The Dust Diaries Read Online Free PDF

wondering why anyone would need six pyjama suits and leaving the lists that followed for ‘Cooking Appliances’, ‘Scientific Instruments’, ‘The Luncheon Basket’, ‘Groceries’ and ‘Packing Cases’ unread.
    Turning off the lamp, he pulled the side of his mosquito net down and tucked it under his mattress. A short gust of air blew in from the open window above his bed, indenting the net and briefly cooling his skin. It was still hot and he was sweating despite his decision to abandon his one pyjama suit and sleep naked. He lay there for a moment, listening to the night outside: the turning of the sea’s pages, the hush and fizz of the waves on the shore, the sudden screeching and confusion of two cats fighting, then silence. Just his breath in the sparse room. Turning onto his side, he thought of his small packing case in the corner, and of how his belongings compared to Mr Pruen’s recommended supplies. Two suits now (counting his purchase this afternoon), some notebooks, pencils and one pen, his Bible and Book of Common Prayer, a photograph of his mother (also called Charlotte—he had thought of her when introduced to the girl tonight), an old hat, some shirts, underwear, a pair of boots and not much else. He rolled onto his back again, closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him. The whine of a mosquito caught inside his net swung loud then quiet then loud in his ear, and he wondered, once again, if he was prepared for what lay ahead. Or, as he thought of the Princess’s story, for what he had left behind.
    That had all been just over a week ago, but already Zanzibar seemed far away to him, already that visit was organising itself into memories and so much of what he had thought and seen there had been lost or altered. But at least now he would know if he was prepared, because the journey was over, and he was here. Snatches of conversation in the corridor outside his door confirmed that the Hertzog had been allowed into harbour and they would be disembarking soon. He considered going up on deck to take a look, but he was tired and he knew he would be needing his sleep over the next few days, so turning onto his side, he pulled the thin pillow over his exposed ear and tried to get another hour’s rest, or at least back to the half-waking thoughts of a poem that had been drifting in his mind before he had woken. It was a poem he had been working on throughout the voyage, a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and there on the inside of his eyelids he could still see the imprint of the lines he had formed in his semiconscious state. They were just about tangible and he tried to call them back once more, but like the ridges on a sand dune, they disintegrated under his touch, slipping away, edging back from language towards images again. Orpheus at the lip of the cave, turning and condemning himself with every degree of his turn. And there behind him, Eurydice, his lover, willing him not to, and at the same time drinking in every molecule of his being before she is tugged back to her darkness. Yes, he had the image, but not the words. They had gone, silting somewhere in his sleep. He hoped they would surface again, somehow they had felt right.
    Turning onto his back again, he opened his eyes. Above him the same dimly lit patch of ceiling that he had woken up to for the past month came into focus, its cheap paint blistered with damp. From Naples, through the Suez Canal, Aden, Zanzibar, and now Beira Bay, Portuguese Mozambique. In all these places he had woken up to this sight. All his dreams ended here, in this damp patch of ceiling inches above his head. But he had chosen this, to travel steerage rather than in the more spacious cabins of 2 nd or ist class. And he wouldn’t have had it any other way, despite both his brother William’s protestations and the concerns of the church committee, both of whom were dismayed by his choice. Once on board, though, he’d soon realised that he was still