Life and Times of Michael K Read online

  He slept under a culvert. By nine o’clock the next morning he was in sight of the chimneys and pylons of Worcester. He was no longer alone on the road but one of a straggling line of people. Three young men passed him walking briskly, their breath leaving them in white puffs.

  On the outskirts of the town there was a roadblock, the first he had seen since Paarl, with police vehicles and people clustered densely around them. For a moment he wavered. To his left were houses, to his right a brickfield. The only way out was back: he pressed on.

  ‘What do they want?’ he whispered to the woman ahead of him in the line. She looked at him, looked away again, said nothing.

  It was his turn. He held out his green card. From the head of the line, between the two police trucks, he could see those who had passed through the check; but also, to one side, a silent group of men, men only, guarded by a policeman with a dog. If I look very stupid, he thought, perhaps they will let me through.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘From Prince Albert.’ His mouth was dry. ‘I am going home to Prince Albert.’

  ‘Permit?’

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘Right. Wait there.’ The policeman pointed with his baton.

  ‘I don’t want to stop, I don’t have time,’ K whispered. Could they smell fear on him? Someone gripped his arm. He baulked, like a beast at the shambles. A hand behind him in the line was holding out a green card. No one was listening to him. The policeman with the dog made an impatient gesture. Shoved forward, K walked the last paces himself and entered captivity, his fellows shuffling aside as if to avoid contamination. He clasped the box and looked back into the yellow eyes of the dog.

  In the company of fifty strangers K was driven to the railway yards, fed cold porridge and tea, and herded into a lone carriage at a siding. The doors were locked and they waited, watched over by an armed guard in the brown and black uniform of the Railways Police, till another thirty prisoners arrived and were loaded aboard.

  Next to K, by the window, sat an older man dressed in a suit. K touched his sleeve. ‘Where are they taking us?’ he asked. The stranger looked him over and shrugged. ‘Why does it matter where they are taking us?’ he said. ‘There are only two places, up the line and down the line. That is the nature of trains.’ He brought out a roll of sweets and offered one to K.

  A steam locomotive was backed up to the siding and, with whistles and jerks and clashes, coupled to the carriage. ‘North,’ said the stranger. ‘Touws River.’ When K did not reply he seemed to lose interest in him.

  They pulled away from the siding and began to move through the back yards of Worcester, where women hung out washing and children stood on fences to wave, the train gradually picking up speed. K watched the telegraph wires rise and fall, rise and fall. They passed mile after mile of bare and neglected vineyards circled over by crows; then the engine began to labour as they entered the mountains. K shivered. He could smell his own sweat through the musty odour of his clothes.

  They came to a halt; a guard unlocked the doors; and the moment they stepped out the reason for stopping became clear. The train could go no further: the track ahead was covered in a mountain of rocks and red clay that had come pouring down the slope, tearing a wide gash in the hillside. Someone made a remark, and there was a burst of laughter.

  From the top of the earthslide they could see another train far down the track on the other side: there were men struggling like ants to roll a mechanical shovel out of a truck and down a ramp.

  K found himself assigned to a gang working on the track, which was dislocated for some distance short of the obstruction. All afternoon, under the eye of an overseer and a guard, he and his fellows worked at moving the buckled rails, firming the bed of the track, and laying sleepers. By evening there was enough new track for an empty truck to advance to the foot of the slide. They broke off for a supper of bread and jam and tea. Then, in the glare of the locomotive headlight, they climbed the mound and began to shovel clay and stones. At first they were high enough to pitch a load straight into the truck; as the mound grew lower each shovelful had to be lifted over its side. When the truck was filled the locomotive hauled it back down the track, and the same men emptied it in darkness.

  Revived by the suppertime break, K soon began to flag again. Every spadeful he lifted cost him an effort; when he stood erect there was a stabbing in his back and the world spun. He laboured more and more slowly, then sat down at the trackside with his head between his knees. Time passed, he had no idea how much time. Sounds grew faint in his ears.

  He was tapped on the knee. ‘Get up!’ said a voice. He scrambled to his feet and in the faint light faced the gang overseer in his black coat and cap.

  ‘Why have I got to work here?’ K said. His head swam; the words seemed to echo from far away.

  The overseer shrugged. ‘Just do what you’re told,’ he said. He raised his stick and prodded K in the chest. K picked up his shovel.

  Till midnight they toiled, moving like sleepwalkers. Herded back into the carriage at last, they slept slumped against one another on the seats or sprawled on the bare floor, the windows shut against the bitter upland cold, while outside the guards stamped up and down and shivered and cursed and took turns to sneak into the cab to warm their hands.

  Tired and cold, K lay with the box of ashes in his arms. His neighbour pressed against him and embraced him in his sleep. He thinks I am his wife, thought K, the wife in whose bed he slept last night. He stared at the misty window, longing for the night to pass. Later he fell asleep; when the guards unlocked the doors in the morning his body was so stiff that he could barely stand.

  Again there was porridge and tea. He found himself sitting beside the man who had spoken to him on the journey from Worcester.

  ‘Are you feeling sick?’ said the man.

  K shook his head.

  ‘You don’t talk,’ said the man. ‘I thought you must be sick.’

  ‘I’m not sick,’ said K.

  ‘Then don’t be so miserable. This isn’t jail. This isn’t a life sentence. This is just labour gang. It’s peanuts.’

  K could not finish the lukewarm slab of mealie-porridge. The guards and the two overseers were going among them now, clapping their hands and prodding them to stand up.

  ‘There’s nothing special about you,’ said the man. ‘There’s nothing special about any of us.’ His gesture embraced them all: prisoners, guards, foremen. K scraped the uneaten porridge out on to the earth and they stood up. The hooknosed overseer passed by, slapping the tail of his coat with his stick. ‘Cheer up!’ said the man, giving K a smile, punching him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Soon you’ll be your own man again!’

  The mechanical shovel had at last been brought up on the other side of the slide and was steadily biting the earth away. By noon a passage had been cut three metres wide, and the regular repair crew from Touws River could move in to raise and re-lay the uncovered track. The train on the north side began to get up steam. In his filthy white ambulance jacket, carrying the coat and the box, in the company of other silent and exhausted men, K climbed aboard. No one stopped him. Slowly the train backed away, heading northward up the single track, with the two armed guards at the end of the carriage peering up the line.

  For all of the two-hour ride K pretended to be asleep. Once the man sitting opposite him, perhaps looking for something to eat, nudged the box out from between his feet and opened it. When he saw it held ash he closed it and pushed it back. K watched through half-closed eyes but did not interfere.

  They were unloaded at Touws River at five in the afternoon. K stood on the platform not knowing what was to happen next. They might discover he had boarded the wrong train and ship him back to Worcester; or they might lock him up in this strange bleak windy place for not having papers; or there might be enough emergencies along the line, enough earthslides and washaways and explosions in the night and broken tracks, to make it necessary for a gang of fifty men to be shuttled nor
th and south from Touws River for years to come, unpaid, fed on porridge and tea to keep their strength up. But in fact the two guards, having escorted them off the platform, turned without a word and abandoned them on the cinder expanse of the marshalling yards to resume their interrupted lives.

  Without waiting, K crossed the tracks, ducked through a hole in the fence, and took the path that led away from the station towards the oasis of filling stations, roadhouses and children’s playgrounds on the national road. The gay paint on the rocking-horses and roundabouts was peeling and the filling stations had long been shut down, but a small shop with a Coca-Cola sign over the doorway and a crate of withered oranges in the window still seemed to be open. K had reached the door, had even stepped into the shop, when a little old woman in black scuttled forward with outstretched arms to meet him. Before he could brace himself she had forced him back bodily over the threshold and with a rattle of bolts closed the door in his face. He peered through the glass and knocked; he held up the ten-rand note to show good faith; but the old woman, without so much as a look, disappeared behind the high counter. Two other men from the train, following behind K, had seen his repulse. One of them angrily hurled a handful of gravel at the window; then they turned and left.

  K stayed on. Beyond the rack of paperback books, through the sweets in the display cases, he could still see the edge of the black dress. He shielded his eyes with his hands and waited. There was nothing to hear but the wind across the veld and the creaking of the sign overhead. After a while the old woman brought her head up over the counter and met his stare. She wore glasses with thick black rims; her silver hair was drawn back tight. On shelves behind her K could make out canned food, packets of mealie-meal and sugar, detergent powders. On the floor in front of the counter was a basket of lemons. He held the banknote flat against the glass above his bead. The old woman did not budge.

  He tried the water-tap beside one of the petrol pumps, but it was dry. He drank from a tap at the rear of the shop. In the veld behind the filling station stood the hulks of scores of cars. He tried doors till he found one that opened. The back seat of the car had been removed, but he was too tired to search further. The sun was going down behind the mountains, the clouds were turning orange. He pulled the door to, lay down on the dusty concave floor with the box under his head, and was soon asleep.

  In the morning the shop was open. There was a tall man in khaki behind the counter, from whom, without any trouble, K bought three cans of beans in tomato sauce, a packet of powdered milk, and matches. He retreated behind the filling station and made a fire; while one of the cans was warming he poured milk powder into his palm and licked at it. Having eaten, he set off, trudging along the highway with the sun on his right. He walked steadily all day. In this flat landscape of scrub and stone there was nowhere one could hide. Convoys passed in both directions, but he ignored them. When dusk fell he broke from the road, crossed a fence, and found a place for the night in a dry river-course. He made a fire and ate the second can of beans. He slept close to the embers, oblivious of the night noises, the tiny scurryings across the pebbles, the rustle of feathers in the trees.

  Having once crossed the fence into the veld, he found it more restful to walk across country. He walked all day. In the fading light he was lucky enough to bring down a turtle-dove with a stone as it came to roost in a thorntree. He twisted its neck, cleaned it, roasted it on a skewer of wire, and ate it with the last can of beans.

  In the morning he was woken roughly by an old countryman in a tattered brown army coat. With strange vehemence the old man warned him off the land. ‘I just slept here, nothing else,’ K objected. ‘Don’t come looking for trouble!’ said the old man. ‘They find you in their veld, they shoot you! You just make trouble! Now go!’ K asked for directions, but the old man waved him off and began to kick dirt over the ashes of the fire. So he retreated, and for an hour trudged along the highway; then, feeling safe, he recrossed the fence.

  From a feeding trough beside a dam he scooped half a tinful of crushed mealies and bonemeal, boiled it in water, and ate the gritty mush. He filled his beret with more of the feed, thinking: At last I am living off the land.

  Sometimes the only sound he could hear was that of his trouserlegs whipping together. From horizon to horizon the landscape was empty. He climbed a hill and lay on his back listening to the silence, feeling the warmth of the sun soak into his bones.

  Three strange creatures, little dogs with big ears, started from behind a bush and raced away.

  I could live here forever, he thought, or till I die. Nothing would happen, every day would be the same as the day before, there would be nothing to say. Tbe anxiety that belonged to the time on the road began to leave him. Sometimes, as he walked, he did not know whether he was awake or asleep. He could understand that people should have retreated here and fenced themselves in with miles and miles of silence; he could understand that they should have wanted to bequeath the privilege of so much silence to their children and grandchildren in perpetuity (though by what right he was not sure); he wondered whether there were not forgotten corners and angles and corridors between the fences, land that belonged to no one yet. Perhaps if one flew high enough, he thought, one would be able to see.

  Two aircraft streaked across the sky from south to north leaving vapour trails that slowly faded, and a noise like waves.

  The sun was declining as he climbed the last hills outside Laingsburg; by the time he crossed the bridge and reached the wide central avenue of the town the light was a murky violet. He passed filling stations, shops, roadhouses, all closed. A dog began barking and, having begun, went on. Other dogs joined in. There were no street lights.

  He was standing before a display of children’s clothing in a dim shop window when someone passed behind him, halted, and came back. ‘It’s curfew when the bell goes,’ said a voice. ‘You’d better get off the street.’

  K turned. He saw a man younger than himself wearing a green and gold track suit and carrying a wooden tool-chest. What the stranger saw he did not know.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said the young man.

  ‘I don’t want to stop,’ said K. ‘I’m going to Prince Albert and it’s a long way.’

  But he went home with the stranger after all and slept at his house, after a meal of soup and pan-bread. There were three children. All the while K ate, the youngest, a girl, sat on her mother’s lap staring and, though her mother whispered in her ear, would not take her eyes off him. The two elder children kept their gaze severely on their plates. After hesitating, K spoke of his journey. ‘I met a man the other day,’ he said, ‘who told me they shoot people they find on their land.’ His friend shook his head. ‘I’ve never heard of that,’ he said. ‘People must help each other, that’s what I believe.’

  K allowed this utterance to sink into his mind. Do I believe in helping people? he wondered. He might help people, he might not help them, he did not know beforehand, anything was possible. He did not seem to have a belief, or did not seem to have a belief regarding help. Perhaps I am the stony ground, he thought.

  When the light was switched off, K lay for a long time listening to the stirring of the children, whose bed he had taken and who now slept on a mattress on the floor. He woke once during the night with the feeling that he had been talking in his sleep; but no one seemed to have heard him. When he woke next there was a light on and the parents were getting their children off to school, trying to hush them for the sake of the guest. Mortified, he slipped on his trousers under the bedclothes and stepped outdoors. The stars were still shining; in the east there was a pink glow on the horizon.

  The boy came to summon him to breakfast. At the table the urge again came over him to speak. He gripped the edge of the table and sat stiffly upright. His heart was full, he wanted to utter his thanks, but finally the right words would not come. The children stared at him; a silence fell; their parents looked away.

  The two elder children were instructed to wa
lk with him as far as the turnoff to Seweweekspoort. At the turnoff, before they parted, the boy spoke. ‘Are those the ashes?’ he said. K nodded. ‘Would you like to see?’ he offered. He opened the box, unknotted the plastic bag. First the boy smelled the ashes, then his sister did the same. ‘What are you going to do with them?’ asked the boy. ‘I am taking them back to where my mother was born long ago,’ said K. ‘That was what she wanted me to do.’ ‘Did they burn her up?’ asked the boy. K saw the burning halo. ‘She didn’t feel anything,’ he said, ‘she was already spirit by then.’

  It took him three days to cover the distance from Laingsburg to Prince Albert, following the direction of the dirt road, making wide circles around farmhouses, trying to live off the veld but for the main part going hungry. Once, in the heat of the day, he stripped off his clothes and submerged himself in the water of a lonely dam. Once he was called to the roadside by a farmer driving a light truck. The farmer wanted to know where he was going. ‘To Prince Albert,’ he said, ‘to visit my family.’ But his accent was strange and it was clear that the farmer was not satisfied. ‘Jump in,’ he said. K shook his head. ‘Jump in,’ repeated the farmer, ‘I’ll give you a ride.’ ‘I’m OK,’ said K, and walked on. The truck drove off in a cloud of dust; and at once K left the road, cut down into a river-bed, and hid till nightfall.