Oupa Gideon was so forceful during the day that I feared him at times. But he lifted me from bed with such a tender hand and spoke to me with such a peaceful voice on these nights that he seemed a different person. No one discovered us exchanging whispers during those many nights together, and we told no one. It was my first conspiracy.
He passed along the lessons of the sky that he learned from his grandfather, the captain of a Dutch merchant ship. From a sky iridescent with stars, he would point out specific points of light, and they brightened at his mention. When he spoke a constellation’s name, it took shape, and the stars connected so that I could see a cross or a bear or a throne. He had the power to make the sky come alive.
“And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night . . . and God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.”
The first time he said “firmament,” it sounded like a mix of “firm” and “permanent.” That was how I came to think of Oupa, firm and permanent. No one could be stronger or more reliable. Except maybe my father. Or my mother. They were the living firmament of my world.
“Look . . . ,” he said on one of the first nights, opening his arms wide, pointing long, knotty fingers from horizon line to horizon line. “The sky is as wide here as it is on the seas, but we are a mile closer to it on the high veld. A mile closer to heaven. Think about that: we’re closer to God here.”
“Can he see us better here?” I whispered.
“He can see you everywhere,” he said, raising his unruly eyebrows.
He often propped me on a chair and returned moments later with cups of coffee and hard-baked rusks for us to eat. I shook my head to help choke down the bitter drink, but he taught me to soak and soften the oblong biscuits so that they would fall apart in my mouth. Oupa would not even blow on the steaming coffee but just brought it to his mouth and drank it down. I was certain he could breathe fire if he wanted. When others were around during the day, I pretended never to have tried coffee and to be disgusted by it. I wanted Oupa to know that I was a trusted guardian of our secrets.
The sky is always changing and the change is wrought by God’s hand, he said, and that made this an opportunity for mortal man to watch God work miracles every night. Who is so unwise as to sleep through God’s miracles?
With wide eyes and uplifted palms, I always answered, “Not I.”
I was proud that he singled me out to share these lessons. It was my duty, he said, to memorize my ancestry, back through the line of sailors and captains who had fought wars against the British and explored the world’s seas.
“That is your cargo,” he said. “You will carry these stories to your many children. You will be like your mother . . . God’s chosen vessel.”
Most of the stories came from his oupa, recalling storms and perils, and travel to exotic lands, and settling in the Cape to handle trading for the Dutch.
“Through the centuries, their two constants were the Bible and the stars. . . . Both taught us to navigate through life. Both guided us to this place . . . our own place . . . away from others.”
He introduced me to the moon first.
“Twice a day the seas swell in the direction of the moon,” he said, using one fist to symbolize the earth and the other the moon as they moved through space. “The moon always shows us the same face, and it pulls at the oceans.”
“I’ve only seen oceans in a book.”
“I know, skattebol, but you can see the sky from everywhere,” he said. “There’s your connection. It’s the same sky my oupa taught me.”
His stories built such a powerful connection to my ancestors that I believed it my destiny to be a ship captain. I would learn the stars first, then navigation, and the seas and the ships later. I would stand behind a giant wheel to steer a ship, guiding the family legacy across the seas.
“Can women be ship captains?” I asked.
“No.” He took a sip of coffee. “Don’t be silly.”
Well, I would be the first. I would surprise Oupa and make him proud. People around the world would know my name. So I studied the moon. I thought about its strength, pulling the oceans toward it, making the earth go lopsided. And when I concentrated on that power, I was certain I could feel it pulling at me, too, almost lifting me from my chair. After all, how could it be strong enough to pull the ocean but not raise up someone as little as me?
“Some of the tribes believe the moon is a god,” he continued. “Unbelievers—that’s what kaffir means—they can’t think as we do because of the Curse of Ham.”
“Bina and Tuma are cursed?” I asked.
“Blackened for their sins . . . destined to serve even the lowest peoples,” he said. “That is the Holy Word.”
“Bina saved my life . . . killing a snake . . .”
“She did, but some of their kind throw animal bones on the ground rather than read the Bible.”
On the first night he took me out, I asked about the brightest stars, the three in a perfect straight line. He put his arm around me and pointed so that I could follow his line of sight.
“Some call it Drie Susters. I learned it as Orion, the Hunter,” Oupa said. “The three stars are his belt, and those four at the corners are his feet spread and his arms raised for battle.”
Oupa stood, taller than any man I knew, legs apart and arms open as if he were drawing a bow. The stance of the Hunter came into focus.
“And there is the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters.” He pointed to a cluster of blue stars that seemed nearer to us. “It is written in the Bible: ‘Seek him that makes the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning,’ ” he said.
On an October night not long before the men left for war, Oupa plucked me from my bed. I had long been old enough to walk to the stoep, but his carrying me was the first part of the ritual. Rains had blown through in the early night, leaving the air moist and the sky looking as if the stars had been scrubbed clean.
“We’re leaving soon,” he said. “You and I won’t be able to do this for a while.”
The coffee scent chased the sleep from my head. He relit his pipe, drawing the flame into the bowl, flicked the match to the dirt, and started the evening’s lesson. This night, he told of the most amazing sky he’d ever seen, when he and his young wife traveled by wagon to buy horses. He called it the Southern Lights.
He described the colorful display, but I wanted to hear more of my ouma.
“Will you tell me about her?”
He repacked and relit his pipe.
“She died when your father was young.”
“How?”
“Your oom Sarel killed her.”
I had never heard this and was stunned.
“Killed her?”
He moved on without answer.
“It was just the three of us after that . . . me raising the boys.”
“By yourself?”
“We had a girl who looked after them, who cooked for us.”
“Before Bina?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she now?”
“She left.”
“What was her name?”
“I don’t remember much about her.”
“And then Bina and Tuma came?”
“That was later. Look, a meteor.” He spotted a long, bright flash.
“What was Vader like when he was my age?”
“Good boy . . . but your father and his brother always scrapped.”