In a Strange Room: Three Journeys Page 0,11

the rhythms of walking no different to those of living, go bravely to extremes and everything will be provided. See, no need to put up the tent. I am less enthusiastic, are we really going to do this, sleep out in the open like a pair of tramps, he is spoiled and soft, he lacks the fatalism of his hard companion, and shepherds have shat in little piles around the cave. But as it gets darker and the world contracts to the size of the tiny overhang, it is more pleasant to be here, in the circle of firelight they’ve made with their hands.

In front of the cave the earth drops away into a vast valley, in the light the hugeness of this space was frightening but now it has become consoling, far far below are the tiny isolated fires of herdsmen, the distant sound of cowbells carries up in quavering echoes, when they have boiled water and eaten a sense of well-being descends, all the rifts and ruptures of the world knitted up and healed, hours of sleep ahead.

He spreads his sleeping bag and lies down on one side, staring out into the dark. After a moment Reiner comes over and crouches down behind him. They say nothing, the silence thickens into tension and then Reiner says, in one of your letters.

Yes.

You said you were looking forward to seeing me again.

Yes.

What did you mean by that.

He doesn’t know what he meant by that but he knows what Reiner means by this. He can’t help it, but all day on the road his mind has conjured images it doesn’t want, he keeps seeing that woman from last night, filled to the brim with such febrile desperation, he sees Reiner on top of her, bending her into plastic poses with his brown hands. What Reiner wants now would be no different than with the woman, a ritual performed without tenderness or warmth or sensual pleasure.

But the truth is also that there is an answering impulse of subservience in him, part of him wants to give in, I see shadows thrown up in grappling contortions on the roof of the cave.

I don’t know what I meant.

You don’t know what you meant.

I was looking forward to seeing you.

Nothing else.

Not that I can think of.

Reiner nods slowly. Neither of them is quite the person that by mutual agreement they have been till now, the rules will be different from tonight. He can smell the smoky sweat of the other man, or perhaps it is his own, not a bad smell, and then Reiner gets up and moves away to the far side of the cave to settle himself. They don’t speak again. The fire slowly subsides, the shadows fade, the sound of bells continues in the air.

They leave again before it’s light, the road still blue and indistinct. The sore places from yesterday ache with fresh intensity, but after half an hour of walking the pain has become dispersed and general. He hurts pleasantly all over. The sun comes up and on every side the mountains rise up out of the dark.

They are walking in a big circle that will end in a place close to the city again, from where they will begin a second and larger circle ending in almost the same place, from where they will begin a third. In this way they will traverse the country in three growing loops, the last of which will take them into the highest mountains of the Drakensberg, far off in the east. By then they hope to be fit and strong, more used to the hardships of this kind of travel, though he has his doubts. It is Reiner who has planned their journey this way, marking it out in coloured ink on his map.

They stop at a little roadside shop to buy food for the day. The tiny room is full of tins and boxes and packets, pasta and sweets and vegetables and soap. The packs are heavy and it seems sensible to get light things, some rolls maybe, some rice. But Reiner stalks around the dim interior of the shop, selecting heavy items from the shelves, he chooses tins, a bag of potatoes, bars of chocolate.

But why.

I feel like it.

Chocolate.

I like chocolate. I read an article about a man who lived for a year on chocolate and water.

It isn’t possible.

Reiner looks at him, smirking, of course it’s possible. In the days to come he will break off little pieces of chocolate