afraid?”
“No.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid I’m Lumumba.”
“Nobody wants to kill you. Sleep.”
Vilho taps the opposite wall lightly, whispers, but these walls make no difference. “Patrice Lumumba was a martyr,” Vilho
says.
Pohamba clears his throat like a drumroll. “And how do you know I’m not a martyr?”
Vilho ponders this. We can hear him. He sighs when he ponders. Vilho wears a nightshirt to bed. We can see him tucked in there
snug, in sheets so clean they squeak. We find sleep listening to him ponder. The three of us breathe in the dark behind our
walls.
47
VILHO
V ilho who is always cold. Unlike the rest of us, whom the sun warms too quickly after the cold mornings, he remains bundled,
wool-hatted, scarfed. He accepts chill as his fate. He never complains. We complain. We complain about the heat. We complain
about the cold. We complain that Vilho never complains. He’s the confusing sort of lonely person who does not seek to be unlonely.
And beyond this, the most alarming fact of all: It’s not the terrible coincidence that Vilho was a learner at Goas and is
now marooned here again as a teacher. It’s that it’s not a coincidence. Upon graduating near the top of his class at Dobra,
Vilho requested a posting at Goas.
“Requested!”
Obadiah cried, incredulous. “It means our poor Puck outcasted himself!”
If you didn’t know he was a teacher, you’d mistake him for a learner. His face is so smooth, hairless, supple. He seems, also,
not to salivate over women. Not Mavala. Not even Dikeledi. Pohamba says it’s impossible. An African man? Vilho? A moffie?
But Obadiah says, if it’s true, we’d certainly be more cosmopolitan, a bit of Cape Town in the scrubveld. Even so, with all
Vilho might hide, he’s the only one at Goas who seems unburdened—and so, naturally, we foist our various aches on him. Antoinette
knits him scarf after scarf to keep him warm.
48
THE SEVASTOPOL WALTZ
I must say I’m pleased we’re all in the road,” Obadiah said. “Does anyone have a theory as to why?” No one had a theory. No
one intended to have a theory. Still, he waited. Morning break and the heat’s already risen and we’re under the single tree
closest to school, which happened to be in the road.
“We’re not learners,” Pohamba said. “Aren’t we the teachers?”
“Wrong!” Obadiah shouted. “I’m tickled, good people of Goas, because the place for stories is in the road. You don’t tell
stories inside a house. This was my father’s rule. When he wanted to tell a story, he herded us outside. My two brothers and
four sisters, the whole family, except for my mother, who used to say my father made dead dogs look unlazy. She’d come out,
however, but she never stepped into the road. Now understand, we lived on a dusty street full of rocks and garbage and sleeping
tsoties with hats pulled over their eyes, and my father would tell stories of gone days in the Old Windhoek Location, before
they came with the bulldozers and moved everybody to Katatura. My father spoke of the Old Location as if it were God’s humble
paradise. Then he’d look around at our road, at all the houses—not houses, he never called our houses houses; they were pilchard
cans pushed together with our tribe and number on the door—and he’d say, ‘I’m an old man, and they expect me to fight. With
what? These shaky hands?’ My father was a proud man, a cultured man, a Pan-Africanist, a Garveyite. He didn’t condemn men
for picking up arms, he begged mercy on the devils who forced them to do so. He’d quote Senghor:
Lord, forgive those who made guerrillas/of the Askias, who turn my princes/into sergeants.
It was only that he was convinced there was a better way. He believed in education as a way to revolution. Books, he’d say,
are the great topplers. Tromp the Boers with
Tristram Shandy
! The poor man. For my mother, it was one settler, one
“No.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid I’m Lumumba.”
“Nobody wants to kill you. Sleep.”
Vilho taps the opposite wall lightly, whispers, but these walls make no difference. “Patrice Lumumba was a martyr,” Vilho
says.
Pohamba clears his throat like a drumroll. “And how do you know I’m not a martyr?”
Vilho ponders this. We can hear him. He sighs when he ponders. Vilho wears a nightshirt to bed. We can see him tucked in there
snug, in sheets so clean they squeak. We find sleep listening to him ponder. The three of us breathe in the dark behind our
walls.
47
VILHO
V ilho who is always cold. Unlike the rest of us, whom the sun warms too quickly after the cold mornings, he remains bundled,
wool-hatted, scarfed. He accepts chill as his fate. He never complains. We complain. We complain about the heat. We complain
about the cold. We complain that Vilho never complains. He’s the confusing sort of lonely person who does not seek to be unlonely.
And beyond this, the most alarming fact of all: It’s not the terrible coincidence that Vilho was a learner at Goas and is
now marooned here again as a teacher. It’s that it’s not a coincidence. Upon graduating near the top of his class at Dobra,
Vilho requested a posting at Goas.
“Requested!”
Obadiah cried, incredulous. “It means our poor Puck outcasted himself!”
If you didn’t know he was a teacher, you’d mistake him for a learner. His face is so smooth, hairless, supple. He seems, also,
not to salivate over women. Not Mavala. Not even Dikeledi. Pohamba says it’s impossible. An African man? Vilho? A moffie?
But Obadiah says, if it’s true, we’d certainly be more cosmopolitan, a bit of Cape Town in the scrubveld. Even so, with all
Vilho might hide, he’s the only one at Goas who seems unburdened—and so, naturally, we foist our various aches on him. Antoinette
knits him scarf after scarf to keep him warm.
48
THE SEVASTOPOL WALTZ
I must say I’m pleased we’re all in the road,” Obadiah said. “Does anyone have a theory as to why?” No one had a theory. No
one intended to have a theory. Still, he waited. Morning break and the heat’s already risen and we’re under the single tree
closest to school, which happened to be in the road.
“We’re not learners,” Pohamba said. “Aren’t we the teachers?”
“Wrong!” Obadiah shouted. “I’m tickled, good people of Goas, because the place for stories is in the road. You don’t tell
stories inside a house. This was my father’s rule. When he wanted to tell a story, he herded us outside. My two brothers and
four sisters, the whole family, except for my mother, who used to say my father made dead dogs look unlazy. She’d come out,
however, but she never stepped into the road. Now understand, we lived on a dusty street full of rocks and garbage and sleeping
tsoties with hats pulled over their eyes, and my father would tell stories of gone days in the Old Windhoek Location, before
they came with the bulldozers and moved everybody to Katatura. My father spoke of the Old Location as if it were God’s humble
paradise. Then he’d look around at our road, at all the houses—not houses, he never called our houses houses; they were pilchard
cans pushed together with our tribe and number on the door—and he’d say, ‘I’m an old man, and they expect me to fight. With
what? These shaky hands?’ My father was a proud man, a cultured man, a Pan-Africanist, a Garveyite. He didn’t condemn men
for picking up arms, he begged mercy on the devils who forced them to do so. He’d quote Senghor:
Lord, forgive those who made guerrillas/of the Askias, who turn my princes/into sergeants.
It was only that he was convinced there was a better way. He believed in education as a way to revolution. Books, he’d say,
are the great topplers. Tromp the Boers with
Tristram Shandy
! The poor man. For my mother, it was one settler, one
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