Read Online In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Damon Galgut
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nothing. Hello I love you, the big voice shouts, echoing surreally down the gorge, I love you I love you hello.
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Asking and wandering, he finds his way back to Semonkong by evening. This is an achievement, heâs covered two daysâ journey in one, but maybe his route is more direct, and his pack is certainly lighter. The fat man John seems confused to see him again so soon, didnât you leave two days ago, and where is that other guy, the German. We had a fight in the mountains, we parted company. John allows him to camp for the night at half the usual cost, he is helpful but suspicious, maybe he murdered his companion in the hills. But in the morning he comes and suggests, you see that girl there, sheâs driving to Maseru today, maybe sheâll give you a lift.
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The girl is a woman of twenty four or five, an American working on some relief programme in Lesotho. She isnât happy to help, he can see from her expression, but she agrees, he will have to ride in the back with some of her co-workers and a pile of boxes she has to unload. Yes yes anything that will be fine. He climbs in with the others and listens to them bicker and squabble among themselves. They have been here too long with each other, he can hear a certain note in their voices, it is time for them to go home.
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Today he himself is feeling stunned and empty, he canât quite credit the rapid end to events, he keeps playing that scene of yesterday in his mind. He closes his ears to the conversation around him and looks out through the window at the countryside passing by. Itâs strange to be seeing in reverse the whole extended panorama of the long walk they did just days ago, here is the spot where we rested, thereâs the place where I saw the horse, thatâs where we joined up with the road.
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They come to Roma in the late morning. This is where the boxes have to be unloaded, he goes with the others to the compound where theyâre housed, he helps them carry the boxes and waits in the shade for them to finish their other business. He can tell that they find him odd and aloof, his silence is an eccentricity to them, but he canât engage in all the right social cues, he is alone.
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Itâs hours before they get going again, and then another hour or so to Maseru. She drops him at the outer edge of the city, she is heading off somewhere else and canât be bothered to run him further, but he is effusive in his thanks. Goodbye, goodbye. Then with his rucksack on his back he goes walking the length of the endless main street again.
Â
By the time he gets through the two border crossings it is late afternoon. Now suddenly he is thrown back on the physical realities of his situation, which are not comforting or good. At some point in the last day he has decided to go back north, up to Pretoria where his mother lives, because itâs closer and easier than Cape Town. But now that he is finally stranded at the roadside with the red sun going down ahead of him it makes no difference what his destination is. He has used up twenty rand on campsite and food, he has thirty rand with which to travel six hundred kilometres. And this is not the benevolent deserted landscape of Lesotho, this is a border crossing in South Africa, cars and vans continually pass him by, streams of people go up and down the road, he is a curious and isolated figure, vulnerable in his solitude. He half-expects to see Reiner there.
Â
He tries to hitch a ride but nobody will stop. There arenât many black people in cars and they barely glance at him anyway, but even the white families or couples or single women in jewels and tall hairstyles, come from Bloemfontein to the casinos for a wild night or two of gambling, glare at him with mistrust or contempt as they sail past with uptilted chins. Maybe he looks dirty or unkempt, he certainly doesnât look like them, a halo of danger rings him round. By the time
Â
Asking and wandering, he finds his way back to Semonkong by evening. This is an achievement, heâs covered two daysâ journey in one, but maybe his route is more direct, and his pack is certainly lighter. The fat man John seems confused to see him again so soon, didnât you leave two days ago, and where is that other guy, the German. We had a fight in the mountains, we parted company. John allows him to camp for the night at half the usual cost, he is helpful but suspicious, maybe he murdered his companion in the hills. But in the morning he comes and suggests, you see that girl there, sheâs driving to Maseru today, maybe sheâll give you a lift.
Â
The girl is a woman of twenty four or five, an American working on some relief programme in Lesotho. She isnât happy to help, he can see from her expression, but she agrees, he will have to ride in the back with some of her co-workers and a pile of boxes she has to unload. Yes yes anything that will be fine. He climbs in with the others and listens to them bicker and squabble among themselves. They have been here too long with each other, he can hear a certain note in their voices, it is time for them to go home.
Â
Today he himself is feeling stunned and empty, he canât quite credit the rapid end to events, he keeps playing that scene of yesterday in his mind. He closes his ears to the conversation around him and looks out through the window at the countryside passing by. Itâs strange to be seeing in reverse the whole extended panorama of the long walk they did just days ago, here is the spot where we rested, thereâs the place where I saw the horse, thatâs where we joined up with the road.
Â
They come to Roma in the late morning. This is where the boxes have to be unloaded, he goes with the others to the compound where theyâre housed, he helps them carry the boxes and waits in the shade for them to finish their other business. He can tell that they find him odd and aloof, his silence is an eccentricity to them, but he canât engage in all the right social cues, he is alone.
Â
Itâs hours before they get going again, and then another hour or so to Maseru. She drops him at the outer edge of the city, she is heading off somewhere else and canât be bothered to run him further, but he is effusive in his thanks. Goodbye, goodbye. Then with his rucksack on his back he goes walking the length of the endless main street again.
Â
By the time he gets through the two border crossings it is late afternoon. Now suddenly he is thrown back on the physical realities of his situation, which are not comforting or good. At some point in the last day he has decided to go back north, up to Pretoria where his mother lives, because itâs closer and easier than Cape Town. But now that he is finally stranded at the roadside with the red sun going down ahead of him it makes no difference what his destination is. He has used up twenty rand on campsite and food, he has thirty rand with which to travel six hundred kilometres. And this is not the benevolent deserted landscape of Lesotho, this is a border crossing in South Africa, cars and vans continually pass him by, streams of people go up and down the road, he is a curious and isolated figure, vulnerable in his solitude. He half-expects to see Reiner there.
Â
He tries to hitch a ride but nobody will stop. There arenât many black people in cars and they barely glance at him anyway, but even the white families or couples or single women in jewels and tall hairstyles, come from Bloemfontein to the casinos for a wild night or two of gambling, glare at him with mistrust or contempt as they sail past with uptilted chins. Maybe he looks dirty or unkempt, he certainly doesnât look like them, a halo of danger rings him round. By the time
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