She took the telephone off the hook and stared at the handset for ages before dialling the number.
‘It is silly,’ she thought as she listened to the phone ringing in the distance. Once … twice … before the third ring, she hung up. A shiver ran up and down her spine. She lay on the bed and shut her eyes. ‘This is silly,’ she thought as the phrase bounced in her head like a ping‐pong ball.
Not a word from him. Nothing. It is several months now. From one day to the next.
She no longer recognises herself. She knows that this city is making her mad. At home, she would have reacted differently. Outside, she is perspiring under her coat. She dislikes her odour, trapped within it. The wind hits her face continuously. Her skin becomes dry. She runs her hand through her hair, which feels like cotton wool.
‘It does not matter, I’ll forget him. After all, this city is beautiful, with all its great stone buildings and its terraced houses. Walking in the park, feeding the ducks and buying hot chestnuts will suffice. What I need to do is work hard.’
‘This is silly,’ she told herself, and reached for the receiver again. It was cold, as cold as this draughty room. She waited a couple of minutes and then everything happened. The number, the voice at the other end of the line, and her own voice, clear and audible:
‘Have you heard from him?’
The big city of stone is covered in a foggy veil. From my window, I can see skeletal trees dancing, swaying like a silent sea. He is gone.
I have almost forgotten his face already. A host of glances intermingle, are exchanged. I have even forgotten the sound of his voice. And here I am, bereft of all my belongings. All that remains is my writing. Words on a white sheet of paper. They whisper memories in my ear. They whisper inscribed words to my soul.
I have turned him into a poet‐genius, a fantastic mind. I built his silences into golden mountains, erected his words into triumphal arches.
Then, an intense yearning rises from deep within me. I wanted to create some drama out of simple words. I made up what followed from anonymous gestures.
Now, I have to struggle against becoming embittered and command my soul to cease being sad.
There is no law. No judge. In the wilderness of the heart, you sometimes lose blood.
I rearrange the puzzle, move moments, recover memories. You live your life, and I live mine. There are a thousand stories, a thousand seasons of the heart.
I cannot see very far but I can hear what is being said. I am here dreaming away while others die in numerous terrors.
I juxtapose destinies, record feelings. A soldier shoots the enemy and thinks of his loved one. He recollects their first moments together.
I am sick of irony. The other day, you kissed me at the very same place where I had arranged to meet him. I wondered who was right. Whether I knew where I was any more or whether it was you who entered our ephemeral story?
I scan years, deploy flashbacks and study gestures. I look to the sky to find out where destinies meet. Yearn for me, oh yearn for me or I will die of loneliness.
I want truth to convulse my whole body and rip open the straitjacket of my very flesh.
You begin to love the big city of stone when it stirs memories; when one of those roads reminds you of someone you hold dear, or when one of its neighbourhoods reawakens a certain phase of your life. In a park you frequented before, you relive the past.
The big city turns beautiful under the snow. It looks like a newly‐wed, and the joy that fills your heart is equal to nothing, other than the expanse of the sky.
You feel akin to peace. You want to laugh at life with its bad sense of humour, the delusion of being in control of your own existence.
Now, you need no longer think, tell lies or connive. All that remains is for you to live your life without hesitation.
The postman comes twice, at eight in the morning and at one o’clock. He throws a bundle of letters through the front door. The bundle lands with a thud. I check to see if there is any mail for me. Stamps from my country.
I pick up the newspaper.
Here, there is a great deal of talk about South Africa. On the front pages, you see pictures of riots and funerals. Sad, morose, serious and defiant faces. You read long articles, and the same names and the same words keep cropping up: Nelson Mandela, Winnie, Desmond Tutu, Boesak, Oliver Tambo, the ANC, the UDF, passbooks, riots, imprisonment, trials, apartheid, anti-apartheid, impose economic sanctions or not?
But sometimes I say to myself, ‘There, Africans are fighting, dying and I am doing nothing. My life sheltered in the heart of this city of stone. I just don’t know, I just don’t know.’
I have a courageous friend. I met him at university, and his strength amazes me. He is different from other blind people, with only the white part of their eyes visible. No, you can see his eyes, which are the colour of mine. The only way you can tell that he is blind is through his glance, which does not settle on anything.
I thought that he was born like that, without ever experiencing light, but I learnt that it had all occurred one day.
He must have been twelve years old when it happened. He was playing in the yard. His mother was cooking the evening meal. Then everything went blank. I do not know the reason why. He has never told me. Nothing can be done, he cannot see.
Now he lives in the big city of stone. He left his vast country in Africa. And it is better for him, this exile. An exile where the inhabitants have respect for a white stick, where the state ensures his wellbeing and where facilities enable him to read and write.
It is just a question of money. A question of infrastructure.
It is quite simple. I no longer recall the sensation of his touch. In any case, there is not much to be said. I can see that it is too difficult. I feel that this story cannot work. If he appeared now, I do not know what I would do. Throw my life out of the window, or turn my back on him?
It is not that complicated. It is either a great love, or a huge joke.