J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

A car stands outside the entrance to the Academy. A child whom he recognizes as one of Davíd’s classmates sits in the back, his face pressed to the window, while his mother tries to lift a suitcase into the trunk. He goes to her aid.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘You are Davíd’s father, aren’t you? I remember you from the concert. Shall we get out of the rain?’

He and she retreat to the entranceway, while Davíd clambers into the car with his friend.

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ says the woman, shaking the water from her hair. He recognizes her, remembers her name: Isabella. In her raincoat and high heels she is rather elegant, rather attractive. Her eyes are restless.

‘You mean the weather? Yes, I’ve never known rain like this before. It’s like the end of the world.’

‘No, I meant the business of señora Arroyo. So unsettling for the children. It had such a good reputation, the Academy. Now I begin to wonder. What are your plans for Davíd? Will you be keeping him here?’

‘I don’t know. His mother and I need to talk. What exactly do you mean about señora Arroyo?’

‘Haven’t you heard? They have broken up, the Arroyos, and she has decamped. I suppose one could have foreseen it, the younger woman and the older man. But in the middle of the term, with no warning to the parents. I don’t see how the Academy can go on functioning. That is the disadvantage of these small operations — they depend so much on individuals. Well, we must be off. How are we going to separate the children? You must be proud of Davíd. Such a clever boy, I hear.’

She raises the collar of her raincoat, braves the rain, raps on the window of the car. ‘Carlos! Carlito! We are leaving now! Goodbye, Davíd. Maybe you can come and play one day soon. We will give your parents a ring.’ A quick wave and she drives off.

The doors to the studio stand open. As they mount the stairs they hear organ music, a swift bravura passage played over and over again. Alyosha is waiting for them, his face strained. ‘Is it still raining out there?’ he says. ‘Come, Davíd, give us a hug.’

‘Don’t be sad, Alyosha,’ says the boy. ‘They have gone to a new life.’

Alyosha gives him, Simón, a puzzled glance.

‘Dmitri and Ana Magdalena,’ the boy patiently explains. ‘They have gone to a new life. They are going to be gypsies.’

‘I am totally confused, Alyosha,’ says he, Simón. ‘I hear one story after another, and I don’t know which to believe. It is imperative that I speak to señor Arroyo. Where is he?’

‘Señor Arroyo is playing,’ says Alyosha.

‘So I hear. Nevertheless, may I speak to him?’

The quick, brilliant passage he had heard is now being woven together with a heavier passage in the bass that seems obscurely related to it. There is no sorrow in the music, no pensiveness, nothing to suggest that the musician has been abandoned by his beautiful young wife.

‘He has been at the keyboard since six this morning,’ says Alyosha. ‘I don’t think he wants to be interrupted.’

‘Very well, I have time, I will wait. Can you see to it that Davíd puts on dry clothes? And may I use the telephone?’

He calls Modas Modernas. ‘This is Inés’ friend Simón. Can someone please pass on a message to Inés in Novilla? Tell her there is a crisis at the Academy and she should come home without delay. . No, I don’t have a number for her. . Just say a crisis at the Academy , she will understand.’

He sits down and waits for Arroyo. If he were not so exasperated he might be able to enjoy the music, the ingenious way in which the man interweaves motifs, the harmonic surprises, the logic of his resolutions. A true musician, no doubt about that, consigned to the role of schoolteacher. No wonder he is disinclined to face irate parents.

Alyosha returns bearing a plastic bag containing the boy’s wet clothes. ‘Davíd is saying hello to the animals,’ he reports.

Then the boy comes rushing in. ‘Alyosha! Simón!’ he shouts. ‘I know where he is! I know where Dmitri is! Come!’

They follow the boy down the back stairs into the vast, dimly lit basement of the museum, past racks of scaffolding, past canvases stacked pell-mell against the walls, past a clutch of marble nudes roped together, until they come to a little cubicle in a corner, made of sheets of plywood nailed together in a slapdash way, roofless. ‘Dmitri!’ the boy shouts, and beats on the door. ‘Alyosha is here, and Simón!’

There is no reply. Then he, Simón, notices the door to the cubicle is sealed with a padlock. ‘There is no one in there,’ he says. ‘It is locked from the outside.’

‘He is there!’ says the boy. ‘I can hear him! Dmitri!’

Alyosha drags one of the scaffolding panels across and leans it against a wall of the cubicle. He ascends, peers in, hastily descends.

Before anyone can stop him Davíd has scaled the scaffolding too. At the top he visibly freezes. Alyosha climbs up and brings him down.

‘What is it?’ asks he, Simón.

‘Ana Magdalena. Go. Take Davíd with you. Call an ambulance. Say there has been an accident. Tell them to come quickly.’ Then his legs buckle and he kneels on the floor. His face is pale. ‘Go, go, go!’ he says.

Everything that follows happens in a rush. The ambulance arrives, then the police. The museum is cleared of visitors; a guard is placed at the entrance; the stairway to the basement is barred. With the two Arroyo boys and the remaining boarders in tow, Alyosha retreats to the top floor of the building. Of señor Arroyo there is no sign: the organ loft is empty.

He approaches one of the police officers. ‘May we leave?’ he asks.

‘Who are you?’

‘We are the people who discovered. . who discovered the body. My son Davíd is a student here. He is very upset. I would like to take him home.’

‘I don’t want to go home,’ announces the boy. He has a set, stubborn look; the shock that had silenced him seems to have worn off. ‘I want to see Ana Magdalena.’

‘That is certainly not going to happen.’

A whistle sounds. Without a word the officer abandons them. At the same moment the boy takes off across the studio, running with his head down like a little bull. He, Simón, catches up with him only at the foot of the stairs, where two ambulancemen, bearing a stretcher draped in a white sheet, are trying to get past a knot of people. The sheet catches, uncovering for a moment the deceased señora Arroyo as far down as her naked bosom. The left side of her face is blue, almost black. Her eyes are wide open. Her upper lip is drawn back in a snarl. Swiftly the ambulancemen replace the sheet.

A uniformed police officer takes the boy by the arm, restraining him. ‘Let me go!’ he shouts, struggling to be free. ‘I want to save her!’

The police officer lifts him effortlessly into the air and holds him there, kicking. He, Simón, does not intervene, but waits until the stretcher has been lodged in the ambulance and the doors have slammed shut.

‘You can let him go now,’ he says to the officer. ‘I will take over. He is my son. He is upset. She was his teacher.’

He has neither the energy nor the spirit to ride the bicycle. Side by side he and the boy trudge through the monotonous rain back to the cottage. ‘I’m getting wet again,’ complains the boy. He drapes the oilskin over him.

They are greeted at the door by Bolívar, in his usual stately fashion. ‘Sit close to Bolívar,’ he instructs the boy. ‘Let him warm you. Let him give you some of his heat.’

‘What is going to happen to Ana Magdalena?’

‘She will be at the hospital by now. I am not going to talk about it any further. It has been enough for one day.’