In a Strange Room: Three Journeys Page 0,7

offered coffee in the evening he says no, I’ve had two cups already today, I don’t drink more than two cups every twelve hours. When they go walking anywhere he wants to know how many kilometres it is. If he doesn’t know, or if he doesn’t know exactly, then Reiner looks displeased.

So even in the first few days I become aware of certain differences between them. But there is no time to worry about this. There are still two weeks before they leave and he has a lot to do, he must settle his accounts and put all his things into storage. He is feeling harried and under pressure and in this state he would prefer to be alone. But he is hardly ever alone. Even when he leaves his flat on the most mundane errand Reiner is always with him. He is worn down by the constant presence, like some kind of dark attendant angel, ironic and brooding, his face almost petulant. And Reiner in his turn seems irritated by all these tasks and duties, the requirements of a normal life are beneath him.

Why must you do all these stupid things.

I have to. They have to be done.

Why, Reiner says, smirking.

It is a mystery who attends to all the mundane necessities of Reiner’s life at home. When he thinks about it, he knows nothing about Reiner, but if he asks he doesn’t get anywhere. He finds out that his parents are deeply religious, but beyond that he has no idea about his family or his background. Though he is genuinely interested, he senses a deep reluctance on the other side to respond.

Once he asks Reiner, what do you do for money.

What do you mean, what do I do.

How do you earn it. Where does it come from.

Money comes. You shouldn’t worry about it.

But you have to work for money.

I got paid in Canada. For planting trees.

And before that.

I am a philosopher, Reiner says, and the conversation stops there, he is silenced by the idea, a philosopher, what does this mean. Are philosophers exempt from work, who supports them, what do they do exactly. He supposes that philosophers have no time for the ordinary errands of the world, and perhaps this is why Reiner is irritated by all his running around.

What would you prefer to be doing.

Walking.

We do walk.

Not enough. We should be in training for this trip. We must get into a routine, I can see you aren’t fit.

Once Reiner makes them go on a long hike. We need a challenge, he says. To prepare us. They take a bus to Kloofnek, they walk along the pipe track past Camps Bay and almost to Llandudno, the landscape here with its grey stone and turquoise sea is very like Greece, the past echoes in concentric rings through time, they climb up over the top of the mountain and down the other side at Constantia Nek and from there through forest all the way back to Rondebosch, six or seven hours have gone by, their feet are blistered, they are dizzy with hunger. I feel faint, he says, I must eat. I also feel faint, Reiner says, it is an interesting feeling, I don’t want to eat.

This is another difference between them, what is painful to the one is interesting to the other. The South African also loves to walk, but not constantly and obsessively, he is also drawn to extremity, but not when it becomes dangerous and threatening, he is incapable of examining his own pain like a spore on a slide and finding it interesting, interesting. If your own pain is interesting to you, how much more detached will you be from somebody else’s pain, and it’s true that there is something in Reiner that looks at all human failings with dispassion, maybe even with disdain. What has given rise to this coldness in him I don’t know.

What Reiner wants is to be preparing with single-mindedness for this trip, he would like to dispense with all external trivia, the words he used on the balcony that night express some basic truth for him, people need too many things it is not necessary. He sits studying that map of Lesotho for hours, he has traced out in it a series of possible routes in red pen. I look at these thin lines with fear, they are like veins going through some strange internal organ, it feels at times that for Reiner this country is only a concept, some abstract idea