The Other Side of Silence Read online

  Later in the day she leaves Frauenstein to die.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Twenty-One

  A little way down from Lotte’s navel, and slightly to the right, is a small mole. Hanna will often linger there before she resumes with the tip of her tongue the journey of love.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Twenty-Two

  There is nothing furtive about her going off into the desert. In her childhood when she ran away from the orphanage, she always made sure that her absence would not be detected too soon. Also, in those days, on every occasion she had a clear idea of where she was going. Once, when she was very small, she hoped to reach the moon. On another occasion she tried to reach the place where the wind comes from. Sometimes she tried to find the way back to Trixie, Spixie and Finny. At least twice, in a more practical frame of mind, she left the dank building in the Hutfilterstrasse, followed the intricate warren of streets to the Rathausplatz and the St Petri Cathedral, cut through the Schnoor quarter and crossed the darkly flowing river on the free ferry to the Weserstrand on the far side, opposite the large basin of the Europahafen. But on neither occasion was there any sign of the girl who had once played there. And so both Ausflügen ended in a sad return.

  This time, however, it is different. She is not going towards anything at all: it is purely a movement away from. And she neither hides nor advertises her going. It is immaterial to her whether she is observed or not. In the early days of her stay at Frauenstein she was never left alone; there were always women appointed to keep an eye on her. But their vigilance soon wilted in the heat. Why should it matter to them whether she is here or somewhere else? No one particularly likes or dislikes her. She is tolerated, as everybody else is; no more, no less.

  She has taken nothing with her, no food, no clothes, not even a bottle of water. If she still had her shell, she might well have brought that along; but now it is gone, with all its irretrievable memories. Her wide bonnet, too, is left behind; someone else may find it useful, it is still quite new. One needs so little on this last trek. There is no sadness in her, not even reluctance. It is simply something for which the time has come. If anything, she feels anticipation at joining Lotte in death. It is not a religious expectation of an afterlife – in her early rejection of God she has also turned her back on both salvation and damnation – but a quiet contentment in accepting that what has happened to Lotte will now happen to her. In a way the Namas are also drawn into it. But they didn’t choose their death, they were overcome by it; with Lotte and with her it is different, an act of choice.

  It is Lotte she feels closest to in this infinite space. All boundaries, even of time, are quietly effaced. In this extremity, as in the extremities of love, they are together again. How would Lotte react to her scarred face and body, if she were here now? The question is irrelevant. They are together, there is no difference between them, they are the same, body and body, mind and mind, dream and dream, more intimate than marriage. It is such a necessary journey, into the self.

  At the same time, she may think, this is perhaps the closest one can get to that beyond which she has always sensed at the far side of everything she knew. When she was a child it was associated with the other side of the sea, which to her was Ireland, where the little girl Susan came from. Much later, when she applied to go to German South-West Africa, that distant land nudging the turbulent Atlantic came to represent beyond. But now that there has become here she knows it is much more complicated man she has ever thought. What defines beyond is, after all, the acknowledgement that it cannot, ever, be attained. Except possibly on this final journey.

  Desolate as the landscape around her may appear to be – red earth, rocks scorched brown and black, outcrops and ridges and banks of stone, stunted trees and bossies, sparse dry tufts of grass – to her it is not empty but dense with the life of the stories the Namas so endlessly told her. The thin dust devil twirling in the distance is the Evil One, saris, in search of a victim. The shrilling cicadas are praise-singers of the god Tsui-Goab. The dry bed of a long-disappeared river is the trace of a magical snake. And when night falls and she lies down to rest, prostrate on her back, her head on her folded arms so that she can gaze up at the slow cartwheeling of the stars above, she recognises in the Milky Way the white ashes scattered by Tsui-Goab after he had defeated the evil god Gaunab so that all the world could be warned of the route he took to his home in the Black Sky. And the brightest light of all, that of the evening star Khanous, was once a brilliant girl among the Namas who warded off an attack by treacherous San warriors by sacrificing her virginity to the enemy in order to save her father’s tribe.

  Hanna is amazed to discover how much she can recall of what she was told by Xareb’s people. Even during the days and nights when she was dazed and only half awake the stories must have insinuated themselves into her torn and bruised body like draughts and ointments with healing powers beyond all explanation. (“There is no pain and no badness,” she still hears the dry voice of old Taras in her ear, “that a story cannot cure.”)

  The journey becomes, not a return to, but a kind of consecration of her stay with the tribe. They are the only people who have never, not once, recoiled or gaped in horror or disgust at her disfigurement; she was simply a person in need. Even among the outcasts in Frauenstein she remains an aberration and a curiosity. And how can she blame them? To herself she is a freak. When she wanders through the hollow space by day or night and catches in passing the merest glimpse of her reflection in a mirror, she averts her eyes; she will not face the ghoul she has become. But here in the desert, restored to the memory of the small people who saved her life and tended her – and paid the price for it – there is no danger of reflections; she can be whole again. She no longer feels the need, as in her bed in Frauenstein at night, too scared to face a mirror, to palpate the surface and contours of her face, her breasts, her cunt as if, like one newly blinded, she has to learn to read with her fingers the half-obscured and horrifying text of herself. Here, back with the Namas of her mind, she can simply be, there is no need of confirmation from the outside. It is a kind of purification of body and mind, stripping herself down to the elements, the perfect preparation for death.

  It is not only the stories that come back to her. On the second day, when the thirst grows really bad, she finds herself kneeling beside a shrivelled plant that looks like nothing on earth; and as she instinctively begins to burrow into the gritty earth she realises suddenly that she is doing what Xareb himself has shown her: digging for a nona root. The satisfaction the cool acrid juice brings her is better than anything she can remember from Bremen. It is an experience repeated with other forms of nourishment from the veld: the prickly leaves of aiuma, the small green melons of the tsamma, the orange pods of kukemakranka. Many of the names she has forgotten, but she remembers what the plants look like, where to look for them, what they taste like. A couple of times she does make a mistake and pays for it with excruciating cramps or bouts of vomiting or diarrhoea; once it is so bad that she is convinced she will die.

  But she recovers, and feels inordinately proud of herself. That is when, with a wan smile, she realises how mixed up everything has become in her mind: for why should she be relieved to have recovered if death is in fact what she has been looking for? She knows now that this is not the way she will meet her end, just as a good swimmer would be foolish to attempt suicide by drowning.

  Xareb’s people have saved her again, she thinks. And having revived herself with the juices of another tuber and some fiercely bitter aloe leaves, she calmly turns back to the east where she has set out from and begins to retrace her steps – quite invisible, her feet having left no imprint on the hard earth to start with – all the way through the desert which has now become a home to her, back to Frauenstein.

  From very far away she sees the fantastic fortress rearing up against the lurid blaze of the sky. And a little distance beyond, the rocky outcrop which marks the
head of the magic fountain. From this direction the formation in the shape of a woman is clearly recognisable, her torso half contorted as if struggling against her own petrifaction to turn back, back, to whatever lies behind her. This, she thinks, perhaps wryly, is what happens to women who try to look back.

  A story told by the old woman, Taras: of the trickster-god Heiseb who left his tribe as a young man to see the world, and stayed away for a time without time; and when one day he came back, covered in dust and dirt, his skin wrinkled with memories and distances, a prodigal son stumbling at last into the almost-not-remembered village, there is no one left to welcome him, only an assortment of rocks and stones. Which is why dotted all over the landscape the innumerable graves of Heiseb are still marked with cairns to which every passer-by, woman or man, is required to add another stone. And Hanna, too, carries home a stone from her wandering and deposits it below the outcrop before she turns to enter the forbidding house of the women. It is difficult to say what she feels. Sadness? Regret? Fear? Shame? Relief? Satisfaction? Probably only something like resignation: she has gone away, she has come back, she is here now. And will be for the rest of her life.

  She is tired, yes, to the point of exhaustion. Emaciated. Her shoes have been worn through and her feet are bleeding. Her face is blistered from the sun, a fiery purple red as if the skin has been stripped off. Now there will be shade and water and rest. Not necessarily sleep: it is not oblivion she wants, but an even, continuous consciousness.

  Frau Knesebeck is in her office when she comes in. Hanna hesitates in the doorway. The woman at the desk looks up. Her expression registers no surprise. “You are back,” she says.

  Hanna nods.

  Frau Knesebeck looks at the clock on the wall, its formal face flanked by eagles with spread wings, carved from dark wood, highly polished. “It is time to milk the cows.”

  Hanna goes out. She is not even upset that there will not be time to wash or change her clothes before she goes to the cowshed. It can wait. The routine is more important: it has been running its course since long before she arrived and will continue after her death. Rising early – no bells are rung at Frauenstein, the women are expected to follow the daily timetable by rote – to milk the cows and turn the animals to graze, then to separate the milk and keep the cream in the cool-room to make butter. Taking out the slops to the garden and the long outhouse with its row of holes in the wooden bench. Preparing breakfast, then washing the dishes. After which it will be time to do the laundry, or the ironing, or the darning and mending, or washing the windows, or polishing the floors, or cleaning the sheds, or chopping firewood, depending on the day of the week. Something for every hour of the day. Making oneself useful, keeping oneself occupied.

  And there is reassurance to be drawn from the unvarying course of the daily programme, leaving little time for private emotions, for dwelling on an irrecoverable past or an impossible future. Everything is here, now, and for ever. She must cut herself off from feeling, even from the acknowledgement of feeling. It is too dark, too dangerous, too unpredictable, a wilderness into which she dare not venture. Only at night, sometimes, there is the treachery of dreams. Most of them are terrifying. Pastor Ulrich, Frau Agathe, the peat-shed, the closing of the heavy door in the parsonage study. Or the train, always the train – nightmares so horrendous that she is awakened by her own screams. The comforting dreams are more rare. Hearing the voice of old Taras in her ear, spinning her stories; or watching the children at play; or joining the tribe as they gather food or repair their huts or bring in bundles of firewood or slaughter a goat. Even more rare are the nights when Lotte takes shape from the dark to share her bed; within the dream she will awake to feel the caress of a hand, light as the whisper of the wind or a butterfly alighting on her breast (she still has nipples) or between her thighs (she still has a cunt). And with her own hands and lips she will return the caress and feel a body assume its substance from her touch. And she will discover that desire is still possible, even if it is unbearable. Then she will lie awake for the rest of the night, her body rigid with yearning; waiting for the bleak dawn to spill into her room and bring with it the first sounds of a new day, an old routine resumed.

  ∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧

  Twenty-Three

  Routine is also what marks her years in service. Soon after she has recovered from the pneumonia, even before she has completely regained her strength, she is placed out for the first time. Frau Agathe has found ‘just the right people’ for her – a couple with four small children, a fifth on the way. Hanna is still devastated by the knowledge that she will never go to school again; but there is some consolation in the prospect of leaving the Little Children of Jesus for good. And she persuades herself that the couple who will be employing her, the Klatts, do not seem too daunting. Frau Hildegard, straight-backed, with steely eyes, her blonde hair drawn into a tight bun behind her head, is emphatic about her belief in strict discipline; one would have to step carefully with her – but then, Hanna is used to that. And Herr Dieter appears friendly enough, a jovial, prosperous-looking banker with a large smooth pink face.

  There is one problem at the beginning, but it does not, at least not at first, seem insurmountable. The orphanage does not allow her to take anything away with her when she leaves – with the sole exception of the shell from the little foreigner on the Weserstrand, which Frau Agathe scornfully dismisses as childish nonsense. Even her worn and frayed clothes must be left behind for some sad successor. Which means that Herr and Frau Klatt will have to provide a new outfit and at least one change; this is readily resolved when Frau Hildegard and Frau Agathe come to an agreement that whatever is supplied by the Klatts will be deducted from Hanna’s wages at a fixed rate. As it is standard practice for half of the wage of 40 marks per month to be paid directly to the orphanage, it leaves a mere pittance for Hanna’s own use. This doesn’t bother her much, as she has never had money anyway. But it does become problematic when she discovers that there are all kinds of hidden expenses she has to meet: small items like soap and candles and even sugar, and her meals over weekends, when she is theoretically off duty (although with nowhere to go she has little choice but to stay on in her cubbyhole of a maid’s room in the cold, dark attic of the Klatts’ home; which also means that she remains at their beck and call). And of course she is expected to bear the cost of all breakages. Given her habit of dropping plates and dishes and cups, and even more expensive objects like the vases or ornaments she is required to dust every other day, the deductions very soon exceed her wages. In addition, Frau Hildegard has devised a system of fines for everything she regards as a transgression or a dereliction of duty: oversleeping in the morning, arriving late for meals, forgetting to bring in the washing, neglecting to clean up after the children, reading during working hours, or simply ‘causing a nuisance’.

  These costs mount up so rapidly that after the second month Hanna realises she will not be able to work off the debt in a whole year. When she raises it with Frau Hildegard, the woman dismisses it laconically:

  “No need to worry about it. If you behave yourself you’ll be with us for many years.”

  “But with no money at all?”

  Frau Hildegard shrugs. “That’s entirely up to you, isn’t it?”

  By this time Hanna has established that Frau Hildegard is not a happy person. More precisely, that her only happiness derives from being unhappy. She bears the world a permanent grudge. The reason is not quite clear, as Herr Dieter has assured her a comfortable enough life – mough not, as she is always quick to point out, as comfortable as the life she was used to in her father’s home. She has a grudge against her children, she has a grudge against most of her friends, she has a huge grudge against her in-laws, she has a grudge against her dark house and, above all, she has a grudge against her husband because he always grins as if life need not be taken seriously. Very soon, inevitably, she also develops a grudge against Hanna.

  At the end of the third mont
h, when Frau Hildegard mentions in passing what her accumulated debt now amounts to, Hanna asks to see her account.

  “Account?” asks Frau Hildegard. “What do you mean, your account? Isn’t it enough if I tell you what you owe?”

  “Please, I want to see a paper,” says Hanna.

  “I don’t have time for it now.”

  “Then can I have it tomorrow?”

  After four days of polite enquiries Frau Hildegard brusquely deposits a handwritten statement next to Hanna while she is doing the washing. “I trust you will find it in order,” she snarls.

  That evening after work Hanna carefully studies each item and marks with a cross what she finds unclear. When she serves breakfast the next morning she places the amended statement next to Frau Hildegard’s plate.

  “I marked the things I don’t understand,” she says quietly.

  “I didn’t drink you could read,” snaps the woman.

  “This little one is cleverer than you think,” remarks Herr Dieter, laughing.

  “I don’t see anything funny in it,” his wife hisses at him. She turns to Hanna: “I’ll attend to it when I have time.”

  When after another two days she appears to have dismissed the matter Hanna gently reminds her just as she prepares to go out shopping.

  “I made out the statement myself. I’m sure it is correct,” says Frau Hildegard, turning away to put on her hat.