Day 122: An old man, my friend

The Karoo is an under-the-skin kind of place. Today, as I leave, my feet don’t lift lightly. My shoes are as reluctant as I am to walk away, stubbornly sticking to the heat of the road. Every step is hard work. But I need my body back, to move forward. It is not only the smell and the endless colour in the monotone palette that gets to me, it is words unspoken. The terrain seems to tease me; it knows something I once knew. All I know for now is that I will be back.

The man sits under a tree. Comfortably. His eyes look over the land. And beyond. It feels as if he’s been sitting there for a long time, just waiting for me to come.

‘Môre nooientjie.’

‘Môre oom.’

‘Nou maar waar gaan jy dan vandag?’

‘Vorentoe, oom.’

I feel like crying. I feel like sitting next to him on that rock and have him pat my unwarranted sadness away. He just nods at my answer. No questions asked. Then he begins talking. To the landscape. The land to which we both pay homage seems to stare back at us solemnly.

I have a piece of petrified wood in my pocket, a generous gift from a farmer who showed me his favourite rock. When he told me what it was, I briefly entertained a comical image of a scared piece of wood; then when he handed it to me and I held its age, I felt so incredibly small. With all this knowledge – rock formations in the background – the landscape holds our gaze. The silence engulfs us and winds that carried ocean sprays bring change. Maybe it is an hour later, maybe a whole day has passed before I hear the man again. He says that he will wait here with me until I have a lift.

People walk past. We greet. He smiles. Other men tease him. We don’t mind. A vehicle approaches. He shakes his head. He does not approve. It passes by slowly, its passengers savouring the strange scene of a nooientjie with a backpack and an old man with lots of lines in his face, sitting under that tree. Some young guys walk past and the old man chastises them for their catcalls and easy Sunday-morning flirtation on a Saturday.

When the right vehicle comes, I ask the man under the tree if I may take his photo. This seems to please him. I see much reflected in his soul – he is a landscape, not a portrait.