J. Coetzee: Foe

When I opened my eyes it was broad daylight and Foe was at his desk, with his back to me, writing. I dressed and crept over to the alcove. Friday lay on his mat swathed in his scarlet robes. ‘Come, Friday,’ I whispered — ‘Mr Foe is at his labours, we must leave him.’

But before we reached the door, Foe recalled us. ‘Have you not forgotten the writing, Susan?’ he said. ‘Have you not forgotten you are to teach Friday his letters?’ He held out a child’s slate and pencil. ‘Come back at noon and let Friday demonstrate what he has learned. Take this for your breakfast.’ And he gave me sixpence, which, though no great payment for a visit from the Muse, I accepted.

So we breakfasted well on new bread and milk, and then found a sunny seat in a churchyard. ‘Do your best to follow, Friday,’ I said-’Nature did not intend me for a teacher, I lack patience.’ On the slate I drew a house with a door and windows and a chimney, and beneath it wrote the letters h-o-u-s. ‘This is the picture,’ I said, pointing to the picture, ‘and this the word.’ I made the sounds of the word house one by one, pointing to the letters as I made them, and then took Friday’s finger and guided it over the letters as I spoke the word; and finally gave the pencil into his hand and guided him to write h-o-u-s beneath the h-o-u-s I had written. Then I wiped the slate clean, so that there was no picture left save the picture in Friday’s mind, and guided his hand in forming the word a third and a fourth time, till the slate was covered in letters. I wiped it clean again. ‘Now do it alone, Friday,’ I said; and Friday wrote the four letters h-o-u-s, or four shapes passably like them: whether they were truly the four letters, and stood truly for the word house , and the picture I had drawn, and the thing itself, only he knew.

I drew a ship in full sail, and made him write ship , and then began to teach him Africa . Africa I represented as a row of palm trees with a lion roaming among them. Was my Africa the Africa whose memory Friday bore within him? I doubted it. Nevertheless, I wrote A-f-r-i-c-a and guided him in forming the letters. So at the least he knew now that all words were not four letters long. Then I taught him m-o-th-e-r (a woman with a babe in arms), and, wiping the slate clean, commenced the task of rehearsing our four words. ‘Ship,’ I said, and motioned him to write. hs-h-s-h-s he wrote, on and on, or perhaps h-f; and would have filled the whole slate had I not removed the pencil from his hand.

Long and hard I stared at him, till he lowered his eyelids and shut his eyes. Was it possible for anyone, however benighted by a lifetime of dumb servitude, to be as stupid as Friday seemed? Could it be that somewhere within him he was laughing at my efforts to bring him nearer to a state of speech? I reached out and took him by the chin and turned . his face toward me. His eyelids opened. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of those black pupils was there a spark of mockery? I could not see it. But if it were there, would it not be an African spark, dark to my English eye? I sighed. ‘Come, Friday,’ I said, ‘let us return to our master and show him how we have fared in our studies.’

It was midday. Foe was fresh-shaven and in good spirits.

‘Friday will not learn,’ I said. ‘If there is a portal to his faculties, it is closed, or I cannot find it.

‘Do not be downcast,’ said Foe. ‘If you have planted a seed, that is progress enough, for the time being. Let us persevere: Friday may yet surprise us.’

‘Writing does not grow within us like a cabbage while our thoughts are elsewhere,’ I replied, not a little testily. ‘It is a craft won by long practice, as you should know.’

Foe pursed his lips. ‘Perhaps, he said. ‘But as there are many kinds of men, so there are many kinds of writing. Do not judge your pupil too hastily. He too may yet be visited by the Muse.’

While Foe and I spoke, Friday had settled himself on his mat with the slate. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw he was filling it with a design of, as it seemed, leaves and flowers. But when I came closer I saw the leaves were eyes, open eyes, each set upon a human foot: row upon row of eyes upon feet: walking eyes.

I reached out to take the slate, to show it to Foe, but Friday held tight to it. ‘Give! Give me the slate, Friday!’ I commanded. Whereupon, instead of obeying me, Friday put three fingers into his mouth and wet them with spittle and rubbed the slate clean.

I drew back in disgust. ‘Mr Foe, I must have my freedom!’ I cried. ‘It is becoming more than I can bear! It is worse than the island! He is like the old man of the river!’

Foe tried to soothe me. ‘The old man of the river, he murmured — ‘I believe I do not know whom you mean.’

‘It is a story, nothing but a story,’ I replied. ‘There was once a fellow who took pity on an old man waiting at the riverside, and offered to carry him across. Having borne him safely through the flood, he knelt to set him down on the other side. But the old man would not leave his shoulders: no, he tightened his knees about his deliverer’s neck and beat him on his flanks and, to be short, turned him into a beast of burden. He took the very food from his mouth, and would have ridden him to his death had he not saved himself by a ruse.’

‘I recognize the story now. It was one of the adventures of Sin bad of Persia.’

‘So be it: I am Sinbad of Persia and Friday is the tyrant riding on my shoulders. I walk with him, I eat with him, he watches me while I sleep. If I cannot be free of him I will stifle!’

‘Sweet Susan, do not fly into a passion. Though you say you are the ass and Friday the rider, you may be sure that if Friday had his tongue back he would claim the contrary. We deplore the barbarism of whoever maimed him, yet have we, his later masters, not reason to be secretly grateful? For as long as he is dumb we can tell ourselves his desires are dark to us, and continue to use him as we wish.’

‘Friday’s desires are not dark to me. He desires to be liberated, as I do too. Our desires are plain, his and mine. But how is Friday to recover his freedom, who has been a slave all his life? That is the true question. Should I liberate him into a world of wolves and expect to be commended for it? What liberation is it to be packed off to Jamaica, or turned out of doors into the night with a shilling in your hand? Even in his native Africa, dumb and friendless, would he know freedom? There is an urging that we feel, all of us, in our hearts, to be free; yet which of us can say what freedom truly is? When I am rid of Friday, will I then know freedom? Was Cruso free, that was despot of an island all his own? If so, it brought no joy to him that I could discover. As to Friday, how can Friday know what freedom· means when he barely knows his name?’

‘There is not need for us to know what freedom means, Susan. Freedom is a word like any word. It is a puff of air, seven letters on a slate. It is but the name we give to the desire you speak of, the desire to be free. What concerns us is the desire, not the name. Because we cannot say in words what an apple is, it is not forbidden us to eat the apple. It is enough that we know the names of our needs and are able to use these names to satisfy them, as we use coins to buy food when we are hungry. It is no great task to teach Friday such language as will serve his needs. We are not asked to turn Friday into a philosopher.’

‘You speak as Cruso used to speak, Mr Foe, when he taught Friday Fetch and Dig . But as there are not two kinds of man, Englishman and savage, so the urgings of Friday’s heart will not be answered by Fetch or Dig or Apple , or even by Ship and Africa . There will always be a voice in him to whisper doubts, whether in words or nameless sounds or tunes or tones.’