The Unstruck Sound

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Something startled Saj awake. She lay for a moment trying to understand what she had seen the day before at the funeral and at the cemetery. She remembered her strange dream of being on a mountain top and other fragments of dreams she had dreamed in her bed, of being chased by a leopard inside a some kind of church or temple, and another dream where she was dancing with the Sufi dancers, going around and around in circles.

"Sajidah, get down here, girl!" somebody called out. Saj threw her Bon Coeur sweatshirt over her nightgown. She opened the door to the balcony and stumbled out into the light of day.

"Go back to your room," Jane Aimee shouted up at her.

"She can't tell you what to do. Who do she think she is? She can't give orders. Slavery days is over," Roland Williams bellowed.

"I am the acting head of this school," Jane said. "Roland, you are to leave the premises immediately. Sajidah, I said get back in your room."

Roland gestured with his hand toward Jane Aimee. "She said you told her cousin some mess about yesterday. Get down here and tell me what you told him."

"I don't know," Saj said. She was trembling, but she started inching her way down the stairs.

Jane took out her phone.

"I'm dialing 911. You know all too well how quickly the First District can respond to a Bon Coeur call. There are probably several outstanding warrants for you that they can add to the charge of trespassing if you don't leave."

"I'm not worrying about no police. I been put off better plantations that this one. And I seen better French blood than yours run through the streets of Cap-Francais. The last time they hung me in the Place d'Arms. They cut off my head and put it on a stick on the high road to warm the rest of them slaves. You gonna cut my head off, little girl?" As he was yelling, Mr. Williams went in his room and started throwing things in a box.

Jane was still holding her cell phone. She hadn't dialed yet. She smiled tightly at Saj, and said to her, "His grasp of history is worse than his cleaning skills. Go back to your room, Sajidah."

"That's right," Mr. Williams emerged from his room holding a cardboard box stuffed with clothes and other personal items. "Go on back up them stairs and get your things. You and me is leaving."

"You're free to go, Sajidah. But if you leave now, you can never come back." Janes tone chilled Saj to her core.

"Don't do that to that child," Roland said to Jane Aimee. He turned to Saj and said, "I know you don't want no trouble. So I am going to go. The old man thought all I was good for was pushing a mop. But while I was cleaning, I was also reading. Yes, that's right, I can read, and I read every file in the file room. I read yours, too," Mr. William said to Jane Aimee. "You think I'm stupid, but you didn't think my son was stupid, did you? You liked him pretty good."

"Get out!" Jane's calm shattered. Her perfect complexion broke out in red blotches, and veins stood out on her neck as she shrieked. "Get out now!"

Mr. Williams said to Saj, "Baby, you can always find me at Frank's place. That's 1111 St. Claude Avenue. The Backstreet Museum. You come and get me when you had enough of this here nonsense."

He placed the box under his arms and turned with dignity toward the iron gate.

"Wait!" Saj cried. "Let me say goodbye. At least let me say good bye!"

Mr. Williams put the box down and held out his arms. Saj ran straight into them. He drew her to him, and she could feel the steel-like strength of his arms and back. He held her a long time, then let her go.

She watched him leave. She was breathing hard, but she didn't cry.

"Did you really fire him for something I said?" Saj asked.

"Of course not. But now that my grandfather is dead, things are going to change around here. You understand that Roland Williams is not your grandfather, don't you? He's delusional. You heard him say that he had been a slave and been hanged and had his head cut off. That's crazy, right?"

"I guess so...." Saj said.

"You see, Sajidah, my grandfather was a very tolerant man, too tolerant. He had a knack with crazy people and problem children. Angry ghosts and hungry ghosts. Roland William is an alcoholic. You aren't the only one he said inappropriate things to. How can the school go forward with people like that working here?"

Jane placed a hand on Saj's shoulder. Saj had to fight the urge to knock it away.

"You remind me so much of a girl who used to go to school here. She was lovely and smart. But she made a disastrous mistake, and she never graduated. Such a shame. I would hate to see something like that happen to you. You'll be fine if you learn to get along. If you got put out..." Jane stopped. "What would happen to you then?"