The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The bus was moving again.
In the mirror, the old woman and her cart slowly shrank. For a few moments, I could still see the red star on one of the books inside it. Then that too disappeared into the rain and the streetlights.
Lena looked back.
The woman in red had her book on her knees.
Coco was curled up beside my feet, and the donkey, unusually, had been quiet for some time.
— Right, I said. — I think we’ve settled the matter of love now.
— Really? said the woman in red.
— More or less.
Lena laughed.
— ‘More or less’ is a dangerous phrase.
— That’s why I used it. If a person hasn’t learnt to leave themselves an escape route after seventy years of living, that’s their own fault.
The woman in red smiled.
A little farther ahead, a man stood beneath a shop awning, looking repeatedly at his watch.
Beside him, a queue of people stood under their umbrellas.
A shop sign shone in the rain:
Home Land London LTD
I watched the man for a few seconds.
— There’s still one thing left.
The woman in red sighed.
— I knew it.
— This one’s serious.
— Were the others jokes?
— No. But if we find an answer to this one, perhaps half the arguments in the world will disappear.
— Ask it, said Lena.
I turned the wheel a little.
— If you love someone, how much should you sacrifice for them?
The woman in red did not answer at once.
— I mean, people have always said that if you really love someone, you should put them before yourself. Give them your time, give up your comforts, change your plans, even give up other things if you have to.
— Put them before yourself, or erase yourself? she asked.
I looked at her.
— What’s the difference?
— A great deal.
Lena turned towards her.
The woman in red went on:
— You might love someone and stay up with them all night when they’re ill. You might cancel your plans, spend your money, miss a trip or put some of your own wishes aside for a while. All that can be part of loving someone.
— So sacrifice isn’t bad.
— No. Why should it be?
She paused.
— The problem begins when sacrifice stops being a temporary choice and becomes the permanent shape of your life.
— What do you mean?
— All your time belongs to the other person. Every plan is arranged around their needs. You see less of your friends, abandon your trips, forget what interests you. Even when you’re alone, you’re thinking about what they want, what they’re thinking and what they expect of you.
— And one day you may realise you’ve lived for years, said Lena, — but almost none of that life has really been your own.
The words lingered in the bus for a while.
— But perhaps that person would say they chose it for themselves.
— Perhaps they really did, said the woman in red.
— Then where’s the problem?
— The question isn’t how much time you give someone. It’s whether you still have a choice.
I thought about that.
— If one day you want a few hours alone, can you have them?
— If you want to go out with friends, can you do it without feeling guilty?
— If you want to travel, read, write, take a walk or even do nothing at all, do you feel you have the right?
— And if the answer is no?
— Then you have to ask how much of that relationship is love and how much is fear.
— Or duty, said Lena.
The woman in red nodded.
— Or habit. Or guilt. Or fear of being alone. Or fear that if you live for yourself, the other person will leave.
The donkey brayed behind us.
— There you are. Our four-legged psychologist has joined the discussion.
Lena laughed.
— Perhaps he has something important to say, said the woman in red.
— He always says the same thing: ‘If there’s hay, I’m staying.’
The donkey brayed again.
— See? He agrees.
Coco raised his head and looked at me for a few seconds.
— If you have an objection too, take a number.
The woman in red laughed, but then grew serious again.
— There’s something else.
— Go on. The case file is getting thicker.
— Some people genuinely enjoy looking after someone else. We shouldn’t stand outside their lives and declare, ‘You’re sacrificing yourself.’
— True, said Lena. — But even then we need to ask whether that care is a choice or an imposed role.
— What do you mean by an imposed role?
— Being taught from childhood that your value lies in always being there for others. Family, culture, tradition, economics, even the division of work at home can reinforce it.
— Some people grow so used to ‘being there for everyone’ that they feel guilty when they do something for themselves, said the woman in red.
— For example, if they say, ‘Today I just want to be on my own’?
— Yes.
— Or go travelling?
— Yes.
— Or turn off their phone?
— Yes.
— That last one is truly revolutionary.
Lena laughed, and so did the woman in red.
Then the woman said:
— But it really is like that. If you can never be unavailable, rest, have some privacy or carry on with your own life, eventually there will be very little of you left.
— What if the other person is upset?
— They have a right to feel upset. They don’t have a right to make your decisions for you.
This time I fell silent.
The rain had grown a little heavier again.
The windscreen wipers swept back and forth.
— It isn’t only an individual matter, Lena said. — If one person in a relationship always gives more time, energy and emotional labour while the other mostly receives it, a question of power develops over time.
— What is emotional labour?
— It is the work of always having to notice how the other person feels, soothe them, smooth over disagreements, make plans, remember what upsets them and constantly manage the atmosphere between you.
— And sometimes there’s nobody left to ask how that person feels, said the woman in red.
— You can be in a relationship and still be lonely, then?
— Very much so.
She said it softly.
For a moment her gaze left us and settled on the wet glass.
I asked nothing.
Neither did Lena.
If you follow up some questions too quickly, they become an interrogation.
After a while I said:
— How much of their life should a person keep for themselves in a relationship?
— You can’t give it a percentage.
— Fifty-fifty?
— No.
— Sixty-forty?
— Khalo, life isn’t a bank account.
The donkey brayed.
— We’ve found our accountant. He says seventy per cent of the hay for him, thirty per cent for the rest of us.
Lena burst out laughing.
— Perhaps a person only needs to ask themselves one question now and then, said the woman in red.
— Which one?
She looked at me.
— Am I still living my own life in this relationship?
This time I said nothing.
I shifted my hands on the wheel.
It was a simple question.
Its answer wasn’t always simple.
The woman in red continued:
— You may love someone deeply and do great things for them. But if loving them means you no longer have the right to enjoy your own life, something has gone wrong.
— And enjoying your own life isn’t a betrayal of love, Lena said.
— Exactly.
— A person has the right to love and to be loved in return.
— To care and to be cared for.
— To be with someone and still remain themselves.
— Then what about those old lines, such as ‘I’d sacrifice my whole life for you’?
— They’re poetic, said the woman in red.
— So we shouldn’t put them into practice?
— Better not.
— Because if you sacrifice your entire life for someone, said Lena, — after a while you have nothing left to share with them.
The woman in red nodded.
— A healthy love brings two lives closer together. It isn’t meant to swallow one of them.
— Like two rivers?
— Perhaps.
— Only let’s not have one flowing into the other and disappearing, Lena said.
— Very well. The river analogy is off the agenda too.
The donkey brayed.
— And please don’t suggest another one.
The bus went past the man who was still looking at his watch.
I did not know whom he was waiting for.
Perhaps someone was five minutes late.
Perhaps five years.
Perhaps nobody was coming at all.
The woman in red looked at him.
— I think we can close the case on love now, I said.
— Are you sure?
— No.
She laughed.
— But we have to end the conversation somewhere, or we’ll analyse love for so long that it never has a chance to be lived.
— I’ll agree with that, said Lena.
— At last, I’ve said something you both agree with. Please record the date.
The woman in red looked back out of the window.
Then she said quietly:
— Perhaps all we’re saying is this: make room for someone else in your life, but don’t push yourself out of it to give them your place.
Nobody spoke.
Even the donkey was quiet.
Coco laid his head on his paws.
The bus moved slowly on.
Rain settled on the glass and the wipers cleared it away again.
Once to the right.
Once to the left.
The street came back into view.
— Well, friends, this is where we let love off the bus.
The donkey brayed.
I turned to look at him.
— Not you. You got on without a ticket and apparently have no intention of getting off.
Lena laughed.
The woman in red rested her head against the window.
I pressed the accelerator a little.
In the mirror, there was no old woman, no cart and no red star any more.
Only a rainy London street and lights stretched across its wet tarmac.
We said nothing more about love.
Not because we had nothing left to say.
Perhaps because some things must eventually leave words behind and be given back to life.
The bus went on.
And this time, none of us asked where it was going.
To be continued…
Naser Kamali
London, a rainy evening, in my cosy little room.
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