The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
One foot was on the bus step, the other on the wet tarmac.
I looked at the death officer.
At the bus.
At the woman in red.
Then at my donkey, who was sitting by the window without a care in the world and had apparently made its decision long before I had made mine.
— Excuse me, what sort of arrangement is this? First you come for me in the middle of the night because I have to die. Then you say my death has been cancelled. Now you’ve sent a bus for Life Number Seven. Which am I: dead, alive or a passenger?
The death officer said:
— For the time being, all three.
— Well, there you are. I’ve finally got ahead of my younger self in one respect. Back then I was merely uncertain. Now I have three different statuses at once.
The driver sounded the horn.
— Make up your mind, Khalo.
— And you can stop honking. Other people have made decisions about my life for seventy years. Let me have five minutes to make one myself.
I stepped down from the bus.
The officer let out a breath of relief.
— Don’t be too pleased. I haven’t said I’m coming with you.
I took the black file from his hand. On its cover it said:
“Order for Immediate Return to Life.”
Underneath was the red stamp:
“The above-named person’s death is cancelled until further notice.”
— What does “until further notice” mean?
— You won’t die for now.
— How long is “for now”?
— It hasn’t been specified.
— An hour?
— Possibly.
— A year?
— Possibly.
— Twenty years?
He shrugged.
— Your department is a lot like the ones on earth. Nobody knows the one thing a person most wants to know.
I opened the file.
The first page was almost blank. In the middle was a single sentence:
“The above-named person still has unfinished business.”
— What business?
— It isn’t in the file.
— Who wrote that?
— I don’t know.
— Who cancelled my death?
— I don’t know.
— Then what are you doing here?
He thought for a moment.
— Carrying out orders.
I laughed.
— Ah, now I understand. You just follow orders, and nobody is responsible.
He frowned.
— Don’t take offence, mate. I’ve heard that line often enough before.
The rain grew heavier.
Across the street, the woman in red was still standing there. She did not get wet or move. She only watched me.
I asked the officer:
— Can you see her?
He turned.
— See whom?
My heart sank.
— The woman across the road.
He looked.
— There’s nobody there.
I called to the driver:
— Can you see her?
He put his head out of the window.
— I’m not authorised to identify future passengers.
— What kind of ridiculous answer is that?
— Regulations.
The donkey brayed from inside the bus.
— You be quiet. You know more than the rest of us and won’t say a word.
Suddenly the woman in red turned and began to walk away.
— Wait! I shouted.
The officer caught my arm.
— Where are you going?
— After her.
— You have to go back.
— Where?
— To life.
— Which life?
He paused.
That pause was enough.
— You see? You don’t know either.
I pulled my arm free and ran towards the woman.
The officer called after me:
— Khalo! If you leave this area, you do so at your own risk!
As I ran, I called back:
— At last you’ve made me responsible for my own life and death!
She turned into an alley. I followed.
It was narrow and strangely familiar.
Damp walls.
Old windows.
The smell of wet earth.
And then came a smell I had forgotten for years:
the sea, the samhak of fish, the heavy damp air.
I stopped.
This was not a London street.
Nor was it the Department of Death.
I did not even know whether it was a dream or a memory.
From the end of the alley a little boy called:
— Naseroo!
I turned.
A thin boy with short black hair stood by the wall in shorts and no vest. Perhaps ten years old. Perhaps eleven. He was barefoot and staring at me.
— Who are you?
He laughed.
— Don’t you recognise me?
He came closer. I saw his face.
For a moment the world stopped.
It was me.
Naser as a child.
The same eyes.
The same hair.
The same scraped knees that always made my mother call me her “wounded donkey”.
The same boy who did not yet know how many prisons, exiles, loves, failures, comrades, deaths and births awaited him.
— Khalo… I said.
The boy laughed.
— Why are you calling me Khalo?
— It’s a long story.
— We have time.
I looked behind me. The street and the bus had vanished. The death officer was gone too. There was only me and the child I had once been.
He asked:
— How did it turn out in the end?
— What?
— Did we grow up?
I smiled.
— Unfortunately.
— Did we become important?
— Depends whom you ask.
— Did we get rich?
— Next question.
He laughed, then became serious.
— Were we happy?
I could not brush that one aside with a joke.
I looked at him. What could I say?
That days would come when he would wish only for one night of sleep without fear?
That he would love people and lose them?
That one day his mother would be gone, and no philosophy, politics or book could fill the space she left?
Or that, in spite of it all, there would still be mornings when he drank his black coffee, lit his cigar, wrote something and said to life:
“Look. After all this, I’m still alive. I’m not finished yet!”
The boy asked again:
— Were we happy?
— Sometimes.
— Were we sad?
— Very.
— Did we fail?
— More times than I can bear to tell you about now.
— Then why are you still alive?
The question was so simple that I had no answer.
I sat down beside the wall.
— Perhaps because every time I thought there was nothing left, I found one small thing.
— What sort of thing?
— A person. A book. A journey. A comrade. A favourite cup of black coffee. A sentence. Sometimes even a donkey.
— A donkey?
— You’ll understand later.
At that moment a bray sounded in the distance.
I smiled.
— There. Even it agrees.
The boy sat beside me. We were both quiet for a while.
Then he asked:
— If you could start again, would you choose the same life?
I stared at the wall opposite.
That was no longer a child’s question.
It was the question posed by File Seven.
By the woman in red.
The very thing the Department of Death could not put into any of its forms.
— My past made me strong and steady. I lived my life.
The boy stood up.
— Then you still can’t go back.
— Go back where?
But he was already walking away.
— Wait! What is Life Number Seven?
He stopped, turned and said:
— A life that, if you come back from death, you must choose for yourself this time.
— I’ve always tried to choose for myself, not to let others choose me!
Then he ran and vanished at the end of the alley.
I remained there.
With the rain.
And the sound of the sea.
And the smell of the humid air.
Suddenly a hand came to rest on my shoulder.
I turned.
It was the woman in red, close enough now for me to see her eyes.
— Who are you?
She smiled.
— I’m not someone from your past.
— Then where have you come from?
She took my hand. Its warmth was real.
— From the life you haven’t yet dared to live.
Before I could ask anything else, the bus horn sounded again in the distance.
She let go of my hand.
— This time, if you get on, don’t ask the driver where you’re going.
— Why not?
She smiled.
— Because this time you’re the driver.
To be continued? I don’t know.
Naser Kamali
London, in my modest, much-loved room
Only an hour or so after midnight
Translator's notes
- Samhak is the local word the narrator uses for the strong smell of fish, one of the scents that brings his childhood coast back to him.
دیدگاهتان را بنویسید