Haaaaa haaaaa haaaa...

But things begin to change for the pupils of Girls' College when Zimbabwe's new president calls for 'A' grade schools to enrol more black pupils.

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is the author of the critically acclaimed novel House of Stone, winner of the 2019 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award for Fiction with a Sense of Place, shortlisted for the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize and the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and longlisted for the 2019 Rathbones Folio Prize. Tipped by the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) as a defining voice of her generation, she has been invited to give public lectures about House of Stone at Oxford University and the Nordic Africa Institute. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is a native of Zimbabwe and has lived in South Africa and the USA.

Website: http://novuyotshuma.com/

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Published in Great Britain in 2019 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd. Copyright © Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, 2019 The moral right of Novuyo Rosa Tshuma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental. Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. E-book ISBN: 978 1 8389 50187 Atlantic Books An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ www.atlantic-books.co.uk A Lesson in Englishness By Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

There are only five other black girls in our class of twenty-six, and they all speak English with the musical intonations of the white girls. When it’s my turn to introduce myself to the class, my tongue rests heavy in my mouth. When it finally does move, the words, unlike the musical intonations of the white girls, and the black girls singing mfi mfo mfi mfo mfi after the white girls, slide low and dry. I feel everybody is staring at me. I mumble my name into my chest and stare at my desk. Everybody in class seems to know everybody else; most of the other children are from Whitestone and Carmen, the posh primary schools. I’m the only one from SOS, which isn’t as posh.

Mrs. Weitler, our English teacher, is very particular about pronunciation. She comes from ancient times. She wears frilly flowery dresses from another era. She drives an old Beetle with a body as thick and battered as her own. She wears her wispy hair in white, curled sausages. Her breath smells of garlic. Her voice lurches when she speaks. Wobbles across the pages as she reads to the class.

‘Inte-preted,’ she says to me, having picked me randomly and asked me to read a passage in our English Composition textbook for the class. ‘The writer is interested in how Shakespeare’s work may be inte-preted. The emphasis is on the inter and not the pre of the word. Say it after me. Inte-preted.’

‘Inter-prrre’ mumble mumble mumble.

Followed by that shaking giggle from the rest of the class that grows and grows until it bursts into one big horrible laugh that not even Mrs. Weitler’s ‘Now now’ can control.

I try to smile. I know my English is excellent. Who cares how a word is pronounced? But it matters very much here at Girls’ College. One must speak English like the white people. I spend many hours practising to speak English with a delicate, papery accent.

*

Girls’ College is a high school in Suburbs, on the other side of town from Richmond. Suburbs is a leafy suburbia with wide roads and Jacaranda Trees whose leaves droop purple and bright against the blue of the sky in October. The roads are suburbia wide, the houses suburbia big. During the rainy season, when the Sabi River is swollen and I cannot get across it to the Main Road, I must rely on the smaller artery road, where the public minibuses don’t make rounds as often. I can hear the Sabi River blistering against the riverbed as I trudge in the semi-darkness, my satchel slung over my shoulder.

*

I’m a faithful attendee of the etiquette classes, every Monday afternoon. They are compulsory for all form ones. We gather in the library room, where the Head Girl has been charged, along with Mrs. Kimberly, our etiquette class teacher, with teaching us how to be ladies. We are taught how to walk. Walk with your back straight, tummy tucked in. Do not slouch — nobody likes a sloucher — you will end up...

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