Chapter 46: Chapter 46

It started in 1903 during the diamond rush in Africa. Of all the mineral-rich countries there was South Africa, Botswana, and the less-known Gabore. But it would become known when the rumors of diamonds in the small rural country spread like a fire in a dry bush. The rush continued for decades as there were many of the precious stones to be mined. In 1971 Johann Schmidt, a young German of 28 with high hopes for striking it rich gathered his equally young wife, 19-year-old Anja, both blond, blue-eyed, and full of youthful exuberance, and moved to the small country of Gabore. They weren’t the only foreigners hoping to harvest the big diamonds beneath the hard water-ridden soil, there were others; the Americans, the Polish, the English, there were many there. But only a few could survive the harsh, dry, and sunny Gabore climate.

Johann was full of hope. He arrived in the country by ship and the coal train and immediately sought a place for his wife and himself. There were boarding houses built by foreigners who had decided to settle in Gabore, taking advantage of the influx of people to make fortunes. The boarding houses were good, with hot meals, hot baths, whiskey, and beer and Johann and Anja loved it. They weren’t very rich but Anja was a good girl, she made her own clothes, made her husband’s, and was ready to be by his side when he struck his first diamond.

For months they stayed in Gabore waiting for the nod from the government to begin looking for their prized mineral. In the months they waited dreams and hopes began to die. In South Africa news spread that all the diamonds to be harvested were gone and the same rumors spread that Gabore didn’t have diamonds as earlier thought. At this time the discouraged diamond hunters had either gone back home, made their home in Gabore, or become shadows of themselves. Johann was one of the many who became shadows of themselves. But his downslide didn’t start until the pub owned by an old soldier who had come with his wife to seek wealth, opened across the street and he met Fredrick.

No one knew his last name but everyone respected Fredrick because he had the look and poise of an aristocrat and he did claim to be one. He claimed to own oil wells, plantations, ships…every kind of wealth a normal regular man like Johann would be impressed with. And Johann was impressed. From the very day Fredrick sat beside him speaking in his polished haughty tone, Johann had been drawn to the man. While Anja spent her days at the boarding house sewing and mending the clothes of the women living in the boarding house to compensate for what little she and her husband had Johann spent his time in the pub listening to Fredrick’s many stories.

He wanted to be like Fredrick. He wanted to have polished brass buttons on his coat too, he wanted his mustache waxed to sharp points, he wanted to slick his blonde hair back too with pomade like Fredrick's dark hair, he wanted a ring with a huge diamond on it like Fredrick’s so he went to the pub every morning returning only late in the evening to listen to Fredrick tell his stories. One day, Johann told himself, he would strike gold. He had come to Gabore and so far was disappointed with the lack of diamonds. The government of the small country was not ready to give their lands for plunder until they were sure their citizens would not be harmed or cheated. Unknown to Johann the lure of Fredrick’s wealth was as addictive as the lure of the beers and whiskey he repeatedly ordered in the pub. The promising young man, though still handsome, was losing the spark in his features, he lived on beer alone, abandoning his wife and lamenting his misfortune.

Anja saw her husband suffer, watched him come out of the pub every night long after the amazing Fredrick was gone and she would pray that their luck turned around for good. She had a hot meal waiting for when Johann would stumble drunkenly into the room. Then one night he came back in tears.

“We should have stayed back in Germany and made our home there, I could have opened a store and you would have a shop of your own.”

“But you had big dreams of diamonds and gold,” she said to him, holding his head in her hand. He was sprawled on the bed, his head in her lap.

“I failed Anja, the government of Gabore are liars, there’s no diamond. There are no diamonds.” He began to cry into her hands. She stroked his head gently. Johann turned his face into her palm. “I wanted to be a man like Fredrick.”

“You are a better man than Fredrick.”

Tears in his eyes Johann laid his head on her breasts and began to caress her thighs. The cool of the night drove the heavy heat that always settled over the country during the day. On the cool lovely evening, Anja bent her head and took Johann’s lips with hers. She leaned back slowly until he was over her, covering her slim young body with his. She used her body to comfort the man who had promised her dreams, she believed those dreams but feared for her husband.

Johann would roll off later that night crying silently into the pillows. A few weeks later Anja would get pregnant with their first and only child and things would go worse from there for them.

In the second year since they arrived at Gabore, the government was finally showing promising signs of granting permission to diamond hunters to dig. But at this time Johann couldn’t care less, even if the permission was granted he had nothing left. He had come to Gabore with little and that little had found its easy into the hands of the pub owner. Since he spent every second of the day in the beer house he had nothing left, nothing to buy his shovels, nothing to buy the carts he would need to transport his diamonds – if he struck diamonds.

So he turned bitter and he took out his anger on Anja. She was 8 months pregnant at the time struggling under the weight of being the sole provider with her seamstress skills and her husband’s behavioral change, it made Johann mad that she controlled the finances. She was responsible for their feeding and clothing and the payment of their rent in the boarding house. Soon he began to accuse her of selling herself to the men in the boarding house in exchange for money. Eventually, his bitterness turned to rage and rage became violence when he slapped Anja one morning for suggesting they went back to Germany. The beatings would continue until one night Anja’s body caved and she went into premature labor.

In the early hours of the morning under the guidance of Olga, the boarding house matron, wife of an old sailor, Anja cried as she gave birth to her baby.

A boy. She called him Nathaniel.