John Coetzee - Scenes from Provincial Life

Carol is convinced John is a bad bet; and the rest of the Coetzee family, despite their good hearts, would probably agree. What sets her, Margot, apart, what keeps her confidence in John precariously afloat, is, oddly enough, the way in which he and his father behave towards each other: if not with affection, that would be saying too much, then at least with respect.

The pair used to be the worst of enemies. The bad blood between Jack and his elder son was the subject of much head-shaking. When the son disappeared overseas, the parents put on the best front they could. He had gone to pursue a career in science, his mother claimed. For years she put forward a story that John was working as a scientist in England, even as it became clear that she had no idea for whom he worked or what sort of work he did. You know how John is , his father would say: always very independent. Independent : what did that mean? Not without reason, the Coetzees took it to mean he had disowned his country, his family, his very parents.

Then Jack and Vera started putting out a new story: John was not in England after all but in America, pursuing ever higher qualifications. Time passed; in the absence of hard news, interest in John and his doings waned. He and his younger brother became just two among thousands of young white men who had run away to escape military service, leaving an embarrassed family behind. He had almost vanished from their collective memory when the scandal of his expulsion from the United States burst upon them.

That terrible war , said his father: it was all the fault of a war in which American boys were sacrificing their lives for the sake of Asians who seemed to feel no gratitude at all. No wonder ordinary Americans were revolting. No wonder they took to the streets. John had been caught up willy-nilly in a street protest, the story proceeded; what ensued had just been a bad misunderstanding.

Was it his son’s disgrace, and the untruths he had to tell as a consequence, that had turned Jack into a shaky, prematurely aged man? How can she even ask?

‘You must be glad to see the Karoo again,’ she says to John. ‘Aren’t you relieved you decided not to stay in America?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘Of course, in the midst of this’ — he does not gesture, but she knows what he means: this sky, this space, the vast silence enclosing them — ‘I feel blessed, one of a lucky few. But practically speaking, what future do I have in this country, where I have never fitted in? Perhaps a clean break would have been better after all. Cut yourself free of what you love and hope that the wound heals.’

A frank answer. Thank heaven for that.

‘I had a chat with your father yesterday, John, while you and Michiel were away. Seriously, I don’t think he fully grasps what you are planning. I am talking about Merweville. Your father is not young any more, and he is not well. You can’t dump him in a strange town and expect him to fend for himself. And you can’t expect the rest of the family to step in and take care of him if things go wrong. That’s all. That’s what I wanted to say.’

He does not respond. In his hand is a length of old fencing-wire that he has picked up. Swinging the wire petulantly left and right, flicking off the heads of the waving grass, he descends the slope of the eroded dam wall.

‘Don’t behave like this!’ she calls out, trotting after him. ‘Speak to me, for God’s sake! Tell me I am wrong! Tell me I am making a mistake!’

He halts and turns upon her a look of cold hostility. ‘Let me fill you in on my father’s situation,’ he says. ‘My father has no savings, not a cent, and no insurance. He has only a state pension to look forward to: forty-three rand a month when I last checked. So despite his age, despite his poor health, he has to go on working. Together the two of us earn in a month what a car salesman earns in a week. My father can give up his job only if he moves to a place where living expenses are lower than in the city.’

‘But why does he have to move at all? And why to Merweville, to some rundown old ruin?’

‘My father and I can’t live together indefinitely, Margie. It makes us too miserable, both of us. It’s unnatural. Fathers and sons were never meant to share a home.’

‘Your father doesn’t strike me as a difficult person to live with.’

‘Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to share space with other people.’

‘So is that what this Merweville business is all about — about you wanting to live by yourself?’

‘Yes. Yes and no. I want to be able to be alone when I choose.’

THEY ARE CONGREGATED ON the stoep, all the Coetzees, having their morning tea, chatting, idly watching Michiel’s three young sons play cricket on the open werf.

On the far horizon a cloud of dust materializes and hangs in the air.

‘That must be Lukas,’ says Michiel, who has the keenest eyes. ‘Margie, it’s Lukas!’

Lukas, as it turns out, has been on the road since dawn. He is tired but in good spirits nonetheless, full of vim. Barely has he greeted his wife and her family before he lets himself be roped into the boys’ game. He may not be competent at cricket, but he loves being with children, and children adore him. He would be the best of fathers: it breaks her heart that he must be childless.

John joins in the game too. He is better at cricket than Lukas, more practised, one can see that at a glance, but children don’t warm to him. Nor do dogs, she has noticed. Unlike Lukas, not a father by nature. An alleenloper, as some male animals are: a loner. Perhaps it is as well he has not married.

Unlike Lukas; yet there are things she shares with John that she can never share with Lukas. Why? Because of the childhood times they spent together, the most precious of times, when they opened their hearts to each other as one can never do later, even to a husband, even to a husband whom one loves more than all the treasure in the world.

Best to cut yourself free of what you love , he had said during their walk — cut yourself free and hope the wound heals . She understands him exactly. That is what they share above all: not just a love of this farm, this kontrei , this Karoo, but an understanding that goes with the love, an understanding that love can be too much. To him and to her it was granted to spend their childhood summers in a sacred space. That glory can never be regained; best not to haunt old sites and come away from them mourning what is for ever gone.

Being wary of loving too much is not something that makes sense to Lukas. For Lukas, love is simple, wholehearted. Lukas gives himself over to her with all his heart, and in return she gives him all of herself. With this body I thee worship . Through his love her husband brings out what is best in her: even now, sitting here drinking tea, watching him at play, she can feel her body warming to him. From Lukas she has learned what love can be. Whereas her cousin … She cannot imagine her cousin giving himself wholeheartedly to anyone. Always a quantum held back, held in reserve. One does not need to be a dog to see that.

It would be nice if Lukas could take a break, if she and he could spend a night or two here on Voëlfontein. But no, tomorrow is Monday, they must be back at Middelpos by nightfall. So after lunch they say their goodbyes to the aunts and uncles. When John’s turn comes she hugs him tight, feeling his body against her tense, resistant. ‘ Totsiens ’, she says: Goodbye. ‘I’m going to write you a letter and I want you to write back.’ ‘Goodbye,’ he says. ‘Drive safely.’

She begins the promised letter that same night, sitting in her dressing gown and slippers at the table in her own kitchen, the kitchen she married into and has come to love, with its huge old fireplace and its ever-cool, windowless larder whose shelves still groan with jars of jam and preserves she laid in last autumn.