Hottentot Venus

by Barbara Chase-Riboud

  —I was counting on being able to get more backing in London from other showmen . . . I’ve invested all I had getting her here. I’m broke.

  —You have the one hundred guineas you got from the sale of the giraffe skin, replied Master Hendrick, annoyed.

  —I need that money. I’m not going to let you squander it on rent and publicity when we have no guaranteed box office receipts.

  —Well, we won’t get any receipts if we don’t advertise. All the letters I sent off to the Royal Academy of Science, the British Medical Society, the anatomists . . . got no reply! As for guarantees, you’re the one who guaranteed me a fortune in return for my investing in half of her with you— what’s made you change your mind?

  —I haven’t changed my mind.

  —The hell you haven’t. We wouldn’t be here except for you and your promises. You should have known the Slavery Ordinance of 1803 would get us in trouble with the law.

  —Sarah’s not a slave. She’s a free colored.

  —Nevertheless, it does change the situation.

  —I’ve got to send the giraffe money to my wife.

  —Your what?

  —My wife. I’m married and she’s found me.

  —You bugger! Saartjie thinks you’re going to marry her! She says you two made a marriage contract—a contract in which you promised to wed her when we got to England!

  —Well, I had to promise her that to get her on the boat!

  —She says the money she earns is her dowry to you, you son of a bitch!

  —You think I’d really marry that monster! Go native with that freak? You can have her, Hendrick—I’ll sell you my share in her.

  —She’ll never agree to exhibit herself without you. She loves you.

  —Yes she will. I’ll convince her. Besides, if I do a disappearing act, she’ll have no choice if she ever wants to go home . . .

  —You fucking pig, you bloody bastard! Why didn’t you at least tell me this before! I’m your bloody fucking partner!

  —Because I don’t trust you, bloody fucking partner! I don’t trust anyone. If you’ve been before the mast as long as I was—seen and done the things I’ve seen and done, been a ship’s surgeon on a goddamned slaver . . . you wouldn’t trust anyone either. Been at sea as a privateer too—in His Majesty’s fucking navy—There is nothing in this world that could get me to trust you or anyone else, especially a woman . . . Go find her another husband—it’s all the same to her anyway. She doesn’t love me—a Hottentot is ruled by prostitution. Morality has no meaning for them, nor does virginity or marriage. The poverty of their mental universe is so great they have only one word for virgin, woman and wife!

  —It’s true, continued Master Dunlop, they make marriage contracts and I made one with her. But there’s no difference between a Hottentot wife and a Hottentot prostitute that a white man is bound to respect.

  —You’ve seduced her, you shit!

  —I’ve never touched Sarah until St. Helena! That’s more than you can say . . .

  —Liar!—

  —I never forced Sarah! She seduced me on that island! She’s a monster of sex and provocation, an insatiable siren! A heartless, shameless savage . . . a superstitious man-eating, dirt-eating heathen . . .

  —Is there no moral deterrent at all in your character, Dunlop?

  —None at all. There is no difference between a Hottentot and a prostitute, so there is no moral deterrent to using one as the other.

  —We are not prostituting her, we’re exhibiting her.

  —For money.

  —For money? Isn’t she doing it for money too?

  —To recuperate her rightful inheritance, she says.

  —Shouldn’t we be saving this female instead of exploiting her?

  —Saving her? Come on, Hendrick, to all intents and purposes, she is, unlike the prostitute, beyond redemption.

  —You, a Christian?

  —You can talk of being a Christian after what we’ve done? Saartjie Baartman got me back to London . . . where I belong and where I intend to stay—here or somewhere in The Midlands. Never to return to the sea or the Cape again. Or anywhere near that wretched bloody heathen continent called Africa . . .

  —How much?

  —How much what?

  —How much for her?

  —I’ll sell you my share of her for two hundred guineas. Since we are Christian gentlemen who honor their obligations in business dealings.

  —What should I tell Saartjie?

  —Tell her I’m dead. Tell her I got in a brawl in Covent Garden last night and got myself stabbed and my family claimed the body—Tell her I’ve gone back to sea—Tell her anything you want. Tell her I loved her to the end. That her name was on my lips when I expired. Good Lord, man. Use the imagination God gave you!

  This was all happening behind the closed front door of the flat we occupied on Duke Street in St. James Square.

  I had just come home from shopping and was about to turn my key in the lock. I heard everything from behind the closed door, then I turned the key, pretending I had just arrived home.

  Master Dunlop was pacing up and down the room, limping, holding his knee as if he were wounded.

  —You know what? You know that Hottentot men have only one stone? The other, the left testicle, is removed from baby boys by their mothers. You know that? It’s barbaric. It’s as bad as eating flesh!

  —I’ll give you five hundred guineas for her, not a penny more.

  —Then I’ll bloody sell her to somebody else!

  —Sell who? I said, sick to my stomach.

  Startled, both men turned towards me.

  I had taken to riding out in a closed carriage in the late afternoon to explore the streets and shops of London. Sometimes I would stop the carriage and walk amongst the pedestrians, trying to memorize the English name of every possible acquisition in London. As in Cape Town, I went out heavily veiled or with a deep wide bonnet that hid my features. I was fascinated by the splendid shops, which had become my only pastime. Veiled and gloved, hatted and dressed in white women’s clothes, as I had been that first day, I spent hours strolling down Oxford Street. I would step into a watchmaker’s cabinet, then a shop selling fans and silk, then one of china and glass. There were spirit booths with their crystal flasks of every shape and form, each one lighted from behind, which made the different-colored spirits sparkle. Behind the new plate-glass windows were the confectioners, bakers, fruiterers, chocolatiers and their pyramids of pineapples, figs, grapes and oranges. Most of all I loved the Argand lamps made of crystal, lacquer, silver, brass. Behind the great pane glass of windows lay slippers and shoes, dolls, boots, guns, glasses, beautiful dress material hung in folds to imitate real dresses. I would turn down Charles Street to Soho Square to look at Wedgwood displayed in cabinets along the walls and on large tables as if a dinner party was about to begin. Salesmen moved around between sculpted columns that rose from polished floors. There were over a hundred and fifty shops in Oxford Street alone. The English, it was said, were a nation of shopkeepers. I had heard Master Dunlop himself quoting the Emperor Napoleon. I loved to ride past prisons that looked like castles, banks that looked like temples, exhibition halls that looked like pyramids . . .

  There was a shop that I had fallen in love with at the corner of Bond and Jermyn Streets called the Charming Hand. It was a French glover, whose stock of gloves and fans was the best in London. I laughed as my hands slid into the soft contours of kid or silk as if I had plunged my hands into a crock of paint. These sheaths fascinated and enthralled me. My hands could not only be a hundred different colors, but a dozen different textures; the softest scented kid, gossamer black lace, wool, silk, smooth satin, cotton, crochet. My fingers could be decorated with seed, pearls, embroidery, fur, beads, flowers or bows. There were wrist length and elbow length, arm length and fingerless. The shop smelled of scented, tanned leather and watered silk, and not even the astounded glances of clients or salesladies could keep me away. I spent hou
rs trying on pair after pair. I came so often that both the owner and the clients got used to my extraordinary appearance and treated me just like any other customer. In less than six months, I had bought a hundred pairs of gloves. My favorite color was scarlet chamois, then indigo blue, deep and magnificent, then saffron yellow kid, then embroidered silver, gold, or pale pink roses, or hand-painted with delicate scenes of forests and woods. I possessed gloves decorated with feathers or pearls, or knitted in bright colored wool or cotton. When the shop ran out of samples, I invented my own made-to-order designs. The shop owner’s curiosity was satisfied only when he learned that Miss Baartman was the famous Hottentot Venus.

  Sometimes a black gentlemen or black beggar or turbaned servant would pass me on the street. Several times I tried to follow them for a few steps, hoping I could speak to them in a language they could understand, but they usually ignored me or walked faster than I could, or disappeared into a waiting vehicle or behind an iron gate. I had learned the words for everything from kid gloves to chocolate, Beefeater gin to cashmere. It had taken me only one day to learn to count in shillings and pounds and to recognize the different coins and banknotes.

  The unhappy subject of my masters’ recent conversation put down her packages and looked from one to the other.

  —What’s wrong, I said in Afrikaans.

  —Nothing. Huh, well, Alex here must return to the Cape, said Master Hendrick.

  —It’s nothing, Sarah. I’ll be back in a few months. I promise . . .

  I sat down slowly, because my knees would not hold me up.

  —But the . . . show.

  —. . . Will open without me, said Master Dunlop. It’s you they want— Hendrick has found a hall; we are printing up the advertisements and tickets. Everything will go on as planned. I’ll return as soon as I can, but this is a matter of life and death . . .

  —Life and death, who . . .?

  —It has nothing to do with you or even the Cape. It is an old affair come home to roost.

  Master Hendrick looked at him in disgust.

  —But I . . . we need you. You must stay, I insisted, terrified.

  —You are in very good hands. Everything has turned out as I promised, hasn’t it? We will all make a fortune, and when I return we’ll all spend it!

  I was confounded. Master Dunlop was my rock, my anchor, my safety. Without him, I believed, nothing would be accomplished in London, yet he had been talking about selling me back to Master Hendrick.

  —Sarah, we’ll talk about it later, after I’ve packed and sent my trunks to the ship. I’m sorry, truly sorry, but it can’t be helped . . . it’s only temporary.

  He looked helplessly at me, then at Master Hendrick, who glared back at him with contempt.

  —I’m going out. I have several appointments. You two discuss your business and leave me to make the final arrangements for the hall . . . Somebody has to . . .

  Master Caesar left Master Dunlop and me in the crowded disorderly room. I had refused to do any housework upon setting foot on English soil and discovering that there were white maids to clean up after me. I had also stopped washing Master Hendrick’s and Master Dunlop’s feet.

  —I won’t let you go.

  —You can’t stop me, Sarah. I’ve . . . I’ve got to get away . . .

  —But your promise!

  —Promises can wait . . . I’ll be back . . .

  —When?

  —I don’t know.

  —At least explain . . .

  —I don’t explain to niggers—

  When Master Hendrick returned, Master Dunlop and his trunks were gone. I was sobbing quietly in a corner. The room was dark, as no candles had been lit. My new clothes and purchases were scattered everywhere. I was quite naked except for the lappa draped around my waist.

  —I’m lost, I said in Afrikaans.

  —No. All’s not lost. We will manage without him . . . Until he comes back, of course.

  I pretended to believe him. I knew only that I loved Master Dunlop as I had loved the Reverend Freehouseland—with the passionate single-minded trust of a nine-year-old.

  But I wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for everyone if I had never overheard their conversation and he had just told me Master Dunlop was dead . . .

  Every class of people from dukes to sweepers mingled in a stampede of movement and noise at 225 Piccadilly, which proudly advertised a show for every taste and every class. People dressed in their Sunday best came to gawk at a living male child with four hands, four arms, four legs, four feet and one torso born in Manchester, a pair of Bohemian sisters joined at the pelvis, a Welsh female dwarf, forty-four years old and thirty-six inches high, a bearded woman, German Lilliputians and of course a fat lady. There were piano players, singers, a strong man and the “Wonderful Fistic-Stone-Breaker” who could lift five hundred pounds with his teeth. There were clairvoyants, tarot readers, fortune-tellers and an exhibit of the royal Ashanti golden stool, captured by the British during their African campaign of 1809.

  I was sure I had passed the frontier of the real world into the thing-that-should-never-have-been-born land as Master Hendrick escorted me through the maze of stands, platforms, tents, pagodas and stalls, each with a pitchman hawking his wares to the jeers, cheers, whistles and simple exclamation of the crowd. Any day would find a certain measure of princesses, dukes and earls, actors, servants and clerks, merchants, tailors and bankers. Each exhibition had its price, from a penny to several shillings. The fat lady was seven feet tall and weighed six hundred pounds. At the other end of the scale was Mademoiselle Camancini, the Sicilian fairy who weighed twelve pounds, was thirty inches in height with feet hardly three inches long and a waist of eleven and a quarter inches around.

  The tiny mortal, whispered Master Hendrick, had received more than two hundred visitors at three shillings apiece last Thursday and the editor of the Literary Gazette had fallen abjectly in love with her. But all I saw was another thing-that-should-never-have-been-born with a wracking cough, a voice like the whine of a baby lamb and haunted eyes.

  —There is a rumor, he continued, that Mam’selle is not French at all, but Irish, but even so, such a minute form sustaining the function of life, is sufficiently astonishing . . .

  I turned my head to look at a beautiful tall Englishwoman with pale eyelashes and red blond hair wearing the latest gossamer clinging high-waisted dress with a heavy fringed cashmere stole thrown over her shoulder. Instead of a bonnet, she had on a high turban held by a rhinestone clasp holding an ostrich feather. She stared back at me curiously, immobile, tapping her parasol.

  —Her manager, Dr. Gilligan, continued Master Hendrick, is a doctor who lives in our same hotel with his wife and mother-in-law. He takes care of the fairy on her travels and pays attention to her health. He’s taking . . . Are you listening, Saartjie? He’s taking her on tour to Liverpool, Birmingham, Oxford and Manchester—with her family’s consent, of course. They live in Dublin.

  At the mention of Manchester, I grew pensive. Would I ever see Manchester and the grave of the Reverend Freehouseland? Would I ever recover the ten pounds I had been robbed of? My inheritance?

  —The Royal College of Surgeons have offered, if any misfortune should occur to cause the child’s death, to give him or the family five hundred pounds for her remains for the purpose of dissection and the use of her remains for science—but wait until we open! We’ll charge more. She costs two shillings and an extra shilling if you want to pick her up or fondle her. Look, here it is, we’ve arrived.

  At the very end of the hall stood a wide alcove festooned with red curtains just under a high square window. Inside, there was a platform about three feet off the ground. The floor was wooden and sprinkled with sawdust. Directly behind the back curtain was a small windowless dressing room and a door leading to the communal courtyard outside. It was called the courtyard of miracles because all the circus attractions gathered there to eat, smoke and talk.

  —This is our stand, Sarah,
bought and paid for. The handbills are being printed now and the posters painted. I have ordered exotic plants and palms and a map of Africa in relief. Over the alcove will be written in bold letters, “The Venus Hottentot, the first of her race ever to set foot on English soil!”

  Master Hendrick went on excitedly but I myself was strangely subdued and silent.

  —Couldn’t we wait until Master Dunlop is returned? I asked.

  —Goodness no! And waste all that rent! No, no. I’m doing everything the way Alex had planned it down to the merest detail—You shall wear, for the sake of decency, a silk mousseline sheath so formfitting and so exactly matched to your own color it will be like a second skin. Your leggings and moccasins, your jewelry and pearls, your apron and the leather mask to hide part of your face as you requested, are all ready. We open this Monday without fail.

  —Why do you think he hasn’t written all this time or sent word that he is safely arrived?

  —Why, Saartjie, didn’t I tell you? I got a letter from him yesterday. I’ll read it to you when we get home.

  I was elated. He had not abandoned me. Back on Duke Street, Master Hendrick took out a piece of paper, began to read the letter from Master Alexander to me:

  My dear Sarah,

  Please, don’t worry. Everything is going exactly as I have planned and I have had some success although I may have to stay away longer than I had planned. I regret not to be there for your triumph, but I am sure Hendrick has everything under control.

  When I return, we will plan a traveling show to see England, which is much more than just London. Country folk have never seen such a spectacleand several businessmen have made inquiries for bringing you to their factories in the north of England.

  Don’t eat too much chocolate nor imbibe too much gin. Be home soon.