Forbidden Delicacy

The shadows of the acacia trees began to dance. Samuel grilled oryx and springbok steaks on a rusty grate. He was a Herero from Okahandja. I guessed him to be in his mid-forties. He had spent his childhood on a farm. For more than twenty years he had been guiding travelers through Namibia—Damaraland, the Kalahari, the Caprivi Strip. He came across as jovial and seasoned, impeccably professional in every situation.

Next to the meat sizzled a bush classic—Omagungu: mopane worms, thick, protein-rich larvae. Raw, they are said to taste nutty; fried, they reminded me of buttery scrambled eggs—savory, with a faint smokiness. There was maize, wild spinach, amaranth leaves, and a forbidden delicacy. Namibia’s national plant,Welwitschia mirabilis, is strictly protected. The Herero call its conesonyanga—desert onion. Samuel baked them in the ashes.

At the first opportunity we slipped away into a double swag. Yes—swagdoesn’t only work as a word for a portable bed in the Australian outback. In Afrikaans and South African English people speak of a “bush camp swag” or “camping swag.” We shifted around a bit until we found each other. Impatiently, you felt your way forward. You were in such a hurry to touch me after hours of restraint. I pulled off my top, opened my bra to avoid complications in the fragile tightness. I offered you my breast to caress. You were like someone parched at a spring. I helped you out of your trousers. You wanted to bury me beneath you. But I lay down on you and murmured my love into your ear. You smelled wonderful.

You had the right instinct for me. That night we revolved around the spindle of desire until I lay on my stomach beneath you again, feeling the earth intensely—the earth and you. You whispered how much you liked me, and it aroused me.

I don’t know whether I already knew it then—that there is such a thing as the HLA system, that people signal their operating systems to one another through scent, that internal immune engineers do the matching. A quiet biology of longing—you had the perfect HLA profile for me.

I woke up overwhelmed. In my dream the Holy Spirit had appeared in a Tibetan guise. I had long since stopped standing on the biblical foundations of my ancestors. My religious needs flowed toward Buddhism, yet the call of that day was unmistakably animistic. You were still asleep; I let you sleep. Yes, I was selfish enough not to want to share my rush of revelation with you. I slipped away, happy in our separateness. I knew the cheerfully masked embarrassment when strangers meet on a campsite as familiarly as family members do. One honors the privacy of fellow travelers with a show of gruff indifference, while in truth taking a keen interest in how each person finds their form for the day.

The evening before, a botanical contemplation of the area had captivated me. Now I read every tuft of grass as a divine sign.

The bush revealed a Stone Age creation myth to me. The early light illuminated every hollow in the ground. I sensed the deep breath of the land. I heard it sigh. Nature as church, a rock as cathedral.

The depression felt like a natural apse. I supplied myself with a sacral, heightened version—cathedral and altar. Nature transfigured itself into a living and a geological liturgy.

The camp smelled of cold ash. By now the sky had changed color three times. At this moment everything unfolded as if behind a veil of liquid amber.

Samuel was already sitting at a folding table, the coffee pot steaming. On the gas stove a battered tin pot gurgled. Samuel served omelet and toasted bread. There were peaches from a can. I was already full before you appeared. Your greeting was tender and… appropriate. You had tact and always knew exactly what I needed.