back were the miseries
of a long-dead Herero princess. He left us, slowly, hunched over. I slid the fish and chips to Pohamba; he slid them back
to me. A six of diamonds and a body seized beyond fear into stillness. Fingers clenching the edge of the table.
24
AUNTIE
I f you bothered to wash up at Goas, acceptance, or at the very least toleration, was pretty much guaranteed. Auntie Wilhelmina
was an exception, as ignored as she was ubiquitous. She was the minor character who always insisted she star.
A Wednesday? A Saturday midnight? Auntie was all day all days. The most prominent thing of many prominent things was the noise
of her. Her fat twangling, her fulumping down the ridge toward the singles quarters. The jangle of her hundreds of stolen
bronze bracelets. The barking of her retinue of sycophantic dogs. The heaving of her breasts. She was a big heaver of her
breasts; Auntie heaved at the slightest provocation. Her turtled skin. Parts of it were long past withered; other parts were
new, infantile, as if she had the power of selective regeneration. You see, once you start to describe her, there is no end
of her. A wildebeestian woman, the only answer is to look away, but it’s impossible. Her eyes—no, stay clear of her eyes.
Her cheeks sag off her face like grocery bags overstuffed with fruit. Her teeth, cruel, sharp, heinously white—on the days
she wore them in. Without them, her mouth looked full of bloody thumbs. There was a fresh wart on her chin, not like a dead
thing, but a happy thing, very much alive. She groomed her beard a lot like Obadiah’s, a bit pointy off the chin. Beyond ugly,
Auntie Wilhelmina, beyond ghastly, and this was the fundamental problem. The woman was a fascination. The boys said that if
you stared at Auntie Wilhelmina long enough from a certain angle, you’d never stop wanting her. Ever.
She lived at Old Goas, in a ruined pondookie up and over the ridge, only half of which was roofed. Vilho, who was here that
far back as a learner, remembered that one day she materialized. That one day Auntie Wilhelmina was simply in the veld, rooted,
like something that had always been right where it was. You just hadn’t seen her. Like a hill beyond another hill. Or as if,
Vilho put it, Goas had come to her, not the opposite. Obadiah refused to indulge in anything so metaphysical about Auntie.
He only said: That old bitch talks too much.
Auntie Monologued
She had an extremely hoarse voice, like an old dog’s after it’s spent the day barking and can hardly do it anymore—but bark
onward it must. In that terrible voice, she would go on about her royal lineage and her family’s personal relationship to
Jesus. She said she could trace her family back to Kambonde on her father’s side and Impinge on her mother’s. She said her
paternal grandmother’s eldest brother was Mpingana, who was assassinated by Nehale. And she said Mpingana’s son, Kwedhi, her
great-uncle, was the one who, after banishment, started to associate with the Germans. She said the Germans might have had
their faults, but we must always bless them for bringing the word of God to this heathen place. Eventually Kwedhi was baptized
and declared himself king—hence, as she, Auntie, was the great man’s niece, everyone owed her fealty for freeing them from
the bondage of paganism. In Auntie’s universe, four hundred years of colonialism and apartheid never happened. And she carried
her namesake, the last Kaiser—Wilhelm II!—proudly.
“Murdering fop of a Kaiser,” Obadiah said. “And there is nothing, zero, in the historical or anthropological record to support
a lick of her stories. That obese woman bastardizes history! Christianization was a gradual process. It occurred over decades,
centuries. No one man determined anything. Her Kwedhi was no Constantine, and for that matter, neither was Constantine. Faith
is not something commanded by a despot. The woman’s a
of a long-dead Herero princess. He left us, slowly, hunched over. I slid the fish and chips to Pohamba; he slid them back
to me. A six of diamonds and a body seized beyond fear into stillness. Fingers clenching the edge of the table.
24
AUNTIE
I f you bothered to wash up at Goas, acceptance, or at the very least toleration, was pretty much guaranteed. Auntie Wilhelmina
was an exception, as ignored as she was ubiquitous. She was the minor character who always insisted she star.
A Wednesday? A Saturday midnight? Auntie was all day all days. The most prominent thing of many prominent things was the noise
of her. Her fat twangling, her fulumping down the ridge toward the singles quarters. The jangle of her hundreds of stolen
bronze bracelets. The barking of her retinue of sycophantic dogs. The heaving of her breasts. She was a big heaver of her
breasts; Auntie heaved at the slightest provocation. Her turtled skin. Parts of it were long past withered; other parts were
new, infantile, as if she had the power of selective regeneration. You see, once you start to describe her, there is no end
of her. A wildebeestian woman, the only answer is to look away, but it’s impossible. Her eyes—no, stay clear of her eyes.
Her cheeks sag off her face like grocery bags overstuffed with fruit. Her teeth, cruel, sharp, heinously white—on the days
she wore them in. Without them, her mouth looked full of bloody thumbs. There was a fresh wart on her chin, not like a dead
thing, but a happy thing, very much alive. She groomed her beard a lot like Obadiah’s, a bit pointy off the chin. Beyond ugly,
Auntie Wilhelmina, beyond ghastly, and this was the fundamental problem. The woman was a fascination. The boys said that if
you stared at Auntie Wilhelmina long enough from a certain angle, you’d never stop wanting her. Ever.
She lived at Old Goas, in a ruined pondookie up and over the ridge, only half of which was roofed. Vilho, who was here that
far back as a learner, remembered that one day she materialized. That one day Auntie Wilhelmina was simply in the veld, rooted,
like something that had always been right where it was. You just hadn’t seen her. Like a hill beyond another hill. Or as if,
Vilho put it, Goas had come to her, not the opposite. Obadiah refused to indulge in anything so metaphysical about Auntie.
He only said: That old bitch talks too much.
Auntie Monologued
She had an extremely hoarse voice, like an old dog’s after it’s spent the day barking and can hardly do it anymore—but bark
onward it must. In that terrible voice, she would go on about her royal lineage and her family’s personal relationship to
Jesus. She said she could trace her family back to Kambonde on her father’s side and Impinge on her mother’s. She said her
paternal grandmother’s eldest brother was Mpingana, who was assassinated by Nehale. And she said Mpingana’s son, Kwedhi, her
great-uncle, was the one who, after banishment, started to associate with the Germans. She said the Germans might have had
their faults, but we must always bless them for bringing the word of God to this heathen place. Eventually Kwedhi was baptized
and declared himself king—hence, as she, Auntie, was the great man’s niece, everyone owed her fealty for freeing them from
the bondage of paganism. In Auntie’s universe, four hundred years of colonialism and apartheid never happened. And she carried
her namesake, the last Kaiser—Wilhelm II!—proudly.
“Murdering fop of a Kaiser,” Obadiah said. “And there is nothing, zero, in the historical or anthropological record to support
a lick of her stories. That obese woman bastardizes history! Christianization was a gradual process. It occurred over decades,
centuries. No one man determined anything. Her Kwedhi was no Constantine, and for that matter, neither was Constantine. Faith
is not something commanded by a despot. The woman’s a
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