Peter Orner - The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

AUNTIE ( noticing the suitcase ): Hmmmm. ( Snatches it, creeps off .)

FESTUS FESTUS GALLI ( trailed by a platoon of blue helmets, stops at the bodies ): Ah, tut tut tut. Clean this mess up, boys. Oh, this quarry cries havoc. ( Consults script .) Or is it this havoc cries quarry?

Bulb out.

Hostel dining hall. Night.

MAVALA: I don’t mind being a seamstress, but I’m definitely too tall to play a Damara.

POHAMBA: Herr Director, do you not think there ought to be a kiss in Scene 2? When both of them say, “Alas.” Right there would be an excellent moment —

KAPLANSK: Do I really have to say “native wenches”? I’ll say anything in any language I don’t understand, but I draw the line at saying native wenches.

POHAMBA: That doesn’t mean you don’t think it.

KAPLANSK: Think what? What are you insinuating?

POHAMBA: Insinuating your arse.

ANTOINETTE ( Scowls. Leaves. )

FESTUS: Maybe that’s a long speech for Mumbeli at the end?

OBADIAH ( wit’s end, end of the rope, last hurrah, goodbye to all that, things don’t fall apart, they implode ): Even Festus is a critic. All we ever do is make speeches. Don’t you even understand that? You think anybody talks to each other? Ever? Talks to each other?

Ihave something to tell you.”

“Is it shocking?”

“Von Swine is aware.”

“Of what?”

“This.”

“That’s not shocking.”

“Listen. Last night after rehearsal, he didn’t pant, he knocked. So I was curious. He’d never knocked before. I got up and opened it. He only smiled. Then he turned around and walked away. It was the first time I ever closed the door on him.”

“So the kid told. Or maybe it was Festus. Anyway, he’s the last to —”

“Who told Festus?”

“Nobody. I’m just saying we’re not a well-kept — do you think he’ll tell the priest?”

“Why not? Father, there’s fornication going on in the veld and it isn’t only the goats.”

“The goats are gone.”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t say anything?”

“No, only that smile.”

“Smiled like how?”

“Like he was taking joy in it.”

“In what?”

“In my success. In proving, once again — so I called him back.”

“What?”

“I invited him in.”

“What?”

“Yes. And he comes back. He sighs, rubs his fat face. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he says. ‘I thought perhaps you couldn’t either.’ It was all very formal and dignified. Then he starts sliding off his belt. When he’s down to his shorts, I start shouting for my sister. Oh, did I shout. You didn’t hear me down there?”

“No.”

“Tuyeni! And the man is so confused. Tomo starts bawling. And Tuyeni, heavy sleeper always, but this time she comes running.”

Mavala rolls over, runs her finger from the ditch in the hinge of my arm to my wrist.

“Wait.”

“There isn’t much time.”

“Just tell it.”

“Well, she came into my room, and what do you think?”

“He’s in your room, with his pants down, in the middle of the night? I think she freaked.”

“No. She looked at me like she used to look at me when we were sisters. Like she loved me, but there was also nothing to be done with me. Then she took him by the hand and led him away like he was a child. It was very beautiful. And man and wife left the slut with her crying kid.”

The light slants, the sun nonexistent behind a wall of sky. The graves rise like hulks. The wind is so constant you don’t know you’re hearing it until it falls. She drapes her arm across my neck.

“Hold me.”

“All right.”

Then: “Will you go?”

“Now? We’ve got twenty minutes at least. Why?”

“Don’t ask. Will you? Here, take your sock.”

“ Myrothamnas flabellifolia: A small, woody, aromatically fragrant shrub. It endures droughts by putting itself into a state of dormancy wherein its leaves shrivel, turn brown as the chlorophyll becomes inactive, and eventually become so dry that they can be crumpled into dust between one’s fingers. At the same time, its branches bend upward into a vertically bunched position. Yet at first rain the plant suddenly becomes ‘alive’ once more. The branches descend into more normal positions, the leaves become soft and pliable, and the chlorophyll becomes green and active. This transformation takes only an hour at most, and can be brought about artificially by spraying the plants with water or by immersing them in a tub of water for only a few minutes. Because of this ability to return to life after apparent death, the species is called the ‘resurrection plant’ (in German, Wunderbusch ). The natives use the plants for the brewing of a pleasantly scented tea, hence there is a name for the species in each of the native tongues. For instance, in Herero it is Ongandulwaze and in Nama it is !godogib .”

Just after the second triangle, the farm line will ring. It will sound, as it always does, like a chain being dragged across asphalt. The principal will pick it up from his office. Miss Tuyeni will pick it up from the kitchen of their house. The priest from his office. Krieger from his house. There will be a chorus of Hello s and Who is calling? Who is calling? Asking for whom? The headmaster, please. Speaking! It will be Prinsloo, and he will tell the principal (and everyone else listening) that he saw the girl teacher, the one with the bitty skirts, walking down the C-32 at what odd in the morning. The sky still bloody. Strange for a Wednesday. Is today another one of these new holidays? I thought we just had one. A suitcase too. She didn’t put her hand out, so I didn’t stop. I thought you might like to know.

Not yet dawn, that strange light before the light, and Antoinette’s in the dining-hall kitchen slicing morning bread for the boys, thick slices of brown bread with an ungenerous slap of butter that the boys will try to make go further by spreading it around with their tongues. They eat their morning bread slowly. Mavala knocks on the glass window of the door. Antoinette looks up, not surprised, because to her there is no such thing as a surprise. She opens the door and Mavala carries Tomo inside. He’s sleeping in his car seat. She sets him down in the corner of the kitchen where the gray hasn’t reached. She leaves his stuffed horse, a few of his cars. A plastic bag full of clothes and diapers. He’ll be saying more words soon. After that will come sentences. So beautiful when he’s helpless with sleep, she’d like to sink down with him in the corner. Her body arcing toward him. She drags her fingers down his face. Then she stands and whispers things to Antoinette that Antoinette listens to — but as always with the two of them, their understanding goes beyond words, and now, past the promises Mavala’s making, promises she insists on repeating.

Antoinette scrapes out the last of the butter from the tub, and nods. “I’ll heat some milk,” she says.

She can act, that one.”

“Quite an exit.”

“Oh, she’ll be back.”

“Of course, she’ll be back.”

“Where’d she go?”