The Afrikaner

by Arianna Dagnino

  “Good point,” André says. “Americans don’t think of themselves as former Brits. My question then is: How can we claim to be African if, just to give a trivial example, at rugby matches we can sing only the ‘Die Stem’ bit of the anthem because we didn’t even care to learn the ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ part?”

  “We’ll get there,” Kurt replies. “Once we convince ourselves this is the way forward, which is also what tells us apart from the old world.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Blinded by their affluence and self-righteousness, Europeans don’t realize they’re drifting toward another form of socio-ethnic apartheid — less visible, perhaps, but not less insidious.” Once again Kurt stops and looks around the table at his guests. She, like the others, just sits staring at him, waiting for him to tell them more. “They are inadvertently building their own laager. It’s a regression, a replication of past oversights, and certainly not the way to go. We know it because we’ve already been there and borne its dire consequences. Your fortress becomes a prison once you have swarms of desperate people pressing at the gate.”

  They all keep quiet for a while, picking at the grapes and nuts from the cheese board, then looking at the wine in their glasses.

  “The interesting part of our writer’s theory,” Cyril says, breaking the silence, “is for all this process of Africanization of the volk to happen, Afrikaners still need to put up a fight.”

  The mockery in their partner’s tone is subtle but eloquent.

  “What does that mean?” Zoe asks turning toward Kurt.

  “Being white and Afrikaner in the new South Africa means having the wrong skin colour,” he replies, ignoring the sarcasm in Cyril’s remark. “Culturally, linguistically, now we are a minority under threat of extinction. That’s what drew me back.”

  “How lucky I am to be black these days ...” Cyril says, raising his glass to toast the company. Zoe realizes their partner is trying to lighten the tone, even though his friend’s words are not easy to digest.

  “I guess you’re one of those writers who write best from a position,” she says, the words falling off her somewhat dryly.

  “Not necessarily,” Kurt replies.

  “Anyway, I’d think twice before disavowing your European heritage,” Cyril says. “For me, it’s in Europe, among more or less enlightened white people, that I found my dignity. Not in the States — still too racist, although I’m greatly indebted to that country.”

  Kurt nods meekly to his friend, as if realizing he’s gone too far. Then he looks up from his cup of wine and searches Zoe’s eyes. She can’t be sure, but has the impression he’s made an effort to come out of his solitary confinement. By opening a chink in his protective wall he’s tried to reveal a part of himself. To her.

  When the time comes to take their leave, André and Cyril shake hands with their host and quickly disappear along the narrow path into the night, heading for the car.

  Zoe is left alone with Kurt in the halo of light from the back porch. He turns slowly toward her.

  “I’m told you’ll be leaving soon for your desert.”

  She nods.

  “And you won’t come back until you’ve found what you are looking for.”

  How is she to interpret his words: as a question, a confirmation, an order?

  “Another six months in the dust,” she says, averting her eyes.

  He senses her turmoil and gently touches her lips with the thumb of his left hand.

  “But you know you’ll come back to the ocean.”

  Zoe keeps her eyelids lowered. Her chin, however, is now facing up, towards him. He draws her to him and kisses her, ever so lightly. It’s an instant of bliss. Yet, she rapidly collects herself and withdraws, frightened by her sudden weakness. He pauses, on his face a sudden expression of dismay — then, of regret.

  Zoe swivels and runs away, leaving him there in the doorway, without even a good-bye. She climbs into the car, her heart still pounding wildly.

  On the day of her departure, Zoe receives a small parcel. “A man left it here this morning. Didn’t say a word,” Georgina says. She turns it over in her hands: no sender. Before opening it, Zoe tries to guess its contents. It might be a book. Indeed: It’s a copy of The Secret Sharer and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad, accompanied by a short letter written in the thick ink of a fountain pen and nervous, unconventional handwriting.

  Zoe,

  I thought I was well past the age when one gets carried away, acts on an impulse, follows the instinct of the moment. Evidently, I was wrong.

  I hope you will allow me to make amends in due course.

  In the desert, in prison or out at sea, Conrad can be a good companion. I found in his pages a way to exorcise, at least in part, the darkest moments of my life.

  May your search in the wilderness be rewarding.

  Kurt

  She reads the letter again, slowly absorbing it. Then takes the book and strokes the cover, thinking of Kurt’s hands, which she has so rudely stopped. She wishes she could follow him in his world of well-chosen words. Instead, she folds his letter and hides it inside the book.

  She leaves without replying.

  26

  NIGHT OF THE TRANCE

  FOR ANOTHER FIVE months Zoe and her team keep digging and sweating.

  Unsuccessfully.

  “We need a change,” she tells Moses one evening opening Dario’s map. Eight weeks have passed since the men came back from their second break. She senses the fragile harmony of the camp might not survive another month of unfruitful efforts.

  “Here,” she says putting her finger on the fourth and last red circle drawn by Dario. It marks the location of a group of modest rocky outcrops known as the Ahaberge — the Aha Hills. They protrude from the flat belly of the plain as rough, pointy breasts.

  “The Bushmen keep away from those koppies,” Sam says with his usual streak of mocking unconcern, looking in the direction of the hills, which stand out from the thorny scrub some thirty kilometres to the north-east. “They claim the spirits of the dead hover over the place. Someone even swears having seen horses there, running wild, mounted by screaming baboons.”

  She squints suspiciously. He smiles candidly as he stretches back, hands locked behind his head, elbows out.

  “Baboons?” Wally asks.

  “Ja, the San believe they’re the souls of those who, in the hour of death, haven’t realized they’re dead.”

  Wally keeps his eyes low; Lionel, Shadrack and Steve shuffle their boots in the sand with apparent uneasiness. Not even Moses seems enthusiastic about Zoe’s idea.

  She gives Sam a cross look, struggling to control her anger. She will not tolerate having her expedition jeopardized by an impertinent dagga addict set on poking fun at his mates. She has kept the Aha Hills as the final stage of her expedition and won’t back down now.

  She turns to Moses and tries to give a forceful tone to her voice: “Professor Oldani did circle this spot. We will give it a try.” Then looking sternly in Sam’s eyes: “At least we’ll leave the flatland — 300 metres up.”

  The day before they head for the hills, Koma walks up to her.

  “Tonight, we’ll talk to your shadow.”

  Zoe keeps quiet, looking out at the dreary stretch of dust and grass.

  She has pushed herself too far. Half a century ago Great Aunt Adèle entered a sangoma’s hut seeking a “cure” that would break her free. To no avail. Perhaps there are doors that shouldn’t be opened, or lead nowhere. Who can tell?

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  The old man looks straight at her, as if he were assessing her, then says: “The wind doesn’t respect words lightly said. Too quickly they fly away.”

  A half-smile finds its way to her lips. Kurt would like the way the old man speaks.

  She takes a deep breath: “This is it, then.”

  “Come when you hear the women singing.”

  That’s all, no other instructions.

&
nbsp; Just before sunset the wind begins to blow across the plain, carrying its breath through the camel thorn, swaying the collective nests of the sociable weaver-birds. It bursts in gusts, full of the scents of the veld. The forces of nature have been mustered. The scene is set.

  At dinner, Zoe sits aside, with no desire to talk. Later on, while she’s having her rooibos, Sam approaches her. She smells the acrid smoke of the dagga imprisoned in his wool cap.

  “Koma told me you’ll be entering the trance circle tonight.”

  “Did he?” she says drily, still angry at him.

  “Perhaps he thought you might need a chaperone,” he says.

  “I see.”

  “You look worried, Mejuffrou.”

  She feels her lips quivering, like those of a child about to cry. Sam looks away and gives her time to gather herself.

  She takes a sip from her tin cup, still undecided. Then, in a low voice: “It feels strange, even a bit scary, I must say.”

  “If you’re lucky, it’s gonna get a hold on you.”

  “And then what happens?

  “Nothing. Just pure bliss. That’s when the healing starts.”

  “How will I know?”

  “No need to know, you’ll feel it.”

  She keeps quiet.

  “I can come with you if you wish. I got their permission.”

  “Would you?”

  “It’d be an honour.”

  A few minutes later, darkness drops like a heavy curtain on the Kalahari. Then, something unusual happens. Although the rainy season is still far away, flares of electrical discharge pierce the night cover, creating fluorescent patterns over the horizon. After the lightning comes the thunder, rolling boulders along the prairie sky.

  From the kraal a litany of acute feminine voices rises into the blackness.

  “It’s time,” Sam says.

  She picks up the torch and follows Sam along the path to the village. She sticks to the narrow cone of light in front of her, her eyes fixed on the ground, her mind suddenly gone blank.

  When they reach the women chanting around the campfire, Sam motions for her to sit on the sidelines, just outside the circle. Some of the women dance with their babies tied in a blanket on their backs, others stand crouched on the ground, weaving their voices together into an elementary polyphony punctuated by the obsessive rhythm of their hand-clapping. The lightning keeps whizzing across the black dome over their heads, revealing in flashes the huts, the bare breasts, the children’s sleepy eyes.

  Zoe takes a peek at Sam out of the corner of her eye. He has taken off the wool cap and the long, braided Rasta hair now tumbles over his shoulders and face. He keeps his eyes closed, waiting. The night has turned into a cold hand; Zoe feels its fingers pierce her light coat and cling to her body.

  Then, all of a sudden, Koma and the village shaman, Khao, come out of the night, making their way into the circle of firelight. They advance in small steps, singing with husky voices, stomping their feet on the ground. They’re naked but for a leather loincloth tied at the waist. They keep dancing around the fire, leaning forward on their sticks. marking the tempo with their rattles, made of insect cocoons filled with ostrich egg-shell splinters. The singing intensifies in pitch, the beat of the rattle drumming accelerates.

  Khao lets out a high-pitched howl. He starts shaking and swaying, then staggers out of the circle of light.

  “He’s in a trance, now,” Sam tells Zoe, pointing with a tiny head nod at the old shaman.

  Clinging to her scientist’s mind, Zoe takes a mental note: Khao has reached his trance state through sheer mind power, apparently without ingesting or smoking any psychogenic substances.

  “What about Koma?”

  “He’s only in a semi-trance. He’s in attendance, you see?”

  Zoe watches the old shaman from Schmidtsdrift hold his companion, direct him with his singing and the relentless beat of the rattles.

  The two men step back into the circle. Then, still singing, Khao leans over one of the women, lays one hand on her chest and one on her back. He flutters his hands as if they were little wings. All along he keeps moaning, grunting, mumbling words Zoe can’t understand.

  “He’s talking to the spirits,” Sam explains, “chasing the demons away. Drawing the sickness out through his arms — taking it into himself.”

  The old shaman goes on with his healing work through gasps and piercing cries, laying his trembling hands on every person in the circle and then throwing up his arms, as if he could really cast the sickness out, hurl it into the black sky. He often rushes to the fire, teetering dangerously over it; Koma is always there to hold him, preventing him from falling into it.

  “When they’re in that state they feel their body as cold as frost at dawn,” Sam says. “They try to warm it up as best as they can.”

  The singing, the clapping, the stomping never cease, never lose their intensity and rhythmic precision.

  Khao has almost completed the circle of healing when Koma motions for Zoe to follow him.

  As she gets up, Sam whispers: “Don’t fight it.”

  Koma leads her into the circle and has her sit down among the women, then takes Khao by the shoulders and gently directs him towards her. She is stunned by fright, feels gooseflesh crawl on her skin. At the same time, she’s drawn to the obsessive rhythm of the rattles, the mysterious breath coming from the desert, the shrill voices of the singing women, and by this old naked man now in front of her, lost in his trance — so far away, unreachable.

  Zoe makes an effort to calm down, breathing deeply. She crosses her legs, rests the palms of her hands on her knees, closes her eyes and tries to focus on the nothingness. She wants to get rid of every thought, every sparkle of her rational mind. She visualizes herself stripped of her scientist’s garb, willing to offer herself in her most primitive, human form.

  The firelight dances on her eyelids, she hears Khao’s laboured breathing come closer and then feels his quivering hands first on her neck and then on her chest — they are pure energy. She keeps her eyes closed, feeling there’s no need to open them: She can see him without looking at him. For an instant, all barriers — between her, Sam, the San people, her language, their language, her skin, their skin — crumble.

  Khao hisses, moans and then, after what seems to her a long spell of silence, lets out a piercing scream. He withdraws his hands. The women’s singing stops. The ratt-atatta-ta of the rattles against the men’s calves fades away. Only the crackling of the campfire keeps going.

  Zoe stops breathing, her heart misses a beat, or so she feels. She doesn’t want to open her eyes, not knowing what to expect. The silence is short lived. The ratt-at-at-ta-ta starts again, along with the hand clapping and the women’s singing.

  With her eyes still firmly shut, Zoe feels Khao’s hands on her chest again.

  And here again comes this galvanizing feeling of being inside a limitless womb of light, safe and warm. She loses track of time, because time has ceased to exist. She is living through her skin pores, absorbing all this light. She is blind, yet she can see everything, feel everything.

  It is pure, emotional joy.

  Three times the shaman puts his hands on her; each time Zoe feels these quivering hands don’t belong to him, an old shrivelled old man, but to a luminous girl. And this girl keeps wailing, whining, sending her high-pitched shrieks through the sky.

  Until, all of a sudden, the night falls silent again. Reluctantly, she opens her eyes, as the women and children casually shuffle back to their huts. It’s Koma who, finally, takes her by the arm and helps her up.

  “Loop. Go now.” That’s all he says.

  As she and Sam head off to the camp in the dark, leaving behind them the halo of the campfire, Zoe sees Khao’s body lying apparently lifeless on the ground. Two women are rubbing his chest, another is passing hot coals over his body. She watches worriedly, as a trickle of blood flows from the shaman’s nostrils.

  “It’s not your fault, Mej
uffrou. It’s often the case,” Sam says following her gaze. “It’ll take him a few hours to recover.”

  Zoe has already slipped back into her scientist mode. She kneels by Khao’s inert body and places two fingers on his wrist looking for a pulse. The heart rate is dangerously slow, like that of a comatose person. This man knows the secret to kiss death on her lips and withdraw just before she can entice him forever.

  Back at the camp, Zoe lies awake in her cot for a long time, her eyes open onto the slate of a starless sky. She thinks of Khao. The old shaman has offered her something inexplicable. Sam is right: There are no words for it. She has been part of a ritual as old as the desert. A “living fossil” has showed her the true meaning of joy — pure, ecstatic, unselfish joy. But it all might be an illusion, a short-lived entrainment into a hypnotic state. It all might be the workings of a mind — her mind — lost at sea, desperately seeking its bearings.

  After all, she is nothing but a poor human being biting into the thorns of existence.

  The next morning, Zoe struggles to get up. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the men in the camp are already up and about. The smell of coffee reaches her and pushes her out of her sleeping bag. Once dressed, she joins her crew for breakfast. Then looks for Koma, sitting outside his hut. A glance at his inscrutable face is enough to tell her that he won’t talk to her today; he won’t reveal whether her shadows have been vanquished. His words will come at the right time.

  27

  SORROW

  AUNT CLAIRE’S IS the story Zoe remembers best. Yet, she now wants to revisit it through her words, written in elegant but resolute handwriting. She’s seeking consolation in the inked voice of someone who already travelled along the same barren road. Or, perhaps, she needs a tragic story to indulge in self-commiseration, as her aunts did in the past.