I see Frau Jurgen looking at him and then at me. I hope she doesn’t think I like him watching me.
As soon as the meal is over, I go to the kitchen to clean up. Marthe can clear the table. I don’t want to be near that soldier. Someone walks into the room behind me. I turn, thinking it’s Marthe. I start to smile. I stop when I see it’s the soldier. He looks around. “We’re alone,” he says. “Good.”
He walks toward me. I want to move away from him, but there’s no place to go. He puts his arms on either side of me, holding me against the worktable. He rubs his body against mine. I can feel a hardness rising between his legs. I’m so scared I’m shaking.
He laughs. It’s the sound the soldiers made when they raped the girl in the desert. It’s an ugly sound. Like a hyena crying.
“There’s no reason to be frightened,” he says quietly. “I think you’re beautiful. I want to show you how you make me feel.” He bends down until his mouth covers mine. He pushes his tongue between my lips. I bite down as hard as I can. He cries out and slaps my face. Hard. I scream and scream and scream.
He slaps me again. “You little – ”
“That’s enough.” Frau Jurgen’s voice is cold and hard. Like iron.
The man backs away. “She – ”
Frau Jurgen silences him. “Petronella, go to your room. And you” – she looks at the soldier as if he were a snake – “you get out of my house. Now.”
I run to my room, holding my cheek where the soldier hit me. No one has ever hit me. It hurts more than anything I can remember. Marthe is right behind me. “Let me see, Penee.” She gently pulls my hand away from my face. She shakes her head. “I’ll be right back.”
She comes back with a piece of uncooked meat. “Hold this to your cheek. It will take the sting away.” She makes me lie down. “You rest. I’ll be back after I’ve cleaned everything up.”
I lie on my bed, watching the sunlight fade with the day. I’m scared. Scared that the soldier will try to hurt me again. Scared that Frau Jurgen will blame me for what happened. That she’ll think I wanted the soldier to touch me. I’m afraid she’ll make me leave. I don’t want to lose another home. I bury my head in my pillow and cry.
I’m almost asleep when Marthe returns. She’s not alone. Frau Jurgen is with her. “Sit up, Petronella. Let me look at your face,” Frau Jurgen says. She holds up a lamp. I see anger in her eyes. I don’t want her to be angry with me. She rubs her fingers over my cheek. Her touch hurts. I try not to pull away.
“It’s swollen,” she says. “But your jaw isn’t broken. Open your mouth.”
I do as she says. She holds the light closer so she can see inside my mouth. “And no broken teeth. Did he touch you anywhere else?”
I shake my head and start crying again.
“Hush,” she says. “There’s nothing to cry about.”
“But I don’t want you to send me away,” I say. I wipe the tears from my eyes.
She sits on the bed beside me. “No one is sending you anywhere. This wasn’t your fault, Petronella. I don’t blame you. But you must be more careful. I’m not always going to be there to protect you. Do you understand?”
I nod my head slowly. “I’ll go into the veld and get more of the poison plant to rub on my skin,” I tell her. “Then the soldiers will leave me alone.”
Frau Jurgen smiles. It’s a small smile. But it’s the first smile I’ve seen on her face.
“You don’t need to do that again,” she says. “From now on, you’ll wear more petticoats under your dress. Lots of them. That will keep you safer.”
The next morning, Marthe helps me dress. She gives me more and more petticoats until I have seventeen under my dress. They’re very hot and heavy. Marthe laughs when she sees me walk. “Look,” she says. She points to a mirror. I see a very fat Petronella. The skinny Jahohora is gone.
* * * * *
Frau Jurgen decides I must learn to read and write the words of the white people. I don’t know why I need to. I have no one to write letters to, and I’m too busy to read books. But if she wants me to learn, I will. I sit with her when she teaches her children, Johanna and Lukas. They think it’s funny that they know more than I do. They make it a game to test me on my words and numbers.
Frau Jurgen ends the class early today. “We’ll have a guest for dinner tonight,” she tells me. “He’s a doctor who used to be a German soldier. I want you to help Marthe serve.”
I shake my head. Ever since the soldier hit me, Frau Jurgen lets me go to my room whenever strange men come to the house.
“It’s time for you to get over your fear,” she says. “Herr Jurgen says Doctor Wolf is a good man. He won’t hurt you.”
I don’t mind helping Marthe prepare the food in the kitchen. It’s just the two of us. But when it’s time to serve, my belly feels funny. My hands shake as I smooth my skirt over my many petticoats and tighten the kerchief wrapped around my hair. Marthe smiles at me. “You’ll be all right,” she says. “I won’t leave you alone.”
My hands are still shaking when I pick up a heavy tray of meat. I hope I don’t drop it. I carry it close to my chest and walk very slowly into the dining room. I set the tray on the table and look up – right into the dark eyes of the Jurgen’s guest. My heart beats loudly. I know those eyes. But I don’t know the face. I quickly look away. My whole body feels like it’s shaking as I cut the meat and serve the Jurgens and their guest. The man thanks me and then turns to talk to Herr Jurgen.
At the sound of his voice, I run from the room. I lean against the wall so I can listen to him without staring. I want to hear his voice rising and falling like Tate’s when he talks to the ancestors.
“Petronella!” Frau Jurgen comes out after me. “That is no way to behave. You’ve got to put this fear behind you. What must Doctor Wolf think?”
I hang my head. How can I tell her I’m not scared? That I could never be scared of this man? I didn’t run out of the room because I was afraid. It was because I was excited. If this man is who I think he is, I owe him my life. I don’t know how to tell Frau Jurgen what I’m feeling. “I’m sorry,” I say instead.
I keep my head lowered as I quietly follow her back into the dining room. I feel the man’s eyes watching me as I finish serving everyone. Does he know me? I stand back as the Jurgens and their guest eat. Whenever he’s not looking, I watch him. His face is fuller, and the hair on his face is shorter and thicker. But I’m sure he’s the one. He’s the snake hunter.
I wake early in the morning and look out the window in my room. I can see the snake hunter. He wraps a leather strap to his left arm and another one around his head. He puts a blue and white cloth around his shoulders. He rocks back and forth. He’s talking, but there’s no one to hear him. I smile. He’s talking to his ancestors. I pick up the jar he gave me in the desert. I tie it around my neck and hurry down to make breakfast. I wear the lavender jar all through breakfast. It hangs down when I serve the Jurgens and their guest. But he doesn’t look at it.
After breakfast, I pack a bundle of food for the snake hunter. He will have to ride far before he comes to another house. I see him saddling his horse, so I hurry outside. He looks up and smiles. I feel very shy as I give him the food. He smiles again and puts it in a pouch tied to his saddle. I try to think of words that will make the snake hunter recognize me. I want him to know who I am. I want him to know I remember him. But he’s getting on his horse. He’s going to ride away. I have to do something quickly. I pull at his shirtsleeve. He sits in the saddle and looks down at me. I untie the leather string that’s around my neck and give the jar to him. He looks at the jar and then down at me.
“Mukuru ngakare punaove,” I say softly. It’s my prayer for him.
His eyes open wide as he looks at me closer. He puts the jar in his pocket and pats it. A big smile covers his face. He remembers me. That makes me happy.
“Thank you, Petronella,” he says. “That’s a good name for you – the little rock that endured the d
esert.”
THE POSTMAN
It is almost the rainy season. Marthe is very excited. The postman is coming. He’ll have church services in the Jurgens’ field for the Herero and Nama from all the farms near Otjiwarongo. “It will be like a big feast,” she says.
We’re busy for many days before the postman arrives. Frau Jurgen wants us to make lots and lots of food for the services. “The Africans need full bellies so they can listen to the Word of the Lord,” she says.
“What’s the Word of the Lord?” I ask.
She seems surprised. “It’s the Bible. It’s the most important word there is. It’s why I want you to know how to read. I want you to be able to read the Bible for yourself.”
By the time the postman comes, I’m as excited as Marthe. I can’t wait to meet this man everyone talks about. I’m surprised when I see him. He’s old. Not as old as Tjikuume, but older than Tate. He moves slowly and stiffly. His eyes are kind, but sad. The hardness of his life shows. Until he smiles. Then all I see is goodness.
He sits down with me the night before the church services are to begin. “It’s good to meet you, Petronella.” He smiles at me. “Marthe tells me you are the daughter of Mutihu, the healer.”
I nod. “Do you know Tate?” I ask.
“I met him many years ago in the chief’s village. He was a wise and good man.”
“Do you know what happened to him and Mama?” I almost hope he doesn’t. As long as I don’t know for sure, I can think that some day I’ll find them.
Kukuri – that’s the postman’s name – looks at me sadly. “The soldiers were hiding by a waterhole. When Mutihu and the others went to get water, the soldiers killed them.”
“What about Karemarama and Tuaekua Ehi and all the others?”
“The soldiers climbed the mountain and killed them all,” he tells me gently.
I swallow hard. I knew they were dead. But hearing it makes it real. I don’t want to believe him. “How do you know these things?” I ask.
“I learned of them from Vijanda.”
“Vijanda? He’s alive?! Where is he?”
Kukuri puts his hand on my arm. “I met Vijanda in the death camp at Shark Island. He told me about the ambush at the waterhole. He escaped. After hiding for several days, he went to the top of the mountain. He found the others and buried them. He stayed on the mountain for a long time. When he came down, the soldiers made him a prisoner and sent him to the death camp.” His eyes look into the distance. “Shark Island is a horrible place. No one leaves it alive.”
“You did.”
He looks down at the ground. “That is my sin,” he says sadly. “I asked to go to Shark Island – not as a prisoner, but as a missionary. But I wasn’t strong enough in my faith to die there with my brothers and sisters. There was so much death. People starving. And freezing. And working until they dropped. And when they died, their bodies were thrown into the great river for the sharks. Then they were forgotten. As if they had never lived. I couldn’t take it. I had to leave.”
It’s hard to sleep that night. I think about Kukuri’s words. And how my family was killed. I should have gone back to the Okavaka instead of trying to follow Maharero into the Omaheke. I would have found Vijanda. If I had been with him, maybe he wouldn’t have left the mountain. And he wouldn’t have been sent to the death camp.
Tears fill my eyes. I can finally cry. For Mama and Tate. For Ramata and Karemarama. For Vijanda, Tuaekua Ehi, and Karikuta. For Uapiruka and the children we will never have together. I cry for the ancestors who’ve been forgotten. For all the Herero who died in the Omaheke and the death camps. And for the few, like me, who survived, to wander through life in a land that’s no longer ours.
I think about the years I walked through the veld, feeling so alone. But I had hope then that someday, somewhere I would find my family. That hope died with Kukuri’s words. Now, I am truly alone.
A NEW GENERATION
The next time the postman comes, he has more news for me. The Jurgens think it’s time for me to marry. And he has found someone for me – Fredrich Kandija Kandukira, a Herero man Kukuri is training to be a traveling preacher. “Herr Jurgen has met him and approves,” Kukuri tells me. “Fredrich will be a good father to your children.”
I smile at the old joke. “But I’m already promised,” I say. “To my cousin Uapiruka.”
“Uapiruka is not here,” he tells me gently. “You must move on with your life, Petronella. It is what your parents would want.”
“I don’t know this Fredrich. He’s not of my mother’s clan.”
“In all my travels, you are the only one of your mother’s clan I have met or heard about – other than Vijanda,” Kukuri says. He looks around to make sure no one else is listening before he speaks again. “The Herero are too small in number for us to hold to the old ways of marriage. The young people who survived – like you and Fredrich – must marry outside your clans if we are to become strong again. You must do this for your family, and for our people.”
I think about Kukuri’s words. There’s wisdom in them. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll marry Fredrich. And we will have children to rebuild our houses.”
And so I become Mama Penee, the wife of Fredrich Kandija Kandukira, the traveling preacher. Together with the other survivors, we raise up a new generation of Herero. A generation without a yesterday. A generation born into a land of strangers.
My children have no tjikuume to name them and give them their first cow, no tjikuu to teach them praise songs or the way of the ancestors. They have no cousins, no uncles, no aunties.
There is no holy fire outside our little square house where the ancestors wait to talk with us at dusk and morning twilight.
My children go to the missionary school where they are taught about Njambi Karunga, the creator of all. They also are taught that Njambi created the Herero to work for the white man. I look at a picture in my son’s schoolbook. It shows a white overseer telling the black workers what to do. I flip through the pages. Every picture is the same. Every word teaches that a good Herero is one who works hard for the white man. There are no pictures of Herero taking care of their own cattle. No pictures of Herero families living and playing together. No words saying the Herero were once a free people who cared for their own land and decided their own tomorrow.
In their schoolbooks, my children’s tomorrow is already written. Like their tate, my sons will be sent to work in the white labor camps far, far away. And my daughter, like me, will clean the white man’s house and raise his children.
I put the book down. It makes me sad. This is not the world I want for my children and grandchildren. But what can I do? I’m one woman. I close my eyes to look back over my yesterdays, to find the wisdom of my ancestors. But it’s not Mama, or Tjikuu, or any of the others from my family who visit my thoughts. Instead, it’s the two women sitting by the fire in the Omaheke. “Someone must live to tell our story,” they tell me. “You must teach your children and grandchildren the way of the Herero. It is why you lived when so many others died.”
And so I teach my children, and their children after them, about Njambi Karunga calling the first mamas and tates from the omumborombonga tree. About the Herero wisely choosing the cattle. About the days before the white people, when Hereroland belonged to the Herero. About their ancestors and the price they paid when they tried to keep their land. I teach my children, and their children after them, to walk tall, with their heads held high. Yes, today they may be the white man’s servants. But they are Herero. Someday they will be free again. And when that tomorrow comes, they must know how to think, and live, like a free people.
* * * * *
It’s been many, many years since the postman told me the fate of my family. Even though I believe him, there are moments when I still let myself think, “What if he was wrong? What if Vijanda wasn’t the only one who escaped?” I know my family is gone, but I find myself looking at faces, hoping to see a cousin, a brother, or an uncle or aunt
ie. Sometimes, I think I see someone I know. I look again and see only a stranger. The disappointment hurts as much today as it did all those years ago when Kukuri first told me what I already knew to be the truth.
My search was a slow one when my children were growing up. My days were filled from the sun’s waking to its sleeping with working for the Jurgens and raising my children. But on those rare days when I went into Otjiwarongo, I looked at every Herero face, hoping to find someone from my past. And when we moved to Okakarara so we could have cattle once again, I thought there would be more faces to search. But Okakarara is a tiny village far from the other settlements in the Waterberg Native Reserve. I quickly learn all the faces. There’s no one from yesterday.
It’s Friday, the best day of the week. It’s the day my grandsons come home from school. For two whole days, I’ll have them to myself. For two whole days, I will not be alone. Even though Fredrich is too old and weak to work in the labor camps now, he’s rarely home. He finally does what Kukuri trained him to do all those years ago, going from one settlement to the next, preaching the Christian Gospel. Sometimes I go with him. Not because I want to hear him preach. But because I want to see new faces.
I’m sitting on the ground outside our little house, my bright patched skirt spread out around me. Little Kapombo sits on my skirt, snuggling up close to me. “Tjikuu,” he asks me, “when are Mama and Tate coming home?”
“Soon,” I tell him. I know it’s a lie. His tate works far, far away in the labor camps in South Africa. And his mother – my daughter – works for a German family in a village a few days’ walk from here.
I hear a wagon bumping over the rough ground. I look up. We get few wagons in Okakarara. I’m surprised to see Fredrich driving the oxen.
Mama Namibia: Based on True Events Page 34
