J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘Does Dmitri suffer from lust because of Ana Magdalena?’

‘Davíd, Ana Magdalena is a married woman. She has a husband of her own to love. She can be a friend to Dmitri but she can’t love him. Dmitri needs a woman who will love him for himself. As soon as he finds a woman who loves him he will be cured of all his woes. He won’t need to look at pictures anymore, and he won’t need to tell every passer-by how much he worships the lady upstairs. But I am sure he is grateful to you for listening to his stories, for being a good friend to him. I am sure it has helped him.’

‘He told another boy he is going to kill himself. He is going to shoot a bullet through his head.’

‘Which boy was that?’

‘Another boy.’

‘I don’t believe it. The boy must have misunderstood. Dmitri isn’t going to kill himself. Besides, he doesn’t have a gun. On Monday morning, when I take you to school, I’ll have a chat to Dmitri and ask him what is wrong and what we can do to help. Maybe, when we all go to the lake, we can invite Dmitri along. Shall we do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Until then, I don’t want you to see Dmitri in private. Do you understand? Do you understand what I am saying?’

The boy is silent, refuses to meet his gaze.

‘Davíd, do you understand what I am saying? This is a serious matter. You don’t know Dmitri. You don’t know why he takes you into his confidence. You don’t know what is going on in his heart.’

‘He was crying. I saw him. He was hiding in the closet and crying.’

‘Which closet?’

‘The closet with the brooms and stuff.’

‘Did he tell you why he was crying?’

‘No.’

‘Well, when there is something weighing on our heart it often does us good to cry. There is probably something weighing on Dmitri’s heart, and now that he has cried his heart is less burdened. I’ll talk to him. I’ll find out what is wrong. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

He is as good as his word. On Monday morning, after delivering Davíd to his class, he seeks out Dmitri. He finds him in one of the exhibition rooms, standing on a chair, using a long feather duster to dust a framed painting high on the wall. The painting shows a man and a woman dressed rather formally in black sitting on a lawn in sylvan surroundings, with a picnic cloth spread before them, while in the background a herd of cattle graze peacefully.

‘Do you have a moment, Dmitri?’ he says.

Dmitri descends and faces him.

‘Davíd tells me that you have been inviting children from the Academy into your room. He also tells me you have been showing him pictures of naked women. If this is true, I want you to put a stop to it at once. Otherwise there will be serious consequences for you, which I don’t need to spell out. Do you understand me?’

Dmitri tilts his cap back. ‘You think I am violating these children’s pretty young bodies? Is that what you are accusing me of?’

‘I am not accusing you of anything. I am sure your relations with the children are entirely blameless. But children imagine things, they exaggerate things, they talk among themselves, they talk to their parents. The whole business could turn nasty. Surely you see that.’

A young couple wander into the exhibition room, the first visitors of the day. Dmitri returns the chair to its proper place in a corner, then sits down on it, holding the feather duster erect like a spear. ‘Entirely blameless,’ he says in a low voice. ‘You say that to my face: entirely blameless ? Surely you joke, Simón. Is that your name: Simón?’

The young couple cast them a glance, whisper together, leave the room.

‘Next year, Simón, I will celebrate my forty-fifth year in this life. Yesterday I was a stripling and today, in the blink of an eye, I am forty-four, with whiskers and a big belly and a bad knee and everything else that goes with being forty-four. Do you really believe that one can reach such an advanced age and still be entirely blameless ? Would you say that of yourself? Are you entirely blameless?’

‘Please, Dmitri, no speeches. I came to make a request, a polite request. Stop inviting children from the Academy into your room. Stop showing them dirty pictures. Also, stop talking to them about their teacher, señora Arroyo, and your feelings for her. They don’t understand.’

‘And if I don’t stop?’

‘If you don’t stop I will report you to the museum authorities and you will lose your job. It is as simple as that.’

‘As simple as that. . Nothing in this life is simple, Simón — you ought to know that. Let me tell you about this job of mine. Before I came to the museum I worked in the hospital. Not as a doctor, I hasten to say, I was always the stupid one, never passed my exams, no good at book learning. Dmitri the dumb ox. No, I wasn’t a doctor, I was an orderly, doing the jobs no one else wanted to do. For seven years, on and off, I was a hospital orderly. I have told you about it already, if you remember. I don’t regret those years. I saw a lot of life, a lot of life and a lot of death. So much death that in the end I had to walk away, couldn’t face it anymore. I took this job instead, where there is nothing to do but sit around all day, yawning, waiting for the bell to ring for closing time. If it wasn’t for the Academy upstairs, if it wasn’t for Ana Magdalena, I would have perished long ago of boredom.

‘Why do you think I chat to your little boy, Simón, and to other little ones? Why do you think I play games with them and buy them sweets? Is it because I want to corrupt them? Is it because I want to violate them? No. Believe it or not, I play with them in the hope that some of that fragrance and innocence of theirs will rub off on me, so that I won’t turn into a sullen, lonely old man sitting in a corner like a spider, no good to anyone, superfluous, undesired. Because what good am I by myself, and what good are you by yourself — yes, you, Simón! — what good are we by ourselves, tired, used-up old men like us? We might as well lock ourselves in the lavatory and put a bullet through our heads. Don’t you agree?’

‘Forty-four isn’t old, Dmitri. You are in the prime of life. You don’t need to haunt the corridors of the Arroyos’ dance academy. You could get married, you could have children of your own.’

‘I could. I could indeed. You think I don’t want to? But there is a catch, Simón, there is a catch. The catch is señora Arroyo. I am encaprichado with her. Are you familiar with the word? No? You will find it in books. Infatuated. You know it, she knows it, everyone knows it, it is no secret. Even señor Arroyo knows, whose head is up in the clouds most of the time. I am infatuated with señora Arroyo, crazy about her, loco , that is the beginning and the end of it. You say, Give her up, look elsewhere . But I won’t. I am too stupid to do that — too stupid, too simple-minded, too old-fashioned, too faithful. Like a dog. I am not ashamed to say it. I am Ana Magdalena’s dog. I lick the ground where her foot has trod. On my knees. And now you want me to abandon her, just like that, abandon her and find a replacement. Gentleman, responsible, steady employment, no longer young, seeks respectable widow with view to marriage. Write box 123, include photograph.

‘It won’t work, Simón. It is not the woman in box 123 whom I love but Ana Magdalena Arroyo. What kind of husband would I make for box 123, what kind of father, as long as I bear Ana Magdalena’s image in my heart? And those children you wish on me, those children of my own: do you think they will love me, children engendered from the loins of indifference? Of course not. They will hate and despise me, which will be exactly what I deserve. Who needs an absent-hearted father?