The Dark

By Olivia Walton

I always wake up before dawn. Habit. Funny that I don’t remember ever seeing a sunrise. They happen well after I wake but I am never there, watching. Maybe that is strange.

There are no lights in my room. I had them removed. There was no need for them.
There are windows but the curtains are thick and heavy. I am unsure of the colour; I have never really seen it. I was not in the house when they were put up. When I wake in the mornings there is no difference between having my eyes open and having them closed. I test this sometimes. Open. Close. Open. Close. Open.

The rest of the flat is the same. No lights, heavy curtains. I know the maid opens the curtains when she comes (I can feel it) but I am never there. She always draws them when she leaves.

I see no point in light. Nor does my cat. She functions without it, as far as I can tell. Though I know she lies in the sun some days. I feel it in her fur—it gets a dusty toasted feeling and it sticks to my fingers. So perhaps she likes some light. Sun light. I am different. It is not that I am blind, or that I am frugal. I am not a militant protector of the environment. I am aware that light is vital and essential. That I am because of light.

Beyond that, I see no point in it.

I left home some years ago (it was difficult, there, keeping my room dark) and came to live here in the elbow of the mountain. The sun arrives late and leaves early, here. I changed some things in the flat and now it is dark. I have made myself accustomed to it. Some of my senses took time to catch up. Hearing, for example. At first sounds came from all over. It was confusing, I was not used to not seeing what I heard. Now, though, I know precisely where each sound happens. Any sound. Even the cat, walking across the tiles.

My body was slow too. I bumped things, dropped them. Missed a step. Not anymore. Now, I am used to it. I know where everything is, in the dark.

That is how I like it.

*

When I woke up this morning, I was not hungry (this happens often when I am excited, I forget about food) but I made myself eat. I had a muffin from a packet I found in the kitchen. She must have left it here; I have no need for such things, usually. I also had coffee. There was much to do.

The only source of light in my flat (you can turn automatic fridge lights off) is my computer. That is where I went, after eating. I switched the thing on and waited for it to boot up. I put my head on my knees.

Sometimes, I get a pain in my neck.

There was much to do.

*

Later, when I was ready, I left the computer and lay down on the floor. The tiles were cold (they are always cold). It was late; the day was over. I knew this because it was nine o’clock and even in summer the sun has set by nine o’clock.

At the time we had agreed on, the doorbell rang. I got up, switched off the computer and went to let her in.

‘Hi. Am I late?”

‘No. Hello.’

‘It’s warm outside. Why are you wearing a jersey?’

‘Am I? Habit, I suppose.’

‘Funny habit. How are you? Have you eaten?’

‘Fine. Yes. Well I had breakfast.’

 ‘Breakfast. It’s nearly ten. Don’t you want supper?’

‘What? I suppose. No. I don’t have any food left.’

‘I could go and get us some.’

‘Don’t do that. I am fine. I’ll eat later.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Can I sit down for a bit? A long day.’

‘Yes. But we must leave soon.’

She sat on a chair in the front room. She knew about the dark so she didn’t ask to switch the lights on. Once—the first night—she had. I almost lied. I find that difficult though, and anyway it would not have lasted.

She was watching me. He mouth opened the way people’s do when they think they want to speak. I waited. I was anxious, ready to leave. But I also wanted to watch her and listen to her. I did not want to make her anxious too. But she closed her mouth and looked down. (I could see because the front door was open and the streetlight made her glow, how does the orange make her half here and half gone, half invisible?) A face like a harlequin, like a doll my mother once had. One half lit up and the other half not.

She looked at me.

‘So what is it that you want to show me?’

I ignored this. ‘Are you ready? Can we go?’

‘You won’t tell me?’

‘No. I must show you.’

‘Ok. Yes, I’m ready.’

‘I’ll drive.’

She passed me her keys and we left.

The drive through the busy part of town was short and there were a lot of cars. There are always a lot of cars. They disappear, though, on the mountain road. It is because there are no lights here, only thieves and runaways. People hiding from people and from the law, people waiting behind rocks and pine trees. I have heard stories.

Really, though I did not even think about them. I ran my mind back, over and over, to what I had been doing that day and every day for six weeks before that. It all had to be right. Exactly right. Otherwise, there was no point.

Was it right? Was I right?

Yes. I felt in my pocket for the remote. I had it. Good. It was an old gate remote, but I had made some changes. Adapted it to suit my purposes.

The road swung in and out of the mountain’s folds. A moon like a chink in the curtains hung above us. The city lay to my left. She was watching it. With each curve of the road we turned in, were tucked in, to the dark of the mountain. (I drove without headlights, the better to see. In the dark.) The curves curled the other way and we came back to the city and its lights.

They were spread out further than we could see. They were wrapped around the ends of the mountains. They rimmed the sunken bay and they speckled it where the ships lay. They stretched up beyond Koeberg (like a coal on the sand) to the beaches of the West Coast, and there they rattled in the south easter, scraping at the fynbos, lowly and slowly, dulling it with their orange.

But it was in the middle of the city that they were brightest. A cluster of yellow-white lights squared off neatly stood near gut of the harbour. A field of light, brighter than the ships, cars, cranes, buildings, highways. I drove down there, once. To see. Steel frames rose three stories up, ladders between them and concrete at their base. There were no signs, no cranes, no shipping containers. The lights ran along the top, down the sides white-yellow-white ­and I could hear them buzzing. There was nobody there.

At the place I had chosen, I stopped the car. She looked at me and her eyes were big.

‘Here?’

‘Here.’

Quiet.

‘We must get out.’

She nodded. I opened the door and climbed onto the roof of the car. She joined me. She always sat cross-legged with her back very straight. I liked to watch her sit like that.

She spoke. ‘The city looks so – ‘

‘So what?’

‘I don’t know. Empty. Like a fantasy. Childlike.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Is it?’

‘Don’t you think so? You wouldn’t, would you.’

I took the remote from my pocket and dropped it into her lap. ‘Here.’

‘What’s this?’

‘Press it.’

‘Wait. What did you want to show me?’

‘Just press it.’

I turned back to watch the city. Traffic lights changed on Adderley Street and the buildings shone red. A pair of headlights flashed on De Waal drive.

‘Ok. I’ll press it.’

I looked at her hands. There was a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. A silver band. She pressed the button on the remote. I could feel her looking at me.

‘Look up,’ I said.

It started with the streetlights. Then the houses. Then some of the big buildings in town. They flicked off in patches, faster and faster. Then went the harbour lights, and then the stadium lights. The radio tower lights, the lights going out to the airport. The lights of Paarden Eiland, Woodstock, Eastern Boulevard. Tamboerskloof, Bo Kaap, the ABSA building. All off.

Un-lit.

And we sat there in the un-light.

She was breathing fast. Hard.

‘You – ‘

‘Don’t.’

She didn’t.