J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘So thank you for your considered and considerate advice, but unfortunately I cannot follow it. When it comes to life’s great choices, I follow my heart. Why? Because the heart is always right and the head is always wrong. Do you understand?’

He begins to see why Davíd is captivated by this man. No doubt there is an element of posturing in all this talk of extravagant, unrequited love, as well as a perverse kind of boasting. Mockery too: from the beginning he has felt he is singled out for these confidences only because Dmitri regards him as a eunuch or a moon-dweller, alien to the earthly passions. But the performance is a powerful one nonetheless. How wholehearted, how grand, how true Dmitri must appear to a boy of Davíd’s age, compared with a dry old stick like himself!

‘Yes, Dmitri, I understand. You make yourself clear, all too clear. Let me make myself clear too. Your relations with señora Arroyo are your business, not mine. Señora Arroyo is a grown woman, she can take care of herself. But children are a different matter. The Arroyos are running a school, not an orphanage. You cannot take over their students and adopt them into a family of your own. They are not your children , Dmitri, just as señora Arroyo is not your wife. I want you to stop inviting Davíd, my child, the child for whose welfare I am responsible, into your room and showing him dirty pictures. My child or any other child. If you don’t put a stop to it I will see to it that you are dismissed. That is all.’

‘A threat, Simón? Are you issuing threats?’ Dmitri rises from his chair, still holding the feather duster. ‘You, a stranger from nowhere, threatening me? Do you think I have no power here?’ His lips open in a smile that reveals his yellowed teeth. Lightly he shakes the feathers in his, Simón’s, face. ‘Do you think I have no friends in higher places?’

He, Simón, steps back. ‘What I think is of no consequence to you,’ he says coldly. ‘I have said what I had to say. Good morning.’

That night it begins to rain. It rains all day too, without interruption or promise of interruption. The bicycle messengers are unable to go out on their rounds. He stays in his room, killing time, listening to music on the radio, dozing, while water drips into a bucket from a leak in the roof.

On the third day of the rains the door to his room bursts open and Davíd stands before him, his clothes sodden, his hair plastered to his scalp.

‘I ran away,’ he announces. ‘I ran away from the Academy.’

‘You ran away from the Academy! Come, close the door, take off those wet clothes, you must be icy cold. I thought you liked it at the Academy. Has something happened?’ While he talks he fusses around the boy, undressing him, wrapping him in a towel.

‘Ana Magdalena is gone. And Dmitri too. They are both gone.’

‘I’m sure there is some explanation. Do they know you are here? Does señor Arroyo know? Does Alyosha know?’

The boy shakes his head.

‘They will be worried. Let me make you something warm to drink, then I will go out and telephone to say you are safe.’

Donning his yellow oilskin and yellow mariner’s cap he goes out into the downpour. From the telephone booth on the street corner he calls the Academy. There is no reply.

He returns to the room. ‘No one answers,’ he says. ‘I will have to go there myself. Wait for me here. Please, please don’t run away.’

This time he goes by bicycle. It takes him fifteen minutes, through the downpour. He arrives drenched to the bone. The studio is empty, but in the cavernous dining hall he finds Davíd’s comrades the boarders seated at one of the long tables with Alyosha reading to them. Alyosha breaks off and stares at him enquiringly.

‘I am sorry to interrupt,’ he says. ‘I telephoned but there was no reply. I have come to tell you that Davíd is safe. He is at home with me.’

Alyosha blushes. ‘I’m sorry. I have been trying to keep everyone together, but sometimes I lose track. I thought he was upstairs.’

‘No, he is with me. He said something about Ana Magdalena being gone.’

‘Yes, Ana Magdalena is away. We are having a break from classes until she comes back.’

‘And when will that be?’

Alyosha shrugs helplessly.

He pedals back to the cottage. ‘Alyosha says they are having a break from classes,’ he tells the boy. ‘He says Ana Magdalena will be back soon. She hasn’t run away at all. That is just a nonsense story.’

‘It is not nonsense. Ana Magdalena has run away with Dmitri. They are going to be gypsies.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Dmitri.’

‘Dmitri is a dreamer. He has always dreamed of running away with Ana Magdalena. Ana Magdalena has no interest in him.’

‘You never listen to me! They have run away. They are going to have a new life. I don’t want to go back to the Academy. I want to go with Ana Magdalena and Dmitri.’

‘You want to leave Inés and be with Ana Magdalena?’

‘Ana Magdalena loves me. Dmitri loves me. Inés doesn’t love me.’

‘Of course Inés loves you! She can’t wait to get back from Novilla so that she can be with you again. As for Dmitri, he doesn’t love anyone. He is incapable of love.’

‘He loves Ana Magdalena.’

‘He has a passion for Ana Magdalena. That’s a different thing. Passion is selfish. Love is unselfish. Inés loves you in an unselfish way. So do I.’

‘It’s boring being with Inés. It’s boring being with you. When is it going to stop raining? I hate the rain.’

‘I am sorry to hear you are so bored. As for the rain, I am unfortunately not the emperor of the heavens, so there is nothing I can do to stop it.’

Estrella has two radio stations. He switches to the second station just as the announcer is reporting the closure of the agricultural fair on account of the ‘unseasonable’ weather. That news is followed by a long recital of bus services that have been curtailed, and of schools that are suspending classes. ‘Estrella’s two academies will be closing their gates too, the Academy of Singing and the Academy of Dance.’

‘I told you,’ says the boy. ‘I am never going back to the Academy. I hate it there.’

‘A month ago you loved the Academy. Now you hate it. Maybe, Davíd, it is time for you to learn that there are not only two feelings you can have, love and hate, that there are many other feelings too. If you decide to hate the Academy and turn your back on it, you will soon find yourself in one of the public schools, where your teachers won’t read you stories about genies and elephants but make you do sums all day, sixty-three divided by nine, seventy-two divided by six. You are a lucky boy, Davíd, lucky and much indulged. I think you should wake up to that fact.’

Having said his say, he goes out in the rain and calls the Academy. This time Alyosha picks up the telephone. ‘Alyosha! It is Simón again. I have just heard on the radio that the Academy is going to be closed until the rain stops. Why didn’t you tell me? Let me speak to señor Arroyo.’

A long silence. Then: ‘Señor Arroyo is busy, he can’t come to the telephone.’

‘Señor Arroyo, the director of your Academy, is too busy to speak to parents. Señora Arroyo has abandoned her duties and cannot be found. What is going on?’

Silence. From outside the booth a young woman casts him an exasperated look, mouths words, taps her wristwatch. She has an umbrella, but it is flimsy, no proof against the squalls of rain that sweep down on her.

‘Alyosha, listen to me. We are coming back, Davíd and I. We are coming at once. Leave the door unlocked. Goodbye.’

He has given up trying to keep dry. They ride to the Academy together, the boy sitting on the crossbar of the heavy old bicycle, peering out from under the yellow oilskin, shouting with pleasure and lifting his feet high as they plough through sheets of water. The traffic lights are not working, the streets are almost empty. On the town square the stallholders have long since packed up and gone home.