Kristen Roupenian
The Night Bus
The night bus out of Kampala crosses the Kenyan border
at 8:30 pm, an hour after dark. Awino, who is afraid
to be outside after nightfall, arrives at the border
station just before sunset. She buys a ticket to
Nairobi, leaves her luggage behind the desk, and
crosses the street to a small café. The Coca-cola is
warm, and the French fries cool and doughy, but she
eats everything she’s ordered, and by the time she’s
finished, dusk has settled in.
As soon as the first florescent lights buzz on,
illuminating the fronts of shops and bars, the town is
a different place, and one with which she’s
unfamiliar. The women’s voices, as they shout to each
other from store to store, sound wilder than they did
just an hour before. The men are rowdier. The children
keep their thumbs firmly in their mouths, and many of
them seem to be unattended, lost.
Or maybe that’s just her imagination.
Although she is less than an hour from her home, in a
town that is not unfamiliar, part of her believes that
the darkness that surrounds this small patch of
well-lit road is absolute. At home, in the small house
that she shares with her mother and three sisters, she
doesn’t mind the night-time. There, the weak, warm
glow of the kerosene lamp is more than enough. But
here, the cold light that pours from the scattered
bulbs along the street has the effect of calling
attention to the night, highlighting its darkness.
She shivers. Today, like all the other days, was
bright and hot, but not an hour after sundown she
already feels a chill. Her sweater is packed away in
her luggage, and the bus is due soon. Standing up,
she pushes in her chair, and checks to make sure her
money is tied tightly in her shawl. Then she crosses
back to the bus station, holding her breath as she
passes through the small unlit spot at the center of
the road.
Inside, the benches are crowded with waiting
passengers, and the floor is a maze of suitcases. The
man behind the desk takes a long time to find her bag.
When he finally passes it back, she wonders why she
always trusts the bus company to watch her luggage.
Few of the other passengers do. Most of them stand
guard over their belongings as though expecting
someone to sprint by any minute and try to snatch
their things away.
As soon as she unzips her bag, she realizes her
sweater is not in its usual place, but she spends an
extra ten minutes rooting through the bag before she
is sure that it’s gone. She is upset at the loss, but
more unnerving to her is the fact that she’s
discovered its disappearance so soon after becoming
suspicious of the people at the station. Sometimes,
when she is alone in a crowded place, the clamor
inside her head seems to combine with the raucousness
of the people around her, so that she begins to feel
as though the border that separates her from the rest
of the world is dissolving. As though not only may
other people know her thoughts, but her thoughts may
actually belong to other people.
Outside, the twin headlights of the night bus
approach the station. The passengers scurry out to
claim their seats, but to Awino, the bus looks as
though it is surfacing from some abandoned place where
the darkness is total. People cluster around the bus,
and as they cross in front of it to enter, they pass
through the headlights, casting off shadows that
flicker wildly in the road. Watching them, Awino
thinks of moths: their fluttering motion, the way they
are drawn and caught by any indiscriminate light.
Minutes pass, and Awino remains in the station. At
last, with a sound like a choked cough, the bus comes
to life, and the noise breaks her reverie. She hoists
her bag over her shoulder and clambers onto the bus,
avoiding the driver’s glance. In the seat next to
hers, a woman is already asleep. Awino pushes past
her, gently. The woman doesn’t wake, and Awino looks
out the window as the bus pulls away.
The night passes. A man who has been sipping from a
smudged glass bottle gets drunk. He shouts at the
women nearby him, first obscenities, then curses. The
other passengers demand that he be put off the bus.
The man’s brother is with him, and is ready to fight.
The driver refuses to take sides. Soon many people are
shouting. In the midst of the argument, the drunkard
falls abruptly to sleep. Within a minute, the whole
bus is quiet again.
Awino watches the road. Away from the electricity, it
is almost entirely dark. Except: in some villages,
there are people sitting outside. Three or four women
are clustered together, sharing one open lamp. At
first, it is hard for Awino to make out what they are
doing, but then she sees – they are selling
vegetables. The lamps cast mostly shadows but she
glimpses red tomatoes, pale purple onions, green
mangoes. Once, she catches sight of a heap of small
silver fish, glinting in the dim light.
All day in a packed marketplace, a woman might sell to
fifteen customers, make seventy or a hundred shillings
at most. At night, after dark, how many people venture
from their homes to buy a tomato or an onion for
seasoning? It can hardly be enough to make the women’s
vigil worthwhile. Yet here, along the main paved
street, along rocky side roads and the smallest dirt
paths, are their scattered and glittering lamps. Once
she begins looking, they are everywhere.
When the bus reaches the highlands, the temperature
plummets. Cold wind threads through the space between
the panes of the window and strokes Awino’s forehead.
She has been resting lightly, and now awakes, startled
and shivering. Trying to hoard enough warmth to sleep,
she curls herself into a tight ball, her feet beneath
her, her hands hidden within her sleeves. Though she
closes her eyes, and even imagines she’s dreaming, the
cold prevails. After an hour, she is ready to give up,
to spend the rest of the night peering out the window
at the road flying by.
Just before she sits up, something soft and heavy
settles on her shoulders. It is a man’s dress coat,
carefully placed by the passenger sitting behind her.
At first, she tenses, fearing an unwelcome obligation.
But before she can form the words to refuse, she is
warm again, and falls asleep.
When Awino opens her eyes, the bus is parked in the
station. Many of the passengers have disembarked.
Others are still dozing, their blankets pulled up over
their faces. She turns to look at the man behind her.
He is awake, sitting with his hands folded in his lap
and looking out at the parking lot. As she hands him
his coat, he nods politely, as though it were she who
had done him the favor. Then he stands, shakes her
hand, and leaves. He does not speak a word.
Awino sits for a while longer, thinking about
yesterday, and the day to come. She wonders once more
about the women selling vegetables, resolves to ask
her mother about it when they see each other again.
Without the coat, her hands are chilled, and she is
starting to feel hungry. There is no reason to stay
any longer. Gathering her things, she walks down the
aisle and off of the bus. Soon, the shops will be open
and she will buy a biscuit and a warm cup of tea. From
the streets come the sounds of a city waking up. It is
just beginning to be morning.
©2005 by Kristen Roupenian
