J. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

‘ The answer will come to you when you least expect it. Or not. I have a distaste for paradoxes, Juan Sebastián, which you seem not to share. Is that what I must do to attain peace of mind: swallow paradoxes as they arise? And while you are about it, help me to understand why a child schooled by you, when asked to explain the numbers, should reply that they cannot be explained, can only be danced. The same child, before attending your Academy, was afraid of stepping from one paving stone to the next lest he fall through the gap and disappear into nothingness. Yet now he dances across gaps without a qualm. What magical powers does dancing have? ’

He should do it. He should write the note. But will Juan Sebastián write back? Juan Sebastián does not strike him as the kind of man who will get out of bed in the middle of the night to throw a rope to a man who, if not drowning, is at least floundering.

As he descends into sleep an image comes to him from the football games in the park: the boy, head down, fists clenched, running and running like an irresistible force. Why, why, why, when he is so full of life — of this life, this present life — is he so interested in the next one?

The first arrivals at the party are two boys from one of the apartments below, brothers, uncomfortable in their neat shirts and shorts with their wetted-down hair. They hurry to offer their colourfully wrapped present, which Davíd deposits in a space he has cleared in a corner: ‘This is my present pile,’ he announces. ‘I am not going to open my presents until everyone has gone.’

The present pile already contains the marionettes from the sisters on the farm and his, Simón’s, gift, the ship, packed in a cardboard box and tied with a ribbon.

The doorbell rings; Davíd rushes off to greet new guests and accept more gifts.

Since Diego has taken on the task of passing round refreshments, there is little for him to do. He suspects that most of their guests take Diego to be the boy’s father and him, Simón, to be a grandfather or some even more remote relative.

The party goes well, though the handful of children from the Academy are wary of the more boisterous children from the apartments and cluster together, whispering among themselves. Inés — her hair fashionably waved, wearing a smart black-and-white frock, in every respect a mother of whom a boy can feel proud — looks pleased with the proceedings.

‘That’s a nice dress,’ he remarks to her. ‘It suits you.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘It is time for the birthday cake. Can you bring it in?’

So it is his privilege to bear to the table the giant football cake, set in its bed of green marzipan, and to smile benevolently as with a single whoosh Davíd blows out all seven candles.

‘Bravo!’ says Inés. ‘Now you have to wish.’

‘I already made my wish,’ says the boy. ‘It’s a secret. I’m not going to tell anyone.’

‘Not even me?’ says Diego. ‘Not even in my ear?’ And he inclines his head intimately.

‘No,’ says the boy.

There is a setback with the cutting of the cake: as the knife sinks in, the chocolate shell cracks and the cake breaks into two unequal halves, one of which rolls off the board and tumbles in fragments on the tabletop, knocking over a glass of lemonade.

With a cry of triumph Davíd brandishes the knife over his head: ‘It’s an earthquake!’

Inés hastens to mop up the mess. ‘Be careful with that knife,’ she says. ‘You could hurt someone.’

‘It’s my birthday, I can do what I want.’

The telephone rings. It is the conjuror. He is running late, he will be another forty-five minutes, perhaps an hour. Inés slams down the receiver in a fury. ‘What way is that to run a business!’ she cries.

There are too many children for the apartment. Diego has twisted a balloon into the shape of a manikin with huge ears; this becomes the object of a chase among the boys. They tear through the rooms, knocking over furniture. Bolívar rouses himself and emerges from his lair in the kitchen. The children recoil in alarm. It falls to him, Simón, to hold the dog back by the collar.

‘His name is Bolívar,’ announces Davíd. ‘He won’t bite, he only bites bad people.’

‘Can I pat him?’ asks one of the girls.

‘Bolívar isn’t in a friendly mood right now,’ replies he, Simón. ‘He is used to sleeping in the afternoons. He is very much a creature of habit.’ And he manhandles Bolívar back into the kitchen.

Blessedly, Diego persuades the rougher boys, Davíd among them, to go out to the park for a game of football. He and Inés are left behind to entertain the timid ones. Then the footballers return in a rush to gobble up the last of the cake and biscuits.

There is a knock at the door. The conjuror stands there, a flustered-looking little man with rosy cheeks, wearing a top hat and tails, carrying a wicker basket. Inés does not give him a chance to speak. ‘Too late!’ she cries. ‘What way is this to treat customers? Go! You are not getting a penny from us!’

The guests leave. Armed with a pair of scissors, Davíd begins to open his gifts. He unwraps the gift from Inés and Diego. ‘It’s a guitar!’ he says.

‘It’s a ukulele,’ says Diego. ‘There’s a booklet too that tells you how to play it.’

The boy strums the ukulele, producing a jangled chord.

‘It has first to be tuned,’ says Diego. ‘Let me show you how.’

‘Not now,’ says the boy. He opens his, Simón’s, present. ‘It’s brilliant!’ he cries out. ‘Can we take it to the park and sail it?’

‘It’s a model,’ he replies. ‘I am not sure it will float without tipping. We can experiment in the bathtub.’

They fill the bathtub. The boat floats gaily on the surface, with no sign of tipping. ‘It’s brilliant!’ repeats the boy. ‘It’s my best present.’

‘Once you have learned to play it, the ukulele will grow to be your best present,’ he says. ‘The ukulele isn’t just a model, it is the real thing, a real musical instrument. Have you said thank you to Inés and Diego?’

‘Juan Pablo says the Academy is a sissy school. He says only sissies go to the Academy.’

He knows who Juan Pablo is: one of the boys from the apartments, older and bigger than Davíd.

‘Juan Pablo has never been through the doors of the Academy. He has no idea what goes on there. If you were a sissy, would Bolívar let you boss him around — Bolívar who in the next life will be a wolf?’

Inés catches him at the door as he is leaving, thrusts some papers into his hands. ‘There’s a letter here from the Academy, and yesterday’s newspaper, the Tuition Offered pages. We must decide on a tutor for Davíd. I have marked the likely ones. We can’t wait any longer.’

The letter, addressed jointly to Inés and him, is not from Arroyo’s Academy but from the Academy of Singing. Due to the exceptionally high standard of applications for the coming quarter, it informs them, there will regrettably be no place for Davíd. They are thanked for their interest.

With the letter in his hand he returns the next morning to the Academy of Dance.

Grimly he seats himself in the refectory. ‘Tell señor Arroyo I am here,’ he instructs Alyosha. ‘Say I will not leave until I have spoken to him.’

Minutes later the master himself appears. ‘Señor Simón! You are back!’

‘Yes, I am back. You are a busy man, señor Arroyo, so I will be brief. I mentioned last time that we had applied for Davíd to enter the Academy of Singing. That application has now been turned down. We are left with a choice between the public schools and private tuition.

‘There are certain facts I have kept from you that you ought to be aware of. When my partner Inés and I left Novilla and came to Estrella, we were fleeing the law. Not because we are bad people but because the authorities in Novilla wanted to take Davíd away from us, on grounds which I will not go into, and place him in an institution. We resisted. We are thus, technically speaking, lawbreakers, Inés and I.