The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (26 page)

MUMBELI: Baby, it’s beautiful. (
Pause.
) But I’m not sure I’ve got room.

PARADISE: Your case is full?

MUMBELI: Yes, I have filled it with the necessary items, such as undergarments and sweaters, but also with—(
The door swings open
.)

BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 2: What here? A Damara and an Ovambo cavorting? A clear violation of the Division of Races Act, SA 193,
Section 18, Clause 15 (2) (C), as such is applicable to mandated territories. Passes! Var are your passes! Ah! Beautiful knitting!
I never cease to be amazed by the craftiness of you native wenches. Such innate talent! May I? (
MUMBELI
refuses and begins to chase
BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 2
, with the scarf, as if it were a sjambok. . . .
)

Bulb dims.

SCENE 3:
On the border. A barbed-wire fence strewn across the stage. On the other side of the fence, a sign:
ANGOLA. MUMBELI
looks at Angola, then turns around slowly—a great weight on his shoulders and a gun in his hand—to look lovingly at the audience,
as at a much-loved country.

MUMBELI: My story? You should like to know my story?
Now
you ask? I have none. I was killed on the border, by a fence. Once, I had one. I was called Ignatius Mumbeli. I had a mother
also. You too? Funny how we all—Mine was a charwoman for a white family in the dorp. I remember waiting on the stoep while
she folded sheets. Sheets were washed on Wednesdays. They were aired out all other days. She mopped the floor before dinner
and after dinner. On her hands and knees, she mopped the floor. Before dinner and after dinner. She shined their shoes. She
raised four of them and five of us. Once, one of them died. I remember. His name was Jan. She came home and wept over him.
Now, may I ask, whose mother will weep over me? I had a girl. If I had more time, I would tell you about my beautiful. Her
name was Paradise. Her parents, you see, were optimists —

AUNTIE (
having climbed in through a stage-left window
): Come to my boozalum, angel.

MUMBELI: Are you a ghost, Mother?

AUNTIE: No ghost, boy, I’m your fantasy.

OBADIAH: [Cut! Cut! Cut! Get her out of here!]

BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 3 (
gun drawn, plastic bag wrapped tight on his head to simulate baldness
): Aha! Terrorist! Dummkopf! Var do you think you’re going? Who gave you a pass to leave the mandated territory, eh? Eh? (
BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 3
and
MUMBELI
[and
AUNTIE
] fight.
BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 3
shoots
MUMBELI. MUMBELI
shoots
BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 3. MUMBELI
dies.
BOER POLICEMAN NUMBER 3
dies.)

AUNTIE (
noticing the suitcase
): Hmmmm. (
Snatches it, creeps off
.)

FESTUS FESTUS GALLI (
trailed by a platoon of blue helmets, stops at the bodies
): Ah, tut tut tut. Clean this mess up, boys. Oh, this quarry cries havoc. (
Consults script
.) Or is it this havoc cries quarry?

Bulb out.

Hostel dining hall. Night.

MAVALA: I don’t mind being a seamstress, but I’m definitely too tall to play a Damara.

POHAMBA: Herr Director, do you not think there ought to be a kiss in Scene 2? When both of them say, “Alas.” Right there would
be an excellent moment —

KAPLANSK: Do I really have to say “native wenches”? I’ll say anything in any language I don’t understand, but I draw the line
at saying native wenches.

POHAMBA: That doesn’t mean you don’t think it.

KAPLANSK: Think what? What are you insinuating?

POHAMBA: Insinuating your arse.

ANTOINETTE (
Scowls. Leaves.
)

FESTUS: Maybe that’s a long speech for Mumbeli at the end?

OBADIAH (
wit’s end, end of the rope, last hurrah, goodbye to all that, things don’t fall apart, they implode
): Even Festus is a critic. All we ever do is make speeches. Don’t you even understand that? You think anybody talks to each
other? Ever? Talks to each other?

I
have something to tell you.”

“Is it shocking?”

“Von Swine is aware.”

“Of what?”

“This.”

“That’s not shocking.”

“Listen. Last night after rehearsal, he didn’t pant, he knocked. So I was curious. He’d never knocked before. I got up and
opened it. He only smiled. Then he turned around and walked away. It was the first time I ever closed the door on him.”

“So the kid told. Or maybe it was Festus. Anyway, he’s the last to —”

“Who told Festus?”

“Nobody. I’m just saying we’re not a well-kept—do you think he’ll tell the priest?”

“Why not? Father, there’s fornication going on in the veld and it isn’t only the goats.”

“The goats are gone.”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t say anything?”

“No, only that smile.”

“Smiled like how?”

“Like he was taking joy in it.”

“In what?”

“In my success. In proving, once again—so I called him back.”

“What?”

“I invited him in.”

“What?”

“Yes. And he comes back. He sighs, rubs his fat face. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he says. ‘I thought perhaps you couldn’t either.’
It was all very formal and dignified. Then he starts sliding off his belt. When he’s down to his shorts, I start shouting
for my sister. Oh, did I shout. You didn’t hear me down there?”

“No.”

“Tuyeni! And the man is so confused. Tomo starts bawling. And Tuyeni, heavy sleeper always, but this time she comes running.”

Mavala rolls over, runs her finger from the ditch in the hinge of my arm to my wrist.

“Wait.”

“There isn’t much time.”

“Just tell it.”

“Well, she came into my room, and what do you think?”

“He’s in your room, with his pants down, in the middle of the night? I think she freaked.”

“No. She looked at me like she used to look at me when we were sisters. Like she loved me, but there was also nothing to be
done with me. Then she took him by the hand and led him away like he was a child. It was very beautiful. And man and wife
left the slut with her crying kid.”

T
he light slants, the sun nonexistent behind a wall of sky. The graves rise like hulks. The wind is so constant you don’t know
you’re hearing it until it falls. She drapes her arm across my neck.

“Hold me.”

“All right.”

Then: “Will you go?”

“Now? We’ve got twenty minutes at least. Why?”

“Don’t ask. Will you? Here, take your sock.”

“
Myrothamnas flabellifolia:
A small, woody, aromatically fragrant shrub. It endures droughts by putting itself into a state of dormancy wherein its leaves
shrivel, turn brown as the chlorophyll becomes inactive, and eventually become so dry that they can be crumpled into dust
between one’s fingers. At the same time, its branches bend upward into a vertically bunched position. Yet at first rain the
plant suddenly becomes ‘alive’ once more. The branches descend into more normal positions, the leaves become soft and pliable,
and the chlorophyll becomes green and active. This transformation takes only an hour at most, and can be brought about artificially
by spraying the plants with water or by immersing them in a tub of water for only a few minutes. Because of this ability to
return to life after apparent death, the species is called the ‘resurrection plant’ (in German,
Wunderbusch
). The natives use the plants for the brewing of a pleasantly scented tea, hence there is a name for the species in each of
the native tongues. For instance, in Herero it is
Ongandulwaze
and in Nama it is
!godogib
.”

J
ust after the second triangle, the farm line will ring. It will sound, as it always does, like a chain being dragged across
asphalt. The principal will pick it up from his office. Miss Tuyeni will pick it up from the kitchen of their house. The priest
from his office. Krieger from his house. There will be a chorus of
Hello
s and
Who is calling?
Who is calling? Asking for whom? The headmaster, please. Speaking! It will be Prinsloo, and he will tell the principal (and
everyone else listening) that he saw the girl teacher, the one with the bitty skirts, walking down the C-32 at what odd in
the morning. The sky still bloody. Strange for a Wednesday. Is today another one of these new holidays? I thought we just
had one. A suitcase too. She didn’t put her hand out, so I didn’t stop. I thought you might like to know.

N
ot yet dawn, that strange light before the light, and Antoinette’s in the dining-hall kitchen slicing morning bread for the
boys, thick slices of brown bread with an ungenerous slap of butter that the boys will try to make go further by spreading
it around with their tongues. They eat their morning bread slowly. Mavala knocks on the glass window of the door. Antoinette
looks up, not surprised, because to her there is no such thing as a surprise. She opens the door and Mavala carries Tomo inside.
He’s sleeping in his car seat. She sets him down in the corner of the kitchen where the gray hasn’t reached. She leaves his
stuffed horse, a few of his cars. A plastic bag full of clothes and diapers. He’ll be saying more words soon. After that will
come sentences. So beautiful when he’s helpless with sleep, she’d like to sink down with him in the corner. Her body arcing
toward him. She drags her fingers down his face. Then she stands and whispers things to Antoinette that Antoinette listens
to—but as always with the two of them, their understanding goes beyond words, and now, past the promises Mavala’s making,
promises she insists on repeating.

Antoinette scrapes out the last of the butter from the tub, and nods. “I’ll heat some milk,” she says.

S
he can act, that one.”

“Quite an exit.”

“Oh, she’ll be back.”

“Of course, she’ll be back.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Windhoek. Where else is there to go?”

“No! Jo’burg. City of Gold! That’s where the real money is. She’ll be a real actress in Jo’burg. Forget Windhoek.”

“She’ll be back, I say.”

“It’s true, that girl can act.”

“I thought she wanted to be an accountant.”

“Still, it exhausts.”

“What?”

“Leaving. Any leaving.”

“Coming back’s tiring also.”

“That’s true. But the boy.”

“Yes, the boy.”

I
n morning meeting, the principal doesn’t mention her. Moral tales come and go, and he doesn’t once look at her empty space.
She normally stands between Obadiah and Vilho. They leave a gap for her, whether as a reminder or a tribute, I don’t know.
The principal doesn’t seem interested in taking anything out on me. One, because he knows I’d never say a word, and two, because
if it is a game, which it is to him, then we’ve both lost.

Finally, after she’s been gone eight school days—apparently some official level of delinquency—he distributes mimeograph copies
of a typed letter. We stand there and sniff it. There’s no moral tale this day. He’s all bluster and business. He reads the
letter to us.

Dear Deputy Minister Tjoruzumo:

I regret to inform you, Sir, of a vacancy effective immediately at the Don Bosco Primary School (Goas Farm RC), District Erongo.

Grade: Sub B

Reason for Vacancy: Teacher Mavala Shikongo abandoned her post May 5 of the current calendar year, without notice and without
explanation. In addition, she left her son, Tomo (surname unknown), 2, at the mercy of the charity of the state.

Request: Please send a replacement teacher as soon as convenient.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at the below address.

Obediently yours,
Charles Komesho, Principal
Goas Primary School, RC
Private Bag 79
Karibib

Tuyeni stared straight ahead as he read it. Not a word. Although we believed she was the power behind him, she never tipped
her hand either way. She was almost godlike in that way. And so, finally, difficult to hate. To hate Tuyeni took more imagination
than any of us had. Maybe she got what she wanted. Maybe there can never be enough disgrace. The woman was impenetrable, hollow-eyed.
Mavala’s leaving left her no more numb than she’d always seemed. Morning meeting, staring at nothing.

“My wife is not the charity of the state,” Obadiah says.

The principal swallows. Then he gently rubs his hands together, as if preparing to eat. “Her food is. Her house is. And now
that I consider it, Head Teacher, her man is also.”

“The boy’s name is Shikongo, Master Sir.”

“You’re informing me, Head Teacher, of the name of my own bastard nephew?”

H
e liked to think his love for her was a thing he kept pure. I was the degrader in this respect. He was proud of what he considered
his refusal, how he didn’t give chase. How he loved her from a distance. He was the untainted one.

Wall thumped by foot.

“Are you awake?”

“No.”

“You should have left her alone.”

“I should have left her alone? You’re lecturing me on women? I can’t even think of a good analogy. I should have left her
alone. I’m asleep. We all should have left her alone. Everybody should have left her alone.”