In the rootlessness that is such an integral part of the migrant’s existence, a constant yearning for home remains. Mano’s journey to South Africa can also be seen as a journey of initiation towards a new state of awareness in which an alternative construction of home is imagined. Similarly, his death can be interpreted as the necessary sacrifice in this rite of passage that will allow him to move from one state of consciousness to another. As Barnum explains: “Sacrifice, we all know, gives second sight” (1989:187), and Mano’s life is the sacrifice that is extracted from him so that he can be initiated into a new understanding of home. In this awareness a new level of consciousness is reached in which home becomes rooted in the mind, rather than in any physical location. Rushdie explains that “*t+he migrant intellect roots itself in itself, in its own capacity for imagining and reimagining the world” (1991:280). It is in prison that Mano – as Anom – becomes aware of his own
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capacity to re-imagine the world, and it is this capacity that allows him to reconstruct an alternative vision of home.
In order to reconstruct an alternative vision of home a journey of initiation needs to be undertaken.
The image of initiation in relation to Breytenbach’s work has been discussed by Grobler (2002). She notes that the initiation rite serves as a rite of passage from “one layer of consciousness *to+
another” (2002:31) and that the initiation process is a painful one that “is always accompanied by a sacrifice, a fatal choice or the denial of oneself – an insight which is [also] embodied in
*Breytenbach’s+ paintings” (2002:31). Anom’s journey simultaneously leads to his death, and to an initiation into a more complex understanding of home. It is during his time in prison that he is able to gain a heightened insight into the alternative reality of home that takes shape as he continues
‘the noble art of walking’: “‘I know that the path is a way of walking’” (1989:294) he says. The journey is one that eventually takes him home.
The novel offers another image of initiation through the character, Victoire Mumpata, in one of Anom’s reflections. In this particular reflection there is a symbolic image of Mumpata floating by in the river. His body is wrapped in a grey blanket, his head “bobbing”, “bluish and bald” (1989:242).
Although he appears to be dead from the above description (yet perhaps he was truly dead, and is reborn), he crawls out of the river, takes all of his clothes off, and walks towards the nearby settlement. When he is asked where he is going, he replies: “I’m going home” (243). This image is significant in that it anticipates the end of the novel: it captures the element of death and rebirth that is associated with the painful movement towards a new state of awareness. One is reborn into the realisation that home is no longer a physical place; an alternative vision of home presents itself.
This alternative home is a place in which a sense of belonging can be felt, in which one can feel settled to a certain degree, in contrast to the alienating physical reality that has been experienced up until now. A home can be found within awareness: within a sense of belonging that is located in
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the mind, separate from the material reality. However, a rite of passage needs to be undertaken before a new state of awareness, and belonging, can be experienced.
A rite of passage allows one access to an alternative reality through the transition from one state of awareness to another. In a study of representations of liminality in literature, Viljoen and Van der Merwe (2007) discuss rites of passage. They refer to stages in the rite of passage, and draw on Van Gennep’s model of initiation. Their description bears a clear resemblance to the examples of initiation in the novel:
initiands are symbolically...separated from their usual social life and status. They cross the limen, in other words, into a new transitional state where the social fabric they are used to is allowed to unravel. They enter a different space and time that is so radically different from the ordinary that it cannot be expressed in ordinary language, but has to be described in metaphors or states of the in-between, like death, going underground or under water, going into eclipse. In this state of anti- structure elements of culture can be recombined into new configurations. The old self dies so that a new self can be born...the stage of liminality, is therefore a stage of transformation where...a new sense of communitas can come into being.
(2007:11)
For Anom, the new transitional state is represented by the prison environment in which he is cut off from everything, and everyone. Anom’s death results in a rebirth into a higher state of consciousness; he recognises a new home in an alternative reality and, at the same time, a vision for the future. Furthermore, Mumpata’s emergence from the river is clearly another image of initiation.
Thus, both characters die and are reborn so that they can reach another level of consciousness in which ‘new configurations’ of home are possible.
Upon Anom’s arrival in Heaven, Barnum – Breytenbach’s alter ego – is there to greet Anom. Unsure of where he is, Anom asks “‘Where am I?’” To which Barnum replies: “‘You mean to tell me you don’t know? You are home, here, in Heaven’” (1989:292). Anom is led, by Barnum, towards a new awareness of home. The pain of this journey is voiced by Anom who, when he arrives in Heaven, lashes out at Barnum(/Breyten) by saying: “‘Why did you do this to me? Why me? Why did you want
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me to walk the rope to get to this stage?’” (1989:292). Mano’s return to South Africa, his arrest, imprisonment, and death, are part of a rite of passage into a new state of awareness. The journey is a necessary one, as expressed in several of Breytenbach’s works, for an alternate state of consciousness to emerge in which the concept of home can continually be re-imagined, and re- invented. Ultimately, it is within the painful experience of exile that a new homeland is located: a
“homeland of perpetual movement” (Breytenbach 1996:40-41) that exists within an awareness that recognises, and embraces, the instability of the exile’s reality.
In conclusion, this chapter has explored the difficulty that the characters in the novel experience in locating home, whether in Europe or in Africa. The central theme of this chapter has been the negation of home as experienced in both Europe and Africa (as the characters realise upon revisiting Africa, a return home is no longer possible). Memories of home need to be recognised as constructions of the mind that do not correlate with reality, and so the rootlessness that the characters experience needs to be embraced as part of their life, and part of their identity. The journey that ensues as a result of this dislocated state of existence is one towards a sense of belonging that can be found in an alternative, more complex concept of home (as discussed further on in my dissertation).
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