Whatever Happened To Dinma?
By: Erere Onyeugbo
Tags: Boarding School, Fiction, Children, Murder

Let me tell you how it all begins.

First, we arrive innocent. Our daywear and uniforms are ironed and folded into neat, scented boxes. Our heads are closely shaved. Our skin is soft and supple, and our eyes are aglow with a pristine, wide eyed naiveté. Some of us still wet the bed.



We roll out boxes across the dirt and granite till we get to the dorms smelling deeply of disinfectant and GBC air freshener. Everything appears neat but our senses are heightened at this deception. There is a thick web of something sordid underneath, a bramble of thorns behind the strange smiles bestowed on us. We see it in the urine soaked bed relegated to the farthest end of the dormitory, the mass of hurriedly shoved clothes spilling out of a weary cupboard, the hesitance with which we hand our boxes over to those too eager to help us unpack.

At the pavilion, the separation is a gory affair. I’m talking tears and snot and blood from scraped knees that comes from trashing too wildly. Some of us cling to our mothers so tightly that leaving feels like the premature yanking of an umbilical cord from a hapless fetus, while some look on with an unperturbed, stoic expression. Some of us are glad to be away from the violence of our homes, the adventurous are thrilled at the prospects of a new environment, a chance to leave the boring stillness of normal.



The last two categories have a higher chance of survival than the rest of us.

On this first night, we are slightly apprehensive. Some are excited. On this night, we are bathed and scrubbed clean by some superiors who feel their maternal instincts kick when they set their eyes on our smallness, on our sad, confused faces. They brush our hair and dab cologne on our skin. Then they comb through our bags, select the prettiest night wears and don it on us.

The sifting of the char begins.



We are told to line up. There is talcum powder spread all over out necks and chests. Our teeth are clean, oversize pajamas hangs awkwardly on our forms and everything smells of newness. This is not to say we are all naïve. Some of us know. They come prepared. Their silk nightwear clings to their prepubescent bodies, their perfumes are stronger than ours and they are eager to be noticed. They did not apply powder all over their bodies the way we did and now we are made to look like sacrifices marinated in Moju powder. They laugh easily at the jokes thrown at us. They own the JJC term like a second skin, the rest of us buckle underneath its weight.

“Welcome.” A voice says. It belonged to a tall, dark girl with broad hips and a characteristic walk. Her day wear is cut several inches above the knee and it appears brazen to our unsullied eyes. We can see the way her thighs slap when she walks but we pretend not to notice. Instead, we stare at our feet and bite our fingers.



She instructs one of us to drag out a small cupboard and she sits on it to regard us closely. She holds a headless mop stick and taps it on the ground in a slow threatening way. The silence is thick here but outside, we can still here the rumble of boxes rolled on the cement veranda and the voices of senior students who have come to sneak a peak at the JJC students.



She should be 16, but on that wooden pedestal, she seemed like a god. A Nordic priestess destined to preponderate over us with mop sticks and condescending glances.



“My name is Senior Dinma, and there are two basic facts about me.”



She swept her eyes over us in the pin drop silence.



“I don’t tolerate dirt, and I don’t tolerate stubbornness. Abide by these rules and the ones on your prospectus and we will not have problems. Anyone in senior secondary with vertical stripes on their day wear, you refer to them as 'Senior’. Anyone with horizontal stripes are in junior secondary. A class or two above you. So you will refer to them as Sister This or Sister That. Is that clear?”



“Yes, Senior.” We chorused. Some voices were demure, some overly enthusiastic.



“If you know you wet the bed, step aside.”



There was a murmur among us as the tallest of us stepped out. She hung her head in shame. The first day wasn’t going too well for her.



“Biggie! So you dey piss for bed too?” Senior Dinma sneered and people laughed. Some amongst us were bold enough to giggle. I shuddered, remembering something I had learnt on Encarta kids about predators and preys. The preys had to stick together to survive. Already, we were disintegrating. I marked it down. (Lesson 1: You are alone.)

Senior Dinma took the 'bedwetters’ to a corner. They had a special area designated for them in the dormitory. It was a humiliating exercise but no one wanted to be caught unaware with a bed wetting bunkmate. It was worse when they got the top bunk as urine could slip past the iron strings and onto your sleeping form. Or your open mouth. Either way, you got baptized by pee.



She came back to find us still standing in line but uneasy on our feet. Some girls had began to strike up small conversations but I remained silent.



“So it seems the school admitted an entire set of chatter boxes, eh?” Senior Dinma inquired. No one had seen her walk in. A hush descended on the line that had now become a semi circle. She reclaimed her wooden cupboard throne and continued to observe us. We squirmed.



“Oyibo, come here.” She said to a girl at the edge of the line, whom we had not really noticed.



Her skin was lighter than the rest of us and there was a small mop of curls atop her head. It made us run our hands across our scraped scalps and curse silently at our coffee coloured skin. The girl stepped forward and we all tried not to gasped. She had green eyes.



“Oyibo, come and stand beside me.” Senior Dinma instructed. For the first time, with a smile. There was a slight glint in her eyes as she said this. A prize had been claimed, a stake had been laid. “You will be my bunk mate and my school daughter from now henceforth, okay? What’s your name?”



“Comfort.” The girl whispered and Senior Dinma beamed at the foreign lilt of her accent. She had acquiesced to Senior Dinma’s request without even knowing what it involved. It was a trap, and to say no would be an aberration, a threat to Senor Dinma’s authoritarian mien. We had heard stories, and some of us even envied Comfort for her new found luck. Surely, she would be shielded from Mass punishments and labour. She would be pampered by this Senior Dinma whom everyone seemed to respect. And dread. It was only the beginning.

A throng of seniors swarm into our dormitory now. They fawn over us and soon some of us have been picked as bunkmates and school daughters. Different criteria are used for this period; the length of your lashes, the brightness of your eyes, the vulnerability in your bones as they wrap their hands around your wrist. The more superficial your looks, the greater your chances of being swept up, daughtered, protected. Except of course your parents had cornered a senor at the gate and bribed them to take care of you. Why did they do this – throw us to a pack of wolves and try to win over one with favours and monetary gifts? If it was so bad, why did they let us go at all?



The ones who came prepared were taken, of course. The seniors fell in love with their fearlessness, their sharp tongues, their eagerness to belong. Deep down, we all knew everyone wanted Comfort. But Senior Dinma had been swift.

This is what happens before we begin to shrink like turned grapes. Before ink spills into the pockets of our day wears and the soles of our feet blacken from the sun scorched earth we till, before our back begins to grow scars.

We shed off our innocence methodically. The next term, we slip a packet of prohibited bubble gum past the scrutiny of the house mistresses. The term after that, we remove two layers of sugar cubes to hide a can of sardine at the bottom of the packet. Next, we dump our Moby Dicks and Nani Boys for Harlequin, Blaze, and Mills and Boons whose provocative paperbacks we conceal with newspapers and brown stencil sheets. Our skin is no longer supple and we have ditched clean shaven heads for a stylish haircut with a moderate amount of hair.



Next, we pretend not to listen in the dark as a bunk rocks under the weight of two; in rhythm with repressed moans. The SAY NO TO LESBIANISM signboard situated beside the tuck-shop flashes through our minds eye, but we say nothing. We learn to swallow our tongues and slip through the cracks of consciousness in silence. We read, and we watch and watch.







***



Senior Dinma led an almost mythical existence. There were so many stories about her, particularly her propensity to do evil. There was a tale of how she had once punished a girl in Topaz house by wrapping her hand around an ice cube which she held till it melted. We couldn’t imagine the extent of the pain, but we did hear that the girl had her hand numb and paralyzed for a couple of days. We heard that she had once single handedly carried out an abortion in the hostel with the bent hook of an iron hanger. They said she had bled and bled for days, but well, we hadn’t witnessed it, so we did not believe.



They said she changed school daughters as often as she changed the kito sandals she wore with her daywear, which was frequent, and that afterwards, those girls never recovered themselves. We never questioned what she did to them or what became of them. We hadn’t witnessed it, so we did not believe.



She had large doleful eyes, a large nose where beads of perspiration liked to gather on its bridge, with small lips which she liked to upturn at the right corner, even when she wasn’t sneering. She made a slight part on her hair every morning and opted for ankle socks while we drew ours religiously to our knees. She was a member of the Band Girls and she beat the base drum. The school band was straightforward, no misnomers, no double entendres. There were no bassoons, clarinets, violins, cellos, or oboes; it was simply what it was, a group of girls hitting drums. Band girls were cool because most of them were tomboys. They wore bandanas across their foreheads without repercussions. The walked with a swagger and did not tuck in their t-shirts, they made up beats from popular songs that excited us, and they had the privilege of wearing mufti during inter-house sports; sneakers, matching trousers and collared shirts. It was the mark of coolness because our uniforms by then had become drab and common place. We had begun to hate it.



But Senior Dinma was different. She did not fly her shirt or tie bandanas around her head or neck in imitation cowboy style. We knew she was special because the male National Youth Service Corpers liked to punish her or send her to their office which was the Basic Technology lab by the east end of the school, behind the SS1 block that was made of bare bricks and zinc. It was a covert, lonely place. We saw the way their eyes lingered on her bossoms, the way they pretended to hate her and pick faults so that she could get punished or sent to the lab. Perhaps this was an avenue to channel their disgusts for themselves or squash their budding desire for a minor. Either way, we pretended like we never saw the victorious smirk on her lips, the sashay, and the few open buttons on the ruffled shirt of her uniform when she emerged from the labs. Among her mates, she had a reputation for being a flirt with the male teachers, a slut, a whoremonger, a dybbuk. We did not care, and we did not believe it.



She was kind to us. She made us cups of Horlicks from her own provision, let us sleep on her bed when we fell sick, cradled us when we were struck by nightmares, whispered love into our ears when we threw homesick tantrums. She was so good that when we eventually began to taste the appetizers of her torment, we felt like we deserved it.

The first time it happened, it was because our house came last during the Saturday hostel inspections. As soon as the results were announced, she barged into the hostel in a fit of rage, locked the doors and told us to ignore the sound of the Bell for lunch. We were mobilized to the centre of the square piece of land outside the dormitory. It was bordered by ixoras and frangipanis but smelled of stale urine. People relived themselves there at night when the toilets seemed to ominous to visit. We watched as the other students trudged to the dining hall. Hunger gnawed at our stomachs because we only had the dining food to rely on – we were the JJCs who had finished their provisions within the first week of school.



She instructed everyone – except Comfort, who was miraculously absent from the hostel while this went down – to lie face up on the floor reeking of urine and ridden with algae. We were to lie there, facing the harsh sun with our eyes wide open and our hands clasped over our chest.

During the midterm break, Mmachi returned with an array of eye drops and ointments. She said when she told her parents what Senior Dinma had done, they had shrugged and told her it was all part of the training. To toughen you, to make you less susceptible to the adversities of life. That was the way with our parents. They would say, “We went through it, why can’t you? Look how I turned out today. It made me a better person. If I can survive, you can too.”



The only thing they cold see was the superficial; our scrawny, darkened complexions. They would feed us and send us back to school, robust, proud at the wonders their good nutrition could work. But they do not address the numbness of our psyche, the somnolent violence winding it’s* way through our veins. There was only the quiet reassurance that one day, we would get to the senior class and become emboldened with the power to bully, just as we had been bullied.



Meanwhile, Comfort was shrinking. She was still adored. Seniors called her to their classes which was a territory not ordinarily traversed. She was summoned there so they could listen to her yet undiluted accent and touch the soft curls on her hair. We were jealous of her. Of her daintiness, her propensity to survive without relying on the watery meals served by the school. She snubbed us in turn, walking with those several classes above her while purely ignoring her academics.



I was quiet, almost mousy and inconsequential. I was smart enough to avoid being bullied, yet small enough to fit into spaces where I existed primarily to watch events unfold.



There was a shroud of victimhood that seemed to hang over her. Her hair had begun to lack lustre, and she wasn’t as confident as she was when she first came in. I had begun to hate her since the day I tried to strike up a conversation with her at the steps leading to the Catholic Church. I had asked her, sweetly, to adjust blue satin scarf on my head so it would look like hers. She had styled hers uniquely into a flat piece that opened up into whorl like pattern on her forehead. She regarded me with a withering look that was amplified by the snaky green of her eyes, and hissed. Snappishness and a disregard for female chumminess was perhaps, a thing of the elite, but I couldn’t let it go.



I felt a budding resentment towards her, but since that day, I could not stop being obsessed. I made sure I was the last to leave the classroom. I skipped lunch often because everyone would be at the dining hall and I would have the chance to break into her locker and sift through her things. I had a letch to smell them, touch them, feel the pages of her Basic Science textbooks where her fingers had lingered. She had a diary but it was all written in shorthand. Every single word. I envied her ability to be so cryptic. When the bell for night prep went off, I ran back to the hostel so I could fill her buckets up with water while I fetched mine, quickly and quietly before a queue formed at the mouth of the tap. It was always chaotic. Sometimes I wonder if she knew that these small acts of service were performed by me, if she questioned where they came from at all. Did she know that I hated and loved her? That those two emotions which fiercely juxtaposed resided comfortably within me and often intermingled?



Everyday, I watched as she became smaller, diminishing into a mollusk.



Senior Dinma had begun inflicting irrational punishments on her, and there were rumors that she was bound to be dumped. She stopped paying attention in class, her day wear began to look dirty and rumpled, her sandals were often coated in dust that contrasted with her milky complexion. She often looked helpless and lost, making an endless circuit around the hostel because she was too frightened to go in. I noticed her pinched face, her weary expression, the way our gales of laughter seemed to bounce around her, never penetrating, never letting a beam of happiness slip into her dullness of her eyes. In addition, her grades began to drop drastically.



It took one night to find out why.



I had been listening in the dark to the sound of crickets and the footstep of the security men who patrolled the hostels when I heard a muffled scream. It was quick, uneasy to decipher. I heard it come from Senior Dinma’s corner. It was followed by a whispered threat; “Suck it, or I break your knuckles.”



There was silence after that. It was interrupted by a dispassionate slurping sound. Then the bunk began to creak, slowly but steadily. I could hear someone breathing deeply, I could hear comfort sobbing quietly. Surely, I wasn’t the only one awake and bearing witness to another’s trauma. Surely, someone else had to be awake. There is a big sign board condemning lesbianism beside the tuck-shop, but where was the condemnation against normalized abuse? I was paralyzed by an overwhelming fear.



After a while, the bunk ceased to creak. Comfort emerged, quaking, blathering quietly and shaking. I watched her pull out a small empty bucket from under the bunk and brush her teeth vigorously, spitting volumes of viscous phlegm into it. When she looked up, she caught my eyes and in that instant, I knew I was complicit. Comfort climbed into her bed and slept off. As though she had silently transferred her burdens to me, I did not sleep a wink.







***



It happened two weeks to the inter-house sports, on a February that still held the last vestiges of the harmattan winds. The nights were still cold, and harsh. It was the same week Angela had her upper incisor knocked out with a discus during practice. It was a terrible accident because her best friend, Kosi had not known she was standing behind her when she swung, aiming to gather momentum for a throw, oblivious to the presence of Angela standing behind her. I remember the fierce red blood mixing with the green grasses on the field, on Kosi’s shirt, on the steps leading to the dispensary. We should have known that was a precedent for things to come.



It was on a Friday night. Prep was usually unserious, and noisy. As usual, I snuck past the class monitor and ran to the hostel so I could fill up my buckets long before people began milling to the taps. I walked into the hostel and that was when I heard someone gasping for breath in the dark.



It was Senior Dinma. She was having what seemed to be an asthmatic attack. Her lungs were in a protest and it was evident in the way she struggled and tried to reach for the inhaler that was few inches away from her. Standing over her writhing form with folded hands and a grin was Comfort. She made no move to help.



Comfort looked at me as I came upon the scene. Once again, our eyes made contact just as it had on that night I witnessed her body being violated. It was one out of many. I did nothing and now she was making eye contact again, daring me to do anything this time. II couldn’t move. Instead, I watched as she kicked the inhaler farther away from Senior Dinma’s reach.



There is violence in us all. The one we try to rein in and channel through a slightly modest vein, but which rears its ugly head every now and then. We see it in the surge of excitement we feel at a riot, the frisson a violent video game gives. We should like to kill, to squash, crouch behind a shrub with a spear with hearts thrumming wildly to the beat of drums, to build a thing and destroy it. This feeling is tucked in, over ridden by common sense, Bach, Chopin, prescribed etiquettes. But like a huge feet unable to withstand the pain of being shoved into a small shoe, my violence spilled out of the edges like a soufflé. Possessed by a certain righteous rage, I dropped my school bag and grabbed a pillow which I placed over senior Dinma’s head. She was already dying anyway, I only helped to quicken its finality.



Comfort and I never said a word to each other. Not even on the assembly ground where the announcement was made and everyone shuddered. Not when we both left the hostel and she ran to the dining hall, dramatically screaming that she had found her darling bunk mate and school mother dead. Not when the whole school was silent and the bells that ordered our daily existence seemed to ring with a grave timbre. We were all questioned by the police but it was done perfunctorily. We were little girls, what did we know about murder? They all knew what killed senior Dinma and even the principal spoke about not on the assembly ground. Dinma would have gotten help with an inhaler if she attended night prep like the rest of the school. In other words, death was what you got for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.







***



The administrative block is painted blue and yellow. The sides of the buildings are fringed with well manicured lawns. My heart drums wildly against my rib cages, but for some reason, I smile and smile.



The topography here is askew. Sometimes it is hilly, other times the earth descends into a gaping valley with a maneuver that is completely unprecedented. There are stories that the school was once a grave yard and that at night, the field becomes a river where the marine species come out to display their lustrous shiny scales. I shrug. There is no boarding school that does not have tales of animistic origins. The mind of the adolescent is wonderfully imaginative.



The corridors in the buildings are empty, devoid of students. No one ever loitered around here anyway. The bureaucratic aura was as feral as Flintstones. I cautiously pick my way into the principal’s office, taking care to make sure that my shoes do not click clack and echo around the corridors. There was a sanctimonious silence about it that weighed oppressively on my shoulders.



I greet the secretary.



My greeting is frenetic. I genuflect too low and sweep my hands across my buttock so thoroughly that I suspect any modicum of crease has been vanquished. A lone fan whirls on the ceiling. Stacks of books and old files are on her desk. She seemed to be transferring the content of the files into a computer.



“Yes?” She asked without looking up from the computer. She punches the keys a bit too hardly and I fight the urge to tell her a soft punch would do. This was not the time to be dramatic. And me? I’ve never been one to draw attention to myself.



“I have information on Senior Dinma’s death.”



She looked up then. Her mouth formed an uncertain ‘O’. She jammed it shut but I could see the uneasiness in her eyes.



“Give me a minute.” She disappeared into the principal’s office shielded by a thick door. It was easy. I had two options – report Comfort and implicate myself as someone who was complicit to her abuse, or exonerate her and claim I was the one who placed a pillow over her head as she suffocated..



The secretary came out in less than a minute and ushered me in with a strange fervour. Suddenly, I mattered. TheThe principal was on her feet in the plush, air conditioned office. She seemed smaller. During assemblies, standing on the podium with our school logo boldly carved into the wall behind her, she seemed imposing as she admonished and reprimanded. Now, she was like a frail old woman with a stringent bun, wire rimmed glasses and an anxious expression.



“Sit, girl. How do you do?”



I nodded.



“Please tell me what you know.” She urged.



I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began to speak.