The Lost History of Stars

  And she had no idea the things that came to my mind when I dreamed. “Tell me how.”

  “I don’t have your imagination, but you can start anywhere.” She pointed at the rock I had kicked.

  “Do what you naturally do. . . . Ask questions. How did that rock get here? Whose hands have touched that rock? Maybe a man centuries ago stalked an animal to this spot. He picked up that rock.”

  I saw the man, frightened, wearing just a cloth.

  “What was going through his mind in that moment, the most dangerous moment of his life, not knowing if he would kill the animal or the animal would kill him?”

  “What happened?” I wanted to know: Did he live or die? I was already interested in his fate.

  “You decide.”

  “I decide?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “That seems like . . . power.” I had no other power that I could think of. I suddenly embraced the idea.

  “Yes, you control it all.”

  “Would anybody care?”

  “Maybe. Think about the man this way: Is what he’s feeling so different from someone poor and hungry in a city somewhere today? Or, in that moment, what he feels might be what a soldier feels before battle. In his case, hunger made him braver than he ever thought possible. It drove him to take chances.”

  “Or maybe the animal ate him,” I challenged. I started thinking of all the directions his story might go, feeling the power of creation.

  “The story is up to you, and even if the story is about something else, it’s really about you. Look inside and then tell people what you see.”

  “I don’t know what’s in there.”

  “Keeping a journal will help you find out.”

  Being a writer seemed a more practical goal than becoming a ship captain. I devoured the book Tante Hannah had given me. The characters were young people in my country, and the author opened up their minds for me to look inside. The characters were all so serious, though, and some questioned God’s dominion. But it fascinated me, and I began thinking of people as characters, and I worked to observe them and capture their traits.

  I thought of my mother. In the house, she was so presentable and prepared for the day, with hair and clothing in proper order. She was a different woman in the fields after the men left, covered in dust and chaff, sweating like a native. It made her real nature only more visible. “Unbowed,” I wrote of her. Father was easy: “Indestructible.”

  I thought of Tante Hannah and her too-eager embraces offset by her kind teaching. I could not write anything too warm because my mother might someday see my journal, and I could write nothing cruel because Tante Hannah might someday see my writings.

  Of Hannah’s mother, Ouma Wilhelmina, I wrote “filled with emptiness.” The words seemed an illogical pairing, yet perfect for her. I imagined tapping her on the shoulder and hearing an angry echo as from a hollow gourd.

  I tended to write more about Bina than about anyone else. She was unique in my life. I did not understand all she said, but I wrote down her sayings to study later. I wondered whether anyone had ever written a story about a native woman, because I did not think that Bina could write one for herself. I thought that someday I might invite her to tell me about her life and all the truths she hadn’t shared.

  Before filling half of the first notebook, I turned the pages back. So much had changed that the early words already seemed like someone else’s life. But the writing helped me gather my thoughts. Writing was like prying a cactus sticker from beneath my skin. Sometimes the process was painful, but it felt better once it came out, and only then could the healing start.

  12

  March 1901, Concentration Camp

  Janetta’s twin, Nicolaas, was fevered with a rash. Measles, surely. Moeder insisted I tell them to put a bottle of hot water on his chest and another on his back directly between the shoulder blades. But they would not allow entry, so I relayed the message to Janetta through the tent flap. I fretted for her health and then for her brother’s. And after a moment’s thought, I worried for mine as well. I’d been very close to her recently, touched her, taken in her breath. And now she was swallowed up by her tent.

  Two days earlier, Nicolaas had acknowledged my existence for the first time, saying hello when I came to gather Janetta. This, I thought, was the start of something. I spent the next day going through possibilities that included Janetta’s being family. But that might have to wait now. It seemed absurd that, as far as I knew, my brother at war was still healthy, while hers, in this camp, was ill abed.

  I had to fill my time without her. Looking to free more pages of rules that had been tacked on posts around camp, I found a message for a hymn meeting for young people to be held in the large tent. Moeder denied permission after having heard the word “measles.” I pointed out that if I had been infected by Janetta, I would have had the rash by now.

  “But a gathering of many children . . . in the same tent?”

  “Singing hymns, Ma, singing his praises. I’ll pray for us all. What better use of time?”

  She called as I stepped from the tent. I peeked back in. “Do you think they have an organ?” She moved her fingers as if playing an invisible keyboard. I hadn’t thought how much she must miss playing, having done so almost every night at home.

  I was early but was soon joined by many dozens of others who entered behind me. They were so thin and dirty. Who were they all? They looked like shrunken adults, with worn faces, appearing twice their actual age. And were there no boys at all?

  “Welkom, boys and girls,” the dominee said. I hated being considered a little girl. “So nice to see you here. This will be an evening of rejoicing and song.”

  “Rejoicing” was not a word I had heard in camp.

  As if he had read my mind, he said: “Yes, rejoicing. . . . Your families may be sundered by war, but your men are protected by the hand of God, and we have all been given this day through his Holy Providence.”

  I looked across the tent. There were no guards, so it seemed safe for the preacher to talk about our men being guided by God, a comment that probably violated some rule. The dominee started a tune on his autoharp and encouraged us to clap. We failed to catch the rhythm at first.

  “Psalm one forty-six,” the dominee said. When he started singing, I found I had to clear my throat and focus on the process. I always sang so poorly that it drew nasty comments. So I sang only to amuse Cee-Cee and most often at home in the barn, and those were children’s songs about chicks and pigs and the like. It took several scratchy lines to find the rhythm, but then I felt a joy of stretching muscles that had gone unused. I decided I would sing in the tent. It would remind me of better times, and, of course, it would annoy Mevrou Huiseveldt. So rarely is an activity rewarding in two important ways.

  After the psalm, the dominee repeated lines he wanted to stress.

  “Recite after me,” he said. “He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry . . .”

  Gives food to the hungry?

  “The Lord sets prisoners free, gives sight to the blind . . .”

  Sets prisoners free?

  “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, and loves the righteous . . .”

  The words made me worry again about those stubborn thoughts that were less than righteous. Was this psalm written specifically for me?

  “You praise God with your voices,” the dominee said. “And know that he hears you. He hears and sees everything. And we are here by his will. Know that, if you are tempted to doubt.”

  I doubted. I doubted every day. I was doubting at the very moment the dominee told us not to doubt. God had sent his warning to me through the preacher. Moeder never doubted. Oupa Gideon never doubted. It must get easier with age, I thought, although surely it must be more difficult.

  The dominee plucked a few notes on his autoharp again and then put it aside to tell the story of Zacchaeus, the crooked tax collector. Zacchaeus had been judged evil, but Jesus could
see through the faults to the good that was inside the man. I worried that if Jesus could see the good inside Zacchaeus, he could see the doubts and sinful thoughts I sheltered. When Jesus visited, Zacchaeus changed his ways and became righteous. I could be righteous again. Save from wrath and make me pure.

  I looked at the faces around me. I spotted a boy. I smoothed my hair and a few strands fell out. When I looked harder, I realized the boy was only Willem’s age, but tall enough to fool me at first. Too young, but he had caught my attention. Was shedding hair my punishment for having had sinful thoughts in the house of the Lord? Wait, does this qualify as a house of the Lord? A tent? Be righteous again, I told myself. And be rewarded.

  The dominee finished by reading Psalm 27. I studied his face. He was old, but not terribly old, I thought, and he had a deep, pleasant voice. He was not one of those who spit damnation with each breath. He may have realized we were dealing with enough fearful moments.

  “Take these words with you tonight,” he said. He spoke this psalm slowly with no music or singing.

  “When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh . . . it is they who stumble and fall. . . . Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear . . . though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.”

  I tried to memorize the words he’d chosen, as they were perfect for us. But they did not take root, and I began to think I was not as sharp as when Tante Hannah was schooling me at home, when every fact found a welcoming home in my mind.

  “The Lord will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent . . .”

  The dominee swept his right hand above him with the mention of a tent. God will conceal us . . . but I knew the tent would not conceal my thoughts from him.

  The preacher picked up his autoharp and played a livelier tune. We clapped louder. Those who had been silent when they entered left the tent humming or singing or chatting. I talked to a few girls on the way back to our tent. . . . Maybe I could meet with them at the next gathering. I wanted to tell Janetta all about it, to share it with her, but their tent was silent when I walked past.

  SOMEONE SQUEEZED A SAD requiem from a concertina in a nearby tent that night. I felt the slow rhythm of music, and it invited restfulness. When the tune ended, the player added a dozen or so quick-tempo notes that caused me to look at my mother. Her eyes closed, her head swayed.

  “What is that, Ma?”

  “Shhhh.”

  She looked at me only when it stopped.

  “That’s for a tickey-draai . . . a dance . . . the music that played when I met your father.”

  What? Wait. What? Moeder. Dance? Young girl? Dance with Father? A flutter of unconsidered images flashed in my mind. Her existence did not start when we were born? She had a life before she was a mother? How could it be possible that she had been a girl at one time?

  “Tell us about it, you’ve never said anything . . . please.”

  She looked at Mevrou Huiseveldt, who could be expected to protest. A story like this might make her head actually explode.

  “Please, Ma, I’ve never heard.”

  “Not now . . . not here.”

  I was not about to allow the dour looks from Mevrou Huiseveldt to deny me this story. The only thing Moeder ever shared with me of her youth related to her mother’s brush set and how she used it. But never anything about dances and certainly not her meeting Vader. How many other things had she been hiding about her life?

  “Ma . . . what else do I . . . do we . . . have? We’ve never heard this.”

  “Not now.”

  I threatened: “I’ll start singing.”

  She sat straight and smoothed her skirts. Willem pulled up his little riempie stool to join us.

  “I was seventeen,” she said, shaking her head, understanding that we could not picture such a thing. “The dance was in town, and I’d practiced the steps with my sisters.”

  I stared at her face, mentally erasing the toll of time, to see a fresh-faced young lady.

  “I was waiting for Piet van Niekirk to show up, but your father’s brother came up and took my hand to dance.”

  “Oom?” Willem shouted. “You danced with . . . ?”

  She would not allow the use of Oom Sarel’s name. I could not picture him asking Moeder to dance, much less her agreeing to it. Willem and I looked at each other at this family revelation.

  “Once,” she said. “Just once. . . . Shush if you want me to tell you.”

  “Wait . . . wait . . .,” I insisted.

  “Aletta . . .”

  “Moeder . . . you danced with Oom Sarel?”

  “Piet did not arrive . . . and . . . your father’s brother asked. He was about my age. . . . I had practiced the dances. . . . I wanted to dance.”

  “Just once?”

  “Once . . . yes,” she said.

  “Was there something wrong?” I asked.

  “That was enough. I turned away and went back with friends.”

  “And then you saw Vader and wanted to dance with him,” Willem said. Cee-Cee and Klaas and Rachel quieted and turned to follow her story as well. The adults never conducted story times.

  “No, I didn’t even know of your father. . . . He was a little older. . . . I had never spoken with him. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him. This was probably the first time.”

  “So he asked you to dance?”

  “Not until I was about to go home,” she said. “I was walking toward the door. He came to me just as the music was starting. I wanted to dance a tickey-draai and he was standing there with his hand out. I took it and we began spinning. That’s what a tickey-draai is, turning in tight circles, as if around a threepenny piece.”

  She held her finger and thumb apart the breadth of the tiny coin.

  “Teach me, Ma, I want to learn,” I said.

  “No . . . let me finish.”

  “Vader danced?” Willem asked.

  “You don’t really have to be a very good dancer with a tickey-draai,” she said.

  “But he was handsome?” I asked.

  “Mmm . . . not to make you stop to look.”

  “So?”

  “We danced that one and the next one, and he never said a word. Very shy. He just kept looking away . . . or at my neck.”

  She touched the empty collar of her dress.

  “Your neck?”

  “My ouma’s cameo brooch,” she said. “She let me wear it that night for the first time.”

  “Do you still have it, Moeder?” I asked. “Please tell me you brought it from home.”

  “It’s safe in my bag,” she said. “Maybe it will be yours someday.”

  Willem punched my shoulder, but it didn’t bother me, as I was stunned to hear that I would someday wear that brooch. It was beautiful and I wanted it immediately.

  “You should wear it,” I said.

  “Not here . . . no.” She squinted me quiet. It wasn’t fair to Willem.

  “What happened . . . with Pa . . . he didn’t talk at all?” Willem asked.

  “Well, not much. . . . I talked a little bit to him, but he mostly just kept staring at the brooch. So I asked him if he liked it.”

  “And?”

  “He smiled.”

  “That’s all?” I was sad that Vader had not done better. “He didn’t say anything?”

  “He did . . . but not much.”

  “What?”

  She turned to the attentive Mevrou Huiseveldt and then leaned toward us so that she might not hear.

  “He said: ‘It would be better if they had carved your face on it.’ ”

  “That’s all he said?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It was enough.”

  BARELY AFTER SUNRISE, TWO Tommy guards shoved back the tent flap, a gust of wind dramatically blowing as a small officer in a tailored tunic walked inside.

  “Go through their things,” he said, pointing with a sjambok. One pulled the blanket out from under Willem, causing him to tumble i
nto Mother’s cot.

  “What gives you the right?” Moeder asked.

  “I’m the commandant. . . . That gives me the right . . . and the duty.”

  The men shook the rest of our bedding to see if anything fell out, and then they rustled through our few belongings. Moeder grabbed the arm of the one who pulled open her bag; the other twisted her away, ripping the sleeve of her dress.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Whatever we can find,” the commandant said, with his gloved hands sorting through Moeder’s things, which were now scattered across the cot. He picked up her brooch and held it to her neck.

  “Here we are,” a guard shouted when he unrolled my bedding. He handed the paper to the commandant.

  “What are you doing with this copy of the rules?” he asked me.

  “It had fallen off a post and I brought it home so I could study them,” I said. I opened my eyes wide and looked up at him through my lashes.

  “What’s this, then?” a guard asked, holding my notebook by the spine and fluttering the pages to see if anything would fall out. I lunged at it; I couldn’t allow anyone to read that. He lifted it above his head, and I leaped but could not reach it.

  “Give me that.” I jumped like a springbok, time and again, but came nowhere near it. He laughed at my effort. “Give me that. That’s private. . . . That’s mine.”

  He handed it to the commandant, who flipped Moeder’s brooch back onto the cot. “What’s in this . . . notes on the camp?” The commandant skimmed through, reading a page or two. I was glad my handwriting was poor and I’d written everything so small to conserve space. I doubted anyone but me could read it.

  “Just my journal . . . little-girl thoughts,” I said to the commandant.

  He tossed it back at me.

  They looked inside the teapot, under folded clothes, in our shoes. Moeder tried to elbow into their small group every time they pawed through our few belongings.

  “Looka this,” one guard said, having found more paper near Willem.

  The commandant looked through several scraps.

  “Here it is,” he said, holding it up to Moeder. “Troop deployment . . . artillery. . . . Take them.”