The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The woman in red lowered her hand.
Coco sat at her feet, looking at me.
The donkey brayed behind my back.
— Don’t interfere. We haven’t even worked out what’s going on ourselves.
The woman said:
— Ourselves?
— Yes. Ourselves.
— So you finally admit there’s something between us?
I rolled the cigar between my fingers. I still had not lit it.
— Light it, she said. I’d like a puff too.
— “Something” is a dangerous word. It could mean love or a bank debt.
She did not smile. My humour had failed to get through the checkpoint this time.
— Every time I get close to you, you find a new name for what we have.
— Such as?
— Comrade.
— Comrade is a good name.
— Friend.
— Nothing wrong with that one either.
— Sister.
I started to cough.
The donkey brayed.
I turned to it.
— I told you not to interfere!
The woman said:
— Why do you keep renaming something as it gets closer to you, until it no longer sounds dangerous?
— I just don’t want a misunderstanding.
— For whose sake?
— Yours.
— Or your own?
I did not answer.
A man standing beside a shop lit a cigarette and turned his face away.
Too late.
Late enough to make it clear he had been watching us from the start.
My hand went towards the door handle again.
She noticed.
— There you go again.
— What?
— Counting the dangers.
— Comrade, that man has been watching us for five minutes.
She glanced at him.
— Perhaps he’s waiting for someone.
— Yes. Security officers are always waiting for someone. Usually that “someone” is a poor devil like me.
Coco got up and barked towards the shop. The man took a step back.
— See? Coco agrees.
— Perhaps Coco simply doesn’t like his cigarette.
— At last, a sensible creature on this street.
I glanced at my own cigar.
— Though not every sort of smoke, of course.
I handed the cigar and lighter to the woman. She came nearer to the bus.
This time I did not retreat.
She put a hand on its wet bodywork.
— Khalo, I’m not asking you to forget your past.
— My past has no wish to be forgotten either.
— I know. But you can’t keep everyone who cares for you behind a pane of glass until they’ve proved they didn’t come to interrogate you.
— I haven’t kept you behind glass.
She looked at the pane between us.
— At this very moment, that’s exactly where I am.
I looked around. She was right.
I was inside the bus, she was outside, and between us stood a window, two mirrors, a closed door and probably twenty years of caution.
— The door’s open.
— An open door isn’t enough.
— What else should I do? Roll out a red carpet?
She looked down at her clothes.
— We’ve got enough red already.
This time we both laughed. Even the donkey made a sound that, with a little generosity, could pass for a laugh.
— The question isn’t whether you open the door, she said. It’s that when I come in, you decide where I belong.
— I’m the driver. I need to know where a passenger sits.
— I’m not your passenger.
She said it quietly but firmly.
I took my hand off the steering wheel.
— Then what are you?
— A woman who sometimes wants to be beside you and sometimes needs a little distance.
— That’s no definition of a relationship.
— Perhaps every relationship doesn’t need an immediate definition.
— Being undefined is confusing.
— The wrong definitions are more confusing.
I looked at her. Rain rested in her hair. She neither came forward nor left. She had chosen her own distance.
— If you come closer, will you stay?
— Perhaps.
— If you go away, will you come back?
— Perhaps.
— All these “perhapses” aren’t good for a person’s heart.
— False promises aren’t good for it either.
I fell silent. She was right.
I had met enough interrogators in my life who demanded definite answers. Now here I was, facing a woman and wanting to draw up official minutes for a feeling that was still breathing.
— I don’t want to possess you, she said.
— Good. My title deed went missing years ago.
— But I don’t want you to deny me.
— I haven’t.
— Each time you hide what’s between us behind a harmless name, it isn’t me you’re denying. It’s your own feelings.
She was still holding the cigar I had given her.
— Why don’t you light it?
— The times set quite enough things on fire already.
— So what shall we call it?
She looked at me, startled.
— Call what?
— The bond of friendship that’s formed between us.
— Does everything always need a name? For now, no name at all.
— A relationship without a name?
— Yes.
— The Department of Death won’t accept it. They require three copies of a form for everything.
— Fortunately, I don’t live for the Department of Death.
I looked at the empty seat beside me.
— Would you like to get on?
She looked at the bus door, then at me, then at the road fading into the rain.
— If I get on, I won’t sit beside you.
— Why not?
— Because I want to choose my own seat.
I opened the door.
— Choose it.
She held out her hand to Coco. Coco stood up.
The man by the shop was still watching us.
She put a foot on the bus step, then turned before boarding.
— Khalo, if I get off tomorrow, don’t come after me.
— And if you come back of your own accord?
— Then don’t shut the door.
She got on and walked past me. She did not take the seat beside me or go to the back. She sat exactly three rows behind, by the window.
The distance she had chosen for herself.
The donkey looked at me.
— Don’t say a word. Matters of the heart are more complicated than politics.
It brayed.
I started the bus.
In the mirror I saw the woman. She was looking at me through the window too.
This time I did not know which of us was watching the other.
But for the first time I did not feel that I had to run.
To be continued, if there’s any life left.
Naser Kamali
London, in my quiet, pleasant room and the solitude I love
Undated
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