In A Strange Room: Three Journeys Read online

In this curious union, this bizarre marriage, a new set of habits must spring up to keep them alive. There are tasks that must be seen to, the most basic, the most necessary, that on certain days can be luminous with almost religious significance, and on others can feel like the most tedious of chores. The tent, for example, must be put up and taken down. Two or three times a day a meal must be prepared, then the pots and pans must afterwards be cleaned. In the beginning, for the first few days, these jobs are shared equally between them. They help each other lay out the poles and insert them through the limp canvas, cast around together for stones to knock the pegs into the ground. Or they trade, why don’t you put up the tent, I’ll make the supper. Okay, I’ll help you wash up later. And although they are wary of each other, and the little moments of conflict do recur, there is a symmetry and balance to the running of things, they could continue like this for some time.

  In these early days there is a lot of talking between them still, they find their way into interesting conversations, they exchange ideas and disagree with respect. And if they avoid personal topics, if there is no discussion of their most intimate lives, it is because they have left those intimate lives behind. In their place is this new intimacy, the practical one between them, in which they lie next to each other and bump against each other in the dark, and look into each other’s faces first thing in the morning, and in a certain sense it’s this intimacy that is the engine of their journey.

  The day becomes organized around little rituals of collapse and renewal. Every morning they get up very early before it’s light.

  One of them makes a fire to boil water for coffee while the other takes down the tent. Then they set out, trying to cover a certain distance before it gets too hot. After an hour or two they stop to have breakfast. Then they wash up, if there is water, or store the dirty pots and plates till later, and set out again.

  By the middle of the morning, when it becomes too hot, they find a place to rest for a few hours. In this country of peaks and valleys, threaded with rivers, there is often a shady spot near water, with a view out into blue distances, they become used to sleeping in these soft and lush surroundings, bees drone, the shadows of clouds move silently, grass waves.

  Now the heat is building towards a storm. The edges of mountains take on a sharp electric sheen, in the high air thunderheads mount up, eventually a hot dry wind begins to blow. Either they will wait where they are, sometimes even putting up the tent again until the storm has come and gone, or they will take shelter in a hut or cave. Their greatest fear at these times is lightning. In this dislocated state, in which death is a constant presence beneath the skin, it is a grotesquely plausible idea that they will be struck down from the sky. He has never seen such brilliant fire, or heard such terrifying thunder.

  Then there is the last walk of the day, the final push of energy and effort, trying to cover a particular distance before the night comes down. Around sunset they find a place to sleep. Most of the time they pitch the tent. If they are near a village they go to ask permission from the chief, this is invariably granted, once or twice they are offered a room to sleep in. Then there are the evening rituals, the fire and food, perhaps a little reading, the walk out into the dark with a toilet-roll in hand. Before it is very late they sleep, stretching out side by side, exhaustion erases the mind in seconds, even the hardest ground is soft.

  So the days go on. The road takes them past houses, or little clusters of huts, and everywhere people stop what they’re doing to watch them go past. Sometimes greetings are shouted, stock English phrases they must have learned at school, hello how are you yes no I am also fine goodbye. In many places crowds of children swarm around them, following with singing and laughter this pair of pied pipers who draw them in their wake. In one village the mayor puts them up in his house, he is a huge gap-toothed man who smokes marijuana incessantly in rolls of newspaper, he insists on giving them his own bed to sleep in while he spends the night somewhere else. At a roadside store two schoolgirls chat shyly, they also try out their litany of English phrases, hello hello what is your name, then one blurts out I love you and both of them collapse in giggles.

  Reiner finds the schoolgirls amusing, I could have a fat wife in Lesotho, I would like that ho ho ho, but to most of these friendly overtures he responds with irritation. He doesn’t want to be bothered with smiling and talking, he sees no need for interaction of this kind. He puts in his earplugs when he sets out in the morning, he keeps his eyes fixed ahead of him on the road. He is happy to be offered a room, but he doesn’t want to pay for it, and he doesn’t want to ask permission to camp. Why should we. It’s the custom. Their custom, not mine. This is their country we’re in. Their country, I don’t believe in countries, that’s just lines on a map. Sometimes I don’t know what you do believe in, Reiner. To this the sulky face only smiles.

  Most of the time they follow the road, but sometimes they go across country. This happens when Reiner sees a place on his map where they can cut across, look here, from this point to there. But there are mountains inbetween. Yes, I see them. Often it seems he chooses these routes precisely because of the obstacles, mountains, rivers, escarpments, they present an interesting challenge, we must overcome nature with the same dispassion it shows us, so they walk out into the wilderness.

  I don’t like leaving the road, my sense of vulnerability deepens, a sort of primal nervousness descends. But this is also one of the most compelling elements in travel, the feeling of dread underneath everything, it makes sensations heightened and acute, the world is charged with a power it doesn’t have in ordinary life.

  After about a week they complete the first loop of their journey. In the little town of Roma they camp in the grounds of a deserted seminary, the long sandstone building with its pillars and arches, a dark row of poplar trees behind it, like something out of Italy.

  In Roma too there is the very old man in the pavement restaurant at lunchtime, where are you from, smiling toothlessly all the time, ah South Africa you people think we are monkeys you keep Nelson Mandela in prison. When he tells him that Nelson Mandela is out of jail, three years ago already, the old man laughs uproariously, throwing his head back, you think we are monkeys, Nelson Mandela is locked up. But he isn’t, he isn’t, I promise you, somehow he almost wants to cry. The old man laughs at him, hating him, leave it, Reiner says, looking panicked, he doesn’t know, nobody’s told him, leave it.

  The next day they walk out of Roma and follow roads that take them into high mountains. Till then they have been in the foothills of the Drakensberg, now the peaks climb around them in weird fantastic lines against the sky. The road rises and falls like a boat on rough seas, it pinches into hairpin bends and goes into elaborate loops to cover short distances. In the afternoon there is a bad storm. The sky above the long valley closes over, the lightning is spectacular. They shelter outside a house and afterwards push on, looking for a flat place to pitch the tent, but there is none, the road is halfway up the side of the valley with steep walls above and below. As darkness falls they come to a mission station, it turns out that the priests are German, Reiner has a long and amiable conversation, smiling and nodding, he is like another person completely. The priests say they have no space but send them to the chief of the local village, they sleep that night on the mud floor of a hut, mysterious rustlings from the thatch overhead.

  Reiner says that the priests have told him the road they are on comes to an end not far ahead. From there they will have to walk across rough country to the next road. Reiner has a plan, look, he says, we can do it, he wants to try a long hike next day, the longest they’ve done so far, all the way to Semonkong.

  By now even the most trivial events conceal some kind of groping for power. In the very beginning, two years ago, when they first saw each other in Greece, they thought of themselves as the same. On that lonely road they looked like mirror images of each other. Perhaps each of them thought of real communication as unnecessary, words divide by multiplying, what wa
s certain was the oneness underneath the words. But now they refrain from talking because it might reveal to them how dangerously unlike one another they are. An image in a mirror is a reversal, the reflection and the original are joined but might cancel each other out.

  So underneath the journey is a conflict, almost another journey in itself, a struggle for ascendancy, which as the days go by begins to push through to the surface. When they get up in the morning Reiner has taken to bathing himself, either in a river, if there is one, or in water from the water-bottles. Then he dries himself and sits on a rock, rubbing creams and lotions into his skin, which he dispenses from a selection of little jars and vials. Then he takes out a wooden hairbrush and runs it through his long hair, stroke after stroke, till it shines. Although this ritual gets longer every day, until it takes up half an hour or more, Reiner is always careful to be willing to do his share, just wait a little while and I will help you, leave the tent I’ll do it, but his companion can’t bear watching, it is better to keep busy, to make coffee, to put away the tent, while Reiner preens. When they set out a little later he is often choked with anger or irritation, and Reiner is full of smug satisfaction, brown locks bouncing on his shoulders.

  A second point of conflict is money. He has been keeping meticulous records in his little book, to which Reiner is apparently indifferent. But whenever they stop to buy something there is a silent battle about what they will choose and who will be allowed to have it. Reiner continues to buy his chocolates, for example, but if I want something there is often a dispute, hmm I don’t know about that what do we need that for. And sometimes Reiner will buy something for himself, a box of sweets or a bottle of water, and wait for his companion to ask. The asking is humiliating, which Reiner knows. Money is never just money alone, it is a symbol for other deeper things, on this trip how much you have is a sign of how loved you are, Reiner hoards the love, he dispenses it as a favour, I am endlessly gnawed by the absence of love, to be loveless is to be without power.

  So at this point of the journey there are the moments of unity and the other moments of conflict, and the long separate spaces of walking inbetween, in which each of them is alone. But even in this activity they cannot agree. It is not enough that they should go from A to B, but they have to do it in a certain time, it’s not enough that they should follow the road, they must always be going up to that rock or down to that cave, something is always being measured, something is always being pushed. At night Reiner is forever crouched over his map with a torch, adding up the kilometres they’ve covered, checking the distance against the time.

  So when he says he wants to do the long hike tomorrow, it means something different to both of them.

  How far is it.

  About sixty kilometres.

  In one day.

  We can do it.

  But why.

  Because I want to get better.

  He understands that Reiner is pitting himself against certain odds, the limitations of himself, the adversity of conditions, in this scheme of things he is one more resistance to be overcome, he doesn’t like to be seen this way and so he says, yes, well, we can try.

  They get up long before sunrise. By the time it starts to become light they have long since quit the mud house of the chief and are on the road. For much of yesterday they were above the forested floor of the valley, but now as the mountains draw in on either side the road drops down, till they come to a village. The road ends here. They sit for a while among the houses and rough gardens, goats grazing amiably in the flowers, chickens pecking in the dirt. Then they set off, striking out in a general direction, this must be the way. They have to climb out of the valley, over the mountains, the route goes up and up. These are the steepest slopes they’ve had to deal with, no road could ascend like this, they are scrabbling for a foothold much of the time, there are paths occasionally, which they follow, the paths take them to villages, yes even here in the precipitous wastes there are the congregations of round huts with the area of packed dry soil between them, the faces peering out in curiosity or amazement as they go by, people living out their whole lives in one small portion of the earth, oblivious to anything beyond. Memory is patchy and intermittent again, why are certain vistas, certain stretches of a path, so deeply impressed in recollection, so vividly evoked, and others disappear without a trace, I see the two of them at last climbing up a final slope to the bare crown of a hill, there are other villages on top, fields of maize, but off in the distance higher up there is the line of the road, a car perhaps passing like a toy on a track, we made it, look look, we’re here.

  It takes another hour to reach the road. A deep fatigue has already settled in, they sit outside a house to rest. Cars pass from time to time, they could hitch a ride, but this would defeat the purpose, in a little while they go on. The sky today is flawless, a huge heat presses down. They come to a shop on the shoulder of a hill, now there is no longer the will or energy to continue, they sit on the concrete stoep outside, he passes out for a while, and they are only halfway there.

  When they go on it’s along a rural country track that lifts out of this populous plateau, then they are on a high deserted heath with distances devoid of people, nothing moves except themselves, and then barely. They are very tired by now. The relentless uphill since the morning has depleted them, although they are gently descending now their muscles are strained to breaking point, there is no pleasure in this movement at all. Not even Reiner is happy. There are no signposts or settlements, the map can’t tell them where they are, I keep my eyes ahead, looking for Semonkong, we must almost be there, surely by now we must be there, but around every bend the road continues, unrolling ahead of them like fate. A man on a donkey in an enormous Basuto hat and blanket goes past, he pays them no mind. The road drops down more steeply, they are lowering again from the highest point in this range, the sun slides down behind the peaks.

  On the other side of exhaustion there is a state of weakness so acute that it ceases to matter where you are or what you are doing. This state comes down over him in the evening, he feels a lassitude like sleep, it is difficult to balance. He passes a horse in a field under a full moon. No other image from this journey is so rare and brilliant for him, the green of the grass like glossy plumage, the animal dreaming quietly in profile, the white circle up above like God. Surely now they must be there. But full night comes down, not a light anywhere, they go on.

  This is enough, he says to Reiner. Why don’t we stop.

  Here. Reiner looks around, even his drawn and fractured face is tempted, but he won’t give in. We must be so close, we’ve come so far already.

  At the base of the mountains the road flattens out, surely now, surely now, they walk without stopping because if they rested they would not get up, they pass a dam, birds fly up shrieking at their passage, the wild cries in the night are like the voice of the ground calling stop now stop, but they don’t stop, the landscape passing on either side is moving now of its own volition, it has nothing to do with their walking, far above the stars wheel imperceptibly in their cryptic patterns, the perfect circle of the moon rolls like a lost hoop and disappears, sometime towards midnight they come over a rise and ahead of them are the low flat shapes, the scattered sullen lights of the town. A dog begins to bark, another takes it up, on a wave of snarls and yelps they are buoyed through the streets, who are these wanderers come in out of the dark.

  There is a sign. They follow. Through the town and out the other side. The road drops down into a gorge and crosses a river, they come to a campsite at the bottom with bungalows spread out, all is in darkness. They ring a bell, someone comes, they are too tired to put up the tent so they take a room, they get into bed. We did it, Reiner says, we have succeeded, but he knows without thinking it that the thread has been stretched too far.

  They rest there for a couple of days. In the morning they move out of the bungalow and pitch their tent on the grass. There is a belt of trees and then the river, flowing brown as bee
r between the rocks.

  They hardly speak now. Both of them have been hit hard by the long hike, their feet are blistered, their muscles ache, there are raw patches that the rucksacks have worn down on their skin. But their responses to this experience are very different. Reiner seems rejuvenated, the point for him was to overcome his weakness and the point has been achieved, already he is planning the next stage of their journey. He announces that they can walk for perhaps a day on a good road, which goes up to a certain place. Between this place and the end of the second loop of the walk is a range of mountains with no road going through. If they alter their course, if they travel south a little way, they will come to a road that would take them directly to where they’re trying to go, but this is too easy, let’s walk across, Reiner says. Two days, three days, we’ll be there.

  I stare dully at the map.

  I would like to do more long hikes, Reiner says. Like this last one. What do you think. We build up, then we do a big walk, then we rest for a few days.

  He nods, he turns away, something inside him is finished. The tiredness of the long walk will not leave his body, a numbness has crept into his bones. He wanders around the campsite, trying to revive, he thinks about everything and resolves nothing, he washes his clothes in the river and drapes them over the rocks to dry. Then he sits in the sun, listening to the water, reading. In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. The words come to him from a long way off. He puts the book down and stares at peculiar long-legged insects on the surface of the river, they dart frantically back and forth, living out their whole lives in a space of one or two metres, they know nothing about him or his troubles, even now they’re unaware of him watching, their otherness to him is complete.