Desire as a Medium of Knowledge

The Athenians tortured not only the accused but also the witnesses. Unfree people had to repeat their statements under duress. From a Greek perspective, slaves were indecent humans. Their low status was associated with a corrupt character. If a slave died in court, only compensation could be negotiated. Antiquity linked unfreedom with the guilt of the unfree. Nana likes the idea of being able to engage with such atavistic views. In her own words, she is both “granite and rainbow” (Virginia Woolf). In a fantasy, she receives her first erotic kiss at seventeen in a fishing village on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Nana conquers no places and collects no men as trophies. She lets herself be taken—by landscapes, encounters, intensity. Every journey has its own physics, and every man belongs to precisely that constellation of time, body, and space.

Nana does not justify herself. She explains nothing, apologizes not, translates her intensity into no moral categories. The experiences appear neither as confessions nor as claims. Precisely this refusal to legitimize herself or appear agreeable elevates the journal text. It trusts the reader to endure ambivalences and accept uncertain transitions.

Desire is neither distraction nor excess. It is an epistemic stance. In desire, Nana perceives more precisely. Atmospheres condense, landscapes reveal themselves, bodies become instruments of orientation. Each relationship opens access to a world. With every man, something different becomes possible.

The men function as relational bodies, as catalysts, not as centers. What remains is Nana’s capacity to form alliances—erotic, intellectual, energetic—without selling herself. Her productivity, clarity, and openness increase. Bonds do not restrict her; they release forces.

This form of narration challenges the audience. It requires an interest in contingencies.

*

A hundred kilometers a day were more than enough. For a while, the Olifants River accompanied us, its reed beds performing a concert alongside mandarin orchards and shimmering maize fields. At the roadside, stalls lined up: oranges and naartjies in plastic crates, avocados in battered Woolworths cartons, honey harvested privately in supermarket jars, biltong in reused bags. Prices were handwritten on cardboard.

Crow-guarded metal boxes with coin slots on wooden posts—Honesty Boxes—stood between wild olives and acacias. In the distance, the Cederberg glowed.

We saw labyrinthine irrigation systems, modest cattle herds, and seemingly autonomous bands of sheep and goats.

We passed through Citrusdal: an oversized supermarket, a farm-supply store with a faded John Deere sign. Outside the gas station, four-wheel drives bore hunting decals. In front of the supermarket, men sat on overturned crates drinking Castle Lite.

Beyond the town sign, the pass began. After days of straight roads, the curves enlivened us. Beyond the summit, the land opened up: wheat fields, white farmhouses, a hint of burgher tradition.

By late afternoon, we reached Goudkloof, a small town large enough for several gas stations, a hospital, two schools—and a decent lodging.

Goudkloof owed its existence to a nineteenth-century gold rush, like Barberton, Pilgrim’s Rest, and the Gauteng towns that began as boomtowns in the shadow of the Witwatersrand fields. Goudkloof looked like an American Western film town of the 1950s: antique façades with faded lettering, a tavern named World’s End, and empty streets.

We checked in at the inn, the Ou Transvaal Hotel. It smelled of wet dog and damp walls. The air-conditioning roared criminally.

“Hot Meals – Cold Beer.”

We ate at the pub across from our lodging—burgers, beer, no questions. The locals displayed a polite indifference. Perhaps they already knew all the stories. The jukebox played Afrikaans country; a neon light flickered like in an Edward Hopper painting.

The next morning, we visited the town museum: display cases with model ox-wagons, rusted tins, Bibles with faded family names, and maps crisscrossed with lines tracing the Groot Trek as a historical movement born of dust, hunger, and defiance.