J. Coetzee - Disgrace

'So she chose you.'

'In a sense. She also chose a certain surround, a certain horizon. Now I am trying to get her to leave again, if only for a break. She has family in Holland, friends. Holland may not be the most exciting of places to live, but at least it doesn't breed nightmares.'

'And?'

He shrugs. 'Lucy isn't inclined, for the present, to heed any advice I give. She says I am not a good guide.'

'But you were a teacher.'

'Of the most incidental kind. Teaching was never a vocation for

me. Certainly I never aspired to teach people how to live. I was what used to be called a scholar. I wrote books about dead people. That was where my heart was. I taught only to make a living.'

She waits for more, but he is not in the mood to go on.

The sun is going down, it is getting cold. They have not made love; they have in effect ceased to pretend that that is what they do together.

In his head Byron, alone on the stage, draws a breath to sing. He is on the point of setting off for Greece. At the age of thirty-five he has begun to understand that life is precious. Sunt Iacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt: those will be Byron's words, he is sure of it. As for the music, it hovers somewhere on the horizon, it has not come yet.

'You mustn't worry,' says Bev Shaw. Her head is against his chest: presumably she can hear his heart, with whose beat the hexameter keeps step. 'Bill and I will look after her. We'll go often to the farm. And there's Petrus. Petrus will keep an eye out.'

`Fatherly Petrus.'

'Yes.'

'Lucy says I can't go on being a father for ever. I can't imagine, in this life, not being Lucy's father.'

She runs her fingers through the stubble of his hair. 'It will be all right,' she whispers. 'You will see.'

NINETEEN

THE HOUSE IS part of a development that must, fifteen or twenty years ago, when it was new, have seemed rather bleak, but has since been improved with grassed sidewalks, trees, and creepers that spill over the vibracrete walls. No. 8 Rustholme Crescent has a painted garden gate and an answerphone. He presses the button. A youthful voice speaks: 'Hello?'

'I'm looking for Mr Isaacs. My name is Lurie.'

'He's not home yet.'

`When do you expect him?'

'Now-now.' A buzz; the latch clicks; he pushes the gate open.

The path leads to the front door, where a slim girl stands watching him. She is dressed in school uniform: marine-blue tunic, white knee-length stockings, open-necked shirt. She has Melanie's eyes, Melanie's wide cheekbones, Melanie's dark hair; she is, if anything, more beautiful. The younger sister Melanie spoke of, whose name he cannot for the moment recollect.

'Good afternoon. When do you expect your father home?'

'School comes out at three, but he usually stays late. It's all right, you can come inside.'

She holds the door open for him, flattening herself as he passes. She is eating a slice of cake, which she holds daintily between two fingers. There are crumbs on her upper lip. He has an urge to reach out, brush them off at the same instant the memory of her sister comes over him in a hot wave. God save me, he thinks - what am I doing here?

'You can sit down if you like.'

He sits down. The furniture gleams, the room is oppressively neat. 'What's your name?' he asks.

'Desiree.'

Desiree: now he remembers. Melanie the firstborn, the dark one, then Desiree, the desired one. Surely they tempted the gods by giving her a name like that!

'My name is David Lurie.' He watches her closely, but she gives no sign of recognition. 'I'm from Cape Town.'

'My sister is in Cape Town. She's a student.'

He nods. He does not say, I know your sister, know her well. But he thinks: fruit of the same tree, down probably to the most intimate detail. Yet with differences: different pulsings of the blood, different urgencies of passion. The two of them in the same bed: an experience fit for a king. He shivers lightly, looks at his watch. 'Do you know what, Desiree? I think I will try to catch your father at his school, if you can tell me how to get there.'

The school is of a piece with the housing estate: a low building in face-brick with steel windows and an asbestos roof, set in a dusty quadrangle fenced with barbed wire. F.S. MARAIS says the writing on the one entrance pillar, MIDDLE SCHOOL says the writing on the other.

The grounds are deserted. He wanders around until he comes upon a sign reading OFFICE. Inside sits a plump middle-aged secretary doing her nails. 'I'm looking for Mr Isaacs,' he says.

'Mr Isaacs!' she calls: 'Here's a visitor for you!' She turns to him. Just go in.'

Isaacs, behind his desk, half-rises, pauses, regards him in a puzzled way.

`Do you remember me? David Lurie, from Cape Town.'

'Oh,' says Isaacs, and sits down again. He is wearing the same overlarge suit: his neck vanishes into the jacket, from which he peers out like a sharp-beaked bird caught in a sack. The windows are closed, there is a smell of stale smoke.

‘If you don't want to see me I'll leave at once,' he says.

'No,' says Isaacs. 'Sit. I'm just checking attendances. Do you mind if I finish first?'

'Please.'

There is a framed picture on the desk. From where he sits he cannot see it, but he knows what it will be: Melanie and Desiree, apples of their father's eye, with the mother who bore them.

'So,' says Isaacs, closing the last register. 'To what do I owe this pleasure?'

He had expected to be tense, but in fact finds himself quite calm.

'After Melanie lodged her complaint,' he says, 'the university held an official inquiry. As a result I resigned my post. That is the history; you must be aware of it.'

Isaacs stares at him quizzically, giving away nothing.

'Since then I have been at a loose end. I was passing through George today, and I thought I might stop and speak to you. I remember our last meeting as being . . . heated. But I thought I would drop in anyway, and say what is on my heart.'

That much is true. He does want to speak his heart. The question is, what is on his heart?

Isaacs has a cheap Bic pen in his hand. He runs his fingers down the shaft, inverts it, runs his fingers down the shaft, over and over, in a motion that is mechanical rather than impatient. He continues. 'You have heard Melanie's side of the story. I would like to give you mine, if you are prepared to hear it.

'It began without premeditation on my part. It began as an adventure, one of those sudden little adventures that men of a certain kind have, that I have, that keep me going. Excuse me for talking in this way. I am trying to be frank.

'In Melanie's case, however, something unexpected happened. I think of it as a fire. She struck up a fire in me.'

He pauses. The pen continues its dance. A sudden little adventure. Men of a certain kind. Does the man behind the desk have adventures? The more he sees of him the more he doubts it. He would not be surprised if Isaacs were something in the church, a deacon or a server, whatever a server is.

'A fire: what is remarkable about that? If a fire goes out, you strike a match and start another one. That is how I used to think. Yet in the olden days people worshipped fire. They thought twice before letting a flame die, a flame-god. It was that kind of flame your daughter kindled in me. Not hot enough to burn me up, but real: real fire.'

Burned - burnt - burnt up.

The pen has stopped moving. `Mr Lurie,' says the girl's father, and there is a crooked, pained smile on his face, 'I ask myself what on earth you think you are up to, coming to my school and telling me stories - '

'I'm sorry, it's outrageous, I know. That's the end. That's all I wanted to say, in self-defence. How is Melanie?'

'Melanie is well, since you ask. She phones every week. She has resumed her studies, they gave her a special dispensation to do that, I'm sure you can understand, under the circumstances. She is going on with theatre work in her spare time, and doing well. So Melanie is all right. What about you? What are your plans now that you have left the profession?'