by Katie Crouch
“It works the other way, too, you know. Spouses who follow their wives around. That’s what I’ve basically been doing for a decade.”
“You weren’t following. You were working, in one place.”
“Anyway, you should be happy. How often in life does one get to be a government-sponsored concubine?” He looked at her legs again. “The Fulbright is paying a stipend for you, too, you know. It’s not very big, but it’s something. So maybe you should be putting a bit more time into pleasuring this spouse you’re trailing.”
Amanda picked up a wooden spoon and threw it at him, narrowly missing Mark’s head. “I’m going to take a bath,” she said. “I’ll be out in an hour.”
She grabbed her goblet of wine and left, leaving Mark alone with a family of yellow weaver birds. He watched as they flew back and forth from their teardrop nests made of reeds. The male weavers were a brilliant, shocking yellow, streaked with jet-black. They looked like flying buttercups. From skimming the Peterson’s, Mark knew the males collected the grass and wove the outside of the nests, while the females lined their little houses with feathers and leaves. It was an episode of Planet Earth, right here in their backyard. Even David Attenborough would be impressed. Couldn’t his wife and daughter stop leaving him and appreciate what he had done for them?
“Fuck it,” Mark said to the birds.
“Dollar,” Meg called from down the hall. Her voice was so soft, Mark could barely make out the sound.
/ 4 /
A mile away from the Evanses’ bungalow, on a hill in Ludwigsdorf nestled in the midst of a few other houses so large they might well have been hotels, Mila Shilongo was overseeing supper.
Mila hadn’t touched a stove herself in five years, but she kept a close eye on Libertina, who had a tendency to over-boil rice and ruin good cuts of meat with too much braai spice. Though Mila had bought Libertina two blue uniform sets, the housekeeper insisted on wearing her traditional Herero dresses, complete with double-horned cap. Libertina was perfectly sweet to the Shilongos; Mila had never caught her even rolling an eye. Still, she couldn’t help thinking—given the centuries of bloody wars between her own tribe and Libertina’s—that the long, printed dresses were something of a small fok jou to her Oshiwambo employers. At first it had annoyed Mila, but it no longer did. She knew what it was to work for someone else, and how one had to seize every opportunity for personal dignity.
Libertina’s traditionally clad, stooped form was glaringly out of place in the Shilongos’ gargantuan home, constructed solely of white brick, white tile, and glass. The furniture was all either black or white, the rugs were almost all trophy skins. Mila loved her house. It was clean, neat, huge, and appropriately opulent.
“Don’t boil that rice too long, Libertina,” she said now, pouring herself a tiny bit of wine. The old woman glanced at the glass, her face as unreadable as blank paper. Ignoring what she guessed was a judgment, Mila stepped out to the patio to relax and look out over her own version of Namibia.
It surprised Mila daily that she still lived in this country. When she was a girl, she and her sisters would make their way to school early to beat the sun. While the others scrabbled and ran in the flat red play yard, Mila would slip into the empty classroom and pull out the worn atlas, donated some fifteen years before by a German family. She didn’t read German and didn’t want to, but she would run her finger over the images of countries across the sea, places that must be cool and kind, dotted with trees and mountains. She imagined that the place called Frankreich must be entirely pink, the way it was shown on the map. Pink grass, pink trees and buildings, a cotton-candy sky. Kanada offered aquamarine mountains and royal blue cities; Australien would be entirely canary yellow, ocean to sea. She knew this to be true because in the book Namibia was exactly the color it was in real life: an ugly burnt orange, same as the clay in the plot outside her hut where nothing would grow, same as the dust that blew all the way up from the desert and coated the inside of her mouth.
Mila’s Namibia was a different place than the country Persephone and her friend were visiting. Those women, Mila thought, with their hand sanitizer and their white clothes, would never actually live here. They would say they did once they went back to the United States. When I lived in Africa … they would tell people at parties. But they hadn’t really, even if they stayed for three years, or ten. Those women could go home when they wanted to, when their friend got malaria, or if they got tired of the snakes in the garden. The Americans saw elephants as novelties to be photographed; Mila knew them as nuisances that trampled villages and shat gallons of dung in the yard. The Americans saw the vast red dunes in the Namib Desert as a natural wonder; Mila knew they were a waste of space, deadly to any living being but the ant or the oryx. The Americans spent thousands chasing lions around with cameras; Mila’s uncle had been killed by a pack while herding goats outside of Otji. From their air-conditioned trucks, the Americans didn’t feel the eye-scorching heat. They didn’t know what it was like to have to lie down half of the day just to survive, your sweat pooling under your back, trickling out of every crevice. They didn’t know that families battled, sometimes violently, over a single shade-bearing tree. They didn’t know what it was to live with twelve people in a small mud house, fighting over the grainy TV, bickering over the radio, batting the flies that boomeranged in through the window as soon as the morning light hit the ground. And though Mila did not live that way now and never would again, she was tired of Namibia, and she was tired of the visitors. But there was no leaving this place for her. There’d been a single flash of hope, years ago, but that, like so many other flames, had flickered and died.
Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of purple. It was Taimi, fluttering next to the pool. She could have been a lilac-breasted roller, fluttering in from Katima. Watching her brought Mila’s mind back to the unpleasant business of the trouble that morning. She sighed heavily. From the start, Mila had been against her daughter going to the International School. There were other private institutions—St. George’s, for one, and St. Paul’s—that followed the proper African calendar. Why would she want Taimi to be in school when the rest of Namibia was on summer break? It made no sense. And, if they really wanted Taimi to be clever, Mila had pointed out to Josephat, even better boarding schools awaited in South Africa. Certainly they had the money for it.
But Josephat had been adamant about their daughter staying in Windhoek. As a boy, his mother had left him with his grandmother in Oshakati while she went to Walvis Bay to work in a hotel. She only visited him every six weeks, which meant Josephat suffered a long, lonely childhood in his grandmother’s hut, unprotected from her nightly demands that he scrub her heels with a mixture of paste made of sand and salt. Even today, Josephat still harbored a revulsion toward feet, which meant Mila could only wear shoes with closed toes in his presence. No small sacrifice, she often thought, in a charred land such as this.
Josephat’s experience also brought on the decree that no child of his would grow up outside of his house, now that he was a rich man. Their older daughter, Anna, could do whatever she wanted … and she did. Josephat’s success had arrived too late to give her the benefit of a proper education. But Taimi! She would have the best Windhoek could offer, which was an international certificate. So, the International School it was, along with its den of international mothers, those lazy women who lounged about the coffee hut all morning and couldn’t drive properly on the left side of the road.
And who were these children, Mila wondered, Taimi’s classmates? How stupid could the Americans be? How could they not know that Taimi’s father was in the government, that striking his child could almost be construed as an offense against the state itself? And, what was more, how could they not know who Mila was?
She looked at her phone, checking to see if Josephat had called yet. Only texts from Adam Wilder, wanting to meet again about their project. Damn Josephat, getting this idiot involved in their affairs. She supposed it was important to
have relationships with diplomats to distract from rumors of corruption, but this one! First of all, it had stirred up the wrath of the Gecko, though Mila had certainly put her in her place today. More irritatingly, the man could not have a conversation with her without staring at her breasts.
Mila sat in a chaise lounge to wait. She had never liked Persephone Wilder, with her constant criticisms and her ideas of “how things could be better in Namibia,” if only the Namibians would listen. She sat there, lording over those PTA meetings with her soy matcha chai. Bringing a takeaway cup to a coffee hour in someone’s home! Disgusting! Now the Gecko (Mila’s favorite name for her) had nominated herself as the new PTA president, and—boom!—won the election. She would, she said, take charge of the first project at hand, International Day, and give it “new life,” unmistakably suggesting that Mila’s party hadn’t been sufficient. Now, as if all of that weren’t enough, Persephone was apparently enlisting another woman to attack her through her own child. The thought made her toes curl.
“Taimi!” Mila shouted. “Come here.”
Her daughter sashayed around the pool, taking her time to come to her mother. Oh, this child. Mila shook her head as Taimi swung her hips from side to side and jangled the bracelets she had taken to wearing on her ankles.
“What are you doing, walking like that? Do you want people to think you’re a little prostitute? Your father will be home at any minute, and he will not be pleased to see you wearing almost nothing.”
“My father loves me no matter what I wear.”
Mila nodded in reluctant agreement. Taimi was Josephat’s true joy—which was precisely why she was so very spoiled.
“I am still trying to interpret what happened between you and the new American girl today.” Mila folded her arms over her chest and looked at her daughter through narrowed eyes. “She had no reason to attack you? None?”
Taimi did a leap and a pirouette, landing inches from the edge of the pool.
“Answer me when I am talking to you.”
“Well. Perhaps a little reason.”
“Yes?”
“We were playing a game.”
“What game?”
“A pretend game.”
“Of what?”
Taimi stood still, studying the sky.
“Taimi?”
“Ministers.”
“What?”
“We were pretending to be ministers.”
Mila adjusted her position in her seat.
“Government ministers?”
“Exactly.” Taimi beamed. “Like Papa.”
“And you were minister of what?”
“I was president.”
“Aha.” Mila tried to conceal her approval.
“The new girl was the minister of trampolines. Phalana was minister of swings.”
“I see. So how did the minister of trampolines get so out of control?”
“I asked her where she was keeping her other wife.”
Mila’s smile faded. “Taimi Shilongo. What are you talking about?”
“I said, Where does the minister of trampolines keep her other wife? And she asked me what I meant. And I said, ‘You know what I mean. The minister has a secret.’ And she hit me. With her fist.”
“Well.” Mila paused, a bit confounded by her daughter’s precociousness. “What did you mean? What secret?”
“Mila! Taimi!”
Josephat was home. Taimi did another pirouette, stopped dead, then gave her mother a dazzling smile before dashing away toward her father’s voice.
“Papa!”
Josephat emerged onto the balcony, looking tired yet still perfectly pressed. Mila loved that about him; he was a big man, yet no matter what the weather, he seemed never to perspire. He picked up his daughter and twirled her around. Mila sighed. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get to the bottom of this tonight, which meant she probably wouldn’t at all, ever.
“Taimi, go tell Libertina to put dinner on.”
Her daughter skipped away. Josephat sat in the chair next to her, looking out over the city. Mila smiled. They did not have a traditional relationship, God knew that. Yet she couldn’t help being overwhelmed every time she saw him.
“So?” Mila leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Where were you just now?”
“Meetings.”
Mila rolled her eyes. The ministers loved having meetings. They loved planning the meetings, they loved meeting to plan. Actually getting things done, that was a different story. “I have news,” she said.
“Yes?”
“A foreign girl struck Taimi today.”
“What?” Josephat turned, his face rigid with anger. He and his sisters had been beaten every day of their childhood by his grandmother, usually with a broom handle. Mila knew this would set him off. “Is she going back to her country?”
“No, but she was sent home for the day. I believe Taimi may have said something unkind.”
“I don’t care. This is not acceptable, Mila. We didn’t work this hard to have Taimi have the same childhood we did.”
Mila glanced at the Jacuzzi burbling at Josephat’s feet. “I do not think she’s in danger of facing our hardships, Jo.”
“Who is this girl?”
“An embassy child.”
Her husband groaned. “American?”
“Naturally.” She rubbed his arm. He had such lovely forearms … ropy, the color of gleaming teak.
“Shame. They think they can come here and do whatever they want.” His lack of physical response chilled her; Mila took her hand back.
“Well, the American Mr. Wilder certainly thinks he can do what he wants with me.”
“Adam Wilder makes us look good, my dear. He is necessary. But the others? What are the Americans even doing in Namibia?”
“You mean Nam-bia?”
Josephat smiled. The American president’s mash-up of “Namibia” and “Zambia” in a speech in front of the world mangling their country’s name had happened some months before.
“Exactly. They don’t even know where they are! And they think we’re … a ‘shithole.’ Did you hear that one?”
“I did.”
“Awful people,” Josephat said. “I was talking to one businessman today, here to sell me cement or some what-what-what.”
“Was he bidding for a road-building job?”
“Not properly,” Josephat said. Mila nodded. This meant he was a contractor who didn’t understand that there was no way Josephat would purchase his materials unless he was guaranteed a secret kickback.
“He was ignorant, then,” Mila suggested.
Josephat shrugged and got up out of his chair to get a closer look at the view. “Not knowledgeable of Africa, my dear. Anyway, he said he didn’t have the same views as the White House. ‘He’s not my president,’ this man said.”
Mila and Josephat burst into laughter together. Americans actually thought they could excuse themselves individually from their leader! As if the world didn’t think Mugabe when they met a man from Zimbabwe. Or as if a girl whose mother was a whore would ever be anything other than a whore’s daughter.
Josephat put his arm around Mila’s shoulders as they looked at the city. She wished he would encircle her waist. For the last few years, he had been withholding affection, seemingly curling into himself more and more. She couldn’t remember when it started, and she didn’t know what she had done. But he was the floor of her ocean; without him, her carefully constructed world would crack open and fall away. The new lack of security caused her physical pain.
“Who are these new embassy people anyway?” he asked finally. “I’ll have them followed.”
“They’re no one. I’ll deal with it tomorrow when I go into the school.”
Josephat patted her shoulder. “And did you deliver the oryx to Adam Wilder’s wife?”
“I did.”
“Was she grateful?”
“Persephone Wilder can butcher it with her teeth, that much I know.”
/> Josephat laughed. “You are a queen.” He released her and went to the kitchen to pour himself some water. “Still, I don’t want Taimi affected. What’s to be done about the conflict?”
“I’m going tomorrow to meet with the girl’s mother. If you don’t mind, I’ll take the motorcade. Just to prove the point.”
“That’s fine,” Josephat said. They had agreed long ago to take everything they could from his position. For what was the point of government perks if you weren’t going to use them? “But, Mila, I want you to befriend this new American woman. Mrs. Wilder is one thing. But I don’t want Taimi isolated from every single American family.”
“Taimi could never be isolated. Not in a million years.”
“Yes, but we want her to have American friends. It’s the whole point of this school. Perhaps she will do an exchange when she is older. This woman, she is not Mrs. Wilder. Be kind to her.”
Mila tossed her head, pouting a bit.
“Mila?”
“I will listen to her side of things.”
“I’ll arrange for her dossier to be sent over. What’s her name?”
“I didn’t get it.”
“I’ll get Reggie to find out.”
“Reggie works with you again?” Mila felt an unpleasant twist in her stomach. “I thought you two had a falling-out.”
“Focus, Mila. The Americans. Let’s get her on our side, hmmm? You never know. You might like her.”
“Stop it.”
“Please do it, Mila. For Taimi. And me.” Josephat finished his water and put the glass down. Then he took both her hands in his and kissed her cheek. Mila looked at his face, blushing. He smelled of vanilla. She could almost feel his precious skin against hers. The moment instilled a beat of hope. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, still holding her hands.
“Shall I join you?” she dared.