And still nothing happens here. We walk the veld and the dry puckerthorns explode beneath our feet. Where the dead grass has gusted away, there are deep fissures in the dirt. The sun squashes and the weeks pass flat. And then an occurrence: Obadiah loses his TransNamib hat. A farmwide search has yielded no suspects. Standard Sevens, under heavy questioning, deny any involvement. Then, off the radio, still more news. Gorbachev’s been murdered. An hour later he’s resurrected, but now imprisoned on treason charges, in his dacha, in the Crimea. The BBC intones: All seven phone lines leading into the vacation house are reported to have been cut.
And somebody named Gennady Yanayev declares a renewal of Soviet proletarian fortunes.
“Sounds like a putsch.”
“Tasty putsch?” Pohamba says.
“Yanayev? Who the hell’s Yanayev?”
And Obadiah sermonizes, hatless, during mid-morning break: “Wherefore I ask: Who will deliver our Daniel from the ferocity of the lions?”
Empires keel. And still the goats come in from the veld on wobbly legs, and still they don’t know they’re starving.