Hottentot Venus by Barbara Chase-Riboud Page B

Hottentot, a cannibal is not necessarily ferocious. He eats his fellow creatures not because he hates them, but because he
likes
them . . .
    The next day, at breakfast, Alya Caesar invited me to spend a few weeks at the farm with them while my ship was made ready. She had already opened and prepared the guesthouse for me and assigned me a servant. I would be so much more comfortable here than in a dirty noisy hotel in town, she insisted. To Hendrick Caesar’s surprise, I accepted eagerly. It was like agreeing to live like a monk. There were no pretty tavern waitresses nor spectacular red-haired whores on the Caesar farm that I knew of. But I knew what I would do for entertainment.
    For entertainment, I spied on Saartjie when she bathed. Eventually, she caught me at it. And forgave me. I proceeded to seduce her.
    Listening to me, Saartjie would drop her head as if her ears had been opened to the voices of the world. She heard beyond the ramparts of Cape Town to the swell of waves breaking on the beach with monotonous and solemn vibrations, as if all the earth had been a tolling bell.
    —And then, a ship’s a ship and a voyage isn’t marriage, I whispered.
    —It is not a marriage contract, she whispered in return.
    —I’ve never taken a false name and I’ve never told a lie to a woman (which was a lie).
    The Hottentot’s teeth chattered.
    —You’re cold.
    I put my arms around her, wrapping her closely in her cotton
lappa.
    —Hold the ends together in front, I commanded.
    —What did you come here for?
    —To be . . . to be surprised, I replied, truthfully. I have been everywhere and done everything . . . Yet I remain alone, unattached to anything . . .
    —Oh, but I am sorry for you—don’t you have a home?
    —Some such place as this? I’d kick it down around my ears!
    —And where do you hope to die?
    —In the bush somewhere; at sea, on a bloody mountaintop, at home? Yes! The world’s my home. Anyplace is good enough as long as I’ve lived there. I’ve been everything you can think of, ship’s surgeon, army doctor, soldier, anatomist, dentist, slave trader; I’ve sheared sheep, harpooned whales, rigged ships, prospected for gold, hunted wild game, collected fossil specimens, gambled in St. Petersburg, robbed tombs in Cairo, turned my back on more money than your master will ever see or you can imagine!
    I overwhelmed Saartjie. She tried to pull herself together. I straightened up, away from the wall, and said:
    —Time to go.
    But I did not move. I leaned back and hummed a bar or two of the song I had been singing at dinner.
    In the bay of St. Helena

Stands the island of St. Helena

Where surrounded by my comrades

I behold a strange lass with skin so black

Who fled in fright to see men so white . . .
    I stopped, embarrassed, I had completely forgotten Saartjie’s origins.
    —It’s a cruel song, about Hottentots, I ended, censoring the rest of the lyrics.
    —It’s the song of the gold prospectors, of the restless men who mine the riverbeds of the Hottentot country and the kingdom of Monomotapa for gold. During the dry season, they can find gold nuggets in the cracks of the dried riverbeds, like pearls . . . It’s all desert: cracks in the earth making canyons that you can’t see the bottom of; and mountains—sheer rocks standing up high like walls and church spires like the white cliffs at Dover, only a hundred times taller. The valleys are full of boulders and black stones and pyramids made by Ethiopians. There’s not one blade of grass, one tree, one cactus to be seen. And the sunsets are redder there than anywhere else in the world, I said.
    —Red?
    —Blood red and mad as hell.
    —You would rather stay there on land?
    —Not in that country. It gives me the shivers sometimes. I look for specimens there, that’s all—I have a gift for it and a fever . . . The animals, the desert stones, the skulls, the artifacts, sometimes even gold. But it is not for the gold or even the artifacts . . .