Peter Orner - The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

“Windhoek. Where else is there to go?”

“No! Jo’burg. City of Gold! That’s where the real money is. She’ll be a real actress in Jo’burg. Forget Windhoek.”

“She’ll be back, I say.”

“It’s true, that girl can act.”

“I thought she wanted to be an accountant.”

“Still, it exhausts.”

“What?”

“Leaving. Any leaving.”

“Coming back’s tiring also.”

“That’s true. But the boy.”

“Yes, the boy.”

In morning meeting, the principal doesn’t mention her. Moral tales come and go, and he doesn’t once look at her empty space. She normally stands between Obadiah and Vilho. They leave a gap for her, whether as a reminder or a tribute, I don’t know. The principal doesn’t seem interested in taking anything out on me. One, because he knows I’d never say a word, and two, because if it is a game, which it is to him, then we’ve both lost.

Finally, after she’s been gone eight school days — apparently some official level of delinquency — he distributes mimeograph copies of a typed letter. We stand there and sniff it. There’s no moral tale this day. He’s all bluster and business. He reads the letter to us.

Dear Deputy Minister Tjoruzumo:

I regret to inform you, Sir, of a vacancy effective immediately at the Don Bosco Primary School (Goas Farm RC), District Erongo.

Grade: Sub B

Reason for Vacancy: Teacher Mavala Shikongo abandoned her post May 5 of the current calendar year, without notice and without explanation. In addition, she left her son, Tomo (surname unknown), 2, at the mercy of the charity of the state.

Request: Please send a replacement teacher as soon as convenient.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at the below address.

Obediently yours,

Charles Komesho, Principal

Goas Primary School, RC

Private Bag 79

Karibib

Tuyeni stared straight ahead as he read it. Not a word. Although we believed she was the power behind him, she never tipped her hand either way. She was almost godlike in that way. And so, finally, difficult to hate. To hate Tuyeni took more imagination than any of us had. Maybe she got what she wanted. Maybe there can never be enough disgrace. The woman was impenetrable, hollow-eyed. Mavala’s leaving left her no more numb than she’d always seemed. Morning meeting, staring at nothing.

“My wife is not the charity of the state,” Obadiah says.

The principal swallows. Then he gently rubs his hands together, as if preparing to eat. “Her food is. Her house is. And now that I consider it, Head Teacher, her man is also.”

“The boy’s name is Shikongo, Master Sir.”

“You’re informing me, Head Teacher, of the name of my own bastard nephew?”

He liked to think his love for her was a thing he kept pure. I was the degrader in this respect. He was proud of what he considered his refusal, how he didn’t give chase. How he loved her from a distance. He was the untainted one.

Wall thumped by foot.

“Are you awake?”

“No.”

“You should have left her alone.”

“I should have left her alone? You’re lecturing me on women? I can’t even think of a good analogy. I should have left her alone. I’m asleep. We all should have left her alone. Everybody should have left her alone.”

“There’s no we in this instance.”

“All right. I. I.”

“What is she running from? That fat harmless?”

“I don’t know.”

“You never asked her?”

“Asked her what? I didn’t know she was leaving.”

“You think you’re harmless?”

“I’m asleep.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

“Back to O-hi-o. Must be good. Blink your eyes and fly away. Whee!”

“You want to come to Ohio?”

“I want to go to Dallas.”

“There’s only one choice. Ohio.”

“What did she want?”

“She said she didn’t know.”

“She didn’t know?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Not you?”

“No.”

“And why don’t you chase her?”

“Chase her where?”

This seems to satisfy him. He farts as if to signal an end, a long, sad sigh of a fart, and I roll over to try to sleep. Moments later, he bops the wall again.

“What did you do out there in the veld?”

“Talked.”

“That kind of talk’s where she found Tomo. You’re not harmless, comrade. None of us is.”

Ifound myself needing to be around him. I’d sit in Antoinette’s garden and watch him destroy things. Wasn’t he beautiful in that way?

One night during Sunday dinner at Antoinette’s, over chicken, rice, and radishes from the garden, the subject of his presence in their house as opposed to the principal’s was finally breeched. Antoinette and Obadiah usually waited until Sunday dinner to argue, and sometimes they invited spectators.

“Whatever else Tuyeni may be,” Obadiah said, “the woman is the boy’s aunt.”

“Aunt,” Antoinette piffed. “Aunt!”

“Under the law, she’s next of kin. Lord knows, those two might accuse us of kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping? They live up the road.”

“The law says —”

“The law! Whose law? I will not give them the satisfaction of granting me permission.”

“The fact of the matter is that we’re not relatives. Now, in the old days, yes, this sort of thing happened all the time, but today we have…” He ran down of his own accord. We ate on in silence, to the noise of crunching radishes. I wondered: How can it be so loud in your own ears and the room so quiet?

Well, son.”

“What?”

“I fucked her too.”

“Go to hell.”

“One night the man went a-knocking.”

“Don’t you get tired?”

“Of what, son?

“Lying like an asshole.”

“Asshole or arsehole. Which is the correct pronunciation?”

“I’m through.”

“It’s a geographic variation,” Vilho interjects. “The British say it one way, the Americans —”

“Through?”

“Listening to you.”

“In any case, I believe ‘anus’ would be most correct.”

“It was hot. Very hot. I couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep. The woman said she wanted a real man, not a —”

“Not a what?”

“Notta notta notta. Sleep, son, sleep —”

We’re walking the open veld on the other side of the C-32, south of Prinsloo’s. A man named Schwicker used to farm here. A sun-faded, bullet-holed sign FARM SALE 18,000 HECTARES leans out of the ditch by the side of the road like an arm reaching up out of the grave. Obadiah said we needed new ground to cover, that we hadn’t yet seen everything. The veld is just as flat out this way.

“What people don’t know,” Obadiah says, “but the cows do, is that so long as there’s grass, something like grass, it’s all right. This parch has more nutrients than the green stuff. But water — without water —”

“She’s not coming back,” I say.

“Funny. I’ve always thought of water as woman. You too?”

Then he stops and I stop. He places a mournful hand on my shoulder and says solemnly, “Jimmy Carter.”

“What about him?”

“Blame him.”

“For what?”

“Optimism.”

“Can we just walk? Not say anything, just walk?”