“meImagine an eleven year old girl. Don’t try to imagine her at eight, five, or three years old. In just eleven, try to keep this point in mind, like a knot at the end of a sewing thread. One day, when I was eleven, Sister Tan called me into her office one afternoon, with instructions to style my hair and bring my bag. When I introduced myself, I put my bag in front of Sister Tan and beckon me to sit on the chair by the door. There were two visitors who smiled at me. A man and a woman are neither too young nor too old. They were seated on chairs usually occupied by people who would come to donate to St. Mary’s Church.
Sister Tan kept repeating: “Yes, yes.” Providence smiled at us. The Lord has accompanied us in our efforts. »
Sister Tan was almost beautiful. Her hair fell out when she washed it and she gave herself a bohemian look. She wore kurtas, long skirts, and large earrings, which she had bought in Indian stores in Brickfields. I said “almost” pretty. She had grooves on either side of her mouth that went down to her chin. With her red lips, she looked like a doll speaking from her stomach. She couldn’t stop smiling that day, it seemed like her face would split in two and her jaw would be lost.
I sat on the chair facing the wall facing the office, behind the visitors. Sister Tan started searching in my bag. I was angry. My briefcase was one of my few personal belongings at home. We were thirty girls in St. Mary’s, having no place to hide anything: eight inn in a room, wardrobe for three, desk for four, house for thirty, and that’s it. We weren’t on top of each other either, but it was nearly impossible to hide a diary or even a simple sewing project that we didn’t want to show others. I campaigned for every girl to have her own wardrobe, but I thought Sister Tan wouldn’t like it very much, being told what to do. So I kept my secrets between the pages of my textbooks and in the lining of my backpack that was falling apart in places.
Sister Tan has pulled off some homework and a craft project, a woven paperback book cover. I displayed it as if it were a masterpiece. I was ashamed. She was much less elegant than girls from good families, with a lot of different colored sheets.
“She also knows how to play chess,” Sister Tan added.
I didn’t understand how important that was. She only spoke to me about it once, one day when I was playing a game against myself. “Do you play chess or one of those games of your own invention? You asked me.
“In chess. White can take the black queen in three moves. I told myself she wasn’t too smart not to notice that I was playing checkers on the chessboard.”
The woman turned her chair to smile at me. “Very well, she can play with Ming.” I don’t know anything about her. »»
Xie Lee Kou, Our total stupidity (2014), translated from English (Malaysia) by Frederic Grelier, Zulma, Cole. The Pocket, 2020, pp. 49-51.