J. Coetzee - Disgrace

That brings him up short. No fool, Ettinger.

At last he and Lucy are alone. 'I will bury the dogs if you show me where,' he offers. 'What are you going to tell the owners?'

'I'll tell them the truth.'

'Will your insurance cover it?'

'I don't know. I don't know whether insurance policies cover massacres. I will have to find out.'

A pause. 'Why aren't you telling the whole story, Lucy?'

'I have told the whole story. The whole story is what I have told.'

He shakes his head dubiously. 'I am sure you have your reasons, but in a wider context are you sure this is the best course?'

She does not reply, and he does not press her, for the moment. But his thoughts go to the three intruders, the three invaders, men he will probably never lay eyes on again, yet forever part of his life now, and of his daughter's. The men will watch the newspapers, listen to the gossip. They will read that they are being sought for robbery and assault and nothing else. It will dawn on them that over the body of the woman silence is being drawn like a blanket. Too ashamed, they will say to each other, too ashamed to tell, and they will chuckle luxuriously, recollecting their exploit. Is Lucy prepared to concede them that victory?

He digs the hole where Lucy tells him, close to the boundary line. A grave for six full-grown dogs: even in the recently ploughed earth it takes him the best part of an hour, and by the time he has finished his back is sore, his arms are sore, his wrist aches again. He trundles the corpses over in a wheelbarrow. The dog with the hole in its throat still bares its bloody teeth. Like shooting fish in a barrel, he thinks. Contemptible, yet exhilarating, probably, in a country where dogs are bred to snarl at the mere smell of a black man. A satisfying afternoon's work, heady, like all revenge. One by one he tumbles the dogs into the hole, then fills it in.

He returns to find Lucy installing a camp-bed in the musty little pantry that she uses for storage. ‘Tor whom is this?' he asks.

‘Tor myself '

'What about the spare room?'

'The ceiling-boards have gone.'

'And the big room at the back?'

'The freezer makes too much noise.'

Not true. The freezer in the back room barely purrs. It is because of what the freezer holds that Lucy will not sleep there: offal, bones, butcher's meat for dogs that no longer have need of it.

'Take over my room,' he says. 'I'll sleep here.' And at once he sets about clearing out his things. But does he really want to move into this cell, with its boxes of empty preserve jarspiled in a corner and its single tiny south-facing window? If the ghosts of Lucy's violators still hover in her bedroom, then surely they ought to be chased out, not allowed to take it over as their sanctum. So he moves his belongings into Lucy's room.

Evening falls. They are not hungry, but they eat. Eating is a ritual, and rituals make things easier. As gently as he can, he offers his question again. 'Lucy, my dearest, why don't you want to tell? It was a crime. There is no shame in being the object of a crime. You did not choose to be the object. You are an innocent party.'

Sitting across the table from him, Lucy draws a deep breath, gathers herself, then breathes out again and shakes her head.

'Can I guess?' he says. 'Are you trying to remind me of something?'

'Am I trying to remind you of what?'

'Of what women undergo at the hands of men.'

'Nothing could be further from my thoughts. This has nothing to do with you, David. You want to know why I have not laid a particular charge with the police. I will tell you, as long as you agree not to raise the subject again. The reason is that, as far as I am concerned, what happened to me is a purely private matter. In another time, in another place it might be held to be a public matter. But in this place, at this time, it is not. It is my business, mine alone.'

'This place being what?'

'This place being South Africa.'

'I don't agree. I don't agree with what you are doing. Do you think that by meekly accepting what happened to you, you can set yourself apart from farmers like Ettinger? Do you think what happened here was an exam: if you come through, you get a diploma and safe conduct into the future, or a sign to paint on the door-lintel that will make the plague pass you by? That is not how vengeance works, Lucy. Vengeance is like a fire. The more it devours, the hungrier it gets.'

'Stop it, David! I don't want to hear this talk of plagues and fires. I am not just trying to save my skin. If that is what you think, you miss the point entirely.'

'Then help me. Is it some form of private salvation you are trying to work out? Do you hope you can expiate the crimes of the past by suffering in the present?'

'No. You keep misreading me. Guilt and salvation are abstractions. I don't act in terms of abstractions. Until you make an effort to see that, I can't help you.'

He wants to respond, but she cuts him short. 'David, we agreed. I don't want to go on with this conversation.'

Never yet have they been so far and so bitterly apart. He is shaken.

FOURTEEN

A NEW DAY. Ettinger telephones, offering to lend them a gun 'for the meanwhile'. 'Thank you,' he replies. 'We'll think about it.'

He gets out Lucy's tools and repairs the kitchen door as well as he is able. They ought to install bars, security gates, a perimeter fence, as Ettinger has done. They ought to turn the farmhouse into a fortress. Lucy ought to buy a pistol and a two-way radio, and take shooting lessons. But will she ever consent? She is here because she loves the land and the old, lдndliche way of life. If that way of life is doomed, what is left for her to love?

Katy is coaxed out of her hiding-place and settled in the kitchen. She is subdued and timorous, following Lucy about, keeping close to her heels. Life, from moment to moment, is not as before. The house feels alien, violated; they are continually on the alert, listening for sounds. Then Petrus makes his return. An old lorry groans up the rutted driveway and stops beside the stable. Petrus steps down from the cab, wearing a suit too tight for him, followed by his wife and the driver. From the back of the lorry the two men unload cartons, creosoted poles, sheets of galvanized iron, a roll of plastic piping, and finally, with much noise and commotion, two halfgrown sheep, which Petrus tethers to a fence-post. The lorry makes a wide sweep around the stable and thunders back down the driveway. Petrus and his wife disappear inside. A plume of smoke begins to rise from the asbestos-pipe chimney. He continues to watch. In a while, Petrus's wife emerges and with a broad, easy movement empties a slop bucket. A handsome woman, he thinks to himself, with her long skirt and her headcloth piled high, country fashion. A handsome woman and a lucky man. But where have they been?

'Petrus is back,' he tells Lucy. 'With a load of building materials.'

`Good.'

'Why didn't he tell you he was going away? Doesn't it strike you as fishy that he should disappear at precisely this time?'

'I can't order Petrus about. He is his own master.'

A non sequitur, but he lets it pass. He has decided to let everything pass, with Lucy, for the time being. Lucy keeps to herself, expresses no feelings, shows no interest in anything around her. It is he, ignorant as he is about farming, who must let the ducks out of their pen, master the sluice system and lead water to save the garden from parching. Lucy spends hour after hour lying on her bed, staring into space or looking at old magazines, of which she seems to have an unlimited store. She flicks through them impatiently, as though searching for something that is not there. Of Edwin Drood there is no more sign. He spies Petrus out at the dam, in his work overalls. It seems odd that the man has not yet reported to Lucy. He strolls over, exchanges greetings. 'You must have heard, we had a big robbery on Wednesday while you were away.'