J. Coetzee - Life & Times Of Michael K

Several times he was passed by long convoys of vehicles with armed escorts. Each time he left the road and stood well clear, not trying to hide, keeping his hands visible, as he saw other people do.

He slept at the roadside and woke wet with dew. Before him the road wound upward into the mist. Birds flitted from bush to bush, their chirping muffled. He carried the suitcase on a stick over his shoulder. He had not eaten for two days; however, there seemed no limit to his endurance.

A mile up the pass a fire winked through the mist and he heard voices. As he came closer the smell of frying bacon made his stomach churn. There were men standing around a fire keeping warm. At his approach they stopped talking and stared at him. He touched his beret but no one responded. He passed them, passed a second roadside fire, passed a column of vehicles parked head to tail with their lights on, and then came upon the reason for the stoppage. Lying on its side blocking the road, its rearmost wheels hanging over the top of the gorge, was an articulated truck painted a blank eggshell blue. The cab was burnt out, the van blackened with smoke. A lorry loaded with sacks had collided with the wreck, and bursts of white flour marked the road. Backed up around the bend as far as K could see was the rest of the convoy. Two radios played loudly on competing stations; from up ahead came the forlorn bleating of sheep. K thought for a moment of stopping to scoop up pocketfuls of the spilled flour, but was not sure what he would do with it. He plodded past truck after truck; he passed the truckload of sheep, packed so tight that some stood on their hind legs; he passed a group of soldiers around a fire who paid no attention to him. At the rear of the convoy two beacons stood flashing, and further on a tarbucket burned in the middle of the road, tended by no one.

Once the convoy was behind him K relaxed, thinking he was free; but at the next bend in the road a soldier in camouflage uniform stepped from behind the bushes pointing an automatic rifle at his heart. K stopped in his tracks. The soldier lowered his rifle, lit a cigarette, took a puff, and raised the rifle again. Now, K judged, it pointed at his face, or at his throat.

'So who are you?' said the soldier. 'Where do you think you are going?'

About to reply, K was cut short. 'Show me,' said the soldier. 'Come. Show me what's in there.'

They were out of sight of the convoy, though faint music still came on the air. K lifted the suitcase off his shoulder and opened it. The soldier waved him back, pinched out his cigarette, and in a single movement overturned the case. Everything lay there in the road: the blue felt slippers, the white bloomers, the pink plastic bottle of calamine lotion, the brown bottle of pills, the fawn plastic handbag, the floral scarf, the scallop-rim scarf, the black woollen coat, the jewelry box, the brown skirt, the green blouse, the shoes, the other underwear, the brown paper packets, the white plastic packet, the coffee tin that rattled, the talcum powder, handkerchiefs, letters, photographs, the box of ashes. K did not stir.

'Where did you steal all this?' said the soldier. 'You're a thief, aren't you? A thief running away over the mountains.' He prodded the handbag with his boot. 'Show me,' he said. He touched the jewelry box. He touched the coffee tin. He touched the other box. 'Show me,' he said, and stepped back.

K opened the coffee tin. It contained curtain rings. He held them out in the palm of his hand, then poured them back into the tin and closed it. He opened the jewelry box and held it out. His heart thundered in his chest. The soldier stirred the contents around, picked out a brooch, and stood back. He was smiling. K closed the box. He opened the handbag and held it out. The soldier gestured. K emptied it on the road. There was a handkerchief, a comb and mirror, a powder compact, and the two purses. The soldier pointed and K handed him the purses. He slipped them into his tunic pocket.

K licked his lips. 'That's not my money, ' he said thickly. 'That's my mother's money, that she worked for.' It was not true: his mother was dead, she had no need of money. Nevertheless. There was a silence. 'What do you think the war is for?' K said. 'For taking other people's money?'

'What do you think the war is for,' said the soldier, parodying the movements of K's mouth. 'Thief. Watch it. You could be lying in the bushes with flies all over you. Don't you tell me about war.' He pointed his gun at the box of ashes. 'Show me,' he said.

K took off the lid and held out the box. The soldier peered at the plastic bag. 'What's that stuff?' he said.

'Ash,' said K. His voice was steadier now.

'Open it,' said the soldier. K opened the bag. The soldier took a pinch and smelled it cautiously. 'Jesus,' he said. His eyes met K's.

K knelt and packed his mother's things back into the suitcase. The soldier stood aside. 'So can I go now?' said K.

'Papers in order-you can go,' said the soldier. K hoisted the stick with the suitcase on to his shoulder.

'Just a minute,' said the soldier. 'You work for the ambulance or something?'

K shook his head.

'Just a minute, just a minute,' said the soldier. He took one of the purses from his pocket, peeled a brown ten-rand note from the roll, and flicked it in K's direction. 'Tip,' he said. 'Buy yourself an ice-cream.'

K came back and picked up the note. Then he set off again. In a minute or two the soldier had receded into the mist.

It did not seem to him that he had been a coward. Nevertheless, a little further on it struck him that there was no point in keeping the suitcase now. He clambered up a slope and left it in the bushes, retaining only the black coat, for the cold, and the box of ashes, leaving the lid open so that the rain could fall and the sun scorch and the insects gnaw, if they wanted to, without hindrance.

The convoys from up-country were evidently halted, for he had the road to himself. By late afternoon he was in sight of the tunnel through the mountain and the guard post at its south entrance. Quitting the road, he took to the slopes and pushed his way through dense, soggy bush till by nightfall he was high on the saddle overlooking the Elandsrivier and the road to the north. He heard baboons barking in the distance. He slept under an overhang wrapped in his mother's coat with a stick beside him. At dawn he was moving again, making a wide arc down into the valley to avoid the road bridge. The first convoy of the new day passed.

All day he walked, keeping off the road where that was possible. He spent the night in a bungalow in the corner of an overgrown field with rugby poles, separated from the road by a line of eucalyptus trees. The windows of the bungalow were shattered, the door broken off its hinges. The floor was covered in broken glass, old newspapers and drifting leaves; pale yellow grass grew in through cracks in the walls; snails clustered under the waterpipes; but the roof was intact. He swept a pile of leaves and paper into a corner to make a bed. He slept intermittently, woken by high winds and heavy rain.

It was still raining when he got up. Dizzy with hunger, he stood in the doorway staring out on the sodden grassland, the drenched trees, and the grey-misted hills beyond. For an hour he waited for the rain to abate; then he turned up his collar and ran into the downpour. At the far end of the field he clambered over a barbed-wire fence and entered an apple orchard overgrown with grass and weeds. Worm-eaten fruit lay everywhere underfoot; the fruit on the branches was undersized and infested. With the beret beaten flat over his ears by the rain and the black coat clinging to his body like a pelt, he stood and ate, taking bites of good flesh here and there, chewing as quickly as a rabbit, his eyes vacant.