J.M. Coetzee - The Master of Petersburg

No one strokes his hair, no one murmurs a consoling word in his ear. But when at last, fumbling for his handkerchief, he raises his head, the girl Matryona is standing before him observing him intently. She wears a white nightdress; her hair, brushed out, lies over her shoulders. He cannot fail to notice the budding breasts. He tries to give her a smile, but her expression does not change. She knows too, he thinks. She knows what is false, what is true; or else by staring deep enough means to know.

He collects himself. Through the last of the tears his gaze locks on to hers. In that instant something passes between them from which he flinches as though pierced by a red-hot wire. Then her mother's arm enfolds her; a whispered word passes; she withdraws to her bed.

'Good morning. I have come to claim' (he is surprised at how steady his voice is) 'some belongings of my son's. My son was involved in an accident last month, and the police took charge of certain items.'

He unfolds the receipt and passes it across the counter. Depending on whether Pavel gave up the ghost before or after midnight, it is dated the day after or the day of Pavel's death; it names simply 'letters and other papers.'

The sergeant inspects the receipt dubiously. 'October 12th. That's less than a month ago. The case won't be settled yet.'

'How long will it take to settle?'

'Could be two months, could be three months, could be a year. It depends on the circumstances.'

'There are no circumstances. There is no crime involved.'

Holding the paper at arm's length, the sergeant leaves the room. When he returns, his air is markedly more surly. 'You are, sir, -?'

'Isaev. The father.'

'Yes, Mr Isaev. If you will take a seat, you will be attended to in a short while.'

His heart sinks. He had hoped simply to be handed Pavel's belongings and walk out of this place. What he can least afford is that the police should turn their attention on him.

'I can wait only a short while,' he says briskly.

'Yes, sir, I'm sure the investigator in charge will see you soon. Just take a seat and make yourself comfortable.'

He consults his watch, sits down on the bench, looks around with pretended impatience. It is early; there is only one other person in the ante-room, a young man in stained housepainter's overalls. Sitting bolt upright, he seems to be asleep. His eyes are closed, his jaw hangs, a soft rattle comes from the back of his throat.

Isaev. Inside him the confusion has not settled. Should he not drop the Isaev story at once, before getting mired in it? But how can he explain? 'Sergeant, there has been a slight mistake. Things are not entirely as they appear to be. In a sense I am not Isaev. The Isaev whose name I have for reasons of my own been using, reasons I won't go into here and now, but perfectly good reasons, has been dead for some years. Nevertheless, I brought up Pavel Isaev as my son and love him as my own flesh and blood. In that sense we bear the same name, or ought to. Those few papers he left behind are precious to me. That is why I am here.' What if he made this admission unprompted, and all the while they had suspected nothing? What if they had been on the point of giving him the papers, and now pulled up short? 'Aha, what is this? Is there more to the case than meets the eye?'

As he sits vacillating between confessing and pressing on with the imposture, as he takes out his watch and glances at it crossly, trying to seem like an impatient homme d'affaires in this stuffy room with a stove burning in a corner, he has a premonition of an attack, and in the same movement recognizes that an attack would be a device, and the most childish of devices at that, for extricating himself from a fix, while somewhere to the side falls the nagging shadow of a memory: surely he has been here before, in this very ante-room or one like it, and had an attack or a fainting fit! But why is it that he recollects the episode only so dimly? And what has the recollection to do with the smell of fresh paint?

'This is too much!'

His cry echoes around the room. The dozing house-painter gives a start; the desk-sergeant looks up in surprise. He tries to cover his confusion. 'I mean,' he says, lowering his voice, 'I can't wait any longer, I have an appointment. As I said.'

He has already stood up and put on his coat when the sergeant calls him back. 'Councillor Maximov will see you now, sir.'

In the office into which he is conducted there is no high bench. Save for a huge sofa in imitation leather, it is furnished in nondescript government issue. Councillor Maximov, the judicial investigator in Pavel's case, is a bald man with the tubby figure of a peasant woman, who fusses till he is comfortably seated, then opens the bulky folder before him on the desk and reads at length, murmuring to himself, shaking his head from time to time. 'Sad business… Sad business…'

At last he looks up. 'My sincerest condolences, Mr Isaev.'

Isaev. Time to make up his mind!

'Thank you. I have come to ask for my son's papers to be returned. I am aware that the case has not been closed, but I do not see how private papers can be of any interest to your office or of any relevance to – to your proceedings.'

'Yes, of course, of course! As you say, private papers. But tell me: when you talk of papers, what exactly do you mean? What do the papers consist in?'

The man's eyes have a watery gleam; his lashes are pale, like a cat's.

'How can I say? They were removed from my son's room, I haven't seen them yet. Letters, papers…'

'You have not seen them but you believe they can be of no interest to us. I can understand that. I can understand that a father should believe his son's papers are a personal matter, or at least a family matter. Yes, indeed. Nevertheless, there is an investigation in progress – a mere formality, perhaps, but called for by the law, therefore not to be dismissed with a snap of the fingers or a flourish of the hand, and the papers are part of that investigation. So…'

He puts his fingertips together, lowers his head, appears to sink into deep thought. When he looks up again he is no longer smiling, but wears an expression of the utmost determination. 'I believe,' he says, 'yes, I do believe I have a solution that will satisfy both parties. Since the case is not closed – indeed, it has barely been opened – I cannot return the papers themselves to you. But I am going to let you see them. Because I agree, it is unfair, most unfair, to whisk them off at such a tragic time and keep them from the family.'

With a sudden, startling gesture, like a card-player playing an all-conquering card, he sweeps a single leaf out of the folder and places it before him.

It is a list of names, Russian names written in Roman script, all beginning with the letter A.

'There is some mistake. This is not my son's handwriting.'

'Not your son's handwriting? Hmm.' Maximov takes back the page and studies it. 'Then have you any idea whose handwriting this might be, Mr Isaev?'

'I don't recognize the handwriting, but it is not my son's.'

From the bottom of the file Maximov selects another page and advances it across the desk. 'And this?'

He does not need to read it. How stupid! he thinks. A flush of dizziness overtakes him. His voice seems to come from far away. 'It is a letter from myself. I am not Isaev. I simply took the name – '

Maximov is waving a hand as if to chase away a fly, waving his words away, waving for silence; but he masters the dizziness and completes his declaration.

'I took the name so as not to complicate matters – for no other reason. Pavel Alexandrovich Isaev is my stepson, my late wife's only child. But to me he is my own son. He has no one but me in the world.'