J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

According to Inés, Bolívar is seven years old, but he, Simón, wonders whether the dog is not older. Certainly he is in the latter phase of his life, the phase of decline. He has begun to put on weight; though he is an intact male, he seems to have lost interest in bitches. He has become less approachable too. Other dogs are wary of him. He has only to lift his head and give a muted growl to send them slinking off.

He, Simón, is the sole spectator of the scrappy afternoon football games, games whose action is continually interrupted by arguments among the players. One day a deputation of older boys approaches him to ask if he will referee. He declines: ‘I’m too old and unfit,’ he says. This is not entirely true; but in retrospect he is glad he refused and suspects Davíd is glad too.

He wonders who the boys from the apartment block think he is: Davíd’s father? His grandfather? An uncle? What story has Davíd told them? That the man who watches their games shares a home with him and his mother, though he sleeps alone? Is Davíd proud of him or ashamed of him or both proud and ashamed; or is a six-year-old, soon to be seven, too young to have ambivalent feelings?

At least the boys respect the dog. The first day he arrived with the dog they gathered in a circle around him. ‘His name is Bolívar,’ Davíd announced. ‘He is an Alsatian. He won’t bite you.’ Bolívar the Alsatian gazed calmly into the distance, allowing the boys to revere him.

In the apartment he, Simón, behaves more like a lodger than an equal member of the family. He takes care to keep his room neat and tidy at all times. He does not leave his toiletries in the bathroom, or his coat on the rack by the front door. How Inés explains his role in her life to Claudia and the wider world he does not know. She has certainly never referred to him, in his hearing, as her husband; if she prefers to present him as a gentleman boarder, he is happy to play along.

Inés is a difficult woman. Nonetheless, he finds in himself a growing admiration for her, and a growing affection too. Who would have thought she would put La Residencia behind her, and the easy life she lived there, and devote herself with such single-mindedness to the fortunes of this wilful child!

‘Are we a family, you and Inés and I?’ asks the boy.

‘Of course we are a family,’ he duly replies. ‘Families take many forms. We are one of the forms a family can take.’

‘But do we have to be a family?’

He has made a resolution not to give in to irritation, to take the boy’s questions seriously even when they are merely idle.

‘If we wanted, we could be less of a family. I could move out and find lodgings of my own and see you only now and again. Or Inés could fall in love and get married and take you to live with her new husband. But those are roads neither of us wants to follow.’

‘Bolívar doesn’t have a family.’

‘We are Bolívar’s family. We look after Bolívar and Bolívar looks after us. But no, you are right, Bolívar does not have a family, a dog family. He used to have a family when he was little, but then he grew up and found he didn’t need a family any longer. Bolívar prefers to live by himself and meet other dogs in the street, casually. You may make a similar decision when you grow up: to live by yourself without a family. But while you are still young you need us to look after you. So we are your family: Inés and Bolívar and I.’

If we wanted, we could be less of a family. Two days after this conversation the boy announces, out of the blue, that he wants to become a boarder at the Academy.

He, Simón, tries to discourage him. ‘Why would you want to move to the Academy when you have such a nice life here?’ he says. ‘Inés will miss you terribly. I will miss you.’

‘Inés won’t miss me. Inés never recognized me.’

‘Of course she did.’

‘She says she didn’t.’

‘Inés loves you. She holds you in her heart.’

‘But she didn’t recognize me. Señor Arroyo recognizes me.’

‘If you go to señor Arroyo you will no longer have a room of your own. You will have to sleep in a dormitory with the other children. When you feel lonely in the middle of the night you will have no one to go to for comfort. Señor Arroyo and Ana Magdalena certainly won’t let you climb into their bed. There will be no one to play football with in the afternoons. For supper you will get carrots and cauliflower, which you hate, instead of mashed potatoes and gravy. And what of Bolívar? Bolívar won’t know what has happened. Where is my young master? Bolívar will say. Why has he abandoned me? ’

‘Bolívar can visit me,’ says the boy. ‘You can bring him.’

‘It’s a big decision, becoming a boarder. Can’t we leave it until the next quarter, and give ourselves time to think it over properly?’

‘No. I want to be a boarder now.’

He speaks to Inés. ‘I don’t know what Ana Magdalena could have promised him,’ he says. ‘I think it is a bad idea. He is far too young to leave home.’

To his surprise, Inés disagrees. ‘Let him go. He will soon be begging to come home again. It will teach him a lesson.’

It is the last thing he would have expected of her: to give up her precious son to the Arroyos.

‘It will be expensive,’ he says. ‘Let us at least discuss it with the sisters, see how they feel. It is, after all, their money.’

Though they have not been invited to the sisters’ residence in Estrella, they have been careful to maintain the link with Roberta on the farm, and to pay the occasional call when the sisters are there, as a token that they have not forgotten their generosity. On these visits Davíd is unusually forthcoming about the Academy. The sisters have heard him expound on the noble numbers and the auxiliary numbers and watched him perform some of the movements from the simpler dances, the Two and the Three, dances which if done justly call down their respective noble numbers from the stars. They have been charmed by his physical grace and impressed by the gravity with which he presents the unusual teachings of the Academy. But on this new visit the boy is faced with a challenge of another kind: to explain to them why he wants to leave home and live with the Arroyos.

‘Are you sure that señor and señora Arroyo will have room for you?’ asks Consuelo. ‘As I understand it — correct me if I am wrong, Inés — there are just the two of them, and they have quite a complement of boarders as well as children of their own. What have you got against living at home with your parents?’

‘They don’t understand me,’ says the boy.

Consuelo and Valentina exchange glances. ‘ My parents don’t understand me ,’ says Consuelo ruminatively. ‘Where have I heard those words before? Pray tell me, young man: why is it so important that your parents should understand you? Is it not enough that they are good parents?’

‘Simón doesn’t understand the numbers,’ says the boy.

‘I don’t understand numbers either. I leave that sort of thing to Roberta.’

The boy is silent.

‘Have you thought carefully about this, Davíd?’ asks Valentina. ‘Is your mind made up? Are you sure that after a week with the Arroyos you won’t change your mind and ask to come home?’

‘I won’t change my mind.’

‘Very well,’ says Consuelo. She glances at Valentina, at Alma. ‘You can have your wish and become a boarder at the Academy. We will discuss the fees with señora Arroyo. But your complaint about your parents, that they don’t understand you, pains us. It seems to be asking a lot that they should not only be good parents but understand you as well. I certainly don’t understand you.’