Red Doek (The Woman) Quotes in The Train Driver
ROELF: (with vicious deliberation) Ja. Give me her name…or show me her grave…and I will do it. S’trues God. In both official languages because I am fully bilingual…I’ll do it so that her ghost can hear me. I’ll tell her how she has fucked up my life…the selfish black bitch…that I am sitting here with my arse in the dirt because thanks to her I am losing everything…my home, my family, my job…my bloody mind! Ja! Another fucking day like this one and I won’t know who I am anymore or what the fuck I am doing!
ROELF: You don’t understand anything. I’ve crashed! I was on the rails, I was going forward, everything up to schedule…until it all crashed. Thanks to that woman with the red doek I don’t know if I’ve got a home anymore. I don’t know if I’ve got a family anymore, or a job or…ja…a life. You said it: this is the place for the ones without names…and I think I’m one of them now. Roelf Visagie? Who the hell is he? You got your spade so dig another grave, man.
ROELF: …And did you also hear “looked on helplessly”? You at least know what that means, don’t you? That means that the seriously traumatized train driver, who is me, could do fuck-all about it. That’s what they all jump on…But...I already know all that. So then if it wasn’t me, then who was it? God? That’s right. Because there was only God and me seeing how it happened. We were the only other ones who saw the look in her eyes, saw the baby’s head peeping over her shoulder! So if it wasn’t me, then was it Him?…God was only a witness, because it was Roelf Visagie who was tramping down so hard on the brake so that the wheels was screeching on the tracks.
ROELF: All I could think of to say was, “What the fucking hell are you all staring at?” And Lorraine said, “These are your children, Roelf Visagie––go swear at your woman from the bush.”…When I heard those words it was like something just opened up inside me, because I suddenly realized you see that that is what I wanted to do! Ja! I wanted to take a deep breath and then load up my lungs with every dirty thing I had ever heard and then say them into the face of that woman, who still stands there waiting for me in my dreams. I wanted those to be the last words she hears when my train hits her…But the trouble was I didn’t know her name! I mean you know how it is. When you talk to somebody in your mind you think their name, don’t you?
SIMON (…He speaks firmly but gently): You must stop now looking for her.
ROELF: For who?
SIMON: For Red Doek.
ROELF: Red Doek?...
(For a few seconds the name means nothing to him…)
ROELF: That’s right…Red Doek…I’m looking for her…(He is speaking very quietly)…and her baby…You realize, don’t you, Simon, that it was a woman…a mother…with her baby on her back that stepped out on to the rails…there in front of me…and waited…for me…for the end…staring and waiting…
ROELF: I was thinking about those pondoks in the bush…and I was thinking…she lived in one of those pondoks…Ja! That was what Red Doek called home. A young woman, a mother, with her baby! You get it? That is fucking hopeless, man. Think about it. Wouldn’t you also want to go stand on a railway line and wait for the next train if that is all life has to offer you and your baby? And then to make it worse…that is still not the end…Because the big happy ending is that Nobody Wants Her!...Nobody came to claim her! Nobody wants her! And when we start looking…even we can’t find her.
ROELF: Sometimes I think…that for me you will forever just be Red Doek standing there on the tracks, and that for you I will forever just be a white man staring at you in the few seconds before you die. But…it can’t be as simple as that!...You see, I don’t really know what your story is––who you are, where you come from, what’s your name…But now, thanks to all I’ve seen and heard in the past few weeks…I got some sort of idea, some sort of feeling about your world. You see, Red Doek, most of us white people got no idea about what it’s like because our world is so different! We always think we know––like Lorraine my wife––she thinks she knows everything about you people…and I did as well…but the truth is we don’t.
ROELF: I don’t know what it is like to live without hope, to give up. Because you did, didn’t you? That is why you did what you did because you didn’t believe anymore that good things was going to happen to you and your baby. I’m thinking about it all the time now, trying to imagine what it was like for you.
ROELF: I don't know what it means when I say she is mine, but I know she is because I feel that way inside my heart and so I claimed her. Nobody else wanted her Simon…I do, and that's the end of it.
And I will also tell you that I know when that happened…when she became mine like nothing else in my life has ever really been mine before…it was when we looked into each other's eyes in the few seconds before she and her baby died…underneath me. And you want to know something else, Simon? Maybe it was like that for her also. Ja! Have you thought about that? That I was the last human being she saw. There was no hatred in her eyes, you know, Simon, no anger...just me...she saw me.
Red Doek (The Woman) Quotes in The Train Driver
ROELF: (with vicious deliberation) Ja. Give me her name…or show me her grave…and I will do it. S’trues God. In both official languages because I am fully bilingual…I’ll do it so that her ghost can hear me. I’ll tell her how she has fucked up my life…the selfish black bitch…that I am sitting here with my arse in the dirt because thanks to her I am losing everything…my home, my family, my job…my bloody mind! Ja! Another fucking day like this one and I won’t know who I am anymore or what the fuck I am doing!
ROELF: You don’t understand anything. I’ve crashed! I was on the rails, I was going forward, everything up to schedule…until it all crashed. Thanks to that woman with the red doek I don’t know if I’ve got a home anymore. I don’t know if I’ve got a family anymore, or a job or…ja…a life. You said it: this is the place for the ones without names…and I think I’m one of them now. Roelf Visagie? Who the hell is he? You got your spade so dig another grave, man.
ROELF: …And did you also hear “looked on helplessly”? You at least know what that means, don’t you? That means that the seriously traumatized train driver, who is me, could do fuck-all about it. That’s what they all jump on…But...I already know all that. So then if it wasn’t me, then who was it? God? That’s right. Because there was only God and me seeing how it happened. We were the only other ones who saw the look in her eyes, saw the baby’s head peeping over her shoulder! So if it wasn’t me, then was it Him?…God was only a witness, because it was Roelf Visagie who was tramping down so hard on the brake so that the wheels was screeching on the tracks.
ROELF: All I could think of to say was, “What the fucking hell are you all staring at?” And Lorraine said, “These are your children, Roelf Visagie––go swear at your woman from the bush.”…When I heard those words it was like something just opened up inside me, because I suddenly realized you see that that is what I wanted to do! Ja! I wanted to take a deep breath and then load up my lungs with every dirty thing I had ever heard and then say them into the face of that woman, who still stands there waiting for me in my dreams. I wanted those to be the last words she hears when my train hits her…But the trouble was I didn’t know her name! I mean you know how it is. When you talk to somebody in your mind you think their name, don’t you?
SIMON (…He speaks firmly but gently): You must stop now looking for her.
ROELF: For who?
SIMON: For Red Doek.
ROELF: Red Doek?...
(For a few seconds the name means nothing to him…)
ROELF: That’s right…Red Doek…I’m looking for her…(He is speaking very quietly)…and her baby…You realize, don’t you, Simon, that it was a woman…a mother…with her baby on her back that stepped out on to the rails…there in front of me…and waited…for me…for the end…staring and waiting…
ROELF: I was thinking about those pondoks in the bush…and I was thinking…she lived in one of those pondoks…Ja! That was what Red Doek called home. A young woman, a mother, with her baby! You get it? That is fucking hopeless, man. Think about it. Wouldn’t you also want to go stand on a railway line and wait for the next train if that is all life has to offer you and your baby? And then to make it worse…that is still not the end…Because the big happy ending is that Nobody Wants Her!...Nobody came to claim her! Nobody wants her! And when we start looking…even we can’t find her.
ROELF: Sometimes I think…that for me you will forever just be Red Doek standing there on the tracks, and that for you I will forever just be a white man staring at you in the few seconds before you die. But…it can’t be as simple as that!...You see, I don’t really know what your story is––who you are, where you come from, what’s your name…But now, thanks to all I’ve seen and heard in the past few weeks…I got some sort of idea, some sort of feeling about your world. You see, Red Doek, most of us white people got no idea about what it’s like because our world is so different! We always think we know––like Lorraine my wife––she thinks she knows everything about you people…and I did as well…but the truth is we don’t.
ROELF: I don’t know what it is like to live without hope, to give up. Because you did, didn’t you? That is why you did what you did because you didn’t believe anymore that good things was going to happen to you and your baby. I’m thinking about it all the time now, trying to imagine what it was like for you.
ROELF: I don't know what it means when I say she is mine, but I know she is because I feel that way inside my heart and so I claimed her. Nobody else wanted her Simon…I do, and that's the end of it.
And I will also tell you that I know when that happened…when she became mine like nothing else in my life has ever really been mine before…it was when we looked into each other's eyes in the few seconds before she and her baby died…underneath me. And you want to know something else, Simon? Maybe it was like that for her also. Ja! Have you thought about that? That I was the last human being she saw. There was no hatred in her eyes, you know, Simon, no anger...just me...she saw me.
