Zebra Horizon Read online

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  At school I was asked to go around to the various classes when they had their German lessons. I read Goethe to them and stuff out of their textbooks, like Fritz geht in den Zoo and Das Heidelberger Schloss. In the higher standards we also practiced conversation, usually about a subject of general interest chosen by Mrs Davies, the teacher; for example: how does the German postal service work? or weather patterns in Bavaria.

  Mrs Davies was bony and tanned with a long nose and thin lips. Her greyish hair formed an impeccable helmet, even on days with a storm warning. She was never seen other than in navy blue outfits and Scholl’s health sandals. Mrs Davies’ grandparents had left Prussia to live in South West Africa and she had grown up on a farm called Vogelweide not far from the Caprivi Zipfel. Mrs Davies ran her lessons with Prussian discipline.

  “Sit down, zack zack” and “stand straight, jawoll,” were part of every period. When the weather was good she marched her pupils around the hockey field, im Gleichschritt marsch, singing Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann. The first time I was involved in this exercise, I nearly collapsed laughing in the middle of the field. Mrs Davies was not impressed and told me to straighten up, zack zack. I tried to explain to her that in Germany marching wasn’t in anymore and she mumbled something about Disziplin jawoll. All her pupils knew every word of the Wandersmann by heart, which was more than I could say for myself. After the first line I improvised with lalala, which lowered Mrs Davies’ esteem of me considerably. I guess by that time she was disillusioned about the Übermenschen quality of the younger German generation.

  One rainy day, Mrs Davies ventured into a free discussion. Brian, the prefect, asked me in German mixed with a generous amount of Afrikaans what it was like to live so close to the Rooi Gevaar – the communists.

  “Huh?”

  “Come on Mathilda, die sind right next door to you.”

  He slipped back into English. “Aren’t you scared?”

  Mrs Davies had sore feet or something. She loosened the straps of her sandals and didn’t pay much attention to us. The whole class looked at me expectantly. For some reason the Rooi Gevaar – the red danger, seemed to be a matter close to their hearts.

  “No, I’m not scared,” I said. “Why should I be?”

  Brian took a deep breath. “Well, they had the Bolshevik revolution and cold bloodedly murdered the Tsar and his family. Then they chucked God out of their system and when they marched into Germany they stole and raped and behaved like animals…”

  “And even now they don’t treat their women like ladies because they make them drive cranes and lorries and send them to work in the salt mines,” Liza interrupted.

  “Ja,” Jason said. “And if the communists ever get hold of South Africa we’ll have to hide all our women and everybody will get stuck with one entire family in each room of their house. They’ll burn all the churches and shoot all the pastors and nobody will be able to lead a decent life anymore.”

  I was speechless for at least a minute.

  They must have some total geniuses working in their propaganda department here.

  The first answer that sprang to my mind was that women in South Africa were also not always treated like ladies, especially when they were black. Brian said that was different because blacks were black and Russians were white!

  I did my best to convey to my classmates that the general German population didn’t loose much sleep because they lived close to the communists, but at the end of the lesson I could tell that nobody believed me.