Gripping and evocative
THE OTHER HOFFMANN SISTER Ben Fergusson Loot.co.za (R286) Little Brown
AUTHOR Ben Fergusson won the 2015 Betty Trask Prize for The Spring of Kasper Meier. This is his second historical novel. We meet the family Hoffmann as they arrive by boat in German Southwest Africa. The Hoffmanns, it appears, seek to make their fortune, having bought a farm with wells from Baron von Ketz, somewhere just north of Okahandja.
The sisters, Margarete, all of 13, and Ingrid a few years younger, meet Hans Zeigler, described by a local German as “Von Ketz’s kaffir” before they set off to their new home. Hans (a half-caste) has been loaned to them by Baron von Ketz, together with his Herero mother, Nora, who will act as housekeeper/ nanny to the Hoffmanns.
Herr and Frau Hoffmann have grand plans for their daughters, hoping for an engagement between Margarete and von Ketz’s son Emil.
Margarete is described as being sensitive, she is given to having temper tantrums and sulky withdrawals from the day-to-day life of the family. Ingrid, on the other hand, is intelligent and industrious, as well as being compulsively worried about her older sister.
She embarks on lessons with Hans, who can speak, read and write fluently in German, French and English. Margarete, meanwhile, rides regularly over to the von Ketz’s (accompanied by Hans) to encourage a liaison with Emil, the rather wimpy son.
The Baron’s violent death and the Herero uprising drive the Hoffmanns back to Germany – we are given brief descriptions of the treatment handed out to Herero upstarts together with the fact that both Hans and Nora are missing.
Back in Germany, years later, a brief calm brought about by Margarete’s impending marriage to Emil is shattered when she goes missing on her wedding night. The book traces Ingrid’s attempts before and after World War I to discover what happened to her. At the same time she is trying to find out what happened to Hans, with whom she has been secretly in love all this time.
Ingrid had an ambition to be a translator, working hard on a collection of poems by women she has translated from English to German. She is portrayed as being clever, but does not always quite comprehend what she sees and hears.
A considerable amount of the story takes place in Berlin after World War I. We meet her Jewish friend, Hannah, with her stereotypical Jewish revolutionary family who are friends with Rosa Luxembourg. This is a curious diversion as the story builds toward its rather inevitable climax. Finally Ingrid learns the truth, hidden from her by everyone, including her parents.
The Other Hoffmann Sister is made of parts which are perhaps greater than the sum of its whole.