Breyten Breytenbach - Mouroir

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.

He dons his dark glasses and the plane lands. A land, any country, is always, when seen from the sky, much greener than when one actually gets there. While dust clouds and the choking shrieks of braking still enclose them in waves, the less green surroundings rush in a smear of speed past the windows. The show is over. The luxury of air-conditioning and saloon cocktails now seems commonplace, dusty, artificial. By the gangway they later walk down to where some small buses are awaiting the arriving passengers on the airstrip, blue blowflies at the exhaust pipes. With feet on the earth the bodies are heftier. Each person settles for the most convenient position to sit or to stand, fingers his tie or inserts the fingers in a shoulder bag. Now it must happen, he thinks. What must be, must be. Not that he is resigned to his lot. He will simply say that he is a political refugee and they will have to comprehend this. Isn’t it true, strictly speaking? He doesn’t come with false pretences after all. But will they ever believe him? And if they question his bona fides? To his utter amazement the buses do not stop at the airport building but continue, with neither delay nor control, in the direction of the city. It doesn’t mean anything yet, he cautions himself — the problems are just being postponed till later. As soon as they leave the fenced-in area of the airport a rainshower comes (like thwatting grey flags in the rain) to veil the road and the bushes to either side. Behind the rain-flags you vaguely espy the movements of rank tropical plant life; the fleshy leaves, the tendrils and plant-tatters and milky ropes, the ferns and bamboos and palm trees and sugar cane and mango trees and banana plantations — everything heavy and glistening with water. Rain is liquefying silver, it is vanishing colour. They enter the city which seems all deserted. Would it be only because the rain has forced people to stay indoors? But it doesn’t look as if the houses are inhabited at all, or could even be used: many are dilapidated with broken roofs, others have their jalousies tightly bolted or grass shoots coming like wrinkles through the window apertures or chinks and slits in the walls. At measured distances, on street corners and at the intersections where the traffic lights are dead and not a single vehicle is to be seen, soldiers with green berets from which the water is pouring are posted. Each soldier has a drooping long red moustache. The moustaches are curly and so long that it appears, when the soldiers worry them with humid fingers, that they may be plaited. The buses traverse the entire city without the voyagers being able to catch by eye a single civilian, private conveyance, tram, trolleybus, chicken, pig or messenger. The tyres hiss with a sweeping sound over the asphalt, a bubbling as of eggs fried in a pan. They are a busload of cooped-up moths. Beyond the built-up zone they again penetrate the worn-out countryside. Here however it has stopped raining, in places maybe no rain at all has fallen, for the leaves are a dusty grey. In cleared areas in the ash-green bush they sometimes pass the ruin of a humble farmstead. Clouds, like the teased stuffing of a chair, curl and roll in all directions. What a dreary day, he thinks, and looks over his fellow passengers, their heads drawn into the shoulders, the wings folded, the antennae thick and without any feeling. They drive ever deeper into the interior, not in the direction of Mesa de Mariel or of Guanabacoa, but along the road past Santiago de las Vegas and Benjucal (with the Cordillera de los Organos to the right) till beyond Batabano where the road bifurcates — to Cajio and Guanimar on the one hand and Rosario and Tasagava on the other. Gradually the road becomes more untraversable because of potholes and gullies and mudpits and the obstacles of larger rocks and tree trunks. After some time the buses stop and they get out, dull and muzzy, to stretch the limbs and reactivate the circulation. The guide — the chauffeur of the first bus, with green beret and a wet red moustache — leads them away from the road through the vegetation to a marshy strip. They slosh through pools of stagnant water until they reach the edge of what appears to be a vast blue lake, certainly less deep than it would seem. Down the length of the watery surface, on high stilts of concrete, runs a modern highway; but this speedway (or what was intended as such) stops not far from where they are placed, high on its foundations, smack in the middle of the pan, as if the construction was abandoned right there. Rusted iron rods which were to reinforce the concrete now protrude everywhere. The road might as well have originated nowhere to reach this spot and remain suspended without destination ’twixt heaven and earth. Now you can see why it is so difficult to effectuate the necessary traffic connections in our country, the guide explains: this water before you has an exceptionally high salt content and contains apart from that a lot of sulphur too (our island is basically vulcanic); it erodes and finally destroys the pillars and the very road surface when it is built too low. And it is nearly impossible to provide for drainage because this water appears so to say overnight and can start welling up in the most unforeseen places and form a dam there. (True, the water must have arrived here rather suddenly, for the pan has no reeds, nor are any birds’ nests to be seen.) And there — he points out with an imperious movement of the hand — that there was to be our destination. Across the lake they see, as indicated by the guide, the broken-down walls of a few houses. It is not so much a case of decayed constructions, however, as that of buildings which were never completed. The walls fallen into disrepair are white with a crust of salt right up to the empty window frames. During this explanation his fellow passengers observed everything around them with mouths all black with surprise and interest (and confusion?). One man wanted to take souvenir photos and was furious when it became evident that his spouse had forgotten their camera somewhere — in the bus, the aircraft, or perhaps even in the second drawer from the bottom of the bedside cabinet in the hotel room of the hotel of another country. The fellow with the black face, the blue eyes and the distinguished temples fills his lungs completely with air and then starts to intone with his heavy voice: Bluewater! Bluewa-a-a-ter. . Then: It’s a firstclass day for screwing goats, screwing goats, s-cr-ew-ing g-o-a-t-s!