by Damon Galgut
‘So why?’
‘It was just a gesture, Frank, you know? A symbol. If you can do it in the furthest place, you can do it in the nearest one too.’
He’d done the same thing by coming to the hospital. It wasn’t enough for him to go where life or fate assigned him. No, he had to grandstand with some big display that meant nothing to anybody except him. Irritably, I told him, ‘Symbols have got nothing to do with medicine.’
‘Haven’t they?’
‘Where do you come from, Laurence? What country are you living in?’
He sat in injured silence for a while, looking at his cigarette. The curtains billowed on a cool gust of wind. ‘Anyway,’ he said at last.
‘Anyway.’
‘It was only an idea. And we don’t have to fight about it, because I couldn’t find the village in any case.’
‘I want to sleep now, Laurence. Come on. Enough.’
‘Okay,’ he said. He got quickly into bed. There was a long silence, full of sighing and breathing, then he said, ‘Sorry, Frank.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘I don’t want to upset you.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Because you’re my friend, Frank. I wouldn’t want anything to change between us.’
‘Nothing will change.’
‘Do you promise that, Frank?’
‘I promise that, Laurence. Good night.’
‘Good night, Frank. Good night.’
8
Nothing changed. That was the way of things up there. One day resembled another in the sameness of its intentions, the level graph of its ambitions; and I’d become used to it. I wanted to keep everything fixed and rooted in its place, for ever.
Not even the seasons changed much. We were too near the tropics for that. There was a dry season and a rainy season, but the temperature that ran through them both didn’t rise or fall too much on the chart.
When Laurence arrived we were in the middle of summer, the rainy season: in the afternoons there was a restless, electric sheen to the sky and thunderclouds clotted into a solid mass. When it stormed, the lightning was spectacular. Then often it cleared and in the evenings the flying ants swarmed. In the mornings the floor was full of their transparent wings. But now we had moved into winter, with its clear, brittle light. Certain trees in the forest were bare and on some mornings a thin frost lay on the ground.
None of this was different; the same things happened every year, all in their usual place. My life looked as it normally did. But somewhere deep down, underneath, it wasn’t the same.
One night when I was visiting Maria, just as we’d settled down on the blanket together, I felt my sexual desire – which was almost habit by now – give way to something else: another feeling completely, subversive because it was strange.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
My hands had fallen away from her, I was looking at her in the dark.
‘Let’s not do this tonight,’ I said. ‘Let’s do something different. Let’s talk.’
‘Talk?’
‘Why don’t you tell me something.’
She sat up, pulling her dress straight, staring at me.
‘Tell you something what?’
‘I want you to tell me everything about your life.’
‘I told you this everything.’
‘No, but I mean really. I mean everything. I want to know where you were born. I want to know about your mother and father. Your brothers and sisters. I want to know what you thought about when you were growing up. I want to know how you got married. About your husband. Everything.’
‘I told you this!’ Alarm disguised itself as indignation, as if I was accusing her of something.
I went on, as if this thought was a continuation – and for me it was: ‘Maria. If you want to, we can stop this. You know that? If you want me to go and never come back, you can say that to me.’
‘You want finish this?’
‘No. No. But if you want to, I will do what you want.’
But she shook her head. ‘I don’t want this talking,’ she said, and rolled over on to me. She’d heard, perhaps, a false note in my voice, and her hands moved me back into the old, true tracks of habit. And nothing was different after all.
One day, while we were playing table tennis in the recreation room, Laurence said to me, ‘Listen, Frank. When you have people up here to visit, where do they stay?’
‘Nobody comes to visit me.’
‘Never?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ The plastic ball bounced off the table and rolled.
‘Who’s coming to visit you, Laurence?’
‘Zanele. My girlfriend. You know, from Lesotho.’
He hadn’t mentioned her for months. Every week or so, the letters on fine coloured paper came and went between them, but nothing more than that. The little shrine of photographs above his bed was gathering dust. There were none of the breathless phone calls, the urgent longings, that I remembered from when I was young. I’d begun to doubt her existence.
But now she was coming up for a weekend. She hadn’t been able to come before now, he told me, because of her commitments in Lesotho.
‘There must be a hotel or something.’
I shook my head. ‘There was Mama Mthembu’s place, but she closed down that side of it. No business.’
‘Maybe she’d let out a room as a favour.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’ll get out of our room if you need it.’
‘No, no, that’s not right. But it would be great if you asked Mrs Mthembu. She likes you.’
That night, on my way to visit Maria, I stopped in at Mama’s to find out. I didn’t think she would help, but an odd coincidence was at work. Standing around the bar were two or three men I’d never seen before, strangers in town. They were in civilian clothes, but their haircuts and their bearing looked military to me. And yes, Mama said, they were part of a group of soldiers who’d been sent up here, who were being billeted in her hotel. The old rooms were being cleaned out and made ready. Good for business, she said, smiling broadly.
‘Soldiers? But what for?’
She leaned towards me confidingly. ‘I think they are a border patrol. To keep foreigners out.’
‘How many of them?’
‘I’m not sure. Five, six. So far there are only three. But more are coming soon.’
And even this was part of the different feeling in the town. All the old rules bending, solid objects rolling out of place.
‘So is there any chance that you will have an extra room for the weekend? There is a woman coming up who needs a place to stay.’
‘Hmm. Maybe. But you must check with me on Thursday. You have a little girlfriend?’
‘Not mine. She’s visiting Laurence Waters. He’s the young man who sometimes —’
‘Yes, I know Laurence. He is my friend.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
She had never learned my name, but Laurence was her friend. And still he sent me down to talk to her about a room, as if I had some special influence.
In two days the whole place was full of news of the soldiers. Different rumours flew around. But it seemed that they had been sent to plug up this stretch of the border, which was notoriously porous. Not just people, but all kinds of other illegal and dangerous goods were going back and forth: arms and ammunition, drugs, poached ivory. The name most consistently mentioned in connection with this traffic was that of the Brigadier, but all of it was gossip and innuendo, no hard facts. Now of course speculation was rife as to how the soldiers would deal with him.
‘He will work with them, of course, yes,’ Claudia said gloomily at the breakfast table. ‘It is only corruption, corruption.’
‘No,’ Jorge said. ‘They will arrest him, they will take him away. It is obvious.’
Variations on these two points of view were repeated by everybody, from the kitchen staff to the casual patrons at Mama’s place.
&nbs
p; ‘What do you think?’ Laurence said. The presence of the Brigadier had impressed itself on his psyche often enough to finally register there.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Let’s wait and see.’
The truth was that I wasn’t sure about any of the rumours surrounding the Brigadier. He was such a mythical figure by now that any scraps of idle talk stuck to him like facts. It was possible that he was just a lost and burnt-out piece of the past, not really here at all.
Not all of the speculation had to do with him. There was a sense that the arrival of the soldiers somehow marked a fresh life for the town. Rooms that were sealed up and empty were going to be occupied. Who knew what else might follow? Maybe shops would open, people would come, something at long last might happen.
But I couldn’t see it. There were only three soldiers around the bar that first day; Mama had told me there might be three more. Six soldiers weren’t going to make any difference to anything, but I didn’t speculate about this either.
I went back on Thursday. Another four soldiers had arrived, and they were still awaiting the commander of the unit. But there would be a place for Laurence’s girlfriend, Mama told me.
He was delighted. ‘Thank you for organizing that, Frank.’ He seemed to think that the room wouldn’t have been available without me.
‘What would you have done if there wasn’t a place?’
He considered this soberly. ‘Put off the visit, I guess.’
‘You could’ve just shared your bed while I was here.’
‘Oh, no. That wouldn’t be right.’
He went down to Mama Mthembu’s to see the room for himself. It was noisy, he told me, just above the courtyard, but fine. He put a vase of flowers, which he’d picked in the veld himself, on the table, as well as a framed photo of him and his girlfriend in the Sudan.
But his mood, late on that Thursday night, was melancholic and troubled. He seemed preoccupied with private thoughts.
‘When did you last have a lover, Frank?’ he asked me.
‘Not since my marriage. Why are you asking? Are you worried about your girlfriend?’
‘Well. You know. It’s been a while since we saw each other. The last time was about a month before I came up here. I went to Lesotho to stay with her for a week.’
‘And how was it?’
‘Oh, that was wonderful. Great. Yes, we had a wonderful time.’ But he spoke too forcefully, and avoided my eyes.
‘You’ll just have to see how it goes.’
‘I was thinking of having a little party for her. Tomorrow night. Nothing too elaborate, just the people who work here. Would you come?’
‘Me? Sure. Of course.’
It seemed a bizarre notion to me.
‘Okay,’ he said, his face warming a little. ‘Say seven o’clock. That would be good, Frank. Thank you.’
I wouldn’t have been able to avoid the party, because it happened in our room. When I got back from duty the gathering was already in full swing. I stood in the doorway, staring. It was an amazing picture. Everybody had come. Even Themba and Julius from the kitchen. Even Tehogo – who was there with the young man I’d seen hanging around, apparently his only friend. It was just Claudia, who’d taken over from me in the office, who wasn’t there.
Nobody noticed me at first. Laurence had borrowed a music system from somewhere and a slightly stretched tape was playing too loudly. He’d filled several hospital bowls with peanuts and stale crisps, and bought a few litres of cheap boxed wine. Some kind of coloured plastic was tied around the light and in the lurid yellow glow people were sitting around and talking with uneasy jollity.
‘Frank! Where were you? I thought you’d run away!’ Laurence was very tense. He had a sort of desperate brightness as he came to get me at the door. ‘Come and meet Zanele, I’ve been wanting to introduce you.’
I’d already noticed her from the doorway, standing rigidly in a corner, holding a glass of wine. She was small and pretty, with braided hair, wearing a bright West African dress; when she shook my hand I could feel the tension communicated through her long, thin fingers.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said, ‘yes, Frank, yes.’
The American accent, in this room of flat vowels, was startling. And it was a shock to realize, after all the occasions when she’d been mentioned, that she wasn’t African. I didn’t know what to say and after an awkward moment I moved away. I’d seen Dr Ngema when I came in, perched unhappily on the edge of my bed, sipping from her glass and sneaking glances at her watch, and I went to sit next to her now; she turned to me with relief.
The first thing she said was, ‘Frank, I’ve got to go in a moment.’
‘Oh. All right.’
‘I’ve got lots of work to do. But it’s a lovely party, lovely.’
She said it with such insincere emphasis that I realized she thought I’d organized it.
‘This is Laurence’s party,’ I said. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Yes, yes. We should have little get-togethers more often. It’s good for... for morale. Which reminds me, Frank. I wanted to ask you. In connection with your idea.’
‘What idea?’
‘Well, you know. The project. The outreach thing.’ She dropped her voice in a secretive way. ‘Laurence has talked to me. But I want to know: how did you know where to go?’
‘What? I’m not with you, Ruth.’
‘I mean, why that particular community? I didn’t know you were interested in community work, Frank. You kept that very quiet.’
I stared at her, my head whirring. But the beginning of comprehension had started. I said, ‘Did he tell you...’
‘Shh. Shh.’ She hissed it urgently at me. I broke off as Laurence came up to ask if we wanted more wine. ‘No, thanks,’ she said to him, ‘I have to go in a moment.’
‘So soon?’
‘Work, work.’ When he’d gone she turned quickly back to me. ‘This isn’t the moment to talk about it, Frank. But come and speak to me, all right? I’ve got some views on it.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m not sure about the idea, Frank, to be honest. I don’t think it’ll work... I like change and innovation, you know that. But it’s how you change. Or in this case, when. That’s what matters. But here he comes, so shh. But talk to me soon, all right?’ She drained her glass and set it down on the floor. ‘Now I’d better go. Work, work. The office is calling me. But it’s been a lovely party, Frank. Thank you so much.’
‘It isn’t my party,’ I said again, but she was already on her way to the door.
Laurence hurried up with a glass of wine for me; he sat down on the bed. ‘Did she have a good time? Dr Ngema? She didn’t stay long.’
‘Laurence, she said something I don’t understand.’
‘What?’ He looked around at the awkward cheeriness in the room, which felt, like the tape, slightly stretched. ‘Is this music all right, do you think?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Are you sure? And the party? Is everyone having a good time? Is it okay?’
‘It’s okay, Laurence.’ But when I looked around, the peculiarity of the scene struck me again: Zanele talking to Jorge in the corner, Tehogo on the bed opposite me, an arm draped around the shoulder of his friend, and, in a space near the bathroom door, Themba and Julius dancing together. I almost didn’t know where I was.
‘Really? I wanted to do something to make Zanele feel, you know, welcome.’
‘She looks happy.’
‘Does she? But she always looks like that. She’s a happy person.’
She did look a little more relaxed, nodding as she listened to Jorge. It was from Laurence, staring across at her with his wide, alarmed eyes, that the unhappiness seemed to come.
‘You didn’t tell me she’s American.’
‘Didn’t I? Where did you think she came from?’
‘The Sudan, obviously.’
‘Sudan?’ he said, amazed. ‘No, no, she’s from the States. I wanted to ask you,’ he
went on, in an offhand way, ‘if you could do me a little favour.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Do you think you could hang out with her for a couple of hours tomorrow night? I’m on duty, I don’t want her to be alone.’
‘Um, yes, sure, I could do that. But if you speak to Dr Ngema, she could change your shift.’
‘No, no, it’s okay.’
‘But she’s come up here to see you. Don’t you want to —’
‘No, no, my shift is a commitment. I don’t want to change it.’
In the past few weeks Dr Ngema had taken to giving Laurence shifts of duty on his own. He was absurdly proud of this change in status. But in truth he was only manning the office as a front; if any serious case came in, he had to call one of us. Nothing would be easier than for him to change his shift.
‘She doesn’t want me to change it, anyway,’ he said.
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Zanele. Work comes first for both of us. And I’ll see her on Sunday. Thanks for this, Frank. I appreciate it.’
Maybe Laurence’s desperation had infected me, but I found myself getting very drunk very quickly. I downed glass after glass of wine, till at some point in the evening the merriment around me felt suddenly genuine. And I was part of it.
The configuration of bodies in the room had changed now. Themba and Julius were sitting on my bed. Claudia had somehow appeared while Jorge had gone, and she was locked in earnest conversation with Zanele and Laurence on the floor. I was sitting on the other bed, between Tehogo and his friend.
Tehogo’s friend was called Raymond and his name felt comfortably familiar to me, so I must have been sitting there for a while. I’d seen him around often before, but we’d never exchanged more than a few terse words. He was young and almost girlishly pretty, with a smooth plastic skin and a charming smile. He had the same slick sense of style as Tehogo, so that with their short hair and gold jewellery and trendy city clothes neither of them seemed to belong here. The friendliness between the three of us also felt misplaced, unreal. Tehogo and I had hardly done more than grunt at each other, but there was a free flow of conversation tonight, which seemed to have risen up from nowhere. And we were sitting close to each other, so close that our shared body warmth was too hot, and Raymond had one elbow resting on my shoulder. Both of them were wearing their dark glasses, even in the under-lit room, giving a curious impression of blindness.
