B.B.U.S.A. (Buying Back the United States of America) (38 page)

Joan seldom enjoyed Ernest’s infrequent visits. She claimed he only came to Swakopmund to annoy her. I was very surprised Ernest had chosen to drive in the east wind; he looked hot and tired.

“Hi Ernest,” I greeted him. “I didn’t think you’d be coming for a visit this weekend.”

“It has been so hot in Uis the last few days I thought maybe the east wind wouldn’t be blowing so hard at the coast. I almost couldn’t see the road to get here. Everything is just a solid curtain of blowing sand. It must be at least 110 degrees at Uis.” Ernest went to sit at the big kitchen table with Joan.

I went back to the serving station where my son, Lessil, was giving instructions to one of the African waiters. Lessil worked in the restaurant nearly every night and most weekends. The African waiters were very helpful, but being illiterate, they were unable to write down orders. They took menus to the tables, and after Lessil or I took the orders, we told them what to deliver and to which table. They refilled glasses and cleared and reset the tables and helped in innumerable ways.

“Mom, my orders keep coming out all wrong. Can’t you do something about it?” Lessil complained. “Joan can’t keep the orders straight anymore and now she and Ernest are arguing really loud and you can hear them in the dining room. Can’t you tell them to be quiet?”

I unfortunately knew from experience that anything I said would simply make matters worse and put more pressure on an already overwhelmed Joan. I turned up the music system and put on a livelier piece: “Meet Me in Montana.” I had the fleeting thought that I would just about meet anyone in Montana, except Ted Bundy, to get out of the heat and my current situation.

“I’ll take your orders into Joan from now on and be sure she understands them,” I reassured my son. I wished I felt as confident as I sounded. I carefully wrote Lessil’s order down on a piece of paper and placed it near Joan as I gave her the verbal order.

“What’s this?” demanded Joan. “Are you insinuating I’m mixing up my orders?” She brandished the offensive paper, shaking it in my direction.

“I’m not insinuating anything; I just thought in this heat it would be easier for all of us if we wrote things down.”

“Well, save them for yourself then if you are having trouble. I can get my orders right. You just tell me exactly what you want and quit changing your mind all the time.” She reached her hand out to catch her balance as she swayed. I left the kitchen. You couldn’t reason with Joan when she was like this. As I was going out I heard Ernest tell her that she was mixing up the orders.

“I don’t need any interference from you!” she bellowed.

“Now Honey Buns, don’t get so loud!” Ernest yelled back. Several people looked up from their dinners. I turned the music up another notch.

A few minutes later Lessil was back. “I ordered a baked potato but got fries. What should I do?”

“Order a side of a baked potato, put the fries aside in the serving area, and put the potato on your plate.” All evening we corrected the errors coming out of the kitchen without further confrontation with Joan. The clean-up area had a line of wrong orders sitting in a neat row. I showed them to our head African waiter, Gabriel, and told him to put them in a bag and take them home. He was more than willing. There were always hungry mouths to feed in the Township, (the separate village where the non-whites lived.)

Every time I went to the kitchen it seemed as if Joan and Ernest were fighting. A line of empty beer bottles were in front of Ernest. I noted that Joan’s fifth of cane was empty and she had cracked a new bottle.

“Why don’t you go to the lounge with the boarders and wait until we’re closed to talk to me? You know I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing with you sitting here picking at me.” Joan complained to Ernest.

“Oh Honey Buns, all I ever wanted was a little bit of affection from you. Why can’t you just be nice to me?”

“A damn poor way to get it,” Joan snapped.

“You’re always pushing me away. Go wait! Go to the lounge! Go to HELL!” Ernest retorted.

It was stifling in the dining rooms, but the kitchen was even worse. I opened the front door for a second, hoping the east wind would be over, but a blast of hot air and sand forced me to close the door immediately and abandon any ideas of relief from the outside.

The evening was lasting forever. I was like a distraught fire fighter, trying to stomp out the little fires erupting in the lounge, the kitchen, and the usual small crisis in the dining room. I was hot and angry and wanted to throw a few things and scream myself; no wonder people pleaded temporary insanity during the east wind. Finally, the last customers paid their bills and left. I walked them to the door and locked it behind them. With a huge sigh of relief, I sent Lessil off to bed and told the serving staff to go on home. I carefully let them out the side door so they wouldn’t have to go through the kitchen with their bag of food and asked Andre Du Toit, one of our trusted boarders, to drive them home.

I finished clearing and setting up all of the tables myself, relieved to have everyone out of harm’s way. When all the work was finished, I told the boarders I was locking up for the night and shooed them out of the lounge, thankful they had not broken out in war.

I could not put it off any longer; I had to go into the kitchen. Usually I would sit for a few minutes after we locked-up, chatting with Joan. We would rehash the day and settle on a plan of attack for the next day. Tonight I pleaded weariness and scurried through the courtyard to my room. The blowing sand particles stung my bare arms and legs, hurrying me on my way.

Gratefully I climbed into the shower. The tepid water washed away most of the sand and grit, but while toweling myself dry, the sweat began to reform. That horrid east wind!

Looking out my window before I crawled into bed, I was relieved to see that the kitchen light was out. That probably meant that Joan and Ernest had gone up to Joan’s room in the main building and they wouldn’t drink any more tonight.

Lying on my bed, I propped my tired feet up against the cooler wall. I must have instantly fallen asleep as I awoke with a start. I listened intently, trying to discover what had awakened me. Far away I heard a muffled sound. Realization dawned, and I knew what was happening. It wasn’t the first time I had heard those sounds.

The first time I heard Ernest hitting Joan was years ago when we were all still living in Uis. Ernest and Joan had invited Lessil and me to accompany them for a weekend to the Etosha Pan Game Reserve. Tom was away on a geological exploration trip; so Lessil and I were delighted to have an opportunity to spend a few days viewing African animals.

On the second night out, Joan and Ernest started drinking heavily and arguing. Our sons wisely decided to go to bed early. As Joan and Ernest became more obnoxious, I, too, decided to go to bed. Sometime later I awoke to muffled noises. It sounded as if someone was hitting something. The noise was coming from the master bedroom. I was certain I heard Joan cry out in pain. I couldn’t imagine what was happening. Quietly, I crept down the hall and listened outside their bedroom door.

Timidly, I knocked. “Joan, Joan, are you all right?”

I heard another loud thump and a small cry from Joan. I opened the door and looked in. Ernest held Joan by one arm, his other hand raised to strike her again.

“Stop it Ernest! Stop it!” I screamed. Ernest looked shocked and embarrassed by my intrusion. He released Joan instantly. She emerged from their room bruised and battered. We sat up for hours talking. Ernest simply went to bed. That was the beginning of my involvement in Bester’s battles.

Later it became common to be included in their fights. Ernest, my gliding instructor and my mentor, trusted my abilities to fly his planes and drive his cars; and that trust seemed to overflow into his private family life as well.

Once, he came to my home at two in the morning. His old pickup roared up our driveway. Ernest leapt out and ran to the door, pounding urgently. Fearing a tragedy I opened the door.

“You better come quickly before I kill that stupid woman,” Ernest said. Having delivered his message, he spun on his heel and jumped in the truck. Gravel sprayed the driveway as he stomped the accelerator in his hurry to get back home to his fight with Joan.

Throwing on my clothes, I hurriedly ran for my vehicle and spun my own tires as I raced up the street in my old Hillman Vogue. I ran into the house, dreading what I might find.

Joan sat in a chair, eyes focused on middle distance; mute, and unapproachable.

“Answer me, woman, when I speak to you!” Ernest stormed around the room, stomping and raving, wind milling his long arms as he paced back and forth in front of her chair.

Joan could have been a statue hewn of stone. She gave no indication of hearing Ernest or knowing that I had entered the room. Her long practiced ability to tune Ernest out had never been more evident.

Frustration was etched in every line of Ernest’s long taunt thin body. His eyes darted behind his thick glasses. His large nose and ears were reddened by the force of his exertion. “Answer me!” Ernest screamed; his face a mere inch from Joan’s immobile head.

I tried to distract him with conversation, but the ploy was short lived. Soon he was standing in front of Joan again, trying to force some reaction from her. I tried to will her to answer him.

She somehow got my message and came out of her stupor. “Why, Ernest? What difference will it make?” she asked.

Ernest raised his hand and struck her a tremendous blow across the face. “How many times have I told you not to talk back to me?” he raved.

I jumped between them, screaming at Ernest to stop. I told him that he would have to hit me, too, if he wanted to hit Joan again. For a moment, he looked as if that were a distinct possibility.

The enormity of the situation overcame him. He could not hit a woman other than his wife. Disarmed, he went to bed.

Now it was happening again. Jumping off of the bed, I raced across the courtyard, pulling my robe and slippers on as I ran. Sand and grit forgotten, I jabbed the key in the lock and jerked the door handle to the kitchen at the same time. I finally coordinated my movements enough to gain entry. Dashing across the kitchen, I fumbled at the lock on the opposite doorway that led to the staircase. Standing in the upstairs hallway just outside Joan’s bedroom door, I could hear the familiar thumps and cries.

“Open the door! Joan! Joan! Are you alright?” My cries were greeted with a dead silence. The light went out from under the door, and it was very quiet. The only sound I could still hear was the sand pelting the side of the building.

“I don’t want to wake up our boarders and get them involved,” I called, “but I won’t go away until I see Joan and know she’s okay.”

The door finally opened and Joan stepped out. “Come on downstairs with me,” she said, “I need a cup of tea.” We had taken only a few steps when the door swung open again.

Ernest stood in the doorway wearing only a pair of blue and white boxer shorts and light blue knee high socks. His glasses slid down on the end of his nose, so he peered over them down the sights of the 30.06 rifle that he brandished in his big hands. His long, lean frame was well developed with muscles, his chest a mat of curly black hair.

“If you take one more step, so help me Joan, I’ll kill you,” Ernest said in a low, menacing voice.

“Oh just go ahead and do it Ernest,” Joan sighed, “You’ve been threatening to kill me for a long time now. Do me the favor and get this whole business over with.”

With that, Joan turned her back, linked arms with me, and started walking down the hallway. I heard the bolt click back and fall into place as a shell slipped into the chamber. We took two more wobbly steps. Next, the click of the safety being released reverberated within my eardrums. My heightened senses were fully aware of every sound, including the extraordinary pulsing within my chest. The fine hairs on the back of my neck became electrified and stood on end. Small beads of sweat instantly formed around my temples. Joan held my arm and continued walking. I no longer knew who was supporting whom.

Every second, I expected to hear an ear shattering blast, the last sound I would ever hear. Thoughts raced through my mind. Would you actually hear the report of the bullet that killed you? Would Ernest shoot only Joan or both of us? Who would finish raising Lessil? How would he get back to the States? Would he be sentenced to living in Africa with his father the rest of his life?

If he was going to shoot, he would certainly do it now, because, in two more steps we would be around the corner and out of his line of sight – unless he followed us.

Arm in arm we walked down the stairs to the kitchen door. Neither of us looked back. I carefully opened the door and locked it securely behind us.

I put the tea kettle on the burner, and grabbed two big mugs and the teapot and joined Joan at the oversized kitchen table. She sat at her usual spot at the end of the long table, leaning forward and cradling her head in her arms. I was shaking violently from head to foot.

“Do you think he might have really done it?” I asked.

Joan looked up through bloodshot eyes. She indicated a very small space between thumb and forefinger. “It was just that close. We were within a hair’s breadth of being dead.”