Man on the Move by Otto de Kat

Author:Otto de Kat [de Kat, Otto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

Muriel asked what he was thinking. Nothing. Everything, really. Guus’ disappearance. The leap, the hinge—in retrospect—of his life and his survival. The Bandung months, the age-long days in which they had been hounded by the Jap, kicked and drilled. But they had been grand. Snapshots of the grain and joinery of their alliance flashed through his mind, sailing on the ocean, summoned up by the waves. The stories Guus had told kept flowing. Muriel listened with one eye on the sails, ready to tack, sail through the wind, to cast anchor if need be.

But he could not carry on, did not want to. Lourenço Marques was an empty town, his American Bar only busy in the summer. The season was over, the tourists had left for home, for America. Every afternoon he sat waiting for customers who never came, all through the winter, evenings were pointless. The doctor he went to see found nothing. The vague, hollow feeling that reminded him of the hunger in Thailand—he was unable to explain it to the physician. He had suffered and borne everything—mines, heat, beatings—just to feel ill here, dull, displaced! Talking to Muriel helped, but not enough. In her arms he dreamed for a while of being gone, back on Java, back in Holland. It never lasted long. The night tempered his malaise, but never enough. How to tell Muriel he would be leaving Lourenço Marques, and her? He had spent weeks searching for the right moment. He did not find it, and months went by in long silences.

“So when are you leaving?” she asked finally.

He had just fastened the mainsail, and looked back at the distant harbor.

He had left the motorcycle idling, his hand on the girl’s shoulder, farms in faint outline across the fields. Details of the clothes she wore, the color of her front door, a dog approaching and barking. The brief exchange, his incomprehension and her resolute rejection. The cold on her cheek, which he caressed for a moment, her eyes with their dark brows. Portrait of a lost life, his life.

“Without me you have a future. With me only a past, illness, unrest,” he said without looking at Muriel. The spring wind tested the sails, and water jumped high against the boards; they had to brace themselves.

“I’m planning to sell the bar and go and see whether there’s still something for me in Johannesburg.” The journey back, the sails reefed, the sheets pulled in. “You shouldn’t come, maybe I’ll come and see you every now and then. We’ll keep an eye on each other, won’t we? Muriel?”

She nodded, raised her eyes, saw nothing. There were no words for this farewell that she had been anticipating for so long. There was no way to fight the hollowness in his body, no remedy for his memories. She had no antidote, no solution, her courage was not great enough. She would manage alone.

Johannesburg, Jo’burg. Terrible city wracked by unemployment, districts full of poverty, paintless tower blocks, wretched wasteland, all worn out.

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