J. Coetzee - The Childhood of Jesus

‘What is a cannibal?’ asks the boy.

‘Cannibals are savages,’ says Inés. ‘You don’t have to worry, there are no cannibals here. Cannibals are just a fable.’

‘What is a fable?’

‘A story from the old days that isn’t true any more.’

‘Tell me a fable. I want to hear a fable. Tell me a fable about the three brothers. Or about the brothers in the sky.’

‘I don’t know anything about brothers in the sky. Now finish your supper.’

‘If you won’t tell him about brothers, tell him about Little Red Riding Hood,’ he says. ‘Tell him about how the wolf gobbles up the little girl’s grandmother and turns into a grandmother, a wolf grandmother. By consubstantiation.’

The boy gets up, scrapes the food from his plate into the dog’s bowl, and puts the plate in the kitchen sink. The dog gobbles down the sausages.

‘I’m going to be a lifesaver,’ the boy announces. ‘Diego is going to teach me in the swimming pool.’

‘That’s nice,’ he says. ‘What else are you planning to be, besides a lifesaver and an escape artist and a magician?’

‘Nothing. That’s all.’

‘Pulling people out of swimming pools and escaping from boxes and doing magic tricks are hobbies, not a career, not a life’s work. How are you going to earn an actual living?’

The boy casts a glance at his mother, as if searching for guidance. Then, emboldened, he says: ‘I don’t have to earn a living.’

‘We all have to earn a living. It’s part of the human condition.’

‘Why?’

‘ Why? Why? Why? That is not how we carry on a proper conversation. How are you going to eat if you spend all your time saving people and escaping from chains and refusing to work? Where will you get the food to make you strong?’

‘From the shop.’

‘You will go to the shop and they will give you food. For nothing.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what will happen when the people in the shop have given all their food away for nothing? What will happen when the shop is empty?’

Serenely, with a strange little smile on his lips, the child answers: ‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why is the shop empty?’

‘Because if you have X loaves of bread and you give them all away for nothing then you have no loaves left and no money with which to buy new loaves. Because X minus X equals zero. Equals nothing. Equals emptiness. Equals an empty stomach.’

‘What is X?’

‘X is any number, ten or a hundred or a thousand. If you have something and you give it away, you don’t have it any more.’

The boy screws his eyes shut and pulls a funny face. Then he begins to giggle. He grips his mother’s skirt and presses his face against her thigh and giggles and giggles until he is red in the face.

‘What is it, my darling?’ says Inés. But the boy will not stop laughing.

‘You had better go,’ says Inés. ‘You are upsetting him.’

‘I am educating him. If you would send him to school, there would be no need for these home lessons.’

The boy has made friends with an old man in Block E who keeps a pigeon-cote on the roof. According to the letter box in the lobby his name is Palamaki, but the boy calls him señor Paloma, Mr Dove. Señor Paloma lets the boy feed the birds by hand. He has even given him a pigeon of his own, a pure white bird whom the boy names Blanco.

Blanco is a placid, even torpid bird who allows himself to be taken for walks sitting on the boy’s outstretched wrist or sometimes on his shoulder. He shows no inclination to fly away, or indeed to fly at all.

‘I think Blanco’s wings may have been clipped,’ he says to the boy. ‘That would explain why he doesn’t fly.’

‘No,’ says the boy. ‘Look!’ He tosses the bird in the air. It flaps its wings languidly, circles once or twice, then settles on his shoulder again and preens itself.

‘Señor Paloma says Blanco can carry messages,’ says the boy. ‘He says if I get lost I can tie a message to Blanco’s leg and Blanco will fly home and then señor Paloma will come and find me.’

‘That’s very kind of señor Paloma. You will have to make sure you carry a pencil and paper around with you, and a piece of string so that you can tie the paper to Blanco’s leg. What will you write? Show me what you will write when you want to be rescued.’

They are crossing the empty playground. In the sandpit the boy squats down, smoothes the surface, and with a finger begins to write. He reads over his shoulder: O then E then a character he cannot make out then O again then X and again X .

The boy rises. ‘Read it,’ he says.

‘I am having difficulty. Is it Spanish?’

The boy nods.

‘No, I give up. What does it say?’

‘It says, Follow Blanco, Blanco is my best friend .’

‘Indeed. It used to be that Fidel was your best friend, and before that El Rey. What has happened that Fidel is no longer your friend and his place has been taken by a bird?’

‘Fidel is too old for me. Fidel is rough.’

‘I have never seen Fidel being rough. Did Inés tell you he was rough?’

The boy nods.

‘Fidel is a perfectly gentle boy. I am fond of him and you used to be fond of him too. Let me tell you something. Fidel is hurt because you no longer play with him. In my opinion you are treating Fidel badly. In fact, you are treating him roughly. In my opinion you should spend less time with señor Paloma on the roof and more time with Fidel.’

The boy strokes the bird on his arm. The rebuke is accepted without demur. Or perhaps he simply lets the words wash over him.

‘Furthermore, I think you should inform Inés it is time for you to go to school. You should insist on it. I know you are very clever and have taught yourself to read and write, but in real life you have to be able to write like other people. It is no use sending Blanco off with a message tied to his leg if no one can read it, not even señor Paloma.’

‘I can read it.’

‘You can read it because you are the one who wrote it. But the whole point about messages is that other people need to be able to read them. If you get lost and send a message to señor Paloma to come and save you, he must be able to read your message. Otherwise you will have to tie yourself to Blanco’s leg and tell him to fly you home.’

The boy gives him a puzzled look. ‘But —’ he says. Then he sees it is a joke and they both laugh and laugh.

They are in the playground of the East Blocks. He has been pushing the boy on the swings, so high that he has been crying out with fear and pleasure. Now they sit side by side, catching their breath, drinking in the last of the twilight.

‘Can Inés have twins out of her tummy?’ asks the boy.

‘Of course she can. It may be uncommon but it is possible.’

‘If Inés had twins then I could be the third brother. Do twins always have to be together?’

‘They don’t have to, but usually they prefer it. Twins are naturally fond of each other, like the star twins. If they were not, then they might go wandering off separately and be lost in the sky. But their love for each other holds them together. It will go on holding them together until the end of time.’

‘But they are not together, the star twins, not really together.’

‘No, that is true, they are not tight up against each other in the sky, there is a tiny gap between them. That is the way of nature. Think of lovers. If lovers were tight up against each other all the time they would no longer need to love each other. They would be one. There would be nothing for them to want. That is why nature has gaps. If everything were packed tightly together, everything in the universe, then there would be no you or me or Inés. You and I would not be talking to each other right now, there would just be silence — oneness and silence. So, on the whole, it is good that there should be gaps between things, that you and I should be two instead of one.’