J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘I find her beautiful, in the way that a goddess is beautiful, but I don’t find her attractive. It would be — what shall I say? — irreverent to be attracted to her. Maybe even dangerous. She could strike a man dead.’

‘Strike you dead! Then you should take precautions. Wear armour. Carry a shield. You told me that the man from the museum, Dmitri, is infatuated with her. Have you warned him she can strike him dead too?’

‘No, I haven’t. I am not friends with Dmitri. We don’t exchange confidences.’

‘And the young man — who is he?’

‘The young man who went out with the children in the boat? That is Alyosha, the usher, the one who looks after the boarders. He seems nice.’

‘You seem to find it easy, being without clothes in front of strangers.’

‘Surprisingly easy, Inés. Surprisingly easy. One slips back into being an animal. Animals are not naked, they are simply themselves.’

‘I noticed you and your dangerous goddess being yourselves together. That must have been exciting.’

‘Don’t mock me.’

‘I am not mocking you. But why can’t you be frank with me? Anyone can see that you have fallen for her, just like Dmitri. Why not admit it instead of talking in circles?’

‘Because it is not true. Dmitri and I are different people.’

‘Dmitri and you are both men. That’s enough for me.’

The trip to the lake marks a further cooling in relations between Inés and himself. Soon afterwards she informs him that she will be taking a week’s leave in order to spend time in Novilla with her brothers. She misses her brothers, is thinking of inviting them to Estrella.

‘Your brothers and I have never got on well together,’ he says. ‘Particularly Diego. If they are going to be staying with you, maybe I should move out.’

Inés does not protest.

‘Give me time to find a place of my own,’ he says. ‘I would prefer not to announce it to Davíd, not yet. Do you agree?’

‘Couples get divorced every day and the children come through,’ says Inés. ‘Davíd will have me, he will have you, we just won’t be living together.’

He knows the city’s north-east by now like the back of his hand. Without difficulty he finds a room for himself with an ageing couple. The facilities are rudimentary, the electricity tends to cut out unpredictably, but the room is cheap and has its own entrance and is within reach of the city centre. While Inés is at work he removes his belongings from the apartment and installs himself in his new home.

Though he and Inés put on a show of spousal amity for the boy, he is not for a moment deceived. ‘Where is your stuff, Simón?’ he demands; whereupon he, Simón, has to admit that, for the time being, he has moved out to make way for Diego and perhaps Stefano too.

‘Is Diego going to be my uncle or my father?’ asks the boy.

‘He will be your uncle, as he has always been.’

‘And you?’

‘I will be what I have always been. I do not change. Things change around me but I am unchanging. You will see.’

If the boy is distressed by the rupture between Inés and him, Simón, he shows no sign of it. On the contrary, he is ebullient, full of stories about his life at the Academy. Ana Magdalena has a waffle machine and makes waffles for the boarders every morning. ‘You must buy a waffle machine, Inés, it’s brilliant.’ Alyosha has taken over the reading of their bedtime stories, and is reading them a story about three brothers and their quest for the sword Madragil, which is also brilliant. Behind the museum Ana Magdalena has a garden with an enclosure where she keeps rabbits and chickens and a lamb. One of the rabbits is naughty and keeps burrowing his way out. Once they found him hiding in the basement of the museum. His favourite among the animals is the lamb, whose name is Jeremiah. Jeremiah does not have a mother, so he has to drink cowsmilk out of a bottle with a rubber teat. Dmitri lets him hold the bottle for Jeremiah.

‘Dmitri?’

Dmitri, it turns out, is the one charged with looking after the Academy’s menagerie, just as Dmitri is the one charged with bringing wood from the cellar for the big oven and with swabbing the bathroom after the children have had their shower.

‘I thought Dmitri worked for the museum. Do the people at the museum know that Dmitri is also employed by the Academy?’

‘Dmitri doesn’t want money. He does it for Ana Magdalena. He will do anything for her because he loves her and worships her.’

‘Loves her and worships her: is that what he says?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s nice. That’s admirable. My concern is that Dmitri may be performing these services for love and worship during time when he is being paid by the museum to guard their pictures. But that is enough about Dmitri. What more can you tell us? Do you like being a boarder? Did we make the right decision?’

‘Yes. When I have bad dreams I wake Alyosha up and he lets me sleep in his bed.’

‘Is it just you who sleeps in Alyosha’s bed?’ asks Inés.

‘No, anyone who has bad dreams can sleep with Alyosha. He says so.’

‘And Alyosha? Whose bed does Alyosha sleep in when he has bad dreams of his own?’

The boy is not amused.

‘What about the dancing?’ asks he, Simón. ‘How is your dancing coming on?’

‘Ana Magdalena says I am the best dancer of all.’

‘That’s nice. When can I persuade you to do a dance for me?’

‘Never, because you don’t believe in it.’

You don’t believe in it . What does he have to believe in before the boy will dance for him? The mumbo-jumbo about the stars?

They eat together — Inés has cooked supper — then it is time for him to take his leave. ‘Good night, my boy. I’ll come by in the morning. We can take Bolívar for a walk. Maybe there will be a football game in the park.’

‘Ana Magdalena says, if you are a dancer you mustn’t play football. She says you can strain your muscles.’

‘Ana Magdalena knows about lots of things but she doesn’t know about football. You are a strong boy. You won’t hurt yourself playing football.’

‘Ana Magdalena says I mustn’t.’

‘Very well, I won’t force you to play football. But please explain one thing to me. You never obey me, you hardly ever obey Inés, yet you do exactly what Ana Magdalena tells you. Why so?’

There is no reply.

‘All right. Good night. I will see you in the morning.’

He trudges back to his lodgings in a bad mood. There was once a time when the boy gave himself heart and soul to Inés, or at least to Inés’ vision of him as the little prince in hiding; but those days seem to be over. For Inés it must be dispiriting to find herself supplanted by señora Arroyo. As for him, what place is left for him in the boy’s life? Perhaps he should follow the example of Bolívar. Bolívar has all but completed the move into the twilight of a dog’s life. He has grown a paunch; sometimes, as he settles down to sleep, he lets loose a sad little sigh. Yet if Inés were so thoughtless as to introduce a puppy into the household — a puppy meant to grow up and take the place of their present guardian — Bolívar would close his jaws around his junior rival’s neck and give him a shake until the neck bone snapped. Perhaps that is the kind of father he should become: idle, selfish, and dangerous. Perhaps the boy will respect him then.

Inés leaves on the promised trip to Novilla; for the time being the boy is again his responsibility. On Friday afternoon he is waiting outside the Academy. The bell rings, the students pour out, but there is no sign of Davíd.

He climbs the stairs. The studio is empty. Beyond it an unlit corridor leads to a series of rooms panelled in dark wood, empty of furniture. He passes through a dim space, a dining hall perhaps, with long, battered-looking tables and a sideboard stacked with crockery, and finds himself at the foot of another flight of stairs. From above comes the murmur of a male voice. He ascends, knocks at a closed door. The voice pauses. Then: ‘Come in.’