What passes across his mind then, fleetingly, wordless, is the urge to push, one tiny movement of my hands and he is gone. Where does it come from, this thought of murder surfacing so casually amongst the everyday debris of my brain and then sinking away again.
Â
This is the way we have to walk, Reiner says. Tomorrow.
Â
Oh.
Â
When we go on, I would like to do a night-hike. We leave when it gets dark, we go on all night.
Â
We can try that, he says.
Â
So the next afternoon they set off together in the last light as a fine rain starts to fall. They disappear into darkness, and into a hole in memory too, the next picture I have is of the two of them, in stark daylight again, climbing through the mountains. They have left the road and are heading roughly west. On this hot ordinary day, the two tiny figures wend their way up, up, between crevasses and fissures and fields and koppies, passing villages and little streams, dense copses and woods of trees, heading towards the top of the range, from where they will be able to begin their descent. Reiner is driving them on. It rains in the afternoon, a brief intense downpour, but the heat doesnât go away. Steam rises on every side, as if the earth is smouldering, and in the late afternoon the air is taut and electric and hot.
Â
Then everything seems to happen very quickly, converging towards a point. They come out on what feels like the roof of the world just as dusk is falling, with a precipitous gorge directly in front of them and line upon line of mountains rippling away. The dark is coming down unnaturally fast and when they look out ahead of them they see why. Rolling in from separate points on the horizon are two massive storms, their paths set to collide roughly where they are standing. The black fronts of cloud are impenetrable, already the sun is obscured.
Â
Itâs too late now to retrace their steps, or to find a place lower down to shelter. There are only a few minutes left before the storms will hit, just enough time to put up the tent, and they start fumbling frantically with poles and pegs and straps. The wind is rising and there is a strange smell, like metal, on the air. The sound of thunder comes again and again. They get the tent up and the rucksacks inside and then they rush around finding rocks to weigh down the canvas.
Â
By now the outlines of the world are bending and wavering, and it feels as if theyâre rushing through space. With a calm eye somewhere in his brain he observes how very exposed and isolated they are, this one little bump standing up on the bald crown of the mountain.
Â
The lightning, he thinks, we must get rid of the metal. For the next minute or two they rummage through the bags, collecting all the metal they can find. Laden with cutlery and pen-knives and bracelets they rush out again and throw the little pitiful heap of silver down in the roiling undergrowth and rush back. Would it make any difference, this ridiculous precaution, there are still the pegs in the ground, also metal, too late to do anything about those. They climb back inside as the storms strike.
Â
No human force has prepared him for a violence so impersonal or strong. Wind and rain and noise. The ground shakes. Between the lightning and the thunder the interval is tiny and getting smaller. Then there is no interval and the centre of power is above them.
Â
Somehow this image sums it up, this is the moment it has all led to, he lies face down towards the back of the tent, like a piece of wood, a stone, his head pressed into the ground and his hands over his ears. Now, he thinks, it will happen now, now, now, while Reiner lies the other way, his head up, holding the flaps of the entrance slightly apart so that he can look out, with that sulky expression of an angry child, at the roaring world lit up like noon.
Â
Â
T he morning dawns perfect and cloudless. He wakes early and crawls out into calm. The bushes are
Â
This is the way we have to walk, Reiner says. Tomorrow.
Â
Oh.
Â
When we go on, I would like to do a night-hike. We leave when it gets dark, we go on all night.
Â
We can try that, he says.
Â
So the next afternoon they set off together in the last light as a fine rain starts to fall. They disappear into darkness, and into a hole in memory too, the next picture I have is of the two of them, in stark daylight again, climbing through the mountains. They have left the road and are heading roughly west. On this hot ordinary day, the two tiny figures wend their way up, up, between crevasses and fissures and fields and koppies, passing villages and little streams, dense copses and woods of trees, heading towards the top of the range, from where they will be able to begin their descent. Reiner is driving them on. It rains in the afternoon, a brief intense downpour, but the heat doesnât go away. Steam rises on every side, as if the earth is smouldering, and in the late afternoon the air is taut and electric and hot.
Â
Then everything seems to happen very quickly, converging towards a point. They come out on what feels like the roof of the world just as dusk is falling, with a precipitous gorge directly in front of them and line upon line of mountains rippling away. The dark is coming down unnaturally fast and when they look out ahead of them they see why. Rolling in from separate points on the horizon are two massive storms, their paths set to collide roughly where they are standing. The black fronts of cloud are impenetrable, already the sun is obscured.
Â
Itâs too late now to retrace their steps, or to find a place lower down to shelter. There are only a few minutes left before the storms will hit, just enough time to put up the tent, and they start fumbling frantically with poles and pegs and straps. The wind is rising and there is a strange smell, like metal, on the air. The sound of thunder comes again and again. They get the tent up and the rucksacks inside and then they rush around finding rocks to weigh down the canvas.
Â
By now the outlines of the world are bending and wavering, and it feels as if theyâre rushing through space. With a calm eye somewhere in his brain he observes how very exposed and isolated they are, this one little bump standing up on the bald crown of the mountain.
Â
The lightning, he thinks, we must get rid of the metal. For the next minute or two they rummage through the bags, collecting all the metal they can find. Laden with cutlery and pen-knives and bracelets they rush out again and throw the little pitiful heap of silver down in the roiling undergrowth and rush back. Would it make any difference, this ridiculous precaution, there are still the pegs in the ground, also metal, too late to do anything about those. They climb back inside as the storms strike.
Â
No human force has prepared him for a violence so impersonal or strong. Wind and rain and noise. The ground shakes. Between the lightning and the thunder the interval is tiny and getting smaller. Then there is no interval and the centre of power is above them.
Â
Somehow this image sums it up, this is the moment it has all led to, he lies face down towards the back of the tent, like a piece of wood, a stone, his head pressed into the ground and his hands over his ears. Now, he thinks, it will happen now, now, now, while Reiner lies the other way, his head up, holding the flaps of the entrance slightly apart so that he can look out, with that sulky expression of an angry child, at the roaring world lit up like noon.
Â
Â
T he morning dawns perfect and cloudless. He wakes early and crawls out into calm. The bushes are
Similar Books
