John Coetzee - Scenes from Provincial Life

When I was young, in Brazil, there was never enough time for all I wanted to do. Now time was my worst enemy, time that would not pass. How I longed for it all to end, this life, this death, this living death! What a fatal mistake when we took the ship to South Africa!

So. That is the story of Mario.

He died in the hospital?

He died there. He could have lived longer, he had a strong constitution, he was like a bull. When they saw their tricks would not work, however, they stopped paying attention to him. Perhaps they stopped feeding him too, I can’t say for sure, he always looked the same to me, he did not get thinner. Yet to tell the truth I did not mind, we wanted to be released, all of us, he and I and the doctors too.

We buried him in a cemetery not far from the hospital, I forget the name of the place. So his grave is in Africa. I have never been back, but I think of him sometimes, lying there all alone.

What is the time? All of a sudden I feel so tired, so sad. It always depresses me to be reminded of those days.

Shall we stop?

No, we can go on. There is not much more to say. Let me tell you about my dance classes, because that was where he pursued me, your Mr Coetzee. Then maybe you can answer one question for me. Then we will be finished.

I could not get proper work in those days. There were no professional openings for someone like me, coming from the balet folclórico. In South Africa the companies danced nothing but Swan Lake and Giselle , to prove how European they were. So I took the job I told you about, in a dance studio, teaching Latin American dance. Most of my students were what they called Coloured. By day they worked in shops or offices, then in the evenings they came to the studio to learn the latest Latin American steps. I liked them. They were nice people, friendly, gentle. They had romantic illusions about Latin America, Brazil above all. Lots of palm trees, lots of beaches. In Brazil, they thought, people like themselves would feel at home. I said nothing to disappoint them.

Each month there was a new intake, that was the system at the studio. No one was turned away. As long as a student paid, I had to teach them. One day when I walked in to meet my new class, there he was among the students, and there his name was on the list: Coetzee, John.

Well, I cannot tell you how upset I was. It is one thing, if you are a dancer who performs in public, to be pursued by admirers. I was used to that. Now, however, it was different. I was no longer putting myself on show, I was just a teacher now, I had a right not to be harried.

I did not greet him. I wanted him to see at once that he was not welcome. What did he think — that if he danced before me the ice in my heart would melt? How crazy! And all the crazier because he had no feeling for dance, no aptitude. I could see that from the first moment, from the way he walked. He was not at ease in his body. He moved as though his body were a horse that he was riding, a horse that did not like its rider and was resisting. Only in South Africa did I meet men like that, stiff, intractable, unteachable. Why did they ever come to Africa, I wondered — to Africa, the birthplace of dance? They would have been better off staying in Holland, sitting in their counting-houses behind their dykes counting money with cold fingers.

I taught my class as I was paid to do, then when the hour was over left the building at once by the back exit. I did not want to speak to Mr Coetzee. I hoped he would not return.

However, the next evening there he was again, doggedly following instructions, performing steps for which he had no feel. I could see he was not popular with the rest of the students. They tried to avoid him as a partner. As for me, his presence in the room took away all my pleasure. I tried to ignore him, but he would not be ignored, watching me, devouring my life.

At the end of the class I called to him to stay behind. ‘Please stop this,’ I said to him as soon as we were alone. He stared back at me without protest, mute. I could smell the cold sweat on his body. I felt an urge to strike him, lash him across the face. ‘Stop this!’ I said. ‘Stop following me. I do not want to see you here again. And stop looking at me like that. Stop forcing me to humiliate you.’

There was more I could have said, but I was afraid I would lose control and start shouting.

Afterwards I spoke to the man who owned the studio, his name was Mr Anderson. There is a student in my class who is spoiling it for the other students, I said — please give him his money back and tell him to leave. But Mr Anderson would not. If there is a student disrupting your class it is up to you to put a stop to it, he said. This man is not doing anything wrong, I said, he is simply a bad presence. You cannot eject a student because he has a bad presence, said Mr Anderson. Find another solution.

The next evening I again called him back. There was nowhere private to go, I had to speak to him in the corridor. ‘This is my work, you are disrupting my work,’ I said. ‘Go away from here. Leave me alone.’

He did not answer, but reached out a hand and touched my cheek. That was the one and only time he ever touched me. The anger inside me boiled over. I knocked his hand aside. ‘This is not a love-game!’ I hissed. ‘Don’t you see I detest you? Leave me alone and leave my child alone too or I will report you to the school!’

It was true: if he had not begun filling my daughter’s head with dangerous nonsense I would never have summoned him to our flat, and his miserable pursuit of me would never have begun. What was a grown man doing in a girls’ school anyway, Saint Bonaventure, that was supposed to be a nuns’ school, only there were no nuns?

And it was true too that I detested him. I was not afraid to say so. He forced me to detest him.

But when I pronounced the word detest he stared back at me in confusion as if he could not believe his ears — that a woman to whom he was offering himself could actually be refusing him. He did not know what to do, just as he did not know what to do with himself on the dance floor. It gave me no pleasure to see such bewilderment, such helplessness. It was as if he was dancing naked before me, this man who did not know how to dance. I wanted to shout at him. I wanted to beat him. I wanted to cry.

[Silence.]

This is not the story you wanted to hear, is it? You wanted a different kind of story for your book. You wanted to hear of the romance between your hero and the beautiful foreign ballerina. Well, I am giving you truth, not romance. Maybe too much truth. Maybe so much truth that there will be no place for it in your book. I don’t know. I don’t care.

Go on. It is not a very dignified picture of Coetzee that emerges from your story, I won’t deny that, but I will change nothing, I promise.

Not dignified, you say. Well, maybe that is what you risk when you fall in love. You risk losing your dignity.

[Silence.]

Anyway, I went back to Mr Anderson. Get this man out of my class or I will resign, I said. I will see what I can do, said Mr Anderson. We all have difficult students to cope with, you are not the only one. He is not difficult, I said, he is mad.

Was he mad? I don’t know. But he certainly had an idée fixe about me.

The next day I went to my daughter’s school, as I had warned him I would, and asked to see the principal. The principal was busy, I was told. I will wait, I said. For an hour I waited in the secretary’s office. Not one friendly word. No Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs Nascimento? Then at last, when it became plain I would not go away, they capitulated and let me see the principal.

‘I have come to speak to you about my daughter’s English lessons,’ I said to her. ‘I would like my daughter to go on with her lessons, but I want her to have a proper English teacher with a proper qualification. If I must pay more I will pay.’