J. Coetzee - Slow Man

'If he doesn't do anything?'

'Yes, if he sits here in his flat and does nothing.'

'Then everything will be like it was before. Boring. He will go on being like he was before.'

'Except-?'

'Except what?'

'Except that soon enough regret will start creeping in. His days will be cast over with a grey monotone. By night he will wake with a start, gnashing his teeth and muttering to himself If only, if only! Memory will eat away at him like an acid, the memory of his pusillanimity. Ah, Marijana! he will grieve. If only I had not let my Marijana get away! A man of sorrow, a shadow of himself, that is what he will become. To his dying day.'

'OK, he will regret it.'

'So what should he do in order not to die full of regret?'

He has had enough. Before Drago can make up an answer he intervenes. 'Stop dragging the boy into your games, Elizabeth. And stop talking about me as if I were not in the room. How I conduct my life is my own business, it is not for strangers to say.'

'Strangers?' says Elizabeth Costello, raising an eyebrow.

'Yes, strangers. You in particular. You are a stranger to me, one on whom I wish I had never laid eyes.'

'Likewise, Paul, likewise. How you and I became coupled God alone knows, for we were certainly not meant for each other. But here we are. You want to be with Marijana but are saddled with me instead. I would prefer a more interesting subject but am saddled with you, the one-legged man who cannot make up his mind. A right mess, wouldn't you agree, Drago? Come on, help us, advise us. What should we do?'

'I reckon you should split up. If you don't like each other. Say goodbye.'

'And Paul and your mother? Should they split up too?'

'I don't know about Mr Rayment. But how come no one asks my mother what she wants? Maybe she wishes she had never taken a job with Mr Rayment. I don't know. Maybe she just wants everything to be like it was before, when we were… a family.'

'So you are an enemy of passion, extra-marital passion.'

'No, I didn't say that. I am not like you say, an enemy of passion. But-'

'But your mother is a good-looking woman. When she goes out, glances get cast at her, feelings get felt towards her, desire buds in the stranger's heart, and before you can say Jiminy Cricket unforeseen passions have sprung up that you have to contend with. Consider the situation from your mother's viewpoint. Easy enough to resist these passion-filled strangers once they have declared themselves, but less easy to ignore them. For that you need ice in your veins. Given the fact of strange men and their desires, how would you like your mother to behave? Shut herself away at home? Wear a veil?'

Drago gives a strange, barking laugh of delight. 'No, but maybe she doesn't feel like having an affair' – he snorts as he utters the phrase, as though it belonged to some curious, probably barbarian, foreign tongue – 'with every man that gives her – you know – the eye. That is why I say, why does no one ask her?'

'I would ask her right now if I could,' says Elizabeth Costello. 'But she is not available. She is not on stage, so to speak. We can only guess. But giving in and having an affair with a sixty-year-old man whom she is contracted to see six times a week, come rain or hail or snow, is, I would expect, pretty far from her thoughts. What would you say, Paul?'

'Far from her thoughts indeed. As far as far could be.'

'So there we are. We are all unhappy, it seems. You are unhappy, Drago, because the ructions at home have forced you to pitch your tent on Victoria Square among the winos. Your mother is unhappy because she must take shelter among relatives who disapprove of her. Your father is unhappy because he thinks people are laughing at him. Paul here is unhappy because unhappiness is second nature to him but more particularly because he has not the faintest idea of how to bring about his heart's desire. And I am unhappy because nothing is happening. Four people in four corners, moping, like tramps in Beckett, and myself in the middle, wasting time, being wasted by time.'

They are silent, all of them. Being wasted by time: it is a plea of a kind that the woman is uttering. Why then is he so signally unmoved?

'Mrs Costello,' he says, 'please open your ears to what I am saying. What is going on between myself and Drago's family is none of your business. You do not belong here. This is not your place, not your sphere. I feel for Marijana. I feel for Drago, in a different way, and for his sisters too. I can even feel for Drago's father. But I cannot feel for you. None of us is able to feel for you. You are the one outsider among us. Your involvement, however well-meaning it may be, does not help us, merely confuses us. Can you understand that? Can I not persuade you to leave us alone to work out our own salvation in our own way?'

There is a long, uncomfortable silence. 'I've got to go,' says Drago.

'No,' he says. 'You may not go back to the park, if that is what you have in mind. I don't approve. It is dangerous; your parents would be horrified if they knew. Let me give you a key. There is food in the fridge, there is a bed in my study. You can come and go as you wish. Within reason.'

Drago seems about to say something, then changes his mind. 'Thanks,' he says.

'And me?' says Elizabeth Costello. 'Am I to be turned out of doors to suffer the heat of the sun and the furious winter's raging, while young Drago is lodged like a prince?'

'You are a grown woman. You can look after yourself

THERE IS A car parked across the street from his flat, a weathered red Commodore station-wagon. It has been there since noon. The figure behind the wheel is indistinct, but it can only be Miroslav Jokic. What is less certain is what Miroslav is up to. Is he spying on his wife? Is he trying to intimidate the guilty couple?

On his crutches it takes him a full ten minutes to navigate the stairs and entranceway, and almost as long to cross the street. As he approaches the car, the man inside winds down the window and lets out a cloud of stale cigarette smoke.

'Mr Jokic?' he says.

Jokic is not the burly, shambling creature he had imagined. On the contrary, he is tall and wiry, with a dark, narrow face and an aquiline nose.

'I am Paul Rayment. Can we talk? Can I buy you a beer? There is a pub just around the corner.'

Jokic gets out of the car. He is wearing work boots, blue jeans, a black T-shirt, a black leather jacket. His hips are so narrow that he barely seems to have buttocks. A body like a whip, he thinks. Unwilled, a vision comes to him of that body atop Marijana, covering her, pressing itself into her.

Hopping as fast as he can, he leads the way.

The pub is half empty. He slides into a booth and Jokic, tight-lipped, follows. He glances at Jokic's hands. Long fingers with tufts of black hair, clipped fingernails. Hair at his collar too. Does Marijana like all that hair, that bear's pelt?

Of confrontations with aggrieved husbands he has no experience to call on. Is he supposed to feel pity for the man? He feels none.

'May I come to the point? You want to know why I am offering to help with your son's education. I am not a wealthy man, Mr Jokic, but I am comfortably off and I have no children. I offered your son a loan because I would like to see him do well. I am impressed with Drago. He shows great promise. As for the college he has chosen, I have not heard of it before, but he tells me it has a good reputation and I accept that.

'I am sorry my offer has caused an upset in your household. I should have spoken to you as well as to your wife, I now realise.

'Regarding your wife, let me simply say that my relations with her have always been correct.' He hesitates. The man's eyes are like gun-muzzles trained on him. He returns the gaze as directly as he can. 'I do not get involved with women, Mr Jokic, not any more. That part of my life is behind me. If I still practise love, I practise it in a different way. When you know me better you will understand.'