J. Coetzee - Disgrace

'No, not always. Sometimes I have felt just the opposite. That desire is a burden we could well do without.'

'I must say,' says Lucy, 'that is a view I incline toward myself ' He waits for her to go on, but she does not.

'In any event,' she says, 'to return to the subject, you are safely expelled. Your colleagues can breathe easy again, while the scapegoat wanders in the wilderness.'

A statement? A question? Does she believe he is just a scapegoat?

'I don't think scapegoating is the best description,' he says cautiously. 'Scapegoating worked in practice while it still had religious power behind it. You loaded the sins of the city on to the goat's back and drove it out, and the city was cleansed. It worked because everyone knew how to read the ritual, including the gods. Then the gods died, and all of a sudden you had to cleanse the city without divine help. Real actions were demanded instead of symbolism. The censor was born, in the Roman sense. Watchfulness became the watchword: the watchfulness of all over all. Purgation was replaced by the purge.'

He is getting carried away; he is lecturing. 'Anyway,' he concludes, 'having said farewell to the city, what do I find myself doing in the wilderness? Doctoring dogs. Playing right-hand man to a woman who specializes in sterilization and euthanasia.'

Lucy laughs. 'Bev? You think Bev is part of the repressive apparatus? Bev is in awe of you! You are a professor. She has never met an old-fashioned professor before. She is frightened of making grammar mistakes in front of you.'

Three men are coming toward them on the path, or two men and a boy. They are walking fast, with countrymen's long strides. The dog at Lucy's side slows down, bristles.

'Should we be nervous?' he murmurs.

'I don't know.'

She shortens the Dobermanns' leashes. The men are upon them. A nod, a greeting, and they have passed.

'Who are they?' he asks.

‘I've never laid eyes on them before.'

They reach the plantation boundary and turn back. The strangers are out of sight. As they near the house they hear the caged dogs in an uproar. Lucy quickens her pace. The three are there, waiting for them. The two men stand at a remove while the boy, beside the cages, hisses at the dogs and makes sudden, threatening gestures. The dogs, in a rage, bark and snap. The dog at Lucy's side tries to tug loose. Even the old bulldog bitch, whom he seems to have adopted as his own, is growling softly.

'Petrus!' calls Lucy. But there is no sign of Petrus. 'Get away from the dogs!' she shouts. 'Flambe The boy saunters off and rejoins his companions. He has a flat, expressionless face and piggish eyes; he wears a flowered shirt, baggy trousers, a little yellow sunhat. His companions are both in overalls. The taller of them is handsome, strikingly handsome, with a high forehead, sculpted cheekbones, wide, flaring nostrils.

At Lucy's approach the dogs calm down. She opens the third cage and releases the two Dobermanns into it. A brave gesture, he thinks to himself; but is it wise?

To the men she says: 'What do you want?'

The young one speaks. 'We must telephone.'

'Why must you telephone?'

'His sister' - he gestures vaguely behind him - 'is having an accident.'

'An accident?'

`Yes, very bad.'

'What kind of accident?'

‘A baby.'

'His sister is having a baby?'

'Yes.'

`Where are you from?'

'From Erasmuskraal.'

He and Lucy exchange glances. Erasmuskraal, inside the forestryconcession, is a hamlet with no electricity, no telephone. The story makes sense.

'Why didn't you phone from the forestry station?'

'Is no one there.'

'Stay out here,' Lucy murmurs to him; and then, to the boy: 'Who is it who wants to telephone?'

He indicates the tall, handsome man.

'Come in,' she says. She unlocks the back door and enters. The tall man follows. After a moment the second man pushes past him and enters the house too.

Something is wrong, he knows at once. 'Lucy, come out here!' he calls, unsure for the moment whether to follow or wait where he can keep an eye on the boy.

From the house there is silence. 'Lucy!' he calls again, and is about to go in when the door-latch clicks shut.

'Petrus!' he shouts as loudly as he can.

The boy 'turns and sprints, heading for the front door. He lets go the bulldog's leash. 'Get him!' he shouts. The dog trots heavily after the boy.

In front of the house he catches up with them. The boy has picked up a bean-stake and is using it to keep the dog at bay. 'Shu ... shu ... shu!' he pants, thrusting with the stick. Growling softly, the dog circles left and right.

Abandoning them, he rushes back to the kitchen door. The bottom leaf is not bolted: a few heavy kicks and it swings open. On all fours he creeps into the kitchen.

A blow catches him on the crown of the head. He has time to think, If I am still conscious then I am all right, before his limbs turn to water and he crumples.

He is aware of being dragged across the kitchen floor. Then he blacks out. He is lying face down on cold tiles. He tries to stand up but his legs are somehow blocked from moving. He closes his eyes again. He is in the lavatory, the lavatory of Lucy's house. Dizzily he gets to his feet. The door is locked, the key is gone. He sits down on the toilet seat and tries to recover. The house is still; the dogs are barking, but more in duty, it seems, than in frenzy.

'Lucy!' he croaks, and then, louder: 'Lucy!'

He tries to kick at the door, but he is not himself, and the space too cramped anyway, the door too old and solid.

So it has come, the day of testing. Without warning, without fanfare, it is here, and he is in the middle of it. In his chest his heart hammers so hard that it too, in its dumb way, must know. How will they stand up to the testing, he and his heart?

His child is in the hands of strangers. In a minute, in an hour, it will be too late; whatever is happening to her will be set in stone, will belong to the past. But now it is not too late. Now he must do something. Though he strains to hear, he can make out no sound from the house. Yet if his child were calling, however mutely, surely he would hear!

He batters the door. 'Lucy!' he shouts. 'Lucy! Speak to me!'

The door opens, knocking him off balance. Before him stands the second man, the shorter one, holding an empty one-litre bottle by the neck. The keys,' says the man.

'No.'

The man gives him a push. He stumbles back, sits down heavily. The man raises the bottle. His face is placid, without trace of anger. It is merely a job he is doing: getting someone to hand over an article. If it entails hitting him with a bottle, he will hit him, hit him as many times as is necessary, if necessary break the bottle too.

'Take them,' he says. 'Take everything. Just leave my daughter alone.'

Without a word the man takes the keys, locks him in again.

He shivers. A dangerous trio. Why did he not recognise it in time? But they are not harming him, not yet. Is it possible that what the house has to offer will be enough for them? Is it possible they will leave Lucy unharmed too?

From behind the house comes the sound of voices. The barking of the dogs grows louder again, more excited. He stands on the toilet seat and peers through the bars of the window. Carrying Lucy's rifle and a bulging garbage bag, the second man is just disappearing around the corner of the house. A car door slams. He recognizes the sound: his car. The man reappears empty-handed. For a moment the two of them look straight into each other's eyes. 'Hai!' says the man, and smiles grimly, and calls out some words. There is a burst of laughter. A moment later the boy joins him, and they stand beneath the window, inspecting their prisoner, discussing his fate.

He speaks Italian, he speaks French, but Italian and French will not save him here in darkest Africa. He is helpless, an Aunt Sally, a figure from a cartoon, a missionary in cassock and topi waiting with clasped hands and upcast eyes while the savages jaw away in their own lingo preparatory to plunging him into their boiling cauldron. Mission work: what has it left behind, that huge enterprise of upliftment? Nothing that he can see.