…when Ingmar pressed her to attend a nun’s funeral, just to see if it was any different from a normal burial, she agreed. They permitted the children to attend if they chose to do so. It was not something Glenda planned to repeat, however. This was solely to satisfy Ingmar’s curiosity and allay her boredom, or so she told herself. Having only ever been to Doric’s funeral, a moving if stressful experience for her, she found the impersonal, dry-eyed ceremony for the late but seemingly unlamented Sister, a little chilling to say the least. It was Ingmar’s first experience of a funeral ceremony and she was suitably impressed by all the solemnity, but she could not resist a mischievous whisper, “Hey man, these people look more dead than she is. I wish she’d wake up and put some life into them. Can you imagine how they’d run out of here, hey?’

‘Only you could think of something as daft as a corpse putting life into the living. The only thing is she wouldn’t be a corpse anymore if she got up, would she?’

‘Ja, man, but it would be a scream, hey?’ was her gleeful pun in response.

‘Ingmar! Now you want to be entertained at a funeral?’

Glenda was horrified and afraid that someone may have heard and that they’d both be banished in disgrace.

‘Ja, but they seem so lifeless. There should be more feeling at a funeral. You know, more snot and trane man?’

‘Okay! These are nuns, remember. I guess they aren’t supposed to show too much feeling or something,’ Glenda tried to explain. The more worldly Ingmar was unconvinced.

‘What about that nun in your old school? Remember, you told me about how the crazy priest klapped her one?There must have been plenty of feeling and action then, hey?’

‘I didn’t say they were perfect,’ Glenda returned lamely.

As they left the cemetery the irrepressible Ingmar continued her musing,’You know what I think?’

‘No, but I have a feeling it won’t be flattering to the dear Sisters now will it?’

‘No really, it’s just this–those nuns take out all their frustrations on us because they have to obey all those stupid rules. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, and they are even told how to feel? A person can’t live like that man.’

‘Tell me, Ingmar, ever heard of something called discipline?’

‘Too often in this place! What I say is there’s discipline and discipline.You know what I mean?’

‘Nooo, but I’m sure it’s something very wise though.’

‘Don’t you get sarcastic with me, my girl. I’m serious man.’

‘Okay, okay. Explain your version of discipline, oh wise one.’

‘Discipline is when you stop yourself from murdering someone when you really want to kill them, like I used to want to kill your brother sometimes last year when I was still his cherie. On the other hand, you will never make me believe that stopping yourself from crying when you feel sad, is discipline. That is just plain stupid, my friend. You just see, one day you will agree with me and say, ‘man that mad Ingmar was right, hey’. Just you wait and see, the people in this place are not normal. All they know is punish, punish, punish, and it does nothing for discipline, right? Look at yours truly,’ she ended with a cheeky gesture at herself. She went off whistling as usual, to the annoyance of the nun on pail-carrier duty nearby, who shook her head in disapproval before she resumed her pacing and returned to her interrupted prayers…

The story is set in the midlands of Natal, South Africa, in the decades of the nineteen fifties and sixties. The two boarding schools were run by a religious community instead of the government, because of scarce education facilities in rural areas for Coloured children, during the apartheid era.

•          Lynda Rogle©

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