Peter Orner - The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

Instead of walking up the road by the principal’s, I took the long way around, out past the cattle gate, and doubled back behind Dikeledi and Festus’s. The Boers were buried near the banks of the dry Toanib River, where it looped out toward Krieger’s farm. It was a kind of ghost river. Not only was it dry like the other rivers, but there were days it was gone, when you couldn’t distinguish it from the rest of the veld.

She was already out there, sitting on one of the black granite graves. The graves were three narrow slabs, with a tall headstone at the front of each. The only shiny things at Goas; I wondered how they could still look like this after so many years. Mavala was sitting on Grieta Dupreez, the unmarried daughter. Around Grieta was a moat of white gravel. Below her name: Rus in Vrede . Rest in peace. Beyond the graves, in a small rutlike gully, a place where Theofilus sometimes burned garbage; the ground was strewn with ash.

She was making piles out of the gravel, making piles and then slashing them. She didn’t look up at me. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I had to make Pohamba a sandwich.”

She made a roof with her hand and squinted, looked me over. “Are you the houseboy now?”

“We switch off.”

“What kind of sandwich?”

“Turkey with chutney.”

“Chutney?”

“What’s wrong with chutney?”

She drank from a water bottle she’d been holding between her knees. The water spilled out from the edges of her mouth and ran down her neck, soaking her shirt.

“Is it all right?” she said.

“Is what all right?”

“To come here.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to sleep?”

“No.”

“You look tired.”

“I guess I’ve gotten used to siesta.”

“So go back to bed.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t need sleep.”

“I don’t either.”

“I never need sleep.”

“Neither do I.”

“I only wanted to talk — without all of them — always —”

“I know.”

“They’re always —”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell them?”

“No.”

“Not Pohamba?”

“No.”

“He has a mouth. They all have mouths.” She looked at me, looked away, looked at me. “I only wanted to talk without them,” she said. “Why is that so difficult?”

“Where’s the kid?” I asked.

“Behind us. Asleep in his car seat. I hope asleep. I bribed him with Twix.”

“His car seat?”

“Now I need a car. Sit?”

“Here?”

“Why not? These dead Boers are comfortable chairs.”

Apostle John at the Mobil station in Karibib will always God bless you even if you don’t give him any money. There’s John in his wheelchair without tires, his slow rumble across the oily pavement, one hand out, the other doing his best to steer. His shoes are tied to his knees to remind you he’ll never need them again. Some days Apostle John is blind. Other days he isn’t. He says he got blown to Christ up north in the struggle. You try not to look at him. Apostle John rolling toward you, palm up — and still it doesn’t matter, even if you don’t give him a single rand. Still, it’s God bless you. Apostle John’s not a miser with the Almighty’s love. You ignorer. You of the undeserving horde. Yes, you. You. I’m speaking to you. God bless you.

Honorable Obadiah Horaseb

Chief Librarian

. . while the Hindus, for instance, say that behind every book is a set of hands. Now in the context of a library, a lending institution (a lovely idea, no?), we may carry this golden idea further. The more a book is borrowed, the more hands have held it, cradled it. Would you have the imprint of a human soul go untouched? And yet what of those books that go years, nay, decades, unread, their words silent, waiting? Contemplate this a moment. Do unread words continue speaking? If so to whom? Is it not the lonely, unheard chattering of the dead? Is a closed book not a tomb? Oh, mourn the unborrowed books. Here’s one. A fine copy of Bleak House published in 1957 by Black International, Hudson, New York. Last borrowed from this library in 1973. 1973! Would it were a crime, citizens. This book, these words, dormant? A book with the boldest first sentence ever composed! “London.” That’s all. “London.” Amazing conjurement. Imagine you hold a book in your hands. Open it. “Goas.” One of you boys might very well be the future crafter of such an evocation. A feeble example from a man of little poetic gifts might go something like this:

Goas. Second term finally over and His Highness, the majordomo, is sitting on his patch of grass outside his princely office. Unflinching drought. As much sand in the air as if the wind had but newly broomed up the desert itself, and it would not be fantastical to meet a sun-crazed grampus-like woman hulumphing down the road from her fence line. .

Thus, I propose a moment of silence, not only for stories unread, but for stories untold. Was it not Cioran who said a book should both cure old wounds and inflict new ones? Thus, an unread book is what? A festering sore? A cancer? What then, I ask, is an unwritten book? I believe a silent prayer is called for. Yes, for dead authors and their fleshless hands, only bones and silence now. But also for ourselves, my boys, for all the stories you have yet to tell.

Amen.

Now concerning this copy of Bleak House: I will extend the due date ten days. Standard Sevens have increased privileges, so you may have it for up to two weeks provided you write a book report. Rubrecht? Petrus Matunda? Petrus Goraoab? Skinny Hilunda? Jeremiah? Members of the esteemed faculty? Anybody? Theofilus?

He pants at my door.”

“Who?”

“Von Swine.”

“The principal? When?”

“Call him von Swine.”

“Okay. When does von Swine pant?”

“In the middle of the night.”

“What does he want?”

“At three in the morning? To give me a new box of chalk.”

“Is the door locked?”

“The door has no lock.”

“Miss Tuyeni?”

“She sleeps heavy. Since we were girls. One morning my father hit her with a bottle.”

“So he pants?”

“Yes.”

“Why doesn’t he just walk in? It isn’t like he’s shy.”

“He’s being polite. He’s waiting for an invitation.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Do?”

“Can’t you call the school inspector? Report him.”

“The inspector? What would I say? My brother-in-law stands outside my door and breathes heavy?”

“Why not?”

“Like a dog out there, aching. I listen to him. I’ll give this to him: The man’s a revulsion, but he has rhythm. I sleep to him — huh, huh, huh.”

“Huh, huh, huh?”

“Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh.”

Pohamba had a sign on the wall opposite his bed. It said: COME AS A FRIEND NOT A SPY. I think of him now at dusk on those rare cooler days when for once the sky was more blue than white. Some weeks we were so berated by the heat that when it did seep away we missed it, because now our laziness had no excuses. A good time to plan our lessons, so we slept. Or tried to sleep. Pohamba lying on his bed rereading that sign, because his eyes are restless and he’s out of magazines. A learner made it for him. In addition to math, Pohamba taught the only two electives offered at Goas, physical training and woodworking/mechanical arts. PT consisted of a few sets of jumping jacks and laps around the soccer field. Woodworking was once a week, on Wednesdays, in the mimeograph-machine shack, which was also the tool shack, which was also the place where boys on severe punishment were taken to be flogged. In math, Pohamba would assign problems, and then the boys would take their copy books up to his desk. If they got it wrong, Pohamba would feel betrayed. I teach you and I teach you and I teach you and this is the thanks? Zero is nothing but a tool for coping with reality. Haven’t I told you this x times? Nullify the value and then divide into negation. There is no end to our negative subparts. But on Wednesdays, in the mimeograph shack, amid his tools and his wood, he talked to the boys, told them even more practical things about life. One of the things he had told them had ended up on that sign. He was proud of it. The day the boy gave it to him, he called me into his room. The sign was painted blue, red, and green, SWAPO colors.