The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
As we looked out, I spotted an old friend. She was dressed in black and carrying an umbrella, walking slowly along the pavement while the rain pattered above her.
— That woman in black is an old friend of mine, I told the woman in red. — We could give her a lift, if you like.
— I have no objection. Since this bus set off, we’ve picked up a donkey, a dog and an officer from the Department of Death. An old friend is almost ordinary by comparison.
I lowered the bus window and called out:
— Lena!
She turned. When she saw me, she stopped for a moment, then came towards the bus with delight. Her eyes fell on the woman in red, and the two of them waved to one another with smiles.
— Come aboard. Where are you going in this rain?
At first she hesitated a little. Perhaps she was waiting for the woman in red to invite her too.
— Please, do get on, said the woman. — There’s room, and we’re having a discussion that gets more complicated by the minute.
Lena eagerly folded her umbrella and climbed aboard. She introduced herself to the woman in red and took a seat in the second row. Coco and the donkey both turned to inspect her. Coco wasted no time: he sprang up and settled in her lap, as though he had reserved it years ago.
The donkey stretched his head forwards and sniffed her.
— He’s in charge of checking passengers’ identities, I said. — If he doesn’t bray, you’ve been approved.
Lena stroked Coco’s head and laughed.
— What were you doing out in this weather? I asked.
— It’s a long story. I’ll tell you.
Then she noticed the book in the woman in red’s hand.
— What are you reading?
The woman showed it to her. Lena took it and leafed through a few pages.
I turned round.
— We’ve been talking about some important parts of a materialist view of the world, history and society.
— I hope I haven’t interrupted.
— Not at all, said the woman in red. — A third point of view might make the discussion richer. We’ve talked about history, economics and a little philosophy. But where do morality, literature, affection, family relationships and love fit into this view? In fact, let’s begin with love. If you regard material life as the basis of society, and see politics, culture and morality in relation to it, what happens to love and loving? I mean love here on earth, not the sort that lives only in books or in a poet’s daydream.
Lena looked at me.
— I suggest you begin, I said.
She gave me a knowing look.
— No, Khalo. It’s your turn. Explain love from a materialist perspective without hiding behind some philosopher’s name.
— That won’t be easy. With economics, you can talk about factories and wages. But when it comes to love, everyone has a secret factory in their chest, and nobody knows who its accountant is.
— Are you dodging the question? asked the woman in red.
— No. I only want to announce in advance that if my answer is incomplete, it’s the heart’s fault for failing to issue a proper invoice.
The donkey brayed.
— Yes, comrade. In your case, the invoice is perfectly clear: food, a warm place to sleep and a little respect.
— Go on, Khalo, said Lena.
I watched the wet street for a few moments.
— Love belongs to this earth because people belong to this earth. We fall in love with our bodies, our needs, memories, fears, loneliness and hopes. Love doesn’t come from some heaven apart from life. It takes shape here, between two people living at a particular time and in a particular society.
— So love is a product of economics too? asked the woman in red.
— Not so simply. If economics alone produced love, the richest people would be the most loving. Yet some of them live in twenty-room houses without finding space for one honest conversation.
— Poverty can suffocate love, though, Lena said.
— Exactly. You can’t reduce love to money, but you can’t separate it from the material conditions of life either. Two people may sincerely love each other. Yet if one works twelve hours a day, the other worries about the rent, they have a sick child and their future is uncertain, their love comes under pressure that poetry cannot relieve.
— So we need time even to love someone? asked the woman in red.
— Time, security, peace, and the chance to be there for them. Someone who sells all their strength just to survive comes home exhausted. They may still love, but no longer have the energy to show it. Sometimes what looks like a lack of affection is the exhaustion of a person whom society has deprived of even the chance to offer a caress.
— Many loves end because the people wear out, Lena said softly, — not because their feelings have run out.
— Yes. That’s why moral advice alone can’t explain human relationships. If we want a calmer family life, telling people to be kind isn’t enough. We have to look at what has made them anxious, dependent, tired or humiliated.
— Then what does free love mean? asked the woman in red.
— Love is free when nobody is forced to stay because of financial need, fear, the law, reputation or force. If a woman remains in a degrading relationship only because she has no income or roof over her head, we can’t call her staying a romantic act of loyalty. Dependence and connection are different things.
— But people do become dependent on each other in love, said Lena.
— Emotional dependence is natural. The trouble begins when one person claims to own the other. Love says, ‘I want to be with you.’ Ownership says, ‘You have to belong to me.’ They may sound alike, but human freedom lies in the distance between them.
— What about jealousy? Is it always a sign of possessiveness?
— Not always. Sometimes it comes from fear of loss, insecurity or an old wound. But when it turns into interrogation, control, humiliation or imprisonment, it isn’t love any more. Being loved doesn’t give anyone ownership of another person’s life.
Coco shifted in Lena’s lap and laid a paw on her arm.
— Coco doesn’t seem to object to ownership, she said.
— Coco believes in sharing affection fairly, provided his share is bigger than everyone else’s.
The donkey brayed again.
— And he objects to beasts of burden always being left out when affection is divided up.
The woman in red smiled.
— Where does marriage fit into all this?
— Marriage, like every human institution, has a history. It hasn’t always been simply a union of two people in love. For long periods it was tied to property, inheritance, lineage, land and the passing on of wealth. Many women were treated as part of a family’s possessions rather than equal partners. There might have been love, but it wasn’t the chief condition of marriage.
— And today? asked Lena.
— In parts of the world, people have more freedom to choose, but the past hasn’t disappeared altogether. Money, class, religion, family and social expectations still influence our choices. Sometimes a relationship looks modern on the outside, while inside it the old obedience continues.
— Doesn’t a woman’s financial independence weaken love? asked the woman in red.
— If a relationship holds together only because one person cannot afford to leave, it was never a strong love to begin with. Independence doesn’t weaken genuine love. It weakens compulsion. When both people are able to go, but choose to stay, staying means more.
— So freedom isn’t the enemy of love? said Lena.
— Freedom is the ethical condition of love. Two prisoners might become attached to one another, but that doesn’t make their prison sacred.
The woman in red closed the book.
— What about family? Is it a refuge, or part of society’s structure?
— It can be both. Family is often the first place where a child learns affection, language, safety and cooperation. But the same place can teach obedience, discrimination, fear and inequality. It isn’t only a place of feeling. It is where a new generation grows up and receives society’s values.
— So even a mother’s embrace is political?
— Not the embrace itself. But the conditions her life is lived under certainly are. Think of a mother with no social support, who carries every burden of care alone and has to depend on someone else for the smallest need. Her love is real, but society uses it to hide injustice. It calls her a devoted mother so that nobody asks why she has to make all those sacrifices alone.
— And fathers? asked Lena.
— A father can be trapped by a mould that says he mustn’t cry or be afraid, and must always be the provider and the one in charge. Society sometimes deprives women of independence and men of tenderness. Then it sits them opposite each other and asks why they aren’t happy.
The woman in red fell silent for a while.
Rain tapped on the bus roof like fingers drumming on a table.
— Where does morality come in? If everything has a history and a social setting, do right and wrong become relative?
— Understanding the social roots of behaviour doesn’t release people from responsibility. Quite the opposite: it helps us see how to create conditions in which people harm one another less. A morality that only finds someone to blame, but doesn’t see the causes of suffering, is more like a courtroom than a guide to living.
— For me, morality begins when we stop treating another person as a means, Lena said. — Not a means to profit, or pleasure, or a good reputation, or even a way to rescue ourselves from loneliness.
— That’s right. To love someone is to accept that they have a world of their own. They aren’t a mirror put there only to reflect us.
— And what does literature do? asked the woman in red.
Lena answered:
— Literature lets us live in somebody else’s world for a while. A number can tell us that thousands of people are poor. A story can make us feel the cold in one person’s hands. If literature tells the truth, it brings a person out from behind the statistics.
— And love in literature sometimes uncovers what society conceals, I added: — who was allowed to choose, who was forced into silence, and who wasn’t even permitted to say their beloved’s name.
— But the market has turned love into a commodity too, the woman in red said.
— Of course. They’ve assigned a date to every feeling and a product to prove it: flowers, perfume, a ring, a trip, a restaurant, a photograph. None of these things is bad in itself. The trouble starts when the value of affection is measured by the price of a gift. The market even tells us how to fall in love, what to buy and which day to declare our feelings.
— So giving a present is wrong? asked Lena.
— No. A single flower can mean the world. But if a gift stands in for attention, respect and being present, it’s only a beautifully wrapped absence.
— What if someone has no money at all? asked the woman in red.
— They can listen, make time, care, learn to apologise and respect another person’s freedom. Of course we shouldn’t turn poverty into poetry. People need bread, a home and medical care. But love, for all its roots in this world, isn’t something you can simply buy.
Lena looked out of the window.
— Love sometimes takes you beyond yourself. It makes another person’s pain matter.
— And perhaps that’s how we can build a bridge between private love and solidarity. Someone who has truly learnt to love will find it harder to ignore the humiliation of others. You can’t speak of love at home and fail to see the suffering of a worker, a refugee, a woman, a child or a homeless person outside.
— So love can be revolutionary? asked the woman in red.
— If it leads people away from possessiveness, selfishness and obedience, yes. But not every slogan with the word ‘love’ in it brings freedom. Sometimes people demand that you destroy yourself in love’s name. Healthy love doesn’t say, ‘Don’t be yourself for my sake.’ It says, ‘Be with me, and be yourself too.’
— And if love ends? asked Lena.
— The end of a love doesn’t necessarily prove it was a lie from the beginning. Some things are real without lasting for ever. Childhood is real, though it ends. Spring is real, though it passes. Calling every relationship that ends a lie does a disservice to the past.
— Then what is faithfulness? the woman in red asked quietly.
— It means being honest with and responsible towards the other person while we’re together. It doesn’t mean turning each other’s lives into prisons in the name of eternity. Sometimes faithfulness lies in staying; sometimes it lies in telling the truth and leaving with respect.
The bus moved slowly along the wet street. Lights trembled in pools of water on the tarmac. The woman in red was lost in thought, and Lena was still stroking Coco’s back.
— We mustn’t lift love off the earth. If we do, it becomes a fairy tale. But if we reduce it to an account of gains and losses, it loses its soul. Earthly love needs bread and freedom, body and imagination, two people and a world that lets them remain human.
— Not bad, Khalo, said Lena. — You’ve become a little too serious, though.
— That’s your fault. I was the driver. You transferred me to the philosophy department without increasing my wages.
The donkey brayed loudly.
— The union representative seems to agree, said the woman in red.
We all laughed.
A little farther on we saw an old woman pulling a small handcart through the rain. One of its wheels had caught in a crack in the pavement, and she was struggling with all her strength to free it.
— Stop, Khalo, Lena said suddenly.
I put my foot on the brake.
— Do you know her?
Lena looked at the old woman.
— That long story I promised you begins with this woman and this cart.
The woman in red laid the book on her knees. Coco lifted his head and the donkey pricked up his ears.
I opened the bus door.
The rain and the smell of the street came in.
Lena picked up her black umbrella.
— You can’t tell some stories sitting down. You have to get off and live a little of them again.
To be continued…
Naser Kamali
Rainy London, in my little room among happy memories. Midnight, undated.
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