J. Coetzee - The Childhood of Jesus

He wakes the child. ‘Come,’ he says, ‘time to get up. Time for breakfast.’

They pee side by side in a corner of the yard.

Breakfast turns out to be more bread and water. The child disdains it; he himself is not hungry. He leaves the tray untouched on the step. ‘We are ready to go,’ he calls out.

The girl leads them through the house into the empty street. ‘Goodbye,’ she says. ‘You can come back tonight if you need to.’

‘What about the room you promised at the Centre?’

‘If the key can’t be found, or the room has been taken in the meantime, you can sleep here again. Goodbye.’

‘Just a minute. Can you help us with some money?’ Thus far he has not had to beg, but he does not know where else to turn.

‘I said I would help you, I didn’t say I would provide you with money. For that you will have to go to the offices of the Asistencia Social. You can catch a bus in to the city. Be sure to take your passbook along, and your proof of residence. Then you can draw your relocation allowance. Alternatively you can find a job and ask for an advance. I won’t be at the Centre this morning, I have meetings, but if you go there and tell them you are looking for a job and want un vale , they will know what you mean. Un vale . Now I really must run.’

The track he and the boy follow across the empty parklands turns out to be the wrong one; by the time they reach the Centre the sun is already high in the sky. Behind the Trabajos counter is a woman of middle age, stern-faced, her hair drawn back over her ears and tied tightly behind.

‘Good morning,’ he says. ‘We checked in yesterday. We are new arrivals, and I am looking for work. I understand you can give me un vale .’

‘ Vale de trabajo ,’ says the woman. ‘Show me your passbook.’

He gives her his passbook. She inspects it, returns it. ‘I will write you a vale , but as for the line of work you do, that is up to you to decide on.’

‘Have you any suggestions for where I should begin? This is foreign territory to me.’

‘Try the docks,’ says the woman. ‘They are usually on the lookout for workers. Catch the Number 29 bus. It leaves from outside the main gate every half-hour.’

‘I don’t have money for buses. I don’t have money at all.’

‘The bus is free. All buses are free.’

‘And a place to stay? May I raise the question of a place to stay? The young lady who was on duty yesterday, Ana she is called, reserved a room for us, but we haven’t been able to gain access.’

‘There are no rooms free.’

‘There was a room free yesterday, room C-55, but the key was mislaid. The key was in the care of señora Weiss.’

‘I know nothing about that. Come back this afternoon.’

‘Can’t I speak to señora Weiss?’

‘There is a meeting of senior staff this morning. Señora Weiss is at the meeting. She will be back in the afternoon.’

On the 29 bus he examines the vale de trabajo he has been given. It is nothing but a leaf torn from a notepad, on which is scribbled: ‘Bearer is a new arrival. Please consider him for employment.’ No official stamp, no signature, simply the initials P.X. It all seems very informal. Will it be enough to get him a job?

They are the last passengers to dismount. Considering how extensive the docks are — wharves stretch upriver as far as the eye can see — they are strangely desolate. On only one quay does there seem to be activity: a freighter is being loaded or unloaded, men are ascending and descending a gangplank.

He approaches a tall man in overalls who seems to be supervising operations. ‘Good day,’ he says. ‘I am looking for work. The people at the Relocation Centre said I should come here. Are you the right person to speak to? I have a vale .’

‘You can speak to me,’ says the man. ‘But are you not a little old for an estibador ?’

Estibador ? He must look baffled, for the man (the foreman?) mimes swinging a load onto his back and staggering under the weight.

‘Ah, estibador !’ he exclaims. ‘I am sorry, my Spanish is not good. No, not too old at all.’

Is it true, what he has just heard himself say? Is he really not too old for heavy work? He does not feel old, just as he does not feel young. He does not feel of any particular age. He feels ageless, if that is possible.

‘Try me out,’ he proposes. ‘If you decide I am not up to it, I will quit at once, with no hard feelings.’

‘Good,’ says the foreman. He screws the vale into a ball and lobs it into the water. ‘You can start at once. The youngster is with you? He can wait here with me, if you like. I’ll keep an eye on him. As for your Spanish, don’t worry, persist. One day it will cease to feel like a language, it will become the way things are.’

He turns to the boy. ‘Will you stay with this gentleman while I help carry the bags?’

The boy nods. He has his thumb in his mouth again.

The gangplank is wide enough for only one man. He waits while a stevedore, bearing a bulging sack on his back, descends. Then he climbs up to the deck and down a stout wooden ladder into the hold. It takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the half-light. The hold is heaped with identical bulging sacks, hundreds of them, maybe thousands.

‘What is in the sacks?’ he asks the man beside him.

The man regards him oddly. ‘ Granos ,’ he says.

He wants to ask what the sacks weigh, but there is no time. It is his turn.

Perched on top of the heap is a big fellow with brawny forearms and a wide grin whose job it evidently is to drop a sack onto the shoulders of the stevedore waiting in line. He turns his back, the sack descends; he staggers, then grips the corners as he sees the other men do, takes a first step, a second. Is he really going to be able to climb the ladder bearing this heavy weight, as the other men are doing? Does he have it in him?

‘Steady, viejo ,’ says a voice behind him. ‘Take your time.’

He places his left foot on the lowest rung of the ladder. It is a matter of balance, he tells himself, of keeping steady, of not letting the sack slide or the contents shift. Once things begin to shift or slide, you are lost. You go from being a stevedore to being a beggar shivering in a tin shelter in a stranger’s backyard.

He brings up his right foot. He is beginning to learn something about the ladder: that if you rest your chest against it then the weight of the sack, instead of threatening to topple you off balance, will stabilize you. His left foot finds the second rung. There is a light ripple of applause from below. He grits his teeth. Eighteen rungs to go (he has counted them). He will not fail.

Slowly, a step at a time, resting at each step, listening to his racing heart (What if he has a heart attack? What an embarrassment that will be!), he ascends. At the very top he teeters, then slumps forward so that the sack sags onto the deck.

He gets to his feet again, indicates the sack. ‘Can someone give me a hand?’ he says, trying to control his panting, trying to sound casual. Willing hands heave the sack onto his back.

The gangplank presents its own difficulties: it rocks gently from side to side as the ship moves, offering none of the support that the ladder did. He tries his best to hold himself erect as he descends, even though this means he cannot see where he is placing his feet. He fixes his eyes on the boy, who stands stock-still beside the foreman, observing. Let me not shame him! he says to himself.

Without a stumble he reaches the quayside. ‘Turn left!’ calls out the foreman. Laboriously he turns. A cart is in the process of drawing up, a low flat-bottomed cart hauled by two huge horses with shaggy fetlocks. Percherons? He has never seen a Percheron in the flesh. Their rank, urinous smell envelops him.