I felt rather than saw a shuffling of people (skirmishing? dancing? imitating horses?) in a narrow and leafy alley leading off the paved main thoroughfare where the bus was now being rocked by a gaggle of dark-faced juveniles. So I heaved myself over in that direction, feeling true, feeling solid.
When I came near the gesticulating throng gave way (before my weight). Two men crouched in the sudden circle, flecked with patterns of darkness, and they looked at me with saurian eyes, their scaly lips dappled with blood and their grey chins wobbling.
They came to me in a streak of understanding, my two friends: Tuchverderber and Galgenvogel. “Ah,” one of them — or it might have been both — breathed, and the other one so rapidly and deftly produced a kukri or a kris — the blade a steely white flash-tongue of all clarity and knowingness and simplicity — jiggling it — that my comprehension froze. And plunged it with a curious little falsetto snigger into the layers of my dumbness. Splitting the blubber, spilling extravagantly the writhing white worms. Death. Yes. D. Death.
(One never digests death my friends.) (If at all.)
Flight Aid
We had lost the sea battle and on rafts or clutching to pickle vats and flotsam we washed up soaked right through on this godforsaken stretch of beach — but our enemies were vengeful, they weren’t going to let us get away with our lives. . Or, as castaways, expatriates, refugees and at a loss in this strange land, we remained on the lookout towards the sea all the days and all the nights, for where else could our succour come from? and then suddenly we noticed the ships, two, but they could not approach the land for anchorage among the cresting waves. . I no longer know, Minnaar, and it is futile that you should keep on questioning me on the how and the why of our being there — it has escaped me as so many other causes did too, the way my words now leave me in the lurch, a runniness. The only clarity is: we were on a sand strip stretching in a half moon around the bay and there was no civilization or settlement or metropolis or dune farm or neon sign or lighthouse or caravan park or life-saver’s hut or hamburger stall anywhere near, and we were parched right down to our chapped snail-tongues. The sky was blue. The sea was blue but swollen. Away from the beach, still unfathomably deep in the heaving waters, to port and starboard two ships stood. Three-masters both, and the wind was lavish in the rigging and the sails so that these were bulging like men’s fists or like small clouds in the lower sky. Heeling in the water they were, but still they could get no nearer to the land. Nemesis? Deliverance? We (that is Murphy and Don Espejuelo and Breytenbach and I, and our companions — Mooityd, Sweetime, Elefteria, Levedi Tjeling and Marlin Manrob) turned our backs on the thundering ocean slithering over the wet sand and we started searching for direction about us. The long dresses of the women were sodden up to the hips, and clusters of sand grains were glistening in the folds. On the ridge of the nearest high dune an Arab all at once loomed large and after staring for a long moment (at us? at the ships in the bay?) with a hand like a falcon above the eyebrows to protect his eyes from the sun — or was he, because of a sore back, praying on his feet to a Mecca around the curve of the horizon? — after thinking through his eyes for a long while, he waved to us to come closer. Over his white robe in which the wind was trapped like the wings of anxious seagulls he wore a jacket buttoned to the chin and around the head he had wrapped a turban and on his face he had a pointed beard. He thoughtfully fondled the sharpness of the hairy little sword on his chin and carefully and slowly explained to us from deep in his throat that he could, upon request, rapidly accompany us to a place where we might obtain assistance, but only the men would be allowed to come. This after all, was dictated by the customs of Islam. And concerning the women we weren’t to worry excessively for they would be safe here during our brief absence. But we had to take our shoes off. With the guide we clambered over the sandhill and sunk to our knees in the shifts and the slides of the surface. Behind the hill we saw the grey sandflats decorated with shadows of all shapes. Like more palpable shadows there were also broad drawers standing upright, half buried in the sand itself, with shiny knobs by which they could be opened upwards. There were five different drawers. The Arab with the burnt-out eyes asked us whether we wished to arrive at our destination quickly or less quickly or less slowly or slowly or in God’s own time then. We said: as soon as possible, please. Rather, that was my answer, and I assume the others answered in the same way. Thus he opened the left most “drawer” and we climbed in. And with a giddy speed we tumbled down, transported by a vertical conveyer belt, black and rough like sandpaper, down, down, down, until down below we were spilt head over heels on a square. In the middle of the square was a fountain. Around this square with its fountain there were the fronts of tall buildings — some were even palaces. A crowd of people with smiles wreathed around their mouths strolled up and down and then stopped to listen with cocked heads how the spouting water plunges back with a rinkletinkle. It was warm in that place. And it was evening because spray-lights lit up the buildings and shone through the tree of water. I think it must have been in Switzerland. A long long time ago.
The Execution
Quand l’Amour à vos yeux offre un choix agreable,
Jeunes beautés, laissez-vous enflammer:
Moquez-vous d’affecter cet orgueil indomptable,
Dont on vous dit qu’il est beau de s’armer;
Dans l’âge où l’on est aimable,
Rien n’est si beau que d’aimer.
These modern airships, he thinks, are damn well more luxurious and comfortable than the barely flying tin pails of yore. His eyes slide pleasurably over the interior. Nowadays there’s even an area, a space reserved in the belly of the body, which has been arranged like a salon, where passengers no longer have to squat like pupils, knees drawn up to the chest, in rows one behind the other, but may lean back peacefully to stretch their legs in armchairs and on sofas, face to face, each with a smile and a cocktail at the lips. (“Cocktail”, it is said, originally meant “horsetail”, an excited young stallion with the tail groomed and ribbon-interwoven.) There are even mirrors and imitation candlesticks against the sides. Some time ago already it was announced over the squawk-boxes that the aircraft would reach its destination, C — —, within a little less than half an hour that the local time is precisely so-and-so and the ground temperature 26˚C. The liquid in his glass is a rusty brown and even the two ice cubes, normally naked of any colour, now have very deeply a reddish tinkle. Half an hour and then the touchdown. There’s a slight tightness in his throat. Ample time to try and sort out the complications then — for he has no passport. Would it be best to trust in the mercy of the authorities? Across from him in attitudes of well-behaved and very evidently also well-to-do relaxation, sit a group of people with smartly tailored suits and tasteful gowns on their bodies, men and women of diverse ages who, it would appear, form a unit. Then he becomes aware, nearly outside the field of vision of his left eye, of a furtive movement: and not entirely unexpected after all, he realizes within that one moment of realization — one little bud of his attention had been preoccupied for quite some time with this swarthy female of around forty with the sleek black hair, between sips he has been watching her unconsciously, how she keeps shifting about in her seat. Suddenly this woman gets up in a resolute way and she is now moving down the aisle towards the door giving access from the passengers’ section to the cockpit (the flywell). That door is painted white. Close to the door, by the first rows of seats, an airgirl is still busy collecting cups and glasses from the travellers, filling up her tray. The fortyish woman, definitely nervous, scratches around in her imitation leather handbag, producing a knife. The knife has the long shimmer of a blade reflecting rolls of light. The hostess’s mouth becomes a sucking-black O of terror, she lets slide the tray and both her hands with the deep-red nails fly up to her lips to try and find shelter there, her blond curls are bobbing. It is too far for him and for the fellow fliers in the cabin to overhear the altercation. They all sit bolt-still with nailed shouts. The woman with the knife points at the white door which is half-closed. Then it is as if the plane flutters down, nose first, and the door is slammed close. The blade-lady grabs hold of the door handle and tries to open it, but it is probably locked from the other side. In vain does she push and pull at the door. While tears start running in wet-shiny tracks over cheeks she attacks one of the seats with her hand full of knife, long slits are ripped in the backrest so that the grey stuffing bulges into the open. There is nothing she can do about the situation now. Ichabod, or something like it. The air hostess neatly fetches up her fingers one by one, goes down on her knees, scrapes together the cups and saucers. The passengers relax and pick up their conversations — many, it would seem now, never even noticed the occurrence. He puts away the incident in one of the folds of his memory, so as to be in a position to use it later, and starts tying words with an elderly lady who sits with flabby thighs crossed in the angle of a settee opposite him; the hair a chic blue-grey coiffure and fleshmarks over forehead and cheeks, cicatrices maybe of a long-ago accident, or the tattooed imprints of her tribe. He lifts his glass. ¡Salud y cojones! he thinks, but it wouldn’t be fitting to offer this profoundly beneficial wish to a woman; so he settles for a muttered bis hundertzwanzig. Yes, the old aunt confirms his remark, they are a tour group of which she is supposed to be the leader, actually a choir. The other members modestly snigger in chorus when they hear her saying this. One is a chap with a very sallow face but cloud-blue eyes — to illustrate he hums a few dark bass notes, as if imitating in song the drone and the purr of the aircraft engines. There are small silvery stains in the black hair above his temples. He is the bass of the company. Well, strictly speaking not yet a properly constituted choir, the elderly soul directing this lot of rich no-goods takes up her talking again: they are all from Nomansland, she confirms with an approving and one could say a congratulatory look at everyone, and they are at present travelling around the world; now and then when they have a free moment (as here) they will form their lips around rounded sounds and allow their vocal cords to tremble, and if they find at the end of their trip that they harmonize and go well together, well, maybe then they will arrive at the decision to form a choral society. Most likely in Johnnysburg. You must feel first, and weigh up, and touch small glasses with the tuning fork. How else does one these days put together a vocal group? In what other way can you get on to the hit parade? Outside the portholes of the aeroplane it is revealed little by little that they are nearing their island destination: a green coral growth in the blue ocean, an atoll — a green pudding on a table covered with blue tablecloth — starts sliding in under the wings of the craft. Slowly they will descend, flaps will be resisting the air. The angles and the peaks of the island capture and reflect blinding knives of light. He removes the dark glasses from his upper pocket, puts them over his eyes.