J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

Diego, he can see, is beginning to fret. He knows Diego, knows that he is bored by what he calls clever talk. ‘It’s a nice day, Diego,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you and Davíd find something more interesting to do?’

‘No!’ says the boy. ‘I want to stay!’

‘It was his idea to come here, not mine,’ says Diego. ‘I could not care less what happens to this Dmitri person.’

‘You don’t care but I care!’ says the boy. ‘I don’t want Dmitri to get a new head! I want him to go to the salt mine!’

The trial recommences at two p.m. Re-gathered, the audience is considerably smaller than before. He and Diego and the boy have no trouble finding seats.

Dmitri is brought back onto the stage, followed by the judge and assessors.

‘I have before me a report from the director of the museum where you, Dmitri, were employed,’ says the judge. ‘He writes that you have always performed your duties faithfully and that, until these recent events, he had every reason to think of you as an honest man. I also have a report from Dr Alejandro Toussaint, a specialist in nervous diseases, who was commissioned by the court to evaluate your state of mind. Dr Toussaint reports that he was unable to carry out his evaluation because of violent and uncooperative behaviour on your part. Do you wish to comment?’

Dmitri is stonily silent.

‘Finally I have a report from the police doctor on the events of the fourth of March. He writes that completed sexual intercourse took place, that is to say, intercourse ending in ejaculation of the male seed, and that this took place while the deceased was still alive. Subsequently the deceased was strangled, manually. Do you contest any of this?’

Dmitri is silent.

‘You may ask why I rehearse these last distasteful facts. I do so to make it clear that the court is fully aware of how terrible a crime you have committed. You violated a woman who trusted you and then killed her in the most pitiless way. I shudder, we all shudder, to think what she went through during her last minutes. What we lack is some understanding of why you committed this senseless, gratuitous act. Are you an erring human being, Dmitri, or do you belong to some other species, without a soul, without a conscience? I urge you again: explain yourself to us.’

‘I belong to a foreign species. I have no place on this earth. Do away with me. Kill me. Grind me under your heel.’

‘That is all you will say?’

Dmitri is silent.

‘It is not enough, Dmitri, not enough. But you will not be required to speak again. This court has bent over backwards in its efforts to do you justice and you have resisted at every step. Now you must bear the consequences. My colleagues and I will retire to confer.’ He addresses the guard. ‘Remove the accused.’

There is an uneasy stir among the crowd. Should they stay? How long is the whole business going to take? Yet no sooner have people begun to drift from the auditorium than Dmitri is led back onto the stage and the judges return to their seats.

‘Stand, Dmitri,’ says the judge. ‘In accordance with the powers invested in me, I will now pronounce sentence. I will be brief. You offer no plea in mitigation of sentence. On the contrary, you demand that we proceed against you with the utmost rigour. The question before us is, does this demand come from your heart, out of contrition for your heinous actions, or from a deranged mind?

‘It is a difficult question to answer. In your demeanour there is no sign of contrition. To the bereaved husband of your victim you have uttered no word of apology. You present yourself as a being without a conscience. My colleagues and I have every reason to send you away to the salt mines and close the book on you.

‘On the other hand, this is your first transgression. You have been a good worker. You treated the deceased with respect until the day you turned on her. What malign force took control of you on that day remains a mystery to us. You have resisted every effort on our part to understand.

‘Our sentence is as follows. You will be removed from here to the hospital for the criminally insane and detained there. The medical authorities will review your case once a year and report to this court. Depending on those reports, you may or may not be called before the court at some future date for review of your sentence. That is all.’

Something like a collective sigh goes up from the citizenry. Is the sigh for Dmitri? Are they sorry for him? It is hard to believe so. The judges file offstage. Dmitri, his head bowed, is removed.

‘Goodbye, Diego,’ says he, Simón. ‘Goodbye, Davíd. What are your plans for the weekend? Am I going to see you?’

‘Can we talk to Dmitri?’ asks the boy.

‘No. That is not possible.’

‘I want to!’ And without warning he races down the aisle and clambers onto the stage. In haste he and Diego follow, through the wings and down a dark passage. At the end of the passage they come upon Dmitri and his guard, who is peering through a half-opened door onto the street.

‘Dmitri!’ the boy shouts.

Ignoring his chains, Dmitri hoists the boy aloft and hugs him. Half-heartedly the guard tries to separate them.

‘Won’t they let you go to the salt mines, Dmitri?’ says the boy.

‘No, it’s not the salt mines for me, it’s the madhouse. But I will escape, never fear. I’ll escape and catch the first bus to the salt mines. I’ll say, Dmitri here, reporting for duty, sir . They won’t dare to refuse me. So don’t worry, young man. Dmitri is still master of his fate.’

‘Simón says they are going to chop off your head and give you a new one.’

The door is flung open and light floods in. ‘Come on!’ says the guard. ‘The van is here.’

‘The van is here,’ says Dmitri. ‘Time for Dmitri to go.’ He kisses the boy full on the lips and sets him down. ‘Goodbye, my young friend. Yes, they want to give me a new head. It’s the price of forgiveness. They forgive you but then they chop off your head. Beware of forgiveness, that’s what I say.’

‘I don’t forgive you,’ says the boy.

‘That’s good! Take a lesson from Dmitri: don’t ever let them forgive you, and don’t ever listen when they promise you a new life. The new life is a lie, my boy, the biggest lie of all. There is no next life. This is the only one there is. Once you let them chop off your head, that’s the end of you. Just darkness and darkness and nothing but darkness.’

Out of the blinding sunlight two men in uniform emerge and haul Dmitri down the steps. As they are about to bundle him into the back of their van, he turns and calls out: ‘Tell Simón to burn you know what! Tell him I will come and cut his throat if he doesn’t!’ Then the door slams shut and the van drives off.

‘What was that last bit about?’ says Diego.

‘It’s nothing. He left some stuff behind that he wants me to destroy. Pictures he cut out of magazines — that sort of thing.’

‘Ladies with no clothes on,’ says the boy. ‘He let me see them.’

He is shown into the office of the director of the museum. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ he says. ‘I come at the request of an employee of yours, Dmitri, who would like to save both himself and the museum from potential embarrassment. On your premises, he tells me, there is a collection of obscene pictures that belongs to him. He would like them to be destroyed before the newspapers get hold of them. Will you permit this?’

‘Obscene pictures. . You have seen these pictures, señor Simón?’

‘No, but my son has. My son is a student at the Academy of Dance.’

‘And you say these pictures have been stolen from our collection?’