J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘You may know, Davíd, but that is because you have read the story before,’ says Ana Magdalena. ‘Let us give other children a chance.’

‘What happened to the elephant?’ The speaker is the younger of the Arroyo boys.

‘Alyosha, what happened to the elephant?’ says Ana Magdalena.

‘The elephant was swept up into the skies by a great whirlwind and deposited back in his forest home, where he lived happily ever after,’ says Alyosha evenly.

A look passes from his eyes to hers. For the first time it occurs to him that something might be going on between them, between the director’s alabaster-pure wife and the handsome young usher.

‘What can we learn from the story of the fisherman?’ repeats Ana Magdalena. ‘Was the fisherman a good man or a bad man?’

‘He was a bad man,’ says the younger Arroyo boy. ‘He beat the elephant.’

‘He didn’t beat the elephant, his bride beat the elephant,’ says the older Arroyo boy, Joaquín.

‘But he made her do it.’

‘The fisherman was bad because he was selfish,’ says Joaquín. ‘He only thought about himself when he was given the three wishes. He should have thought about other people.’

‘So what do we learn from the story of the fisherman?’ says Ana Magdalena.

‘That we should not be selfish.’

‘Do we agree, children?’ says Ana Magdalena. ‘Do we agree with Joaquín that the story warns us against being selfish, that if we are too selfish we will end up being chased away into the desert by our neighbours? Davíd, did you want to say something.’

‘The villagers were wrong,’ says Davíd. He looks around, lifting his chin in a challenging way.

‘Explain,’ says Ana Magdalena. ‘Give your reasons. Why were the villagers wrong?’

‘He was king. They should have bowed down before him.’

From Dmitri, squatting on his heels at the doorway, comes the sound of slow handclapping. ‘Bravo, Davíd,’ says Dmitri. ‘Spoken like a master.’

Ana Magdalena frowns at Dmitri. ‘Don’t you have duties?’ she says.

‘Duties to statues? The statues are dead, every one of them, they can take care of themselves.’

‘He wasn’t a real king,’ says Joaquín, who seems to be growing in confidence. ‘He was a fisherman pretending to be king. That’s what the story says.’

‘He was king,’ says Davíd. ‘The genie made him king. The genie was all-powerful.’

The two boys glare at each other. Alyosha intervenes. ‘How do we come to be king?’ he asks. ‘That is the true question, is it not? How does any of us come to be king? Do we have to meet a genie? Do we have to cut open a fish and find a magic ring?’

‘You first have to be a prince,’ says Joaquín. ‘You can’t be a king if you haven’t been a prince first.’

‘You can,’ says Davíd. ‘He had three wishes and it was his third wish. The genie made him king of the world.’

Again, from Dmitri, comes slow, resounding handclapping. Ana Magdalena ignores him. ‘So what do you think we can learn from the story, Davíd?’ she asks.

The boy takes a deep breath, as if about to speak, then abruptly shakes his head.

‘What?’ repeats Ana Magdalena.

‘I don’t know. I can’t see it.’

‘Time for us to go, Davíd,’ he says, and rises. ‘Thank you, Alyosha, for the reading. Thank you, señora.’

This is the boy’s first visit to the cramped room where he, Simón, now lives. He makes no comment on it, but drinks his orange juice and eats his biscuits. Then, with Bolívar shadowing them, they go for a walk, exploring the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood is not interesting, just one street after another of narrow-fronted residences. It is Friday evening, however, and people coming home from the week’s labour glance curiously at the small boy and the big dog with the cold yellow eyes.

‘This is my territory,’ says he, Simón. ‘This is where I deliver my messages, to all the streets around here. It is not a grand job, but being a stevedore wasn’t a grand job either. Each of us finds the level that suits us best, and this is my level.’

They halt at an intersection. Bolívar pads past them into the road. A burly man on a bicycle swerves to avoid him, glances back angrily. ‘Bolívar!’ exclaims the boy. Lazily Bolívar returns to his side.

‘Bolívar behaves as if he were king,’ says he, Simón. ‘He behaves as if he had met a genie. He thinks everyone should give way before him. He ought to think again. Maybe his wishes are all used up. Or maybe his genie was just made of smoke.’

‘Bolívar is king of the dogs,’ says the boy.

‘Being king of the dogs won’t save him from being run over by a car. The king of the dogs is just a dog, in the end.’

For whatever reason, the boy is not his usual lively self. At the table, over their meal of mashed potato and gravy and peas, his eyelids droop. Without protest he settles into his bed on the sofa.

‘Sleep tight,’ he, Simón, whispers, kissing him on the brow.

‘I’m getting tiny-tiny-tiny,’ the boy says in a croaky, half-asleep voice. ‘I’m getting tiny-tiny-tiny and I’m falling.’

‘Let yourself fall,’ he whispers. ‘I am here to watch over you.’

‘Am I a ghost, Simón?’

‘No, you are not a ghost, you are real. You are real and I am real. Now sleep.’

In the morning he seems more perky. ‘What are we going to do today?’ he says. ‘Can we go to the lake? I want to sail in the boat again.’

‘Not today. We can make an excursion to the lake when Diego and Stefano are here, when we show them the sights. How about a football match instead? I’ll buy a newspaper and see who is playing.’

‘I don’t want to watch football. It’s boring. Can we go to the museum?’

‘All right. But is it really the museum you want to visit or is it Dmitri? Why do you like Dmitri so much? Is it because he gives you sweets?’

‘He talks to me. He tells me things.’

‘He tells you stories?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dmitri is a lonely man. He is always looking for someone to tell his stories to. It’s a bit pathetic. He should find himself a girlfriend.’

‘He is in love with Ana Magdalena.’

‘Yes, so he told me, so he tells anyone who will listen to him. Ana Magdalena must find it embarrassing.’

‘He has pictures of women with no clothes on.’

‘Well, it doesn’t surprise me. That is what men do when they are lonely, some men. They collect pictures of beautiful women and dream of what it would be like to be with them. Dmitri is lonely and he doesn’t know what to do about his loneliness, so when he isn’t following señora Arroyo around like a dog he looks at pictures. We can’t blame him, but he should not be showing his pictures to you. It’s not nice, and it will make Inés cross if she hears about it. I’ll speak to him. Does he show them to other children as well?’

The boy nods.

‘What else can you tell me? What do you and he talk about?’

‘About the other life. He says he is going to be with Ana Magdalena in the other life.’

‘Is that all?’

‘He says I can be with them in the other life.’

‘You and who else?’

‘Just me.’

‘I will definitely speak to him. I will speak to Ana Magdalena too. I am not happy about Dmitri. I don’t think you should be seeing so much of him. Now finish your breakfast.’

‘Dmitri says he has lust. What is lust?’

‘Lust is a condition that grown-ups suffer from, my boy, usually grown men like Dmitri who are by themselves too much without a wife or a girlfriend. It is a kind of ache, like a headache or a stomach ache. It makes them have fantasies. It makes them imagine things that aren’t true.’