Parts Unknown. Zirk van den Berg
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had no such illusions before coming, and what he had seen so far would cure all but the most stubborn romantics. What he had expected to find in Africa was exactly what he had found here so far – an uninviting place of discomfort and struggle, populated by savages and servants. Having such low expectations, he did not think he could be disappointed, but if the capital city was anything to judge by, German South-West Africa was an even bleaker place than he had feared. The town looked like a cluster of smallholdings after an advancing army had stripped it of greenery and people. If this was the best this place had to offer … the cynics who claimed the protectorate was only good for scientific research and weapon trials were probably right.
* * *
On the train, when he had imagined visiting Lisbeth Löwenstein in a Windhoek hotel, Siegfried had had something very different in mind. This was better though. He closed the front door of the Südwester Hotel behind him to keep the heat at bay, and announced himself at reception. The clerk told him to wait, and sent up a little boy to call the guest. The clock on the wall behind him showed a quarter past ten, time enough for them to get to the church at the agreed time. There was a chair, but Siegfried chose to stand, to keep the newly ironed creases in his uniform crisp.
It had been awkward getting permission to leave the base the day after his arrival. He explained to Oberleutnant von Schlicht that he had agreed to escort a friend to her wedding, a new settler for whom it would mean a great deal. He couldn’t blame the officer for being incredulous; he had trouble understanding it himself. Why on earth had he offered to walk Fraulein Löwenstein down the aisle? In the magic of the moonlight it had seemed appropriate, but was harder to explain in the light of day. After a messenger was sent to the hotel to confirm his request, he was given the day off.
‘I’m one hundred per cent against it,’ the officer had said, ‘but apparently the relationship between the military and the settlers is somewhat fragile, and Oberst Adendorff believes we should do what we can to make them happy. So, for once, Bock, try not to piss anyone off.’
He promised to be on his best behaviour, and here he was, with his arms behind his back, pacing the floor in polished boots. The walls of the reception area were lined with somewhat amateurish lithographs of Alpine landscapes. He looked at them, but in each rocky outcropping he saw a figure that wasn’t there – the empty-handed fugitive in the desert, staring back at him. Every time he replayed the event in his mind, he tried to find new detail that would help him understand exactly what had happened, the how and the why of it, but whenever he thought about a specific aspect, he found he could not be sure if it were imagined or real.
Footsteps sounded; he turned around to see Lisbeth coming down the stairs in a tight-fitting dress that made her look slender and elegant. She smiled at him and looked genuinely beautiful. The apprehension that hovered around her eyes only added to her allure. Siegfried did not expect to be so affected by her. ‘Fraulein Löwenstein,’ he said, ‘you look wonderful.’
‘It is my wedding day.’
‘How do you feel, now that you’ve met Herr Kamke?’ he asked softly when she had come close.
‘I trust he’s a good man.’
‘Shall we go?’
‘Just one thing, there’s a bow at the back. Can you just make sure it looks right? I couldn’t see properly.’
She stood still while he walked around her. The bow sat in the small of her back and looked good to him. Still, he gave it a few tugs. He was aware that his knuckles brushed against her back. ‘Perfect.’
They walked out into the still, bright morning air and down the dirt street, the tall woman and the small man, arm in arm. Siegfried felt proud to be with her, a woman of low birth, but one who struck an attractive figure and whose life and emotions, he had come to realise, were more complex than they had seemed to him at first glance. How many people walked so steadfastly towards an unwanted fate? Her heels clacked on the flagstone pavement, one of the few in town.
The Lutheran church hall was only a few doors down, but the buildings were widely spaced and they didn’t have time to waste.
A rangy black boy drove a flock of brown-headed goats past them, the animals bleating at the sight of roadside grasses they couldn’t stop to eat. Across the street, bricklayers were building a house. In the wispy shade of a small thorn tree, a man was planing a plank he had clamped across two saw-horses. The swish of his strokes carried in the still morning air. An open landauer pulled by two black horses came past, carrying a man in a top hat. He nodded and lifted the hat in passing, clearly looking at the woman in the wedding dress rather than the soldier in uniform, which was a far more common sight.
Siegfried looked at the bride too. ‘Are you nervous?’
She sighed quietly, and looked ahead. ‘If you grew up like me, approaching the unknown and feeling powerless isn’t so unusual. We live with hope and dread.’
He thought about this. ‘I know you’re talking about your social status, but there are other things that can make you feel just like that. Like being smaller and weaker than everyone in the world of boys and men, or not grasping the values of the people around you. You’re not alone.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I have you. And together we will do this thing.’
Outside the hall, a beaming settler woman, white and floury like a bap, and a man of nearly sixty, with a big forehead, cow-like eyes and a crusty sore on his lip, awaited them. They introduced themselves as the Jürgenses, the bridegroom’s neighbours.
‘Will you be bringing her in?’ Frau Jürgens asked Siegfried, not quite hiding her apprehension.
Siegfried was still struggling to form the words when Lisbeth confirmed it. ‘He’s my friend.’
Herr Jürgens looked at his pocket watch. ‘It’s about time.’
‘Come as soon as you hear the music,’ said Frau Jürgens. ‘We’ll talk later.’ She took her husband’s arm and they slipped into the hall.
Moments later, they heard the strands of Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ being pounded out on a piano. Siegfried looked at Lisbeth; she seemed ready for a funeral rather than a wedding.
‘Lisbeth,’ he said, using her first name for the first time, recognising the intimacy it suggested.
She looked above the door, at the painted cross there. ‘I’ve never been in a Christian church.’
‘They should be honoured to have you,’ he said. ‘It’s time for your brave face now.’
She turned her head and smiled at him, and it was not only brave, it was beautiful.
He held out his elbow, she put her hand on his forearm, and together they entered the church. Their progress down the aisle was followed by thirty pairs of eyes, but Siegfried was only aware of one person, the tall woman, so stately by his side. The sound of the ferociously bashed piano reverberated through the room.
Herr Kamke awaited them at the front – lean and sunburned, in a shapeless black suit. He must have been twenty years older than his bride. With him was the minister, under a beautifully groomed head of grey hair, like a wave frozen at the moment of breaking. The music stopped, the minister raised his arms and his voice, and Siegfried stood aside.
He had his back to the congregation and his eyes on the ground, staring at the grey floorboards and the wide grooves between them. He was aware of the people around him, members of a fledgling community. They were intent on the new union being formed between a man and a woman, but that was the last thing Siegfried wanted to think about. Instead, he reminded himself that these were the people the soldiers were here to protect, settlers and officials who were turning this country into something governable and economically viable, an outpost of Germany, a place where the landless class could put down their roots, that offered a future to people like Herr Kamke and Lisbeth. Maybe he, too, would lay the foundation of a better future here.
The ceremony kept interrupting his wandering thoughts. At long