In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut Page B

find two rooms in an inn on an untarred back street, the place is made of concrete and filthy inside, the bathrooms furred over with mould. The ugliness stirs a sadness in him, which grows when he is left in one room on his own.
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    He has always had a dread of crossing borders, he doesn’t like to leave what’s known and safe for the blank space beyond in which anything can happen. Everything at times of transition takes on a symbolic weight and power. But this too is why he travels. The world you’re moving through flows into another one inside, nothing stays divided any more, this stands for that, weather for mood, landscape for feeling, for every object there is a corresponding inner gesture, everything turns into metaphor. The border is a line on a map, but also drawn inside himself somewhere.
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    But in the morning everything is different, even the mud streets have a sort of rough charm. They hitch a lift to the border and go through the Malawian formalities together. Then they walk across a long bridge over a choked green riverbed to the immigration post on the other side.
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    It’s only now that he starts to really consider what might happen. Although he’d said airily that he’d see if they would let him in, it didn’t seriously occur to him that they might not. But now, as the little cluster of sheds draws closer, with a boom across the road on the far side, a faint premonition prickles in his palms, maybe this won’t turn out as he hopes. And once they have entered the first wooden shed, and all the others have been stamped through by the dapper little man behind his counter, his passport is taken from him and in the pause that follows, the sudden stillness of the hand as it reaches for the ink, he knows what’s coming. Where is your visa. I didn’t know I needed one. You do.
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    That is all. The passport is folded closed and returned to him.
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    What can I do.
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    The little man shrugs. He is neat and compact and clean, his chin impeccably shaven. Nothing you can do.
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    Isn’t there a consulate somewhere.
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    Not in Malawi. He turns away to tend to other people, people flowing in and out of the border, people who don’t need visas.
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    The little group gathers sadly outside. Cicadas are shrieking on some impossible frequency, like a gang of mad dentists drilling in the tree tops. The metal roof is humming in the heat. They feel bad on his behalf, he can see it in their faces, but he doesn’t want to meet their eyes. He sits down on a step to wait while they go next door to the health office and customs. He can’t quite believe this is happening. In a sudden flurry of emotion he gets up, goes back inside.
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    I heard of somebody who visited Tanzania, he says. A South African. He didn’t need a visa, he got a stamp here.
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    Where this memory has come from I don’t know, but it’s true, I did meet such a person. The man’s eyebrows go up. And what did he pay, he says, for this stamp.
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    He is stupefied. He doesn’t know what the man paid, he doesn’t know what it has to do with anything. He shakes his head.
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    Then I can’t help you.
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    Again he turns away to help somebody else. Vibrating with anguish and alarm, he waits for the little man to finish, please, he says, please.
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    I told you. I can’t help you.
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    Everything that he desires in the world at this moment lies in a space beyond this obtuse and efficient public servant whom he will do anything, anything, to overthrow. What is your name, he says.
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    You want my name. The man shakes his head and sighs, his face has yet to yield up an expression, he pulls a black ledger across the counter towards him and opens it. Your passport please.
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    Now hope flickers briefly, he saw the names of the others inscribed in a big book too, he gives over his passport. When his name and number have been written down he asks, what