Breyten Breytenbach - Mouroir

“Turn back and go to bed” — with these words Gregor clinched the argument. “Tomorrow is another day. Why go and risk your skin in something that ten to one doesn’t concern you at all?”

I pressed him to my heart and turned back to town.

And now a frightening thing happens, something which freezes my blood like quicksilver in the veins. The unearthly voice who only a while back was still heckling me from the trees is now in front of me, between me and the house, and again I’m taunted and beckoned.

Imagine a Middle European town late at night, not a cat on the streets, each house veiled in an isolation which can be called “sleep”. Dead silence — and remember, the place is densely populated, all live in town, right on top of one another. You turn down the street where your flat is. Old trees on the sidewalks both sides. Then thunderingly the echoing footsteps. And: a hell explodes. I know about the cracklash of shots, hoarse shouting voices, fire-jets flowering sharply, and powder-stench, and a running, and broken breaths. I know of an agony of fear, an explosion of senses, crescendo, apotheosis. Break . And then nothing.

I know nothing more. I woke up on my bed in the flat, quite feverish and completely wet with perspiration. Just in my pants and my shirt. Remember. I tried to remember. Everything was peaceful, beautifully quiet, and it was clear that whatever had happened must have been a denouement, that I’d henceforth be left in peace. I sat up and started looking for the firearm, my hands were still confused. That, the pistol, I discovered hidden under my pillow. I took out the magazine, counted the cartridges. There were two bullets. No more. And yet, of this I was sure: I myself hadn’t fired a single shot.

The Explanation

Well, it was a stormy period in the history of my country. In times of changing regimes, when there is a fighting for power, it always goes like that — you will still learn it also. On many a night the silver fox was hunted. Shots were pulled off. There were sometimes raw shrieks in the streets and in the low vegetation by the rivers. The silver reflections of the moon were often disturbed. And when I was arrested one day chance decreed that I be pushed into a cell full of prisoners amongst whom, to my total surprise, Keuner was also. The man caught a fright when he saw me, that was much evident. He was pale around the lips. When he tried lighting a cigarette his hands were nervous so that the little flame shivered.

“ Also , old K, that pistol of yours that you were so keen to force on to me: let’s hear the story!” Thus, more or less, did I address him after we’d gotten the banalities over with.

“D — Do you still have it?”

“No.”

“Ah!” He relaxed. And started telling me what had happened at the time. Also that it was never his intention to offload any trouble on to me but that he was so unnerved that he simply had to get rid of the thing. ( Ja , I thought — cause toujours mon gars! ) It all started after he’d escorted a small group of refugees across the frontier. Four men and a woman. No questions did he ask beforehand. Their reasons were their own business. They had enough money, wanted to get out — the rest was a matter of logistics. Before the crossing he’d asked them to hand over any weapons in their possession to him, K. It was standard procedure — I must remember what it was like? If a border patrol from the other side were to intercept a lot of armed refugees, then the fat would have been in the fire, and the eventuality of a shoot-out on this side was equally an unacceptable proposition or risk for any guide. Only the woman, a particularly attractive lady, had this thing with her: the damned pistol. Everything went off smoothly. Routine nearly. A guide who is worth his pay sees to it. And at the destination, once they were safe, he — K — as was customary, handed the weapon back to her. No, he could keep it, she wouldn’t be needing it any more. A little ironic her smile was. Very rapidly she then sketched the history for K, whether he was interested in hearing it or not. She was in fact, she claimed, the wife of a much older senior officer in the political police. But at the same time she was a member of a clandestine resistance group. Did her husband suspect her? Did he know? Perhaps there was another aspect over which she draped a discreet veil — that there was a liaison between her and one of the four students. Maybe the extra-marital relationship was the only point of contact between her and the group. Who would be able to tell? Did her husband intend to manipulate her, use her to infiltrate the illegal organization? And when she learned that the political police were on the point of going into action she outwitted her husband and stole his pistol. As for the rest — about this my colleague K was not very clear. Was the government agent first killed with his own weapon, or did the group just leave? In any event, a curse of revenge was uttered. And the unsuspecting K, back across the border the same night with the stolen shooting-iron, immediately started experiencing the strange persecution which I, later, would in turn get to know. It played havoc with his nerves, made him a wreck. Till it reached the insupportable stage where he no longer could tolerate being the dark instrument for something or someone he could not comprehend. It was then, cowardly, that he “made over” the pistol to me and fled for his life. Apologies, sincere regrets, my old mate, etc. ( Cause toujours mon lapin .)

This then is the story which I could never really unravel. I must admit that I twisted it a bit here towards the end. It was in fact K who started pumping me about the weapon which he’d sold to me and it was only after I’d informed him about my experiences — and the satisfactory ending — that he enlightened me mouthful by mouthful about the prelude. Truth, after all, has more faces than a polished crystal.

When we were brought here as war prisoners. I can’t go on. When we were brought here as prisoners of war it was a journey which stretched over seasons, always through a landscape of mountains, always covered with snow and ice. High, where breath is dry and bitter. Endless distances over glass. On the last rounded summit above the city one wild horse remained etched against the skyline. The troop of horses which followed us all the days of our lives, at a distance, and stopped when you looked back, the breaths lovely warm snorting ribbons, and then sometimes pawed with their forelegs at the ice so that the earth sounded in a hollow resonance, the troop of horses gradually drifted off. (I believe there are among us travellers who sneaked away in the quiet of the night to furtively mount the horses, but I do not know this for sure.) Except for the last one, the one with the ruddy colour of a satsuma and with patches, untamed, high-spirited, who stayed behind on the curve of the white horizon while we moved ever nearer to the city. Until the horse was only a speck on the earth’s edge. And long after the others had continued I still kept looking around . Thickly swollen with tears my throat was.

We stink. Our bodies stink. The rags on our bodies stink. The animal skins wrapped around our feet stink. In the city we shall get freshly ironed clothes. The building where we are lodged is in an offshoot of the city, an isthmus between white and white of snow. Below the building the street is full of people. There are cinema halls advertising unknown flicks, of romances in distant lands and people with embroidered jackets who can swallow swords and sticks of fire just like that in the open air. There are boutiques and very small shops, some run by orientals selling exotic spices and noodles. Perhaps there are brothels too. But the building in which we are lodged on many floors is solid and new. That is to say it is in the process of being renovated and rebuilt for strewn over the floors inside and piled against the walls are heaps of scrap. The new rises up amidst the rubble of the old.