J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘No, Simón, no, no, no! You can’t bring them here, it is too risky! No one must see those papers, not even you!’

‘The last thing in the world I want is to see these so-called private papers of yours. I am sure they consist of nothing but filth.’

‘Yes! Exactly! Filth! Which is why they must be destroyed! So that there shall be less filth in the world!’

‘No. I refuse to do it. Find someone else.’

‘There is no one else, Simón, no one I trust. If you do not help me, no one will. It will be only a matter of time before someone finds them and sells them to the newspapers. Then scandal will erupt again, and all the old wounds will be reopened. You can’t allow that to happen, Simón. Think of the children who befriended me and brightened my days. Think of your youngster.’

‘Scandal indeed. The truth is, you don’t want your collection of filthy pictures to be made public because you want people to think well of you. You want them to think of you as a man of passion, not as a criminal with an appetite for pornography. I am leaving now.’ He raps on the door, which is opened at once. ‘Good night, Dmitri.’

‘Good night, Simón. No hard feelings, I hope.’

The day of the trial arrives. The crime passionnel at the museum is a talking point all over Estrella, as he has learned during his bicycle rounds. Though he makes sure he is at the courthouse well ahead of time, there is already a press of people at the doors. He pushes his way into the foyer, where he is confronted with a large printed notice: Change of venue. The sitting of the court scheduled for 8.30 a.m. has been rescheduled. It will be held at 9.30 a.m. in the Teatro Solar.

The Teatro Solar is the largest theatre in Estrella. On the way there he falls into conversation with a man who has with him a child, a little girl not much older than Davíd.

‘Going to the trial?’ says the man.

He nods in reply.

‘A big day,’ says the man. The child, dressed all in white with a red ribbon in her hair, flashes him a smile.

‘Your daughter?’ he says.

‘My eldest,’ replies the man.

He glances around and notices several other children in the crowd pressing toward the theatre.

‘Do you think it is a good idea to bring her along?’ he asks. ‘Isn’t she a bit young for this kind of thing?’

‘A good idea? It depends,’ says the man. ‘If there is a lot of legal palaver and she gets bored I may have to take her home. But I am hoping it will be short and to the point.’

‘I have a son of about the same age,’ he says. ‘I must say I would never think of bringing him along.’

‘Well,’ says the man, ‘I suppose there are different points of view. As I see it, a big event like this can be educative — bring it home to youngsters how dangerous it can be to get involved with their teachers.’

‘The man on trial was never, as far as I know, a teacher,’ he replies tartly. Then they are at the entrance to the theatre, and father and daughter are swallowed up in the crowd.

The stalls have already filled up, but he finds a place on the balcony in sight of the stage, where a long bench covered in green baize has been set up, presumably for the judges.

Nine-thirty arrives and passes. The auditorium is becoming hot and stuffy. New arrivals press in behind till he is jammed tight against the rail. Below, people are sitting in the passages. An enterprising young man is going up and down selling bottled water.

Then there is movement. The lights over the stage come on. Led by a uniformed officer, Dmitri emerges, shackled at the ankles. Blinded, he stops and stares out over the audience. His escort seats him in a small roped-off space.

All is still. From the wings emerge the three judges, or rather the presiding judge and his two assessors, wearing red robes. With a great heave the crowd comes to its feet. The theatre has a capacity for, he would guess, two hundred; but there are at least twice as many present.

The crowd settles. The judge-in-chief says something inaudible. The officer guarding Dmitri leaps forward and adjusts the microphone.

‘You are the prisoner known as Dmitri?’ says the judge. He nods to the officer, who sets before Dmitri a microphone of his own.

‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘And you are accused of violating and killing one Ana Magdalena Arroyo on the fifth day of March this year.’

It is not a question but a statement. Nonetheless Dmitri replies: ‘The violation and the murder took place on the night of the fourth of March, Your Honour. This error in the record I have pointed out before. The fourth of March was Ana Magdalena’s last day on earth. It was a terrible day, terrible for me but even more terrible for her.’

‘And you have confessed your guilt on both charges.’

‘Three times. I have confessed three times. I am guilty, Your Honour. Sentence me.’

‘Patience. Before you are sentenced you will have the right to address the court, a right which I hope you will make use of. First you will have an opportunity to exculpate yourself, then later you will have an opportunity to plead in mitigation. Do you understand what those terms mean: exculpation, mitigation?’

‘I understand the terms perfectly, Your Honour, but they have no relevance to my case. I do not exculpate myself. I am guilty. Judge me. Sentence me. Come down on me with the full weight of the law. I will not murmur, I promise.’

There is a rustle among the crowd below. ‘Judge him!’ comes a cry. ‘Be quiet!’ comes an answering cry. There are murmurs, low hisses.

The judge glances questioningly at his colleagues, first at the one, then at the other. He raises his gavel and brings it down once, twice, thrice. The rustling ceases, silence falls.

‘I address myself to all of you who have taken the trouble to come here today to see justice done,’ he says. ‘I remind you most earnestly that justice is not done in haste, nor by acclamation, and certainly not by setting aside the protocols of the law.’ He turns to Dmitri. ‘Exculpation. You say that you cannot or will not exculpate yourself. Why not? Because, you say, your guilt is undeniable. I ask: Who are you to pre-empt these proceedings and decide the question before this court, which is precisely the question of your guilt?

‘ Your guilt: let us take a moment to ponder that phrase. What does it mean, what does it ever mean, to speak of my guilt or your guilt or our guilt in respect of some action or other? What if we were not ourselves, or not fully ourselves, when the action in question was performed? Was the action then ours ? Why, when people have performed heinous deeds, do they commonly say afterwards, I cannot explain why I did what I did, I was beside myself, I was not myself ? You stand before us today and assert your guilt. You claim your guilt is undeniable. But what if, at the moment when you make that claim, you are not yourself or fully yourself? These are only some of the issues which the court has a duty to raise and then settle. It is not up to you, the accused, the man in the very eye of the storm, to seal them off.

‘You say further that you do not want to save yourself. But your salvation is not a matter that rests in your hands. If we, your judges, do not do our best to save you, following scrupulously the letter of the law, then we will have failed to save the law. Of course we have a responsibility to society, a grave and onerous responsibility, to shield it from rapists and murderers. But we have an equal responsibility to save you the accused from yourself, in the event that you are or were not yourself, as the law understands being oneself to be. Am I clear?’

Dmitri is silent.

‘So much for the matter of exculpation, where you refuse to plead. I move on to the matter of mitigation, where again you say you will refuse to offer a plea. Let me tell you, as one man speaking to another, Dmitri: I can understand that you may wish to act honourably and accept without murmur the sentence pronounced on you. I can understand that you should not wish to shame yourself in public by seeming to crawl before the law. But that is the very reason why we have lawyers. When you instruct a lawyer to plead on your behalf you allow him to take on himself whatever shame the plea brings with it. As your representative he crawls on your behalf, so to speak, leaving your precious dignity intact. So let me ask you: Why have you refused to have a lawyer?’