The sun was declining as he climbed the last hills outside Laingsburg; by the time he crossed the bridge and reached the wide central avenue of the town the light was a murky violet. He passed filling stations, shops, roadhouses, all closed. A dog began barking and, having begun, went on. Other dogs joined in. There were no street lights.

He was standing before a display of children's clothing in a dim shop window when someone passed behind him, halted, and came back. 'It's curfew when the bell goes,' said a voice. 'You'd better get off the street.'

K turned. He saw a man younger than himself wearing a green and gold track suit and carrying a wooden tool-chest. What the stranger saw he did not know.

'Are you all right?' said the young man.

'I don't want to stop,' said K. 'I'm going to Prince Albert and it's a long way.'

But he went home with the stranger after all and slept at his house, after a meal of soup and pan-bread. There were three children. All the while K ate, the youngest, a girl, sat on her mother's lap staring and, though her mother whispered in her ear, would not take her eyes off him. The two elder children kept their gaze severely on their plates. After hesitating, K spoke of his journey. 'I met a man the other day,' he said, 'who told me they shoot people they find on their land. ' His friend shook his head. 'I've never heard of that,' he said. 'People must help each other, that's what I believe.'

K allowed this utterance to sink into his mind. Do I believe in helping people? he wondered. He might help people, he might not help them, he did not know beforehand, anything was possible. He did not seem to have a belief, or did not seem to have a belief regarding help. Perhaps I am the stony ground, he thought.

When the light was switched off, K lay for a long time listening to the stirring of the children, whose bed he had taken and who now slept on a mattress on the floor. He woke once during the night with the feeling that he had been talking in his sleep; but no one seemed to have heard him. When he woke next there was a light on and the parents were getting their children off to school, trying to hush them for the sake of the guest. Mortified, he slipped on his trousers under the bedclothes and stepped outdoors. The stars were still shining; in the east there was a pink glow on the horizon.

The boy came to summon him to breakfast. At the table the urge again came over him to speak. He gripped the edge of the table and sat stiffly upright. His heart was full, he wanted to utter his thanks, but finally the right words would not come. The children stared at him; a silence fell; their parents looked away.

The two elder children were instructed to walk with him as far as the turnoff to Seweweekspoort. At the turnoff, before they parted, the boy spoke. 'Are those the ashes?' he said. K nodded. 'Would you like to see?' he offered. He opened the box, unknotted the plastic bag. First the boy smelled the ashes, then his sister did the same. 'What are you going to do with them?' asked the boy. 'I am taking them back to where my mother was born long ago,' said K. 'That was what she wanted me to do.' 'Did they burn her up?' asked the boy. K saw the burning halo. 'She didn't feel anything,' he said, 'she was already spirit by then.'

It took him three days to cover the distance from Laingsburg to Prince Albert, following the direction of the dirt road, making wide circles around farmhouses, trying to live off the veld but for the main part going hungry. Once, in the heat of the day, he stripped off his clothes and submerged himself in the water of a lonely dam. Once he was called to the roadside by a farmer driving a light truck. The farmer wanted to know where he was going. 'To Prince Albert,' he said, 'to visit my family.' But his accent was strange and it was clear that the farmer was not satisfied. 'Jump in,' he said. K shook his head. 'Jump in,' repeated the farmer, 'I'll give you a ride.' 'I'm OK,' said K, and walked on. The truck drove off in a cloud of dust; and at once K left the road, cut down into a river-bed, and hid till nightfall.

Remembering the farmer afterwards, he could recall only the gaberdine hat and the stubby fingers that beckoned him. On each joint of each finger there was a little feather of bronze hair. His memories all seemed to be of parts, not of wholes.

On the morning of the fourth day he was squatting on a hill watching the sun come up over what he knew at last to be Prince Albert. Cocks crowed; light blinked on the windowpanes of houses; a child was driving two donkeys down the long main street. The air was utterly still. As he descended the hillside towards the town, he began to be aware of a man's voice rising up to meet him in an even and unending monologue without visible origin. Puzzled, he stopped to listen. Is this the voice of Prince Albert? he wondered. I thought Prince Albert was dead. He tried to make out words, but though the voice pervaded the air like a mist or an aroma, the words, if there were words, if the voice were not simply lulling or chanting tones, were too faint or too smooth to hear. Then the voice ceased, giving way to a tiny faraway brass band.

K joined the road that entered the town from the south. He passed the old mill wheel; he passed fenced gardens. A pair of liver-coloured dogs galloped up and down inside a fence baying, eager to get at him. A few houses further along the street a young woman was kneeling at an outside tap washing a bowl. She glanced over her shoulder at him; he touched his beret; she looked away.

Now there were shops on both sides of the street: a bakery, a café, a clothing store, a bank agency, a welding shop, a general dealer, garages. Grids of steel mesh were locked across the front of the general dealer's. K sat down on the step with his back to the mesh and closed his eyes against the sun. Now I am here, he thought. Finally.

An hour later K was still sitting there, asleep, his mouth agape. Children, whispering and giggling, had gathered around him. One of them delicately lifted the beret from his head, put it on, and twisted his mouth in parody. His friends snorted with laughter. He dropped the beret askew on K's head and tried to worm the box away from him; but both hands were folded over it.

The shopkeeper arrived with his keys; the children fell back; and when he began to remove the grillework K woke up.

The interior of the shop was dim and cluttered. Galvanized iron bathtubs and bicycle wheels hung from the ceiling alongside fan belts and radiator hoses; there were bins of nails and pyramids of plastic buckets, shelves of canned goods, patent medicines, sweets, babywear, cold drinks.

K stepped to the counter. 'Mr Vosloo or Mr Visser,' he said. Those were the names his mother had remembered from the past. 'I'm looking for a Mr Vosloo or a Mr Visser who is a farmer. '

'Mrs Vosloo,' said the shopkeeper. 'Is that who you mean? Mrs Vosloo at the hotel? There is no Mr Vosloo.'

'Mr Vosloo or Mr Visser who was a farmer long ago, that is who I am looking for. I don't know the name for sure, but if I find the farm I will recognize it.'

'There is no Vosloo or Visser who farms. Visagie-is that who you mean? What do you want the Visagies for?'

'I have to take something there.' He held up the box.

'Then you have come a long way for nothing. There is no one it the Visagies' place, it has been empty for years. Are you sure the name you want is Visagie? The Visagies left long ago. '

K asked for a packet of ginger snaps.

'Who sent you here?' asked the shopkeeper. K looked stupid. 'They should have got someone who knows what he is doing. Tell them that when you see them.' K mumbled and left.

He was walking up the street wondering where to try next when one of the children came running after him. 'Mister, I can tell you where Visagies is!' he called. K stopped. 'But it's empty, there's no one there,' the child said. He gave directions that would take K north along the road to Kruidfontein and then east by a farm road along the valley of the Moordenaarsrivier. 'How far is the farm from the big road?' asked K. 'A long way or a short way?' The boy was vague, nor did his companions know. 'You turn off at the sign of the finger pointing,' he said. 'Visagies is before the mountains, quite a long way if you are walking.' K gave them money for sweets.