The Eternal Audience of One

by Rémy Ngamije

  “I agree,” she says.

  This is how diaspora happens.

  Things are hard.

  We cannot go back.

  It has been agreed.

  His mother asks his father something he cannot hear. His father says, “Ejo. It is all arranged.”

  In the bright morning of a nameless day in June of a year of infamy Séraphin has his first airplane ride aboard Air Zaïre and it is not much to recall besides being given a battered green cup with cheap tasteless grape juice by a dark air hostess with bright red lips. Yves is airsick most of the flight. Séraphin sees his mother and his father whispering to each other but he cannot hear what they are saying.

  “Tugiye hehe, Mamma?” Séraphin asks. Where are we going?

  “Kure, Séraphin,” his mother replies.

  Far away.

  Going away is something of a pastime with Séraphin, whose bus tickets schedule him to leave in the middle of January. The days sense his enthusiasm to leave and kick themselves into a time lapse of clouds, congregating like smokers catching a drag at work and scattering. The house in Windhoek-West has Guillome waking up and dressing in stop motion, eating his breakfast, and kissing his wife before he exits the door; Yves and Éric wake up and rifle through kitchen cupboards, pouring cereal into bowls, chewing at chipmunk speed before they spread around the house. The last to wake up in these fast-forwarded days is Séraphin, who crawls out of bed around ten or eleven o’clock and spends the day reading, scrolling through cellphone messages, occasionally being berated by Therése for some task he has forgotten to attend to. In the afternoon Yves and Eric return from their university campus complaining about long registration queues, timetabling issues, and campus bookstores low on textbooks even before the academic year has began. They whisk themselves off to their rooms and then, later, in the evening, Guillome returns home. Therése makes supper and arranges it carefully on the table. Hands pick at the food quickly so that dishes are halved in seconds. Plates are stacked and cleaned and then, like clockwork, Séraphin changes his clothes and says he is leaving the house. Questions of his whereabouts are asked, evasive answers are given. Séraphin takes taxis past traffic lights which wink red, green, and orange, impeding or accelerating his progress to Jasmyn’s house. The cellphone message, an opening gate, swift walk to her flat, juice poured in a glass or tea in a cup, the television turned on and channels flicked through, before the programme is discarded for the more pleasurable act of rediscovering the heat of vigorous physiques which bead with sweat, twine and untwine as the night passes on and the Milky Way adjusts its position in the sky. Around four in the morning Séraphin wakes up, dresses, and heads back across town, and enters his house, shoulders slumped from fatigue, and passes out in the softness of his pillow. The next day the sun rises and the scenes that have just played repeat themselves until the evening before Séraphin’s departure for Cape Town arrives. Lying in the afterglow of their exertion, Jasmyn and Séraphin look up at the rotating ceiling fan which attempts to cool the heated room. The sheets cling to their bodies and it is a while before their breathing slows down from a sprint to a walk capable of allowing conversation to be had.

  “How was work?” Séraphin asks.

  “Do you really want to know or are you just asking?” Jasmyn rolls onto her side and runs a digit down a vein on Séraphin’s left arm.

  “Just asking.”

  “If you’re just asking, then it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “Right.”

  “Because if you really wanted to know, that’d mean we’d be in a relationship.”

  “What?”

  “That’s how it works, isn’t it? If you hang out with a girl when she’s on her period, talk about how the day was, and watch a whole film with her, then you’re in a relationship with her. You were straying dangerously close to the second one there, Séra.” Jasmyn inches closer and rests her head on his chest.

  “Right.”

  Her fingers trace an arc around his belly button, forcing the ticklish flesh underneath to contract into six separate topographies. “I’m going to miss this,” she says.

  “Me too.”

  “Looking forward to Cape Town?”

  “Yeah. I hope it all works out in the end.”

  “Things don’t work out, you know. Only the things you work on do.”

  Séraphin digested the words in his mind before droning out a “Hmm.”

  “Like your useless sex game way back when.”

  “What?”

  “You were useless. But now,” Jasmyn’s hand made its way down to a place which responded to her gentle touch, “now you can make someone confuse technique with love.” The movement of her hand causes his breathing pattern to change its rhythm, to quicken. She looked at him with a grin on her face.

  “I—” his words stall for a bit as Jasmyn presses an ignition switch that starts his internal engines going again “—might’ve had some, err, instruction.”

  Jasmyn laughs. “Instruction, huh? Is that what we’re going to call hoe-ing around at university?”

  “It’s only hoe-ing if people get hurt.”

  “And you haven’t hurt anyone with this?” She squeezes just a little, making Séraphin shift a bit. Jasmyn giggles, watching him take pleasure in her stroking. Then, without warning, she stops what she is doing.

  “Tease,” says Séraphin, opening his eyes and sitting up.

  Jasmyn gets up and sits on his lap. “It’s been fun while it lasted,” she says.

  “It has.”

  “I wish it could’ve gone on longer. But you’re leaving and we both know we can’t pretend like there aren’t other people in the world. It’s better we leave it like this when everything’s still fun. Before we’re bored and asking each other what we’re thinking all the time.”

  “Who says I would get bored?”

  “I can tell with you. You get bored with things. With people. When they hold your interest they’re the best things in the world. But when they don’t anymore you put them down, without warning, and they’re confused. You probably have a long list of people you’re punishing with your absence.” Séraphin and Jasmyn look at each other for a while.

  “That was the most piercing pillow talk in the history of the world,” he says. “How much do you charge for your services?”

  She reaches over to a bedside drawer, opening it and pulling out a condom. She slips it on him and then lowers herself onto him, her breasts fleetingly rubbing up against his face.

  “I charge by the hour,” she says softly as she wraps an arm around his neck, working her navel from side to side and then back to front.

  “You won’t make a living then,” said Séraphin. “Because I won’t last that long.”

  “I know. You’re useless like that.”

  “Is that so?”

  He reaches around her with his right arm and pulls her close. Then he grabs a fistful of hair, pulling on it so that she arches her back. His left hand steadies him as he synchronises with her rhythm.

  “Okay,” she says, breath coming quickly. “Not so useless.”

  “Thought so.”

  The bus ride from Windhoek to Cape Town is infinitely more optimistic than the one that travels in the reverse direction, even though the weak air-conditioning is the same and the Christian programme on the TV screen remains a viable recruitment for other religions. What makes it different this time, though, is the collected hopes of parents wishing their university-going children well. New students on their maiden commute arrive early and cluster around the back of the bus, hoisting their suitcases to the porter, who tosses them into the vehicle’s battered trailer. The veterans of the eighteen-hour commute know better. They wait for the newbies to offer up their baggage before handing theirs over. Upon arrival, theirs will be the first to be unloaded. Séraphin has mastered all of the nuances of boarding, so his suitcase will probably be the fifth to be removed from the luggage trailer, allowing him to hail a taxi at the Ca
pe Town bus station quickly. He has also saved the goodbyes for last, choosing instead to go straight to the stewardess to find his seat number and climbing aboard the double-decker coach, happy to discover he has an east-facing window seat. East-facing seats are not roasted by the sun on the southward journey. Only then does he alight from the coach to bid farewell to his parents and brothers.

  Therése is standing next to Guillome, her right arm looped through his left. “You must study hard. No distractions this year, okay?” she says.

  “What distractions?” Séraphin asks innocently.

  “Drinking, drugs—” Therése begins.

  “—dames, damsels, and demoiselles,” Yves interrupts.

  “Chicks, birds, lasses, concubines, maidens—” Séraphin continues.

  “Séraphin!”

  “Wenches!” the two brothers say in unison.

  “Yves!”

  “Excuse the language, dearest mother. We meant the fairer and gentler sex,” Séraphin says sincerely.

  “Although,” Yves says, reaching towards Séraphin’s T-shirt collar and exposing a bruise dark enough to show against his skin, “sometimes there’s evidence to the contrary.”

  “Enough!” Therése’s voice signals the limit of acceptable family conversation has been reached. “Gui, these boys are trouble.” Guillome smiles into the distance.

  Éric says, “Ladies.”

  Séraphin and Yves turn to him and look at each other. “Always late, bro,” says Séraphin, shaking his head. “Always late.”

  Guillome moves to embrace his son and a cumbrous hug transpires between the two, the father squeezing firmly, and the son tapping gently on his father’s shoulder. Therése pulls him towards her fiercely. She clings onto him for a few seconds before letting go with one last admonition to study hard and focus. Séraphin and Yves’s hands clap together as they pull each closer so that their shoulders bump together. “Check you, bro,” says Yves.

  “Check you,” says Séraphin. As they move apart their hands remain clasped and each raises an index finger to point at the other. “And, remember – it’s all you!”

  “No, it’s all you,” replies Yves, they rotate wrists rotate so that their fingers are pointing at their owners.

  “It’s all you!” they say together.

  Séraphin turns to Éric and offers his hand. Éric takes it and, smiling wanly at his older brother, shakes it. Séraphin wishes him all the best for the year, then breaks the contact, closing the departure ceremony. “Let me go and get my seat,” he says.

  “Bon chance,” says Guillome.

  “Thanks.”

  “En français, Séraphin,” Therése says. Her voice trembles with an emotion that always made Séraphin a little heartsore.

  “Oui, Maman,” he replies.

  “Your French sucks,” says Yves.

  “Yours swallows,” Séraphin retorts.

  “Okay! Go, Séraphin,” says Guillome.

  Séraphin smiles at his family, walks to the bus and boards. In the aisle seat in his row he finds a dainty girl sitting there. She has a sun-freckled face and sandy hair tied in a loose ponytail. She tries to make herself thin so he can squeeze into his seat. He pulls his black iPod out of his pocket and unwinds the earphones wrapped around it, plugging them into his ear.

  “Wow, you don’t see those anymore,” says the freckled girl, gesturing at his music player.

  “Guess that’s why they call it a classic.” He scrolls through his music library and settles on his usual aural companion for the Cape Town trip: The Last Ticket Out of Town. Dexter Freebish’s “Leaving Town” starts with its familiar chords.

  “I’m Annika.”

  Séraphin shakes the proffered hand. “Séraphin,” he says.

  “As in ‘seraphinic angel’?”

  “Don’t ask, because I don’t know the story.”

  “It’s a nice name.” Annika smiles at him.

  “Thanks.”

  “Where’s it from?”

  “It’s French,” says Séraphin. “But I’m from Rwanda.”

  “I know some Rwandans.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Séraphin says distractedly.

  They fall silent as the last of the passengers take their seats and the bus hums into life. The stewardess walks through the top level, counting heads to make sure her passenger manifest is complete. Slowly, the bus pulls away from the stop. Séraphin cranes his neck to see if his family is still perched on the pavement but he can’t see them. As the bus approaches a stop street a throaty honk demands his attention. His father’s Jetta has pulls up next to the bus and his mother leans across his father, waving energetically. His father tosses him a wave. Yves, in the seat behind his father, shakes his head as they make eye contact. Séraphin flashes him a grin. Then the bus strains forward and the Jetta angles off to the left towards home.

  “Are you going down to Cape Town too?” Annika rolls her ponytail through her hands.

  “Yep.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Remms. You?”

  “UCT.”

  “Then you’ll transfer to a real university after that, of course.” The look of distress clouding Annika’s face quickly makes him say, “Just joking. You’ll hear a lot of quips like that. You must be a first-year.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “You haven’t learned the art of the comeback.”

  “Okay. What year are you in?”

  “Seventh.”

  “Oh. Medicine?”

  “My parents wish. Postgrad law. What’re you studying?

  “Psych and sociology.”

  “Cool.”

  As the bus pulled out of the city centre, angling southward towards the Rehoboth Road, Séraphin turned his attention back to his iPod. Before he could resume his playlist Annika asked him what high school he had attended. “St. Luke’s,” said Séraphin.

  “Really? Me too. When did you finish?”

  “A long while back. Maybe you know my brother. He’d be about your age. Éric.”

  Annika said, “Éric Uwituze?”

  “Ah, you know him, then.”

  “Yes. He’s my ex-boyfriend.”

  Séraphin turned to Annika and pulled the other earphone out of his ear. “He is your what?” Annika laughed. “Of course you dated him under duress.”

  “He was a nice guy. A troublemaker, but generally a nice guy.”

  “Damn. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

  “Why?”

  “Éric is,” Séraphin said, “Éric.”

  “He’s cool. Éric never mentioned you, though. But I did meet Yves once.”

  “Uh-huh” Séraphin said. “Still, you need some sort of medal for dating Éric. Like a Purple Heart.”

  “He isn’t so bad.”

  “Clearly.”

  The conversation petered out as the bus escaped the city proper and picked up speed steering south. The landscape, green from the recent rains, stretched to the left and to the right. Séraphin plugged his earphones back into his ear and pressed play.

  The rest of the bus ride passed quickly. In fact, it did not. But the inviting destination made it seem so in the way that pleasant and satisfactory conclusions make light memory of the ordeals suffered to reach them. Séraphin slept most of the way through the Namibian south. When the stewardess announced their impending arrival at the Noordoewer Border Post he pulled his cellphone from his pocket and sent Yves a message.

  Sans_Seraph—YvesSaint: Nearly at the border post.

  YvesSaint: Hope the admin goes well.

  Sans_Seraph: It’s usually quicker when you’re leaving the country. By the way, dude, Éric had a girlfriend. I’m sitting next to her.

  YvesSaint: Annika. She seemed nice enough when I met her.

  Sans_Seraph: How did I not know this?

  YvesSaint: You’re never here, dude. And you don’t talk to Éric.

  Sans_Seraph: Dude’s just weird.

  YvesSaint: Dude’s a
lso your brother.

  Sans_Seraph: Verdict’s still out on that.

  YvesSaint: Goodnight, Séraphin.

  He was about to put away his cellphone but then decided to compose another message.

  Sans_Seraph—Wolff_Jazz: Are you up?

  Wolff_Jazz: Don’t send me booty call messages if you aren’t going to follow through.

  Sans_Seraph: Hahaha. Sorry, not sorry.

  Wolff_Jazz: Asshole. Where’re you?

  Sans_Seraph: Nearing the border.

  Wolff_Jazz: Cool. What’re you listening to?

  Sans_Seraph: New playlist I made recently.

  Wolff_Jazz: Don’t be coy now. What is its name?

  Sans_Seraph: Crossroads of Hello And Goodbye.

  Wolff_Jazz: Sounds deep.

  Sans_Seraph: It is.

  Wolff_Jazz: Don’t drown in it.

  Sans_Seraph: Too late.

  Wolff_Jazz: Well, safe trip. Work in the morning. First full night’s sleep in a long time.

  Sans_Seraph: Yeah. Gonna miss that taxi ride of shame.

  Wolff_Jazz: Goodnight, boy.

  Séraphin closed the chat.

  “You seem happy,” Annika said.

  “I am. I like this part of the trip,” Séraphin said. “We’re heading off to Cape Town.”

  “The land of MILFs and honeys,” said a Séraphin leaning over the back of the seat in front of them.

  “The start of a start.” A second Séraphin popped up next to the first.

  “Or the end of an end,” said a third. He sat in the opposite row.

  “Your negativity sucks, bro,” said the first.

  “So excited for what comes next,” said the second.

  “And what might not,” replied the third.

  “Again with the negativity. You gotta quit that shit, man.”

  “I hope I like it,” Annika said.

  “You’re gonna like it,” said Séraphin. “You will. Trust me.”

  Part 2

  The High Lords of Empireland

  Utazi nyakatsi ayinnya ho

  He who does not know the good grass will shit on it

  Rwandan proverb

  XIII

  Séraphin had a walk. Everyone has a walk, but not everyone has a walk. That one-two, three-four signature movement that sets them apart from everyone else on the planet, as distinct as a fingerprint. Séraphin, though, had a walk: languid but accentuated with purpose by his broad shoulders and chest, eyes cast forward, a slight frown on his forehead on some days, and a distracted smile on his lips on others. People made way for him as though he was a swaggering sage with some secret nirvana reached inside.