A surprising work of fiction where, on a supposedly innocent class trip, things are not all as they seem (or sound!)…
by: Vishwas R. Gaitonde
It was an ancient and uncomfortable bus, and the ride had turned tiring not too long after it had started. The seats were upholstered with stiff Rexine cloth and stuffed with lumpy cotton harder than pebbles. The bus was not air conditioned, and the day was humid and hot. At half past eight in the morning, the passengers’ foreheads glistened and moisture oozed out of their armpits. How was it going to be, Bridget MacLean wondered, when the noonday sun blazed full blast?
All the others on the bus seemed undaunted by the discomfort that Bridget felt from the continuous jolting. Beside Bridget, there were two Sisters, both of them teachers, and a large flock of schoolgirls whose collective prattle created the sound of pigeons cooing incessantly as they fluttered about in a dovecote. The only man on the bus was the driver.
The companion bus behind them was crammed with bright-eyed, cheeky schoolboys. They sang in unison, belting out a song in bursts, like sprays of artillery fire. The words were indistinct but Bridget recognized the tune. It was not an Indian tune but a ditty she remembered from back home. It made her uncomfortable to hear something familiar in such an unfamiliar setting. It was both reassuring and unnerving; it was so out of place and though it brought memories of home, memories that carried with them unsavory associations.
Bridget recognized the tune as “Mademoiselle from Armentières,” a World War I song. The original, for all practical purposes, had become extinct. But there were any number of risqué versions around, each bawdier and dirtier than the other, and these were what everybody remembered. One verse floated, unbidden, into her head:
Mademoiselle from Armentières
Parlez-vous?
Mademoiselle from Armentières
Parlez-vous!
Mademoiselle from Armentières
She hasn’t been kissed for forty years.
Hinky Dinky parlez-vous.
Bridget sighed heavily. The song had hit home, taking her back to when she had joined a convent, to enter religious life as a Sister. Not as a nun; the cloistered life was not for her. She wanted to be involved in outreach. But it didn’t take long to catch on that joining a religious order was neither her cup of tea nor her dollop of Scotch. She had ended up as lecturer in Divinity at the University of Aberdeen, only to eventually find that life in the academy did not suit her either.
Then she received an offer from Foghlam Internationale, an organization involved with education in the British Commonwealth. Could she go to India to monitor a few selected educational institutions there?
“We Scots were great educators, you know. Wherever schools were started in the Empire, you could be sure one of our kind was behind it. More often than not, our missionaries,” Ross Fraser, the Director of Foghlam Internationale told Bridget, shifting his demeanor from lighthearted to serious and back, depending on how he read her reactions. “When the sun finally set on the Empire, we had to hand over our institutions to local bodies we could trust to keep up our good work going. In the part of India you’re going to, many of the institutions founded by the Church of Scotland were taken over by the Church of South India. Some were taken over by the Catholics, and some by non-religious organizations.”
“And those schools are okay having me keep tabs on their activities?” Bridget asked.
“We wouldn’t send you if they weren’t,” said Fraser. “And you’re only gathering information which we will use for possible projects. We’re not going to lecture them on what they ought to or ought not to be doing. They wouldn’t listen even if we did.”
Mademoiselle from Armentières, she hadn’t been kissed in forty years. A ripple of despondency swept over Bridget. After bidding auf Wiedersehen to the abbey, Maria had found her soulmate in Captain von Trapp, but there had been no Captain in Bridget’s life, and no hint of one. And here she was, seated beside a Sister dressed in russet sari, in a bus full of chittering girls, with a bus full of chattering boys hot on their tail.
Bridget had changed her mind about Glasgow being the most disordered city ever when she walked out of Chennai airport and into the bedlam of the metropolis. And humidity, she decided within three days, was the hallmark of the city. It even curdled the sweat. Her work assignment at St. Valentine’s School saved her day. Most schools in Britain these days were coeducational, but St. Valentine’s, Scottish though its roots may have been, was a strange beast. On paper, it was co-ed but in practice, it functioned as two single-sex schools, with the boys and girls attending classes on different campuses. In her head, she had already started drafting her first report to Ross Fraser.
St. Valentine’s had an annual excursion to places that had both educational and recreational features. Bridget had arrived in time for this year’s excursion, to Sathanur Dam. There were several parks and gardens, a crocodile farm, and a fish grotto, explained Sister Mariam Rani, one of the teachers in charge of the trip for the Ninth Standard students. Bridget made a quick mental calculation — that would be the second year of secondary school back home. This was one of the few times where students from the boys’ and girls’ schools participated in a common event.
“We’ll teach them about the importance of dams for irrigation and the economy, and also about animals,” said Sister Mariam Rani. Like hell they’ll listen, Bridget thought, and politely pointed it out.
“Ha ha, they won’t, and we know it,” said Sister Mariam Rani, while Sister Therese Roja, the second teacher who was accompanying them, nodded her head vigorously. “We give them a very short talk to meet the requirements of the excursion, then let them enjoy themselves. If there’s interest, we’ll talk more over the next few days in the classroom.”
“But will there be enough time for them to take everything in?” asked Bridget. Sathanur Dam was a long drive from Chennai, with as much time, if not more, spent on travel than at the destination. “An overnight stay will give them time to take in more.”
The moment she said it, Bridget realized that an overnight stay would hike up the expense of the trip. Besides, it wasn’t just the Ninth Standard that went on an annual excursion, it was every class in the school, each class on a different day. Day trips were the most practical option.
“Stay overnight! No, no, no,” Sister Therese Roja was horrified. “The boys and the girls, they will mingle. We can’t have that. No, no!”
In keeping with the school’s separate-but-equal policy, the boys and the girls were to travel on two different buses, with two of their teachers on each. Bridget was to travel with the girls on the outward journey and with the boys on the return journey.
Now they were on their way, and the song the boys had chosen troubled Bridget. The mademoiselle was a sex object in the song. The boys were putting down the girls on a day when both of them came together, a day that was supposed to foster camaraderie. Was same-sex education as opposed to coeducation not such a good thing after all? She had to make sure Ross Fraser would not evade answering. At Sathanur Dam, the boys and girls were going to mingle for a few hours. And with their song the boys were setting the stage for unrest when they all got off their bus. Bridget told Sister Therese Roja, who was sitting alongside her, that it was a most unsuitable song. She wanted to add that it was not befitting of a Catholic school — what might the Pope think? — but she held her tongue.
“Oh, not to worry, Miss MacLean, no worries at all,” Sister Therese Roja responded, with a coy smile. “Our girls are strong. They are cool as cucumbers.”
She’ll do it for wine, she’ll do it for rum; And sometimes for chocolate or chewing gum; Hinky-dinky parlez-vous. Bridget glanced at Sister Therese Roja. Did the teacher know the words of the song? For the boys to demean the girls, and on a school excursion too, was, in her book, almost as bad as mingling. And for all their moral leanings, the teachers seemed to be fine with the song. Bridget mentally wrote another couple of paragraphs of her report to Foghlam Internationale.
“Miss MacLean, you know when I was a little girl, I read all the novels of Alistair MacLean,” said Sister Therese Roja with a shy look, as though the novelist was Bridget’s husband. “My brother used to get them from the circulating library, and I’d read them after he finished. They were boys’ stories, but I read and enjoyed them. So about the boys singing the song, it’s quite okay. It’s only for a few minutes and it’s a time-pass, no?”
It’s not okay, thought Bridget angrily. How asinine to compare thriller novels with lewd songs. But before she could say anything, she found herself levitating along with everyone else. The bus had run full tilt into a speed bump or a rut, and they had been tossed into the air. Their bottoms smashed down on the hard seats.
“Oh Jehoshaphat!” cried Sister Therese Roja. “Aiyo kadavule, my bum! My poor little bum, it has become chutney!”
But the fanny-cruncher was followed by a sedate stretch of highway where leafy trees on either side of the road caressed each other overhead. The bus trundled down this green tunnel. The road had widened, and the two buses now ran parallel to each other. Bridget got her first glimpse of the boys, their grinning faces bunched up at the bus windows, their hair rumpled by the breeze, their eyes unnaturally shiny. If the girls were cool as cucumbers, the boys were red-hot as chilies. For the first time, Bridget heard the words of their song which they were half-singing, half-shouting with a jaunty bravado. It was a version of “Mademoiselle from Armentières” that she had never heard before.
The boys who come from Tambaram
Parlez vous?
The boys who come from Tambaram
Parlez vous!
The boys who come from Tambaram
They don’t have any bambarams
Hinky dinky parlez vous!
Bridget was nonplussed. There was no mention of a mademoiselle. The focus was on the boys, who came from a place she had never heard of. But what was a bambaram? How was it even spelled — Bomburram? Bamborraime? Bridget wished, as she had on many past occasions, that she had paid more attention to her French lessons. She had no clue as to what the boys were singing about.
But everyone else on the bus did. The cucumbers were no longer cool, they were aroused. Even Sister Therese Roja had quietly clucked and chuckled.
The day wore on, the sun was aflame, and the metal bus had turned into a convection oven. The wind that blew through the open windows was as hot as that in a desert, and carried as much dust and sand. Bridget was sweating. Sister Therese Roja was sweating. The cucumbers and chilies were sweating. The boys burst into the next verse.
The boys who come from Palayamkottai
Parlez vous?
The boys who come from Aruppukottai
Parlez vous!
The boys who come from Palayamkottai
They don’t have a single kottai
Hinky dinky parlez vous!
Every cucumber was hysterical. Tears flowed as though their eyes were smarting from chili powder. Bridget realized that the strange words were not French. And Sister Therese Roja, giggling beside her, knew what they meant.
“Sister, what is a bambaram?” Bridget demanded.
Sister Therese looked stricken, the grin wiped off her face. She lowered her gaze to the floor and moaned, “Oh Jehoshaphat!”
Bridget was not going to let her off so easily, and pressed, “And Sister, what is a kottai?”
“Oh, Miss MacLean, I cannot say it aloud,” Sister Therese Roja’s piteous tone made Bridget fear the worst. “But I can whisper it down your earhole.”
She proceeded to do that, and Bridget’s eyes widened, and her face turned ashen. The boys were singing about deficiencies in their private parts, implying that their manhood was compromised. Far from making the girls a sexual target, they were putting themselves down in a humorous, deprecating manner. Bridget was deflated. She gazed out of the window, but the glare of the sun was too bright for her eyes. She looked down at her feet.
She had four chins, her knees would knock
Parlez-vous?
She had four chins, her knees would knock
Parlez-vous!
She had four chins, her knees would knock
And her face would stop a cuckoo clock.
Hinky-dinky parlez-vous!
Vishwas R. Gaitonde’s work has appeared in Mid-American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Iowa Review, The Millions, Santa Monica Review, Gargoyle, and Epiphany. One of his short stories was cited as a Distinguished Story in the notables list of Best American Short Stories 2016. He was a finalist in The George Floyd Short Story Competition conducted by the Nottingham Writers Studio, Nottingham, England, and that story has been published in the anthology Black Lives, in Britain. Vishwas was also a finalist in The Chautauqua Institution’s Janus Prize “for daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers’ imaginations.
