Chapter 9 – In the bus

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There she was, on her way to Cape Town. George was right, she had convinced herself to keep on going. Once again, she was looking at a landscape slowly evolving through a windshield. That time, the windshield was huge, too big even for her see it all with one glance.
She was sitting on the floor, on the last step of the stairs which led in and out of the bus, next to the driver. Serenely buried in his large seat, he seemed to be at one with his vehicle. He transported her with assurance towards a new adventure, her and sixty other passengers, parked two by two in worn and narrow seats.
Their slow pace, their height, their inertia, made them masters of the road. Nothing could shake them. She monitored what was happening behind them with the large rear-view mirrors: cars followed them while still keeping their distances, hesitant to overtake.
A light upbeat music was broadcasted through the speakers tied to the ceiling. She could not understand the words, it was a sort of gospel. The simple melodies amalgamated with the deaf sound of the engine, reverberated in the old carcass of the bus, was covering tens of conversations in as many different languages.
The driver was beating time, tapping his index against the steering wheel. He wore a wide yellow polo shirt and a cap bearing the effigy of the bus company. A golden watch with a loose wristband was strolling up and down his forearm. He regularly turned his serious and wrinkled face towards Sayowa, before focusing again on the way forward. He sometimes hummed along a song he liked, making his baritone voice resonate.
The hostess of the bus burst into view from the rear and said a few words to the driver. They were communicating in a language that amused Sayowa: in the middle of a sentence, sometimes, they flapped their tongues, creating a loud click. Sayowa had heard people speaking with clicks before, but she still found that process to be exotic. That dialogue was all the more entertaining because the driver, of whom she knew the low timbre when he spoke English, was then using a rather high intonation.
The hostess sat on a seat of the first row which was reserved for her.
– Is the journey going well? she asked Sayowa with an articulate voice.
The young girl turned around and nodded.
The hostess was gently smiling. She wore a female’s version of the driver’s uniform. She was a tiny young woman, frail. She bore a big clump of messy hair which bounced when she moved her head and her teeth were slightly forward. She stood and moved with a confidence that made her pretty.
– With a driver like me, how could the trip go wrong? the driver said, back in his low voice.
The hostess gave him a plastic container holding a portion of rice, a mixture of green vegetables and other non-identifiable ingredients. He put it on his knees and dipped into it, one hand operating the spoon, the other steering-wheel.
Sayowa shared a similar meal with the hostess. The young woman remained sited and bent over so that the little girl, still on the floor, could reach the dish.
The team of the bus, although they did not communicate much, seemed to be united: the driver, the hostess and another one which Sayowa had overviewed when she had boarded at the station in Swakop.
Since their departure, she had tried hard not to think that, despite everything that had happened, she had once again made the “unreasonable” choice, rather than going home. She preferred noticing that lonely umbrella tree in the middle of the dry savanna, rather than think she hardly had a chance of finding Stefano in Cape Town. Grasping the purpose of that fence that ran along the road for kilometers was of higher importance than understanding that she was not really looking for her grandfather’s friend anymore. But then, what was she looking for? Hey, a baboon family looks like it is hitchhiking on the side of the road. A baby is hanging from her mother’s belly, upside down.
The crew did not ask her a lot of questions when she had approached them, even though she did not have any money. That was more than fine. If she could not stop from asking herself those questions, at least she did not have to answer them.
Maybe it was for George that she had continued? He seemed to have seen in her something that she herself did not yet find. Maybe seeing her being brave gave him the courage to take charge of his own life.
They drove passed a lonely house. The region they were going through was completely empty, flat, yellow, squashed by the blue sky, cloudless. A few rocks and lone trees gave it a bit of relief.
Sayowa flipped a quarter turn, leant her back against the driver’s cabin so she could stretch her legs. There was twenty more hours until Cape Town, she might as well try to get a minimum comfortable. Cape Town was so far from her home, how would she get back?
She discreetly peeped on her side, towards the passengers. There was, sited on the first row of seats, a pair of meme absorbed into an undoubtedly very important conversation. Behind them, a man in a suite with a leather briefcase on his knees, then a mother breastfeeding her child, youngsters, elders, some who looked wealthy, some more modest. Some of them were buried under puffy blankets, others laid their jackets on their knees. All sorts of luggage and bags half hanged from the undersized overhead racks. Sayowa was waiting for the moment when one of them would fall on its owner’s head.
She ended up focusing on the road. The scenery was more interesting that the people.
Time was going by slowly, but that did not bother her. Small incidents gave rhythm to the journey.
Around three o’clock (she was checking the time on the large digital display above the windshield), a herd of fifteen horses or so came hurtling on the road, seemingly appearing from nowhere. They did a tight U-turn and disappeared just one second before the passage of the bus. The event triggered a surprised shout out of the driver, immediately bringing the hostess from her round amongst the passengers back to the front. The exchanged a few clicks and she sat at her place.
She would regularly stand up and walk up the aisle, slightly moving to the sound of the music, as if she clearly wanted to dance but did not dare out of professionalism. Then she would come back to the driver to ask him to increase the intensity of the air conditioning, or to decrease it, to set the volume of the music up or down.
Sayowa, intrigued by that dialect they used, placed her tongue under her soft palate and slammed it down, producing a loud “toc” that made the two heads turn. They looked at her, dazed, and burst out laughing at the same time.
– Not bad, the driver said, but it’s more like this.
He emitted a sound that echoed throughout the cabin.
– You could also do that one, the hostess said.
She did a O shape with her lips, followed by a different noise, a kind of “tssc”.
Sayowa tried to reproduce those two consonants, corrected straight away by her instructors: “no, it’s more like this”, “place your longue there”, “do this with your lips”, etc.
That lesson kept them busy until a voice coming from the masses of passengers complained:
– Enough! I want to sleep!
The three companions shared an amused look and ceased their effusion of “ǀ”, of “ǁ” and of “ǃ”.
Evening was upon them, the hostess suggested to the driver turning the volume of the music to minimum. The population of the bus got quiet. Soon subsisted only the purring of the engine, the occasional spasm of the pavement and the heavy respirations of the drowsing passengers.

Sayowa still had her eyes opened, her head tilted to the side, shaken by the irregularities of the tarred path, her mind blank.
The headlights did not reach far in front of them. She focused her vision on the dotted line separating the road in two and made shiny by their beacon of light, unwinding endlessly.
A green sign appeared. It indicated that the South African border was fifty kilometres away. It vanished.
“Not that again”, Sayowa thought.
She sighed, turned towards the driver focused on the road.
– I don’t have an identity card.
– What? he said, distracted.
– I don’t have an ID.
– A passport?
– No, I forgot it, she lied.
– Well, you’ll have to stay in Namibia.
She lowered her gaze, resigned.
– Or...

A few hundreds of metres from the border, the driver stopped the bus. He stood up and tipped his seat over, unveiling a small hollow space.
– It’s your call, he said to Sayowa.
She rose, stretched her arms and legs lengthily, gauged her cell before she stepped over the cabin and let herself slide in. The emplacement looked as if it had been made especially for her, wide enough so that she could seat with her knees curled up against her chest, just high enough so that the top of her skull did not stick out.
– Whatever happens, not a single sound right? I don’t want to get in trouble.
The hostess, who had pulled a curtain to hide that process to the rest of the passengers, did not seem to approve of the subterfuge.
The driver waved his hand good-bye and closed the hatch, leaving Sayowa in the dark.
Her breathing took out the whole volume. She could feel the air slide on her arms and thighs, filling up the cave with a warm smell.
The engine roared, everything trembled. She could feel that they were moving forward. What the hell was she doing there? Was that a sensible thing to do?
They passed a hump which made her head bump against the ceiling. She put her hand flat on the top and managed to avoid a second collision as another tremor lifted her off.
They ran a while longer, then the vibrations stopped. A wide variety of unidentified sounds resonated in the walls before they died one by one, leaving her in complete silence.
She waited.
She still did not understand why she was not allowed to go from one country to the next without going through that whole mess. Who had made that decision?
Actually, she knew the answers to those questions, more or less, but did not find them satisfying. In her mind, the world was not done well. That was why, in a way, she felt pride in defying an authority she did not approve of. Nobody could stop her from going where she wanted to go. If she wanted to go to Cape Town, she would go to Cape Town.
Still not a noise, besides her breathing and the beating of her heart.
That trip, in fact, she did not do it for Stefano, nor for the pizza, nor for Inyambo, nor for the blond lady. She did it for herself, because she wanted to go on, to see how far she could reach.
A crash startled her. She waited but nothing else came. She hopped back on her train of thought.
Yes, sure, but still she had to be careful, she had been reckless in the desert, she would not be caught doing that again. From then on, no more dangerous situations.
Another racket made the bus swing from left to right.
Was she in a dangerous situation at that very moment? She did not know what the consequences would be if she got caught. It would probably be nothing serious, she was just a child after all. She would probably simply be sent home. After getting told off of course, but she did not care about that.
She heard the door of the bus opening, someone climbing the stairs. The bus started, they moved and they stopped. The person went down. Silence.
She put her head on the side and closed her eyes.
Several people entered, talking, the sound of their voice muffled. They got out. The bus moves forward, stops. Another tumult, cracklings, voices, they go, they stop.
All that lasted for well too long, there were way too many back and forth.
Sayowa sang in her head to pass time, still being vaguely attentive to the sounds reaching her, in case one of them alerted her of something.
Finally, a brouhaha indicated that the passengers were getting in. The engine thrummed and they went.
After a minute, she wondered whether she had been forgotten and hesitated to signal herself.
The bus stopped, the hatch opened. The driver’s smile welcomed her.
– Hey! How was it in there?
– Very cosy, I could have stayed all night, she said extracting herself from her hideout.
She stepped above the seat and stretched her limbs. The curtain was closed, the hostess was there, not saying a word.
– You see, there was no problem, the driver said.
Sayowa understood he was continuing a conversation they had started earlier. The hostess only replied with a movement of her eyebrows.
He took his place, the bus carried on. Sayowa remained standing, she needed to stay a moment with her legs outstretched. The clock showed 1 a.m.

After half an hour, they stopped at a service station: they had not stopped much since they had left Swakopmund, over twelve hours earlier.
The door opened and all exited: Sayowa first, then the driver, the rest of the passengers, one by one, and then the two hosts.
The place was barely lit. A neon illuminated the only petrol pump, a bulb the entrance of the small shop. Further back, hidden in the obscurity, a shack built of zinc plates attracted most of the passengers. There, were sold biscuits, sweets, pieces of meat charcoal-grilled over a half-barrel.
The driver dragged Sayowa in that direction and bought a portion of kapana and a bottle of lemon drink. They stood while they ate, not sharing a word, he looked exhausted.
When it was time to go, he headed to the rear of the bus. Another man, also wearing the uniform, took his place. That was the first time Sayowa noticed him.
He did not have a look or a word for the little girl, he just sat down and drove, bent forward, close to the steering-wheel, focused. The hostess settled at her place, her legs folded on the side, her eyelids closed.
Sayowa understood that nothing more would happen until morning. She huddled against the driver’s cabin, holding her chitenge between her arms. She closed her eyes.
The music, which had always been present, but at low volume, suddenly exploded in the cockpit. She swiftly opened her eyes, surprised by that spike in intensity. The passengers did not react, nor did the hostess, the new driver had kept the same attitude. She accepted that she would have to put up with that background noise, her head fell again.
She didn’t manage to fall asleep. Her mind was swirling with questions, she was dwelling over her ideas, her decisions. She thought about Inyambo who had sent her on a wrong trail. She did not resent him. She thought about what she would say when she would go back to school, having missed several days of class.

She must had fallen asleep because she woke up, with no clear memory of her nocturnal reflections. The bus was stopped, the music had died, it was daytime. The new driver was standing, his hands in a hatch opened on the dashboard. The hostess observed his manipulations with a worried look on her face.
– What is going on? Sayowa asked her.
– We don’t know, she replied.
The passengers were agitated, looking over their seats to see the reason of the setback.
The first driver came on front and talked with the new one. He pressed a few buttons, said a few words and activated a lever which opened the door.
Sayowa understood that she would soon be in the way. She anticipated and climbed down the steps to get out of the bus. As she looked up to check the time, she saw that the clock indicated: “88:88”. There was a non-valid time.
Outside, the air was cool and the light low which told her it was morning.
Both drivers also got out, manipulated divers compartments on the front and the sides of the bus, observing pipe, wires, lights.
A few other passengers surfaced as well, stunned and sleepy looking, or annoyed.
They were stationed in the middle of a curve, high up, between a cliff of brown rocks and a precipice overlooking a green valley. A few mountains in the distance, but no village, no house. The wind was blowing loudly, transporting clouds rapidly.
“What is this now?”, “That enough now!”, “Okay, let’s go nay?”, “It’s the last time I take this company!” Each of them had their say and little by little every passenger was on the side of the road. The crew had to handle the crowd, making sure they were staying safely next to the bus, that they would not venture on the pavement. They acted in a reassuring way. Although they had to admit that the problem, whichever it was, had not been identified, they said that the drivers were experts in mechanics and that they deserved all of their trust.

A lot of time went by. A few passengers went to seat back into the bus, others favoured the rocks. Sayowa, after she had climbed each of the largest stones several times, sat crossed legged on the floor.
Sometimes one of the drivers would try a start-up. The bus would then start to drone a little and stoped in a disappointed grind. Once, the engine took off for real and everyone believed that they had succeeded. The crowd shouted “hurrah!”, “hallelujah!”, but the combustion stopped in a big metallic crack, immediately shutting down the celebrations.
Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, at least two hours and gone by since the breakdown. The four employees of the transport company started to panic, the passenger to despair.
Only Sayowa seemed to accept the situation. Since she did not really know what her goal was anymore, since she had little hope of finding Stefano, she figured that she was there for the trip and not for the destination. And that stop was part of the trip.
And also, the view was not too bad!

A small purple car stopped at their level. Through the opened window, the woman driving it shared a few words with the two drivers.
Sayowa went nearer. There was something written on the side of the car, with big yellow letters: “Stellenbosch Olive Oil Co.”
She did not know why, but that inscription intrigued her. Instinctively, she pulled away the piece of paper, the list of ingredients, from her t-shirt’s pocket and skimmed her eyes over it.
“Flour... Yeast...” She had an exclamation.
– Olive! she yelled.
She threw herself forward, waving her arms towards the small purple car and caught it just as it was about to leave.

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Excerpt from “Recette de pizza pour débutant” © (SACD) Thomas Botte