J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

Before he takes Juan back to Estrella, he has a moment alone with Inés. ‘What do you think?’ he murmurs. ‘Shall we stay?’

‘It seems a good place. I am prepared to stay here while we look around. But we must have a plan. I haven’t come all this distance to settle into the life of a common labourer.’

He and Inés have been over the ground before. If they are being pursued by the law, then they ought to be prudent. But are they being pursued? Do they have reason to fear pursuit? Does the law have such ample resources that it can dispatch officers to the farthest corners of the land to hunt down a six-year-old truant? Is it of veritable concern to the authorities in Novilla whether a child does or does not go to school, so long as he does not grow up analphabete? He, Simón, doubts it. On the other hand, what if it is not the truant child who is being hunted but the couple who, perjuriously claiming to be his parents, have kept him out of school? If it is he and Inés who are being sought, rather than the child, then should they not lie low until their pursuers, exhausted, abandon the chase?

‘A week,’ he proposes. ‘Let us be common labourers for a week. Then we can reassess.’

He drives to Estrella and drops Juan off at the home of friends of his who run a printing shop. Back at the farm, he joins Inés and the boy in exploring their new surroundings. They visit the orchards and are initiated into the mysteries of the shears and the pruning knife. Davíd is wooed away from their side and disappears, who knows where, with the other children. He returns at supper time with scratches on his arms and legs. They have been climbing trees, he says. Inés wants to put iodine on the scratches but he will not let her. They retire early, like everyone else, Davíd to his desired upper bunk.

By the time the truck arrives the next morning, he and Inés have had a hurried breakfast. Davíd, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, does not join them. Along with their new comrades they climb aboard and are delivered to the vineyards; following the example of their comrades, he and Inés hitch baskets on their backs and set to work.

While they labour the children are free to do as they please. Led by the eldest of the tribe of five, a tall, skinny boy named Bengi, with a mass of curly black hair, they race uphill to the earthen dam that waters the vineyards. The ducks that had been paddling there take off in alarm, all save a pair with young too immature to fly, who in an effort to escape urge their brood toward the far bank. They are too slow: the whooping children head them off, forcing them back to the middle of the dam. Bengi begins hurling stones; the younger ones imitate him. Unable to flee, the birds paddle around in circles, quacking loudly. A stone strikes the more gorgeously coloured male. He rises half out of the water, falls back, and splashes around trailing a shattered wing. Bengi gives a cry of triumph. The torrent of stones and clods of earth redoubles.

He and Inés harken uncertainly to the clamour; the other pickers pay no attention. ‘What do you think is going on?’ says Inés. ‘Do you think Davíd is safe?’

He drops his basket, clambers up the hillside, arrives at the dam in time to see Davíd give the older boy so furious a shove that he staggers and nearly falls. ‘Stop it!’ he hears him shout.

The boy stares in astonishment at his assailant, then turns and hurls another stone at the ducks.

Now Davíd plunges into the water, shoes and all, and begins splashing in the direction of the birds.

‘Davíd!’ he, Simón, calls. The child ignores him.

Inés, in the vineyard below, drops her basket and begins running. Not since he watched her playing tennis a year ago has he seen her exert herself. She is slow; she has put on weight.

Out of nowhere the great dog appears and races past her, straight as an arrow. In a matter of moments he has leapt into the dam and is at Davíd’s side. Gripping his shirt in his teeth, he hauls the thrashing, protesting child to the bank.

Inés arrives. The dog slumps down, his ears cocked, his eyes on her, waiting for a sign, while Davíd, in his sodden clothes, wails and beats him with his fists. ‘I hate you, Bolívar!’ he cries. ‘That boy was throwing stones, Inés! He wanted to kill the duck!’

He, Simón, lifts the struggling child into his arms. ‘Calm down, calm down,’ he says. ‘The duck isn’t dead — see! — he just had a bump. He will soon get better. Now I think all you children should come away and let the ducks calm down and get on with their lives. And you must not say you hate Bolívar. You love Bolívar, we all know that, and Bolívar loves you. He thought you were drowning. He was trying to save you.’

Angrily Davíd wriggles out of his arms. ‘I was going to save the duck,’ he says. ‘I didn’t ask Bolívar to come. Bolívar is stupid. He is a stupid dog. Now you have got to save him, Simón. Go on, save him!’

He, Simón, takes off his shoes and shirt. ‘Since you insist, I will try. However, let me point out that a duck’s idea of being saved may be different from your idea of being saved. It may include being left in peace by human beings.’

Other of the grape-pickers have by now arrived. ‘Stay — I will go,’ a younger man offers.

‘No. It’s kind of you, but this is my child’s business.’ He takes off his trousers and in his underpants wades into the brown water. With barely a splash the dog appears at his side. ‘Go away, Bolívar,’ he murmurs. ‘I don’t need to be saved.’

Clustered on the bank, the grape-pickers watch as the no-longer-young gentleman with the physique not quite as firm as it used to be in his stevedoring days sets about doing his child’s bidding.

The water is not deep. Even at its deepest it does not rise to above his chest. But he can barely move his feet in the soft ooze of the floor. There is no chance at all that he can catch the duck with the broken wing, who splashes about on the surface in ragged circles, to say nothing of the mother duck, who has by now attained the farther bank and scuttled away into the undergrowth followed by her brood.

It is Bolívar who does the job for him. Sailing past like a ghost, with only his head showing above the water, he tracks the wounded bird, closes his jaws like a vice on the trailing wing, and hauls him toward the bank. At first there is a flurry of resistance, of beating and splashing; then all at once the bird seems to give up and accept its fate. By the time he, Simón, has emerged from the water the duck is in the arms of the young man who had offered to go in his place and is being inspected curiously by the children.

Though well above the horizon, the sun barely warms him. Shivering, he puts on his clothes.

Bengi, the one who cast the stone that caused all the trouble, strokes the head of the entirely passive bird.

‘Tell him you are sorry for what you did,’ says the young man.

‘I’m sorry,’ mutters Bengi. ‘Can we fix his wing? Can we tie a splint on it?’

The young man shakes his head. ‘He is a wild creature,’ he says. ‘He will not submit to wearing a splint. It is all right. He is ready to die. He has accepted it. Look. Look at his eyes. He is already dead.’

‘He can stay in my bunk,’ says Bengi. ‘I can feed him till he gets better.’

‘Turn your back,’ says the young man.

Bengi does not understand.

‘Turn your back,’ says the young man.

To Inés, who is meanwhile drying off the boy, he, Simón, whispers: ‘Don’t let him look.’

She presses the boy’s head into her skirts. He resists, but she is firm.

The young man grips the bird between his knees. A swift motion, and it is done. The head lolls awkwardly; a film comes over the eyes. He hands the feathered carcass to Bengi. ‘Go and bury him,’ he orders. ‘Go on.’