J. Coetzee - The Childhood of Jesus

‘The point at issue,’ says señor León, ‘is not whether the boy can read and write, or who taught him, it is whether he can be accommodated in an ordinary school. I do not have the time to deal with a child who refuses to learn and who by his behaviour disrupts the normal activities of the class.’

‘He is barely six years old!’ Inés bursts out. ‘What kind of teacher are you that you cannot control a six-year-old child?’

Señor León stiffens. ‘I did not say I cannot control your son. What I cannot do is fulfil my duties to the other children while he is in the classroom. Your son is in need of special attention of a kind that we cannot provide in a normal school. That is why I recommended Punto Arenas.’

A silence falls.

‘Do you have anything more to say, señora?’ asks the presiding judge.

Inés tosses her head angrily.

‘Señor?’

‘No.’

‘Then I would ask you to retire — you too, señor León — and wait for our decision.’

They retire to the waiting room, the three of them together. Inés cannot bring herself to look at señor León. After a few minutes they are recalled. ‘The decision of this tribunal,’ says the presiding judge, ‘is that the recommendation of señor León, seconded and supported by the school psychologist and by his principal, be upheld. The boy David will be transferred to the school at Punto Arenas, the transfer to take place as soon as possible. That is all. Thank you for attending.’

‘Your honour,’ he says, ‘may I ask whether we have a right of appeal?’

‘You may take the matter to the civil courts, of course, that is your right. But an appeal procedure may not be used as a means of forestalling this tribunal’s decision. That is to say, the transfer to Punto Arenas will take effect whether or not you go to the courts.’

‘Diego will pick us up tomorrow evening,’ says Inés. ‘It is all settled. He just has to finish off some business.’

‘And where are you planning to go?’

‘How must I know? Somewhere out of the reach of these people and their persecutions.’

‘Are you really going to let a band of school administrators hound you out of the city, Inés? How are you going to live, you and Diego and the child?’

‘I don’t know. Like gypsies, I suppose. Why don’t you help instead of just raising objections?’

‘What are gypsies?’ intervenes the boy.

‘Living like gypsies is just a way of speaking,’ he says. ‘You and I were gypsies of a kind while we lived in the camp at Belstar. Being a gypsy means that you don’t have a proper home, a place to lay your head. It’s not much fun being a gypsy.’

‘Will I have to go to school?’

‘No. Gypsy children don’t go to school.’

‘Then I want to be a gypsy with Inés and Diego.’

He turns to Inés. ‘I wish you had discussed this with me. Do you really mean to sleep under hedges and eat berries while you hide from the law?’

‘This has nothing to do with you,’ replies Inés icily. ‘You don’t care if David goes to a reformatory. I do.’

‘Punto Arenas is not a reformatory.’

‘It is a dumping ground for delinquents — delinquents and orphans. My child is not going to that place, never, never, never.’

‘I agree with you. David does not deserve to be sent to Punto Arenas. Not because it is a dumping ground but because he is too young to be separated from his parents.’

‘Then why did you not stand up against those judges? Why did you bow and scrape and say Sí señor, Sí señor ? Don’t you believe in the boy?’

‘Of course I believe in him. I believe he is exceptional and merits exceptional treatment. But those people have the law behind them, and we are in no position to challenge the law.’

‘Even when the law is bad?’

‘It is not a question of good or bad, Inés, it is a question of power. If you run away they will send the police after you and the police will catch you. You will be declared an unfit mother and the child will be taken away from you. He will be sent to Punto Arenas and you will have a battle on your hands ever to regain custody.’

‘They will never take my child away from me. I will die first.’ Her breast heaves. ‘Why don’t you help me instead of taking their side all the time?’

He reaches out to placate her but she shakes him off, sinks down on the bed. ‘Leave me alone! Don’t touch me! You don’t really believe in the child. You don’t know what it means to believe.’

The boy leans over her, strokes her hair. On his lips there is a smile. ‘Ssh,’ he says; ‘ssh.’ He lies down beside her; his thumb goes into his mouth; his eyes take on a glassy, absent look; within minutes he is asleep.

Álvaro calls the stevedores together. ‘Friends,’ he says, ‘there is a matter we need to discuss. As you will remember, our comrade Simón proposed that we give up unloading cargoes by hand and resort instead to a mechanical crane.’

The men nod. Some glance in his direction. Eugenio flashes him a smile.

‘Well, today I have news for you. A comrade from Roadworks tells me there is a crane at their depot that has been standing idle for months. If we wish to borrow it for a trial, he says, we are welcome to have it.

‘What shall we do, friends? Shall we accept his offer? Shall we see whether, as Simón claims, a crane will change our lives? Who wants to speak first? Simón, you?’

He is taken completely by surprise. His mind is occupied with Inés and her plans for flight; not in weeks has he given a thought to cranes or rats or the economics of grain transport; indeed, he has come to depend on the unvarying grind of labour to exhaust him and bring him the boon of deep, dreamless sleep.

‘Not me,’ he says. ‘I have said my say.’

‘Who else?’ says Álvaro.

Eugenio speaks up. ‘I say we should try the crane. Our friend Simón has a wise head on his shoulders. Who knows, he may be right. Maybe we should indeed move with the times. We will never know for sure unless we try.’

There is a murmur of agreement from the men.

‘Shall we try the crane then?’ says Álvaro. ‘Shall I tell our comrade in Roadworks to bring it along?’

‘Aye!’ says Eugenio, and raises his hand. ‘Aye!’ say the stevedores in chorus, raising their hands. Even he, Simón, raises a hand. The vote is unanimous.

The crane arrives the next morning on the back of a truck. It was once painted white, but the paint has flaked and the metal is rusted. It looks as if it has stood outdoors in the rain for a very long time. It is also smaller than he had expected. It runs on clattering steel tracks; the driver sits in a cab over the tracks, operating the controls that rotate the arm and turn the winch.

It takes the best part of an hour to ease the machine off the back of the truck. Álvaro’s friend from Roadworks is impatient to leave. ‘Who is going to drive?’ he asks. ‘I’ll give him a quick tour of the controls, then I must be off.’

‘Eugenio!’ Álvaro calls out. ‘You spoke in favour of the crane. Would you like to drive it?’

Eugenio looks around. ‘If no one else wants to, I will.’

‘Good! Then you are the man.’

Eugenio proves a quick learner. In no time at all he is racing back and forth along the quay and rotating the arm, on which the hook swings gaily.

‘I’ve taught him what I can,’ the operator reports to Álvaro. ‘Let him go carefully for the first few days and he’ll be all right.’

The arm of the crane is just long enough to reach up to the ship’s deck. The stevedores bring the bags up one by one from the hold, as before; but now, instead of carrying them down the gangplank, they drop them into a canvas sling. When the sling is full for the first time they give Eugenio a shout. The hook catches the sling; the steel rope tightens; the sling rises over the deck rails; and with a flourish Eugenio swings the load around and down in a wide arc. The men give a cheer; but their cheers turn to cries of alarm as the sling bumps the dockside and begins to spin and lurch out of control. The men scatter, all save he, Simón, who is either too self-absorbed to see what is going on or too sluggish to move. He has a glimpse of Eugenio staring down at him from the cab, mouthing words he cannot hear. Then the swinging load strikes him in the midriff and knocks him backwards. He staggers against a stanchion, trips over a rope, and tumbles into the space between the quay and the steel plates of the freighter. For a moment he is held there, gripped so tightly that it hurts to breathe. He is intensely aware that the ship has to drift only an inch and he will be crushed like an insect. Then the pressure slackens and he drops feet first into the water.