Parts Unknown. Zirk van den Berg
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first day in this country, make an indelible impression on his comrades and officers. It could not be easier.
The gaunt black man was dressed in similar garb to the women Siegfried had seen that morning, but those people seemed to have been stripped of their will to live, reduced to reticent, silently suffering beasts of burden. This man was full of life, free, and frightened. Unlike the women, whose fate he could influence no more than he could a passing cloud, Siegfried could shape this man’s future, or end it. The fugitive raised his hand, his sleeve fell away from the thin brown arm. In his hand he held a rock the size of a cannon ball.
Siegfried started lifting the rifle barrel. Too late.
The man flung the rock at him. Siegfried ducked, but knew as he was doing so that he won’t get out of the way in time. He tucked his face behind his shoulder, braced for the blow … but it didn’t come. The rock crashed into the ground instead, to the left of him, half a step short. Now Siegfried was aiming at his adversary, finger curling around the trigger, wondering if he should close his fist and shoot a man with empty hands and those wide white eyes. A movement caught his attention, something on the ground. He glanced and saw the winding coils of a ringed snake, its body almost severed where the rock had hit it. The tail was whipping around, but the shiny black head lay still, only a hand’s breadth from Siegfried’s foot.
When he looked up again, the man was still standing there, motionless. Not challenging, not pleading. Had the snake been about to strike? A breath stuck in Siegfried’s throat, his tongue felt dry. So far, most of his thoughts of war had been about going back to Berlin with medals and ribbons and pride. He did at times wonder what combat might be like – he and his comrades side by side, firing at a distant enemy, much as they did at the firing range. But this was not something he had ever imagined, standing with stinging eyes and knotted thoughts, only a few steps from an unarmed, vulnerable man who may have just saved his life.
The two of them looked each other in the eye – man and man without plan or expectation.
There was a noise somewhere behind him, rock knocking on rock. Someone called, ‘What’s going on there?’
Siegfried looked at the fugitive, but the man did nothing to help him decide, one way or the other. He needed to think about what had just happened, about what he had to do. The remains of the black-and-white snake writhed in the dust and Siegfried’s thoughts had just as little direction.
‘Nothing,’ he called out. ‘I … I just saw a snake.’
II
That night, the stars lured Lisbeth outside. The officers took the hotel rooms and she and Doktor Pitzer were put up in the local missionary’s house for their overnight stay at Karibib. After supper, there was too much pipe smoking and Bible reading for her liking, so she retired to her room. She blew out the candle and peeped out between the curtains, saw the night sky and thought maybe she’d see something familiar in the heavens that had eluded her on earth all day. Throughout the train journey, she had seen nothing welcoming, nothing that reminded her of home. She threw a shawl over her nightdress, laced up her shoes and went outside.
The night was full of strange noises – crickets and birds, unseen creatures scurrying and flying. The rank-and-file soldiers stayed in tents just a short way down the road. She stood in front of the house, listened to their voices on the wind, relishing the sound of the familiar language in this alien environment. It was six weeks since she had taken leave of her parents and brother, and she did not expect ever to see them again. She had embarked on a journey of people and places nobody in her family had ever encountered – travelling by train and ship, seeing Berlin and Hamburg, the endless ocean, and now this faraway world where nothing but the sound of soldiers’ voices reminded her of home.
Karibib lay at the foot of a mountain, a smattering of stone houses among scrawny trees, at best a dried-up version of a German village. Perhaps you just need to add water, she thought, add water and this town might blossom into Grünewald, complete with oompah band, beer-pouring mädchens in dirndls. This was silly, of course, wishing for a version of German life she had only ever heard of. Her childhood memories were nothing like that jolly image – they weren’t even happy, really. It was not a past she could long for wholeheartedly. Besides, she had known for many months now that the world of her youth would not be the world of her future; she had had time to get used to the idea that hers was a different life now. She had to brace herself, face what lay ahead. At barely twenty, she already knew that life was nothing to look forward to, that as bad as things were, she had little right to hope for something better. She only hoped that the fear and sadness would abate over time, because this raw ache, this suffocating dread, was too much to bear.
She walked into the African night, away from the houses, into the darkness. What was the worst that could happen? Men could be protectors, but also tormentors, she knew. She had to go where there was nobody or nothing. Apparently, there were snakes out here – that soldier on the train said he had seen one, and the experience had clearly left him shaken. She would have expected a soldier to be braver than that, but maybe the snake had surprised him. She’d keep her eyes open. If she stayed on the road and within sight of the town, she should be fine, she hoped. Once the glow of lamps and fires were left behind and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the road seemed ghostly white in the starlight. The night air had become cool and she drew her shawl tightly around her shoulders. It used to be her mother’s, and now Lisbeth wore it like the embrace of an absent loved one. She looked up and saw an unbroken expanse of stars, bright as stage lights, not a cloud to obscure them. She looked around, hoping to recognise a constellation, but even the stars were strange, not the night sky she had known all her life. A whiff of wind stirred against her bare legs.
Up ahead, she noticed something in the road, a dark shape. A sleeping dog? she wondered. Perhaps something that had fallen off a wagon, or something dead? She stepped closer, now on tiptoes, ready to turn and run. It was a man, definitely a man, lying flat on his back with arms and legs spread wide, wearing a soldier’s uniform. A casualty of war? Had he been shot?
A stone scraped under her sole, shocking the prone figure to life. He sat up, palms on the ground, looking around.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Lisbeth, to herself as much as to him.
Before he could respond, the man was gripped by a fit of coughing. She recognised the soldier who had sat across from her on the train, the one who had seen the snake – his birdlike head, those dark, disconcerting eyes. He had coughed like this on the train too, rasping and gasping for breath. When the attack finally subsided, he got to his feet, wiping his mouth with a blotchy handkerchief. She was taller than him, she realised. Then again, experience had taught her that even small men could overpower her; it wasn’t size, men had a capacity for brutality that surprised her every time.
‘We’ve come out for a stroll, my companions and me. The others are on their way,’ she said, hoping that would discourage untoward behaviour.
‘Doktor Pitzer?’
‘Yes, and the missionary.’
‘Then I must go.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t get much chance to be alone.’
‘To do what?’
His shoulders flexed. ‘Think about things, the events of the day.’
Lisbeth relaxed a bit. She understood the need to be alone after being cooped up with others for weeks at sea, and today on the train. Besides, he seemed harmless enough.
‘What were you doing, lying in the road like that?’
He dusted his trousers. ‘It was just a nose bleed. I had to hold my head back, and then I thought I may as well lie down, take a good look at the stars.’
‘Has the bleeding stopped?’
‘It’s fine now. I’m used to it.’
Despite the Berlin accent, there was something in his tone – confessional and resigned – that felt familiar to her. He reminded her of boys she had