The Promise

As she starts to read, the book travels into her from a long distance, from his mind to mine, across a gap in time, and now she’s not in the room any more, she’s inside the sentences, one joined to the next like a series of tunnels, connected to each other at angles.

What happens in a room lingers there invisibly, all deeds, all words, always. Not seen, not heard, except by some, and even then imperfectly. In this very room both birth and death have taken place. Long ago, maybe, but the blood is still visible on certain days, when time wears thin.

then he’s gone. She can hear him walking away up the passage. His footsteps sound hesitant, but he doesn’t turn back. Nor will the moment return, which is true of all moments, though not equally.

Foolish old earth, returning and repeating itself, over and over. Never misses a show. How can you bear it, you ancient tart, giving the identical performance again and again, evenings and matinées, while the theatre crumbles around you, the lines in the script unchanging, to say nothing of the make-up, the costumes, the extravagant gestures … Tomorrow and tomorrow and the day after that …

Odd how certain people, often random individuals, can pulse with significance in your thoughts, your dreams

A human figure approaching, filling itself in slowly, putting on age and sex and race, like items of clothing, till she's looking at a black boy, also thirteen years old, wearing ragged shorts and T-shirt, broken takkies on his feet.

You understand, he says, people don't always take what you give to them. Not every chance is an opportunity. Sometimes a chance is just a waste of time.

Apartheid has fallen, see, we die right next to each other now, in intimate proximity. It's just the living part we still have to work out.

Waiting in respectful silence is an essential part of the job and he has developed the capacity to simulate deep calm while experiencing none of it. In his core, Mervyn Glass is a frantic man.

She feels ugly when she cries, like a tomato breaking open,

Oh, i can deal with the tragedy, it's the farce I can't handle.

He's dropped outside the main entrance to the hospital and has to find his way like a little germ through miles of intestinal passages.

time is a river that washes the world away.

But you think there’s an order, you think your actions matter, that they’ll be weighed and judged in some final reckoning. But there is no reckoning. For each of us, death is the last day.

How would you know she is a ghost? Many of the living are vague and adrift too, it’s not a failing unique to the departed.

Finally, Astrid begins to weep. Always a purging moment. Temperamentally speaking Astrid took to Catholicism easily, or the other way around, her conversion felt natural. Her new faith, which she experiences as a kind of waterproof garment she's buttoned down over herself, doesn't stop her acting on her fears and desires, but it provides a way of washing them off afterwards. She will receive her penance and the karmic clock will be set again to zero and she will swear to the priest that she will follow his instructions, that this is the last, last time, she will ever stray, and she will deeply mean it.

Most of their conversations are in the past by now. They've reached that stage in the proceedings and both of them know it and don't speak of that either. But there is still great softness in two hands linked together on a tabletop.

His footsteps sound hesitant, but he doesn’t turn back. Nor will the moment return, which is true of all moments, though not equally.

But Amor can see her through the window, so she's not invisible after all. Thinking about a memory, not understood till now, of an afternoon just two weeks ago, in that same room, with Ma and Pa. They forgot I was there, in the corner. They didn't see me, I was like a black woman to them. (Do you promise me, Manie? Holding on to him, skeleton hands grabbing, like in a horror film. Ja, I'll do it. Because I really want her to have something. After everything she's done. I understand, he says. Promise me you'll do it. Say the words. I promise, Pa says, choked-sounding.)

everything that can be described can also be made harmless.

Even those who don't like rugby, due to whatever deficiency in their characters, are watching today.

You come back after long vanishment and the surface closes as if you were never gone. Family quicksand.

Snails unfurl themselves in the undergrowth and push forth, little galleons on a dark green sea, trailing their thin silver wakes.

The universe is somehow always set at an angle to his wants, but this is not the moment for resistance. He turns off the television.

So happy to see you!/ Why are you crying then?/ Because I'm happy!

Nothing Joins a man to the earth more completely than an umbilical arc of jot yellow urine. For a Short while there is only that single sensation of letting go, until it's time to shake off the drops. " The Promise Damon Galgut