My French Teacher

My French Teacher by Olusola Olugbesan (1966)

The only hope of any form of exchange between my French teacher and her numerous admirers was in a classroom situation, hence, this became the arena in which all jostling and hustling for attention were played out. Everything was done in good humour.

There was a need for peace among warring males. There was a silent need to keep individual thoughts and desires private though this would come bursting forth in periodic moments of camaraderie. Nevertheless there was this undercurrent of competition for attention firmly in place and at times brought into sharp focus through creative antics, some smart, and some not so smart.

There were boys who were definitely good looking and obviously knew it. They openly flaunted it, and with some degree of success, I thought.
There were boys who were deviant in dressing, employing such tough acts as high-flying shirt collars, loosely buttoned shirts, heavy rings, neck
chains, ‘wella-ed’ hair styles . There were those who would refuse to give straight answers to straight questions, preferring to do a verbal dance with the teacher, sometimes to the delight of the class, and so on.

Physically, I was no match for some of those dare-devils. I couldn’t afford ornamentation, I didn’t have a rebellious nature either, so I adopted a different approach.

Earlier on, I had had another French teacher - my first. Her name was Nadja. It was my first year in school too. For whatever reason, either for fondness of her or love of French, I started to study ahead of the class, with the effect that I found it easy to follow her lessons. The peak of this was when three of us volunteered to write a sketch drama each in French, to be performed in class. Mine came out tops and she was visibly impressed.

Of course I did not have the easy ability and natural flair for French that the likes of Ogunyinka and Akintola had. The latter spoke it like a native. But I was spared the agony of hopeless competition, for the two were in a different arm of my class. I held sway in mine. Nadja, in her time was also the cynosure of everybody’s eyes (who says ‘French’ is not sexy!).

She was European, and very pretty. Rumour had it she was dating our History teacher, then the strictest person I had ever met. I never caught him with a smile. The so-and-so always wore a scowl.

We later heard rumours of nocturnal visits to Nadja’s quarters by some of the more daring senior boys. I got attention quite alright in Nadja’s class, but I never got to visit her quarters, and she didn’t stay very long before she left.

Never change a winning combination. When my new French teacher came and took over, I borrowed from my formula again. I made for the school library and started to devour French journals well beyond my year. I armed myself to the hilt. With strange vocabulary at once confusing and exciting, I would make for the classroom gleefully, whenever we had French lessons.

My French teacher was in the habit of using French to explain difficult or new French words. That way, I guess she believed we would be richer for it, which I thought was right.

On this fateful day, she was at close of a lesson when she dropped a new word on us, ‘cheval’. Everybody went blank. That is, everybody else
except me. Of course I knew what ‘cheval’ was. It was ‘HORSE’ in English. Arms flaying, chest heaving, there was nothing she did not do in trying to transmit the meaning of this word to the class in French to no avail.

I followed her explanations perfectly, but I was too amused by her frustration and consternation and excited at the secret power of my knowledge, to spoil my fun by foolishly admitting to understanding. All I did was to sit back and watch with detached and quiet fascination, waiting to see if and when she would succeed, and who would be the first to blurt out the right meaning.

Several guesses had already been shot down. All of a sudden, she began to gesticulate and to make horse-like movements as far as feminine grace would permit, and blurted out in frustration, ‘...ce que les homme mont?’

I was noted for off-the-cuff smart retorts, and she had set herself up too perfectly for this. I couldn’t resist it. She asked for it . I did not miss a beat nor bat an eye and the rest of the class were still looking blank when I promptly replied, ‘...les filles...’.

She shot up like a bolt of lightning, slowly turned around in my direction, surveyed me, bewildered, shook her head, and declared in sorrowful
contemplation, ‘...Olugbesan...I am sorry for you...’

I smiled, feeling good with myself, and apologised. The rest of the class was baffled. All communication except for the last exchange had gone on in French and, of course, they couldn’t follow it. I felt good because I had finally engaged my sexual heroine in direct combat. She had looked
at me directly and I had looked back, unflinching, and I knew that our minds had been temporarily locked in a common survey of a sexual vista,
occasioned by imageries pregnant in our exchange, known only to both of us. There was a mutual recognition of our masculinity and femininity over and above the immediate classroom situation.

In order to douse the curiosity of the rest of the class, she adroitly manoeuvred the situation in a new direction, also to avoid having to make any
embarrassing explanation. She knew it and I knew it, and she knew that I knew it. It was momentary, brief, fleeting, but nevertheless real. For once, I walked toe to toe, arm in arm with my French teacher. I felt the sweet sensation of success.

She probably dismissed the episode from her mind as soon as she stepped outside the class, butf or me, young and impressionable as I was, it was momentous and memorable. It was the closest and the only sexual encounter we ever had, but it was enough for me. We had for a moment, shared something private, secret, and unknown to everyone else right there in public. We could not even divulge the contents of our exchange.

Tight-roping, the two of us, alone, the feeling was heady. I walked tall. It was my finest hour in the French class. For me that encounter beat all the ‘peeping’, all the ‘fallen pens’, and all the other shenanigans young students resorted to in the inevitably futile strife to play out the fantasies of their emerging masculinity and familiarise themselves for a fleeting moment with the forbidden riches ensconced under the well-starched skirts of their favourite teachers.

Submitted By: 

OLUGBESAN Olusola Olatunbosun
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