Free Book Excerpts

Saartjie was 18 years old when put on display in London as “a piece of erotic meat”. How did she, a S.African aboriginee, become a sex symbol in Europe in 1810?

Excerpt

I did start showing myself that next week. At first it was not too difficult, because I could play on my ramkie and sing while I was doing this. But when he took my ramkie away and made me turn this way and that way for hours on end, I became very fed up and angry. And I showed him how angry I was.

One day, many moons later, I was still standing there. The big exhibition hall was full. It was in Piccadilly, opposite the William Bullock’s museum, so people came there when they left the museum.

I stood for six hours a day and people came to stare at me, passing remarks all the time, which they thought I could not understand. Sometimes Hendrick would allow me to play my little guitar. I loved feeling the dried pumpkin skin against my hands, which were now going soft because I was not doing proper woman’s work. I loved to play on the three gut strings, holding it under my chin, smelling it, and singing. Those were the best times.

At other times he took the ramkie away from me, especially later in the day, when the men came to stare at me. Then I had to stand and turn when he ordered me to. He made me smoke a pipe and blow smoke over the crowd. He painted my face in a funny way. This I was not used to. We never painted our faces back home. I felt ridiculous. And Obi, the boy, laughed at me.

One afternoon a famous actor came to stand by the cage I was being shown in. His name was John Kemble. Obi told me his name the next day, because it was in the newspapers.

I was very cold and had my arms around me, although Hendrick had told me many times not to do this. When Hendrick saw me put my arms around me, he shouted at me in Dutch, and the famous man heard him, so I dropped my arms.

“What a disgusting sight,” I heard John Kemble say. He must have thought I could not understand him, for he mumbled to a woman standing next to him, “I feel so sorry, so deeply sorry for her”.

I was very tired. By this time I had been standing for more than five hours, and I needed to sleep. With great effort I pulled my  back straight and wriggled my body as I tried to shift more comfortably into the knee-length dress which pulled tightly around me, showing every bump, every fold of me.

I sighed. Every time I took a deep breath, my chest strained against the tight bodice and my breasts flattened against the see-through fabric.  My two nipples spread out flat, gaping at the crowd, like two blobs of black gum pressed out under the glass of a microscope. I felt shy and embarrassed.

“Forward,” I heard Hendrick shout from behind the curtain, where nobody could see him. He said this in a loud voice, so everyone could hear him.

“Like a wild beast being ordered around,” I heard John Kemble mutter again, but I could not see his face, for I had turned away from him, “more like a bear on a chain than a human being,” he said, for I was totally under Hendrick’s command and afraid of what he would do if I did not obey.

I knew that John Kemble was looking at me from behind, and I felt hot with shame.

“Draai!” Turn! Hendrick barked at me again, in his heavy Dutch.

This time I ignored him. I was too tired.

Hendrick came out from behind the curtain. I turned my head away from him, and looked slightly to the right. Straight into the eyes of John Kemble. I closed my eyes then, too embarrassed to look into those kind eyes, and hugged my arms again.

The exhibition hall was freezing. All the people were dressed in their outdoor clothing. Men were wearing greatcoats and waistcoats and cravats around their necks for warmth. Women wore chamois coats with satin linings, which reached down to their ankles.

“She’s falling asleep,” a woman screeched in a high-pitched voice. I pretended to keep my eyes closed, but I was peeping from underneath them, at the woman.

She was kneeling in front of the cage, peering up under my dress, her green eyes large and shocked. She had been staring up for at least five minutes. Pretending to tie her shoelaces, the woman sat on her haunches, her head bent sideways as she tried to get a better look from under the little cloth which covered my private parts under the dress.I opened  my eyes and they looked straight into John Kemble’s. I could see that he was very angry. I was angry too. I bit my lip and scowled down at the woman.

Then someone poked a parasol through the metal bars of the cage and stabbed me in my soft flesh from behind. “Is this natural?” the voice asked stupidly.

“Aargh!” I shouted. I could hold back my anger no longer. I shouted so suddenly that the green-eyed woman’s husband, who was peering through the metal bars of the cage with an eye-glass, jumped back. He tripped over their dog, which yelped and jumped out of his way.

At that moment I turned and hit down onto the parasol. The parasol fell with a loud clang into the cage.

“What a savage!” the woman shouted, stepping back and tripping over her wide skirts. But instead of falling into her husband’s arms as she had expected, she stumbled back. Her husband, instead of helping her, stepped further out of her way. I thought good for you!

The commotion forced Hendrick Cezars to come out from behind his curtain. He ran around the cage to the woman.

“My sincerest apologies, madam,” he murmured, offering her his hand, helping her up. Flustered, she pointed at me.

The parasol was lying inside the cage, on the little stage at my feet.

The crowd went silent. All eyes were fixed on the parasol. I stared at Hendrick, frozen in fear.

Hendrick took full advantage of the situation. With exaggerated care he opened the low gate of the cage and pulled himself up onto the stage. As he came close to me, I stepped back. I thought that he was going to strike me, for he came towards me with a black whip in his hand.

With the whip out in front of him, Hendrick stepped forward. He made as if he was facing the gravest danger. He bent down, one hand behind him with the whip held high. With the other hand he slowly reached for the parasol. He kept his eyes fixed on me, then stood up, holding the whip between us.

Not a sound came from the crowd.

I was mesmerized with fear. My eyes were glued to the whip. As Hendrick moved closer, I stepped back and felt the cold bars of the cage against  my back. I could go no further.

“Stay!” Hendrick barked out at me in English. His voice boomed across the hall. He paused dramatically, as if I were an angry wild animal.

He quickly jumped back and out of the cage, slamming the gate shut.

Once outside the cage, he slowed down his movements again, like a magician exaggerating each careful move. He knew all eyes were on him as he pulled a metal chain out of the pocket of his coat. He fixed the chain in place and padlocked the gate.

The crowd clapped as he turned around. He bowed three times, his silly dark red wig (which he was wearing only since he came to England), shifting forward.
My knees gave in and I sank to the floor. I cried without tears. My tears had dried up long ago.

“Stand up!” I heard him shout from behind the curtain where he had once more disappeared.

I jumped up and leaned against the side of the cage. I trembled. I felt lost and defeated.

“Poor creature. Poor, poor creature,” I heard John Kemble murmur to himself.
Hendrick saw John Kemble and he came back from out of his curtain. “Please feel free to touch her, sir,” he said. The man ignored him.

Then John Kemble caught  my eye. I could see the kindness in his face and I could not look away. I pulled myself away from the metal bars and turned my body squarely towards him. I looked straight at him this time. I patted my palms together, as we Khoi do when in front of someone we respect.

“Babba, Babba!” I said.

“What did she say?” John Kemble asked Hendrick. “Does she call me her papa?”

“No, sir. She says you are a very fine man.” He lied again.

“Upon my word,” said John Kemble dryly. He was looking at me from the side, with his head at an angle. He looked pleased. “Upon  my word, the lady does me infinite honor!” he said.

“Do touch her, sir, if you so wish,” Hendrick said again. “It is without additional fee,” he stressed.

John Kemble pulled back. “No, no!” he said. “Poor creature, no!”

I could see tears in his eyes as he turned away from me. “Now that was a sight which made me melancholy,” he said to his friend as they turned to walk away from the cage. “I dare say, now, they ill-use that poor creature! Good God. How very shocking!” I heard him say.

And yet (not too long after that) the court believed Hendrick when he said I wanted to stay in England, that I wanted to be put on display, that I did not want to go back to see  my family. All things which he and that doctor Alexander Dunlop made up between them, and forced me to say. All things which they wrote down and made me put my mark against. I was so scared of them that I agreed to repeat those lies to the men whom the court sent to speak with me personally. I said those things to them because I was afraid.

But the whole world believed Hendrick’s lies.

As the rest of the people followed John Kemble out of the hall that night, I fainted. The day had been too long.

I woke up as Hendrick dimmed the lights. He returned to my cage. He unlocked the gate, stepped into the cage and pulled me roughly to my feet. Slowly I came awake. I shivered, this time not from cold, but from fear and fever.  My body was hot and felt dry. I could feel yet another boil in my groin. The boils had started developing a few days before. A small one, throbbing ones, big ones.

I stood up, confused and unhappy. I leaned against the metal bars as Hendrick walked away, leaving the gate of the cage open.

I closed my eyes, trying to understand what had gone wrong.  My mind could not wrap itself around the change of events, try as I might. I could not figure it out.

It was not as if it had been my decision alone. It was a big decision. In our culture sending a woman away on a big ship to far away lands was a big decision.

Frowning, not understanding, I moved out of the cage. Slowly, with difficulty, I climbed down from my platform of persecution, shivering with thirst and fever.

This was how most of my days went.

Copyright 2009 Monica Clarke. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.