Authors: Christopher Priest
The woman walked ahead of him, watching the ground as they traversed it. The only words she uttered for the whole of that first day were quietly spoken warnings about loose or buried pieces of rock on the track.
She held a scripture in her left hand. She answered no questions, nor did she ask any, and after the first hour Tallant gave up trying to make conversation. Breathing was anyway difficult in the constant, enervating heat. The sun glared down, bleaching what could be seen of the stony scenery, but Tallant made a point of taking several photographs whenever they halted for a rest. His cameras and attachments were as usual carried in their protective cases across his back, and although they were all made of lightweight materials they became a burden. The water flagon had to be held in his hand with the bag of his own possessions in the other. He changed them over frequently – the woman missionary was carrying only a flask of water and some food.
They rested in the afternoon – they found a ledge beneath an overhanging rock, which from the quantity of paper and empty food and drink containers lying about the place seemed to be a regular stopping-off point for travellers. Tallant spread himself in the shade, grateful to rest his aching limbs, but the woman sat with her legs crossed, holding the scripture before her. She kept her head bent forward under the cowl of white cotton, but if she was reading there was no visible sign of it. She turned no pages.
Tallant took some photographs of her with the shutter set to silent, but she must have somehow detected what he was doing, or noticed his movements. She waved her free hand irritably towards him.
He apologized and returned the camera to its case. She made no acknowledgement.
They continued their journey through the sweltering, scented air, the surface of the track now smoother and therefore easier to walk on. There were shallow hills to climb. At the summit of each Tallant felt the rising hope that some kind of destination might be visible from the brow, but the pallid, blinding landscape continued
ahead without apparent break. Irrationally, he always looked for a glimpse of the distant sea. He craved a draught of cool air, sea air, wind from elsewhere.
The sun was beginning to lower towards the horizon when the woman increased her walking speed. Tallant assumed she knew of shelter ahead. In spite of his exhaustion he was relieved and kept pace with her. He had been fearing they might have to pass the night in the open.
Without much warning, and no signs, the track took a sharp turn to the right and the path led down between two rocky defiles. In continual shade at last, Tallant felt some of his physical energy returning. His feet skidded and scuffed on the loose pebbles and shale on the path, and several times he banged against the boulders that rose up on each side. The woman moved ever further ahead of him.
The path opened out into a deep gully where several trees and bushes grew. A coarse grass flourished. A dark pool of still water lay against a wall of white rock. Several well constructed wooden cabins were arranged in a semi-circle a short distance from the pool. The woman missionary was already lying full-length on the ground, her face close to the water, while she cupped handfuls to her mouth, and tipped it over the back of her neck and head. A printed sign warned travellers to drink only water from the well, but Tallant joined her, ducking his head thankfully into the cold, clean water, then sitting up to let rivulets run deliciously down his chest and back beneath the robe.
Darkness came on soon afterwards, following a brief period of twilight. Insects in the surrounding trees set up a raucous stridulation. Tallant and the woman each selected a cabin. Inside his, Tallant found a simple cot bed, a shelf of packaged food and sealed bottles of mineral water. There was no light inside, so he removed his robe and lay down naked on the cot. He woke only once in the night and that was when the desert chill fell on him. The thin robe barely warmed him, but he was exhausted by the long walk.
When he emerged in the morning the woman missionary was out of her cabin. Sunshine was beating down into the gully and the air was already hot. She had seated herself on an area of smooth rock by the side of the pool, her legs folded, her back straight, her head held erect. She was holding the scriptures before her face, which was no longer shrouded by the hood. Tallant stared at her with interest. She had a severe, handsome face, with high cheekbones, a sharp nose and a strong chin. Her eyes were dark
brown, or almost black. She was reading intently.
He waited politely, but the woman did not acknowledge his presence.
‘May I take some photographs of you?’ he said. She gave no indication that she had heard him, so he repeated his question. This time she responded by raising her free hand and placing it slowly over her ear. At first he assumed she was shutting out the sound of his voice, but in fact her hand did not block her ear. Her fingers rested lightly on the mastoid process immediately behind the ear. He took this to be a symbolic gesture, asking him not to speak. She slowly lowered the hand and resumed her former position.
Tallant selected the smallest, quietest of his cameras and took a dozen shots of her, from a variety of angles and distances. At no point did she reveal any awareness of him, or, for that matter, a dislike of what he was doing, or pleasure at it.
‘I am a professional photographer,’ he said as he put away the camera. ‘If you wish I will be pleased to let you see prints of these pictures. But I’ll need an address where I might contact you.’
Her only response was to raise her free hand once again, press it lightly over her ear and continue reading.
Tallant returned to his cabin, ate a little of the food, then went across to the freshwater well and refilled his flask with clean water. He went to the far side of the pool and bathed briefly. He arranged the robe loosely about his head and body. The woman was waiting for him, and without any further discussion they resumed their journey southwards.
AFTER WALKING FOR ABOUT AN HOUR THEY CAME TO A PLACE
where a vehicle was waiting to transport them down to the coast. It was an old and travel-worn passenger coach, with most of the windows along the sides either broken or permanently open. The seats were made of wooden slats, many of which were splintered or missing. Tattered remains of curtains hung beside some of the window frames. The floor was sticky with an accumulation of dirt and spilled liquids. The outside of the bus, originally painted in the silver which could still be glimpsed in places, had been over-written with many religious proverbs and sayings. The driver sat on a wooden box at the front and often stood up while driving. Sometimes he waved his arms in time with the loud music he played.
Tallant and the woman missionary were the only passengers. They were passing through a wide tract of unpopulated country. She sat apart from him, moving to the back if he chose a seat near the front, and similarly placed herself away from him whenever he changed his seat after a stop. Tallant relished the flow of air from the vacant windows, the relative relief from the endless heat. He drank one bottle of water after another, making free use of the crates which had been placed aboard the bus.
At intervals he leaned from his seat through the nearest window, taking many photographs of the scenery, but it was a landscape that did not much change, higher and more rugged in some areas, sandy or gravelly on the level. As they moved further south the temperature steadily rose, but the air felt more breathable: there was an increasing number of trees and low-growing shrubs, and sometimes high white clouds moved briefly across the sun. On some of the corners grit thrown up by the bus’s tyres flew around him and he would duck inside, more to protect his cameras than his face and arms. He changed seats as often as possible, always believing that there would be more to see from the opposite side. He was constantly aware of the missionary woman keeping her distance from him, sitting calmly upright and swaying with the movement of the vehicle, facing ahead, her hands wrapped gently around her scriptures.
The third day came. They had stopped overnight at what at first sight looked like a large wooden shack on the side of the road, but which turned out to be a religious sanctuary for travellers. It was air-conditioned and temperature controlled. There were staff in attendance, who provided them with cooked food and cold drinks. They were currently the only travellers on this road, or users of the various refuges. Tallant slept alone on a bench in the main room – the woman was in one of the cubicles at the rear of the building. The driver apparently slept in the bus.
In the morning a wind was up and it brought a feeling of relief. The driver was edgy, though, saying he was anxious to get on with the rest of the journey.
For a few quiet moments before they drove off, Tallant was able to move away from the road. He stood alone, listening to the wind, thinking back, remembering. Somewhere in the distance he heard the bleating of goats. The insects were silent. The sun was still low when they left the refuge but the heat was rising.
Not long after they resumed their journey the road started a long, shallow climb through an area of hills. Gradually, the desert floor
yielded to thicker and more profuse vegetation and a few flowers. The air was noticeably cooler than it had been the day before. Although the hills did not appear to be especially high the road ascended steadily for more than an hour. Whenever a sharp turn was completed or a rocky outcrop was rounded, a new panorama was revealed, higher land still to come, distant mountains, glimpses of the narrow road winding steadily upwards. Tallant stared ahead of the bus, mentally urging it on, because he was certain the sea must soon become visible when they passed beyond the next barrier.
Instead, the final summit of the hill road revealed a plain below, the road snaking downwards. The hills on this side were heavily wooded. Tallant took many more photographs, relishing the difference in landscape, relieved to have left the seemingly limitless desert behind.
The bus moved ever lower, the road on this side of the hills much steeper. There were several precipitous turns with frightening descents from the unmade edge of the road. Tallant leaned out through his window, using the camera at every turn, discovering white-water rivers, trees, rocky slides, far below.
Eventually the road levelled out once more, passing through forest where there was evidence of much tree-felling. He saw areas reduced to stumps and undergrowth, broken branches discarded on all sides, with just a few remaining saplings standing slenderly in the ruins of the forest. Many stripped trunks were piled beside the road. Smoke drifted in the air.
The first of the shacks appeared inside the wood. Tallant assumed at first they were shelters used by the loggers, but he soon glimpsed inhabitants as the bus went quickly by. He saw men and women around some of the buildings, and children too. The road led out of the forest and entered another area of bush and scrub land. After crossing this they entered the main part of the shanty town.
At one moment they were driving through the open countryside, or what was left of it, then suddenly they were on a narrow, rutted, slightly raised track that ran past thousands of makeshift dwellings. These pitiful cabins were crammed up against each side of the roadway, desperate assemblies of temporary materials: canvas or tarpaulin shrouds, corrugated sheets of rusting metal, old planks, concrete slabs, vehicle tyres, pieces of broken branches. Anything, in fact, which could be found somewhere and dragged into use to build an improvised dwelling. Now there were hundreds, thousands of people in sight, and the bus filled with the stink of sewage, unwashed bodies, filthy materials, muddy ground, drifting smoke, animal
droppings. The noise from outside – a kind of roar of rushing but unseen machinery, recorded music, things being struck or scraped or dragged, but above all loud voices trying to make themselves heard over the racket – entered the bus through the open windows, drowning the sound of the engine.
Both Tallant and the woman missionary were now staring out through the windows of the vehicle, half in fascination but also half in trepidation, because the shanty town appeared to be in a permanent state of imminent upheaval, with a likely outbreak of violence. Tallant realized that he had reflexively pressed the sleeve of his shirt over his nostrils as a kind of filter. He lowered his arm.
The passage of the bus, which because of the state of the road the driver had had to slow almost to walking pace, was a matter of intense interest and curiosity to the people of the shanties. Dozens of small children ran perilously close to the sides of the bus, stretching up their hands, shouting, begging insistently for food or money or cigarettes. Ahead of the bus, Tallant could see that two or three groups of men were forming in the road, as if to impede it. As the vehicle approached these groups moved to the side, so there was no real sense of threat about what might happen, but even so Tallant felt himself stiff with apprehension. He had starting taking photographs as soon as they entered the vast settlement, but he quickly realized that he was drawing attention to himself by doing this. He hid the camera on his lap, below the level of the window. He took only a few more shots, and then at intervals.
The missionary had also laid her scripture in her lap and for once was looking outward into the world. She too was obviously overawed by the sight of the immense slum. It stretched away interminably into the haze, no limit to its extent visible on either side.
The bus ground on, sometimes having to halt temporarily, reversing or manoeuvring from the main track. Once they were forced into a difficult diversion away from the main route and one that led between several of the shacks into a muddy stretch of rough ground. Here the bus almost became stranded. The strenuous efforts of the driver to extricate the vehicle drew a crowd of watchers as the bus lurched perilously from one water-filled pot-hole to the next, the spinning tyres throwing up sheets of brown and stinking spray.