J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘I couldn’t make sense of that lecture of the señora’s,’ he presses on. ‘What I did understand I found a bit crazy. She isn’t a teacher, she is a preacher. She and her husband have made up a religion and now they are hunting for converts. Davíd is too young, too impressionable to be exposed to that kind of thing.’

Inés speaks. ‘When I was a teacher we had señor C the postman who whistles and el G the cat who purrs and el T the train who hoots. Each letter had its own personality and its own sound. We made up words by putting letters together one after another. That is how you teach small children to read and write.’

‘You were a teacher?’

‘We used to run classes at La Residencia for the children of the domestics.’

‘You never told me that.’

‘Each letter of the alphabet had a personality. Now she is giving the numbers personalities too, Ana Magdalena. Uno, dos, tres. Making them come alive. That is how you teach small children. It’s not religion. I’m going to bed. Good night.’

Five of the pupils at the Academy are boarders, the rest are day students. The boarders stay with the Arroyos because they come from districts of the province too far-flung to commute from. These five, together with the young usher and Señor Arroyo’s two sons, are given proper sit-down lunches, which Ana Magdalena prepares. The day students bring their own lunches. Each evening Inés packs Davíd’s lunch box for the next day and puts it in the refrigerator: sandwiches, an apple or a banana, plus a little treat, a chocolate or a cookie.

One evening, as she is preparing his lunch box, Davíd speaks: ‘Some girls at school won’t eat meat. They say it is cruel. Is it cruel, Inés?’

‘If you don’t eat meat you won’t get strong. You won’t grow.’

‘But is it cruel?’

‘No, it is not cruel. Animals don’t feel anything when they are slaughtered. They don’t have feelings in the way that we do.’

‘I asked señor Arroyo if it is cruel and he said animals can’t do syllogisms so it isn’t cruel. What does syllogisms mean?’

Inés is nonplussed. He, Simón, intervenes. ‘What he means, I think, is that animals don’t think logically, as we do. They can’t make logical inferences. They don’t understand that they are being packed off to the butcher even when all the evidence points that way, so they aren’t frightened.’

‘But does it hurt?’

‘Being slaughtered? No, not if the butcher is skilful. Just as it doesn’t hurt when you go to the doctor, if the doctor is skilful.’

‘So it is not cruel, is it.’

‘No, it is not particularly cruel. A big, strong ox hardly feels it. To the ox it is like a pinprick. And then there is no more feeling at all.’

‘But why do they have to die?’

‘Why? Because they are like us. We are mortal, so are they, and mortal beings have to die. That was what señor Arroyo had in mind when he made his joke about syllogisms.’

The boy shakes his head impatiently. ‘Why do they have to die to give us their meat?’

‘Because that is what happens when you cut an animal up: it dies. If you cut off a lizard’s tail he will grow a new tail. But an ox is not like a lizard. If you cut off an ox’s tail he won’t grow a new one. If you cut off his leg he will bleed to death. Davíd, I don’t want you to brood about these things. Oxen are good creatures. They wish us well. In their own language they say: If young Davíd needs to eat my flesh so that he can grow strong and healthy, then I willingly give it to him . Isn’t that so, Inés?’

Inés nods.

‘Then why don’t we eat people?’

‘Because it is disgusting,’ says Inés. ‘That’s why.’

Since Inés has never in the past shown an interest in fashion, he does not expect her to stay long at Modas Modernas. But he is wrong. She revels in her success as saleslady, particularly with the older clientele, who appreciate her patience with them. Discarding the wardrobe she brought with her from Novilla, she herself begins to wear newer fashions bought at a discount or borrowed from the shop.

With Claudia, the owner, a woman of her age, she strikes up a quick friendship. They lunch at a cafe around the corner, or buy sandwiches and eat them in the stockroom, where Claudia unburdens herself about her son, who has fallen into bad company and is on the verge of dropping out of school; also, in less specific terms, about her errant husband. Whether Inés unburdens herself in turn Inés does not say — at least not to him, Simón.

In preparation for the new season Claudia goes on a buying expedition to Novilla, leaving Inés in charge of the shop. Her sudden promotion arouses the ire of the cashier, Inocencia, who has been with Modas Modernas since its birth. It is a relief to all when Claudia returns.

He, Simón, listens nightly to Inés’ stories of the ups and downs of fashion, of troublesome or over-fastidious customers, of the unwished-for rivalry with Inocencia. About such meagre adventures as befall him on his delivery rounds Inés remains incurious.

On the next of her trips to Novilla Claudia invites Inés to accompany her. Inés asks him, Simón, what he thinks. Should she go? What if she is recognized and taken in by the police? He scoffs at her fears. On the scale of heinousness, he says, the crime of aiding and abetting a minor in the practice of truancy surely figures near the bottom. Davíd’s file will by now have been buried under mountains of other files; and even if it has not, the police surely have better things to do than comb the streets for delinquent parents.

So Inés accepts Claudia’s invitation. Together they catch the overnight train to Novilla and spend the day in a distributor’s warehouse in the industrial quarter of the city making their selection. During a break Inés telephones La Residencia and speaks to her brother Diego. Without preliminaries Diego demands the car back (he calls it his car). Inés refuses, but offers to pay him half its value if he will let her take it over. He asks for two-thirds; but she digs in her heels and he capitulates.

She asks to speak to her other brother, Stefano. Stefano is no longer at La Residencia, Diego informs her. He has gone to live in the city with his girlfriend, who is expecting a baby.

With Inés away or preoccupied with goings-on at Modas Modernas, it falls to him, Simón, to attend to Davíd’s needs. Besides accompanying him to the Academy in the mornings and fetching him home in the afternoons, he takes on the task of preparing his meals. His own command of the art of cooking is rudimentary, but fortunately the boy is so hungry these days that he eats whatever is put before him. He gobbles down huge helpings of mashed potato with green peas; he looks forward eagerly to roast chicken at the weekends.

He is growing fast. He will never be tall, but his limbs are well knit and his energy is boundless. After school he rushes off to join in football games with other boys from the apartment block. Though he is the youngest, his determination and his toughness win him the respect of older, bigger boys. His style of running — shoulders hunched, head lowered, elbows tucked into his sides — may be eccentric, but he is quick on his feet, hard to knock over.

At the beginning he, Simón, used to keep Bolívar on a leash while the boy was playing, for fear the dog might race onto the field and attack anyone who threatened his young master. But Bolívar has soon come to learn that running around after a ball is just a game, a human game. Now he is content to sit quietly on the sidelines, indifferent to the football, enjoying the mild warmth of the sun and the rich medley of smells in the air.