‘I am quite serious about it, Toloki. We can live together here as homeboy and homegirl.’
‘It sounds like a wonderful idea. But I am afraid. What will people say?’
‘What will they say about what? We come from the same world, Toloki. Our story is the same. You are my homeboy. No one else has any business in our affair.’
‘I will think about it, Noria.’
‘Think seriously about it, Toloki. We must be together because we can teach each other how to live. I like you because you know how to live. I can teach you other ways of living. Today you taught me how to walk in the garden. I want to walk in that garden with you every day.’
‘Yes! The garden! There is much more to it than we explored today. Many corners that we have not seen yet. I love walking in the garden with you, Noria. We shall walk in the garden every day.’
‘So you’ll come and live here?’
‘I cannot live with anyone but myself. That’s why I decided to live alone in waiting rooms. That’s why I decided not to have anything to do with homeboys and homegirls. I am a monk, Noria. A man with a vocation. I mourn for the dead. I cannot stop mourning, Noria. Death continues every day. Death becomes me, it is a part of me. How will they know where to find me? How will my clients find me, Noria? I cannot live without death, Noria.’
‘I cannot stop you from mourning, Toloki. It is your calling in life. And your clients will find you. It will be like relocating your business. In fact, all the deaths you mourn happen here in the settlements and in the townships, not in the docklands where you live. You will be coming home to where death is.’
His head is spinning. Does she know what she is saying, this Noria? This beautiful Noria with the soles of her feet all cracked. This intoxicating Noria, surrounded by live and dead flowers. Suddenly it somehow doesn’t seem that important whether his clients find him or not. Is he doomed to be the first, and the last, Professional Mourner?
6
Toloki has nightmares that night. He is visited by strange creatures that look very much like the figurines that his father used to create. But these are made of glass. They make a terrible din, shouting his name and dancing around, all in step. Noria, also made of crystal clear and sparkling glass, appears among the creatures. She gives one sharp whistle, and the dancing and din stop abruptly. The creatures gather around her, and she feeds them glass hay. Molten glass drips from her fingers, and some of the creatures lap it. Toloki sees himself, made embarrassingly of flesh and blood, looking longingly at the scene. He wants to join Noria and her creatures. He walks towards them. But Noria rides on a glass horse that suddenly grows glass wings. It flies away with her. ‘Please, Noria!’ he screams, ‘Don’t leave me! Wait for me, Noria! Noria!’ He wakes up in a sweat.
A drunk sitting on a bench a short distance away from his laughs at him. Fumes of plonk fill the waiting room.
‘Who is she, ou toppie, the woman you have wet dreams about?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Then stop disturbing our sleep with her name.’
He takes a long swig from a bottle wrapped in brown paper, and drifts into a noisy snooze. His toothless mouth moves all the time, like a cow chewing the cud. He passes wind thunderously, which suddenly wakes him up. He thinks this is tremendously funny, so he cackles shamelessly. The stench of rotten cabbage drifts from the drunk, and hovers above Toloki. This is one of the disadvantages of his headquarters. They are a public waiting room, and sometimes, especially on weekends, they are full of inconsiderate and drunken hoboes.
‘I can’t stand this.’
‘Stand what?’
‘You farting all over the place. You are not alone here, you know.’
‘You get off my case, ou toppie. It’s not my fault that you have wet dreams about watchamacallit Noria.’
He laughs again. And unleashes more thunder. Toloki feels that he doesn’t have to endure this. The fact that he has taken it in his stride for all the years he has lived in waiting rooms seems to escape his mind. Nor does he question why all of a sudden he can no longer tolerate it, when it has been part of his life for so long. He gets up, and pulls on his shoes. He had slept fully-dressed in what he calls his street or home clothes. He repacks all his things neatly in his supermarket trolley, and pushes it out of the waiting room. The drunk laughs and shouts after him in the mocking sing-song voice that children use when they tease each other, ‘I want Noria! Give me Noria! Nye-nye, nye-nye-nye!’
Toloki walks along the highway, pushing his shopping cart. It is the middle of the night, and there are not many cars on the road. He walks unhurriedly, sometimes stopping to look at the stars. And to look back at the harbour. He is going to miss the throbbing life, the nightwatchmen, the dockworkers, the sailors and their prostitutes, even the inane grins of tourists from the inland provinces. He is making a major change in his life, and it is not clear in his mind why he is doing it.
He reaches the settlement at the crack of dawn, and stops at a bus shelter. What will Noria say when he arrives at this time of the morning? Will she not be angry with him if he wakes her up at this ungodly hour? What if she is with someone?
These unanswered questions are interrupted by a group of young men who approach him. They are the Young Tigers who patrol the streets at night, like a neighbourhood watch, protecting the people from the attacks of the migrants from the hostels, and from the police and the army. They want to know what he is doing there. He tells them that he has come to visit a friend. He has walked for many hours, all the way from the docklands, and is merely taking a rest at the bus shelter. He is shaking with fear, for he has heard what these boys, and sometimes girls, are capable of. If only he was wearing his venerable costume. They would surely show some respect for it. They look him over, and decide that he is quite harmless. ‘He’s just an old bum pushing his trolley,’ they declare.
He immediately hastens away from their patrol zone, and goes straight to Noria’s shack. He knocks, and she opens the door.
‘You are up so early in the morning, Noria.’
‘I am going to help Madimbhaza with the children. My God, Toloki! I wouldn’t have known you in those clothes.’
‘These are my civilian clothes, Noria.’
‘You look strange in them. I am used to your mourning uniform.’
She does not ask what brings him here so early in the morning. It is as if she has been expecting him all along. She invites him to push his trolley into the shack, and to make himself comfortable on the floor. The donkey blankets in which she has slept are still spread on the floor, and Noria says he can sit on them. But Toloki respects the bedding of a lady, and sits on the floor, away from the blankets.
Noria tells him that Madimbhaza has many children, some of whom are physically handicapped. She goes to their shack to help her friend wash these children, and since it is Sunday today, to get them tidied up and off to church. After this she will attend a meeting of the women’s organization that is trying to improve conditions for everyone at the settlement. Toloki is welcome to come if he is interested in seeing the work she does in the community.
‘I’ll come next time.’
‘It is fine with me. I’ll be gone for most of the day. Look around and see what you can prepare for yourself.’
‘I’ll catch up on my sleep. I was on the road for the whole night.’
Noria leaves, and Toloki takes out his own blanket from the trolley. He spreads it on the floor and drifts into sleep. His eyes glide over the pictures on the wall. Perhaps he should cover the ceiling with pictures of furniture, and beautiful houses, and serene gardens as well. When sleeping on one’s back, one should be able to take a walk in the garden. Just like in his shack when he first came to the city almost twenty years ago.