Boekgesprek: In a strange room deur Damon Galgut

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Lou-Marie Kruger deel haar gedagtes oor In a strange room deur Damon Galgut. Hierdie gesprek is twee jaar gelede tydens 'n leeskringbespreking aangebied.

1. Inleiding

New Yorker: “Enigmatic novel”

Guardian: “Damon Galgut at a superb new high … with this new book he has struck a new direction and taken his writing to a whole other level. It is a quite astonishing work.”

Telegraph: “Galgut has produced an excellent piece of work that is as inviting as it is troubling.”

Washington Post: “Plenty of sophisticated, sensitive readers have praised these stories, and I don’t doubt their insight or critical acumen … At this stage of my life this seems like a small room rather than a strange one, and I’m tired of sharing it with men who have nothing more to tell me than how dispirited they are.”

Die Burger: “Maar hoe jy hierdie boek ook al benader, Galgut verbluf met subtiele maar trefseker karakterisering, en met die onderbeklemtoonde, maar psigologies baie presiese oopskryf van interpersoonlike verhoudings. Dit is ’n boek vir herlees, waarin die eintlike dramas onder die oppervlak speel. Dit is ’n boek vol eensaamheid en verlange, maar sonder melodrama of onnodige effusie.”

Ek self het die boek vir die eerste keer in Desember 2010 gelees, op ’n warm somermiddag in, dink ek, Hermanus. Ek dink dis die middag toe die Wilcocks afgebrand het. Ek kon dit glad nie neersit nie en toe ek uiteindelik klaar daarmee was (na ’n paar uur) het ek vreemd melankolies gevoel: erg geraak en geskuif na ’n plek in myself baie ver van ’n somervakansie by die see en my kantoor wat afgebrand het. Ek was verwonderd oor hoe die klein boekie wat ek heel maklik kon lees (met die klank van beach bats en die reuk van coconut suntan olie en seesand op die agtergrond), so ’n onmiddellike effek op my gemoed kon hê: beide vertroebelend en opruiend, beswarend en verligtend. Ek was dan nog nooit in Griekeland of Lesotho of Indië nie – ek het nog nooit met ’n rugsak deur Afrika gereis nie. Maar ek het tog gevoel ek herken en ken die vreemde kamers waardeur Galgut reis.

Ek is nie alleen in my verwondering nie. In die New York Times-resensie van In a strange room skryf die resensent Adam Langer: “At first you might wonder why the stories seem so disturbingly familiar ... where, you might wonder, have you encountered them before?” Hy beantwoord sy eie vraag: “... yet the further you delve into ’In a strange room’ ... the more you realize that the shocks of recognition do not arise so much from any particular artwork you may have encountered but from the uncanny relevance the novel ultimately seems to have for your own life. Or perhaps more impressively, from how deftly Mr Galgut uses rhetorical devices to intermingle his narrator’s thoughts with your own …”

Langer suggereer dat dit nie net die inhoud van die boek is wat die leser intrek of afstoot nie – dit is ook hóé die skrywer skryf wat maak dat die leser op ’n komplekse manier ingetrek word by die reise van die verteller, Damon. En as ons hierdie verhale/vertellings kan sien as representasies van verhoudings, voorstellings van spesifiek encounters, dan is ons lees van hierdie boek ook so ’n interaksie – waar die grense tussen ons as lesers en die skrywer Galgut en hoofkarakter Damon tydelik vertroebel.

Bron: forum.thesims3.com

2. Die hooftemas

Galgut self sê in ’n onderhoud met die BBC dat In a strange room ’n boek is oor “memory” en hoe mense verhale maak/konstrueer deur die manier waarop hulle herinneringe kies en aanmekaar heg. Galgut se boek gaan oor reise deur drie verskillende kontinente, maar dis gou duidelik dat die reis deur die fisiese landskap op oortuigende wyse die konteks verskaf vir die eintlik reise wat hier beskryf word: die ontdekkingsreise waarmee ons almal daagliks besig is – die reise van ontdekking van die wêreld (hoe is die wêreld regtig?), van die ander (hoe is die ander?) en uiteindelik van die self (wie is ek?). Dit is verhale van een man, Damon, se soeke na “human connection and belonging”. Miskien is dit nie toevallig dat hierdie man se naam, Damon, agteruitgespel “Nomad” is nie, met die suggestie dat hierdie verhale dié is van ons almal wat uiteindelik nomades is, dwalend van plek na plek, op soek na die die ewige ander (“the eternal other”), op soek na onsself.

Neem byvoorbeeld die eerste drie bladsye van die boek waar al hierdie temas reeds gesuggereer word.

Saam met die resensente let ons op dat die dialoog sonder aanhalingstekens is, altyd gefilter deur Damon se interpretasies. Daar is geen vraagtekens aan die einde van sinne nie. ’n Styl, sê een resensent, wat “both a flatness of delivery and certainty of tone”  (Langer) verseker.

In hierdie klein uittreksel sien ons die alleenreisiger, tevrede in sy alleenheid, maar ook knaend op die uitkyk vir die ander. Met die bewuswording van die ander is daar ’n soort versnelling van pas (as mens ooit kan sê daar is versnellig van pas in Galgut se narratiewe!); daar is vigilance, verspieding, nuuskierigheid, belangstelling, ’n suggestie van hunkering en verlange, en dan kontak. Die kontak is “not quite intimate, but familiar. As if they have met somewhere before, long ago. But they have not.” In die vinnige, ietwat formele kontak / vreemde interaksie is daar momenteel herkenning, warmte, konneksie voor die onvermydelike afskeid: “(T)hey part again with a nod and draw slowly away from each other on the narrow white road, looking back now and then, until they are two separate points again, rising and falling with the undulations of the landscape.” Ons reisiger is helaas weer alleen tussen die ruines: “… now he is thinking of things that happened in the past. Looking back at him through time, I remember him remembering, and I am more present in the scene than he was. But memory has its own distances, in part he is me entirely, in part he is a stranger that I am watching” (5).

Wanneer die “hy” “ek” word, vertroebel die grense tussen die verteller Galgut en die karakter Damon, maar die grense tussen leser en skrywer word ook dynserig: op ’n paradoksale manier word ons as lesers beide ingetrek by die storie en ook verdoem tot die status van toekyker en vreemdeling. Hierdie paradoks is miskien waar van alle menslike interaksies, ’n paradoks wat ons telkens weer in die boek teëkom. In ons verhoudings met mense reis ons altyd in sirkels, altyd eindig ons maar weer by die ongemaklike plek van onsself en ons eie wese. Daar is nêrens waar ons regtig hoort nie. Soos Damon vertel:

He spends a day in a gallery of outsider art, paintings and sculptures made with the vision of the mad or the lost, and from this collection of fantastic and febrile images he retains a single line, a book title by a Serbian artist whose name I forget, He has no house.

Damon vergeet die naam van die kunstenaar, maar Galgut onthou dit en die reël van die Serbiese kunstenaar, Vojislav Jakic, word die opdragreel van die boek. “He has no house.”

Ons huislose onheldhaftige held (“hardly your cool existential antihero,” skryf een resensent) bevind hom in kamer na vreemde kamer – of dan in die een pynlik ongemaklike (awkward) en komplekse verhouding na die ander. Troosteloos lees hy William Faulkner se “As I lay dying” op een van sy reise:

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. (46)

In nuwe verhoudings moet ons onsself blootstel, leegmaak. Maar wie is ons voor die leegmaak en wie is ons as vol is van die ander? In die vreemde kamers van verhoudings waar ons onsself blootstel en oopmaak vir die ander, word dit onduidelik wie is wie – daar is as’t ware ’n aanslag op wie ons is.

Op hierdie manier is alle verhoudings dieselfde:

 … the succession of flyblown and featureless rooms he sleeps in, night after night, always changing but somehow always the same room … (Penguin, bl 17)

Bron: Strange Room Wallpaper

3. Die verhaal “The Guardian”

Alhoewel Galgut se boek ’n meesterstuk is as mens daarmee omgaan op ’n simboliese/analogiese vlak, sal dit problematies wees om die boek net op hierdie manier te lees; dit sal wees om die boek net op een van sy vele vlakke te waardeer. Dit is juis die feit dat terwyl hy konsekwent en op geniale wyse die metafoor van verhoudings as reise handhaaf, hy ook die spesifieke besonderhede van elke verhouding en elke karakter meedoënloos weergee wat hierdie boek so briljant maak: Damon die reisiger sê self hoe hy konstant aangetrek word deur “tiny threatening details”. As ’n sielkundige is ek verstom deur die karakterisering en is ek net weer eens onder die indruk van hoeveel meer skrywers weet as baie sielkundiges en hoe romans miskien ons beste manier is om mense en menslikheid te verstaan.

Ek wil graag konsentreer op die laaste verhaal, “The Guardian”.

Galgut self sê dat die drie verhale “The follower”, “The lover” en “The guardian” elk een van die dominante aspekte van menslike verhoudings belig. Volgens hom is dit in “the follower” mag, in “The lover” is dit liefde en in “The guardian” is dit versorging. Mag, liefde en versorging is wel teenwoordig in al die verhale, maar ek dink dit is in “The guardian” dat die komplekse spel van mag, liefde en versorging – so teenwoordig in al ons intieme verhoudings – op die mees oortuigende manier voorgestel word. Wanneer hy praat oor die boek, praat Galgut self nie oor die ander emosies wat altyd ook in liefdevolle versorgende verhoudings teenwoordig is nie – emosies wat alles te doen het met mag in intieme verhoudings. Emosies soos weerloosheid, angs, woede, resentment, haat. Maar in sy novel is hierdie emosies die heel tyd huiwerend onder die oppervlak, net om elke nou en dan met mag en mening na die oppervlak te kom:

I don’t like leaving the road, my sense of vulnerability deepens, a sort of primal nervousness descends. But this is also one of the most compelling elements in travel, the feeling of dread underneath everything, it makes sensations heightened and acute, the world is charged with a power it doesn’t have in ordinary life. (Penguin, bl 46)

Die verhaal “The guardian” is op die oog af ’n eenvoudige een. Damon neem sy siek vriendin, Anna, saam op ’n reis na Indië, ’n reis wat hy en haar ander vriende hoop helend vir haar sal wees. Die reis wat haar moet stabiliseer en haar moet help om haarself te vind, word ’n nagmerrie van selfverwoesting en verwoesting van die ander. Vroeg reeds op die reis, op ’n goeie dag met blou water, vissersbootjies, sonsopkoms, sonsondergang, ’n dag van “Idyll and innocence” hoor Damon die doodskrete van varke: “there is slaughter even in paradise” (133) dink hy dan.

En die hoe van die slagtings word meedoënloos en brutaal verwoord in die res van die verhaal.

Na ’n erge selfmoordpoging bevind die twee vriende hulle in ’n Indiese hospitaal (een resensent merk op: “the actual moral of the story is, don’t get sick in India”), waar hulle en hulle vriendskap op verskeie maniere gechallenge word. Damon is die versorger en Anna die pasiënt, maar in hierdie versorgingsverhouding is al die komplekse emosies van mag en weerloosheid, liefde en haat, versorging en destruktiwiteit teenwoordig in beide karakters en in hulle verhouding. In die intense verhouding tussen versorgde en versorger is daar spore van ander klassieke literere tekste (Marlene van Niekerk se Agaat, William Faulkner se As I lay dying), maar ook pynlik realistiese voorstellings van wat sielkundiges sou sê oor die brutaliteit en wreedheid inherent in alle versorgende verhoudings.

Bron: www.popmatters.com

3.1 Anna

Die twee karakters word so lewend soos die landskappe wat beskryf word. Ons kan Anna sien: “peroxide job … gone wrong … her hair a strange yellow colour, standing out in angry spikes from her head … her face is knotted and anxious, bunched in on itself …  the knowledge that she was out of control showed in her face like a concealed pain … emaciated and scarred with cigarette burns … She’s a strikingly pretty woman and in her current state especially so, lean and glowing with an inner fire …” (134).

Maar dit is op emosionele vlak dat sy miskien die mees opvallend en meesleurend is: “She seems to burn with a luminous white light,” sê die verteller Damon vroeg in sy verhaal. Aan die einde van die verhaal sê hy:

There’s no theme, no moral to be learned, except for the knowledge that lightning can strike from a clear sky one morning and take away everything you’ve counted on, leaving wreckage and no meaning behind. It can happen to anyone, it can happen to anyone. (175–6)

Ek wonder hoe wat sy ons almal laat voel te doen het met ons eie geskiedenisse. Ons almal ken ’n Anna. Sy is ’n ster wat altyd verskiet. ’n Lig wat afgaan. ’n Oop honger mond met ’n dodelike byt as ’n mens te naby kom. ’n Bliksemstraal wat alles spektakulêr kan vernietig.

Sy is ’n skoonma of ’n dogter,’n lover of ’n buurman. Iemand wat in ons poorte staan.
Sy is vir altyd twee jaar oud of dan sestien jaar oud.

Miskien het ons almal iets van haar in ons.

Galgut teken die prentjie van ’n baie siek vrou, ’n vrou wat in psigologiese terme beskryf sou word as iemand met ’n persoonlikheidsversteuring – “borderline personality disorder”.

Anna het sekerlik al hierdie simptome.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

Anna has to be ceaselessly attended to or she lapses into depression (136).

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation

Anna het geen kapasiteit om ambivalensie of dubbelsinnigheid in verhoudings te verdra nie. Dis óf swart óf wit. Spierwit of pikswart. Love or contempt. Gratitude or envy.

Thank you for bringing me here, she says. I’m so glad to be here. (131)

 … it would be so nice if we could make love. (133)

She falls for him in a big way, suddenly it’s all Jean this and Jean that …  (135)

There is a real element of contempt in the way she treats us now, a quality of mocking laughter at our concern. She is far beyond us all, because she is not afraid of death any longer, which is both her weakness and her greatest strength.

Endless stream of abuse, the accusations of failure and neglects, as well as the demands. (171)

There is never a thank you, only a litany of charges against him, which he hears out wearily.

Identity disturbance: Persistent and markedly disturbed, distorted or unstable self-image or sense of self

Daar is geen geïntegreerde self nie. Almal wat met Anna kontak het, word dikwels verras met ’n ander kant van haar wat na vore tree.

Feels to him as if a stranger has taken up residence in her, somebody dark and reckless that he doesn’t trust, who wants to consume Anna completely. The stranger is still cautious, biding her time. Meanwhile the person he knows is visible, and sometimes on the ascendant … But the dark stranger always appears again, peering slyly over her shoulder, doing something alarming and the softer Anna shrinks away. (137)

The sister Anna and her scary twin.

The sweet feeble angel of yesterday has disappeared, to be replaced by something else completely. The dark stranger has waxed to the full. (162)

She is angelic again, my coy and flirtatious friend.

Bron: www.trickfist.com

Impulsiveness in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging

Daar is geen uitstel van gratifikasie nie, geen kapasiteit om frustrasie te verdra nie. Die beloning moet dadelik wees.

He thinks in terms of tomorrow and the day after that, but for her there is only now, which is eternity.

Always losing the plot, living in fast motion, speeding along, saying and doing inappropriate things.

No cause for shame.

Hash and cocaine and huge amounts of alcohol. (135)

Noticeably looser … more obviously frayed at the edges, and this dissolution seems to feel like freedom to her, something she must pursue in order to get well. (135)

When she’s left alone for even a short while she gets into potentially harmful interactions with strangers along the way. (136)

Every day she is more powerful and wily, more resourceful in her self-destruction, and her demands become more insistent.

She’s back in the clinic again. She is still suicidal, she’s still a mess. She weighs 55 kilograms and is starving herself. She is burning and cutting herself again.

Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures or threats or self-mutilating behaviour

You know I was going to kill myself on the train ... I suddenly felt like dying ...

Ever since he has known her there’s been this talk about killing herself ...
It’s hard not to feel manipulated when she speaks like this.
That’s how it is with Anna, death at one moment, farce the next, and it’s hard sometimes to distinguish between the two.

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood

Anna kan nie haar gevoelens waarneem en daaraan name gee nie, sy kan hulle nie verstaan of beheer nie.

Moods continue to veer wildly between elation and despair ... laughing at breakfast and sobbing by mid-morning. (132)

She can’t sit still for a minute without becoming profoundly agitated. (136)

Talk is incessant and insane. (136)

Unpacking and repacking. (136)

Falls into frenzy again. This is making me depressed, she says.
Loses her pills, panic in her eyes.
Helplessness: fresh upwelling of tears. Oh my god, what will we do now.
She is wailing now, a spectacular display of distress … cries dramatically.
More manic than he has ever seen her, she fizzes and fiddles without stopping, her conversation jumping from one topic to another … wide, confused eyes, and in her stare. I can see that she’s lost all sense of time.
Nothing contains her, nothing can hold her in.
Weeps and raves.
At her maddest and most powerful.
Moans and protests.
Goes berserk.

Chronic feelings of emptiness

Anna can’t cope with the setting, the desolation echoes something in her.

Inappropriate, intense anger or lack of control of anger

Defiance (128)

Inventory of requirements

The patient is passive … her passivity is like a sort of defiance, from beyond which she watches with amusement.

She has power far beyond her muscular strength, there is a lunatic gleam in her eye … lashes out in a screaming fit, punching the walls and kicking the door, before collapsing in a howling heap on the bed.

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Appears almost serene … the solitary lost figure in the twilight.

She has acquired an otherworldly halo, both attractive and repellent, she has gone beyond some fatal threshold and managed to return.

Die persoonlikheid wat Galgut beskryf, is dié van iemand wat op baie vlakke ongebalanseerd is: daar is disregulasie op die vlak van die emosionele, die interpersoonlike, die kognitiewe, die self en gedrag (Linehan 1993). Ons herken in Anna die stryd met despondency, woede, self-haat, angs, onsekerheid, leegheid, afhanklikheid, koppigheid en selfdestruktiwiteit. Hierdie emosies is so intens en onstabiel omdat daar geen kapasiteit vir selfrefleksie of self-soothing is nie.

Dit maak dan ook stabiele verhoudings met ander onmoontlik: Anna is nie in staat daartoe om hulle impak op ander mense te verstaan nie. Op vreemde maniere verstaan mense soos Anna nie die grense tussen self en ander nie en dwing hulle deur die gebruik van primitiewe verdedigingsmeganismes die ander om hulle emosionele ervarings te beleef. Die dilemma wat iemand soos Anna op ’n baie intense manier ervaar, is dat wanneer sy naby iemand is, is sy paniekbevange, want sy vrees totale beheer en engulfment. Wanneer sy alleen is, voel sy getraumatiseerd omdat sy alleen gelaat en verwerp voel. So is sy in aanhoudende beweging in haar verhoudings: sy ossilleer tussen nabyheid en afstand – nêrens voel sy veilig nie (Masterson 1976). Sy is konstant besig om mense in te trek en af te stoot en haar ergste vrese word altyd bewaarheid.
In sy rol as versorger is Damon beurtelings boelie-baas en onbetrokke boef. Niemand hier kan goed voel oor hulleself nie.

Natuurlik sou ons lank kon praat oor die oorsake van hierdie tipe psigologie. Mense wat op hierdie manier presenteer, is dikwels erg getraumatiseer in hul kindertyd en het nie ’n geskiedenis van wat ons noem “secure attachments” (veilige verhoudings) nie. Maar meer belangrik is miskien om te verstaan dat ons almal eens op hierdie plek was – op twee (en miskien weer op sestien) en weer kan regresseer tot hierdie plek. Masterson skryf dat hierdie tipe drama tipies sigself uitspeel op ouderdom twee, waar die kleuter woedend sy ma wegwys omdat hy dit self kan doen, en dan daarna in trane dissolve omdat hy niks kan regkry nie.

Hoe dit ook al sy, die effek van ’n persoon met hierdie kenmerke op ander mense is groot.

Aan die een kant het Anna ’n magiese aantrekkingskrag, sy trek mense in, verlei hulle op allerhande maniere: “All kinds of men are sniffing around” (134). Sy slaag daarin om mense betrokke te kry in elke drama. Ons sien dit telkens: as sy haar pille verloor, met haar selfmoordpoging, met haar hospitalisasie: “… everybody in the compartment has gathered around. There is jabbering and commotion … It’s as if her chaos has leaked out somehow and touched the physical world, throwing people and objects in disarray.”

As Galgut iewers die punt probeer maak dat in ons verhoudings met ander ons grense deurdringbaar word, kon hy nie ’n beter protagonis as Anna gekies het nie. Dis juis in verhoudings met mense soos Anna waar ons onsself momenteel verskriklik verloor, waar grense tussen self en ander tydelik of permanent opgehef word en interaksies deur komplekse prosesse van projeksie en projektiewe identifikasies patologies en destruktief word.

Bron: www.deviantART.com

3.2 Damon

Ons het gepraat oor die impak wat Anna op my en julle het. Galgut beskryf op meesterlike wyse die komplekse impak wat Anna op Damon het. Ons weet reeds, uit die eerste twee verhale, dat verhoudings nie natuurlik vir Damon kom nie. Hy sukkel met konneksie, is angstig oor die ontdekkings wat mens maak oor self en ander wanneer mens in verhouding is. Miskien is hy ’n wyse man wat homself veilig hou teen die aanslae van verhoudings.

He tries to behave like an ordinary traveller, marvelling at what’s around him … The truth is that he is not a traveller by nature, it is a state that has been forced upon him by circumstance. He spends most of his time on the move in acute anxiety, which makes everything heightened and vivid … As a result he is never happy in the place where he is, something in him is already moving forward to the next place and yet he is also never going towards something, but always away, away.

Verder, sê Galgut, is Damon, ons fatalistiese, ietwat weersinnige en ironiese reisiger, “not a patient man by nature”.

In die woorde van een resensent is Damon ’n “flawed sympathetic human being far more adept at crossing geographical boundaries than human ones, his increasingly desperate attempts to connect only alienate him further”.

Tog begin hy die reis met Anna op ’n amper naïewe en onskuldige manier: “He and Anna have a good friendship, she is like a sister to him, somebody he loves and who makes him laugh. Somebody he wants to protect … her guardian” (131). Miskien verwag hy nie dat magsrelasies juis prominent raak in versorgende en liefdevolle verhoudings nie.

Dinge verander egter gou. Op hierdie reis verander hoop vinnig in desperaatheid. Hy is “speechless” (128) wanneer hy agterkom sy drink ten spyte van haar onderneming om nie aan alkohol te raak nie; “chords of alarm” (130) gaan af wanneer hy besef haar gedrag is alweer roekeloos. Hy voel vinnig (en miskien uit karakter) “a stab of pity, patience and compassion” (130). Maar nie lank nie of hy voel kwaad en begin kommentaar lewer oor sy “complicated guilt”. Sy rol as versorger gee hy egter nie op nie: “In all of this he is constantly running behind, anxiously cleaning up or checking on her.” Al raak hy meer en meer “worried”, selfs “unhappy”, besef hy dat alles gaan oor mag:

She is somehow a victim and I the nagging bully. I don’t like this role, I try to pull back from it, and there are times when I am genuinely unsure which one of us is out of touch … he has no real power over her … they might both see where the real power lies. (136)

Hy probeer uithou en sy rol speel, maar Anna is onmoontlik en na nog ’n amper defiant selfdestruktiewe gebaar “tolerance reaches a tipping point … he loses his temper. There has been irritation and upset till now, but this is something else, an explosion fuelled by despair … Anger is real.”

Hy hou nie van himself in hierdie rol nie: “He can hear the nagging aunt in himself, how churlish and unreasonable it sounds … ” (p.137)

Maar hy kan homself nie help nie: “... his heart stays closed to her ... both of them feel empty ... a state of hollowness” (137). Hy maak ’n ooreenkoms met haar oor hoe sy haar moet gedra en “feels as if he’s claimed a victory, however small, over the bad other person inside her” (138).

Iets in hom weet nou reeds dat alle oorwinnings tydelik is en dat ’n koue hart miskien die beste beskerming teen teleurstelling bied. As die versorger van hierdie siek vrou is dit die beste om sy afstand te handhaaf, om nie te betrokke te raak nie.

I can’t run around like this, he says.
Wearily, fatal coldness in him towards her, his heart is vacant.
He is just very tired, too tired to comfort her right now.

Min besef hy dat hy nog baie keer in hierdie sirkel van versorging, vertedering, woede, uitputting, koudheid gaan hardloop.

Sy onbetrokkenheid en afstand is vergete wanneer Anna op ’n treinreis ná bogenoemde ooreenkoms haar pille op ’n stasie verloor. Sy is heeltemal paniekbevange en in haar paniek slaag sy daarin om weer vir Damon betrokke te kry: The gulf between them has closed, he is joined with her in a flurry of high emotion. In their wait and vigilance ... some of the old closeness has returned.

Hulle kry die pille terug en sy is vir eens weer dankbaar en lief: I love you very much my friend, and the words had felt renewed and true.

Sy bely aan hom dat sy beplan het om al haar pille op die trein te drink: Everything that has weighed them down has lifted, there is a lightness in their companionship that goes back many years.

Hy kan selfs waag om haar te vra: Did you think about what you were doing to me, he asks her. She considers the matter seriously for a while, then nods. Point taken, she says (143).

Maar die sirkulariteit van verhoudings, spesifiek hierdie verhouding, is altyd daar en daar is nuwe teleurstellings wanneer sy weer onmoontlik, ongeduldig, inconsiderate raak:

He loses his cool with her … not the silence of companionship, but the silence of exhaustion, of some deep reserve that has been used up … he’ll be free again
That night they sleep in the same room upstairs … and the big looping journey they have made is just one more completed circle, bringing them back to exactly the same point.

Die dag van haar selfmoordpoging is helder in sy geheue: “Only he remembers it.”

Hy onthou hoe uitgeput hy was: too cross to sleep again … scratchy with tiredness (146) … how worn out he is, how lost in the endless repetitions of the scenario … afterwards he will blame himself, he blames himself even now, for his failure to see what is plainly in front of him.

Maar ten spyte van die verskriklike moegheid is Damon deurgaans bewus van sy verskriklike plig en daarmee saam is daar altyd die opheffing van sy woede: “My anger toward her has dissipated. I feel the weary resumption of duty …”

Nêrens is die verskriklikheid en die angswekkendheid van sy versorgerrol meer duidelik as in die oomblikke wanneer hy agterkom sy het ’n oordosis pille geneem nie.

Suicide scene: anxiety (147)
He has never felt so alone.

Na die selfmoordpoging is daar baie emosies:

Skuld

Anna skryf in haar joernaal: “Damon do NOT feel guilty.” Natuurlik voel hy skuldig en sê vir haar partner in Suid-Afrika: I am sorry, I tell her, I’m sorry I said I could not look after her, I had no idea what I was taking on.

Hy voel hulpeloos en impotent, dink aan himself as “helpless bystander”.

Wanneer sy uiteindelik teruggaan na Suid-Afrika ossilleer hy steeds tussen posisie van hulpelose toeskouer en skuldige deelnemer: He is not responsible, not accountable anymore. But of course in another way he will always be responsible for what happened.
He has failed Anna.

Hy voel woedend.

He does not know whether he will ever be able to speak to her again.
I really want her to recover, I say one day, so that I can kill her myself.
She smiles sweetly up at him and murmurs, this is a test of our friendship. You have no idea, he answers.
This is so horrible she mutters. Horrible horrible horrible. It’s not much fun for me either, I say. (163)

Hy raak bewus van weersin, selfs haat.

Pity and distaste

He’s filled with furious despair … we are doing everything we can to keep you alive. Who asked you to. Just let me die. Walk away. I give you permission to just walk away.

 … a disdainful calculating stare. This is all your fault you know. You took responsibility for me when you brought me along, and look what happened.
You are not worried about me anyway, you just care what other people will say.
Right now that’s true. Right now I hate you.
So what I hate you too.
These ugly words have come from a deep core in me, part of the destructive essence that Anna has pared us to … Because from long ago, even in her sanest moments, she wanted this and worked hard to reach it, her toxic, terminal rupture … I remember every accusing word, including my own, like a knife in the guts, like something that has shamed us both.
The moment is somehow small and empty

Momente van teerheid

I stroke her hand and speak gently, a gentleness that in truth is almost genuine at this moment

Resigned solidarity

Maar daar is min van die versorgerrol oor; hy sien himself nou as “custodian of her remains”. Daar is niks meer oor wat versorg kan word nie, daar is bloot maar die oppas van die oorblyfsels.

Maar selfs hierdie rol bly hom nie beskore nie; haar vlae van woede en beskuldigings maak dit onmoontlik. Op die ou end voel hy weer die bekende koudheid en afstand, ’n koudheid en afstand wat hierdie keer nie weggaan nie:

There is a chilly reserve between them, which covers over a gulf so huge that it can perhaps never be bridged … phrases without content, or perhaps too much. (172)
She’s like a bomb that might go off at any moment and I want the space around her cleared. (173)

There is no desire to punish her, any more than a means to forgive her, what happened has put them beyond that.

Hartseer

Sobbing ... it seems unbearably sad that a life should come to rest here ...

In sy interaksie met die verskriklike Anna voel die sku ironiese Damon al die gevoelens wat Anna tot waansin gedryf het: teerheid, liefde, obsessie, angs, frustrasie, woede, haat, afkeer, weersin, verskriklike koue en afstand, uiteindelik droefhied en hartseer, selfs melankolie. Maar ook: in die interaksie met haar het hy alles gedoen waarvoor sy bang was en waarvan sy hom beskuldig het: hy het haar beide beheer en oorheers en haar verlaat en verwerp. Haar grootste vrese het waar geword.

Her story travels into him, his skin is very thin, there’s no barrier between him and the world, he takes it all in. (175)

... it takes him a while to realize who he’s really weeping for. Lives leak into each other, the past lays claim to the present. And he feels it now, maybe for the first time, everything that went wrong, all the mess and anguish and disaster. Forgive me my friend, I tried to hold on, but you fell you fell.

Ons weet nie of hy met homself of met Anna praat nie.

Maar soos in die ander verhale is daar tog ’n element van hoop aan die einde van hierdie verhaal. Daar is iets wat hy saamneem – soos wat daar iets was wat hy ook aan die einde van die ander reise saamgeneem het:

Maybe when two people meet for the first time all the possible variations on destiny are contained in their separate natures. Those two will be drawn together, those two will be repulsed, most will pass politely with averted gaze and hurry on alone. Was what happened between him and Rainer love or hate or something else with another name. I don’t know. But this is how it ends … But although he will hardly think of Rainer again, and when he does it is without regret, there are still times, walking on a country road alone, when he would not be surprised to see a dark figure in the distance, coming towards him. (Penguin, 75)

But the journey hasn’t ended where he wanted it to, it has frayed out instead into endless ambiguities and nuances, like a path that divides and divides endlessly, growing fainter all the time. (Penguin, 141)

The day is wearing on and he has a bus to catch a journey to complete. It’s time to go. He dries his eyes and picks up a tiny stone from the ground, one like millions of others all around and slips it into his pocket as he walks towards the gate. (p 123)

Die klippie is dieselfde as mijloene ander klippies, maar is tog ook spesifiek en besonders – juis omdat dit saamgedra word. Die klippie dui daarop dat hierdie reis tog nie heeltemal futiel was nie. Die reisiger met die klippie in sy sak is swaarder (selfs al is dit net effens) en anders as hy by die hek uitstap om sy reis te hervat:

A journey is a gesture inscribed in space, it vanishes even as it’s made. You go from one place to another place, and on to somewhere else again, and already behind you there is not a trace that you were ever there … The very air closes behind you like water and soon your presence which felt so weighty and permanent, has completely gone … Except in memory. (123)

En om terug te kom by Galgut se eie opvatting van hierdie boek: “The real subject of this book for me is memory,” sê hy. En dis uiteindelik ons herinneringe van reise wat die volgende reise bepaal. Dit wat ons internaliseer van vorige verhoudings bly by ons en kleur al die volgende verhoudings op goeie en slegte maniere – lank nadat die verhoudings beëindig is. En ons is nooit weer heeltemal dieselfde in terme van dit waarop ons hoop en dit waarvoor ons vrees nie.

Naskrif

Italo Calvino: Invisible cities

In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.

From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersilia’s refugees look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. That is the city of Ersilia still, and they are nothing.

They rebuild Ersilia elsewhere. They weave a similar pattern of strings which they would like to be more complex and at the same time more regular than the other. Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away.

Thus, when traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.


Enticing Readers to a Long Road With Sudden Shocks of Self-Recognition by Adam Langer. Published: November 24, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/books/25book.html?_r=0
(A version of this review appeared in print on November 25, 2010, on page C13 of the New York edition)


Titel: In a strange room
Outeur: Jannie Malan
Uitgewer: Protea
ISBN: 9781485300786

Koop In a strange room by Kalahari.com

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