J. Coetzee - Disgrace

He comes to the point. 'If Lucy and I went back to Cape Town, would you be prepared to keep her part of the farm running? We would pay you a salary, or you could do it on a percentage basis. A percentage of the profits.'

'I must keep Lucy's farm running,' says Petrus. 'I must be the farm manager.' He pronounces the words as if he has never heard them before, as if they have popped up before him like a rabbit out of a hat.

'Yes, we could call you the farm manager if you like.'

'And Lucy will come back one day.'

'I am sure she will come back. She is very attached to this farm. She has no intention of giving it up. But she has been having a hard time recently. She needs a break. A holiday.'

'By the sea,' says Petrus, and smiles, showing teeth yellow from smoking.

'Yes, by the sea, if she wants.' He is irritated by Petrus's habit of letting words hang in the air. There was a time when he thought he might become friends with Petrus. Now he detests him. Talking to Petrus is like punching a bag filled with sand. 'I don't see that either of us is entitled to question Lucy if she decides to take a break,' he says. 'Neither you nor I.'

'How long I must be farm manager?'

'I don't know yet, Petrus. I haven't discussed it with Lucy, I am just exploring the possibility, seeing if you are agreeable.'

'And I must do all the things - I must feed the dogs, I must plant the vegetables, I must go to the market - '

'Petrus, there is no need to make a list. There won't be dogs. I am just asking in a general way, if Lucy took a holiday, would you be prepared to look after the farm?'

'How I must go to the market if I do not have the kombi?'

`That is a detail. We can discuss details later. I just want a general answer, yes or no.'

Petrus shakes his head. 'It is too much, too much,' he says.

Out of the blue comes a call from the police, from a Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse in Port Elizabeth. His car has been recovered. It is in the yard at the New Brighton station, where he may identify and reclaim it. Two men have been arrested.

'That's wonderful,' he says. 'I had almost given up hope.'

'No, sir, the docket stays open two years.'

'What condition is the car in? Is it driveable?'

'Yes, you can drive it.'

In an unfamiliar state of elation he drives with Lucy to Port Elizabeth and then to New Brighton, where they follow directions to Van Deventer Street, to a flat, fortress-like police station surrounded by a twometre fence topped with razor wire. Emphatic signs forbid parking in front of the station. They park far down the road.

'I'll wait in the car,' says Lucy.

'Are you sure?'

'I don't like this place. I'll wait.'

He presents himself at the charge office, is directed along a maze of corridors to the Vehicle Theft Unit. Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse, a plump, blond little man, searches through his files, then conducts him to a yard where scores of vehicles stand parked bumper to bumper. Up and down the ranks they go.

'Where did you find it?' he asks Esterhuyse.

'Here in New Brighton. You were lucky. Usually with the older Corollas the buggers chop it up for parts.'

'You said you made arrests.'

'Two guys. We got them on a tipoff. Found a whole house full of stolen goods. TVs, videos, fridges, you name it.'

'Where are the men now?'

'They're out on bail.'

'Wouldn't it have made more sense to call me in before you set them free, to have me identify them? Now that they are out on bail they will just disappear. You know that.'

The detective is stiffly silent.

They stop before a white Corolla. 'This is not my car,' he says. 'My car had CA plates. It says so on the docket.' He points to the number on the sheet: CA 507644.

'They respray them. They put on false plates. They change plates around.'

'Even so, this is not my car. Can you open it?'

The detective opens the car. The interior smells of wet newspaper and fried chicken.

'I don't have a sound system,' he says. 'It's not my car. Are you sure my car isn't somewhere else in the lot?'

They complete their tour of the lot. His car is not there.

Esterhuyse scratches his head. 'I'll check into it,' he says. 'There must be a mixup. Leave me your number and I'll give you a call.'

Lucy is sitting behind the wheel of the kombi, her eyes closed.

He raps on the window and she unlocks the door. 'It's all a mistake, he says, getting in. 'They have a Corolla, but it's not mine.'

'Did you see the men?'

'The men?'

'You said two men had been arrested.'

'They are out again on bail. Anyway, it's not my car, so whoever was arrested can't be whoever took my car.'

There is a long silence. 'Does that follow, logically?' she says. She starts the engine, yanks fiercely on the wheel.

'I didn't realize you were keen for them to be caught,' he says. He can hear the irritation in his voice but does nothing to check it. 'If they are caught it means a trial and all that a trial entails. You will have to testify. Are you ready for that?'

Lucy switches off the engine. Her face is stiff as she fights off tears.

'In any event, the trail is cold. Our friends aren't going to be caught, not with the police in the state they are in. So let us forget about that.'

He gathers himself. He is becoming a nag, a bore, but there is no helping that. 'Lucy, it really is time for you to face up to your choices. Either you stay on in a house full of ugly memories and go on brooding on what happened to you, or you put the whole episode behind you and start a new chapter elsewhere. Those, as I see it, are the alternatives. I know you would like to stay, but shouldn't you at least consider the other route? Can't the two of us talk about it rationally?'

She shakes her head. 'I can't talk any more, David, I just can't,' she says, speaking softly, rapidly, as though afraid the words will dry up. 'I know I am not being clear. I wish I could explain. But I can't. Because of who you are and who I am, I can't. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about your car. I'm sorry about the disappointment.'

She rests her head on her arms; her shoulders heave as she gives in.

Again the feeling washes over him: listlessness, indifference, but also weightlessness, as if he has been eaten away from inside and only the eroded shell of his heart remains. How, he thinks to himself, can a man in this state fmd words, find music that will bring back the dead?

Sitting on the sidewalk not five yards away, a woman in slippers and a ragged dress is staring fiercely at them. He lays a protective hand on Lucy's shoulder. My daughter, he thinks; my dearest daughter. Whom it has fallen to me to guide. Who one of these days will have to guide me. Can she smell his thoughts?

It is he who takes over the driving. Halfway home, Lucy, to his surprise, speaks. 'It was so personal,' she says. 'It was done with such personal hatred. That was what stunned me more than anything. The rest was . . . expected. But why did they hate me so? I had never set eyes on them.'

He waits for more, but there is no more, for the moment. 'It was history speaking through them,' he offers at last. 'A history of wrong. Think of it that way, if it helps. It may have seemed personal, but it wasn't. It came down from the ancestors.'

'That doesn't make it easier. The shock simply doesn't go away. The shock of being hated, I mean. In the act.'

In the act. Does she mean what he thinks she means? 'Are you still afraid?' he asks.

'Yes.'

'Afraid they are going to come back?'

'Yes.'

'Did you think, if you didn't lay a charge against them with the police, they wouldn't come back? Was that what you told yourself?'

'No.'

`Then what?'

She is silent.

'Lucy, it could be so simple. Close down the kennels. Do it at once. Lock up the house, pay Petrus to guard it. Take a break for six months or a year, until things have improved in this country. Go overseas. Go to Holland. I'll pay. When you come back you can take stock, make a fresh start.'