In a Strange Room (11 page)

 

 

H
e's still knotted up when he and Charles set off the next morning. Charles is wearing shorts and sandals and a big straw hat on his head. He is a good-looking man in a loose, big boned sort of way, but if you study him closely you begin to see the signs of decay. His nails are dirty, he has nicotine stains on his teeth, around his eyes the lines are as deep and dark as old bruises. There is something in his spirit that resembles an overripe fruit, soft and pulpy at the centre. Just before they get to the border he pulls over in a cane-field and lights up a huge joint. To calm me down, he says, before I deal with these bastards.

 

It turns out he's smuggling twenty thousand dollars' worth of Afghan rugs under two oil drums in the back. These are destined, he tells me afterwards, for one or another official at the American embassy in Dar es Salaam, they are one of the reasons he's making this trip. Charles sweats and trembles like a junkie as they go across the border, but afterwards he affects a bored composure. No problem if they were found, he says breezily, a quick fifty dollars and they'll look the other way. I know these chaps, I speak the lingo.

 

When they arrive at Dar es Salaam in the evening he takes them to a vast house in one of the more exclusive suburbs, with a metal fence and a security guard outside. It's the residence of some high up official in the embassy, a plump middle-aged woman with glasses who comes out to meet them, smiling broadly.

 

She agrees to let them stay over, and he finds himself in a luxurious bedroom, drapes and thick carpets and a bathroom tiled to the ceiling. It's unreal to him, but not as unreal as dinner that night, which they have with the Romanian ambassador to Tanzania. For some bizarre reason there is a portrait of Lenin on the wall and the ambassador makes a sign of the cross in self-defence when he sees it. I am silent under the weight of this surreal situation, and glad to be alone in bed not long after. In the passage outside the door a radio crackles and burps all night, leaking American voices talking in code.

 

The next day they drive to Mbeya and put up in a hotel. Since leaving Kenya Charles hasn't called me anything, but that night, in the bar, I hear him saying, Noel, Noel, and when I look around Charles is speaking to me. Why he's fixed on this name it's hard to tell, but I feel too weary to correct him. By this time there is a high level of irritation between them and being called Noel is just part of the deal.

 

By the next day, when they enter Malawi, the irritation is teetering on the edge of argument. When they miss a turning somewhere Charles starts to berate him, you're supposed to be watching the road signs, Noel, and he has to force himself to stay silent. Later Charles expatiates on what lies beneath the Malawians' smiles, they're pretending to be innocent but they're a crafty lot, I've seen this before. Don't be fooled, Noel, I've got their number.

 

It's time to move on and the next morning, when they get to the lake, he says goodbye. Charles is alarmed, why don't you hang around for a while, he doesn't want to be left alone with the crafty Malawians. But the South African shakes his head, in two days he can be back at home, his mind wanders constantly northward, to Greece. Oh all right, Charles mutters defeatedly, go then. But write your address in my book, in case I ever come to Cape Town.

 

I hesitate with the book in hand, not knowing what to write. But after a moment I print my new name, Noel, and an old telephone number, I will never hear from Charles again.

 

From here the return journey goes swiftly, Noel jumps from one bus to another, only pausing to overnight in Blantyre. In another two days he is back in South Africa, in Pretoria. It has taken him six days to get back from Mombasa, half the length of the continent.

The whole way home he has thought of nothing but what it is he wants to do, he has been consumed by the desire to get to Greece. But now something happens to him. Back among familiar things again, the objects and faces that are the icons of his usual life, a kind of apathy comes over him. It's as if he's in shock. Did I really do that, he thinks to himself, did I really go chasing them all that way. And instead of rushing out in a continuation of his old momentum to book tickets and make plans, he finds himself sitting in the sun, brooding about what's happened. He feels even less sure than before about the meaning of it all.

 

By imperceptible degrees, then, he accepts the notion that the journey is over, and that he's back where he started. The story of Jerome is one he's lived through before, it is the story of what never happened, the story of travelling a long way while standing still.

 

 

I
n dreams he is constantly looking at maps, in which there are continents and countries, but they don't resemble the actual world. In these maps real countries are joined together in peculiar new configurations, Mexico at the top of Africa, next to Borneo. Or else countries have mythical names and shapes which evoke a longing in him. He has always been drawn by the strangeness of places, by what he doesn't know instead of what he does.

 

Four months later he goes to Europe. Spring has only just started and the streets of Amsterdam are cold as he walks and walks. He takes a bus to Brussels, he goes by train to Strasbourg. He visits a friend in the Black Forest for a while and then, on a bright morning with the first trace of warmth in the air, he takes a train south, to Switzerland.

 

He has written to say he's coming and from Germany, a few days before, he made a call. Jerome was not at home and when Alice came to the phone she sounded startled but happy. Yes, she said, please come to visit, we are waiting for you. But now, as the train slides and turns through the mountains, emerging at last into the bright open sky over the lake, he has a faint memory again of the fear that gripped him in Africa. He stands at the window, looking at the houses and little streets flashing past at the edge of the water, and feels doubt like a coldness in him.

 

He has to change trains and take a smaller local line along the lake. He climbs out on the fifth or sixth stop and descends the stairs into a stone square, from which narrow streets slope down towards the water. The lake is silvery-grey in colour, with hardly a crease on its surface, and on the other side, far away, mountains rise to sharp and jagged crests.

 

Now that he has waited so long and come so far, he is in no hurry to arrive. He sits on the shore for a long time, thinking. He would like this moment to suspend itself indefinitely, so that he need never stir himself again.

 

But as the afternoon goes on he takes up his pack and walks back along the lake, in the direction from which the train came. The path narrows and goes under trees, past jetties. There are swans gliding in the water, supported on their own reflections. After half an hour he comes to a little street running up away from the lake, and its name is the one written on that scrap of paper from Malawi.

 

The house is a largish one, set back from the corner, with a garden behind it. He knocks and after a while there are footsteps and the door opens. Hello, we have been waiting for you. Jerome's mother has short hair and a wide welcoming smile, come in, come in. She seems genuinely pleased to see him, she holds out her hand. My name is Catherine.

 

While they shake hands they look appraisingly at each other. He has no idea what she has been told about him or what she expects. Jerome has just come home, she tells him, it is a surprise. He was supposed to come only tomorrow. He will be so glad to see you. She calls to a young girl hovering nearby, go and find Jerome.

 

While they wait they go to sit on a stone veranda behind the house. In the garden there is a tree, a swing, and through a screen of leaves at the bottom, a view of the water. Alice comes out, smiling. There is the awkward happiness of hello, hello, how are you, looking at each other while they also look away.

 

When Jerome comes out he is wearing a blue military uniform and his hair is cut brutally short. They shake hands, smiling shyly, under the eyes of his mother and Alice. Ah hello yes excellent. Jerome, I'm glad to see you. The dialogue and the gestures are tinny and false, like some kind of bright paper wrapped around the meaning of the moment.

 

They all settle down uneasily around the outdoor table. The girl who was sent off to find Jerome is his younger sister. She is fourteen or fifteen with a chubby, cheerful face. An older sister arrives soon afterwards. Conversation flickers back and forth, returning continually to him, he can sense how curious they are about him. But at the same time he is also an observer, watching Jerome in this circle of women, while the light fades away.

 

Why don't you go for a walk, Catherine says. Before supper.

 

He goes with Jerome across the grass to a gate at the bottom of the garden. Through a narrow alley to the edge of the lake. They are alone again for the first time since that minute or two outside the wooden doors of the bank. But everything is different now. The artificial awkwardness of that first moment up at the house continues, they don't know what to say to each other.

 

So this is where you live.

 

Yes. Yes.

 

It's beautiful here.

 

Ah. Yes. I like.

 

Only once does the mask of tension crack briefly, when I ask him, is it hard to be back.

 

Yes. Yes. His mouth works to find the words. In my head I am travelling, travelling.

 

I know what you mean.

 

Jerome is doing a session of military service, he is only home for the weekend. While he's here they share his room, the visitor sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Although this section of the house is apart from the rest, a separate little flat on its own, they are never away from the rest of the family. It's pleasant to sit in the sun behind the house, talking with Catherine, or wander to the shops with Alice or one of the other sisters. Jerome is always kind and solicitous, he invites him wherever he goes and introduces him to his friends, and he lets himself be taken along on outings and play the part of a contented guest.

 

On the Sunday Jerome's father comes to visit. He has lived apart from them, at the other end of the lake, for some years now, and in the family his departure has left the lingering trace of a loss. So on this day, when they make a fire to cook in the yard, and knock a ball back and forth over a net, there is a feeling of completion and unity among them, to which I can only be a witness. He sits on the swing, pushing himself to and fro, watching as if from a great distance this scene that in Africa would be unimaginable to him.

 

He has come to like all of them, so when Jerome leaves again that night, going by train to some military base at the other end of the country, he is not alarmed at being left with his family. He spends a lot of time walking along the lake, he takes the train into town and wanders there too. He spends a day in a gallery of outsider art, paintings and sculptures made with the vision of the mad or the lost, and from this collection of fantastic and febrile images he retains a single line, a book title by a Serbian artist whose name I forget, He Has No House.

 

On the next weekend Jerome is back again, but if he was hoping that the gap of five days would change something between them, it doesn't happen. They are pleasant and polite with each other, but their interaction has something of the quality of a letter which Jerome sent him, the studied and careful presentation of words that have been translated and copied from a dictionary. It isn't only Jerome who makes things this way, he brings his own painful awkwardness to bear. He isn't himself, he is a guarded version of his own nature, nor does he recognize in the cropped hair and military terseness of the person whose room he shares the soft and gentle young man he travelled with four months ago.

 

There are hints, perhaps, that it might be possible to move past this state. Jerome makes some tentative conversation about plans he has for the future, how, when he's finished with this stint in the army, he would like to travel overland down to Greece. But this will only be in a couple of months from now. The possibility of another shared journey floats in the air, both of them consider it, but neither of them has the courage to say anything more.

 

He knows already that he must move on. On the night before Jerome gets back that next weekend, he takes a walk along the water. Mist is rolling in from the other side, smudging the outlines of the little boats at their moorings. When he comes to a jetty that projects a long way into the lake he walks out on the wooden planks to the end. From here there is no shore any more, no edge to anything he can see. He is adrift in the white mist, with the water slapping softly below, cold air rolling across his face. He leans on the railing and stares into the whiteness and thinks about everything that's happened.

 

When Jerome returns this time, he finds a moment to let him know, I will be going on Monday. To London. I can't stay here for ever. I'm sure your family must be getting tired of me.

 

No, no. Jerome is vehement in his protest. You can stay.

 

He shakes his head gently and smiles, I have to go, I can't keep standing still.

 

Later Jerome comes back to him again, bringing a friend who lives a few houses away. This friend speaks fluent English and has come along, he says, to translate.

 

Jerome says you must stay.

No, really. Tell him thank you. But I can't. Maybe I will come back.

 

When, Jerome says.

 

Later. When I've gone travelling for a while.

 

And it's true, he tells himself, maybe he will come back. There is always another time, next month, next year, when things will be different.

 

But after these flickers of feeling, that last weekend is much like the others. Jerome is friendly but distant, he makes no special effort to talk or be alone. At one point he says, we talk with Christian, yes, and picks up the phone. But the number just rings and rings. Jerome says, later, and puts it down again, but they never do try later.

 

On the Sunday evening when Alice drives her brother to the station, he goes along to say goodbye. Jerome is in uniform again, with all his buttons gleaming, his black shoes reflecting the light. He is proud of how he looks, although he pretends that he isn't. They all go into the bar together to wait. There are two friends of his there, also in uniform, with whom he'll be travelling, there are introductions and handshakes and murmured pleasantries all round.

 

You go tomorrow, Jerome says at last.

 

Yes.

 

But you come again later.

 

Maybe.

 

One of the friends says something and all of them stand up. Sorry. We must to go.

 

In the end they shake hands again, smiling formally, amongst all the artificial surfaces and military buttons shining like eyes. They have never been more distant, or polite. In the morning his actual departure will be an echo of this one. He has already left, or perhaps he never arrived.