The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The discussion of art seemed to be over, yet something the woman in red had said stayed in my mind.
The bus travelled slowly along the wet road. The windscreen wiper swept left and right with a wearisome regularity. For a few minutes I had decided to do nothing but drive. I would enter no more discussions. Even if the donkey had an opinion, he could keep it to himself for now.
But when had this bus ever managed five minutes of silence?
‘Khalo, slow down a little,’ the woman in red said suddenly.
I eased off the accelerator. ‘Why?’
She pointed towards the pavement. Beside a bus stop, a large painting covered a brick wall. It showed a woman with wide eyes and hair blown out as though by the wind. A few flowers were painted below her face. There were words beside them, but I could not read them properly from the bus.
‘Do you want me to stop so you can see it?’ I asked.
‘No. Just look.’
I did. There was something strange about it. I did not know who the woman was or who had painted her, but I felt there was a story behind her face.
Lena looked through the window too.
‘Do you recognise her?’ the newcomer asked.
Nobody answered. The donkey stretched his neck to see out.
‘What are you doing? An art critic as well?’ I asked him.
‘Let him look,’ said the woman in red. ‘Perhaps he understands more than you.’
‘Quite possible. I’ve been the driver for forty-two parts. He’s been a cultural critic for forty-two parts without paying a fare.’
The donkey gave a short bray. The woman in red was still watching the wall as it slowly receded behind us. Coco woke from a doze, leapt up onto a seat and wagged her tail as if she had enjoyed the painting too.
‘Someone might paint over it tomorrow,’ the woman in red said sadly.
‘They might,’ said Lena.
‘Would that be the end of it?’
‘The end of what?’
‘The woman. The picture. Whatever somebody wanted to leave on that wall.’
‘It depends,’ Lena said.
‘On what?’ I asked.
‘Whether it stayed only on the wall or entered people’s memories too.’
I fell quiet. It was a new thought.
‘So art isn’t just the thing that gets made,’ said the woman in red. ‘What happens to it afterwards matters.’
‘And who wants to keep it or destroy it,’ Lena added.
The monarchist, quiet for some time, said, ‘Back to politics again.’
‘On this bus every road seems to lead there,’ I said.
‘It’s not the road’s fault. The driver is political,’ said the newcomer.
‘Madam, I only drive. The passengers boarded with revolution, counter-revolution, art and history in their luggage.’
Lena laughed. Then she addressed the monarchist.
‘It isn’t only about politics. It’s about power, and the state is not the only form of power. Someone with money can commission a work. Someone with media can make one famous. Whoever runs a museum chooses what is displayed. A government can ban or promote a work. Even society’s tastes can overlook an artist for years before another generation rediscovers them.’
‘The poor artist makes something and everybody else decides its fate?’ I asked.
‘Not always,’ said the woman in red. She paused. ‘Sometimes artists choose whom they stand with.’
Something shifted in the bus.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lena.
‘What we discussed earlier, from another angle. Imagine two painters in the same city. One takes a commission to make the ruler look grander than he really is. The other paints the faces of people nobody wants to look at. Both are painters, perhaps both technically brilliant. But their choices aren’t the same.’
‘True. We must only be careful not to reduce art to a political leaflet,’ Lena said.
The woman in red nodded. ‘Agreed. A work can be valuable without being political. It can be about love, loneliness, death, nature or even an apple on a table. I’m saying artists, like everyone else, live in society. They aren’t outside their own time.’
‘At last somebody speaks up for the apple. I’ve been worried about it since we began this conversation.’
The newcomer laughed. ‘Which apple?’
‘The one they always put on a table in paintings and never allow anyone to eat.’
‘If you entered a museum, Khalo, you’d eat half the still lifes,’ said the woman in red.
‘If I’m hungry after all this discussion, Lena is responsible.’
Even the monarchist laughed. The bus felt lighter. But Lena was still thinking about the painting now several streets behind us.
‘Do you know what I find interesting about art?’ she asked.
‘I hope it’s a short answer.’
‘Power can destroy a work, but it cannot always destroy the meaning it has made in people’s minds.’
‘For example?’ asked the newcomer.
‘Suppose a play is banned. They can close the theatre, but those who saw it will talk. A book is withdrawn, but a copy remains in a house. A song is forbidden; someone sings it from memory. A wall is painted over; its image stays in memories or photographs.’
‘So the real trouble begins with people’s memories.’
Lena smiled. ‘For anyone who wants to control everything, yes.’
Suddenly the woman in red opened her bag, searched inside it for a moment and took out a small pencil.
‘What are you doing now?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’
She found a scrap of paper in another pocket and began drawing.
The newcomer leaned forward. ‘What are you drawing?’
‘The woman on the wall.’
‘Did you even see what her face looked like? We were beside it for three seconds.’
Without lifting her head, she said, ‘It doesn’t have to be exactly the same.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘What remains of her in my mind.’
‘That’s it,’ said Lena.
‘What have you discovered this time?’ I asked.
‘The difference between a record and art. A camera might have captured the exact shape of that wall. She is drawing what the image left in her mind.’
I checked the mirror. ‘Please don’t develop that thought. I can feel another forty-part debate coming on.’
The woman in red laughed and held up the paper. The drawing was simple, just a few lines, yet you could make out a woman’s face.
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
‘Her nose looks a little like the donkey’s.’
He brayed at once.
‘You really are impossible,’ she said.
‘Art criticism.’
She folded the paper and put it in her bag.
Then something occurred to me. The wall was streets behind us. Perhaps the painting would be erased tomorrow, or the building torn down, or we would never pass that street again. Yet another image of that woman now lay in the woman in red’s bag. Neither the original nor a copy. A trace of it.
‘Lena?’
‘Yes?’
‘I think I see what you meant.’
‘About what?’
‘Erasing art doesn’t always mean it disappears.’
‘Exactly.’
She left it there, and I liked that. Sometimes one sentence, allowed to end where it should, stays with you longer than ten pages of explanation.
For a few minutes we heard only the engine and the wiper. Then the monarchist said, ‘There is another side to it.’
Everyone turned towards him.
‘Just as governments use art to create the image they want, their opponents can do the same. They too may make heroes, exaggerate or leave out anything that does not suit them.’
‘True,’ Lena said at once.
He seemed to expect an argument. ‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all. A distortion does not become the truth because it comes from somebody I agree with.’
We were quiet for a moment. I liked that sentence.
‘Someone write that down. We may all need it later.’
‘Even you?’ asked the woman in red.
‘Especially me.’
‘That is why we need to distinguish art, propaganda and history,’ Lena continued. ‘Their borders sometimes draw close, but they aren’t the same. Art can raise a question. Propaganda usually wants to hand you the answer in advance.’
‘Tell you what to think?’ asked the newcomer.
‘Often, yes.’
‘Good art can leave you questioning something you thought you knew,’ said the woman in red.
‘If doubt is the test of good art,’ I said, ‘this bus is London’s greatest gallery. Since we set off, I’ve doubted everything — even whether I’m really the driver. Or alive at all.’
The donkey brayed.
‘Don’t doubt that. You really are a donkey.’
The laughter rose again. I felt we had reached a point where the discussion of art did not need to be stretched further. We did not have to deliver a verdict, line artists up in two ranks or trawl through thousands of years of examples.
This much was clear to me: art is more than something to hang on a wall. It can be beauty or protest, a means of power or a lonely person’s refuge. It can make a lie more beautiful, or place something meant to be forgotten before our eyes again. None of those things alone was all that art could be. Perhaps our mistake was trying to find a small definition for something so large.
I looked at the woman in red. The corner of the paper still showed at the edge of her bag.
‘Keep it.’
‘Why?’
‘Perhaps we’ll go down that street again one day and find the wall painting gone.’
She pushed the paper deeper into the bag. ‘Then this will remain.’
‘No.’
She looked at me. ‘What, then?’
‘What you remembered of it will remain.’
Lena smiled but said nothing. Happily, nothing this time. Some discussions should end at the very moment they have left you something to think about.
I pressed the accelerator a little. ‘Very well. The art file is closed.’
‘For ever?’ asked the woman in red.
‘No file is closed for ever on this bus. Let the artists have a rest for a few stops.’
The donkey brayed.
‘The art critics too.’
The rain was still falling. The bus went on. The wall painting had long disappeared from sight, but a scrap of paper remained in the woman in red’s bag. Perhaps that was enough.
Nobody spoke for a few minutes. For the first time in ages, I liked the silence. I knew that when someone next opened their mouth, it would be better if they talked about something else.
To be continued.
Naser Kamali, somewhere in the uncharted country of his mind.
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