J. Coetzee - The Childhood of Jesus

‘I don’t think our neighbours will be pleased to see you handling their freshly laundered washing,’ he says. ‘What do you find so attractive about it?’

‘I like the way it smells.’

The next time he crosses the courtyard, he discreetly presses his face into a sheet and draws a deep breath. The smell is clean and warm and comforting.

Later that day, glancing out of the window, he sees the boy sprawled on the lawn head to head with another, bigger boy. They seem to be conversing intimately.

‘I see you have a new friend,’ he remarks over lunch. ‘Who is he?’

‘Fidel. He can play the violin. He showed me his violin. Can I get a violin too?’

‘Does he live in the Blocks?’

‘Yes. Can I have a violin too?’

‘We will see. Violins cost a lot of money, and you will need a teacher, you can’t just pick up a violin and play.’

‘Fidel’s mother teaches him. She says she can teach me too.’

‘It’s good that you have made a new friend, I am glad for you. As for violin lessons, perhaps I should first have a chat with Fidel’s mother.’

‘Can we go now?’

‘We can go later, after your nap.’

Fidel’s apartment is on the far side of the courtyard. Even before he can knock, the door is thrown open and Fidel stands before them, sturdy, curly-headed, smiling.

Though no larger than theirs and not as sunny, the apartment has a more welcoming air, perhaps because of its bright curtains with their cherry-blossom motif repeated across the bedspreads.

Fidel’s mother comes forward to greet him: an angular, even gaunt young woman with prominent teeth and hair drawn tight behind her ears. In an obscure way he is disappointed by this first sight of her, though he has no reason to be.

‘Yes,’ she confirms, ‘I have told your son he can join Fidelito in his music lessons. Later we can reassess and see if he has the aptitude and the will to progress.’

‘That is very kind of you. Actually, David is not my son. I don’t have a son.’

‘Where are his parents?’

‘His parents. . That is a difficult question. I will explain when we have more time. About the lessons: will he need a violin of his own?’

‘With beginners I usually start on the recorder. Fidel’ — she draws her son closer, he hugs her affectionately — ‘Fidel learned the recorder for a year before he began the violin.’

He turns to David. ‘Do you hear that, my boy? First you learn to play the recorder, then after that the violin. Agreed?’

The boy pulls a face, shoots a glance at his new friend, is silent.

‘It is a big undertaking, to become a violinist. You won’t succeed if your heart isn’t in it.’ He turns to Fidel’s mother. ‘May I ask, how much do you charge?’

She gives him a surprised look. ‘I don’t charge,’ she says. ‘I do it for the music.’

Her name is Elena. It is not the name he would have guessed. He would have guessed Manuela, or even Lourdes.

He invites Fidel and his mother on a bus ride out to the New Forest, a ride that Álvaro has recommended (‘It was once a plantation, but it has been allowed to go wild — you will like it’). From the bus terminus the two boys race ahead up the path, while he and Elena stroll behind.

‘Do you have many students?’ he asks her.

‘Oh, I’m not a proper music teacher. I have just a few children whom I help with the basics.’

‘How do you make a living if you don’t charge?’

‘I take in sewing. I do this and that. I get a small grant from the Asistencia. I have enough. There are more important things than money.’

‘Do you mean music?’

‘Music, yes, but also how one lives. How one is to live.’

A good answer, a serious answer, a philosophic answer. He is, for a moment, silenced.

‘Do you see lots of people?’ he asks. ‘I mean’ — he grasps the nettle — ‘is there a man in your life?’

She frowns. ‘I have friends. Some are women, some are men. I don’t distinguish between them.’

The path narrows. She goes ahead; he falls behind, eyeing the sway of her hips. He prefers a woman with more flesh on her bones. Nevertheless, he likes Elena.

‘As for me, it is not a distinction I can give up,’ he says. ‘Or would wish to give up.’

She slows to let him catch up, gives him a straight look. ‘No one should have to give up what is important to him,’ she says.

The two boys return, panting after their run, glowing with health. ‘Have we got anything to drink?’ demands Fidel.

It is not until they are in the bus, going home, that he has another chance to speak to Elena.

‘I don’t know about you,’ he says, ‘but the past is not dead in me. Details may have grown fuzzy, but the feel of how life used to be is still quite vivid. Men and women, for instance: you say you have got beyond that way of thinking; but I haven’t. I still feel myself to be a man, and you to be a woman.’

‘I agree. Men and women are different. They have different roles to play.’

The two boys, in the seat in front of them, are whispering together, giggling. He takes Elena’s hand in his. She does not pull free. Nevertheless, by the inscrutable means by which the body speaks, her hand gives answer. It dies in his grasp like a fish out of water.

‘May I ask,’ he says: ‘Are you beyond feeling anything for a man?’

‘I don’t feel nothing,’ she replies slowly and carefully. ‘On the contrary, I feel goodwill, much goodwill. Towards both you and your son. Warmth and goodwill.’

‘By goodwill do you mean you wish us well? I am struggling to grasp the concept. You feel benevolent towards us?’

‘Yes, exactly.’

‘Benevolence, I must tell you, is what we keep encountering here. Everyone wishes us well, everyone is ready to be kind to us. We are positively borne along on a cloud of goodwill. But it all remains a bit abstract. Can goodwill by itself satisfy our needs? Is it not in our nature to crave something more tangible?’

Deliberately Elena extracts her hand from his. ‘You may want more than goodwill; but is what you want better than goodwill? That is what you should be asking yourself.’ She pauses. ‘You keep referring to David as “the boy”. Why don’t you use his name?’

‘David is a name they gave him at the camp. He doesn’t like it, he says it is not his true name. I try not to use it unless I have to.’

‘It is quite easy to change a name, you know. You go to the registry office and fill out a name-change form. That’s all. No questions.’ She leans forward. ‘And what are you two whispering about?’ she demands of the boys.

Her son smiles back at her, raises his fingers to his lips, pretending that what occupies the two of them is secret business.

The bus deposits them outside the Blocks. ‘I would have liked to invite you in for a cup of tea,’ says Elena, ‘but unfortunately it is time for Fidelito’s bath and supper.’

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘Goodbye, Fidel. Thank you for the walk. We had a good time.’

‘You and Fidel seem to get on well together,’ he remarks to the boy once they are alone.

‘He is my best friend.’

‘So Fidel feels goodwill towards you, does he?’

‘Lots of goodwill.’

‘How about you? Do you feel goodwill too?’

The boy nods vigorously.

‘Anything else besides?’

The boy gives him a puzzled look. ‘No.’

So there he has it, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. From goodwill come friendship and happiness, come companionable picnics in the parklands or companionable afternoons strolling in the forest. Whereas from love, or at least from longing in its more urgent manifestations, come frustration and doubt and heartsore. It is as simple as that.