by Damon Galgut
Maybe it’s only the heat, or his headache, or the tiredness, but he finds himself suddenly, unexpectedly, sobbing. He tries to stop the tears, but they keep on coming. A huge emotion is welling up in him, unattached to the scene, he doesn’t know either of these people, after all, and they died a long time ago. But it seems unbearably sad that a life should come to rest here, on a sun-blasted hill above a foreign city, with the sea in the distance.
Caroline’s story from the beach is with him again, memory and words inseparable from each other. But it takes him a while to realize who he’s really weeping for. Lives leak into each other, the past lays claim to the present. And he feels it now, maybe for the first time, everything that went wrong, all the mess and anguish and disaster. Forgive me, my friend, I tried to hold on, but you fell, you fell.
The moment seems to drag out for hours, but it’s probably only a minute or two before he pulls himself together. He feels awful, but also relieved somehow, emptied out. By now the taxi driver is hooting impatiently outside. The day is wearing on and he has a bus to catch, a journey to complete. It’s time to go. He dries his eyes and picks up a tiny stone from the ground, one like millions of others all around, and slips it into his pocket as he walks towards the gate.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Stephen Watson, Tony Peake, Nigel Maister, Ben Williams, and Marion Hänsel. My especial gratitude to Philip Gourevitch and his fine team at the Paris Review, where these pieces first appeared.
The quote on page 46 comes from William Faulkner.
