Jackal's Dance by Beverley Harper Page A

accept his family’s ways when all Chester felt was shame.
    He continued to return home, once a year, atHelmut’s insistence. The longer he lived with the Weidermans the more alien his real family felt. Aware of this, Helmut would never allow Chester to forget his origins, telling him many times, ‘You are a Himba. You must remain proud of your traditions.’
    â€˜But, Uncle Helmut, I am more German than Himba.’
    â€˜No, son. You are a member of my family and we love you, but your true parents are in Kaokoland and they sacrificed their own happiness by losing you so that you could have a future. Never forget them.’
    At sixteen, Chester went through a reverse rebellion and began to resent being taken from his family. The Weidermans treated this eight-month crisis with the same patience they’d shown when he first lived with them. By the time he was seventeen, Chester had come to accept that while he could never be a traditional Himba, he could at least be true to the values his earlier upbringing instilled in him. It was the best he could do.
    Helmut was as proud as any father when Chester won a place at the Academy, making plans to fetch the boy’s parents so that they too could share in the glory of his first day. By then, Chester had so little feelings left for his family that he begged Helmut not to do it. ‘Please, Helmut,’ – he’d been asked to drop the ‘uncle’ on his eighteenth birthday – ‘they will hate it. They have never been out of Kaokoland. I know you mean well but believe me, they would feel only fear.’
    Helmut saw the shame on Chester’s face. ‘Oh,my son, what have we done to you?’ The German had tears in his eyes.
    â€˜You have done what you set out to do and given me a future. Without you, I would be herding goats.’
    â€˜Without me you’d have been happy doing just that.’
    â€˜It is too late to look backwards.’
    â€˜I thought I was doing the right thing. I honestly believed that.’
    â€˜Who can say now if it was right or wrong? It’s done. I am no longer a simple peasant but a man with a future. For that, I thank you.’
    â€˜But I have stolen your past.’
    Chester shrugged. ‘Nothing comes free.’
    Helmut shook his head. ‘Don’t say that. It’s not too late.’
    Chester knew that Helmut wanted reassurance but, in his heart, probably realised that anything comforting he might hear would have a hollow ring. But why should Chester lie just to make Helmut feel better? The German had always stressed the importance of telling the truth. Let him hear it.
    â€˜You played God with me, Helmut. You stepped in and changed my destiny. Who knows? Maybe it was meant to happen. Why else would your vehicle break down just where I was tending the cattle? And you haven’t stolen my past. Sure, you changed it, but I still have one. I don’t resent your interference. In fact, I’m glad it happened. But don’t expect me to cling to something I have all but forgotten. Don’t ask for loyalties where none exist.My parents are strangers. That’s the bottom line here. If they were dead I couldn’t feel further removed from them than I already do. Nothing calls me back to that life. It is gone from my heart.’
    The enormity of the consequences of his misguided generosity hit home. ‘Forgive me.’ Helmut bowed his head and wept.
    Chester could not find it within himself to truly forgive the man. He was grateful, he supposed, though in his case his betterment came at the high cost of not really knowing just who he was or where he belonged. He owed Helmut his bright future but blamed him for his loss of identity.
    Confused, Chester entered the Academy ripe for something or someone to latch onto. The inevitable happened. Mixing with sometimes radical students and intellectual professors waylaid Chester’s focus on his future.
    If ever