John Coetzee - Scenes from Provincial Life

The principal fetched a folder out of a filing cabinet. ‘According to Mr Coetzee, Maria Regina is making good progress in English,’ she said. ‘That is confirmed by her other teachers. So what exactly is the problem?’

‘I cannot tell you what is the problem,’ I said. ‘I just want her to have another teacher.’

This principal was not a fool. When I said I could not tell her what was the problem, she knew at once what was the problem. ‘Mrs Nascimento,’ she said, ‘if I understand what you are saying, you are making a very serious complaint. But I can’t act on such a complaint unless you are prepared to be more specific. Are you complaining about Mr Coetzee’s actions towards your daughter? Are you telling me there has been something untoward in his behaviour?’

She was not a fool, but I am not a fool either. Untoward : what does that mean? Did I want to make an accusation against Mr Coetzee and sign my name to it, and then find myself in a court of law being interrogated by a judge? No. ‘I am not making a complaint against Mr Coetzee,’ I said, ‘I am only asking you, if there is a proper English teacher, can Maria Regina take lessons from her instead.’

The principal did not like that. She shook her head. ‘That is not possible,’ she said. ‘Mr Coetzee is the only teacher, the only person on our staff, who teaches extra English. There is no other class into which Maria Regina can move. We don’t have the luxury, Mrs Nascimento, of offering our girls a range of teachers to choose among. And furthermore, with all respect, may I ask you to reflect, are you in the best position to judge Mr Coetzee’s teaching, if it is simply the standard of his teaching we are discussing today?’

I know you are an Englishman, Mr Vincent, so don’t take this personally, but there is a certain English manner that infuriates me, that infuriates many people, where the insult comes coated in pretty words, like sugar on a pill. Dago : you think I don’t know that word, Mr Vincent? You Portugoose dago! she was saying — How dare you come here and criticize my school! Go back to the slums where you came from!

‘I am Maria Regina’s mother,’ I said, ‘I alone will say what is good for my daughter and what is not. I do not come to make trouble for you or Mr Coetzee or anyone else, but I tell you now, Maria Regina will not continue in that man’s class. That is my word and it is final. I pay for my daughter to attend a good school, a school for girls, I do not want her in a class where the teacher is not a proper teacher, he has no qualification, he is not even English, he is a Boer.’

Maybe I should not have used that word, it was like Dago , but I was angry, I was provoked. Boer : in that little office of hers it was like a bomb. A bomb-word. But not as bad as mad . If I had said Maria Regina’s teacher, with his incomprehensible poems and his wish to make his students burn with an intenser light, was mad, then the room would truly have exploded.

The woman’s face grew stiff. ‘It is up to me and to the school committee, Mrs Nascimento,’ she said, ‘to decide who is and who is not qualified to teach here. In my judgment and in the judgment of the committee Mr Coetzee, who holds a university degree in English, is adequately qualified for the work he does. You may remove your daughter from his class if you so wish, indeed you may remove her from the school, that is your right. But bear it in mind, it will be your daughter who will suffer in the end.’

‘I will remove her from that man’s class, I will not remove her from the school,’ I replied. ‘I want her to have a good education. I will myself find an English teacher for her. Thank you for seeing me. You think I am just some poor refugee woman who doesn’t understand anything. You are wrong. If I were to tell you the whole story of our family you would see how wrong you are. Goodbye.’

Refugee. They kept calling me a refugee in that country of theirs, when all I desired was to escape from it.

When Maria Regina came home from school the next day a veritable storm burst over my head. ‘How could you do it, mãe ?’ she shouted at me. ‘How could you do this behind my back? Why do you always have to interfere in my life?’

For weeks and months, ever since Mr Coetzee made his appearance, relations had been strained between Maria Regina and myself. But never before had my daughter used such words to me. I tried to calm her. We are not like other families, I told her. Other girls do not have a father in hospital and a mother who has to humiliate herself to earn a few pennies so that a child who never lifts a finger in the home, or says thank you, can have extra classes in this and extra classes in that.

It was not true, of course. I could not have wished for better daughters than Joana and Maria Regina, serious, hard-working girls. But sometimes it is necessary to be a little harsh, even with those we love.

Maria Regina heard nothing that I said, she was in such a fury. ‘I hate you!’ she shouted. ‘You think I don’t know why you are doing this! It is because you are jealous, because you don’t want me to see Mr Coetzee, because you want him for yourself!’

‘ I am jealous of you ? What nonsense! Why should I want this man for myself, this man who is not even a real man? Yes, I say he is not a real man! What do you know about men, you, a child? Why do you think this man wants to be among young girls? Do you think that is normal? Why do you think he encourages your dreaming, your fantasies? Men like that should not be allowed near a school. And you — you should be thankful I am saving you. But instead you shout abuse and make accusations against me, your mother!’

I saw her lips move soundlessly, as though there were no words bitter enough for what was in her heart. Then she turned and ran out of the room. A moment later she was back, waving the letters that this man, this teacher of hers, had sent me, that I had put away in the bureau for no special reason, I certainly did not treasure them. ‘He writes love-letters to you!’ she screamed. ‘And you write love-letters back to him! It’s disgusting! If he is not normal why are you writing love-letters to him?’

Of course what she was saying was untrue. I wrote him no love-letters, not one. But how could I make the poor child believe that? ‘How dare you!’ I said. ‘How dare you pry into my private papers!’

How I wished, at that moment, that I had burnt those letters of his, letters I never asked for!

Maria Regina was crying now. ‘I wish I had never listened to you,’ she sobbed. ‘I wish I had never let you invite him here. You just spoil everything.’

‘My poor child!’ I said, and took her in my arms. ‘I never wrote letters to Mr Coetzee, you must believe me. Yes, he wrote letters to me, I don’t know why, but I never wrote back. I am not interested in him in that way, not in the slightest. Don’t let him come between us, my darling. I am just trying to protect you. He is not right for you. He is a grown man, you are still a child. I will get you another teacher. I will get you a private teacher who will come here to the flat and help you. We will manage. A teacher is not expensive. We will get someone who has proper qualifications and knows how to prepare you for the examinations. Then we can put this whole unhappy business behind us.’

So that is the story, the full story, of his letters and the trouble his letters caused me.

There were no more letters?

There was one more, but I did not open it. I wrote RETURN TO SENDER on the envelope and left it in the foyer for the postman to pick up. ‘See?’ I said to Maria Regina. ‘See what I think of his letters?’