She never laughed. Even during break, when Obadiah would retell that morning’s moral tale, doing his best imitation of the principal’s self-flagellation (which was, by his kind of osmosis, our flagellation):
Oh, savage gluttony! Ye who fare sumptuously while others go without. Do ye not ache for your lack of guilt? Consider for once the Ethiopians, the Irish, the Chinese. Have you no pity? No, it is only, More meat, more crackers, more cheese. Ye who would not offer a finger dipped in water to a thirsty —
Mavala sitting in the sand, leaning against a barrel, unpeeling a hard-boiled egg. Not hearing a thing. Us all trying not to watch her bite the top off that egg. Obadiah said it was the struggle. All those years of believing the end of the war would usher in Paradise. He said Mavala Shikongo was even more beautiful for believing in all that. Now she carries an attendance register and wipes snot from under sub b noses? She’s old, Obadiah said. No matter what her legs look like. It’s all that believing. A woman with a Kalashnikov isn’t anything new. My Lord, think of the Amazons of Dahomey. But believing—it’s like seeing a bronze-winged courser this far west of Gobabis.