J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

The upper notes of the organ are tinny, the lower notes without resonance. But the music itself takes possession of him. Calm descends; he can feel something within him — his soul? — take up the rhythm of the music and move in time to it. He falls into a mild trance.

The music grows more complex, then simple again. He opens his eyes. A second dancer has appeared onstage, so similar in looks to the first that he must be a younger brother. He too occupies himself in gliding from one invisible point to another. Now and then their two paths cross, but there never seems any danger that they will collide. No doubt they have rehearsed so often that they know each other’s moves by heart; yet there seems more to it than that, a logic that dictates their passage, a logic that he cannot quite grasp, though he feels on the edge of doing so.

The music comes to a close. The two dancers attain their end points and return to their static poses. Dmitri hauls the left curtain closed, then the right. There is ragged applause from the audience, in which he joins. Inés too is clapping.

Ana Magdalena comes forward again. There is a radiance to her which — he is quite prepared to believe — has been drawn out by the dance, or the music, or the dance and music together; indeed, he feels a certain radiance in himself.

‘What you have just seen are the Number Three and the Number Two, danced by two of our senior students. To close this evening’s performance our junior students will perform the ant dance I earlier referred to.’

Dmitri draws the curtains open. Before them, arrayed in a column, are eight children, girls and boys, wearing singlets and shorts and green caps with waving antennae to denote their ant nature. Davíd is at the head of the column.

Señor Arroyo, at the organ, plays a march, emphasizing its mechanical rhythm. Taking big steps rightward and leftward, backward and forward, the ants re-form themselves from a column of eight into a matrix of four rows in two columns. They hold their positions for four measures, marching on the spot; then they re-form themselves into a new matrix of two rows in four columns. They hold that position, marching; then they transform themselves into a single row, eight long. They hold their positions, marching; then suddenly they break ranks and, as the music abandons its staccato rhythm and becomes simply one massive, inharmonious chord after another, flit across the stage with their arms held out like wings, nearly bumping into one another (and in one case actually bumping together and falling to the floor in a paroxysm of giggles). Then the steady rhythm of the march reasserts itself and swiftly the ants reassemble in their original column of eight.

Dmitri draws the curtains closed and stands there beaming. The assembly claps loudly. The music does not stop. Dmitri whisks open the curtains to reveal the insects still marching in column. Redoubled applause.

‘What do you think of it?’ he says to Inés.

‘What do I think? I think: As long as he is happy, that is all that matters.’

‘I agree. But what did you think of the speech? What did you think —’

Davíd interrupts, rushing up to them flushed and excited, still wearing the floppy antennae. ‘Did you see me?’ he demands.

‘Of course we saw you,’ says Inés. ‘You made us feel very proud. You were the leader of the ants.’

‘I was the leader, but the ants aren’t good, they just march. Next time Ana Magdalena says I can dance a proper dance. But I have to do lots of practice.’

‘That’s good. When is next time?’

‘The next concert. Can I have some cake?’

‘As much as you like. No need to ask. The cake is for all of us.’

He looks around, searching for señor Arroyo. He is curious to meet the man, to find out whether he too believes in a higher realm where the numbers dwell, or whether he just plays the organ and leaves the transcendental stuff to his wife. But señor Arroyo is nowhere to be seen: the scattering of men in the room are clearly parents like himself.

Inés is in conversation with one of the mothers. She beckons him over. ‘Simón, this is señora Hernández. Her son was also an ant. Señora, this is my friend Simón.’

Amigo: friend. Not a word Inés has used before. Is that what he is, what he has become?

‘Isabella,’ says señora Hernández. ‘Please call me Isabella.’

‘Inés,’ says Inés.

‘I was complimenting Inés on your son. He is a very confident performer, isn’t he?’

‘He is a very confident child,’ says he, Simón. ‘He has always been like that. As you can imagine, it is not easy to teach him.’

Isabella gives him a puzzled look.

‘He is confident but his confidence is not always well founded,’ he continues, beginning to flounder. ‘He believes he has powers he does not really have. He is still very young.’

‘Davíd taught himself to read,’ says Inés. ‘He can read Don Quixote .’

‘In a condensed version, for children,’ he says, ‘but yes, it is true, he taught himself to read, without any help.’

‘They are not keen on reading here at the Academy,’ says Isabella. ‘They say reading can come later. While they are young it is just dance, music and dance. Still, she is persuasive, isn’t she, Ana Magdalena. Speaks very well. Didn’t you think so?’

‘What of the higher realm from which the numbers descend to us, the holy Number Two and the holy Number Three — did you understand that bit?’ he says.

A little boy who must be Isabella’s son sidles up, his lips ringed with chocolate. She finds a tissue and wipes his mouth, to which he submits patiently. ‘Let us take off these funny ears and give them back to Ana Magdalena,’ she says. ‘You can’t come home looking like an insect.’

The evening is over. Ana Magdalena stands at the door bidding goodbye to the parents. He shakes her cool hand. ‘Please convey my thanks to señor Arroyo,’ he says. ‘I am sorry we didn’t have a chance to meet him. He is a fine musician.’

Ana Magdalena nods. For an instant the blue eyes fix on his. She sees straight through me , he thinks with a jolt. Sees through me and doesn’t like me.

It hurts him. It is not something he is used to, being disliked, and being disliked moreover on no grounds. But perhaps it is not a personal dislike. Perhaps the woman dislikes the fathers of all her students, as rivals to her authority. Or perhaps she simply dislikes men, all save the invisible Arroyo.

Well, if she dislikes him he dislikes her too. It surprises him: he does not often take a dislike to a woman, particularly a beautiful woman. And this woman is beautiful, no doubt about that, with the kind of beauty that stands up to the closest scrutiny: perfect features, perfect skin, perfect figure, perfect bearing. She is beautiful yet she repels him. She may be married, but he associates her nevertheless with the moon and its cold light, with a cruel, persecutory chastity. Is it wise to be giving their boy — any boy, indeed any girl — into her hands? What if at the end of the year the child emerges from her grasp as cold and persecutory as herself? For that is his judgement on her — on her religion of the stars and her geometric aesthetic of the dance. Bloodless, sexless, lifeless.

The boy has fallen asleep on the back seat of the car, his stomach full of cake and lemonade. Nevertheless, he is wary of speaking his thoughts to Inés: even in deepest sleep the child seems to hear what is going on around him. So he holds his tongue until the child is safely tucked away in bed.

‘Inés, are you sure we have done the right thing?’ he says. ‘Should we not look around for a school that is a little less. . extreme?’

Inés says nothing.