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Hottentot Venus

Page 21

by Barbara Chase-Riboud


  —Well, he said, there are three types of freaks: a natural-born freak, a made freak and a fake freak. Our little Victor here would fall into the category of a “made” freak, if he’s willing to learn the trade and endure a little pain. People need thrills, they need to wonder about somethin’, including the marvels of nature. This is what I call show business. Show business is the art of catering to the slenderly learned and common sort. It is the same as accounts of murders, executions, witchcraft and other prodigies. The English are a nation of starers and they have a taste for monsters that cuts across all classes. Strange sights and monstermongers have never been more popular and all kinds of deformation bring fame and fortune. Now our little prodigy here is going to have a fine, monstrous birth. I am going to stick a giant turtleshell, which I know exactly where to find, on his natural hump and produce a wondrous little turtle-boy whose head peeks in and out of his body as if by magic and his skinny legs curl up inside his shell jus’ like a real turtle when he crawls . . . With a shell, Victor will be a sensation, he’s small and scrawny enough with his spindly legs to convince anybody he was born a turtle! Let’s see your face now. Yes. A little coal dust around the eyes, a fake beak for a nose, a scaly neck and you’ll be perfect! I agree to take him along if he’s willing to become a player! He must never let his guard down in public or allow himself to be seen as anything else than Victor the turtle-boy . . . When I finish with him, they’ll all be singing:

  Come neere, good Christians all,

  Behold a monster rare,

  Whose monstrous shape no doubt foretells

  God’s wrath we should beware . . .

  Alice jumped for joy. It was a wonderful idea.

  —But he’s got to be funny, see? The people want to laugh at terror, not run from it! The people need to laugh at him, continued Victor’s new manager.

  And, I thought to myself, Yes, Victor, you must survive their laughter. And that was the hardest. Without my daily pint of gin, I could never have survived.

  Now that I was in Manchester, I determined to find my beloved Reverend Freehouseland. Alice and I eventually found his grave in the quiet, frozen, treeless cemetery behind the gray stone bell tower of Christ’s Church in the parish of Littleburn. Large flakes of snow began to fall and I drew my long red cape around me. As we stood, our heads bowed, a new reverend, who resembled him, approached us.

  —You are strangers here, he said. Are you new workers at the mill?

  —No, Reverend, we are circus people on tour. We will be here only a few weeks. But this woman, Sarah, was a slave to the Reverend Freehouseland at the Cape Colony. She was freed by him before he died. She came today to find his grave and pay her respects.

  —An African? A member of Cecil’s mission? At the Cape?

  —Yes, from the Cape of Good Hope. A lady from the Cape of Good Hope, repeated Alice.

  —Well, this is where he lies in peace. He pointed to the gravestone:

  CECIL JAMES FREEHOUSELAND

  Beloved son, servant of God

  African missionary to the Heathen.

  Savior of Their Souls

  1756–1796

  Psalm XV

  —So you are a Christian? the priest said, turning to me.

  —No, Reverend, I was never baptized.

  —It is never too late, he said. Allow me to instruct you while you sojourn here, as a tribute to my old friend Cecil.

  —You knew him?

  —We were in the seminary together. We are both from Manchester, native sons, so to speak, who traveled to far-off places, I to China, Cecil to Africa . . .

  —I wouldn’t read the Book, I confessed. It wouldn’t talk to me.

  —What book?

  —The Bible.

  —Well, he paused, perhaps you had your reasons.

  —Yes, I couldn’t read.

  At this, he laughed, the sound swishing out of him like the wind.

  —Who are you?

  —Well, let’s say, Reverend, interrupted Alice, Sarah has traveled far and wide because of her extraordinary body. People in England had never seen anyone like her before, neither her color nor her shape. Most have never seen a black person.

  —People pay to see her because her skin is black?

  —That partly. And for other things as well. She is famous in London. She is known as the Hottentot Venus.

  —And you travel the countryside like this, alone?

  —No, Reverend, I answered. We travel with my two masters, a dog, a troupe of actors, a few musicians . . .

  —And you are a slave to these men?

  —Not a slave. Yet they own me. I have made a sacred marriage contract with one of them. The others are his partners.

  But the reverend didn’t understand.

  —You understand, child, that living with a man who is not your husband is a sin.

  —A sin?

  —But, Reverend, she is chaste, protested Alice.

  —Nevertheless. It is unseemly. I don’t think Father Cecil would approve.

  —Then save her, Reverend, said Alice.

  —I intend to, Miss . . .

  —Alice Unicorn.

  —It is the least I can do for Cecil. Why, I couldn’t walk past his grave if I didn’t at least try.

  —He left me ten pounds in his will but it was never paid to me by his family.

  —And you came all this way here to claim it?

  —I came to escape from the Cape. To be free, to earn money to save my clan.

  —The Freehouselands are all good Christians.

  —Perhaps, but also thieves.

  —You were but a child then.

  —All the more shame.

  —Come with me, child. The reverend turned and started towards the church. I was glad Alice was with me. She knew the ways of the English. I would have been frightened all by myself. Inside the church, the ceiling rose high above my head and curved even higher in stone arches of great beauty. The aisles flickered with lit candles, the polished wooden benches reflected in the gloom. At the end of the long hall was a simple altar draped in white linen and a high wooden pulpit on which hung a gold crucifix.

  —Can you read at all, Sarah?

  —A little. A fairy taught me. And now, Alice is teaching me.

  —Well, if you can read and understand the prayer book I’m going to give you, and answer a few simple questions, I can baptize you and welcome you into the flock of Jesus Christ as a Christian and an Episcopalian. Would you like that? It means that you can no longer live in sin with those men without an act of holy matrimony.

  —But I’m their servant.

  —And I’m her chaperone, Alice lied.

  —Nevertheless, said the priest sternly, the Church of England would not approve.

  I said nothing. Perhaps this was what Magahâs meant. Eternal wandering amongst whites without ever reaching a destination. I had walked from home to Cape Town on a road that had no turnoffs, no crossroads; it simply had gone on, mile after mile, in a straight line. I would never see the Cape again, I thought. I would never retrieve my ten pounds. I would never ever hear another Cape lion roar. The Reverend Freehouseland had guided me to this end-of-the-world.

  —The Lord be praised, said Father Joshua, for bringing me one of his lost sheep.

  —Lost sheep? I am a shepherdess.

  —The Lord is our shepherd, child, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that you are one too. I’m expecting your visit soon, Sarah.

  I nodded and took Alice’s arm. It seemed to me that my salvation was a huge and ominous undertaking. It was more, I thought, than just a ritual passage from childhood to adulthood. It was a passage from Africa to England.

  —I have my own way of illustrating truths, the reverend began on my first visit. I preach the love of Christ, the need of regeneration and the judgment to come. I regard a Christian as a fully developed man or woman and as a creature that has not only civil, domestic and social duties but a body, a brain and a soul to be cared for. You understan
d?

  Slowly, he led me through simple passages he called the word of God. He would hold forth on a subject passionately, then pause and say, “Let’s hear what the Savior says,” and seek a passage in the New Testament. Then, he would make a bold, striking comment. Sometimes funny, sometimes referring to my own life or to the circus, although he had never come to see the spectacle. The idea that God was speaking directly to me began to take root in my thoughts. I never for a moment doubted that he, the preacher, believed he was reading the words of God. Many times the word “shepherd” would appear in the text—The Lord is my shepherd—and he would laugh and point to me and speak of my father’s flocks. And a long, pent-up sigh or a smile or a tear would escape me, I could never predict which. I was completely in his hands.

  He was a better actor than Master Taylor. He could imitate a drunken man before a judge, an angel announcing the end of the world, a glass-blower making a vase or a carpenter building a house. He would imitate a man cutting down a tree, pulling in a fishing net, a swallow rising on its wings, a turkey strutting, a dog barking, a wolf howling at the moon. He had a particular shrug of his shoulders, and if he spoke of hypocrites, he would draw his face down and make himself so funny, so pompous, that I had to laugh. I was never bored or afraid. He kept me breathless and awake with his parables, as he called them, from his life, from his journeys, his cold nights, his warm seasons, his travels in China, his struggles with sin and the lightninglike power of evil.

  —Some men like their bread cold, some like it hot. I like mine hot, he would say.

  He gave me a prayer book and said that when I could read aloud the passages he chose, he would baptize me. To do so, Father Joshua had to ask permission from the Bishop of Chester, a formidable man who lived in Wedgewood. After that, we met in the Sunday school room, full of pictures and flowers, an organ and a melodeon. It smelled of beeswax and chalk, of wild ferns and the good odor of children. It made me think of painted caves, rough mountains, calm sea and !Kung. I learned from Father Joshua that Father Freehouseland had suffered greatly in Africa from a host of disappointments, illnesses and solitude. He had missed his wife after she had returned to England.

  —I do believe he bought you to free you, Father Joshua said one day. I can’t believe he was a slave owner.

  —Oh, he bought only children, I said, or very young people, and always in the name of the Lord. He bought us to save us . . .

  On the day Father Joshua announced to me that I was ready for baptism, he already had the bishop’s permission. I was overjoyed. It took place the following evening at vespers. The church was almost full. The sound of people finding the hymn was like the rustling of peacock feathers. They all stood, all sang, all welcomed me into their Kingdom. Alice stood as my godmother and Victor as my godfather. All my Christian masters were there: Master Taylor, the saint; Master Dunlop, the knight; and Master Caesar, the patriarch.

  As the chalice of water trickled over my head, I closed my eyes and the image of the one-legged purple heron came to me, just as if I were standing alone, deep in the African forest.

  December 1, Register of the Collegiate and Sarah Baartman, a female Hottentot from the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, born in the borders of Caffravia, baptized this day by permission of the Lord Bishop of Chester sent by letter from his Lordship to Jos. Brooks, Chaplain.

  Witness, Joshua Brooks

  We all gathered around the headstone of Cecil James Freehouseland. I wore a new hooded cloak, made of the finest double-milled wool and of such an intense scarlet that it threw a glimmer whenever it moved. It was long and full with large folds like the closed wings of a flamingo. The white men had won in the end. I was a Christian. I had a Christian name, Sarah, and I had a Christian country, the Kingdom of God. I was safe from damnation as a heathen.

  —Can I be married in a church now that I am baptized?

  —I have a better idea, replied Master Dunlop like a bolt of lightning.

  —Why don’t we return to the church with Father Joshua this very moment so that he can marry us tonight? We can use this, he said. He took a brass ring off his little finger.

  And so, that same evening, Alice and Victor were again witnesses. My master was now my husband, my keeper was also my bridegroom. The Reverend Brooks was happy to forgo the publication of the marriage banns. I had time only to lay my bride’s bouquet of mistletoe on the grave of my late master before the circus left for Bath. I whispered my news to him, thinking it would please him to know I had finally come into his Kingdom of Christ.

  —If he wanted to keep you from ever running away from him, the best way to do so was to have married you, complained Alice. If you ran away as a slave, you could go for help to the African Institution and the Reverend Wedderburn. If you run away from Dunlop now, as his wife, he can send the constables after you to bring you back as his property and no one will lift a finger. No one will help you because you are legally his. He can shut you up in his house and throw away the key. He can starve you or beat you or rape you and no policeman or magistrate can touch him. He can shut you up in an asylum forever and no doctor will contradict him. As your husband, he now possesses all your money. Your dowry, your earnings, your capital are his to do with as he pleases. He’s recovered three-quarters of you without spending a shilling!

  That which the husband hath is his own. That which the wife hath is the husband’s.

  —He at least had to pay you as his servant, and as his slave you could claim your freedom on English soil. As his wife, you are nothing except his property. He doesn’t have to pay a wife. He has only to feed you and clothe you and provide a roof over your head. As your legal husband, all your money is now his. So is your body. That’s the law. You have given up liberty, estate and authority to a man. And on top of that, Sarah, would you ever dishonor yourself by running away from your husband in the eyes of God? No! Well, I think it’s all Hendrick Caesar’s idea. This way he can return to the Cape of Good Hope with his money and his conscience clear. And now Dunlop has you back even though he sold you to Henry Taylor. You’re his property again. Just as before. This time he’s gotten you back without paying . . . Don’t you see?

  But I didn’t see.

  15

  Understand that the word “species” means the individuals who descend from one another or from common parents and those who resemble them as much as they resemble each other. Thus, we call varieties of a species only those races more or less different which can arise from it by reproduction. Our observations on the differences amongst the ancestors and the descendants are therefore for us the only reasonable rule, because all others would take us back to hypotheses without proofs.

  —BARON GEORGES LÉOPOLD CUVIER,

  Discourse on the Revolutionary Upheavals

  on the Surface of the Globe

  Black moon, the English month of May, 1812. Despite all of my husband’s promises to return to Africa, our life of touring England lasted for two more years. Master Hendrick did indeed decide he wanted to return to the Cape with his share of the profits. With him went the last of my past, the last of my Africa. I would not miss him. I didn’t love him, and as a master, he had been neither kind nor honorable. As a matter of fact, I probably hated him, although this sentiment never came to the surface of my thoughts. In all, I was happy to be rid of him. The idea of never seeing him again filled me with joy. I never saw or heard from him again. His face faded into forgetfulness and became only a blur in the long procession of men to whom I had belonged. He would return to his family with my riches. Some other servant would wash his feet while he discussed the triumph of his Hottentot Venus in faraway London. He left at the end of 1812 on the same ship on which we had all arrived, the Exeter. Master Dunlop took the rest of the money as my dowry and the last expenses left our cashbox empty. The tour of England and Ireland became a necessity instead of a choice. During those years of 1812 and 1813, we crisscrossed the Midlands, the northern counties of Lancaster, Cumberland and Yorkshire, and
Northern Ireland. We traveled by caravan, covered wagon and coach. Our painted canvas posters advertising the Hottentot Venus were always hung on the sides of our carriage along with the advertisements for Henry Taylor’s theater. Along the way, actors, clowns, freaks, animal trainers, musicians and magicians joined or left our little troupe, falling off or climbing on at will, in the backwater villages, country fairs and itinerant markets selling everything from cattle to cotton. Many of the vagabond performers disappeared as quickly as they came, leaving nothing behind, not even a memory. Like Master Caesar. I was now divided between my husband, Master Dunlop, and the actor Master Taylor. Just as I forgot Master Caesar, I forgot the countless cities and towns, castles and manor houses, villages and fairs in which we performed.

  My attachment to Alice Unicorn grew. When we could, we would close ourselves up in the caravan and read the Collects, the Bible, the Times Almanac and Reading Made Easy. Master Taylor had lent us his copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Victor as the turtle-boy was a sensation and grew into a popular attraction. Our “made” freak earned money both for himself and for his sister.

  —Since men’s minds are haunted by the desire to change nature’s smallest quirk into truth based on their own fantasies, then let us oblige them with our turtle-boy, Master Taylor would say as he stuffed Victor’s head down into his papier-mâché neck.

  Victor’s “neck” was a cardboard collar covered with snakeskin, wide enough to poke his head in and out of. Strapped to the hump on his back was a giant turtleshell that Master Taylor had bought from another circus man in Liverpool. The transformation was amazing and terrifying. Each day Victor the turtle-boy was born out of snakeskin and a lie. His rebirth into a thing-that-should-never-have-been-born was only so that Englishmen could marvel at the wonders of nature and cross themselves that there but for the grace of God went they. They cheered and clapped and whistled and laughed as if the very meaning of their lives depended upon his deformity and his sorrow.

  Whenever we appeared in a new town, our masters would go off to find some game of chance where they might win something to supplement our meager earnings and fill our purse until the next town: craps, poker, trente-et-un, anything that might keep us until the box office opened. We left a string of bad debts behind us: unpaid hotel rooms and angry gamblers we had fleeced. Even though he was my husband, my master rarely slept in the same room with me, and when he did, it was usually to sleep off the effects of a night of drinking and gambling. I was grateful for his neglect. Although I had been happy with Kx’au, I had never understood the fascination connected with the performance of sex. I had never been transported by the ecstasy that was supposed to accompany it.

 

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