J. Coetzee - Slow Man

'Thank you, son, good of you,' he says at the end of it all. There is more he would like to say, for his heart is full, such as: Your mother has abandoned me; Mrs Costello, who jabbers on and on about care but takes care not to be around when care is needed, has abandoned me; everyone has abandoned me, even the son I never had; then you came, you! But he holds his peace.

He has a passage of crying, old-man's crying which does not count because it comes too easily, and which he hides behind his hands because it embarrasses both of them.

Drago makes a phone call, comes back. 'My mum says I should get you some pills for the pain. I've got the name here. She says she meant to leave you some but she forgot. I can go down to the pharmacy; but…'

'There is money in my wallet, in my desk drawer.'

'Thanks. You got a mop somewhere?'

'Behind the kitchen door. But don't…'

'It's nothing, Mr Rayment. It will take a minute.'

The magic pills turn out to be nothing but Ibuprofen. 'Mum says take one every four hours. And you should eat first. Shall I get you something from the kitchen?'

'Get me an apple or a banana if there is one. Drago?'

'Yes?'

'I'll be all right now. You don't have to stay. Thanks for everything.'

'That's OK.'

To complete the passage, Drago ought to say: That's OK, you would do the same for me. And it is true! If some cataclysm were to befall Drago, if some reckless stranger were to crash into him on his motorcycle, he, Paul Rayment, would move heaven and earth, spend every penny he had, to save him. He would give the world a lesson in how to take care of a beloved child. He would be everything to him, father and mother. All day, all night he would watch at his bedside. If only!

At the door Drago turns, waves, and flashes him one of the angelic smiles that must have the girls swooning. 'See you!'

THE INJURY TO his back is indeed, as Marijana told him, no great thing. By mid-afternoon he is able to move about, if cautiously, able to dress himself, able to make himself a sandwich. Last night he thought he was at death's door; today he is fine again, more or less. A dash of this, a dab of that, a smidgen of the other, mixed together and rolled into a pill in a factory in Bangkok, and the monster of pain is reduced to a mouse. Miraculous.

So when Elizabeth Costello arrives he is able to provide the briefest, calmest, most matter-of-fact recital of events. 'I slipped in the shower and twisted my back. I called Marijana, and she came and fixed me up, and now I'm fine again.' No mention of treacherous Johann August, no mention of the shivering and the tears, no mention of the pyjamas in the wash basket. 'Drago dropped by this morning to check up. A nice boy. Mature beyond his years.'

'And you are fine, you say.'

'Yes.'

'And your pictures? Your photograph collection?'

'What do you mean?'

'Is your photograph collection fine too?'

'I presume it is. Why should it not be?'

'Perhaps you should take a look.'

It is not that any of the prints are actually missing. Nothing is actually missing. But one of the Faucherys has the wrong feel to it and, as soon as he brings it out of its plastic sleeve into the light, the wrong look too. What he is holding in his hands is a copy, in tones of brown that mimic the original sepia, made by an electronic printer on half-glazed photographic paper. The cardboard mount is new and slightly thicker than the original. It is the added thickness that first gives the forgery away. Otherwise it is not a bad job. But for Costello's prompting he might never have noticed it.

'How did you know?' he demands of her.

'How did I know Drago and his friend were up to something? I didn't know. I was merely suspicious.' She holds up the copy. 'I wouldn't be surprised if one of these diggers was greatgrandfather Costello from Kerry. And look – look at this fellow.' With a fingernail she taps a face in the second row. 'Isn't he the spitting image of Miroslav Jokic!'

He snatches the photograph from her. Miroslav Jokic: it is indeed he, wearing a hat and open-necked shirt, sporting a moustache too, standing flank to flank with those stern-faced Cornish and Irish miners of a bygone age.

It is the desecration that he feels most of all: the dead made fun of by a couple of cocky, irreverent youths. Presumably they did it using some kind of digital technique. He could never have achieved so convincing a montage in an old-fashioned darkroom.

He turns on the Costello woman. 'What has become of the original?' he demands. 'Do you know what has become of it?' He hears his voice go out of control, but he does not care. He smites the copy to the ground. 'The stupid, stupid boy! What has he done with the original?'

Elizabeth Costello gives him a look of wide-eyed astonishment. 'Don't ask me, Paul,' she says. 'It was not I who welcomed Drago into my home and gave him the run of my precious photograph collection. It was not I who plotted my way to the mother through the son.'

'Then how did you know about this… this vandalism?'

'I did not know. As I said before, I was merely suspicious.'

'But what made you suspicious? What are you not telling me?'

'Get a hold of yourself, Paul. Consider. Here we have Drago and his friend Shaun, two healthy Australian lads, and how do they spend their free time? Not racing their motorcycles. Not playing football. Not surfing. Not kissing the girls. No: instead they lock themselves up for hours on end in your study. Are they poring over smut? No: unless I am mistaken, you own singularly few dirty books. What then can it be that absorbs their attention but your photograph collection, a collection which according to you is so priceless that it must be donated to the nation?'

'But I don't see what motive they can have. Why should they go to all that trouble to fabricate' – he puts the tip of his crutch on the copy and grinds it into the carpet – 'a dummy?'

'There I can't help you. That is for you to work out. But bear in mind: these are lively young chaps in a dozy city that does not provide outlets for all the restlessness in their bones, all the buzz of schemes and desires in their heads. Time is accelerating all around us, Paul. Girls have babies at the age of ten. Boys – boys take half an hour to pick up a skill that took us half a lifetime. They pick it up and get bored with it and move on to something else. Perhaps Drago and his friend thought it would be amusing: the State Library, a mob of worthy old gents and ladies fanning themselves against the heat, some boring bigwig or other unveiling the Rayment Bequest, and – hello, hello! – who is this at the centre of the piece de resistance of the collection but one of the Jokic clan from Croatia! A capital jape – that's what Billy Bunter would have called it. Perhaps that is all it amounts to: an elaborate and rather tasteless jape that must have cost more than a little of their time and perhaps some expert guidance too.

'As for the original, your precious Fauchery print, who knows where it is? Perhaps it is still lying under Drago's bed. Or perhaps he and Shaun flogged it to a dealer. Be comforted, however. You may feel you have become the butt of a joke, and indeed you may be right. But there was no malevolence behind it. No affection, perhaps, but no malevolence either. Just a joke, an unthinking, juvenile joke.'

No affection. Is it as plain as that, plain for all to see? It is as though the heart in his breast has suddenly grown too tired to beat. Tears come to his eyes again, but with no force behind them, just a watery exudation.

'Is that who they are then?' he whispers. 'Gypsies? What else of mine have they stolen, these Croatian gypsies?'

'Don't be melodramatic, Paul. There are Croatians and Croatians. Surely you know that. A handful of good Croatians and a handful of bad Croatians and millions of Croatians in between. The Jokics are not particularly bad Croatians, just a little callous, a little rough on the heart. Drago included. Drago is not a bad boy, you know that. Let me remind you: you did tell him, rather loftily I thought, that the pictures were not yours, you were merely guarding them for the sake of the nation's history. Well, Drago is part of that history too, remember. What harm is there, thinks Drago, in inserting a Jokic into the national memory, even if somewhat prematurely – grandpa Jokic, for instance? Just a lark, whose consequences he may not have thought through; but then, among the unruly young, how many think through the consequences of their acts?'