The Other Side of Silence

by Andre Brink

  Hanna nudges Katja. But it is Gisela who calmly takes over, to the manner born.

  “Your men needed some sign of reassurance from the fort, Sergeant, don’t you think? It seemed to us the least we could do was just to let them know we’re still all right in here. Whatever may have been happening to them out there.” She pauses briefly. “We can but hope and pray that all went well.”

  Sergeant Vogel makes an effort to control himself. He halfheartedly tries to brush dust from his khaki trousers before he stretches himself to his full, not very considerable, height. “I do not want you women to get involved with any military matters again. However well-meaning your attempts may be. Otherwise I shall have to confiscate your guns. Is that understood? This is an order.”

  “We are very, very sorry,” says Gisela with an air of genuine contrition. “It’s just…Our lives depend on you and your men, in here and out there. And we really thought – it was quite spontaneous – that some sign of support…It is all such a nightmare to us.” She breaks into tears.

  “All right, all right.” He starts fumbling. “I understand. But don’t – please don’t ever – try to interfere again.” Perturbed by her sobs, he raises his arms in a gesture of futility, and rounds up his men again to return to their sentry posts on the wall.

  Hanna nods in satisfaction and pats Gisela on the shoulder. Then she turns back to Katja.

  We don’t have much time, she signals to the girl. I’m going to fetch Tookwi. He’s been keeping an eye on the grooms, but now we need him here. And you must interpret to him. Will you do that?

  Katja does not react.

  Hanna shakes her again, gently this time. Katja. Please.

  Still no reaction.

  Hanna is conscious of a small tug of panic in her guts. This is the one eventuality she has not planned for. With Katja out of the equation she herself is plunged into silence, which will reduce her to near-impotence.

  A shout goes up from a sentry on the wall with binoculars pressed, it seems, permanently to his eyes as if he is some strange man-sized mantis. “They’re coming back!”

  The binoculars are passed from one pair of hands to the next.

  “They’re our soldiers indeed,” acknowledges the sergeant. “I recognise the uniforms. But there seem to be only four of them.”

  “The rest must have gone on to find the other women.”

  “Must have.”

  No one dares to speak of an alternative.

  Nudged by Hanna, Nerina and Kamma hurry to the staircase to join the soldiers on the wall. Gisela urgently leans over Katja to add her entreaties to Hanna’s; but Hanna motions at her to leave her alone with the girl.

  She presses down on Katja’s shoulders. Please. You must pull yourself together.

  “I have done enough. I’m not doing anything more.” The girl sounds too weary even to cry.

  Katja. Fighting with every fibre to restrain her agitation, Hanna sits down beside the girl. In this moment everything is at stake. It may be more important than the battle which is still to come. You knew it was not going to be easy. You chose to come with me.

  “Not for what we are doing now.”

  Oh yes. For that and whatever still lies ahead. This thing is bigger than you and me.

  “Nothing is bigger than life.”

  Meine Liebe. It is the first time she has ever said this to Katja. My darling. It is precisely for the sake of life that we have to do this

  After an agonising pause Katja turns her head. She takes a deep breath. For a long time she remains silent, struggling to regain her self-control. At last she says in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Hanna. I didn’t mean to be so weak. You must despise me very much.”

  I admire you very much.

  “I need you to help me.”

  I shall give you all the help I can. But right now I need you. If I bring Tookwi, will you tell him what to do?

  After a moment Katja nods. Without wasting another moment – every minute is infinitely precious right now – Hanna hurries off to the stables, where she finds Tookwi, as instructed, still in conversation with the three grooms, all of them visibly unsettled by what has been happening in and around the fort. Followed by the old man who looks like a praying mantis, she returns to the cart.

  Katja is now sitting up, waiting for them. Hanna proceeds to give her quick, clear instructions to convey to the eager old man, and without delay he gets busy with his elaborate preparations behind the oxcart, clawing a small hollow into the ground, placing the chameleon – limp, but still feebly wriggling – on its back inside, covering it with earth, mumbling his invocations.

  “I’m not going to pee again,” Katja says quickly, looking around as if she’s scared someone may try to intervene. “Not in front of these people.”

  “Is all right,” Tookwi reassures her. “This is not a snake, it is gurutsi-kubib, the chameleon. He comes straight from Tsui-Goab, goes straight back to him. He needs no girl’s piss. This time we want the rain-bull, not the cow.” He makes a series of clicks, cocking his head. “The only thing is we cannot hurry Tsui-Goab. It will make him angry.”

  This time you must ask him to hurry, Hanna urges him through Katja.

  Tookwi mumbles something incomprehensible. “He will make us pay bad. But you say we hurry, so we hurry.”

  We need the rain quickly, otherwise everything could go wrong with Kahapa and the others.

  He resumes. But there is an interruption. Sergeant Vogel comes round the oxcart and stops to stare at them with grave suspicion on his perspiring face.

  “What is this going on?” he demands to know.

  Katja puts a finger to her lips. “Shhh. He is praying to his ancestors. To bless your company and give them what they so richly deserve.”

  The thickset man snorts, gazes down at them for another moment, then goes off.

  They turn back to Tookwi’s intricate performance, watching intently, half intrigued, half sceptical. Gisela, too, is leaning on one elbow over the edge of the cart. Nerina and Kamma complete the little gathering. They are all spellbound. But it is unlikely that any one of them really expects a result. Most certainly not the spectacular outbreak of a thunderstorm from a nearly empty sky barely fifteen minutes later, which sends everybody in the courtyard and on the walls scurrying for cover.

  This is exactly what they are most in need of: a cataract of rain washing down in massive grey sheets, obscuring the surroundings of the fort so effectively that no one can see clearly any more. There are only brief glimpses of the approaching group; one can make out a huddle of horses, figures in dark uniforms, but no more. They have to take on trust that it is the patrol returning; and everybody is too overwhelmed by the suddenness of the event to think clearly. All the soldiers know is that they are in need of relief, which – almost literally in a flash – now seems at hand.

  Without waiting for orders from Sergeant Vogel the sentries throw open the gates. There is a thin chorus of cheers. Which is drowned very quickly when Kahapa, Himba, Koo and the batman David come storming in among them. They are joined immediately by old Tookwi and the women from the oxcart. With guns and kieries and clubs they set upon the remains of the drastically depleted garrison.

  The sick men come staggering from the barracks, too weak and bewildered to help and causing more of a hindrance than anything else. Within less than ten minutes there is no soldier left standing. Here and there one is still moaning in agony but Kahapa and Himba are doing the rounds with bayonets to administer the .

  The rain continues to pour down for some time. Only the thin wet sounds of small, separate leaks and trickles along the stone walls continue. These, too, abate. And then there is only silence. The fort is taken.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Fifty-Nine

  Later in the evening they are all gathered in the barracks around a new fire which Kahapa has made. The interior is thick with smoke, in which their faces drift eerily, ghost-like, lit by the torches which are flicke
ring in the draughts from outside. In spite of the victory there is little exuberance. They are conscious of the bodies stacked like logs of firewood in the farthest, darkest corner. And of their own losses. Kahapa’s group lost the sad monkey-man T’Kamkhab in their ambush of the first expedition sent from the fort the night before, while Himba has an ugly wound in the left shoulder. The two young Nama girls, the soldiers’ whores, forced to stay behind with Kahapa in order to avoid suspicion at the fort, got caught in crossfire when, scared out of their wits by the fighting, they darted off blindly like hares in a hunt. In the second ambush, this morning, one of the two batmen who had accompanied them from the very first encounter on the plains had to be shot by Kahapa when he tried to escape. During the final battle in the fort itself, David was killed and old Tookwi badly trampled by a horse; it remains to be seen whether Kamma’s medicine can pull him through.

  The old man already seems to have resigned himself to death. “It is the sacrifice of Tsui-Goab,” he mumbles whenever someone tries to encourage him. “He is angry because I was in too much of a hurry to bring this rain. We already saw the sign when he sent the shooting star the other night.” Which wounds Hanna with a pang of guilt and remorse; but there is nothing to be done about it now, except urge Kamma to do her utmost.

  Something else has happened to disturb her. The three grooms in the stable have been shot, but it is not clear by whom. Hanna is outraged. For a long time she confers intently with Katja, whose eyes appear unnaturally large and shiny in the torchlight and who seems, still, on the verge of hysteria.

  If they were killed by someone from our side, Hanna instructs Katja to tell them, this is the last time a thing like that will he tolerated. We kill in fighting, when we must, but we do not murder. Anyone who does this will be shot, even if I have to do it myself.

  “We not take risk with people who can be traitors,” Kahapa objects gruffly.

  We cannot kill them before we have first made sure. Those three men could have been useful to us.

  “One of the two batmen want to betray us,” Kahapa reminds her. “That Lukas. All the time we think they are on our side, then the fight come and he go over to the soldiers. So I kill him.”

  That was different. These grooms had no chance to show which side they were on.

  “You are a woman,” grumbles Kahapa. “What you know about men and war?”

  It is my war, she responds, in a rage. I shall decide what we do, and when, and how. If you don’t like that you can go now.

  He is clearly taken aback. But for the moment he refuses to yield. “You need me,” he retorts defiantly. “If I am not here you can do nothing.”

  And if I did not save your life you would not have been here at all.

  The dense silence weighs on them like a burden almost too heavy to bear. Hanna has removed her kappie to expose the terrifying reality of her appearance. Unmoving, they stare at each other, watched by all the others. Their faces appear like blotches in the treacherous light.

  After a long time Kahapa slowly inclines his head. “You give me my life,” he says, his voice like a very subdued roll of thunder. “I stay with you.”

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Sixty

  Much later, when Hanna and Katja lie close together on the oxcart – all the others have chosen to bed down inside the barracks – the girl whispers, “You took a risk with Kahapa.”

  I had to make sure. In his heart he is a man.

  “He is no longer a man,” Katja reminds her. “Don’t you remember what they did to him?”

  It is not that thing alone that makes a man.

  There is a silence. Overhead, so close they can almost be heard, the stars are shining in a sky washed luminous and black. Then Katja says, “I have never lived a day like this.”

  I am proud of you. Hanna holds the girl tightly against her, a mother’s comforting, possessive clutch. For everything you’ve done. Especially this morning.

  “You don’t know what happened.”

  You did what you had to do. That is all that matters.

  “It wasn’t just the killing,” says Katja in a drained voice, beyond distress or fear or hurt. “Before I killed him, he…” She breathes in. “I let him take me.”

  Hanna feels her whole body go rigid. What do you mean, ‘take you’?

  “That is why I could not have peed on Tookwi’s chameleon even if he’d asked me. I am no longer a girl who has never been with a man.”

  Hanna shakes her furiously. I don’t want to hear about it!

  “He was very gentle,” says Katja. Clearly she has to speak now, nothing can silence her. “Perhaps he was more afraid than I was. But I made sure he wouldn’t stop. I was in such a hurry I didn’t even take off my shoes. I didn’t want to waste time, because then he might have given up. And I had to go through with it. It was the only way in which I could forgive myself for what I had to do. Perhaps it makes no sense. Perhaps, where we are now, nothing makes sense. It is a madness. You yourself said so before. I’m not sure I understood what you meant then. But now I understand, and I believe you.” This time the silence lasts so long that Hanna asssumes she has said all she could. But then Katja asks in a wavering voice, “Is this what it means to be a woman?”

  Hanna shakes her head very decisively. No. No. No, it doesn’t. I think it has very little to do with it.

  “Still,” Katja persists, “I know I had to do it. There was no other way. I had to find out what it is like.”

  It could have waited.

  “No. It was the right time. The only time. When we rode out from here I didn’t think of it happening at all. But when we got there I knew it was the only way I could do it.” Another silence tense with the unspoken; the unspeakable. “And when it was over, he was still lying on me, I killed him. Because that was what you expected of me. The first part was for me, the second for you.”

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Sixty-One

  Is this what she has become – an avenging demon? Nothing but this? In the dark silence, long after Katja has gone to sleep, Hanna remains looking up at the night. Words cannot reach where she wants to go. Only sounds and images remain. The sound of a piano broken apart, all its strings exploding, releasing the pent-up sound of years, lifetimes, darknesses. And behind the sound, the shadow of a woman she will never know and has never met, yet who will haunt her for ever, the shadow of whatever has remained unrealised in herself. The second part is for you.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Sixty-Two

  I can imagine how difficult it will be for Hanna to fall asleep that night. And listening to Katja’s breathing – disturbed at intervals by anxious gasping, and once a bout of unrestrained crying – unsettles Hanna so much that at last, in some small hour into which no sound can reach, she rolls off the mattress and slips from the oxcart. It is a curious sensation to wander, barefoot, soundless, through the silent fort which until so recently teemed with life.

  In the barracks she visits the quiet dead. But she does not stay long, because old Tookwi’s moans suggest that he is awake and may awaken others too. Outside, she creeps up the stone staircase to the top of the walls where the sentries used to be posted. Her eyes move across the moonlit plains, trying to pick out the dark thicket into which Katja rode with her young suitor, the trip from which she returned alone. I was in such a hurry I didn’t even take off my shoes. No, she must not think of that. But she cannot restrain her thoughts. Too much has happened over the past two days. It has gone so well. As such things go. And she, who has all her life been so clumsy in everything she attempted, has passed this test with so much confidence and efficacy that it would seem as if it she’s always been destined for it. But is this really what she has foreseen? Is this what was supposed to happen? And for how long, how far, must it go on? Until they reach Windhoek, she imagines. And then…?

  Throughout this day, and through everything that has led up to it, she has had to contain herse
lf, keep a tight, tight rein on her feelings. But now, at last, alone in the vastness of the night, she can feel a tremor building up inside. She still tries to control it. She must not, dare not, give way. She must keep the end in sight, otherwise nothing can be justified.

  A slight moan escapes her. She tries to stifle it. At that moment a hand touches her shoulder from behind. The shock is so great that her whole body contracts; she would have fallen had two enormously strong arms not taken hold of her.

  “Is me,” says Kahapa, so softly that it feels like a rumbling in the earth itself. “I watch for you.”

  As at the mission station. As everywhere. As always. I watch for you.

  This is too much for her. She collapses against his massive shoulder. He sits down with her, his broad back supported against the high parapet, his arms holding her.

  “If you want, you cry,” he tells her.

  She doesn’t know for how long she keeps shaking, her body sheltered against his, his hands holding her, making long stroking movements over her shoulders, her arms, her scarred face.

  “You cry,” he says again.

  It is an animal sound that comes from her, a sound from the depths of her being, the accumulated crying of a lifetime in which all her pain and bitterness, the lack of understanding, the futile gropings, the emptiness, the hope against all hope, the disappointments, the agonies, break out. And it takes a long time to subside. But he is patient, there is no irritation or haste or urgency in him, he has all the time in the world, she feels.

  Spent, exhausted, she sinks into silence. Now she needs to talk, more urgently than ever since the night she lost her tongue. And yet she knows that even if she had a tongue tonight there would be no words for what she so desperately wants to say.

  Perhaps he senses it. What he says, at last, without interrupting the slow rocking of her body cradled against him, is, “I talk now?”