Free The Other Side of Silence by André Brink Page B

angry
altercation between Xareb and old Taras erupts in their Nama
tongue.
    “Wait,” the woman at the door says quickly and hurries into the
dark interior, then comes back to close the door.
    It takes a long time before Frau Knesebeck makes her appearance,
flanked by several members of her staff. Two of them have guns,
although from the way they are holding them it seems doubtful
whether they know how to use them. There follows a near-endless
discussion between Xareb and Frau Knesebeck, during which Hanna is
once again required to open her mouth.
    Then another wait in front of the closed front door. Some of the
children are getting restless. There are many flies about them.
Cicadas are shrilling ear-splittingly. The sun is right
overhead.
    When Frau Knesebeck returns she is accompanied by the four women
who were on the wagon with Hanna X.
    “My God!” exclaims one of them. It is Dora, the young one who
tended her in her delirium. “We thought you were dead.”
    “So you know her?” Frau Knesebeck asks unnecessarily.
    All four vociferously confirm it; then appear to be ashamed by
the admission and try to retreat out of reach.
    “You never said anything about another woman,” Frau Knesebeck
challenges them.
    “We lost her in the desert,” says Dora. “She was already more
dead than alive. There was nothing we could do for her. And the
soldiers who came with us…”
    “What about them?”
    A pause. “They said they didn’t want trouble.”
    Frau Knesebeck snorts with contempt. She comes a step towards
Hanna. “Come inside. You are in need of care. One shudders to think
what happened to you among these savages.”
    Hanna makes a sound, raises an arm in futile protest, then
meekly comes forward.
    “We looked after her,” Xareb argues in anger.
    “You?!” Frau Knesebeck waves dismissively at them. “A white
woman, a German woman, in your hands!” Annoyed,
businesslike, she takes Hanna by the shoulder and pulls her across
the threshold. “Now get away from here, or there will be big
trouble. All of you.”
    Xareb stands his ground. “We need food.”
    “You are a no-good filthy lot!” says Frau Knesebeck in an icy
rage.
    The heavy door is flung shut. The sound reverberates through the
dark building which feels dank even in midsummer. Outside there are
voices raised in anger, the crying of children. Then silence.
    “We shall have to bath you first,” says Frau Knesebeck. “God
knows what vermin you are infected with.” Orders are given; women
hurry off to draw and boil water. They wait for a long time, to
make sure that the Namas have vanished into the dull drabness of
the desert, a mirage among mirages, the trickery of memory. Then
Hanna is taken out through the front door again and round the house
to the back: they cannot risk having the whole place infected
before she has been thoroughly scrubbed and washed and cleaned.
    It must be at least an hour before Hanna has been painfully
ridden of all possible contamination, given a shift to cover the
shame of her broken, scarred body, and taken upstairs to a room. It
must have been standing closed for a long time, because it smells
overpoweringly of dry rot and decay.
    “We shall pray for your soul,” announces Frau Knesebeck. “Only
God could have brought you alive through the ordeal with those
savage scavengers.” Hanna raises, again, a hand in protest, but is
stopped by the formidable small woman in front of her. She takes a
deep breath. “Unless it was the Devil.” But grimly she resolves,
“When we are through with you, Fraulein, you will be cleansed like
a newborn babe. In the meantime we shall communicate with
Windhoek.”
    How the communication is effected, Hanna will never learn.
Possibly through a smous who happens to turn up at
Frauenstein three days later.
    What she does get to know, about a month later, is the outcome
of the enterprise. A small detachment of soldiers arrives at
Frauenstein (Hanna, scared out of her wits, hides in an