In a Strange Room: Three Journeys Page 0,1

dark and cold, nobody visiting at this time of year, to the last and highest room, in the middle of the roof, a white cube fixed to a plane. He is very tired now, and hungry, and wants to sleep.

But inside the room the German is waiting. He is sitting on one of the beds, his hands between his knees, smiling.

Hello.

He goes in and closes the door behind him. What are you doing here.

I missed the train tonight. There is another one in the morning. I decided to wait until then. I asked him to put me in your room.

I see that.

You don’t mind.

I’m just surprised, I wasn’t expecting, no, I don’t mind.

He doesn’t mind, but he is also uneasy. He knows that the other man has delayed his journey not because of the train but because of him, because of the conversation they had in the road.

He sits down on his own bed. They smile at each other again.

How long are you here for.

I’m also going in the morning.

Are you going to Athens.

No. The other way. To Sparta.

So you’ve seen Mycenae already.

I’ve been here two days.

Ah.

There is a silence now in which neither of them moves.

I might stay another day. I’m not in a rush. I like this place.

The German considers. I thought I might also. I haven’t seen Mycenae.

You should see it.

So you are staying.

Yes.

Yes. Then I am staying also. For a day.

It feels as if they’ve agreed to something more than this practical arrangement, but what exactly isn’t clear. It is late and cold and the little room is raw and ugly in the fluorescent light. In a short while the South African gets into his sleeping bag. He is shy and though he would normally undress he doesn’t do so tonight. He takes off his shoes and his watch and his two copper bracelets and gets in and lies on his back. He can see the metal slats of the bunk above him and disconnected images from the day come back to him, the ruins, the road, the gnarled shapes of the olive trees.

The German also readies himself for bed. He lays out his sleeping bag on the bunk he’s sitting on. Of course his sleeping bag is black.

He unlaces his boots and takes them off, setting them side by side on the floor. Perhaps he too would normally undress but he doesn’t tonight, there is no way to know what he would normally do. He doesn’t wear a watch. In his black socks he goes to the door to switch off the light, then goes softly back to his bed and climbs in. He takes a few moments to settle.

The South African says something.

I can’t hear you.

What is your name.

Reiner. And you.

I’m Damon.

Damon. Good night.

Good night, Reiner.

Good night.

When he wakes up the next day the other bed is empty and the hissing of water comes from the shower next door. He gets up and goes outside, onto the roof. The air is freezing and brilliant and clear. He crosses to the edge and sits down on the parapet, with all the other roofs in the town below him, the main street running from west to east, the tiny shapes of horses in a field. He is very far away from home.

Reiner comes out onto the roof, drying his long hair with a towel. He is wearing the same black pants from yesterday, but no shirt, his body is brown and hard, perfectly proportioned. He knows that he is beautiful and somehow this makes him ugly. He stands in the sun, drying himself, and then also crosses over to sit on the parapet. The towel is slung around his neck, his skin is full of goose-bumps from the cold, beads of water shine like metal in the coarse hair on his chest.

What do you want to do today.

What about these ruins.

They go to the ruins. He has already seen them, he spent several hours there yesterday, but now he looks at the thick walls and foundations and fortifications and tall tombs through the eyes of Reiner, whose expression doesn’t change as he walks around from one level to the next at the same unvarying pace, his long body perfectly upright. He sits on a rock to wait and Reiner comes to crouch down nearby. Tell me about this place, he says.

I don’t know much about the facts, I’m mostly interested in the mythology.

Tell me that then.

He tells what he remembers, how the lonely woman waited for