sold us. He was trying to get
out. Maybe he wanted to preach the revolution in Paris or somewhere. Fuck some French girls for Trotsky. I don’t blame him.
Do you think I blame him?”
He reaches into the pot and feels the fish with his fingers.
“The fish is done.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Oh, the natural thing.” Pohamba takes his spoon and glops some fish on my plate.
“What’s that?”
“Eat your fish. Don’t you want some chutney?”
I point the light in his face.
“What’s the natural thing?”
He yawns. “We tied him to the back of a lorry and drove. Drove till the veld shaved the skin off his body. You could hear
him moaning on the Champs-Elysées. Then we cut him loose and let the birds eat out his eyes.”
Pohamba takes the pot off the fire and sets it on a rock. I hand him back my plate. I want to believe him. I want to believe
him in the way you want to believe the one story people tell (he told so many, but he really told only one) to be the truth.
He’s stacking himself up against the soldier.
“She’s not that hot,” I say.
“No, only that arse.”
He hands me back my plate heaped with blackened snoek. I shove the fish in my mouth with my hands. When I’m through with my
second plate, I watch him eat. Pohamba’s a dainty eater. He changes the subject, tells me how he’d like to open a shop at
Goas and sell cooldrink and candy to the boys. Easy money, he says. A monopoly. Some cooldrink, some chocolate. Simba raisins
and peanuts. “Wouldn’t you like to open a shop?” he says.
22
TO RETURN
W e pretended not to notice. Bastard children were normal for country people, farm people. Or men. (Pohamba claimed legions.)
Not for a woman teacher. Not for a woman teacher at a Catholic school. And certainly not for a woman teacher at a Catholic
school where her brother-in-law is principal. To parade around as if it was nothing (as Miss Tuyeni put it to Antoinette,
overheard by Obadiah, who reported to us) was more than an embarrassment; it was a disgrace. The girl goes off to fight a
war and now look at her, toting a child without a husband. Which is what men want. Any man. To plant seeds without staying
around to water the garden. The price respectable women charge is marriage. There is no other fee.
But not only Miss Tuyeni clucked. It was all of us. Nobody greeted Mavala Shikongo when she returned. And everyone, myself
included, wore an air of Nope, we’re not surprised. We expect nothing less than humiliation here.
In morning meeting, the principal acted as if she’d never left. Vilho had been covering her classroom, running back and forth
across the courtyard. All day, every day, for nearly a month, he had done his best to control two rooms of squalling boys,
his own Standard Fours and her sub b’s. Supposedly, the principal had put a call into the ministry for a replacement teacher,
but no one had turned up, and now no one needed to.
And so the prodigal daughter went back to her class, as if she’d always been a fallen woman and not the up-and-comer in a
new nation. Even true heroes became no one at Goas. That’s what you get for walking around wearing your head so high. Now
we don’t consider ourselves so far beneath you. A similar thing happened with Pohamba. Once, he made good on his daily threat
to leave and was gone five days. His previous record was three and a half. When he slouched back up the road in the same disco
shirt he’d left wearing, no one reminded him of his vow that he’d come back to this farm only as a corpse, and even then his
ghost would flee.
Now we don’t have to be so discreet when we again pilgrim by her classroom on our way to and from the toilet houses. Ignominy
has given us license to spy more openly. She’s taller than she was when she was a myth, and not every move she makes is so
utterly graceful. She stomps around her class with a book open in her hand. Her short-short hair and
out. Maybe he wanted to preach the revolution in Paris or somewhere. Fuck some French girls for Trotsky. I don’t blame him.
Do you think I blame him?”
He reaches into the pot and feels the fish with his fingers.
“The fish is done.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Oh, the natural thing.” Pohamba takes his spoon and glops some fish on my plate.
“What’s that?”
“Eat your fish. Don’t you want some chutney?”
I point the light in his face.
“What’s the natural thing?”
He yawns. “We tied him to the back of a lorry and drove. Drove till the veld shaved the skin off his body. You could hear
him moaning on the Champs-Elysées. Then we cut him loose and let the birds eat out his eyes.”
Pohamba takes the pot off the fire and sets it on a rock. I hand him back my plate. I want to believe him. I want to believe
him in the way you want to believe the one story people tell (he told so many, but he really told only one) to be the truth.
He’s stacking himself up against the soldier.
“She’s not that hot,” I say.
“No, only that arse.”
He hands me back my plate heaped with blackened snoek. I shove the fish in my mouth with my hands. When I’m through with my
second plate, I watch him eat. Pohamba’s a dainty eater. He changes the subject, tells me how he’d like to open a shop at
Goas and sell cooldrink and candy to the boys. Easy money, he says. A monopoly. Some cooldrink, some chocolate. Simba raisins
and peanuts. “Wouldn’t you like to open a shop?” he says.
22
TO RETURN
W e pretended not to notice. Bastard children were normal for country people, farm people. Or men. (Pohamba claimed legions.)
Not for a woman teacher. Not for a woman teacher at a Catholic school. And certainly not for a woman teacher at a Catholic
school where her brother-in-law is principal. To parade around as if it was nothing (as Miss Tuyeni put it to Antoinette,
overheard by Obadiah, who reported to us) was more than an embarrassment; it was a disgrace. The girl goes off to fight a
war and now look at her, toting a child without a husband. Which is what men want. Any man. To plant seeds without staying
around to water the garden. The price respectable women charge is marriage. There is no other fee.
But not only Miss Tuyeni clucked. It was all of us. Nobody greeted Mavala Shikongo when she returned. And everyone, myself
included, wore an air of Nope, we’re not surprised. We expect nothing less than humiliation here.
In morning meeting, the principal acted as if she’d never left. Vilho had been covering her classroom, running back and forth
across the courtyard. All day, every day, for nearly a month, he had done his best to control two rooms of squalling boys,
his own Standard Fours and her sub b’s. Supposedly, the principal had put a call into the ministry for a replacement teacher,
but no one had turned up, and now no one needed to.
And so the prodigal daughter went back to her class, as if she’d always been a fallen woman and not the up-and-comer in a
new nation. Even true heroes became no one at Goas. That’s what you get for walking around wearing your head so high. Now
we don’t consider ourselves so far beneath you. A similar thing happened with Pohamba. Once, he made good on his daily threat
to leave and was gone five days. His previous record was three and a half. When he slouched back up the road in the same disco
shirt he’d left wearing, no one reminded him of his vow that he’d come back to this farm only as a corpse, and even then his
ghost would flee.
Now we don’t have to be so discreet when we again pilgrim by her classroom on our way to and from the toilet houses. Ignominy
has given us license to spy more openly. She’s taller than she was when she was a myth, and not every move she makes is so
utterly graceful. She stomps around her class with a book open in her hand. Her short-short hair and
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