J. Coetzee - Life & Times Of Michael K

We took Michaels in his pyjamas, with a blanket over his shoulders, to the store-room at the far end of the stand. Paint cans and cardboard boxes piled against the wall, cobwebs in every corner, dust thick on the floor, and nowhere to sit. Michaels confronted us crossly, holding the blanket tight, resolute on his two stick-feet.

'You're in the shit, Michaels,' said Noël. 'Your friends from Prince Albert have been misbehaving. They are making a nuisance of themselves. We need to catch them, have a talk to them. We don't think you are giving us all the help you can. So you are getting a second chance. We want you to tell us about your friends: where they hide out, how we can get to meet them.' He lit a cigarette. Michaels did not stir or take his eyes off us.

'Michaels,' I said, 'Michael-some of us are not even sure you had anything to do with the insurgents. If you can persuade us you were not working for them, you can save us a lot of trouble and save yourself a lot of unhappiness. So tell me, tell the Major: what were you actually doing on that farm when they caught you? Because all we know is what we read in these papers from the police at Prince Albert, and, frankly, what they say doesn't make sense. Tell us the truth, tell us the whole truth, and you can go back to bed, we won't bother you any more.'

Now he crouched perceptibly, clutching the blanket about his throat, glaring at the two of us.

'Come on, my friend!' I said. 'No one is going to hurt you, just tell us what we want to know!'

The silence lengthened. Noël did not speak, passing the whole burden to me. 'Come on, Michaels,' I said, 'we haven't got all day, there is a war on!'

At last he spoke: 'I am not in the war.'

Irritation overflowed in me. 'You are not in the war? Of course you are in the war, man, whether you like it or not! This is a camp, not a holiday resort, not a convalescent home: it is a camp where we rehabilitate people like you and make you work! You are going to learn to fill sandbags and dig holes, my friend, till your back breaks! And if you don't co-operate you will go to a place that is a lot worse than this! You will go to a place where you stand baking in the sun all day and eat potato-peels and mealie-cobs, and if you don't survive, tough luck, they cross your number off the list and that is the end of you! So come on, talk, time is running out, tell us what you were doing so that we can write it down and send it to Prince Albert! The Major here is a busy man, he isn't used to wasting time, he came out of retirement to run this nice camp and help people like you. You must co-operate.'

Still crouching, ready to evade me if I should spring, he made his reply. 'I am not clever with words,' he said, nothing more. He moistened his lips with his lizard-tongue.

'We don't want you to be clever with words or stupid with words, man, we just want you to tell the truth!'

He smiled back craftily.

'This garden you had,' said Noël: 'what did you grow there?'

'It was a vegetable garden.'

'Who were these vegetables for? Who did you give them to?'

'They weren't mine. They came from the earth.'

'I asked, who did you give them to?'

'The soldiers took them. '

'Did you mind it that the soldiers took your vegetables?'

He shrugged. 'What grows is for all of us. We are all the children of the earth.'

Now I intervened. 'Your own mother is buried on that farm, isn't she? Didn't you tell me your mother is buried there?'

His face closed like a stone, and I pressed on, scenting the advantage. 'You told me the story of your mother, but the Major has not heard it. Tell the Major the story of your mother.'

Again I noted how distressed he becomes when he has to talk about his mother. His toes curled on the floor, he licked at the lip-cleft.

'Tell us about your friends who come in the middle of the night and burn down farms and kill women and children,' said Noël. 'That's what I want to hear.'

'Tell us about your father,' I said. 'You talk a lot about your mother but you never mention your father. What became of your father?'

He closed his mouth obstinately, the mouth that would never wholly shut, and glowered back.

'Don't you have children, Michaels?' I said. 'A man of your age-don't you have a woman and children tucked away somewhere? Why is it just you by yourself? Where is your stake in the future? Do you want the story to end with you? That would make it a sad story, don't you think?'

There was a silence so dense that I heard it as a ringing in my ears, a silence of the kind one experiences in mine shafts, cellars, bomb shelters, airless places.

'We brought you here to talk, Michaels,' I said. 'We give you a nice bed and lots of food, you can lie in comfort all day and watch the birds fly past in the sky, but we expect something in return. It is time to deliver, my friend. You've got a story to tell and we want to hear it. Start anywhere. Tell us about your mother. Tell us about your father. Tell us your views on life. Or if you don't want to tell us about your mother and your father and your views on life, tell us about your recent agricultural enterprise and the friends from the mountains who drop in for a visit and a meal every now and again. Tell us what we want to know, then we will leave you alone.'

I paused; he stared stonily back. 'Talk, Michaels,' I resumed. 'You see how easy it is to talk, now talk. Listen to me, listen how easily I fill this room with words. I know people who can talk all day without getting tired, who can fill up whole worlds talking. ' Noël caught my eye but I pressed on. 'Give yourself some substance, man, otherwise you are going to slide through life absolutely unnoticed. You will be a digit in the units column at the end of the war when they do the big subtraction sum to calculate the difference, nothing more. You don't want to be simply one of the perished, do you? You want to live, don't you? Well then, talk, make your voice heard, tell your story! We are listening! Where else in the world are you going to find two polite civilized gentlemen ready to listen to your story all day and all night, if need be, and take notes too?'

Without warning, Noël left the room. 'Wait here, I'll be back,' I ordered Michaels, and followed in haste.

In the murky passageway I stopped Noël and pleaded with him. 'You are never going to get sense out of him,' I said, 'surely you see that. He is a simpleton, and not even an interesting simpleton. He is a poor helpless soul who has been permitted to wander out on to the battlefield, if I may use that word, the battlefield of life, when he should have been shut away in an institution with high walls, stuffing cushions or watering the flower-beds. Listen to me, Noël, I have a serious request to make. Let him go. Don't try beating a story out of him…'

'Who spoke about beating?'

'… Don't try twisting a story out of him, because truly there is no story to be had. In the profoundest sense he does not know what he is doing: I have watched him for days and I am sure of it. Make up something for the report. How big is this Swartberg insurgent gang, do you think? Twenty men? Thirty men? Say that he told you there were twenty men, always the same twenty. They came to the farm every four, five, six weeks, they never told him when they would be coming next. He knew their names, but only their first names. Make up a list of their first names. Make up a list of the arms they carried. Say they had a camp in the mountains somewhere, they never told him exactly where, except that it was high up, that it took two days to get there from the farm on foot. Say that they slept in caves and had women with them. Children too. That's enough. Put it in a report and send it off. It's enough to keep them off our backs, so that we can get on with our jobs.'