In a Strange Room: Three Journeys Page 0,21

is a bitter farewell.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Or maybe there are no goodbyes, nothing spoken, yes it is more likely that way, the last glance passes between them and they turn their backs on each other. He starts to walk in a direction he hopes, judging by the sun and his instinct, is east. When he comes to the top of the ridge he looks back and Reiner has gathered all the objects and bits and pieces together and is going in the other direction, west. So they walk away from each other in the high mountains one morning, watched by the children in the grass.

In half an hour he starts to feel regret. He acted passionately, he didn’t think, it wasn’t fair to abandon somebody like that. But immediately answering voices clamour, what else should you have done, he deserved to be abandoned. He stops and sits and thinks, holding his head in his hands. He tries to consider his options. But what point is there, even if he tries to catch up with Reiner there is no way of knowing where he is in these mountains, and if he does find him how likely is it that this fight can be resolved. He knows in his bones that Reiner does not forgive.

So he shoulders his pack and goes on, walking faster and more lightly now than he has in days. He continues to head east, trying to get back to Semonkong. Whenever he comes to a settlement of any kind, a shop or a village, he stops and asks, and there is invariably somebody who knows the way. At one place a serene young man in blue overalls insists on coming along to be his guide, walking for miles next to him, not talking, just smiling shyly whenever he is asked something. He leads him to the mouth of a ravine that cuts down through the mountains. There is a footpath descending and he points, this way Semonkong, smiling and bobbing his head.

There is no money to give him, only the fifty rand note, but the young man doesn’t seem to expect payment, he accepts a handshake happily and watches the strange traveller depart. The walls of rock mount up on either side, the ravine seems empty of people, but a little way on a shepherd, invisible high up above somewhere, starts calling to him, the same phrases he’s heard before, learned by rote at school, hello hello how are you. He looks but can see nothing. Hello I love you, the big voice shouts, echoing surreally down the gorge, I love you I love you hello.

Asking and wandering, he finds his way back to Semonkong by evening. This is an achievement, he’s covered two days’ journey in one, but maybe his route is more direct, and his pack is certainly lighter. The fat man John seems confused to see him again so soon, didn’t you leave two days ago, and where is that other guy, the German. We had a fight in the mountains, we parted company. John allows him to camp for the night at half the usual cost, he is helpful but suspicious, maybe he murdered his companion in the hills. But in the morning he comes and suggests, you see that girl there, she’s driving to Maseru today, maybe she’ll give you a lift.

The girl is a woman of twenty four or five, an American working on some relief programme in Lesotho. She isn’t happy to help, he can see from her expression, but she agrees, he will have to ride in the back with some of her co-workers and a pile of boxes she has to unload. Yes yes anything that will be fine. He climbs in with the others and listens to them bicker and squabble among themselves. They have been here too long with each other, he can hear a certain note in their voices, it is time for them to go home.

Today he himself is feeling stunned and empty, he can’t quite credit the rapid end to events, he keeps playing that scene of yesterday in his mind. He closes his ears to the conversation around him and looks out through the window at the countryside passing by. It’s strange to be seeing in reverse the whole extended panorama of the long walk they did just days ago, here is the spot where we rested, there’s the place where I saw the horse, that’s where we joined up with the road.

They come to Roma