The Lost History of Stars

by Dave Boling

  I expected more, but other groups waited. The preacher nodded his head to the diggers, who shoveled the rocks gently onto the small bundle. It sounded so loud, like those stormy days on the veld when the first stones of hail touch ground, slowly to start, before drumming louder, and then sometimes striking with enough force to bring down grown sheep. I took Moeder’s skirt in my fist; she placed her palms over my ears until the sound was gone.

  “A marker?” Moeder asked.

  “No wood,” said one of the men, stacking the final stones on the uneven mound. He retrieved a bottle from a mealie sack. He gathered soil and small rocks to pour into the bottle to weigh it down.

  “Write her name on this.” He handed a piece of paper and a pencil nub to Moeder.

  “A bottle?”

  The man nodded, beard blown horizontal.

  The pastor offered his Bible so that she could use it to hold the paper flat. She paused.

  Cecilia Venter

  “Lammetjie”

  Geboren February 1897

  Overleden September 1901

  She tucked the paper into the bottle and wedged it among the rocks that topped the small mound. Grit from a distant place stung our faces. I turned from it and saw several other families in mute clusters, planting other children beneath bottles, waiting for the preacher to offer words that would be carried off by the wind.

  PART III

  The Water and the Blood

  30

  October 1901, Concentration Camp

  Living on the veld taught nothing about the real value of space, creating the illusion that it was limitless. The great open distances of our land, which had once felt like a warm invitation, now stretched out on the other side of the camp’s fence like a cruel taunt. After weeks of slipping beneath the surface of an imaginary river as a means of withdrawal, a storm provided an alternate escape. I drew close to the tent wall and put my ear to the canvas, which in my mind became the sail of a great ship. When it fluttered, I was upon the open sea, shouting orders to my men, who pulled the sails taut to speed us away to wherever my mind commanded. I sailed to countries and islands Oupa Gideon had mentioned, places that sounded so foreign I doubted they were real. Zamboanga—after all, how silly did he think me? People came to the harbor to see the first ship captained by a woman. And I was treated to meals of fruits and meats and sweets and glorious liver.

  We would be off again when the ropes resumed singing to a beat set by clapping canvas. And for a while, I was not merely adrift in the current of time; I was the one in control, the one steering the giant, spinning wheel. I plotted our course by the stars and by whim. And I took Oupa Gideon with me so that he could learn the sea as his grandfather had. Behind that wheel, we drank coffee and ate hard biscuits, and half our world was the night sky.

  I might spend an entire afternoon “sailing” and only return to my family once the air grew still in the evening. When I stood, my legs wobbled from having been at sea. I was glad to have surrendered touch with the earth that had been pulling so hard at my bones.

  When there were no sea winds to fill my tent-sail, I pulled up my blanket and saw myself in front of a classroom, all eyes focused on me, shaping little minds with my words. I loved the control a teacher had over their view of the world. Could there be a position of greater power than steering children’s minds?

  Sometimes when I dozed in my private space, I thought of times when I had gone riding with Schalk and it felt like floating through the tall, dry grasses. I could feel the animal’s great warmth coming up through me, and feel the way I moved against it with each stride. I’d rock as we galloped, and post into a canter. Rock and post: I could ride forever, rocking to the motion of the horse, warming, rocking . . . faster . . . feeling so good.

  “Lettie . . . stop,” Moeder said. “Wake up and pray.”

  She woke me so forcefully it felt as if I had been thrown from the horse.

  I resented having my pleasant escape disrupted and wanted to snap at her, but I blinked myself awake and prayed as she ordered. And I did so with a sincere heart. But my prayers changed in ways I could not share with her. What would I say? Yes, Moeder, I count my blessings as never before and appreciate God’s gracious gifts. But now I also tally the cost.

  When it had been cold, I thanked God for the next warm day. But I knew it would bring the flies that could drive me mad with their inescapable buzzing, biting, and clustering at my eyes and ears.

  I then thanked him for the blessing of wind that drove the flies away, but it carried grit that could tear away skin. After the drought brought so much dust that our faces turned gray and our noses caked, I blessed the rain that he gave. I would hold my arms open to feel it wash the dust from my body and know with certainty that God himself had sent it down. And then it would turn the soil into glue and cause the latrines to fill and overflow, and the stench would be so complete that I prayed that God would take my sense of smell.

  I was blessed to have my family but paid for it with the agony of loss. And soon they’d have to deal with my death. My body was shutting down, and from what I’d seen, it would happen one process at a time and come quickly.

  Thankfully, I was now able to withdraw my body into my mind, to pull it all into such a tight place that I was certain I had disappeared. Let me hide myself in thee, I sang in my mind. It got easier and easier to drift away like that. But increasingly difficult to return.

  So many questions still came to mind that I could not voice, especially as there was such little conversation now. At times Moeder communicated with little more than looks and gestures, as if words would clutter the small tent. I spent more time watching her, studying her subtly. I used to be able to see my reflection in her eyes, but now they absorbed light. It was so much harder to read her face now, as it seemed she wore a leather mask, with deepening lines and hollows and shadows.

  She sat on the cot, fingering the hem of the doll’s dress. I remembered sitting next to her when she stitched the lace ruffle to the bottom. I had named the doll Lollie for a reason I could not remember, and she had slept with me every night until I passed her on to Cee-Cee, once she needed a nighttime friend more than I did.

  For all the hugging Lollie had endured, the stitching had held up well. Moeder had used the same color of green thread she had given to Vader when he left for war two years earlier. I expected Moeder thought about Vader’s stitched arm even as she fingered the dress of the doll that had belonged to her daughter, to their daughter. Maybe someday there would be another child, a new sister. I tried to recall how old Moeder was. How long would the war go on? How late can women have children? But the figures did not fall into place.

  Moeder called Rachel to her cot.

  “Here,” she said, handing her the doll. “You can play with Lollie.”

  Rachel and Cee-Cee had played with her together, and Rachel had at times tried to snatch it away when Cee-Cee wasn’t holding it, leading to a scrap. How could she give it to Rachel, as if rewarding her for Cee-Cee’s death?

  I knew I was being unchristian again. After all, how long would the doll be hers before getting passed along to the next child? How many little girls would this doll outlast? Giving away Lollie was Moeder’s sign that we were all going to try to move on. She was right; we can’t forever cling to our little dolls.

  But what else was going through her mind? Would she try to get word to Vader about Cee-Cee? Vader held a firm rein on his emotions, like most men. But I was sure none of us should ever tell him about Cecelia’s final days. If he knew now, it would cause him to act the fool in battle, to attack the British by himself. Maybe that would be a good thing. But I could see him trying to ride into this camp alone, firing his weapons with both hands, if only for the chance to say a prayer at her grave.

  I suspected that Moeder saw everything that had happened as the fault of Oom Sarel. Vader would have to learn of this later, or maybe never. I knew she was thinking of ways to find strength and pass it along to us. Nothing i
s unbearable, praise be to God. She had said that many times when we first got to camp. But less often since.

  I lifted my eyes, but instead of the heavens, I saw our elongated and distorted shadows on the canvas pointing to the tent peak. It made us look thinner. I looked at myself . . . my wasting arms . . . another sign of death. I had suspected it for at least two months, and now I knew I would be the next to go. I would fade to a trace and then disappear, like a written word rubbed slowly from a page.

  Moeder would tend me. Willem would go fetch the dominee. They would clean me raw and wash my pinafore and wrap me in canvas and carry me to the hill, where they would drop me in a hole and stuff my name in a bottle.

  Dear Tante,

  Cee-Cee died. It came on quickly. She didn’t even seem sick, just tired. Passed in Moeder’s arms. She’s buried on the hill. She has no marker. But if you want to go pray over her, you might as well pick any of the mounds, God will know which is hers. I should have noticed her getting sick and we could have done something sooner. She was like my little girl and I didn’t do enough to save her. Moeder said that “not a sparrow falls without God’s blessing,” but I feel as if I should have caught her.

  I try to remember her every minute so that she won’t disappear. I feel as if I should hate somebody for her death, to make somebody pay, but I don’t know who. All I can do is question myself. I haven’t been righteous and I worry that taking Cee-Cee was God’s punishment.

  Sorry to have to tell you this way.

  Love,

  Lettie

  “Betty, the silly goose, sent me this,” Maples said, holding up a strange knit hat that seemed designed to conceal everything but the wearer’s eyes.

  “I could have used that after the lice,” I said. “But I need to tell—”

  “It’s a balaclava . . . because I’ll need it in the cold. She still doesn’t understand the Southern Hemisphere.”

  There was so much I had prepared to tell him, about Cee-Cee and her final days, but he gave me no room to start. I handed him my note to Tante Hannah. I no longer scanned the area for suspicious guards or women or the commandant’s spies. I didn’t care anymore. Take me, isolate me. . . . It would make the day different from the last.

  “You should be happy she sent it.”

  “I am . . . but I won’t need it for months. She thinks it’s about to turn cold here.”

  “You’ll be happy you have it . . .” I was going to say “next July,” but I did not want to think of the British still being here next winter. It had been almost two years.

  “I still have a hard time thinking about the heat of Christmas and the snow in July,” he said. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “You have your right, we have ours.”

  “I suppose,” he said. “You’d have the same troubles if you visited England. Do you think you’ll ever visit? . . . We could take you around.”

  Visit England? Of course . . . I’ll attend school there . . . Oxford . . . Cambridge. . . . Wait . . . he said “we” could take you around. We? Betty would be with him? No, I did not need this Betty to show me the sights of Great Britain. He’s going to have to learn to get over Betty.

  “I want to go to England to see the stars. It’s a different sky there, did you know?”

  “Uh . . . hadn’t thought about that,” he said. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “I want to someday see the Great Bear, the constellation that points to the north . . . a ship captain’s best friend, my oupa . . . my grandfather . . . told me.”

  “Does he know sailing?”

  “Learned of it . . . stars and such . . . from his grandfather, who used to sail around the world.”

  “Dutch?”

  “Yes . . . Dutch . . . great sailors.”

  “We had wars with the Dutch . . . at some point,” he said. “I was never that sharp with history.”

  “You’ve had wars with everyone.”

  “Well . . . not everyone.”

  “You have a history of taking over other people’s countries,” I said. “You could point at a map with your eyes closed and hit one of them.”

  “That’s why they call it an empire,” he said, thrusting his shoulders back.

  “And you’re doing it for their good. . . . They’re all so happy to be part of your empire,” I said.

  “They’re better for it, most of them,” he said.

  “Yes, you can see how much happier we’ve been since you came here. It’s such a privilege to have you, and it will be nice of you to take all that gold out of our way. It has been so bothersome.”

  “Right . . . and your people . . . your history?”

  “We keep moving to get away from people like the British, people who think it’s their business to tell us what to do . . . how to live,” I said. “We don’t invade every chance we get.”

  “So there was nobody here when your people came this way?”

  “No, it was wide open.”

  “Nobody?” He thrust out his jaw as a challenge.

  “Just the natives.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Wait . . .”

  “And your people had rifles and they had, what, spears?”

  “I don’t know what they had . . . but that was different.”

  “Oh? Did you take their land?”

  He pressed in.

  “They weren’t . . . like us,” I said. “They weren’t really farmers.”

  “Did you take their land . . . maybe kill some of them?”

  “There were wars . . . and they attacked . . .”

  “Where were you when they attacked . . . on land that had been theirs?”

  “We were trying to . . .”

  “Oh . . . were they happy you showed up? Did they welcome you? I doubt it. See, we’re not so different.”

  “You think you can talk . . . with the things the Tommies . . . the things you . . .” I stopped. The war wasn’t his fault. What difference did it make now?

  “I know . . . I know,” he said. He put his hands out; he did not want to argue, either. “It’s just all bad . . . and getting worse.”

  “Worse?”

  He leaned in, lowering his voice. After having been called a spy several times, I finally felt like one. As he bent close, I noticed I was almost as tall as he was now.

  “They’re building blockhouses, connected by barbed wire, and driving the Boers into the fences.”

  I pictured the men and thought of them as sheep, helpless.

  “Burning the farms wasn’t enough?”

  “They decided your boys could keep this going forever if they wanted,” he said. “Hiding, attacking, hiding . . . being a nuisance. They might never win the war, but they win in some ways just by keeping it going. There’s some that won’t ever quit. And that would mean we’d be here forever.”

  “The Bitter-Enders.”

  “Right.”

  “Won’t give up for anything.”

  I knew Vader would be the last man standing if it came to it. He would take on the entire army. Half a million Tommies could surround him. Vader, Oupa, and Schalk would stand with their backs together and their rifles readied.

  But to be driven into fences and gunned down? Would the only men left alive be those who had surrendered? What kind of country would that be? Nothing but quitters . . . Hands-Uppers? A whole country of them?

  I had to go. I was fearful for the men but also sick at myself for not having stopped all this war talk and told him about Cee-Cee. I wanted to tell somebody about her. I wanted Maples to know about her. I wanted his comfort, his sympathy. But I decided I should get to the hospital as quickly as possible. I was dying.

  Dearest Lettie,

  I’m so deeply sorry. I’m sure there was nothing you could have done. She needed medical attention, and even that might not have been enough. Cee-Cee loved you more than anything.

  I will tell you how I dealt with emotional losses. I embroidered. It caused me to focus on something that wasn�
��t my grief. Perhaps your writing or your notes or your books would help you.

  Because you will be wondering what I know about loss, I will tell you something no one else in the world knows . . . not even Oom. I’ve known the loss of a child. Four children. Four who were never born. One who died before he could breathe air; three others who never got that far. I don’t know why. God’s plan for me. I gave them each names and I pray for them every day. Oom knew about the first one, but it broke his heart so much I didn’t tell him about the others. It is not the same as having had Cee-Cee to love for five years, but it is something I feel each day.

  Let’s pray for each other, sweet Lettie.

  Your loving Tante Hannah

  Bina could have explained it to me and might have had some muti as a cure. I assumed that she and her women had the same systems, but I had no way to be certain. She might have known my problem before I said anything. She often knew things about me before I did. After Cee-Cee died, I realized that I hadn’t been bothered . . . how many months . . . three? . . . I had lost track.

  And once I started worrying, it consumed me. What does it mean? What caused it? Something I did? Food poisoning? Some women said that the British had poisoned the food. Could they put chemicals in the rations that would affect women’s cycles—maybe as a way to kill off our breed? This was one thing I did not even share with my journal.

  I found myself wearing down when I walked to the edge of the camp. That had to be a signal of something. I prayed at all times and in all places, even in the latrine. Had God done this to me as a tax upon my sinful thoughts?

  Janetta would have known something about the problem or would have gone with me to the hospital. I almost asked Moeder a dozen times. But I could not shape the words and force them out. I would not allow myself to die without a fight, but I was too much a coward to tell my mother.

  The British nurses at the hospital tent seemed my only option. They would not know me. They were trained for such things, I suspected. A nurse could take me in and tell me how long I had to live, and those left in our tent would not have my illness thrust in their faces. But what kind of examination would this require? A nurse, perhaps, but a doctor . . . never. I would run.