And the Hall was Silent | latin exam
his fellow students filed in row by row like convicts.
A dead language. Flynn’s voice whispered in his mind. Why do they even teach a dead language? He took off his blazer, felt the gush of a sun-drenched breeze wash over his face. The heavy woollen garment was draped over a rickety seat. He took the hundredth glance down at his shirt: there was nothing left to smooth out or to tuck under or to fidget with, each individual button shone with an oily glint.
His tie was as neat as ever, save for how it danged past his belt-buckle, so that his entire figure was like that of a prisoner ‘bout to be lynched before the gallows. And the imaginary, jeering crowd might’ve well been throwing rotten tomatoes and hollering, for Victor carried about him a sense of impending dread, which was only amplified by those wide, darting eyes and unruly hair.
His fellow students filed in row by row like convicts(or at least he thought so). The memorial hall: a stately, dignified place, was now full of the jests and erratic footsteps of rowdy schoolboys. Bum-ba-bum went the dusty shoes against polished floorboards. The tables screeched as the boys crammed themselves into the chairs, not even bothering to pull them back before that sat. And all along this animated scene was glazed by a glaring Melbourne sun, so that the faces were hazier and the shirts were stuffier.
Victor made sure to ease himself into his station without a sound. He was still thinking about Flynn and his comments on Latin. Yes, it was a strange subject to learn. If French and Italian were graceful, lively young ladies, one with a beret perched at a saucy angle, the other with clothing designed to fare la bella figura; If that were all true, Latin would be their bent old nurse, tottering behind them in a tightly drawn overcoat and immaculately plaited hair.
If this was anywhere else, anytime else, Victor would’ve laughed at the imagery. But he pinched himself in the leg and swallowed that little bit of respite to face what it was that lay before him.
A rectangular image of doom, with black letters jutting out from a pristine expanse of untouched paper, judging his every movement. He dared not put his hand near it, save to touch it or flip it around. To him it was so otherworldly, so alien and harsh. Latin, latin, latin. He felt something looming over his head; he tasted iron in the air, heard the hollers of his imaginary crowd and the smirk of his executioner. The heat crept up his nostrils and lit his eyebrows. He was burning.
Inside, his mind furiously worked at the words: fumbling them about like a toddler and his building-blocks. laboro, laborare, laboravi, laboratus. Yes, that’s how it goes. But which one meant ‘to work’, and which one was ‘had worked”? He scratched at his head and forced his eyes shut. What was the infinitive of subtuli? What about the ablative of rex? Why did the verb sum conjugate in the way it did? When did Emperor Nero watch the burning of Rome?
The questions rushed through him in a violent surge. No, he was in control. He had seen those words before, read them out to the mirror and written them again and again in red ink. He opened his eyes.
The magnus arches of the hall looked like the maw of a whale. The clamores and the cantus struck together and formed a titular, screeching melody. He heard the corvi screech outside, and imagined them circling his corpus with red eyes and oily, ink-black plumae. He visi the teachers: tall and stiff. In his mind they portaverunt a set of scales and weights in their hands. discipulum visi, scriptum. timorem sensi, reptatum.
o tempora, o mores!
Heads turned around. His eyes widened. His hands were held at his mouth but it was too late: his cry of discomfort and panic was heard, echoing outwards. Now he imagined all the different eyes, saw in them all the different signs of jest held-back and smothered laugher. Even the monitors turned for a moment, stopping in the tracks: towering statues robed in shades of black and brown and grey.
And then the muttering began, and Victor knew that by the end of the day, everyone would be talking about the crazy boy in the latin examination. A lazy bead of sweat traced a line down his face. He felt the urge to wipe it away, but he was paralysed with panic or embarrassment: he did not know which.
Too late: it splotched onto the page. He took a breath, and shook his untidy mane: it should be time.
The first bell rang.
There was a shudder as a hundred pens were picked up from a hundred worn desks by a hundred sweaty hands, and then hall was silent once more.
oh Victor, how relatable you are when it comes to Latin semester-exams!
wink wink,
-v.
