John Coetzee - Scenes from Provincial Life

His highest aspiration, higher than for an English girlfriend, higher even than for a Swede or an Italian, is to have a French girl. If he had a passionate affair with a French girl he would be touched and improved, he is sure, by the grace of the French language, the subtlety of French thought. But why should a French girl, any more than an English girl, deign to speak to him? And anyway, he has not so much as laid eyes on a French girl in London. The French have France, after all, the most beautiful country in the world. Why should they come to chilly England to look after the natives’ babies?

The French are the most civilized people in the world. All the writers he respects are steeped in French culture; most regard France as their spiritual home — France and, to an extent, Italy, though Italy seems to have fallen on hard times. Since the age of fifteen, when he sent off a postal order for five pounds ten shillings to the Pelman Institute and received in return a grammar book and a set of exercise sheets to be completed and returned to the Institute for marking, he has been trying to learn French. In his trunk, brought all the way from Cape Town, he has the five hundred cards on which he has written out a basic French vocabulary, one word per card, to carry around and memorize; through his mind runs a patter of French locutions — je viens de , I have just; il me faut , I must.

But his efforts have got him nowhere. He has no feel for French. Listening to French language records he cannot, most of the time, tell where one word ends and the next begins. Though he can read simple prose texts, he cannot in his inner ear hear what they sound like. The language resists him, excludes him; he cannot find a way in.

In theory he ought to find French easy. He knows Latin; for the pleasure of it he sometimes reads passages of Latin aloud — not the Latin of the Golden or the Silver Age but the Latin of the Vulgate, with its brash disregard for classical word order. He picks up Spanish without difficulty. He reads Cesar Vallejo in a dual-language text, reads Nicolas Guillén, reads Pablo Neruda. Spanish is full of barbaric-sounding words whose meaning he cannot even guess at, but that does not matter. At least every letter is pronounced, down to the double r .

The language for which he discovers a real feeling, however, is German. He tunes in to broadcasts from Cologne and, when they are not too tedious, from East Berlin as well, and for the most part understands them; he reads German poetry and follows it well enough. He approves of the way in which every syllable in German is given its due weight. With the ghost of Afrikaans still in his ears, he is at home in the syntax. In fact, he takes pleasure in the length of German sentences, in the complex pile-up of verbs at the end. There are times, reading German, when he forgets he is in a foreign language.

He reads Ingeborg Bachmann over and over; he reads Bertolt Brecht, Hans Magnus Enzensberger. There is a sardonic undercurrent in German that attracts him though he is not sure he quite grasps why it is there — indeed wonders whether he is not just imagining it. He could ask, but he knows no one else who reads German poetry, just as he knows no one who speaks French.

Yet in this huge city there must be thousands of people steeped in German literature, thousands more who read poetry in Russian, Hungarian, Greek, Italian — read it, translate it, even write it: poets in exile, men with long hair and horn-rimmed glasses, women with sharp foreign faces and full, passionate lips. In the magazines he buys at Dillons he finds evidence enough of their existence: translations that must be their handiwork. But how will he ever meet them? What do they do, these special beings, when they are not reading and writing and translating? Does he, unbeknown to himself, sit amongst them in the audience at the Everyman, walk amongst them on Hampstead Heath?

On an impulse he strolls behind a likely looking couple on the Heath. The man is tall and bearded, the woman has long blonde hair swept casually back. He is sure they are Russian. But when he gets close enough to eavesdrop they turn out to be English; they are talking about the price of furniture at Heal’s.

There remains Holland. At least he has an insider’s knowledge of Dutch, at least he has that advantage. Among all the circles in London, is there a circle of Dutch poets too? If there is, will his acquaintance with the language give him an entrée to it?

Dutch poetry has always struck him as rather boring, but the name Simon Vinkenoog keeps cropping up in poetry magazines. Vinkenoog is the one Dutch poet who seems to have broken on to the international stage. He reads everything there is by Vinkenoog in the British Museum, and is not encouraged. Vinkenoog’s writings are raucous, crass, lacking any dimension of mystery. If Vinkenoog is all that Holland can offer, then his worst suspicion is confirmed: that of all nations the Dutch are the dullest, the most antipoetic. So much for his Netherlandic heritage. He might as well be monolingual.

Every now and again Caroline phones him at work and arranges to meet him. Once they are together, however, she does not conceal her impatience with him. How can he come all the way to London, she says, and then spend his days adding up numbers on a machine? Look around, she says: London is a gallery of novelties and pleasures and amusements. Why does he not come out of himself, have some fun?

‘Some of us are not built for fun,’ he replies. She takes it as one of his little jokes, does not try to understand.

Caroline has never yet explained where she gets the money for the flat in Kensington and the new outfits she keeps appearing in. Her step-father in South Africa is in the motor business. Is the motor business lucrative enough to fund a life of pleasure for a stepdaughter in London? What does Caroline actually do at the club where she spends the night hours? Hang coats in the cloakroom and collect tips? Carry trays of drinks? Or is working in a club a euphemism for something else?

Among the contacts she has made at the club, she informs him, is Laurence Olivier. Laurence Olivier is taking an interest in her acting career. He has promised her a part in an as yet unspecified play; he has also invited her to his house in the country.

What must he make of this information? The part in a play sounds like a lie; but is Laurence Olivier lying to Caroline or is Caroline lying to him? Laurence Olivier must by now be an old man with false teeth. Can Caroline take care of herself against Laurence Olivier, if the man who has invited her to his house in the country is indeed Olivier? What do men of that age do with girls for pleasure? Is it appropriate to be jealous of a man who can probably no longer manage an erection? Is jealousy anyhow an out-of-date emotion, here in London in 1962?

Most likely Laurence Olivier, if that is who it is, will give her the full country-house treatment, including a chauffeur to meet her at the station and a butler to wait on them at the dinner table. Then when she is befuddled with claret he will conduct her to his bed and fiddle with her, and she will let it happen, out of politeness, to thank him for the evening, and for the sake of her career too. In their tête-à-têtes will she bother to mention that there is a rival in the background, a clerk who works for an adding machine company and lives in a room off the Archway Road where he sometimes writes verses?

He does not understand why Caroline does not break off with him, the clerk boyfriend. Creeping home in the early morning dark after a night with her, he can only pray she will not get in touch with him again. And indeed, a week will sometimes pass with no word from her. Then, just as he is beginning to feel the affair is past history, she will telephone and the cycle will recommence.