The Other Side of Silence

by Andre Brink

  Shortly before supper, the sun already down, the men return. The sullenness they have shown during the day seems to have lifted; but there is a kind of desperation in their exaggerated jocularity. It is, Katja whispers to Hanna, like singing an obscene song at a funeral.

  Unlike the copious meals they have been served by garrisons elsewhere, this supper is frugal. And not very well prepared. Not one of the women is in a mood for talking, but they grimly try to swallow their hostility, although Hanna offsets it in a gesture of dangerous defiance by taking Kahapa’s hat with her to the mess and putting it on the table next to her place.

  The lieutenant tries to ignore it. “It seems the ladies were too delicate to enjoy our target practice?” he sneers.

  They remain silent.

  “You must not try to compare it to life on a mission station,” he persists. “It is not souls we are trying to save but our country.”

  “Perhaps there are other ways,” says Gisela icily.

  “We are at war,” he points out. “Don’t forget that.”

  “In all the time we have been trekking through the desert,” says Gisela with a hard edge to her voice, “we have heard many soldiers talking about the dangers of this war. But we have never seen it. We have only seen peace and quiet.”

  “You are women,” he says in a patronising voice. “You do not know what to look for. I cannot expect you to understand the world of men.”

  “There you are quite right,” snaps Gisela.

  The evening seems headed for disaster. But then, to the surprise of the others, Katja turns to the lieutenant, her eyes unnaturally bright. “I think it takes a very brave man to survive in conditions like these,” she says. “Of course we were shocked this afternoon. But it is because we cannot hope to understand what you have to put up with. Without men like you there would be no Germans left in Africa.”

  It seems amazing that he should fall for this. But for the rest of the meal he ignores Hanna and Gisela to focus all his attention on the young woman. And long after the table has been cleared and the soldiers have withdrawn to their sleeping quarters he is still in earnest conversation with Katja. Which gives her ample opportunity unobtrusively to lace his beer with old Kamma’s concoction. He must be far gone, she thinks derisively, not to notice the bitter taste. But she puts away all thought and feeling, hardly even glancing towards Hanna and Gisela in the shadows on the far side of the table, as she concentrates only on what is at hand, on the flow of their conversation.

  More and more unevenly it moves on as the men on their bunks begin to snore. The officer is turning maudlin, telling Katja about his family, his wife, his three adorable children – just look, here I have a photograph of them, don’t you think they’re beautiful? I cannot wait to see them again. To get out of this goddamned place, back to civilisation, to decent people, musical evenings, bands playing in the park of a Sunday, visits to good friends, green green trees and manicured gardens. Gardens. Children. Gardens. So green, so green. And then he is gone.

  Katja feels sick again. But this is not the time.

  From the breast pocket of his uniform she retrieves the key to the detention cell. In a minute the two prisoners are free. The hat with the band of leopard skin is restored to Kahapa.

  There is a near-full naked moon. Which helps them. But it will also help the two sentries on the front and back walls.

  Like shadows they flit across the courtyard. Kahapa and Himba creep up the stairs to the sentry posts. With surprising ease – but they are so used to this by now – they garrotte the two guards and throw the bodies over the wall. Now the women can move about more easily. They open the stable doors and begin to lead out the horses, two by two; their own and those of the garrison. To make sure they cannot be pursued later. Down in the valley below the horses are tethered to the thorn trees.

  Afterwards, the Nama prisoners in the kraal behind the fort are freed. Later, Hanna may find it difficult to explain this impulsive decision. Everything else she has done has been so lucidly planned and executed; whence, then, this one moment of rashness? It can only have been prompted by the excess of rage stirred up in her by the treatment of the prisoners at the hands of their captors that afternoon. And even when they are set free the wretched Namas are in such a state that they seem incapable of realising what is happening; most of them simply cower, trying to cover their heads against the blows they take for granted. Some do not even move. Only a few of the strongest seem to grasp the unbelievable and stagger to their feet in the dull moonlight.

  They do not have too much time. What they are waiting for is the relief of the guard at midnight; this information, with everything else they need to know, Hanna has elicited, through Katja, from the lieutenant on their first conducted tour. With the two new sentries out of the way, the garrison will be down to thirteen. Still an uncomfortable disproportion, but the risk will be lessened.

  Once all the horses are outside, they pull the cart to the entrance. This will allow only one or two persons at a time to go past. And none at all if Hanna’s strategy succeeds.

  Kahapa, Himba and Hanna return to the sentry posts on the wall. They are all armed with guns and pistols now. As soon as the new guards have been killed, Himba will go down to join the other women in the courtyard below.

  But that is where it all goes wrong. Just before the new sentries are to come on duty the silence of the night is rent by noises from behind the fort. As the reality of their release has begun to dawn on more and more of the prisoners in the kraal, shouts of surprise and jubilation grow from a series of low uncertain separate murmurs into a chorus of amazement and celebration. Soldiers, befuddled with sleep, some naked, some partly clothed, come stumbling and tumbling from their quarters, spilling into the courtyard, not knowing what the hell is going on.

  Hanna’s depleted troops are caught just as unprepared. From her post on the wall she sees Kahapa jump down the outside of the wall to join the others at the gate.

  She knows that she has to follow. But surely the wall is much too high. Still, the only alternative is to be caught. She closes her eyes, and jumps into the darkness, to her certain death.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Sixty-Seven

  Koo, who is supposed to watch in the courtyard for a signal from Hanna, panics in the sudden confusion that engulfs the fort and rushes forward to put the cart to the torch. Immediately the whole load of gunpowder explodes, taking her with it. Not a shred of clothing, not a bone of her body, will be left. The night turns a furious red as if Gaunab, the god of darkness, has come down from the sky.

  Hanna does not fall to her death. Inexplicably, almost miraculously, she lands on her feet outside the wall, and goes down on hands and knees the moment the cart explodes in the courtyard. Purely by instinct she starts running. Kahapa, she assumes, will be doing the same.

  But the angry giant has landed, swearing and cursing and bellowing, on a heap of loose stones, and has broken his hip, collapsing in agony. At the front entrance Himba and the others are thrown back by the impact of the explosion, but manage to scramble to their feet to shoot wildly at anyone who tries to break past the burning cart through the gates of hell.

  When at last they reach the thorn trees where the horses are supposed to wait, they find that most have snapped their reins and bolted, obviously terrified by the explosion. Two others have half strangled themselves and broken their legs; they have to be shot at close range. On the remaining three Hanna and Katja and Gisela, Himba and Kamma succeed in making their escape. At least they cannot be pursued with any effect. But they have no idea if it has been defeat or victory.

  From a safe distance, shaking with shock and rage, they watch for a long time the fire blazing in the night, eclipsing the tentative stars.

  We have to go back, Hanna urges Katja. We must find Kahapa, we cannot leave him there.

  But they may all be killed if they do. Both Katja and Gisela physically hold her back. Even so she might have broken fre
e; but Himba joins them in restraining her, leaving her sobbing with powerless rage.

  Throughout the long day that follows they have to wait in the distance, hidden among trees. There are still signs of life at the fort, a few soldiers moving about, appearing on the walls to scour the veld through binoculars, emerging from the front, setting to work on mending the gate and a caved-in portion of the wall before dark.

  Katja is anxious to continue on their way while they can; even if the fort has not been wiped out, they must have decimated the garrison. There is reason to be content. But Hanna refuses. They will not budge until Kahapa has been found, she insists with quiet fury. They have never seen her in such a state. No one dares to counter her. And through the long hours of the winter’s day, white with piercing light, they wait for night to fall.

  As it turns out, they have no problem finding Kahapa. Though it is not easy to recognise the man they used to know so well. The body has been thrown out, like garbage, right in front of the gate. It seems barely human, more like the carcass of a large slaughtered animal. It has been flayed. Not a tatter of skin remains on the bloody mess of flesh and sinews and bones, the eyes gouged out.

  And then the shooting starts. Surely they should have been alert to mat. The body has been thrown out as bait to lure them close. But the discovery of Kahapa is so terrible that for some time they can do nothing but stand and stare. It can only be the treachery of the moonlight, or the excessive eagerness and rage of the few attackers on the walls, that prevents the total, swift annihilation of Hanna’s army. All around them bullets thud and zing past, ricocheting, sounding from close by like angry bees. But they do get away.

  Except for Himba, who refuses to mount his horse. Making no attempt at all to hide, or even to duck, he storms the gate on his own and takes up position right in front of it, his chest heaving, his legs planted into the earth like tree stumps, his gun pressed against his barely healed shoulder. It is likely that he brings two or even three of his attackers down from their high perch on the wall (there is no time to make sure). But then, inevitably, with a smothered groan, he himself goes down.

  Before the end of the night Kamma disappears. No one has seen her go. It is as if she has simply vanished, without sign or sound, leaving nothing at all behind. The desert has reclaimed her.

  And the following morning Gisela takes what has remained of the potion prepared for Lieutenant Muller, and dies very peacefully.

  Only Hanna and Katja remain.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Sixty-Eight

  Katja no longer bleeds. She is pregnant.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Sixty-Nine

  The vultures are the first sign of life they see as they approach the hills above the town. In intricate, interwoven spirals they descend to the rubbish dumps on the far side of the hollow in which the small, tidy town with its four thoroughfares is set.

  And then the palms. Palms everywhere. Along the axis of the main street – the Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse, Katja informs Hanna, with an unexpected catch in her throat – and in small clusters among the sprinkling of homes, around the fort and the few sprawling administrative buildings on the opposite hillside, and on the outskirts. An emerald oasis in the harsh brown landscape. It could be a place of dreams, nestled deep in the whorl of a shell.

  “How strange,” says Katja. “I almost cannot believe that it has taken us so long to get here.”

  The Israelites took forty years to cross the desert from Egypt to Canaan.

  “You think this is our Promised Land?”

  It has palm trees.

  “Shall we go down now?”

  Hanna nods quietly.

  They tether the horses to a tree and start the descent on foot. Now that at last they have arrived, they are reluctant about covering the final lap. It takes a long time to go down.

  Hanna remembers, wryly, her childhood dream of leading a procession through the streets, a woman arrayed in purple and scarlet colour and sitting on a scarlet coloured beast, with seven heads and ten horns. It was supposed to be Bremen then, certainly a larger town than this Windhoek.

  The place is bustling like a broken anthill. After the silence of the desert even a normal day here would have been bewildering; but this is clearly not a normal day. Judging from the number of carts and carriages and wagons of all descriptions cluttering the streets (there are even a few motor cars) many of the people must have arrived from elsewhere in the colony. Perhaps there is a fair? The crowd gets more and more dense as they approach what Katja recognises as the railway station. In this turmoil no one pays any attention to the two women.

  Katja stops a man in lederhosen to ask about the crowds.

  A train has just arrived from Swakopmund, he tells them, so eager to move on that half of what he says is spoken over his shoulder. They’re bringing in passengers from a ship that landed four days ago. A new consignment of women, he explains, his face glowing with excitement.

  Hanna feels her guts contract. For a moment she wants to turn around and head for the desert again.

  Katja, sensing her distress, reaches for her hand. “We needn’t do this,” she says. “We can go round the crowd.”

  No, I have to see it.

  Of course she has no recollection at all of her own arrival. She was, after all, dead.

  From the station building, obscured by the crowd, they can hear the deep farting of a brass band, oompah-oompah.

  Troubled but fascinated, unable to move – because of the crowd, because of the leadenness in their own limbs – they stare ahead. The people are shuffling laboriously out of the way to let the new arrivals pass. The two sides are lined by soldiers in uniform, staring stiffly ahead, as if they are not even aware of the passengers they are allowing through, a thin band straggling through a parted sea, heading towards some as yet unseen tract of land promised by the Lord of Hosts. Oompah-oompah, the band goes. It is like the Rathausplatz in Bremen on a Sunday afternoon. Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.

  The newly disembarked passengers approach, two by two, like animals from an ark, one couple after another, man and woman, man and woman, a seemingly endlessly procession. Most are holding hands, some walk in a tight embrace; others simply stride stiffly beside each other, not exchanging looks, not saying anything. Many of the men are red-faced, several openly drunk; a few have to be dragged along by cronies, with embarrassed women shuffling after them. There are pale and haggard faces among the women, but most have a determined look about them, as if to defy the world. They are happy, goddamnit. They are in a new land of opportunity. They are going to make a success of it. They will get married. They will have many children to populate the empty land and ensure a future for civilisation, Christianity, the German Reich. Oh God have mercy.

  After the couples there follows a large and rumbustious crowd of men, uproariously drunk, shouting obscenities, collapsing with mirth, lurching forward to vomit, singing songs from the distant fatherland. Occasionally soldiers intervene to remove some of the more obnoxious elements. Right at the back, like a small bundle of sheep somehow cut off from the flock, follow a group of women. They are the ones not chosen, the outcasts, unwanted by man or beast. They look dishevelled and unwashed, crumpled like dirty laundry, lank hair hanging tattily over their wan faces. They are not crying, but it is only, one surmises, because they have no tears left. They are way beyond all that. Clearly they have all been used on the four-day journey from the coast. And thrown away, like snotty handkerchiefs. They are covered in film, grime, spittle, semen. And even as they stumble along people in the crowd hurl peel and eggs and tomatoes at them, jeer at them, spit at them. Drunken men tear open their flies to piss on them, then collapse with laughter. At the far end of the tunnel through which they pass, two ox-wagons are waiting. Most likely they will take the discarded women through the desert to that out-of-reach place everyone has heard about but no one wants to see, the prison, the nunnery, the brothel, the shithouse, Fraue
nstein.

  On moonless nights, Hanna remembers – a quite irrelevant memory – the huge house, the ship stranded in the desert, breaking away from its moorings, straining against gravity, and soaring up into sky, a magical journey, beyond the reach of the world, its load of grey ghosts intact.

  The two women do not cry, they do not speak. They just stand there.

  “We must go on,” Katja says at last, gently tugging Hanna by the arm. “We still have a lot to do today.” This may be the completion of a circle, but it is not yet their destination.

  I need some time on my own.

  Katja breathes in slowly, quietly, and nods. She knows this is not the moment to protest. And there is no need to discuss what remains to be done: they have gone over it so many times already.

  “I’ll do my best to find him,” she says. “Take care. I shall be back.”

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Seventy

  The station is deserted by now. The people have dispersed in the wake of the procession, the band has packed up and left, the last few drunks have staggered to their feet from their puddles of piss and vomit. Only their litter remains behind. Hanna instals herself on a corner of the wide stoep, her back resting against a pillar. Vacantly she stares ahead. This moment, she knows with a sense of sadness, but also of deep satisfaction, is perhaps the most necessary of her life. A life that suddenly feels immeasurably longer than it has been. Behind the anxiety and the tumult of her emotions is an awareness of the inevitable. She cannot have too much longer to go on. And there are still so many memories to sort out.

  Leaning back, she looks up at the fronds of the high palms in front of the brown sandstone building with its red roof. At last she is where she has wanted to be, even if it is so very different from her dreams. She remembers the first picture of palm trees she saw in the Children’s Bible in the orphanage, and how it enthralled her, transported her to places as yet without names, long before in her sessions with Fraulein Braunschweig the names began to sound in her mind like a memory of bells. Guadalquivir, Macchu Pichu, Smolensk, Barbezieux, Parramatta, Ondangua, Omaruru, Otjiwarongo. How they soothed and comforted her in the dark hole in which they locked her up when she was a child, when she fell ill and died and led her army of rats up the stairs to sweep into the room where Frau Agathe was waiting, all in black. Her own glorious, victorious army, from Chinon to Poitiers to Orleans to Rheims. Closing her eyes, she can still hear the soft droning of Fraulein Braunschweig’s voice reading and reciting. The stories of Jeanne, of young Werther, of Bluebeard, of Cinderella, of the little Goatherd, of the poor outcast Musicians of Bremen who took their revenge on an unaccommodating world. A voice that imperceptibly becomes smaller, speaking now with an accent that must be Irish. Susan with the little mole below her navel, peeing frothily in the dam they have made in the sand, holding against her ear the shell that will change her life, a shell that reaches out, far beyond all silence, to what lies forever beyond, like a world without end. There are the sounds of her voices, some stern and damning, others sugary with evil (Stand closer, child, let us see where you are trying to hide your sins – Now take off your shirt, I promise not to touch…), the shrill giggly whispers of Trixie, Spixie and Finny, speaking from the far side of the Little Children of Jesus, deep within her dreams, the screeching of cicadas, the call of a hadedah in the twilight, the explosion of a piano smashed to pieces.