We all feared him. You sometimes saw him walking the schoolroom passages, his red cap resting firmly on his scalp and his face a mask of intimidation. I had barely seen him clutching a cane, like other teachers in the school did. He wore calmness, composure, and confidence like military medals. They mostly did the talking for him. Even without breaking any school rules, students bent like swaying plantain trees to greet him. I had seen a couple or so teachers do the same.
He often commanded the classroom with his voice, which seemed to vibrate the very walls of the room. It might have been a general shouting commands to his demoralized men in an effort to rally them. But no, he was talking about verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc., and we looked on like we were all dripping with mortal fear.
My first introduction to him was a bit rash; I mean, there were no handshakes and smiles, but only remorseless lashes. You see, we had been jumping haphazardly on the school benches as junior school students, like excited sheep, when he barged in with his authoritative and commanding voice, and peace and quiet were restored immediately. I was one of the unlucky ones to be summoned forward, and the stripes were unmercifully laid on our backs or backsides—I forget.
We reunited when I entered senior secondary school. He was in charge of the English language course. Those days, I was anxious to get high grades, and I worked my heart out at my books. But it took a while for my academic efforts to bear fruit. I became a favourite of his, for I flourished in the course he taught like a palm tree near a river does. My fellow students were quick to notice. I had donned the celebrity cap without intending to.
Still, the jingling of his keys along the passages sent terror waves to my heart whenever I heard them. Not even after he had commended me heartily for my brilliant performances in a test or exam did it stop.
I remember once our classroom learning veered to a point when we were talking about famous people—in the school, in society, and elsewhere.
“Eh, eh… famous people… like Chidubem.”
And the class laughed. He seemed to have coughed the words deep from his throat.
“You performed exceptionally well in the tests,”
he said at another time. He had handed out the test results, and was standing before the class like a priest ready to deliver a solemn and sad sermon.
“You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”
His voice bounced off the schoolroom walls threateningly. “You all performed very poorly except for him.”
I tried in vain to appear modest, but streaks of pride stuck to my face like a mask, and afterward came the smile. Because of how good I was in his subject, he gave preferential treatment on several occasions. In situations where I should have been squeezed hard, like I saw happen to my fellow students, I managed to escape with a stern warning. From that time, I never felt the harsh—perhaps a little brutal—stripes of his dreaded cane on my back, right up to the time I graduated from school.
I remember one day we were being checked and examined on how we had worked on our vocabulary development one week in school. He was around, and the usually rowdy atmosphere that attended the class when some teachers were handling their subjects had fled, like darkness fleeing from the light of dawn, and the sternness in the atmosphere was almost choking. I was one of those who had broken a rule; I had failed at some of my tasks, and we were collectively made to kneel, our heads bowed, a little like condemned men who had resigned themselves to the hangman’s noose. I remember one boy’s arm was nearly dislocated by a sharp fling of his cane, and the unfortunate boy was in tears and discomfort.
I walked away without as much as a scratch. To be fair, that was the first time I had disregarded his rules, albeit unknowingly, in a long time.
The fact that he used me to make certain good examples in class during lessons didn’t stop bolts of fear from flashing through my heart like lightning flashing across the dark night sky. I’m sure all my classmates experienced this same discomforting feeling, but they only spoke of it on rare occasions when we were free of lessons and discussions flowed back and forth in class.
One moment that stands out for me as his student was after our senior secondary school two exams. The papers had been marked. We often attended school even though the exams had been done with, and we had lively discussions and played interesting games, or we visited each other’s homes. It was the harmattan period, and the cold winds swayed the trees and tingled the skin. I met him one such morning walking energetically down the passages to his office; a bold yet friendly smile rested on his face.
I greeted him respectfully, and he responded and added:
“You wrote a classic essay. It was easily the best among all the students in your class. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir,”
I replied humbly, and swayed a bit like a plantain tree bowing to the wind.
My classmates and I talked excitedly about this. I can’t remember any such time a student was singled out for academic excellence in just one subject. I felt special and laughed heartily at their jokes and smiled at their compliments.
Still, the jingling of his keys continued to strike chords of terror in my heart.
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