J. Coetzee - Slow Man

ONE MORNING Marijana turns up in the company of a tall youth. It is the boy in the picture, unmistakably: Drago.

'My son come look at your bicycle,' says Marijana. 'He can fix it maybe.'

'Yes. Of course.' (But, he asks himself, whatever gave her the idea he wants the wreck of a bicycle fixed?) 'Hello, Drago, good to meet you, thanks for coming.' He fishes out the key to the store from a mess of keys in a drawer and gives it to the boy. 'See what you think. In my opinion the bike is beyond help. The frame is bent. Ten to one the tubing is cracked. But have a look.'

'OK,' says the boy.

'I bring him to talk to you,' says Marijana when they are alone. 'Like you said.'

Like he said? What could he have said? That he would give Drago a lesson in road safety?

The yarn that Marijana has spun her son to get him to give up his morning emerges only piece by piece: that Mr Rayment has a bicycle that he wants fixed so that he can sell it, but that, being not only crippled but maladroit too, he cannot do the fixing himself.

Drago returns from his inspection and delivers his report. Whether the frame is cracked or not he cannot say offhand. He and his mates, one of whom has access to a machine shop, could probably bend it back into shape and respray it. But even so, a new wheel and hub and derailleur and brakes would probably set him, Mr Rayment, back as much as a good second-hand bike.

It is perfectly sensible advice. It is what he would have said himself.

'Thanks for looking at it anyway,' he says. 'Your mother tells me you are into motorcycles.'

'Yeah, my dad bought me a Yamaha, 250 c.c'

'That's good.' He casts Marijana a glance which the boy pretends not to pick up. What more does she want him to say?

'Mum says you had a pretty bad accident,' offers the boy.

'Yes. I was in hospital for a while.'

'What happened?'

'I was hit by a car as I was turning. The driver said he didn't see me. Said I didn't signal my intentions. Said he was dazzled by the sun.'

'That's bad.'

A silence. Is the boy absorbing the lesson he is supposed to be absorbing? Is Marijana getting what she wants? He suspects not. She wants him to be more voluble – to warn the boy how perilous the lot of cyclists is, and by analogy the lot of motorcyclists; to bring home to him the agonies of injury and the humiliations of the crippled state. But his sense of this youth is that he prefers laconism, that he will not take kindly to being preached to. In fact, if Drago were to sympathise with anyone in the story of the encounter on Magill Road, it would more likely be with Wayne Blight, the speedy youngster behind the wheel, than with Paul Rayment, the absent-minded old geezer on the pushbike.

And what sea-change does Marijana want him to bring about anyway? Does she really expect this handsome youth, bursting with good health, to spend his evenings at home curled up with a book while his mates are out having fun? To leave the gleaming new Yamaha in the garage and catch a bus? Drago Jokic: a name from folk-epic. The Ballad of Drago Jokic.

He clears his throat. 'Drago, your mother has asked me to have a word with you in private.'

Marijana leaves the room. He turns to the boy. 'Look, I'm nothing to you, just the man your mother looks after and very grateful to her for that. But she asked me to speak to you and I agreed I would. What I want to tell you is, if I could turn back the clock to before my accident, believe me, I would. You may not think it, looking at me, but I used to lead an active life. Now I can't even go to the shops. I have to depend on other people for the smallest thing. And it happened in a split second, out of nowhere. Well, it could happen to you just as easily. Don't take risks with your life, son, it's not worth it. Your mother wants you to be careful on your bike. I think you should listen to her. That's all I'm going to say. Your mother is a good person, she loves you. Do you understand?'

If he had been asked to predict, he would have said that young Drago would sit through a lecture of this kind with his eyes cast down, picking at his cuticles, wishing the old geezer would get it over with, cursing his mother for bringing him. But it is not like that at all. Throughout his speech Drago regards him candidly, a faint, not unfriendly smile on his well-shaped lips. 'OK,' he says at the end. 'Message received. I'll be careful.' Then, after a pause: 'You like my mum, don't you?'

He nods. He could say more, but a nod is enough for the present.

'She likes you too.'

She likes him too. His heart swells unreasonably. I don't just like her, I love her!: those are the words he is on the point of bursting out with. 'I'm trying to be of assistance, that's all,' he says instead. 'That's why I've spoken to you. Not because I think I can save you by talking, since something like this' – he slaps the bad hip lightly, jocularly – 'just happens, you can't foresee it, you can't prevent it. But it may help your mother. It may help her to know that you know she loves you and wants you to be safe, wants it enough to ask a stranger, namely me, to put in a word. OK?'

There are the words themselves, and then, behind or around or beneath the words, there is the intention. As he speaks he is aware of the boy watching his lips, brushing aside the word-strings as if they were cobwebs, tuning his ear to the intention. His respect for the boy is growing, growing by leaps and bounds. No ordinary boy, this one! The envy of the gods he must be. The Ballad of Drago Jokic. No wonder his mother is fearful. A telephone call in the early hours of the morning: 'Is that Mrs Jokic? Do you have a son named Dragon? This is the hospital in Gumeracha.' Like a needle in the heart, or a sword. Her first-born.

Marijana returns, Drago rises. 'I'll be getting along now,' he says. 'Bye Mum.' From his lofty height he stoops and touches his lips to her forehead. 'Bye Mr Rayment. Sorry about the bike.' And he is gone.

'Very good tennis player,' says Marijana. 'Very good swimmer. Very good at everything. Very clever.' She gives a wan smile.

'My dear Marijana,' he says – heightened emotion, he tells himself, in a moment of heightened emotion one can be forgiven for slipping in the odd term of endearment - 'I am sure he will be all right. I am sure he will have a long and happy life and rise to be an admiral, if that is what he wants to be.'

'You think so?' The smile has not left her lips, but now it speaks pure joy: despite the fact that he is useless with his hands and a cripple to boot, she believes he has powers of foretelling the future. 'That's good.'

IT IS MARIJANA'S smile, lingering in his memory, that brings about the longed-for, the long-needed change. At once all gloom is gone, all dark clouds. He is Marijana's employer, her boss, the one whose wishes she is paid to carry out, yet before she arrives each day he fusses around the flat, doing his best to make things spick and span for her. He even has flowers delivered, to brighten the drabness.

The situation is absurd. What does he want of the woman? He wants her to smile again, certainly, to smile on him. He wants to win a place in her heart, however tiny. Does he want to become her lover too? Yes, he does, in a sense, fervently. He wants to love and cherish her and her children, Drago and Ljuba and the third one, the one whom he has yet to clap eyes on. As for the husband, he has not the slightest malign intent towards him, he will swear to that. He wishes the husband all happiness and good fortune. Nevertheless, he will give anything to be father to these excellent, beautiful children and husband to Marijana – co-father if need be, co-husband if need be, platonic if need be. He wants to take care of them, all of them, protect them and save them.