J. Coetzee - The Childhood of Jesus

‘And this programme of tuition. .?’

‘The programme I have in mind is run at the Special Learning Centre at Punto Arenas, not far from Novilla, on the coast, in a very attractive setting.’

‘How far?’

‘Fifty kilometres, more or less.’

‘Fifty kilometres! That’s a lot of travelling for a small child to do every day, back and forth. Is there a bus?’

‘No. David will reside at the Learning Centre, spending every second weekend at home, if he so chooses. Our experience is that it works best if the child is in residence. It allows a certain distance from a domestic situation that may be contributing to the problem.’

He and Inés exchange looks. ‘And what if we decline?’ he says. ‘What if we prefer him to stay in señor León’s class?’

‘What if we prefer to take him out of this school where he is learning nothing?’ Inés now enters, her voice rising. ‘Where he is too young to be anyway. That is the real reason why he is having difficulty. He is too young.’

‘Señor León is no longer prepared to have David in his class, and after making my own inquiries I can see why. As for his age, David is of normal school-going age. Señor, señora, I offer my advice with David’s interests in mind. He is making no progress at school. He is a disruptive influence. To remove him from school and return him to a home environment which he clearly finds unsettling cannot be the solution. Therefore we must take some alternative, bolder step. Which is why I recommend Punto Arenas.’

‘And if we refuse?’

‘Señor, I wish you would not put it in those terms. Take my word for it, Punto Arenas is the best option before us. If you and señora Inés would like to visit Punto Arenas beforehand, I can arrange it, so that you can see for yourselves what a first-rate institution it is.’

‘But if we visit this institution and still refuse, what then?’

‘What then?’ Señora Otxoa spreads her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘You told me, at the beginning of this consultation, that you are not the boy’s father. There is nothing in his papers about his parentage, his real parentage. I would say. . I would say that your qualifications to dictate where he should receive his education are extremely weak.’

‘So you are going to take our child away from us.’

‘Please don’t look at it in that way. We are not taking the child away from you. You will see him regularly, every second week. Your home will continue to be his home. In all practical respects you will continue to be his parents, unless he decides that he wishes to be separated from you. Which he does not indicate in any way. On the contrary, he is extremely fond of you, both of you — fond of you and attached to you.

‘I repeat, Punto Arenas is in my opinion the best solution to the problem we face, and a generous solution too. Think about it. Take your time. Visit Punto Arenas, if you wish. Then, along with señor León, we can discuss details.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime I suggest that David go home with you. It is not doing him any good to be in señor León’s class, and it is certainly not doing any good to his classmates.’

‘Why are we going home early?’

They are on the bus, the three of them, heading back to the Blocks.

‘Because it was all a mistake,’ says Inés. ‘They are too old for you, those boys in your class. And that teacher, that señor León, doesn’t know how to teach.’

‘Señor León has a magic eye. He can take it out and put it in his pocket. One of the boys saw him.’

Inés is silent.

‘Am I going back to school tomorrow?’

‘No.’

‘To be specific,’ he intervenes, ‘you will not be going back to señor León’s school. Your mother and I will be discussing a different kind of school for you. Maybe.’

‘We are not discussing any other schools,’ says Inés. ‘School was a bad idea from the beginning. I don’t know why I allowed it. What was that woman saying about dyslexia? What is dyslexia?’

‘Not being able to read words in the right order. Not being able to read from left to right. Something like that. I don’t know.’

‘I haven’t got dyslexia,’ says the boy. ‘I haven’t got anything. Are they sending me to Punto Arenas? I don’t want to go.’

‘What do you know about Punto Arenas?’ he says.

‘It has got barbed wire and you have to sleep in a dormitory and you’re not allowed to go home.’

‘You are not being sent to Punto Arenas,’ says Inés. ‘Not as long as I am alive.’

‘Are you going to die?’ says the boy.

‘No, of course not. It is just a manner of speaking. You are not going to Punto Arenas.’

‘I forgot my book. My writing book. It’s in my desk. Can we go back and fetch it?’

‘No. Not now. I’ll fetch it some other day.’

‘And my pouch.’

‘The pencil pouch we gave you for your birthday?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll fetch that too. Don’t worry.’

‘Do they want to send me to Punto Arenas because of my stories?’

‘It’s not that they want to send you to Punto Arenas,’ he says. ‘It’s more that they don’t know what to do with you. You are an exceptional child, and they don’t know what to do with exceptional children.’

‘Why am I exceptional?’

‘That is not a question for you to ask. You just are exceptional, and you will have to live with the fact. Sometimes it will make your way easier, and sometimes it will make it more difficult. This is one of the cases when it makes it more difficult.’

‘I don’t want to go to school. I don’t like school. I can teach myself.’

‘I don’t think so, David. I think you have been teaching yourself a little too much of late. That is half the problem. A little more humility, a little more readiness to learn from others, is what is called for.’

‘You can teach me.’

‘Thank you. Very kind of you. As you may remember, I have offered to teach you several times in the past, and been rejected. If you had let me teach you to read and write and count in a normal fashion, we would have had none of this mess.’

The force of his outburst clearly takes the boy aback: he casts him a look of pained surprise.

‘But that is all behind us,’ he hastens to add. ‘We are going to start a new page, you and I.’

‘Why doesn’t señor León like me?’

‘Because he is too full of his own importance,’ says Inés.

‘Señor León does like you,’ he says. ‘It is just that he has a whole class to teach, and doesn’t have time to give you individual attention. He expects children to work by themselves some of the time.’

‘I don’t like working.’

‘We all have to work, so you had better get used to it. Work is part of the human lot.’

‘I don’t like working. I like playing.’

‘Yes, but you can’t play all the time. The time for play is after you have finished your day’s work. When you arrive in his class in the morning, señor León expects work from you. It’s quite reasonable.’

‘Señor León doesn’t like my stories.’

‘He can’t not like your stories, since he can’t read them. What kind of story does he like?’

‘Stories about vacations. About what people do during vacations. What are vacations?’

‘Vacations are empty days, days when you don’t have to work. You have been given a vacation for the rest of today. You don’t have to do any more studying.’

‘And tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow you are going to learn to read and write and count like a normal person.’

‘I am going to write a letter to the school,’ he tells Inés, ‘to notify them formally that we are withdrawing David. That we will take care of his education ourselves. Do you agree?’