The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (22 page)

*

The church cool in the shadows in spite of the heat outside. A cement cavern with a roof that is also used to store feed and
diesel-engine parts. A dusty gold cloth draped over the altar. There was no vestry, just that one room. A velvet robe hung
on a nail. Nothing on the walls but a one-legged crucifixion dangling precariously above the altar. Occasionally Christ fell
and Theofilus had to nail him back up. The strange thing was that it had been built to be a church. It wasn’t converted from
something else, which would have given it some excuse. A piece of plastic covering a broken window flapped now and then in
the feeble breeze.

Mavala didn’t play the organ. She only sang a little. Then she left early. Stood up, crossed herself, and walked out. She
had to go to the dining hall to cook for the few boys who remained.

Pohamba and I made some spaghetti and sauce. Pohamba talked into the night about Christmas in Otavi, with his enormous family.
He said there was sometimes so much family they had to rent a hall. Cold spaghetti is Christmas? How is it possible? I wondered
why he hadn’t gone this year. The house up the road empty of the principal. I could feel my not going to her in my stomach,
and his not wanting to be alone, practically demanding it, talking on about Christmas in Otavi, how this could not be Christmas.
Music, dancing, roasted pigs, and beer.

“And liver, we always have liver on Christmas in Otavi.”

“Liver?”

“Why don’t you go to her?”

“It’s fine.”

“She’s alone on Christmas.”

“No, she’s got Tomo. It’s fine.”

Us by the fire late, until the heat gave out and the chill woke us up.

AN ORDINARY DROUGHT

I
’m a diversion,” I said.

“Did I say that?”

“A weigh station.”

“No.”

“A break in your action.”

“I said no.”

“An oasis.”

“Fine—you’re an oasis.”

“A pillow to lay your weary head.”

“Yes.”

“No, I’m a grave.”

“Grieta’s?”

“Yes, Grieta’s.”

“What did she die of?”

“Living here.”

“Yes!”

“And she starved.”

“Whites don’t starve.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Name a white that’s starved.”

“The Irish. Jews. Russians. Poles when they weren’t killing Jews. Some Mormons. I am pretty sure some Mormons starved.”

“A round for Kaplansk! Whites suffer too! What else did she die of?”

“Spinsterhood.”

“She died of not having a man? That’s stupid.”

“There’s been documented cases. Look at your sister.”

“
Having
a man is her problem.”

“Right, that’s true. But all he does is sweat over you.”

“What man doesn’t sweat over me?”

“Vilho.”

“Vilho doesn’t count.”

“Festus.”

“You think Festus would refuse me?”

“You’d sleep with Festus?”

“For ten thousand rand.”

“For ten thousand rand, I’d sleep with both of them.”

“Both who?”

“Dikeledi and Festus.”

“That’s because all you want is Dikeledi. To get her, you’d take Festus.”

“Festus would take up the whole bed. Anyway, forget Dikeledi. There’s only you. You.”

“Only me.”

M
orning meeting slowly rising, and Pohamba pounds.

“I remembered something in my sleep,” he says.

“Can’t you tell it tomorrow?”

I listen to him turn over. I can see him cupping his head in his hands, talking to the ceiling, happily wrecking other people’s
sleep.

“You asked me to tell you about independence. I was at the Dolphin the day of the election. The radio was on. You know the
matron? Tangeni’s wife?”

“The drunk one?”

“Yes, except it was strange. That day she wasn’t drunk. It was noisy outside in the street, everybody was already celebrating,
but in the bar it was quiet, only myself and the matron. A report came on and gave the lead to DTA. It was only in the south,
because the polls closed down earlier there. Fewer people, fewer votes to count. But the only thing anybody heard was DTA
wins, SWAPO loses.
DTA wins, SWAPO loses
. And do you know what happened? I saw it all from my stool in the Dolphin. People didn’t shout or curse. Not a word. They
sat down in the road. Taxis stopped, and the men who were driving them and the women who were passengers got out and did the
same thing. They all sat down in the road. And Tangeni’s wife laughed so hard at them she gagged. I can still hear her.”

Of course, it all turned out to be wrong. The hundreds of thousands of votes in the north got counted. SWAPO won in a landslide.
And since it was wrong, and since it ended up not meaning anything, Pohamba wants to know, demands to know, through the wall
at five in the morning, “Why am I seeing those people in the road right now? In my pig bed at pig Goas? Tell me —”

I don’t answer.

From his silent room, Vilho doesn’t either.

T
he Namibian
had already been at it for months, quoting experts, statistics. The isohyets for mean annual rainfall have been falling dangerously
… atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns consistent with… climatic change and variability remain constant . .
. water surface catchment areas are shrinking throughout the central . . .

But drought being a negation, an unhappening, it doesn’t make for interesting copy.

We skipped those articles. It came every year. It was only a question of which region would get it worse. No drought was news.
Extreme drought was news. Anything else was page 6, after sports. What emergency on earth is duller?

I, the great general of the German troops, send this letter to the Herero people. The Herero are no longer German subjects.
They have murdered and stolen; they have cut off the noses, ears, and other bodily parts of wounded soldiers. And now, because
of cowardice, they will fight no more… All Herero must leave the land. If people do not do this, I will force them to
do it with the great guns. Any Herero found within German borders, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be
shot. I shall no longer receive any women or children, I will drive them back to their people or I will shoot them. This is
my decision for the Herero people.

THE GREAT GENERAL OF THE MIGHTY EMPEROR, LOTHAR VON TROTHA, 1904

I
await the arrival of the new history text from the Ministry of Education. There’s been a delay. The word is, they’re still
rewriting.

Among other things I have taught my learners, out of the old text, is that the Roman Empire brought civilized society to the
countries of western Europe—to Britain, Holland, Germany, and so on. So, when the fathers of South Africa settled at the Cape,
they brought all these beautiful elements of civilization with them.

Even the feeblest teacher has to draw a line in the sand with his toe. Despite my general ineptitude, I somehow hit upon what
I now know to be a time-honored way of killing an hour in the classroom.
Strategic use of a guest lecturer
. I bring in the big gun to teach Waterberg.

“Scholars, I introduce you to a man who needs no introduction. This man doesn’t teach history, he endures it. When history
has a question, it comes to this man to find out what happened, who massacred whom, who cheated whom out of what… Boys,
I give you your former Standard Three master, Head Teacher Obadiah Horaseb.” Cheers for Obadiah, who struts in a pith helmet.

“Please, I’m only a man, corrupt blood in my veins. Sit. Sit. Now, boys, I understand you are to learn about Waterberg. Let
me first say that prior to colonialism this was not a land of angels. This was as brutal a place as any other. And yet when
the white devils came—pardon, Teacher Kaplansk—things did become, in a number of ways, worse. This is especially true, given
that these adventurers, merchants, missionaries, claimed to come to us in the name of God. Now, skipping ahead to today’s
lesson, if I may. May I?”

“Yes, Head Teacher.”

“It’s 1901, and the Herero people—how many Hereros here today?—seven, no eight, good. Yes, the Herero people, after decades
of brutality, slavery, impoverishment, one day rose up to challenge the greatest military force known to man. The German army.
What made them do it that day? This is a question not answerable by a man with such poor faculties as myself. It is a questions
for scholars. Suffice it to say that there always comes a day when a flogged man accepts the last lash. And when, after fighting
bravely for years, the Hereros found themselves trapped atop Waterberg Mountain—not only soldiers, but thousands of women
and children and cattle as well—surrounded on all sides but one, what did they do? I ask you, sons of the sons of the sons
of those valiants, what did they do?”

A hand slowly rises. It’s Magnus Axahoes.

“Child, you aren’t a Herero, are you?”

“No, Teacher.”

“A Damara?”

“Yes, Teacher.”

“A Damara knows the answer! No tribalism here at Goas. Prime Minister Geingob would be proud. We know each other’s histories
on this farm. What’s the answer, child?”

“They went to the desert, Teacher.”

And Obadiah goes to Magnus and kneels and whispers something no one can hear.

Then he stands before the boys, lanky in his tweed coat. His arms at his sides, his hands limp. Obadiah once told me he did
not believe in the power of hands to convey meaning. If your voice can’t do it, don’t think you can overcome its defects with
your sorry hands.

“Yes, they went to the desert. The sea does not part for the Hereros. There is no sea. Only Kalahari sand. Welcome to the
Twentieth Century of Apocalypse. And the people die, by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, the people die. But understand,
my futures, my hopes, understand that they knew it. The moment the Hereros began to head for the desert, they knew the only
answer was death. And so might we consider their choice a heroic one?”

S
he’s bored, and she’s got one of those little school scissors, the kind with the rubber handles. She thinks it’s absurd they
make them for lefties.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

She looks at me the way she does. Mavala’s eyebrows. Even when her face does nothing to make them, they have a way of seeming
arched. Then she points the little scissors at my head. “Talk.”

“About what?”

“Anything. Speak.”

“I have nothing, zero.”

“What sort of name is Larry?”

“French, I think.”

“You’re French?”

“No.”

“Say something else.”

“School?”

“Even that.”

“Obadiah came to my fifth hour and taught about Waterberg.”

“What did the guru say?”

“That it was heroic.”

“What was?”

“For the Hereros to go to the desert rather than get shot by Germans.”

“Heroic?”

“Yes. Biblically heroic.”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d walk.”

“To not get shot by Germans? Yeah, I’d probably walk.”

“Is that heroic?”

“Slightly.”

“You see, he’s always making things into a poem. Seventy years later, the Boers took a kid and shoved his mouth into the exhaust
pipe of a helicopter. What happened?”

“What?”

“It blew him apart. They found pieces of him ten K’s away. Was the boy a hero?”

“Is this an argument?”

“Was the boy a hero or not?”

“That wasn’t a choice. There’s a difference, that’s all I’m saying.”

“And I’m saying it’s a part of a continuum. Which will keep on happening as long as old stupid men tell stories of how heroic
it is to be murdered.”

She stands up, brushes herself off like she’s leaving early. She never leaves early. Neither of us ever leaves early.

“You’re leaving?”

“Is having your mouth shoved into an exhaust pipe biblically heroic or not?”

“Are you asking me if there are any helicopters in the Bible?”

“There are chariots.”

“So how would you tell Waterberg?”

“I would say it was a military strategy. That the Hereros meant to live to fight another day.”

“With no ammunition and no water? With women and children? Isn’t that as much of a fantasy as that they were heroes?”

“Yes—but at least then the guru can’t cry for them. The way I see it, they still had it in their minds to murder back the
Germans.”

“Will you guest-lecture?”

“No.”

“Will you come here?”

“No.”

I
see them now. I get it.”

She’s picking at the skin between her toes. She won’t look at me. “Feeling sorry isn’t seeing them,” she says.

“Not feeling sorry. I’m only saying there’s something to be said for letting the land kill you rather than the Germans.”

“Listen. The myth is a lie. As soon as you tell it, you can’t see it anymore. For it to be—I don’t say
mean,
I say
be
—you don’t talk it, you just see it. Try, try and imagine it.”

“I’m trying.”

“See them?” Mavala whispers. “They’re so delirious they can no longer remember where the secret boreholes are, and the ones
that are known to the Germans are patrolled by soldiers with orders to kill. So they start to dig—anywhere. No divining rod,
no intuition. They aren’t even thirsty anymore. There’s only something in their throats that feels like a scream. And so they
dig, the people dig. And what happens?”

I sit up and grab her arm, pull her hand away from her feet.

“They dug their own graves. I get it.”

“No. You’re going too fast. When they started to claw that ground, they were looking for the water that might be down there.
I’m talking about the moment they understood what they’d built—not when they got down into it. I’m talking about when they
looked down into the hole. What did they see?”