Read Online Hottentot Venus by Barbara Chase-Riboud - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Barbara Chase-Riboud
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
fat-tailed sheep too. Maybe you can mind the sheep when you’re not minding Clare, Karl and Erasmus!
A moment of awkward silence fell.
—I’d like to speak to Saartjie alone, Miss Van Loott.
—Of course, I’ll go and sign her release.
Mistress Van Loott left the room and Colonel Caesar ordered me over to the window.
—Come here, Saartjie, I want to see you in the light.
—Colonel Caesar . . .
—Call me Master.
—Master . . .
—Walk over here by the window.
I approached him, my heart in my mouth.
—Just want to feel you up a bit, Saartjie. I’m a good Christian, faithful to my wife . . .
He opened his breeches, took out his organ wild with red hairs like an orangutan’s posterior. I stared at it with horror. His organ had two testicles . . . I wondered if all white men were so deformed.
—What you staring at, Saartjie? Can’t tell me you ain’t never seen a man’s penis before—you a married woman. Now kiss it.
I knelt down before this horribly deformed man, not knowing what he expected from me. But before I could act, his free hand groped under my smock, clutching my backside, and it was over.
—Ahhh, he gurgled. You’ll do nicely, Saartjie, he said when he had come to himself.
I got up off my knees, wondering if I should tell Mistress Van Loott what had happened.
—Now, no need for you to tell Miss Van Loott. It won’t happen again. Not like you’re a virgin or anything. Correct?
My silence was taken for consent. I had three choices, I thought. I could stay here in this coffin and hope for another employer or I could run away to the Khoekhoe camp outside of town and starve or I could take my chances with Mrs. Caesar’s children and Mrs. Caesar’s vigilance over her husband. Surely a white Christian woman would protect me?
When Mistress Van Loott entered, she couldn’t meet my eyes.
—Here are the papers, Colonel, all in order, was all she said, despite my ashen face and his red one. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to know. After all, masters had certain rights over their servants and I was, after all, of that race. It was strange to feel that in the judgment of those above you, you were scarcely human: I even wondered if their belief was more than half right—that I really mattered less than a camel, less than a dog, without a
n/um,
that even my shape was not human according to civilized people.
—That’s all, Saartjie. You’re dismissed, get your things.
I turned to leave, glancing over my shoulder at the man who was now my master. He was dressed like all the planters of the region, in a white felt three-cornered hat and a long dustcoat split up the back for riding. His sleeves were turned back to reveal hairy forearms. He had on breeches which covered his legs to the knees and soft short camel-skin boots tied crisscross halfway up his calf, the rest being bare. His shirt was open at the neck and little hairs peeked out. His long waistcoat almost swept his knees and was of white linen with bone buttons. His curly red hair was tied back with a green ribbon and he carried a long rifle and a hunting knife. There was nothing extraordinary about him except his height and the color of his eyes, which were a pale gray, like a winter sky, under those red eyebrows and red lashes. He smelled too. But then, all white people smelled. Only white babies smelled good.
I lingered one moment more, thinking I should remember something about my new patron—some little tic, some special attribute, so I could give him a name in Khoekhoe and not think of him only as master. I decided his gray eyes were like a winter sky.
Sao/homaib . . .
Then I thought, No,
Sao/homaib/ao-mûs/gam,
winter-sky-snake-eyes. That’s what he would be from now on. Then I smiled. He was in fact
Sao/homaib/aomûs/gam-kharara,
winter-sky-snake-eyes-two-testicles . . .
The colonel glanced at me in what he took to be a friendly way—as if I were actually a human and not an animal, who could talk and feel and now
A moment of awkward silence fell.
—I’d like to speak to Saartjie alone, Miss Van Loott.
—Of course, I’ll go and sign her release.
Mistress Van Loott left the room and Colonel Caesar ordered me over to the window.
—Come here, Saartjie, I want to see you in the light.
—Colonel Caesar . . .
—Call me Master.
—Master . . .
—Walk over here by the window.
I approached him, my heart in my mouth.
—Just want to feel you up a bit, Saartjie. I’m a good Christian, faithful to my wife . . .
He opened his breeches, took out his organ wild with red hairs like an orangutan’s posterior. I stared at it with horror. His organ had two testicles . . . I wondered if all white men were so deformed.
—What you staring at, Saartjie? Can’t tell me you ain’t never seen a man’s penis before—you a married woman. Now kiss it.
I knelt down before this horribly deformed man, not knowing what he expected from me. But before I could act, his free hand groped under my smock, clutching my backside, and it was over.
—Ahhh, he gurgled. You’ll do nicely, Saartjie, he said when he had come to himself.
I got up off my knees, wondering if I should tell Mistress Van Loott what had happened.
—Now, no need for you to tell Miss Van Loott. It won’t happen again. Not like you’re a virgin or anything. Correct?
My silence was taken for consent. I had three choices, I thought. I could stay here in this coffin and hope for another employer or I could run away to the Khoekhoe camp outside of town and starve or I could take my chances with Mrs. Caesar’s children and Mrs. Caesar’s vigilance over her husband. Surely a white Christian woman would protect me?
When Mistress Van Loott entered, she couldn’t meet my eyes.
—Here are the papers, Colonel, all in order, was all she said, despite my ashen face and his red one. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to know. After all, masters had certain rights over their servants and I was, after all, of that race. It was strange to feel that in the judgment of those above you, you were scarcely human: I even wondered if their belief was more than half right—that I really mattered less than a camel, less than a dog, without a
n/um,
that even my shape was not human according to civilized people.
—That’s all, Saartjie. You’re dismissed, get your things.
I turned to leave, glancing over my shoulder at the man who was now my master. He was dressed like all the planters of the region, in a white felt three-cornered hat and a long dustcoat split up the back for riding. His sleeves were turned back to reveal hairy forearms. He had on breeches which covered his legs to the knees and soft short camel-skin boots tied crisscross halfway up his calf, the rest being bare. His shirt was open at the neck and little hairs peeked out. His long waistcoat almost swept his knees and was of white linen with bone buttons. His curly red hair was tied back with a green ribbon and he carried a long rifle and a hunting knife. There was nothing extraordinary about him except his height and the color of his eyes, which were a pale gray, like a winter sky, under those red eyebrows and red lashes. He smelled too. But then, all white people smelled. Only white babies smelled good.
I lingered one moment more, thinking I should remember something about my new patron—some little tic, some special attribute, so I could give him a name in Khoekhoe and not think of him only as master. I decided his gray eyes were like a winter sky.
Sao/homaib . . .
Then I thought, No,
Sao/homaib/ao-mûs/gam,
winter-sky-snake-eyes. That’s what he would be from now on. Then I smiled. He was in fact
Sao/homaib/aomûs/gam-kharara,
winter-sky-snake-eyes-two-testicles . . .
The colonel glanced at me in what he took to be a friendly way—as if I were actually a human and not an animal, who could talk and feel and now
Similar Books
