In a Strange Room: Three Journeys Page 0,35
to him, this is the list of names of people who may not enter Tanzania.
What is your name, he says, you can’t treat me like this. He hears the idiocy of the threat even as he makes it, who would he report this man to and for what, there is nothing he can do, in the world of metaphor and in the real world too he has arrived at a line he cannot cross. He goes back out into the sun, where the others are waiting, commiserative, did you talk to him again, what did he say. No, it’s no good, I can’t come with you. They stand around in the aimless awkwardness of sympathy, but already they’re casting their eyes towards the road and rocking from foot to foot, it’s past the middle of the day.
We’d better go, Christian says. I’m sorry.
They write down each other’s addresses. The only piece of paper he has is an old bank statement, he gives it to each of them in turn. Now years later as I write this it lies in front of me on my desk, folded and creased and grubby, carrying its little cargo of names, its different sets of handwriting, some kind of impression of that instant pushed into the paper and fixed there.
He walks with them to the boom across the road. He may not go further than this. On the other side are flocks of young boys on bicycles, waiting to ferry passengers the six kilometres to the nearest town, where other transport begins. This is where they have to say goodbye. He looks down at his shoes. He finds it difficult to speak.
Have a good journey, he says eventually.
Where will you go now.
I think I’ll go home. I’ve had enough.
Jerome says, you will come in Switzerland, yes.
The last word is a question, he answers with a nod, yes I will.
Then they are gone, climbing onto the bikes, wobbling tentatively into motion and speeding away, such a surreal departure, he stands staring but none of them looks back. Roderigo’s shirt is the last vivid trace of them, the flag of the usurper, the stranger who came to take his place. Meanwhile other boys on bikes are crowding around him, blocking his view, let me take you sir you want a lift me sir me. No, he says, I’m not going with them. He looks down the road a last time, then shoulders his bag and turns. The bridge is long and lonely in the midday heat. He walks.
When he gets back to the Malawian side he finds himself dealing with the same white-uniformed official who stamped him through. There is a second or two of confusion before the man works it out, weren’t you here half an hour ago.
Yes, they won’t let me through. They say I need a visa. I don’t have one.
The man looks at his passport, looks at him, then beckons him closer. Offer him money, he says.
What.
That’s what he wants. A little bit of money. Who did you speak to.
A small guy. Very neat.
Yes, I know him, he’s a friend of mine. Offer him money.
He stares back at the man, beginning to understand the conversation he had on the other side of the bridge. That cryptic statement, what did he pay for this stamp, suddenly makes sense, how could he not have seen. I am a fool, he thinks, and not only because of that.
I was nasty to him, he says. Things turned unpleasant.
But this man is losing interest too, he opens his palms and shrugs. I go back outside and stand in the sun for a long suspended moment while various possibilities arc past and return. With every second Jerome and Alice and Christian are getting further and further away, even if the little man lets him through is he going to try to catch up with them, they could be anywhere by now. But when he turns and looks back into Malawi, down the long blue road shimmering away into the distance, the prospect of retracing his steps seems just as impossible. He feels as if he’ll never move again.
Then suddenly he is running over the bridge, his pack jouncing on his back. When he comes to the shed he is pouring sweat and panting, please, he says, there is something I remembered.
The little man seems unsurprised to see him. His attention is on the starched cuffs of his shirt.
The South African I told you about. The one who got the