Read Online In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Damon Galgut
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itâs dusk and the temperature is dropping, his despair is like another layer of clothes. There is nowhere to sleep, nowhere safe to pitch his tent, he would re-cross the border if this would help, but heâd be just as alone on the other side.
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At the point when it is almost completely dark a minibus taxi comes by, the driver shouting his destination out the window, Joâburg Joâburg. Johannesburg is close to Pretoria, he has friends he can stay with, itâs as good as home, yes please, he shouts, yes. The driver looks at him and stops. How much.
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Seventy rand.
Â
Iâve only got thirty.
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He shakes his head. I canât help you.
Â
Please.
Â
Sorry.
Â
He is starting to change gears to pull away when I say, will you take thirty rand and my watch.
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The driver looks at him again, who is this mad whitey, he holds out his hand. He slips off his watch and passes it through the window. He has a suspicion the man might just pull away, what could he do to stop it, but he examines the watch and shrugs, get in.
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The minibus is empty, but the driver, whose name is Paul, takes him a little way down the road to a big dead tree under which all the other passengers are waiting. He is the last one and the only white person amongst them. This is not like the taxis from the city that heâs used to, where everybody mixes and is convivial, he is the odd person out here, nobody speaks to him. But Paul takes a liking to him, come and sit up in the front, he says, the road rushes blue and violent towards them through rain all the way.
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At midnight he is climbing out onto a pavement in Hillbrow, the lights of the city like a heatless yellow fire around him. He shakes hands with Paul, who is driving straight back to Lesotho to pick up another load of passengers. He watches the minibus disappear, tail lights merging with all the other random moving lights, then the passengers disperse in various directions, among the crowds, lives joined together for a little while and then unjoined again.
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H e stays up in Pretoria for a few weeks. Only sometimes does he think of Reiner. Then he wonders where he is and what he might be doing. Somewhere in his mind he assumes that Reiner must have done what he did, walked hard and fast to get out of the mountains, and then travelled back down to Cape Town. The journey in Lesotho was one they were making together, he surely wouldnât want to continue alone.
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One day, on impulse, he phones various friends down in Cape Town. He wants to know whether theyâve seen Reiner, has he reappeared, has he passed through. No, nobody has seen him, nobodyâs heard a word. But what happened, his friends want to know, what went wrong. He tries to explain but all of it clots and curdles on his tongue. Till now he hasnât had pangs of real conscience but he feels them begin when he hears the incredulity in the voice of one of these friends, thatâs what you did, you walked away from him in the mountains. Yes thatâs what happened but you donât understand.
Â
Yes that is what happened. Now he feels exquisite agonies of unease, maybe the failure wasnât the mutual one heâs constructed in his head, maybe it belongs to himself alone. If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didnât do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.
Â
After about a month he goes back to Cape Town. He has no place of his own down there and must begin looking all over again. Meanwhile he stays with different friends, living in spare rooms once more, moving around. His attention has shifted from recent events to the problems of the present. He doesnât think of Reiner that often now. By this time he presumes he must be back in Germany, leading the life he was so secretive about,
Â
At the point when it is almost completely dark a minibus taxi comes by, the driver shouting his destination out the window, Joâburg Joâburg. Johannesburg is close to Pretoria, he has friends he can stay with, itâs as good as home, yes please, he shouts, yes. The driver looks at him and stops. How much.
Â
Seventy rand.
Â
Iâve only got thirty.
Â
He shakes his head. I canât help you.
Â
Please.
Â
Sorry.
Â
He is starting to change gears to pull away when I say, will you take thirty rand and my watch.
Â
The driver looks at him again, who is this mad whitey, he holds out his hand. He slips off his watch and passes it through the window. He has a suspicion the man might just pull away, what could he do to stop it, but he examines the watch and shrugs, get in.
Â
The minibus is empty, but the driver, whose name is Paul, takes him a little way down the road to a big dead tree under which all the other passengers are waiting. He is the last one and the only white person amongst them. This is not like the taxis from the city that heâs used to, where everybody mixes and is convivial, he is the odd person out here, nobody speaks to him. But Paul takes a liking to him, come and sit up in the front, he says, the road rushes blue and violent towards them through rain all the way.
Â
At midnight he is climbing out onto a pavement in Hillbrow, the lights of the city like a heatless yellow fire around him. He shakes hands with Paul, who is driving straight back to Lesotho to pick up another load of passengers. He watches the minibus disappear, tail lights merging with all the other random moving lights, then the passengers disperse in various directions, among the crowds, lives joined together for a little while and then unjoined again.
Â
Â
H e stays up in Pretoria for a few weeks. Only sometimes does he think of Reiner. Then he wonders where he is and what he might be doing. Somewhere in his mind he assumes that Reiner must have done what he did, walked hard and fast to get out of the mountains, and then travelled back down to Cape Town. The journey in Lesotho was one they were making together, he surely wouldnât want to continue alone.
Â
One day, on impulse, he phones various friends down in Cape Town. He wants to know whether theyâve seen Reiner, has he reappeared, has he passed through. No, nobody has seen him, nobodyâs heard a word. But what happened, his friends want to know, what went wrong. He tries to explain but all of it clots and curdles on his tongue. Till now he hasnât had pangs of real conscience but he feels them begin when he hears the incredulity in the voice of one of these friends, thatâs what you did, you walked away from him in the mountains. Yes thatâs what happened but you donât understand.
Â
Yes that is what happened. Now he feels exquisite agonies of unease, maybe the failure wasnât the mutual one heâs constructed in his head, maybe it belongs to himself alone. If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didnât do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.
Â
After about a month he goes back to Cape Town. He has no place of his own down there and must begin looking all over again. Meanwhile he stays with different friends, living in spare rooms once more, moving around. His attention has shifted from recent events to the problems of the present. He doesnât think of Reiner that often now. By this time he presumes he must be back in Germany, leading the life he was so secretive about,
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