In a Strange Room (13 page)

 

 

H
e 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. It's in that capacity that he's escorting her now, as her guardian. In that last telephone conversation before she left Cape Town, the same one in which she promised never to drink, she had asked him, almost as a challenge, are you up to it, do you think you can handle me. He'd answered breezily, not thinking about it much, yes of course. It didn't feel like a heavy undertaking at the time, because he's always had a cooling, calming influence on her, she's always listened to him. But already, just a few days into the trip, he understands that they're playing by a new set of rules. She and he have always been on the same side, but it's as if she's changed allegiances somehow, to who or what he doesn't know, though he comes gradually to understand that the danger to Anna, the force from which she must be protected, is inside her.

 

He gets an inkling of how strong that force is when, out of curiosity, he takes half of one of her tranquillizers. The effect is devastating. He's wiped out, flat on his back, for twelve hours, and for the whole of the next day he's groggy and weak. After that he looks at her with a new awareness. She's swallowing these pills three times a day and they don't appear even to slow her down any more. What is this thing that's taken up station inside her, driving along with so much fury and power.

 

Her illness, which he comes to think of as a person separate to Anna, makes her behave in bizarre and unsettling ways. The drinking is one sign, but there are others. She has an obsession with packing and unpacking her rucksack, at any time of the day or night this compulsion overcomes her, then there is the manic flurrying of zips, the clothing piled up on the bed. He watches with troubled fascination as she separates different items into different compartments, shirts here, panties there, dresses somewhere else again, and each set of garments is packed into a plastic bag with a label on it. When he points out to her how crazy this is she laughs and agrees with him, but it doesn't stop her from repeating the exercise just a couple of hours later. And she's awake every morning at first light. She has been given sleeping pills, which she's supposed to take every night, but often she doesn't bother, then he is awoken by the noise of her blundering and fumbling as she goes out onto the balcony for her first cigarette, sorry did I disturb you, I was trying to be quiet. Nor do the other pills appear to be working. Her moods continue to veer wildly between elation and despair, she can be laughing at breakfast and sobbing by mid-morning, he doesn't know how to cope with these extremes.

 

Nevertheless, they manage to have a good time together. The beach is just down the road and they spend hours there each day. They walk and swim and Anna takes hundreds of photographs, clicking the shutter voraciously, sucking the world into her camera in rectangular pieces, the fishing boats on the sea, the sun rising and setting, drops of water on dark skin, the faces of people passing by. When I look at these images now, years later, they call back a sense of idyll and innocence which perhaps was never true, not even then. Though I know from other visits how fine a place it is, and if the air is disturbed every now and then by the death-screams of a pig, well, there is slaughter even in paradise.

 

 

 

 

 

I
t's on one of the first evenings, as they sit on their balcony together, that she says, it would be so nice if we could make love. He looks at her in astonishment. She quickly adds, I know it's impossible, but I was just thinking.

 

A long silence follows. Their room is on the first floor, on a level with the tops of the palm trees in the yard, and in the last light the fronds take on a soft, reflected glow. Anna, he says. We can't.

 

I know, I know, forget it.

 

Your girlfriend is my best friend. And I don't think about you in that way.

 

I shouldn't have said it.

 

Anyway, I thought you weren't into men.

 

She giggles. You know, she says, I'm not so sure. I've been having some thoughts.

 

This is something new. He knows that she was seriously involved with one or two men quite long ago, but in recent years she's been adamantly inclined in the other direction. He wonders whether it's not just a reaction to the strain her relationship is under at home. Anna hasn't once written to her partner back in Cape Town, she hasn't made a single phone call, and when I've encouraged her to get in touch she only shakes her head. She doesn't want to, she says, she thinks it's over between them, but he knows that her partner has been hurt by Anna's silence.

 

He doesn't push the point, it's not his business, and anyway he thinks she'll feel differently in a few days. But he experiences a complicated guilt when, perhaps that very same night, or perhaps another soon after, she goes with some American man to his room. We didn't make love, she tells me afterwards, we just fooled around, but oh it was so wonderful to be held, to be touched like that.

 

This puts him into a horrible position, where his loyalties are divided. He's in regular contact with Anna's girlfriend back home, reporting on her condition, but how can he talk about this. Yet Anna is counting on his silence, she would regard it as betrayal if he spilled the beans. He's angry that she's made him complicit in what may be a widening gap, so it comes as a relief when the American takes fright. The next night, when she tries to arrange a liaison, he tells her that he has some important e-mails to write, and the following day he leaves town.

 

But she doesn't give up. The idea is in her head now and she's on the search. She's a strikingly pretty woman and in her current state especially so, lean and glowing with inner fire. All kinds of men are sniffing around. In just a day or two she meets Jean, a fifty year old French traveller staying at the same hotel. When I come to the room that night after doing e-mail I find the two of them sitting on the balcony, cooing and giggling together. Jean's taken some of my tranquillizers to relax, she tells me, do you want some too. No thanks, I say, and withdraw into the room, and at that moment I retreat from the pair of them in another sense as well. I don't mention Jean to Anna's girlfriend and I find ways to rationalize my silence to myself, this is a weightless holiday romance, nothing more, he's leaving in a few days, perhaps it will even be good for her. And who could take Jean seriously, a sad-looking cadaverous man full of melancholic vacancy, who speaks platitudes in a sonorous voice. Back home in Paris he's a builder by profession, but he does sculpture on the side. He claims he once danced with Nureyev.

 

This is what Anna's been looking for and she falls for him in a big way, suddenly it's all Jean this and Jean that, and then they're heading off on a rented scooter up the coast for a few days. I am very uneasy with this arrangement, I try to talk her out of it, but she laughs me off, I'm fine don't worry about me. And it's true that he is ceaselessly fretting over her, perhaps his concern is making things worse, maybe she'll be better if she has some time away from him. Mixed in with the mistrust is a good dose of relief too, it's pleasant to have her off my hands for a while. He hasn't come here, after all, just to be a chaperone, he's come to do some work, and in her absence he settles down to it, filling up pages with words. The plan is that we'll be doing some travelling ourselves when they get back, going down south together at the time of Jean's departure for home, so that very soon this peculiar interlude will be over.

 

Though it isn't so simple. The few days in Jean's company have sealed him in Anna's mind as her future and her fate. When she gets back she's full of crazy talk about moving to France to live, about having his child, and this talk will only get more fantastic as the rest of the trip goes on. The little romance has become a relationship, if only in her mind, and this despite the fact that he, Jean, refuses to become intimate with her. Her real life in Cape Town seems to have been annulled. More alarming is that Jean seems to have no idea of how ill she is, he treats her condition as a bad drama that's been foisted on her by manipulative people, you must just believe in yourself, he's been telling her, and you'll get better, you don't need to be taking all these pills. She repeats these insights wistfully, hoping that I'll agree, but what she doesn't tell me is that he's also been feeding her hash and cocaine and huge amounts of alcohol. She is noticeably looser when she returns, 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.

 

In this dangerous state we head off, leaving Jean and Goa behind. I have some misguided notion that movement might be good for her, that the feeling of life passing by might suspend her internal clamour. And things are all right at first. There are a few days in Cochin, a cruise on the Kerala backwaters. But by the time they arrive in Varkala, a clifftop town far to the south, the strain between them is beginning to tell. Anna has to be ceaselessly attended to or she lapses into depression. She can't sit still for even a few minutes without becoming profoundly agitated. She's always breaking things or bumping into furniture or falling down. The talk about Jean is incessant and insane. Likewise the unpacking and repacking of her rucksack, which has long since lost its amusement value. When she's left alone for even a short while she gets into potentially harmful interactions with strangers along the way. On one occasion, for example, she has a physical fight with a peculiar Swiss woman who's mistreating a kitten on the beach, and another time she allows a shifty-looking older man, staying at the same hotel, to give her a body massage in his room.

 

In all of this he is constantly running behind, anxiously cleaning up or checking on her. He has begun to feel like a querulous maiden aunt, always worried and unhappy, and she has started to play the other part, of the innocent unfairly put upon, her wide eyes startled at the upset. Under the actual words they speak another dialogue is in progress, in which 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 of us is out of touch. Besides which, he's afraid of a moment of truth, because he has no real power over her. If he tries to exert his authority and she refuses to obey, well, what could he do about that. If she walks out the door with her bag, telling him to get lost, he would have no recourse but to plead. Then they might both see where the power lies.

 

It's begun to feel 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. This stranger is still cautious, still biding her time. Meanwhile the person that he knows is visible, and sometimes in the ascendant. Then he can speak reasonably to her and feel that she is hearing, or laugh with her about something funny, or enlist her on his side. But the dark stranger always appears again, peering slyly over her shoulder, doing something alarming, and the softer Anna shrinks away. At moments the pair of them are there together, the sister-Anna and her scary twin, and they jostle each other for the upper hand. It's an uneven battle, the stranger is certainly stronger, but I keep hoping the pills will vanquish her.

 

I'm not a patient man by nature and the struggle is exhausting. My tolerance reaches a tipping point one afternoon when she wanders in from the beach, her face slack and empty. I stare at her for a moment, then ask quietly, are you stoned.

 

Yes, she says, smiling. Some guy out there offered me a toke.

 

He loses his temper. There has been irritation and upset till now, but this is something else, an explosion fuelled by despair. That's it, I tell her, you've broken every promise you made, you've broken our trust in you. This wasn't supposed to be a holiday, you were supposed to be working on yourself, now look what's happened. I'm taking you to Bombay tomorrow and sending you home.

 

The anger is real but the words are a bluff, even as he speaks he knows that he can't follow through. This is high season, the flights are very full, there is almost no chance she'd get a seat. But even if it could be arranged he can hear the nagging aunt in himself again, how churlish and unreasonable it sounds, sending her home two weeks early for puffing on a joint.

 

She weeps like a child, but his heart stays closed to her, the reserves of empathy are running out. When this raw exchange is over both of them feel empty, and it's still in a state of hollowness the next morning that he decides to make her an offer. No drugs of any kind, except those that have been prescribed for her, and only one drink a day. Any deviation from this agreement and he will carry out his threat. Is it a deal, he asks.

 

Her numb face nods slowly. It's a deal.

 

Shake on it, I say, and we clasp hands. This is not a renewal of friendship, it's a formal gesture of commitment, a contract that binds them both. But it feels as if he's claimed a victory, however small, over the bad other person inside her.

 

 

T
hey go on to Madurai, where there is a spectacular temple he imagines she might like to photograph. He's seen the temple and all the other stops on their journey before, he has planned this route only for her, he wants to give her an enjoyable time and distract her from herself. But an increasing desperation underlies this enterprise, nothing holds her attention for long. She rushes through the temple and almost immediately falls into frenzy again. This is making me depressed, she says, let's go somewhere else. They visit a flower market and move on to a museum, but the effect is the same. Eventually he can't take it any more. I can't run around like this, he says, you go where you want to, I'll meet you at the station later.

 

They are booked on an overnight train to Bangalore. They have left their luggage at the station cloakroom that morning, and when he meets her there in the late afternoon she's repacking her rucksack and crying. We have to talk about what's happening between us, she says. I don't have anything to say, he answers wearily, and for the first time this is true. There is a fatal coldness in him towards her by now, he makes murmurous gestures of support, but his heart is vacant and she knows it. For some reason this tiny incident undoes her, she cries and cries without stopping, while he stares into space. He is just very tired, too tired to comfort her right now, perhaps tomorrow he will be strong enough again, and this is a crucial difference between them, he thinks in terms of tomorrow and the day after that, but for her there is only now, which is eternity.

 

Even on the train she continues to cry. Then she seems to reach a point of resolution and pulls herself together. She takes out her rucksack and starts her rummaging around. None of this is unusual, until she suddenly turns to him with panic in her eyes.

 

What is it.

 

My pills, she says. They're not here. They're gone. Somebody's stolen them.

 

What do you mean, they must be there, look again.

 

She's unpacking the rucksack now, the whole carriage is watching the scene. No, they're not here, somebody's stolen them, and she glares around wildly as if the culprit is right there.

 

The absurdity of the idea only strikes me by degrees. Who would steal your medicine, Anna. What would be the point.

 

I don't know, but. Then her face changes shape as something else occurs to her. Wait. No, I remember now. I took them out at the station while I was packing my bag.

You left them there.

 

I think so. In the cloakroom.

 

They stare at each other, while the tremendous mass of the train rushes on, every click of the wheels putting more distance between Anna and the medicine that has been holding her life together. This is a disaster, and the knowledge spreads across her face in a fresh upwelling of tears. Oh my God what will we do now.

 

The gulf between them has closed, he is joined with her in a flurry of high emotion. If she did leave the pills in the cloakroom there is a slim chance they might still be there. You're sure, Anna, you're sure that's where they are.

 

Yes, yes, I'm certain. She is wailing now, a spectacular display of distress, and everybody in the compartment has gathered around. There is jabbering and commotion. Somebody calls the conductor. He listens gravely to the story, then throws up his hands, nothing he can do about their problem.

 

But Anna is insistent, she won't let up. I will die without my medicine, she cries dramatically, and this persuades the hapless conductor to stop the train. At some nameless siding in the middle of the night the whole chain of carriages comes juddering to a halt and Anna descends with the uniformed man in tow and they go down the platform to find a phone, while I sit guarding the luggage. People hang out of the windows, watching and commenting. Others come to question me, what is the problem, why is your lady friend crying. It's as if her chaos has leaked out somehow and touched the physical world, throwing people and objects into disarray.

 

When she comes back there is still no clear answer. The cloakroom has been closed for the night, perhaps the medicine is there, perhaps not. As if to underline their uncertainty, the train starts to move again, a slow and noisy acceleration into the dark. I sit, pondering. Maybe it would be better to jump out at the next station and try to retrace our steps. Or maybe it would be better to go all the way to Bangalore, which is a major centre, and try to get some help there. What's not in doubt is that she's dependent on that little assortment of pills and if this is how mad she's been when she's taking them he doesn't want to think about how she'll be without them.

 

At this point a kindly avuncular man, who's been sitting opposite them since the start of the journey, speaks up. He is Mr. Hariramamurthy, he tells us, and perhaps he can be of assistance. He is going to a station near Bangalore but he will come to the last stop with us and speak to the railway police there, he's sure they'll be able to help.

 

No doubt these are merely polite words, when we get to the other end Mr. Hariramamurthy will have disappeared. But when we pull in to Bangalore the next morning there he is, standing by, ready to assist. Like helpless children we trail along behind him as he bustles from office to office, having complicated conversations with various functionaries, none of whom want to be bothered with our case. But Mr. Hariramamurthy is not deterred. There are retiring rooms upstairs at the station, he tells us, take one of these rooms and call me in two hours on this number. He hands us his card.

 

We manage to get a room. It seems like a reasonable option, the next train back to Madurai is this evening, if we have no solution by then we will make the journey. But when I ring Mr. Hariramamurthy later in the morning he tells us he has good news. His cousin works for the railways in some capacity, and has managed to track down the medicine. It will be sent on the train tonight and we have only to wait in our room, it will be delivered to the door.

 

This seems too good to be true, I am full of unworthy suspicion, surely we're being set up somehow. But we have no choice except to wait. We will be vigilant, whatever the scam is we won't fall for it, at the very worst we'll have lost a day, we can always go back tomorrow.

 

In the meanwhile they go into Bangalore and wander around. Anna is more manic than he has ever seen her, she fizzes and fiddles without stopping, her conversation jumping from one topic to another, how she's not ready to go back to South Africa yet, how she's almost sure her relationship at home is over, everything depends on Jean now, if she asks him maybe he'll come back to Goa and meet her before she goes home. Anna, I say, that's crazy, he's only just got back to France himself. She looks at me with wide, confused eyes, and in her stare I can see that she's lost all sense of time.

 

At some point in that long day, perhaps in the street, perhaps when they get back to the room, she says it. The revelation comes casually, without weight or significance, but it wipes out the surrounding world. You know, I was going to kill myself on the train.

 

What.

 

That's why I was looking for the medication. I was going to take all of it, then lie down to sleep.

 

You're not serious.

Yes, I am.

 

We look at each other and I see how serious she is.

 

But why, I say, why.

 

She shrugs and laughs. Since this crisis broke some of their old closeness has returned, in their room upstairs at the station they have guffawed uproariously at the sound of the train timetables being broadcast over speakers downstairs, it's all too absurd to be taken seriously. That morning in town she'd bought him a book in which she'd written, I love you very much my friend, and the words had felt renewed and true. Everything that has weighed them down has lifted, there is a lightness to their companionship that goes back many years, so that both of them seem stunned by the announcement she's just made. I don't know, she says, puzzled.

 

I suddenly felt like dying.

 

He can't answer this immediately, perhaps he never can. Ever since he's known her there's been this talk about killing herself one day. It never comes up in a dramatic way, more as a casual aside in conversation. He remembers asking her, for example, how she imagines she might look when she grows old, to which she immediately replies that she never will be old. She is always planning her funeral, telling her friends to play this piece of music, or to have the service in that particular church, and her tone at these moments suggests that she herself will be present, a spectator at the event. It's hard not to feel manipulated when she speaks like this, and it's hard, too, to feel constantly alarmed by a threat you've heard so many times over. Besides which, why would somebody like Anna, in perfect physical health, loved and admired and desired by so many people, want to die. There's no plausible reason, so that even now, when he can see that she means it, he can't quite get a hold on what she says. And in any case she's instantly off on some fresh upheaval, knocking over the lamp or losing the keys to the room, and it all becomes one ongoing crisis he's trying to contain. That's how it is with Anna, death at one moment, farce the next, and it's hard sometimes to distinguish between the two.

 

It's a couple of days before he can bring himself to speak about it and even then he does so tentatively, approaching the question in a circle. Did you think about what you were doing to me, he asks her. Did you think about what it would be like for me to be left alone with your dead body in India.

 

She considers the matter seriously for a while, then nods. Point taken, she says.