In a Strange Room: Three Journeys Page 0,16

set off, striking out in a general direction, this must be the way. They have to climb out of the valley, over the mountains, the route goes up and up. These are the steepest slopes they’ve had to deal with, no road could ascend like this, they are scrabbling for a foothold much of the time, there are paths occasionally, which they follow, the paths take them to villages, yes even here in the precipitous wastes there are the congregations of round huts with the area of packed dry soil between them, the faces peering out in curiosity or amazement as they go by, people living out their whole lives in one small portion of the earth, oblivious to anything beyond. Memory is patchy and intermittent again, why are certain vistas, certain stretches of a path, so deeply impressed in recollection, so vividly evoked, and others disappear without a trace, I see the two of them at last climbing up a final slope to the bare crown of a hill, there are other villages on top, fields of maize, but off in the distance higher up there is the line of the road, a car perhaps passing like a toy on a track, we made it, look look, we’re here.

It takes another hour to reach the road. A deep fatigue has already settled in, they sit outside a house to rest. Cars pass from time to time, they could hitch a ride, but this would defeat the purpose, in a little while they go on. The sky today is flawless, a huge heat presses down. They come to a shop on the shoulder of a hill, now there is no longer the will or energy to continue, they sit on the concrete stoep outside, he passes out for a while, and they are only halfway there.

When they go on it’s along a rural country track that lifts out of this populous plateau, then they are on a high deserted heath with distances devoid of people, nothing moves except themselves, and then barely. They are very tired by now. The relentless uphill since the morning has depleted them, although they are gently descending now their muscles are strained to breaking point, there is no pleasure in this movement at all. Not even Reiner is happy. There are no signposts or settlements, the map can’t tell them where they are, I keep my eyes ahead, looking for Semonkong, we must almost be there, surely by now we must be there, but around every bend the road continues, unrolling ahead of them like fate. A man on a donkey in an enormous Basuto hat and blanket goes past, he pays them no mind. The road drops down more steeply, they are lowering again from the highest point in this range, the sun slides down behind the peaks.

On the other side of exhaustion there is a state of weakness so acute that it ceases to matter where you are or what you are doing. This state comes down over him in the evening, he feels a lassitude like sleep, it is difficult to balance. He passes a horse in a field under a full moon. No other image from this journey is so rare and brilliant for him, the green of the grass like glossy plumage, the animal dreaming quietly in profile, the white circle up above like God. Surely now they must be there. But full night comes down, not a light anywhere, they go on.

This is enough, he says to Reiner. Why don’t we stop.

Here. Reiner looks around, even his drawn and fractured face is tempted, but he won’t give in. We must be so close, we’ve come so far already.

At the base of the mountains the road flattens out, surely now, surely now, they walk without stopping because if they rested they would not get up, they pass a dam, birds fly up shrieking at their passage, the wild cries in the night are like the voice of the ground calling stop now stop, but they don’t stop, the landscape passing on either side is moving now of its own volition, it has nothing to do with their walking, far above the stars wheel imperceptibly in their cryptic patterns, the perfect circle of the moon rolls like a lost hoop and disappears, sometime towards midnight they come over a rise and ahead of them are the low flat shapes, the scattered sullen lights of the town. A dog begins to bark,