Subject: Choosing your literary essay topic on Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee is the first step to writing your literary analysis paper. After reading the novel, you should be able to decide in which direc

D I S G R A C E

J . M . C o e t z e e

s c a n n e d b y h e y s t

ONE

FOR A MAN of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well.

On Thursday afternoons he drives to Green Point. Pu nctually at two p.m. he presses the buzzer at the

entrance to Windsor Mansions, speaks his name, and enters. Waiting for him at the door of No. 113 is

Soraya. He goes straight through to the bedroom, wh ich is pleasant-smelling and softly lit, and undresses.

Soraya emerges from the bathroom, drops her robe, s lides into bed beside him. 'Have you missed me?' she

asks. 'I miss you all the time,' he replies. He str okes her honey-brown body, unmarked by the sun; he

stretches her out, kisses her breasts; they make lo ve.

Soraya is tall and slim, with long black hair and d ark, liquid eyes. Technically he is old enough to b e her

father; but then, technically, one can be a father at twelve. He has been on her books for over a year ; he

finds her entirely satisfactory. In the desert of t he week Thursday has become an oasis of luxe et vol upté.

In bed Soraya is not effusive. Her temperament is i n fact rather quiet, quiet and docile. In her general

opinions she is surprisingly moralistic. She is off ended by tourists who bare their breasts (`udders', she

calls them) on public beaches; she thinks vagabonds should be rounded up and put to work sweeping the

streets. How she reconciles her opinions with her l ine of business he does not ask.

Because he takes pleasure in her, because his pleas ure is unfailing, an affection has grown up in him for

her. To some degree, he believes, this affection is reciprocated. Affection may not be love, but it is at least

its cousin. Given their unpromising beginnings, the y have been lucky, the two of them: he to have foun d

her, she to have found him.

His sentiments are, he is aware, complacent, even u xorious. Nevertheless he does not cease to hold to

them.

For a ninety-minute session he pays her R400, of wh ich half goes to Discreet Escorts. It seems a pity that

Discreet Escorts should get so much. But they own N o. 113 and other flats in Windsor Mansions; in a

sense they own Soraya too, this part of her, this f unction.

He has toyed with the idea of asking her to see him in her own time. He would like to spend an evening

with her, perhaps even a whole night. But not the m orning after. He knows too much about himself to

subject her to a morning after, when he will be col d, surly, impatient to be alone.

That is his temperament. His temperament is not goi ng to change, he is too old for that. His temperament

is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperame nt: the two hardest parts of the body.

Follow your temperament. It is not a philosophy, he would not dignify it with that name. It is a rule, like

the Rule of St Benedict.

He is in good health, his mind is clear. By profess ion he is, or has been, a scholar, and scholarship still

engages, intermittently, the core of him. He lives within his income, within his temperament, within h is

emotional means. Is he happy? By most measurements, yes, he believes he is. However, he has not

forgotten the last chorus of Oedipus: Call no man h appy until he is dead.

In the field of sex his temperament, though intense , has never been passionate. Were he to choose a to tem,

it would be the snake. Intercourse between Soraya a nd himself must be, he imagines,rather like the

copulation of snakes: lengthy, absorbed, but rather abstract, rather dry, even at its hottest.

Is Soraya's totem the snake too? No doubt with othe r men she becomes another woman: la donna e

mobile. Yet at the level of temperament her affinit y with him can surely not be feigned.

Though by occupation she is a loose woman he trusts her, within limits. During their sessions he speaks to

her with a certain freedom, even on occasion unburd ens himself. She knows the facts of his life. She has

heard the stories of his two marriages, knows about his daughter and his daughter's ups and downs. She

knows many of his opinions.

Of her life outside Windsor Mansions Soraya reveals nothing. Soraya is not her real name, that he is sure

of. There are signs she has borne a child, or child ren. It may be that she is not a professional at all. She

may work for the agency only one or two afternoons a week, and for the rest live a respectable life in the

suburbs, in Rylands or Athlone. That would be unusu al for a Muslim, but all things are possible these

days. About his own job he says little, not wanting to bore her. He earns his living at the Cape Technical

University, formerly Cape Town University College. Once a professor of modern languages, he has been,

since Classics and Modern Languages were closed dow n as part of the great rationalization, adjunct

professor of communications. Like all rationalized personnel, he is allowed to offer one special-field

course a year, irrespective of enrolment, because t hat is good for morale. This year he is offering a course

in the Romantic poets. For the rest he teaches Comm unications 101, `Communication Skills', and

Communications 201, 'Advanced Communication Skills' .

Although he devotes hours of each day to his new di scipline, he finds its first premise, as enunciated in the

Communications 101 handbook, preposterous: 'Human s ociety has created language in order that we may

communicate our thoughts, feelings and intentions t o each other.' His own opinion, which he does not a ir,

is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the

overlarge and rather empty human soul.

In the course of a career stretching back a quarter of a century he has published three books, none of

which has caused a stir or even a ripple: the first on opera (Boito and the Faust Legend: The Genesis of

Mefistofele), the second on vision as eros (The Vis ion of Richard of St Victor), the third on Wordswor th

and history (Wordsworth and the Burden of the Past) .

In the past few years he has been playing with the idea of a work on Byron. At first he had thought it

would be another book, another critical opus. But a ll his sallies at writing it have bogged down in tedium.

The truth is, he is tired of criticism, tired of pr ose measured by the yard. What he wants to write is music:

Byron in Italy, a meditation on love between the se xes in the form of a chamber opera.

Through his mind, while he faces his Communications classes, flit phrases, tunes, fragments of song from

the unwritten work. He has never been much of a tea cher; in this transformed and, to his mind,

emasculated institution of learning he is more out of place than ever. But then, so are other of his

colleagues from the old days, burdened with upbring ings inappropriate to the tasks they are set to perform;

clerks in a post-religious age.

Because he has no respect for the material he teach es, he makes no impression on his students. They lo ok

through him when he speaks, forget his name. Their indifference galls him more than he will admit.

Nevertheless he fulfils to the letter his obligatio ns toward them, their parents, and the state. Month after

month he sets, collects, reads, and annotates their assignments, correcting lapses in punctuation, spe lling

and usage, interrogating weakarguments, appending t o each paper a brief considered critique.

He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility,

brings it home to him who he is in the world. The i rony does not escape him: that the one who comes to

teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those wh o come to learn learn nothing. It is a feature of his

profession on which he does not remark to Soraya. H e doubts there is an irony to match it in hers.

In the kitchen of the flat in Green Point there are a kettle, plastic cups, a jar of instant coffee, a bowl with

sachets of sugar. The refrigerator holds a supply o f bottled water. In the bathroom there is soap and a pile

of towels, in the cupboard clean bedlinen. Soraya k eeps her makeup in an overnight bag. A place of

assignation, nothing more, functional, clean, well regulated.

The first time Soraya received him she wore vermili on lipstick and heavy eyeshadow. Not liking the

stickiness of the makeup, he asked her to wipe it o ff. She obeyed, and has never worn it since. A read y

learner, compliant, pliant.

He likes giving her presents. At New Year he gave h er an enamelled bracelet, at Eid a little malachite

heron that caught his eye in a curio shop. He enjoy s her pleasure, which is quite unaffected.

It surprises him that ninety minutes a week of a wo man's company are enough to make him happy, who

used to think he needed a wife, a home, a marriage. His needs turn out to be quite light, after all, light and

fleeting, like those of a butterfly. No emotion, or none but the deepest, the most unguessed-at: a gro und

bass of contentedness, like the hum of traffic that lulls the city-dweller to sleep, or like the silence of the

night to countryfolk.

He thinks of Emma Bovary, coming home sated, glazen -eyed, from an afternoon of reckless fucking. So

this is bliss!, says Emma, marvelling at herself in the mirror. So this is the bliss the poets speak of! Well, if poor ghostly Emma were ever to find her way to Cape Town, he would bring her along one Thursday

afternoon to show her what bliss can be: a moderate bliss, a moderated bliss.

Then one Saturday morning everything changes. He is in the city on business; he is walking down St

George's Street when his eyes fall on a slim figure ahead of him in the crowd. It is Soraya, unmistaka bly,

flanked by two children, two boys. They are carryin g parcels; they have been shopping.

He hesitates, then follows at a distance. They disa ppear into Captain Dorego's Fish Inn. The boys have

Soraya's lustrous hair and dark eyes. They can only be her sons.

He walks on, turns back, passes Captain Dorego's a second time. The three are seated at a table in the

window. For an instant, through the glass, Soraya's eyes meet his.

He has always been a man of the city, at home amid a flux of bodies where eros stalks and glances flash

like arrows. But this glance between himself and So raya he regrets at once.

At their rendezvous the next Thursday neither menti ons the incident. Nonetheless, the memory hangs

uneasily over them. He has no wish to upset what mu st be, for Soraya, a precarious double life. He is all

for double lives, triple lives, lives lived in comp artments. Indeed, he feels, if anything, greater te nderness

for her. Your secret is safe with me, he would like to say.

But neither he nor she can put aside what has happe ned. The two little boys become presences between

them, playing quiet as shadows in a corner of the r oom where their mother and the strange man couple. In

Soraya's arms he becomes, fleetingly, their father: foster-father, step-father, shadow-father. Leaving her

bed afterwards, he feels their eyes flicker over hi m covertly, curiously.

His thoughts turn, despite himself, to the other fa ther, the real one. Does he have any inkling of wha t his

wife is up to, or has he elected the bliss of ignor ance?

He himself has no son. His childhood was spent in a family of women. As mother, aunts, sisters fell away,

they were replaced in due course by mistresses, wiv es, a daughter. The company of women made of him a

lover of women and, to an extent, a womanizer. With his height, his good bones, his olive skin, his

flowing hair, he could always count on a degree of magnetism. If he looked at a woman in a certain way ,

with a certain intent, she would return his look, h e could rely on that. That was how he lived; for ye ars, for

decades, that was the backbone of his life.

Then one day it all ended. Without warning his powe rs fled. Glances that would once have responded to

his slid over, past, through him. Overnight he beca me a ghost. If he wanted a woman he had to learn to

pursue her; often, in one way or another, to buy he r.

He existed in an anxious flurry of promiscuity. He had affairs with the wives of colleagues; he picked up

tourists in bars on the waterfront or at the Club I talia; he slept with whores.

His introduction to Soraya took place in a dim litt le sitting-room off the front office of Discreet Escorts,

with Venetian blinds over the windows, pot plants i n the corners, stale smoke hanging in the air. She was

on their books under 'Exotic'. The photograph showe d her with a red passion-flower in her hair and the

faintest oflines at the corners of her eyes. The en try said 'Afternoons only'. That was what decided h im:

the promise of shuttered rooms, cool sheets, stolen hours.

From the beginning it was satisfactory, just what h e wanted. A bull's eye. In a year he has not needed to go

back to the agency.

Then the accident in St George's Street, and the st rangeness that has followed. Though Soraya still ke eps

her appointments, he feels a growing coolness as sh e transforms herself into just another woman and him

into just another client.

He has a shrewd idea of how prostitutes speak among themselves about the men who frequent them, the

older men in particular. They tell stories, they la ugh, but they shudder too, as one shudders at a coc kroach

in a washbasin in the middle of the night. Soon, da intily, maliciously, he will be shuddered over. It is a

fate he cannot escape.

On the fourth Thursday after the incident, as he is leaving the apartment, Soraya makes the announceme nt

he has been steeling himself against. 'My mother is ill. I'm going to take a break to look after her. I won't

be here next week.'

`Will I see you the week after?' `I'm not sure. It depends on how she gets on. You had better phone first.'

`I don't have a number.'

`Phone the agency. They'll know.'

He waits a few days, then telephones the agency. So raya? Soraya has left us, says the man. No, we cannot

put you in touch with her, that would be against ho use rules. Would you like an introduction to anothe r of

our hostesses? Lots of exotics to choose from -Mala ysian, Thai, Chinese, you name it.

He spends an evening with another Soraya - Soraya h as become, it seems, a popular nom de commerce -

in a hotel room in Long Street. This one is no more than eighteen, unpractised, to his mind coarse. `So

what do you do?' she says as she slips off her clot hes. 'Export-import,' he says. 'You don't say,' she says.

There is a new secretary in his department. He take s her to lunch at a restaurant a discreet distance from

the campus and listens while, over shrimp salad, sh e complains about her sons' school. Drug-pedlars ha ng

around the playing-fields, she says, and the police do nothing. For the past three years she and her husband

have had their name on a list at the New Zealand co nsulate, to emigrate. 'You people had it easier. I mean,

whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, at least you knew where you were.

`You people?' he says.

'What people?'

`I mean your generation. Now people just pick and c hoose which laws they want to obey. It's anarchy.

How can you bring up children when there's anarchy all around?'

Her name is Dawn. The second time he takes her out they stop at his house and have sex. It is a failure.

Bucking and clawing, she works herself into a froth of excitement that in the end only repels him. He

lends her a comb, drives her back to the campus.

After that he avoids her, taking care to skirt the office where she works. In return she gives him a h urt

look, then snubs him.

He ought to give up, retire from the game. At what age, he wonders, did Origen castrate himself? Not the

most graceful of solutions, but then ageing is not a graceful business. A clearing of the decks, at least, so

that one can turn one's mind to the proper business of the old: preparing to die.

Might one approach a doctor and ask for it? A simpl e enough operation, surely: they do it to animals every

day, and animals survive well enough, if one ignore s a certain residue of sadness. Severing, tying off: with

local anaesthetic and a steady hand and a modicum o f phlegm one might even do it oneself, out of a

textbook. A man on a chair snipping away at himself an ugly sight, but no more ugly, from a certain point

of view, than the same man exercising himself on th e body of a woman.

There is still Soraya. He ought to close that chapt er. Instead, he pays a detective agency to track he r down.

Within days he has her real name, her address, her telephone number. He telephones at nine in the

morning, when the husband and children will be out. `Soraya?' he says. 'This is David. How are you?

When can I see you again?'

A long silence before she speaks. 'I don't know who you are,' she says. 'You are harassing me in my own

house. I demand you will never phone me here again, never.'

Demand. She means command. Her shrillness surprises him: there has been no intimation of it before. But

then, what should a predator expect when he intrude s into the vixen's nest, into the home of her cubs?

He puts down the telephone. A shadow of envy passes over him for the husband he has never seen.

TWO

WITHOUT THE Thursday interludes the week is as feat ureless as a desert. There are days when he does

not know what to do with himself.

He spends more time in the university library, read ing all he can find on the wider Byron circle, adding to

notes that already fill two fat files. He enjoys th e late-afternoon quiet of the reading room, enjoys the walk

home afterwards: the brisk winter air, the damp, gl eaming streets. He is returning home one Friday evening, taking the long route through the old college gardens, when he

notices one of his students on the path ahead of hi m. Her name is Melanie Isaacs, from his Romantics

course. Not the best student but not the worst eith er: clever enough, but unengaged.

She is dawdling; he soon catches up with her. 'Hell o,' he says.

She smiles back, bobbing her head, her smile sly ra ther than shy. She is small and thin, with close-cropped

black hair, wide, almost Chinese cheekbones, large, dark eyes. Her outfits are always striking. Today she

wears a maroon miniskirt with a mustard-coloured sw eater and black tights; the gold baubles on her belt

match the gold balls of her earrings.

He is mildly smitten with her. It is no great matte r: barely a term

passes when he does not fall for one or other of hi s charges. Cape Town: a city prodigal of beauty, of

beauties.

Does she know he has an eye on her? Probably. Women are sensitive to it, to the weight of the desiring

gaze.

It has been raining; from the pathside runnels come s the soft rush of water.

`My favourite season, my favourite time of day,' he remarks. `Do you live around here?'

`Across the line. I share a flat.'

`Is Cape Town your home?'

`No, I grew up in George.'

`I live just nearby. Can I invite you in for a drin k?'

A pause, cautious. 'OK. But I have to be back by se ven-thirty.'

From the gardens they pass into the quiet residenti al pocket where he has lived for the past twelve ye ars,

first with Rosalind, then, after the divorce, alone .

He unlocks the security gate, unlocks the door, ush ers the girl in. He switches on lights, takes her bag.

There are raindrops on her hair. He stares, frankly ravished. She lowers her eyes, offering the same

evasive and perhaps even coquettish little smile as before.

In the kitchen he opens a bottle of Meerlust and se ts out biscuits and cheese. When he returns she is

standing at the bookshelves, head on one side, read ing titles. He puts on music: the Mozart clarinet

quintet.

Wine, music: a ritual that men and women play out w ith each other. Nothing wrong with rituals, they were

invented to ease the awkward passages. But the girl he has brought home is not just thirty years his junior:

she is a student, his student, under his tutelage. No matter what passes between them now, they will h ave

to meet again as teacher and pupil. Is he prepared for that?

`Are you enjoying the course?' he asks.

`I liked Blake. I liked the Wonderhorn stuff.

'Wunderhorn.'

'I'm not so crazy about Wordsworth.'

`You shouldn't be saying that to me. Wordsworth has been one of my masters.'

It is true. For as long as he can remember, the har monies of The Prelude have echoed within him.

`Maybe by the end of the course I'll appreciate him more. Maybe he'll grow on me.'

`Maybe. But in my experience poetry speaks to you e ither at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation

and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falli ng in love.'

Like falling in love. Do the young still fall in lo ve, or is that mechanism obsolete by now, unnecessa ry,

quaint, like steam locomotion? He is out of touch, out of date. Falling in love could have fallen out of

fashion and come back again half a dozen times, for all he knows.

`Do you write poetry yourself?' he asks.

`I did when I was at school. I wasn't very good. I haven't got the time now.'

`And passions? Do you have any literary passions?'

She frowns at the strange word. 'We did Adrienne Ri ch and Toni Morrison in my second year. And Alice

Walker. I got pretty involved. But I wouldn't call it a passion exactly.'

So: not a creature of passion. In the most roundabo ut of ways, is she warning him off? `I am going to throw together some supper,' he says. Will you join me? It will be very simple.'

She looks dubious.

`Come on!' he says. 'Say yes!'

`OK. But I have to make a phone call first.'

The call takes longer than he expected. From the ki tchen he hears murmurings, silences.

`What are your career plans?' he asks afterwards.

`Stagecraft and design. I'm doing a diploma in thea tre.'

`And what is your reason for taking a course in Rom antic poetry?'

She ponders, wrinkling her nose. 'It's mainly for t he atmosphere that I chose it,' she says. 'I didn't want to

take Shakespeare again. I took Shakespeare last yea r.'

What he throws together for supper is indeed simple : anchovies on tagliatelle with a mushroom sauce. He

lets her chop the mushrooms. Otherwise she sits on a stool, watching while he cooks. They eat in the

dining-room, opening a second bottle of wine. She e ats without inhibition. A healthy appetite, for

someone so slight.

`Do you always cook for yourself?' she asks.

`I live alone. If I don't cook, no one will.'

`I hate cooking. I guess I should learn.'

`Why? If you really hate it, marry a man who cooks. '

Together they contemplate the picture: the young wi fe with the daring clothes and gaudy jewellery

striding through the front door, impatiently sniffi ng the air; the husband, colourless Mr Right, apron ned,

stirring a pot in the steaming kitchen. Reversals: the stuff of bourgeois comedy.

`That's all,' he says at the end, when the bowl is empty. 'No dessert, unless you want an apple or som e

yoghurt. Sorry - I didn't know I would be having a guest.'

`It was nice,' she says, draining her glass, rising . 'Thanks.'

`Don't go yet.' He takes her by the hand and leads her to the sofa. 'I have something to show you. Do you

like dance? Not dancing: dance.' He slips a cassett e into the video machine. 'It's a film by a man nam ed

Norman McLaren. It's quite old. I found it in the l ibrary. See what you think.'

Sitting side by side they watch. Two dancers on a b are stage move through their steps. Recorded by a

stroboscopic camera, their images, ghosts of their movements, fan out behind them like wingbeats. It i s a

film he first saw a quarter of a century ago but is still captivated by: the instant of the present and the past

of that instant, evanescent, caught in the same spa ce.

He wills the girl to be captivated too. But he sens es she is not.

When the film is over she gets up and wanders aroun d the room. She raises the lid of the piano, strikes

middle C. 'Do you play?' she says.

`A bit.'

`Classics or jazz?'

`No jazz, I'm afraid.'

`Will you play something for me?'

`Not now. I'm out of practice. Another time, when w e know each other better.'

She peers into his study. 'Can I look?' she says.

`Switch on the light.'

He puts on more music: Scarlatti sonatas, cat-music .

`You've got a lot of Byron books,' she says when sh e comes out. `Is he your favourite?'

`I'm working on Byron. On his time in Italy.'

`Didn't he die young?'

`Thirty-six. They all died young. Or dried up. Or w ent mad and were locked away. But Italy wasn't wher e

Byron died. He died in Greece. He went to Italy to escape a scandal, and settled there. Settled down. Had

the last big love-affair of his life. Italy was a p opular destination for the English in those days. T hey

believed the Italians were still in touch with thei r natures. Less hemmed in by convention, more

passionate.' She makes another circuit of the room. 'Is this your wife?' she asks, stopping before the framed

photograph on the coffee-table. `My mother. Taken w hen she was young.'

`Are you married?'

`I was. Twice. But now I'm not.' He does not say: N ow I make do with what comes my way. He does not

say: Now I make do with whores. Van I offer you a l iqueur?'

She does not want a liqueur, but does accept a shot of whisky in her coffee. As she sips, he leans over and

touches her cheek. `You're very lovely,' he says. ' I'm going to invite you to do something reckless.' He

touches her again. 'Stay. Spend the night with me.'

Across the rim of the cup she regards him steadily. 'Why?'

`Because you ought to.'

`Why ought I to?'

`Why? Because a woman's beauty does not belong to h er alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the

world. She has a duty to share it.'

His hand still rests against her cheek. She does no t withdraw, but does not yield either.

`And what if I already share it?' In her voice ther e is a hint of breathlessness. Exciting, always, to be

courted: exciting, pleasurable.

`Then you should share it more widely.'

Smooth words, as old as seduction itself. Yet at th is moment he believes in them. She does not own

herself. Beauty does not own itself.

`From fairest creatures we desire increase,' he say s, 'that thereby beauty's rose might never die.'

Not a good move. Her smile loses its playful, mobil e quality. The pentameter, whose cadence once serve d

so well to oil the serpent's words, now only estran ges. He has become a teacher again, man of the book ,

guardian of the culture-hoard. She puts down her cu p. 'I must leave, I'm expected.'

The clouds have cleared, the stars are shining. 'A lovely night,'

he says, unlocking the garden gate. She does not lo ok up. 'Shall I walk you home?'

`No.'

`Very well. Good night.' He reaches out, enfolds he r. For a moment he can feel her little breasts against

him. Then she slips his embrace and is gone.

THREE

THAT IS WHERE he ought to end it. But he does not. On Sunday morning he drives to the empty campus

and lets himself into the department office. From t he filing cabinet he extracts Melanie Isaacs's enrolment

card and copies down her personal details: home add ress, Cape Town address, telephone number.

He dials the number. A woman's voice answers.

`Melanie?'

`I'll call her. Who is speaking?'

`Tell her, David Lurie.'

Melanie - melody: a meretricious rhyme. Not a good name for her. Shift the accent. Meláni: the dark one.

`Hello?'

In the one word he hears all her uncertainty. Too y oung. She will not know how to deal with him; he

ought to let her go. But he is in the grip of somet hing. Beauty's rose: the poem drives straight as an arrow.

She does not own herself; perhaps he does not own h imself either.

`I thought you might like to go out to lunch,' he s ays. 'I'll pick you up at, shall we say, twelve.'

There is still time for her to tell a lie, wriggle out. But she is too confused, and the moment passes .

When he arrives, she is waiting on the sidewalk out side her apartment block. She is wearing black tights

and a black sweater. Her hips are as slim as a twel ve-year-old's. He takes her to Hout Bay, to the harbourside. During the drive he tries to put her at ease. He asks about

her other courses. She is acting in a play, she say s. It is one of her diploma requirements. Rehearsal s are

taking up a lot of her time.

At the restaurant she has no appetite, stares out g lumly over the sea.

`Is something the matter? Do you want to tell me?'

She shakes her head.

`Are you worried about the two of us?'

`Maybe,' she says.

`No need. I'll take care. I won't let it go too far .'

Too far. What is far, what is too far, in a matter like this? Is her too far the same as his too far?

It has begun to rain: sheets of water waver across the empty bay. `Shall we leave?' he says.

He takes her back to his house. On the living-room floor, to the sound of rain pattering against the

windows, he makes love to her. Her body is clear, s imple, in its way perfect; though she is passive

throughout, he finds the act pleasurable, so pleasu rable that from its climax he tumbles into blank

oblivion.

When he comes back the rain has stopped. The girl i s lying beneath him, her eyes closed, her hands slack

above her head, a slight frown on her face. His own hands are under her coarse-knit sweater, on her

breasts. Her tights and panties lie in a tangle on the floor; his trousers are around his ankles. Afte r the

storm, he thinks: straight out of George Grosz.

Averting her face, she frees herself, gathers her t hings, leaves the room. In a few minutes she is bac k,

dressed. 'I must go,' she whispers. He makes no eff ort to detain her.

He wakes the next morning in a state of profound we llbeing, which does not go away. Melanie is not in

class. From his office he telephones a florist. Ros es? Perhaps not roses. He orders carnations. 'Red o r

white?' asks the woman. Red? White? 'Send twelve pi nk,' he says. 'I haven't got twelve pink. Shall I send a

mix?'

`Send a mix,' he says.

Rain falls all of Tuesday, from heavy clouds blown in over the city from the west. Crossing the lobby of

the Communications Building at the end of the day, he spies her at the doorway amid a knot of students

waiting for a break in the downpour. He comes up be hind her, puts a hand on her shoulder. 'Wait for me

here,' he says. 'I'll give you a ride home.'

He returns with an umbrella. Crossing the square to the parking lot he draws her closer to shelter her. A

sudden gust blows the umbrella inside out; awkwardl y they run together to the car.

She is wearing a slick yellow raincoat; in the car she lowers the hood. Her face is flushed; he is awa re of

the rise and fall of her chest. She licks away a dr op of rain from her upper lip. A child! he thinks: No more

than a child! What am I doing? Yet his heart lurche s with desire.

They drive through dense late-afternoon traffic. 'I missed you yesterday,' he says. 'Are you all right?'

She does not reply, staring at the wiper blades.

At a red light he takes her cold hand in his. 'Mela nie!' he says, trying to keep his tone light. But he has

forgotten how to woo. The voice he hears belongs to a cajoling parent, not a lover.

He draws up before her apartment block. 'Thanks,' s he says, opening the car door.

`Aren't you going to invite me in?'

`I think my flatmate is home.'

`What about this evening?'

`I've got a rehearsal this evening.'`Then when do I see you again?'

She does not answer. 'Thanks,' she repeats, and sli des out.

On Wednesday she is in class, in her usual seat. Th ey are still on Wordsworth, on Book 6 of The Prelud e,

the poet in the Alps. `From a bare ridge,' he reads aloud,

we also first beheld

Unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved

To have a soulless image on the eye

That had usurped upon a living thought

That never more could be.

`So. The majestic white mountain, Mont Blanc, turns out to be a disappointment. Why? Let us start with

the unusual verb form usurp upon. Did anyone look i t up in a dictionary?'

Silence.

`If you had, you would have found that usurp upon m eans to intrude or encroach upon. Usurp, to take over

entirely, is the perfective of usurp upon; usurping completes the act of usurping upon.

`The clouds cleared, says Wordsworth, the peak was unveiled, and we grieved to see it. A strange

response, for a traveller to the Alps. Why grieve? Because, he says, a soulless image, a mere image on the

retina, has encroached upon what has hitherto been a living thought. What was that living thought?'

Silence again. The very air into which he speaks ha ngs listless as a sheet. A man looking at a mountain:

why does it have to be so complicated, they want to complain? What answer can he give them? What did

he say to Melanie that first evening? That without a flash of revelation there is nothing. Where is the flash

of revelation in this room?

He casts a quick glance at her. Her head is bowed, she is absorbed in the text, or seems to be.

`The same word usurp recurs a few lines later. Usur pation is one of the deeper themes of the Alps

sequence. The great archetypes of the mind, pure id eas, find themselves usurped by mere sense-images.

`Yet we cannot live our daily lives in a realm of p ure ideas, cocooned from sense-experience. The

question is not, How can we keep the imagination pu re, protected from the onslaughts of reality? The

question has to be, Can we find a way for the two t o coexist?

look at line 599. Wordsworth is writing about the l imits of sense-perception. It is a theme we have touched

on before. As the sense-organs reach the limit of t heir powers, their light begins to go out. Yet at the

moment of expiry that light leaps up one last time like a candle-flame, giving us a glimpse of the invisible.

The passage is difficult; perhaps it even contradic ts the Mont Blanc moment. Nevertheless, Wordsworth

seems to be feeling his way toward a balance: not t he pure idea, wreathed in clouds, nor the visual image

burned on the retina, overwhelming and disappointin g us with its matter-of-fact clarity, but the sense-

image, kept as fleeting as possible, as a means tow ard stirring or activating the idea that lies buried more

deeply in the soil of memory.'

He pauses. Blank incomprehension. He has gone too f ar too fast. How to bring them to him? How to bring

her?

`Like being in love,' he says. 'If you were blind y ou would hardly have fallen in love in the first pl ace. But

now, do you truly wish to see the beloved in the co ld clarity of the visual apparatus? It may be in your

better interest to throw a veil over the gaze, so a s to keep her alive in her archetypal, goddesslike form.'

It is hardly in Wordsworth, but at least it wakes t hem up.

Archetypes? they are saying to themselves. Goddesse s? What is he talking about? What does this old man

know about love?

A memory floods back: the moment on the floor when he forced the sweater up and exposed her neat,

perfect little breasts. For the first time she look s up; her eyes meet his and in a flash see all. Con fused, she

drops her glance.

`Wordsworth is writing about the Alps,' he says. 'W e don't have Alps in this country, but we have the

Drakensberg, or on a smaller scale Table Mountain, which we climb in the wake of the poets, hoping for

one of those revelatory, Wordsworthian moments we h ave all heard about.' Now he is just talking,

covering up. 'But moments like that will not come u nless the eye is half turned toward the great archetypes

of the imagination we carry within us.'

Enough! He is sick of the sound of his own voice, a nd sorry for her too, having to listen to these covert

intimacies. He dismisses the class, then lingers, h oping for a word with her. But she slips away in th e

throng. A week ago she was just another pretty face in the class. Now she is a presence in his life, a breathing

presence.

The auditorium of the student union is in darkness. Unnoticed, he takes a seat in the back row. Save for a

balding man in a janitor's uniform a few rows in fr ont of him, he is the only spectator.

Sunset at the Globe Salon is the name of the play t hey are rehearsing: a comedy of the new South Afric a

set in a hairdressing salon in Hillbrow, Johannesbu rg. On stage a hairdresser, flamboyantly gay, attends to

two clients, one black, one white. Patter passes am ong the three of them: jokes, insults. Catharsis seems to

be the presiding principle: all the coarse old prej udices brought into the light of day and washed awa y in

gales of laughter.

A fourth figure comes onstage, a girl in high platf orm shoes with her hair done in a cascade of ringle ts.

'Take a seat, dearie, I'll attend to you in a mo,' says the hairdresser. 'I've come for the job,' she replies - 'the

one you advertised.' Her accent is glaringly Kaaps; it is Melanie. Ag, pick up a broom and make yourse lf

useful,' says the hairdresser.

She picks up a broom, totters around the set pushin g it before her. The broom gets tangled in an electric

cord. There is supposed to be a flash, followed by a screaming and a scurrying around, but something g oes

wrong with the synchronization. The director comes striding onstage, and behind her a young man in

black leather who begins to fiddle with the wall-so cket. 'It's got to be snappier,' says the director. 'A more

Marx Brothers atmosphere.' She turns to Melanie. 'O K?' Melanie nods.

Ahead of him the janitor stands up and with a heavy sigh leaves the auditorium. He ought to be gone too.

An unseemly business, sitting in the dark spying on a girl (unbidden the word letching comes to him). Yet

the old men whose company he seems to be on the poi nt of joining, the tramps and drifters with their

stained raincoats and cracked false teeth and hairy earholes - all of them were once upon a time child ren of

God, with straight limbs and clear eyes. Can they b e blamed for clinging to the last to their place at the

sweet banquet of the senses?

Onstage the action resumes. Melanie pushes her broo m. A bang, a flash, screams of alarm. 'It's not my

fault,' squawks Melanie. `My gats, why must everyth ing always be my fault?' Quietly he gets up, follows

the janitor into the darkness outside.

At four o'clock the next afternoon he is at her fla t. She opens the door wearing a crumpled T-shirt, c ycling

shorts, slippers in the shape of comic-book gophers which he finds silly, tasteless.

He has given her no warning; she is too surprised t o resist the intruder who thrusts himself upon her.

When he takes her in his arms, her limbs crumple li ke a marionette's. Words heavy as clubs thud into the

delicate whorl of her ear. 'No, not now!' she says, struggling. 'My cousin will be back!'

But nothing will stop him. He carries her to the be droom, brushes off the absurd slippers, kisses her feet,

astonished by the feeling she evokes. Something to do with the apparition on the stage: the wig, the

wiggling bottom, the crude talk. Strange love! Yet from the quiver of Aphrodite, goddess of the foamin g

waves, no doubt about that.

She does not resist. All she does is avert herself avert her lips, avert her eyes. She lets him lay he r out on

the bed and undress her: she even helps him, raisin g her arms and then her hips. Little shivers of cold run

through her; as soon as she is bare, she slips unde r the quilted counterpane like a mole burrowing, an d

turns her back on him.

Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheles s, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to

go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its nec k. So

that everything done to her might be done, as it we re, far away.

`Pauline will be back any minute,' she says when it is over. `Please. You must go.'

He obeys, but then, when he reaches his car, is ove rtaken with such dejection, such dullness, that he sits

slumped at the wheel unable to move.

A mistake, a huge mistake. At this moment, he has n o doubt, she, Melanie, is trying to cleanse herself of

it, of him. He sees her running a bath, stepping in to the water, eyes closed like a sleepwalker's. He would

like to slide into a bath of his own. A woman with chunky legs and a no-nonsense business suit passes by and enters the apartment block. Is

this cousin Pauline the flatmate, the one whose dis approval Melanie is so afraid of? He rouses himself ,

drives off.

The next day she is not in class. An unfortunate ab sence, since it is the day of the mid-term test. When he

fills in the register afterwards, he ticks her off as present and enters a mark of seventy. At the foo t of the

page he pencils a note to himself 'Provisional'. Se venty: a vacillator's mark, neither good nor bad.

She stays away the whole of the next week. Time aft er time he telephones, without reply. Then at

midnight on Sunday the doorbell rings. It is Melani e, dressed from top to toe in black, with a little black

woollen cap. Her face is strained; he steels himsel f for angry words, for a scene.

The scene does not come. In fact, she is the one wh o is embarrassed. 'Can I sleep here tonight?' she

whispers, avoiding his eye.

`Of course, of course.' His heart is flooded with r elief. He reaches out, embraces her, pressing her a gainst

him stiff and cold. `Come, I'll make you some tea.'

`No, no tea, nothing, I'm exhausted, I just need to crash.'

He makes up a bed for her in his daughter's old roo m, kisses her good night, leaves her to herself. When

he returns half an hour later she is in a dead slee p, fully clothed. He eases off her shoes, covers he r.

At seven in the morning, as the first birds are beg inning to chirrup, he knocks at her door. She is aw ake,

lying with the sheet drawn up to her chin, looking haggard.

`How are you feeling?' he asks.

She shrugs.

Is something the matter? Do you want to talk?'

She shakes her head mutely.

He sits down on the bed, draws her to him. In his a rms she begins to sob miserably. Despite all, he feels a

tingling of desire. `There, there,' he whispers, tr ying to comfort her. 'Tell me what is wrong.' Almos t he

says, 'Tell Daddy what is wrong.'

She gathers herself and tries to speak, but her nos e is clogged. He finds her a tissue. 'Can I stay here a

while?' she says.

`Stay here?' he repeats carefully. She has stopped crying, but long shudders of misery still pass through

her. 'Would that be a good idea?'

Whether it would be a good idea she does not say. I nstead she presses herself tighter to him, her face

warm against his belly. The sheet slips aside; she is wearing only a singlet and panties.

Does she know what she is up to, at this moment?

When he made the first move, in the college gardens , he had thought of it as a quick little affair - quickly

in, quickly out. Now here she is in his house, trai ling complications behind her. What game is she

playing? He should be wary, no doubt about that. Bu t he should have been wary from the start.

He stretches out on the bed beside her. The last th ing in the world he needs is for Melanie Isaacs to take up

residence with him. Yet at this moment the thought is intoxicating. Every night she will be here; every

night he can slip into her bed like this, slip into her. People will find out, they always do; there w ill be

whispering, there might even be scandal. But what w ill that matter? A last leap of the flame of sense

before it goes out. He folds the bedclothes aside, reaches down, strokes her breasts, her buttocks. 'O f

course you can stay,' he murmurs. 'Of course.'

In his bedroom, two doors away, the alarm clock goe s off. She turns away from him, pulls the covers up

over her shoulders.

`I'm going to leave now,' he says. 'I have classes to meet. Try to sleep again. I'll be back at noon, then we

can talk.' He strokes her hair, kisses her forehead . Mistress? Daughter? What, in her heart, is she tr ying to

be? What is she offering him?

When he returns at noon, she is up, sitting at the kitchen table, eating toast and honey and drinking tea.

She seems thoroughly at home.

`So,' he says, 'you are looking much better.'

`I slept after you left.' `Will you tell me now what this is all about?'

She avoids his eye. Not now,' she says. 'I have to go, I'm late. I'll explain next time.'

`And when will next time be?'

`This evening, after rehearsal. Is that OK?'

`Yes.'

She gets up, carries her cup and plate to the sink (but does not wash them), turns to face him. 'Are y ou sure

it's OK?' she says. `Yes, it's OK.'

`I wanted to say, I know I've missed a lot of class es, but the production is taking up all my time.'

`I understand. You are telling me your drama work h as priority. It would have helped if you had explained

earlier. Will you be in class tomorrow?'

`Yes. I promise.'

She promises, but with a promise that is not enforc eable. He is vexed, irritated. She is behaving badly,

getting away with too much; she is learning to expl oit him and will probably exploit him further. But if

she has got away with much, he has got away with mo re; if she is behaving badly, he has behaved worse.

To the extent that they are together, if they are t ogether, he is the one who leads, she the one who f ollows.

Let him not forget that.

FOUR

HE MAKES LOVE to her one more time, on the bed in h is daughter's room. It is good, as good as the first

time; he is beginning to learn the way her body mov es. She is quick, and greedy for experience. If he does

not sense in her a fully sexual appetite, that is o nly because she is still young. One moment stands o ut in

recollection, when she hooks a leg behind his butto cks to draw him in closer: as the tendon of her inner

thigh tightens against him, he feels a surge of joy and desire. Who knows, he thinks: there might, des pite

all, be a future.

`Do you do this kind of thing often?' she asks afte rwards. `Do what?'

`Sleep with your students. Have you slept with Aman da?'

He does not answer. Amanda is another student in th e class, a wispy blonde. He has no interest in

Amanda.

`Why did you get divorced?' she asks.

`I've been divorced twice. Married twice, divorced twice.'

`What happened to your first wife?'

`It's a long story. I'll tell you some other time.'

`Do you have pictures?'

`I don't collect pictures. I don't collect women.'

`Aren't you collecting me?'

`No, of course not.'

She gets up, strolls around the room picking up her clothes, as little bashful as if she were alone. He is

used to women more self-conscious in their dressing and undressing. But the women he is used to are not

as young, as perfectly formed.

The same afternoon there is a knock at his office d oor and a young man enters whom he has not seen

before. Without invitation he sits down, casts a lo ok around the room, nods appreciatively at the

bookcases.

He is tall and wiry; he has a thin goatee and an ea r-ring; he wears a black leather jacket and black leather

trousers. He looks older than most students; he loo ks like trouble.

`So you are the professor,' he says. 'Professor Dav id. Melanie has told me about you.'

`Indeed. And what has she told you?' `That you fuck her.'

There is a long silence. So, he thinks: the chickens come home to roost. I should have guessed it: a g irl

like that would not come unencumbered.

`Who are you?' he says.

The visitor ignores his question. 'You think you're smart,' he continues. 'A real ladies' man. You think you

will still look so smart when your wife hears what you are up to?'

`That's enough. What do you want?'

`Don't you tell me what's enough.' The words come f aster now, in a patter of menace. 'And don't think you

can just walk into people's lives and walk out agai n when it suits you.' Light dances on his black eye balls.

He leans forward, sweeps right and left with his ha nds. The papers on the desk go flying.

He rises. 'That's enough! It's time for you to leav e!'

`It's time for you to leave!' the boy repeats, mimi cking him.

`OK.' He gets up, saunters to the door. 'Goodbye, P rofessor Chips! But just wait and see!' Then he is gone.

A bravo, he thinks. She is mixed up with a bravo an d now I am mixed up with her bravo too! His stomach

churns.

Though he stays up late into the night, waiting for her, Melanie does not come. Instead, his car, park ed in

the street, is vandalized. The tyres are deflated, glue is injected into the doorlocks, newspaper is p asted

over the windscreen, the paintwork is scratched. Th e locks have to be replaced; the bill comes to six

hundred rand.

`Any idea who did it?' asks the locksmith.

`None at all,' he replies curtly.

After this coup de main Melanie keeps her distance. He is not surprised: if he has been shamed, she is

shamed too. But on Monday she reappears in class; a nd beside her, leaning back in his seat, hands in

pockets, with an air of cocky ease, is the boy in b lack, the boyfriend.

Usually there is a buzz of talk from the students. Today there is a hush. Though he cannot believe the y

know what is afoot, they are clearly waiting to see what he will do about the intruder.

What will he do indeed? What happened to his car wa s evidently not enough. Evidently there are more

instalments to come. What can he do? He must grit h is teeth and pay, what else?

`We continue with Byron,' he says, plunging into hi s notes. 'As we saw last week, notoriety and scandal

affected not only Byron's life but the way in which his poems were received by the public. Byron the m an

found himself conflated with his own poetic creatio ns - with Harold, Manfred, even Don Juan.'

Scandal. A pity that must be his theme, but he is i n no state to improvise.

He steals a glance at Melanie. Usually she is a bus y writer.

Today, looking thin and exhausted, she sits huddled over her book. Despite himself, his heart goes out to

her. Poor little bird, he thinks, whom I have held against my breast!

He has told them to read 'Lara'. His notes deal wit h 'Lara'. There is no way in which he can evade the

poem. He reads aloud: He stood a stranger in this breathing world,

An erring spirit from another hurled;

A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped

By choice the perils he by chance escaped.

`Who will gloss these lines for me? Who is this "er ring spirit"? Why does he call himself "a thing"? From

what world does he come?'

He has long ceased to be surprised at the range of ignorance of his students. Post-Christian, posthistorical,

postliterate, they might as well have been hatched from eggs yesterday. So he does not expect them to

know about fallen angels or where Byron might have read of them. What he does expect is a round of

goodnatured guesses which, with luck, he can guide toward the mark. But today he is met with silence, a dogged silence that organizes itself palpably around the stranger in their midst. They will not speak, they

will not play his game, as long as a stranger is th ere to listen and judge and mock.

`Lucifer,' he says. 'The angel hurled out of heaven . Of how angels live we know little, but we can ass ume

they do not require oxygen. At home Lucifer, the da rk angel, does not need to breathe. All of a sudden he

finds himself cast out into this strange "breathing world" of ours. "Erring": a being who chooses his own

path, who lives dangerously, even creating danger f or himself. Let us read further.'

The boy has not looked down once at the text. Inste ad, with a little smile on his lips, a smile in which there

is, just possibly, a touch of bemusement, he takes in his words.

He could

At times resign his own for others' good,

But not in pity, not because he ought,

But in some strange perversity of thought,

That swayed him onward with a secret pride

To do what few or none would do beside;

And this same impulse would in tempting time

Mislead his spirit equally to crime.

`So, what kind of creature is this Lucifer?'

By now the students must surely feel the current ru nning between them, between himself and the boy. It is

to the boy alone that the question has addressed it self; and, like a sleeper summoned to life, the boy

responds. 'He does what he feels like. He doesn't c are if it's good or bad. He just does it.'

`Exactly. Good or bad, he just does it. He doesn't act on principle but on impulse, and the source of his

impulses is dark to him. Read a few lines further: "His madness was not of the head, but heart." A mad

heart. What is a mad heart?'

He is asking too much. The boy would like to press his intuition further, he can see that. He wants to show

that he knows about more than just motorcycles and flashy clothes. And perhaps he does. Perhaps he does

indeed have intimations of what it is to have a mad heart. But, here, in this classroom, before these

strangers, the words will not come. He shakes his h ead.

`Never mind. Note that we are not asked to condemn this being with the mad heart, this being with whom

there is something constitutionally wrong. On the c ontrary, we are invited to understand and sympathiz e.

But there is a limit to sympathy. For though he liv es among us, he is not one of us. He is exactly wha t he

calls himself: a thing, that is, a monster. Finally , Byron will suggest, it will not be possible to lo ve him,

not in the deeper, more human sense of the word. He will be condemned to solitude.'

Heads bent, they scribble down his words. Byron, Lu cifer, Cain, it is all the same to them.

They finish the poem. He assigns the first cantos o f Don Juan and ends the class early. Across their heads

he calls to her: 'Melanie, can I have a word with y ou?'

Pinch-faced, exhausted, she stands before him. Agai n his heart goes out to her. If they were alone he

would embrace her, try to cheer her up. My little d ove, he would call her.

`Shall we go to my office?' he says instead.

With the boyfriend trailing behind, he leads her up the stairway to his office. 'Wait here,' he tells the boy,

and closes the door on him.

Melanie sits before him, her head sunken. 'My dear, ' he says, `you are going through a difficult time, I

know that, and I don't want to make it more difficu lt. But I must speak to you as a teacher. I have

obligations to my students, all of them. What your friend does off campus is his own business. But I c an't

have him disrupting my classes. Tell him that, from me.

`As for yourself, you are going to have to give mor e time to your work. You are going to have to atten d

class more regularly. And you are going to have to make up the test you missed.'

She stares back at him in puzzlement, even shock. Y ou have cut me off from everyone, she seems to want

to say. You have made me bear your secret. I am no longer just a student. How can you speak to me like

this? Her voice, when it comes, is so subdued that he can barely hear: `I can't take the test, I haven't done the

reading.'

What he wants to say cannot be said, not decently. All he can do is signal, and hope that she understands.

'Just take the test, Melanie, like everyone else. I t does not matter if you are not prepared, the poin t is to get

it behind you. Let us set a date. How about next Mo nday, during the lunch break? That will give you the

weekend to do the reading.'

She raises her chin, meets his eye defiantly. Eithe r she has not understood or she is refusing the ope ning.

`Monday, here in my office,' he repeats.

She rises, slings her bag over her shoulder.

`Melanie, I have responsibilities. At least go thro ugh the motions. Don't make the situation more

complicated than it need be.'

Responsibilities: she does not dignify the word wit h a reply.

Driving home from a concert that evening, he stops at a traffic light. A motorcycle throbs past, a silver

Ducati bearing two figures in black. They wear helm ets, but he recognizes them nevertheless. Melanie, on

the pillion, sits with knees wide apart, pelvis arc hed. A quick shudder of lust tugs him. I have been there!

he thinks. Then the motorcycle surges forward, bear ing her away.

FIVE

SHE DOES NOT appear for her examination on Monday. Instead, in his mailbox he finds an official

withdrawal card: Student 7710 101SAM Ms M Isaacs ha s withdrawn from COM 312 with immediate

effect.

Barely an hour later a telephone call is switched t hrough to his office. 'Professor Lurie? Have you a

moment to talk? My name is Isaacs, I'm calling from George. My daughter is in your class, you know,

Melanie.'

`Yes.'

`Professor, I wonder if you can help us. Melanie ha s been such a good student, and now she says she is

going to give it all up. It has come as a terrible shock to us.'

`I'm not sure I understand.'

`She wants to give up her studies and get a job. It seems such a waste, to spend three years at univer sity

and do so well, and then drop out before the end. I wonder if I can ask, Professor, can you have a cha t with

her, talk some sense into her?'

`Have you spoken to Melanie yourself? Do you know w hat is behind this decision?'

`We spent all weekend on the phone to her, her moth er and I, but we just can't get sense out of her. She is

very involved in a play she is acting in, so maybe she is, you know, overworked,overstressed. She alwa ys

takes things so to heart, Professor, that's her nat ure, she gets very involved. But if you talk to her , maybe

you can persuade her to think again. She has such r espect for you. We don't want her to throw away all

these years for nothing.'

So Melanie-Meláni, with her baubles from the Orient al Plaza and her blind spot for Wordsworth, takes

things to heart. He would not have guessed it. What else has he not guessed about her?

`I wonder, Mr Isaacs, whether I am the right person to speak to Melanie.'

`You are, Professor, you are! As I say, Melanie has such respect for you.'

Respect? You are out of date, Mr Isaacs. Your daugh ter lost respect for me weeks ago, and with good

reason. That is what he ought to say. 'I'll see wha t I can do,' he says instead.

You will not get away with it, he tells himself aft erwards. Nor will father Isaacs in faraway George f orget

this conversation, with its lies and evasions. I'll see what I can do. Why not come clean? I am the wo rm in

the apple, he should have said. How can I help you when I am the very source of your woe? He telephones the flat and gets cousin Pauline. Melanie is not available, says Pauline in a chilly voice.

'What do you mean, not available?'

`I mean she doesn't want to speak to you.'

`Tell her', he says, 'it is about her decision to w ithdraw. Tell her she is being very rash.'

Wednesday's class goes badly, Friday's even worse. Attendance is poor; the only students who come are

the tame ones, the passive, the docile. There can b e only one explanation. The story must be out.

He is in the department office when he hears a voic e behind him: 'Where can I find Professor Lurie?'

`Here I am,' he says without thinking.

The man who has spoken is small, thin, stoop-should ered.

He wears a blue suit too large for him, he smells o f cigarette smoke.

`Professor Lurie? We spoke on the telephone. Isaacs .'

`Yes. How do you do. Shall we go to my office?'

`That won't be necessary.' The man pauses, gathers himself, takes a deep breath. 'Professor,' he begins,

laying heavy stress on the word, 'you may be very e ducated and all that, but what you have done is not

right.' He pauses, shakes his head. 'It is not righ t.'

The two secretaries do not pretend to hide their cu riosity. There are students in the office too; as the

stranger's voice rises they fall silent.

`We put our children in the hands of you people bec ause we think we can trust you. If we can't trust the

university, who can we trust? We never thought we w ere sending our daughter into a nest of vipers. No,

Professor Lurie, you may be high and mighty and hav e all kinds of degrees, but if I was you I'd be very

ashamed of myself, so help me God. If I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick, now is your chance to

say, but I don't think so, I can see it from your f ace.'

Now is his chance indeed: let him who would speak, speak. But he stands tongue-tied, the blood thudding

in his ears. A viper: how can he deny it?

`Excuse me,' he whispers, 'I have business to atten d to.' Like a thing of wood, he turns and leaves.

Into the crowded corridor Isaacs follows him. 'Prof essor! Professor Lurie!' he calls. 'You can't just run

away like that! You have not heard the last of it, I tell you now!'

That is how it begins. Next morning, with surprisin g dispatch, a memorandum arrives from the office of

the Vice-Rector (Student Affairs) notifying him tha t a complaint has been lodged against him under art icle

3.1 of the university's Code of Conduct. He is requ ested to contact the Vice-Rector's office at his earliest

convenience.

The notification - which arrives in an envelope mar ked Confidential - is accompanied by a copy of the

code. Article 3 deals with victimization or harassm ent on grounds of race, ethnic group, religion, gender,

sexual preference, or physical disability. Article 3.1 addresses victimization or harassment of studen ts by

teachers.

A second document describes the constitution and co mpetences of committees of inquiry. He reads it, his

heart hammering unpleasantly. Halfway through, his concentration fails. He gets up, locks the door of his

office, and sits with the paper in his hand, trying to imagine what has happened.

Melanie would not have taken such a step by herself , he is convinced. She is too innocent for that, too

ignorant of her power. He, the little man in the il l-fitting suit, must be behind it, he and cousin Pauline, the

plain one, the duenna. They must have talked her in to it, worn her down, then in the end marched her to

the administration offices.

`We want to lodge a complaint,' they must have said . `Lodge a complaint? What kind of complaint?'

`It's private.'

`Harassment,' cousin Pauline would have interjected , while Melanie stood by abashed - 'against a

professor.'

`Go to room such-and-such.'

In room such-and-such he, Isaacs, would grow bolder . 'We want to lay a complaint against one of your

professors.' `Have you thought it through? Is this really what you want to do?' they would respond, following

procedure.

`Yes, we know what we want to do,' he would say, gl ancing at his daughter, daring her to object.

There is a form to fill in. The form is placed befo re them, and a pen. A hand takes up the pen, a hand he

has kissed, a hand he knows intimately. First the n ame of the plaintiff: MELANIE ISAACS, in careful

block letters. Down the column of boxes wavers the hand, searching for the one to tick. There, points the

nicotine-stained finger of her father. The hand slo ws, settles, makes its X, its cross of righteousness:

J'accuse. Then a space for the name of the accused. DAVID LURIE, writes the hand: PROFESSOR.

Finally, at the foot of the page, the date and her signature: the arabesque of the M, the l with its b old upper

loop, the downward gash of the I, the flourish of t he final s.

The deed is done. Two names on the page, his and he rs, side by side. Two in a bed, lovers no longer but

foes.

He calls the Vice-Rector's office and is given a fi ve o'clock appointment, outside regular hours.

At five o'clock he is waiting in the corridor. Aram Hakim, sleek and youthful, emerges and ushers him in.

There are already two persons in the room: Elaine W inter, chair of his department, and Farodia Rassool

from Social Sciences, who chairs the university-wid e committee on discrimination.

`It's late, David, we know why we are here,' says H akim, 'so let's get to the point. How can we best tackle

this business?'

`You can fill me in about the complaint.'

`Very well. We are talking about a complaint laid b y Ms Melanie Isaacs. Also about' - he glances at Elaine

Winter - 'some pre-existing irregularities that see m to involve Ms Isaacs. Elaine?'

Elaine Winter takes her cue. She has never liked hi m; she regards him as a hangover from the past, the

sooner cleared away the better. 'There is a query a bout Ms Isaacs's attendance, David. According to he r - I

spoke to her on the phone - she has attended only t wo classes in the past month. If that is true, it should

have been reported. She also says she missed the mi d-term test. Yet' -she glances at the file in front of her

- 'according to your records,her attendance is unbl emished and she has a mark of seventy for the mid-

term.' She regards him quizzically. 'So unless ther e are two Melanie Isaacs . .

`There is only one,' he says. 'I have no defence.'

Smoothly Hakim intervenes. 'Friends, this is not th e time or place to go into substantial issues. What we

should do' - he glances at the other two - 'is clar ify procedure. I need barely say, David, the matter will be

handled in the strictest confidence, I can assure y ou of that. Your name will be protected, Ms Isaacs' s

name will be protected too. A committee will be set up. Its function will be to determine whether there are

grounds for disciplinary measures. You or your lega l representative will have an opportunity to challenge

its composition. Its hearings will be held in camer a. In the meantime, until the committee has made it s

recommendation to the Rector and the Rector has act ed, everything goes on as before. Ms Isaacs has

officially withdrawn from the course she takes with you, and you will be expected to refrain from all

contact with her. Is there anything I am omitting, Farodia, Elaine?'

Tight-lipped, Dr Rassool shakes her head.

`It's always complicated, this harassment business, David, complicated as well as unfortunate, but we

believe our procedures are good and fair, so we'll just take it step by step, play it by the book. My one

suggestion is, acquaint yourself with the procedure s and perhaps get legal advice.'

He is about to reply, but Hakim raises a warning ha nd. 'Sleep on it, David,' he says.

He has had enough. 'Don't tell me what to do, I'm n ot a child.'

He leaves in a fury. But the building is locked and the doorkeeper has gone home. The back exit is loc ked

too. Hakim has to let him out.

It is raining. 'Share my umbrella,' says Hakim; the n, at his car,

`Speaking personally, David, I want to tell you you have all my sympathy. Really. These things can be

hell.'

He has known Hakim for years, they used to play ten nis together in his tennis-playing days, but he is in no

mood now for male chumminess. He shrugs irritably, gets into his car. The case is supposed to be confidential, but of course it is not, of course people talk. Why else, when he

enters the commonroom, does a hush fall on the chat ter, why does a younger colleague, with whom he has

hitherto had perfectly cordial relations, put down her teacup and depart, looking straight through him as

she passes? Why do only two students turn up for th e first Baudelaire class?

The gossip-mill, he thinks, turning day and night, grinding reputations. The community of the righteou s,

holding their sessions in corners, over the telepho ne, behind closed doors. Gleeful whispers.

Schadenfreude. First the sentence, then the trial.

In the corridors of the Communications Building he makes a point of walking with head held high.

He speaks to the lawyer who handled his divorce. 'L et's get it clear first,' says the lawyer, 'how true are the

allegations?'

`True enough. I was having an affair with the girl. '

`Serious?'

`Does seriousness make it better or worse? After a certain age, all affairs are serious. Like heart attacks.'

`Well, my advice would be, as a matter of strategy, get a woman to represent you.' He mentions two

names. 'Aim for a private settlement. You give cert ain undertakings, perhaps take a spell of leave, in

return for which the university persuades the girl, or her family, to drop the charges. Your best hope . Take

a yellow card. Minimize the damage, wait for the sc andal to blow over.'

`What kind of undertakings?'

`Sensitivity training. Community service. Counselli ng. Whatever you can negotiate.'

`Counselling? I need counselling?'

`Don't misunderstand me. I'm simply saying that one of the options offered to you might be counselling.'

`To fix me? To cure me? To cure me of inappropriate desires?' The lawyer shrugs. 'Whatever.'

On campus it is Rape Awareness Week. Women Against Rape, WAR, announces a twenty-four-hour vigil

in solidarity with `recent victims'. A pamphlet is slipped under his door: 'WOMEN SPEAK OUT.'

Scrawled in pencil at the bottom is a message: 'YOU R DAYS ARE OVER, CASANOVA.'

He has dinner with his ex-wife Rosalind. They have been apart for eight years; slowly, warily, they are

growing to be friends again, of a sort. War veteran s. It reassures him that Rosalind still lives nearby:

perhaps she feels the same way about him. Someone t o count on when the worst arrives: the fall in the

bathroom, the blood in the stool.

They speak of Lucy, sole issue of his first marriag e, living now on a farm in the Eastern Cape. 'I may see

her soon,' he says - 'I'm thinking of taking a trip .'

`In term time?'

`Term is nearly over. Another two weeks to get thro ugh, that's all.'

`Has this anything to do with the problems you are having? I hear you are having problems.'

`Where did you hear that?'

`People talk, David. Everyone knows about this late st affair of yours, in the juiciest detail. It's in no one's

interest to hush it up, no one's but your own. Am I allowed to tell you how stupid it looks?'

`No, you are not.'

`I will anyway. Stupid, and ugly too. I don't know what you do about sex and I don't want to know, but

this is not the way to go about it. You're what - f ifty-two? Do you think a young girl finds any pleas ure in

going to bed with a man of that age? Do you think s he finds it good to watch you in the middle of your...?

Do you ever think about that?'

He is silent.

`Don't expect sympathy from me, David, and don't ex pect sympathy from anyone else either. No

sympathy, no mercy, not in this day and age. Everyo ne's hand will be against you, and why not? Really,

how could you?'

The old tone has entered, the tone of the last year s of their married life: passionate recrimination. Even

Rosalind must be aware of that. Yet perhaps she has a point. Perhaps it is the right of the young to be

protected from the sight of their elders in the thr oes of passion. That is what whores are for, after all: to

put up with the ecstasies of the unlovely.

`Anyway,' Rosalind goes on, 'you say you'll see Luc y.' `Yes, I thought I'd drive up after the inquiry and spend some time with her.'

`The inquiry?'

`There is a committee of inquiry sitting next week. '

`That's very quick. And after you have seen Lucy?'

`I don't know. I'm not sure I will be permitted to come back to the university. I'm not sure I will wa nt to.'

Rosalind shakes her head. 'An inglorious end to you r career, don't you think? I won't ask if what you got

from this girl was worth the price. What are you go ing to do with your time? What about your pension?'

`I'll come to some arrangement with them. They can' t cut me off without a penny.'

`Can't they? Don't be so sure. How old is she - you r inamorata?'`Twenty. Of age. Old enough to know he r

own mind.'

`The story is, she took sleeping-pills. Is that tru e?'

`I know nothing about sleeping-pills. It sounds lik e a fabrication to me. Who told you about sleeping-

pills?'

She ignores the question. 'Was she in love with you ? Did you jilt her?'

`No. Neither.'

`Then why this complaint?'

`Who knows? She didn't confide in me. There was a b attle of some kind going on behind the scenes that I

wasn't privy to. There was a jealous boyfriend. The re were indignant parents. She must have crumpled i n

the end. I was taken completely by surprise.'

`You should have known, David. You are too old to b e meddling with other people's children. You should

have expected the worst. Anyway, it's all very deme aning. Really.'

`You haven't asked whether I love her. Aren't you s upposed to ask that as well?'

`Very well. Are you in love with this young woman w ho is dragging your name through the mud?'

`She isn't responsible. Don't blame her.'

`Don't blame her! Whose side are you on? Of course I blame her! I blame you and I blame her. The whole

thing is disgraceful from beginning to end. Disgrac eful and vulgar too. And I'm not sorry for saying so.'

In the old days he would, at this point, have storm ed out. But tonight he does not. They have grown th ick

skins, he and Rosalind, against each other.

The next day Rosalind telephones. 'David, have you seen today's Argus?'

`No.'

`Well, steel yourself. There's a piece about you.'

`What does it say?'

`Read it for yourself '

The report is on page three: 'Professor on sex char ge', it is headed. He skims the first lines. `. . . is slated to

appear before a disciplinary board on a charge of s exual harassment. CTU is keeping tight-lipped about

the latest in a series of scandals including fraudu lent scholarship payouts and alleged sex rings oper ating

out of student residences. Lurie (53), author of a book on English nature-poet William Wordsworth, was

not available for comment.'

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), nature-poet. David Lurie (1945-?), commentator upon, and disgraced

disciple of William Wordsworth. Blest be the infant babe. No outcast he. Blest be the babe.

SIX

THE HEARING Is held in a committee room off Hakim's office. He is ushered in and seated at the foot of

the table by Manas Mathabane himself, Professor of Religious Studies, who will chair the inquiry. To his

left sit Hakim, his secretary, and a young woman, a student of some kind; to his right are the three

members of Mathabane's committee. He does not feel nervous. On the contrary, he feels quite sure of himself. His heart beats evenly, he has

slept well. Vanity, he thinks, the dangerous vanity of the gambler; vanity and self-righteousness. He is

going into this in the wrong spirit. But he does no t care.

He nods to the committee members. Two of them he kn ows: Farodia Rassool and Desmond Swarts, Dean

of Engineering. The third, according to the papers in front of him, teaches in the Business School.

`The body here gathered, Professor Lurie,' says Mat habane, opening proceedings, 'has no powers. All it

can do is to make recommendations. Furthermore, you have the right to challenge its makeup. So let me

ask: is there any member of the committee whose par ticipation you feel might be prejudicial to you?'

`I have no challenge in a legal sense,' he replies. 'I have reservations of a philosophical kind, but I suppose

they are out of bounds.'

A general shifting and shuffling. 'I think we had b etter restrict ourself to the legal sense,' says Mathabane.

'You have no challenge to the makeup of the committ ee. Have you any objection to the presence of a

student observer from the Coalition Against Discrim ination?'

`I have no fear of the committee. I have no fear of the observer.'

`Very well. To the matter at hand. The first compla inant is Ms Melanie Isaacs, a student in the drama

programme, who has made a statement of which you al l have copies. Do I need to summarize that

statement? Professor Lurie?'

`Do I understand, Mr Chairman, that Ms Isaacs will not be appearing in person?'

`Ms Isaacs appeared before the committee yesterday. Let me remind you again, this is not a trial but an

inquiry. Our rules of procedure are not those of a law court. Is that a problem for you?'

`No.'

`A second and related charge', Mathabane continues, 'comes from the Registrar, through the Office of

Student Records, and concerns the validity of Ms Is aacs's record. The charge is that Ms Isaacs did not

attend all the classes or submit all the written wo rk or sit all the examinations for which you have g iven

her credit.'

`That is the sum of it? Those are the charges?'

`They are.'

He takes a deep breath. 'I am sure the members of t his committee have better things to do with their time

than rehash a story over which there will be no dis pute. I plead guilty to both charges. Pass sentence, and

let us get on with our lives.'

Hakim leans across to Mathabane. Murmured words pas s between them.

`Professor Lurie,' says Hakim, 'I must repeat, this is a committee of inquiry. Its role is to hear both sides of

the case and make a recommendation. It has no power to take decisions. Again I ask,

would it not be better if you were represented by s omeone familiar with our procedures?'

`I don't need representation. I can represent mysel f perfectly well. Do I understand that, despite the plea I

have entered, we must continue with the hearing?'

`We want to give you an opportunity to state your p osition.'

`I have stated my position. I am guilty.'

`Guilty of what?'

`Of all that I am charged with.'

`You are taking us in circles, Professor Lurie.'

`Of everything Ms Isaacs avers, and of keeping fals e records.'

Now Farodia Rassool intervenes. 'You say you accept Ms Isaacs's statement, Professor Lurie, but have

you actually read it?'

I do riot wish to read Ms Isaacs's statement. I acc ept it. I know of no reason why Ms Isaacs should li e.'

`But would it not be prudent to actually read the s tatement before accepting it?'

`No. There are more important things in life than b eing prudent.'

Farodia Rassool sits back in her seat. 'This is all very quixotic, Professor Lurie, but can you afford it? It

seems to me we may have a duty to protect you from yourself ' She gives Hakim a wintry smile.

`You say you have not sought legal advice. Have you consulted anyone - a priest, for instance, or a

counsellor? Would you be prepared to undergo counse lling?' The question comes from the young woman from the Business School. He can feel himself bristling. 'No, I

have not sought counselling nor do I intend to seek it. I am a grown man. I am not receptive to being

counselled. I am beyond the reach of counselling.' He turns to Mathabane. 'I have made my plea. Is the re

any reason why this debate should go on?'

There is a whispered consultation between Mathabane and Hakim.

`It has been proposed', says Mathabane, 'that the c ommittee recess to discuss Professor Lurie's plea.'

A round of nods.

`Professor Lurie, could I ask you to step outside f or a few minutes, you and Ms van Wyk, while we

deliberate?'

He and the student observer retire to Hakim's offic e. No word passes between them; clearly the girl fe els

awkward. 'YOUR DAYS ARE OVER, CASANOVA.' What does she think of Casanova now that she

meets him face to face?

They are called back in. The atmosphere in the room is not good: sour, it seems to him.

`So,' says Mathabane, `to resume: Professor Lurie, you say you accept the truth of the charges brought

against you?'

`I accept whatever Ms Isaacs alleges.'

`Dr Rassool, you have something you wish to say?'

`Yes. I want to register an objection to these resp onses of Professor Lurie's, which I regard as

fundamentally evasive. Professor Lurie says he acce pts the charges. Yet when we try to pin him down on

what it is that he actually accepts, all we get is subtle mockery. To me that suggests that he accepts the

charges only in name. In a case with overtones like this one, the wider community is entitled -'

He cannot let that go. 'There are no overtones in t his case,' he snaps back.

`The wider community is entitled to know', she cont inues, raising her voice with practised ease, riding

over him, 'what it is specifically that Professor L urie acknowledges and therefore what it is that he is being

censured for.'

Mathabane: `If he is censured.'

`If he is censured. We fail to perform our duty if we are not crystal clear in our minds, and if we do not

make it crystal clear in our recommendations, what Professor Lurie is being censured for.'

`In our own minds I believe we are crystal clear, D r Rassool. The question is whether Professor Lurie is

crystal clear in his mind.'

`Exactly. You have expressed exactly what I wanted to say.'

It would be wiser to shut up, but he does not. 'Wha t goes on in my mind is my business, not yours,

Farodia,' he says. 'Frankly, what you want from me is not a response but a confession. Well, I make no

confession. I put forward a plea, as is my right. G uilty as charged. That is my plea. That is as far as I am

prepared to go.'

`Mr Chair, I must protest. The issue goes beyond me re technicalities. Professor Lurie pleads guilty, but I

ask myself, does he accept his guilt or is he simpl y going through the motions in the hope that the ca se

will be buried under paper and forgotten? If he is simply going through the motions, I urge that we im pose

the severest penalty.'

let me remind you again, Dr Rassool,' says Mathaban e, 'it is not up to us to impose penalties.'

`Then we should recommend the severest penalty. Tha t Professor Lurie be dismissed with immediate

effect and forfeit all benefits and privileges.'

`David?' The voice comes from Desmond Swarts, who h as not spoken hitherto. 'David, are you sure you

are handling the situation in the best way?' Swarts turns to the chair. `Mr Chair, as I said while Professor

Lurie was out of the room, I do believe that as mem bers of a university community we ought not to

proceed against a colleague in a coldly formalistic way. David, are you sure you don't want a

postponement to give yourself time to reflect and p erhaps consult?'

`Why? What do I need to reflect on?'

`On the gravity of your situation, which I am not s ure you appreciate. To be blunt, you stand to lose your

job. That's no joke in these days.'

`Then what do you advise me to do? Remove what Dr R assool calls the subtle mockery from my tone? Shed tears of contrition? What will be enough to save me?'

`You may find this hard to believe, David, but we a round this table are not your enemies. We have our

weak moments, all of us, we are only human. Your ca se is not unique. We would like to find a way for

you to continue with your career.'

Easily Hakim joins in. 'We would like to help you, David, to find a way out of what must be a nightmar e.'

They are his friends. They want to save him from hi s weakness, to wake him from his nightmare. They do

not want to see him begging in the streets. They wa nt him back in the classroom. `In this chorus of

goodwill,' he says, 'I hear no female voice.' There is silence.

`Very well,' he says, let me confess. The story beg ins one evening, I forget the date, but not long past. I

was walking through the old college gardens and so, it happened, was the young woman in question, Ms

Isaacs. Our paths crossed. Words passed between us, and at that moment something happened which, not

being a poet, I will not try to describe. Suffice i t to say that Eros entered. After that I was not th e same.'

`You were not the same as what?' asks the businessw oman cautiously.

`I was not myself. I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorce at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros .'

`Is this a defence you are offering us? Ungovernabl e impulse?'

`It is not a defence. You want a confession, I give you a confession. As for the impulse, it was far from

ungovernable. I have denied similar impulses many t imes in the past, I am ashamed to say.'

`Don't you think', says Swarts, 'that by its nature academic life must call for certain sacrifices? Th at for the

good of the whole we have to deny ourselves certain gratifications?'

`You have in mind a ban on intimacy across the gene rations?'

`No, not necessarily. But as teachers we occupy pos itions of power. Perhaps a ban on mixing power

relations with sexual relations. Which, I sense, is what was going on in this case. Or extreme caution .'

Farodia Rassool intervenes. 'We are again going rou nd in circles, Mr Chair. Yes, he says, he is guilty; but

when we try to get specificity, all of a sudden it is not abuse of a young woman he is confessing to, just an

impulse he could not resist, with no mention of the pain he has caused, no mention of the long history of

exploitation of which this is part. That is why I s ay it is futile to go on debating with Professor Lu rie. We

must take his plea at face value and recommend acco rdingly.'

Abuse: he was waiting for the word. Spoken in a voi ce quivering with righteousness. What does she see,

when she looks at him, that keeps her at such a pit ch of anger? A shark among the helpless little fishies?

Or does she have another vision: of a great thick-b oned male bearing down on a girl-child, a huge hand

stifling her cries? How absurd! Then he remembers: they were gathered here yesterday in this same room,

and she was before them, Melanie, who barely comes to his shoulder. Unequal: how can he deny that?

`I tend to agree with Dr Rassool,' says the busines swoman. `Unless there is something that Professor L urie

wants to add, I think we should proceed to a decisi on.'

`Before we do that, Mr Chair,' says Swarts, 'I woul d like to plead with Professor Lurie one last time. Is

there any form of statement he would be prepared to subscribe to?'

`Why? Why is it so important that I subscribe to a statement?'

`Because it would help to cool down what has become a very heated situation. Ideally we would all have

preferred to resolve this case out of the glare of the media. But that has not been possible. It has r eceived a

lot of attention, it has acquired overtones that ar e beyond our control. All eyes are on the universit y to see

how we

handle it. I get the impression, listening to you, David, that you believe you are being treated unfai rly.

That is quite mistaken. We on this committee see ou rselves as trying to work out a compromise which wi ll

allow you to keep your job. That is why I ask wheth er there is not a form of public statement that you

could live with and that would allow us to recommen d something less than the most severe sanction,

namely, dismissal with censure.'

`You mean, will I humble myself and ask for clemenc y?'

Swarts sighs. 'David, it doesn't help to sneer at o ur efforts. At least accept an adjournment, so that you can

think your position over.'

`What do you want the statement to contain?'

`An admission that you were wrong.' `I have admitted that. Freely. I am guilty of the charges brought against me.'

`Don't play games with us, David. There is a differ ence between pleading guilty to a charge and admitt ing

you were wrong, and you know that.'

`And that will satisfy you: an admission I was wron g?'

`No,' says Farodia Rassool. 'That would be back to front. First Professor Lurie must make his statement.

Then we can decide whether to accept it in mitigati on. We don't negotiate first on what should be in his

statement. The statement should come from him, in h is own words. Then we can see if it comes from his

heart.'

`And you trust yourself to divine that, from the wo rds I use - to divine whether it comes from my hear t?'

`We will see what attitude you express. We will see whether you express contrition.'

`Very well. I took advantage of my position vis-a-v is Ms Isaacs. It was wrong, and I regret it. Is that good

enough for you?'

`The question is not whether it is good enough for me, Professor Lurie, the question is whether it is good

enough for you. Does it reflect your sincere feelin gs?'

He shakes his head. 'I have said the words for you, now you want more, you want me to demonstrate thei r

sincerity. That is preposterous. That is beyond the scope of the law. I have had enough. Let us go bac k to

playing it by the book. I plead guilty. That is as far as I am prepared to go.'

`Right,' says Mathabane from the chair. 'If there a re no more questions for Professor Lurie, I will th ank

him for attending and excuse him.'

At first they do not recognize him. He is halfway d own the stairs before he hears the cry That's him!

followed by a scuffle of feet.

They catch up with him at the foot of the stairs; o ne even grabs at his jacket to slow him down.

`Can we talk to you just for a minute, Professor Lu rie?' says a voice.

He ignores it, pressing on into the crowded lobby, where people turn to stare at the tall man hurrying from

his pursuers.

Someone bars his way. 'Hold it!' she says. He avert s his face, stretches out a hand. There is a flash.

A girl circles around him. Her hair, plaited with a mber beads, hangs straight down on either side of h er

face. She smiles, showing even white teeth. 'Can we stop and speak?' she says.

`What about?'

A tape recorder is thrust toward him. He pushes it away. `About how it was,' says the girl.

`How what was?'

The camera flashes again.

`You know, the hearing.'

`I can't comment on that.'

`OK, so what can you comment on?'

`There is nothing I want to comment on.'

The loiterers and the curious have begun to crowd a round. If

he wants to get away, he will have to push through them. `Are you sorry?' says the girl. The recorder is

thrust closer. Do you regret what you did?'

`No,' he says. 'I was enriched by the experience.'

The smile remains on the girl's face. 'So would you do it again?'

`I don't think I will have another chance.'

`But if you had a chance?'

`That isn't a real question.'

She wants more, more words for the belly of the lit tle machine, but for the moment is at a loss for how to

suck him into further indiscretion.

`He was what by the experience?' he hears someone a sk sotto voce. `He was enriched.'

There is a titter.

`Ask him if he apologized,' someone calls to the gi rl.

`I already asked.' Confessions, apologies: why this thirst for abasement? A hush falls. They circle around him like hunte rs

who have cornered a strange beast and do not know h ow to finish it off.

The photograph appears in the next day's student ne wspaper, above the caption 'Who's the Dunce Now?' I t

shows him, eyes cast up to the heavens, reaching ou t a groping hand toward the camera. The pose is

ridiculous enough in itself, but what makes the pic ture a gem is the inverted waste-paper basket that a

young man, grinning broadly, holds above him. By a trick of perspective the basket appears to sit on his

head like a dunce's hat. Against such an image, wha t chance has he?

`Committee tight-lipped on verdict,' reads the head line. 'The disciplinary committee investigating charges

of harassment and misconduct against Communications Professor David Lurie was tight-lipped yesterday

on its verdict. Chair Manas Mathabane would

say only that its findings have been forwarded to t he Rector for action.

`Sparring verbally with members of WAR after the he aring, Lurie (53) said he had found his experiences

with women students "enriching".

`Trouble first erupted when complaints against Luri e, an expert on romantic poetry, were filed by students

in his classes.'

He has a call at home from Mathabane. 'The committe e has passed on its recommendation, David, and the

Rector has asked me to get back to you one last tim e. He is prepared not to take extreme measures, he

says, on condition that you issue a statement in yo ur own person which will be satisfactory from our p oint

of view as well as yours.'

`Manas, we have been over that ground. I - '

`Wait. Hear me out. I have a draft statement before me which would satisfy our requirements. It is quite

short. May I read it to you?'

`Read it.'

Mathabane reads: 'I acknowledge without reservation serious abuses of the human rights of the

complainant, as well as abuse of the authority dele gated to me by the University. I sincerely apologiz e to

both parties and accept whatever appropriate penalt y may be imposed.'

' "Whatever appropriate penalty": what does that me an?'

`My understanding is, you will not be dismissed. In all probability, you will be requested to take a leave of

absence. Whether you eventually return to teaching duties will depend on yourself, and on the decision of

your Dean and head of department.'

`That is it? That is the package?'

`That is my understanding. If you signify that you subscribe to the statement, which will have the status of

a plea in mitigation, the Rector will be prepared t o accept it in that spirit.'

`In what spirit?'

`A spirit of repentance.'

`Manas, we went through the repentance business yes terday. I told you what I thought. I won't do it. I

appeared before an officially constituted tribunal, before a branch of the law. Before that secular tribunal I

pleaded guilty, a secular plea. That plea should su ffice. Repentance is neither here nor there. Repent ance

belongs to another world, to another universe of di scourse.'

`You are confusing issues, David. You are not being instructed to repent. What goes on in your soul is

dark to us, as members of what you call a secular t ribunal if not as fellow human beings. You are bein g

asked to issue a statement.'

`I am being asked to issue an apology about which I may not be sincere?'

`The criterion is not whether you are sincere. That is a matter, as I say, for your own conscience. Th e

criterion is whether you are prepared to acknowledg e your fault in a public manner and take steps to

remedy it.'

`Now we are truly splitting hairs. You charged me, and I pleaded guilty to the charges. That is all you

need from me.'

`No. We want more. Not a great deal more, but more. I hope you can see your way clear to giving us that.' `Sorry, I can't.'

`David, I can't go on protecting you from yourself. I am tired of it, and so is the rest of the committee. Do

you want time to rethink?'

`No.'

`Very well. Then I can only say, you will be hearin g from the Rector.

SEVEN

ONCE HE HAS made up his mind to leave, there is lit tle to hold him back. He clears out the refrigerator,

locks up the house, and at noon is on the freeway. A stopover in Oudtshoorn, a crack-ofdawn departure:

by mid-morning he is nearing his destination, the t own of Salem on the Grahamstown-Kenton road in the

Eastern Cape.

His daughter's smallholding is at the end of a wind ing dirt track some miles outside the town: five hectares

of land, most of it arable, a wind-pump, stables an d outbuildings, and a low, sprawling farmhouse pain ted

yellow, with a galvanized-iron roof and a covered s toep. The front boundary is marked by a wire fence

and clumps of nasturtiums and geraniums; the rest o f the front is dust and gravel.

There is an old VW kombi parked in the driveway; he pulls up behind it. From the shade of the stoep Lucy

emerges into the sunlight. For a moment he does not recognise her. A year has passed, and she has put on

weight. Her hips and breasts are now (he searches f or the best word) ample. Comfortably barefoot, she

comes to greet him, holding her arms wide, embracin g him, kissing him on the cheek.

What a nice girl, he thinks, hugging her; what a ni ce welcome at the end of a long trip!

The house, which is large, dark, and, even at midda y, chilly, dates from the time of large families, of

guests by the wagonful. Six years ago Lucy moved in as a member of a commune, a tribe of young people

who peddled leather goods and sunbaked pottery in G rahamstown and, in between stands of mealies, grew

dagga. When the commune broke up, the rump moving o n to New Bethesda, Lucy stayed behind on the

smallholding with her friend Helen. She had fallen in love with the place, she said; she wanted to farm it

properly. He helped her buy it. Now here she is, fl owered dress, bare feet and all, in a house full of the

smell of baking, no longer a child playing at farmi ng but a solid countrywoman, a boervrou.

`I'm going to put you in Helen's room,' she says. ' It gets the morning sun. You have no idea how cold the

mornings have been this winter.'

`How is Helen?' he asks. Helen is a large, sad-look ing woman with a deep voice and a bad skin, older t han

Lucy. He has never been able to understand what Luc y sees in her; privately he wishes Lucy would find,

or be found by, someone better.

`Helen has been back in Johannesburg since April. I 've been alone, aside from the help.'

`You didn't tell me that. Aren't you nervous by you rself?'

Lucy shrugs. 'There are the dogs. Dogs still mean s omething. The more dogs, the more deterrence.

Anyhow, if there were to be a break-in, I don't see that two people would be better than one.'

`That's very philosophical.'

`Yes. When all else fails, philosophize.'

`But you have a weapon.'

`I have a rifle. I'll show you. I bought it from a neighbour. I haven't ever used it, but I have it.'

`Good. An armed philosopher. I approve.'

Dogs and a gun; bread in the oven and a crop in the earth.

Curious that he and her mother, cityfolk, intellect uals, should have produced this throwback, this stu rdy

young settler. But perhaps it was not they who prod uced her: perhaps history had the larger share.

She offers him tea. He is hungry: he wolfs down two blocklike slices of bread with prickly-pear jam, also

home-made. He is aware of her eyes on him as he eat s. He must be careful: nothing so distasteful to a

child as the workings of a parent's body. Her own fingernails are none too clean. Country dirt: honourable, he supposes.

He unpacks his suitcase in Helen's room. The drawer s are empty; in the huge old wardrobe there is only a

blue overall hanging. If Helen is away, it is not j ust for a while.

Lucy takes him on a tour of the premises. She remin ds him about not wasting water, about not

contaminating the septic tank. He knows the lesson but listens dutifully. Then she shows him over the

boarding kennels. On his last visit there had been only one pen. Now there are five, solidly built, with

concrete bases, galvanized poles and struts, and he avy-gauge mesh, shaded by young bluegum trees. The

dogs are excited to see her: Dobermanns, German She pherds, ridgebacks, bull terriers, Rottweilers.

'Watchdogs, all of them,' she says. 'Working dogs, on short contracts: two weeks, one week, sometimes

just a weekend. The pets tend to come in during the summer holidays.'

`And cats? Don't you take cats?'

`Don't laugh. I'm thinking of branching into cats. I'm just not set up for them yet.'

`Do you still have your stall at the market?'

`Yes, on Saturday mornings. I'll take you along.'

This is how she makes a living: from the kennels, a nd from selling flowers and garden produce. Nothing

could be more simple.

'Don't the dogs get bored?' He points to one, a tan -coloured bulldog bitch with a cage to herself who, head

on paws, watches them morosely, not even bothering to get up.

'Katy? She's abandoned. The owners have done a bunk . Account unpaid for months. I don't know what I'm

going to do about her. Try to find her a home, I su ppose. She's sulking, but otherwise she's all right. She

gets taken out every day for exercise. By me or by Petrus. It's part of the package.'

Petrus?'

'You will meet him. Petrus is my new assistant. In fact, since March, co-proprietor. Quite a fellow.'

He strolls with her past the mud-walled dam, where a family of ducks coasts serenely, past the beehives,

and through the garden: flowerbeds and winter veget ables - cauliflowers, potatoes, beetroot, chard, onions.

They visit the pump and storage dam on the edge of the property. Rains for the past two years have been

good, the water table has risen.

She talks easily about these matters. A frontier fa rmer of the new breed. In the old days, cattle and maize.

Today, dogs and daffodils. The more things change t he more they remain the same. History repeating

itself, though in a more modest vein. Perhaps histo ry has learned a lesson.

They walk back along an irrigation furrow. Lucy's b are toes grip the red earth, leaving clear prints. A solid

woman, embedded in her new life. Good! If this is t o be what he leaves behind - this daughter, this woman

- then he does not have to be ashamed.

'There's no need to entertain me,' he says, back in the house. 'I've brought my books. I just need a table and

chair.'

'Are you working on something in particular?' she a sks carefully. His work is not a subject they often talk

about.

'I have plans. Something on the last years of Byron . Not a book, or not the kind of book I have written in

the past. Something for

the stage, rather. Words and music. Characters talk ing and singing.'

'I didn't know you still had ambitions in that dire ction.'

'I thought I would indulge myself. But there is mor e to it than

that. One wants to leave something behind. Or at le ast a man

wants to leave something behind. It's easier for a woman.'

'Why is it easier for a woman?'

'Easier, I mean, to produce something with a life o f its own.'

'Doesn't being a father count?' 'Being a father . . . I can't help feeling that, by comparison with being a mother, being a father is a rather

abstract business. But let us wait and see what com es. If something does come, you will be the first to

hear. The first and probably the last.'

'Are you going to write the music yourself?'

'I'll borrow the music, for the most part. I have n o qualms about borrowing. At the beginning I though t it

was a subject that would call for quite lush orches tration. Like Strauss, say. Which would have been

beyond my powers. Now I'm inclining the other way, toward a very meagre accompaniment - violin, cello,

oboe or maybe bassoon. But it's all in the realm of ideas as yet. I haven't written a note - I've been

distracted. You must have heard about my troubles.'

'Roz mentioned something on the telephone.'

'Well, we won't go into that now. Some other time.'

'Have you left the university for good?'

'I have resigned. I was asked to resign.'

'Will you miss it?'

'Will I miss it? I don't know. I was no great shake s as a teacher. I was having less and less rapport, I found,

with my students. What I had to say they didn't car e to hear. So perhaps I won't miss it. Perhaps I'll enjoy

my release.'

A man is standing in the doorway, a tall man in blu e overalls and

rubber boots and a woollen cap. 'Petrus, come in, m eet my father,' says Lucy.

Petrus wipes his boots. They shake hands. A lined, weathered face; shrewd eyes. Forty? Forty-five?

Petrus turns to Lucy. 'The spray,' he says: 'I have come for the spray.'

It's in the kombi. Wait here, I'll fetch it.'

He is left with Petrus. 'You look after the dogs,' he says, to break the silence.

'I look after the dogs and I work in the garden. Ye s.' Petrus gives a broad smile. 'I am the gardener and the

dog-man.' He reflects for a moment. 'The dog-man,' he repeats, savouring the phrase.

'I have just travelled up from Cape Town. There are times when I feel anxious about my daughter all alone

here. It is very isolated.'

'Yes,' says Petrus, 'it is dangerous.' He pauses. ' Everything is dangerous today. But here it is all r ight, I

think.' And he gives another smile.

Lucy returns with a small bottle. 'You know the mea surement: one teaspoon to ten litres of water.'

'Yes, I know.' And Petrus ducks out through the low doorway. 'Petrus seems a good man,' he remarks.

'He has his head screwed on right.'

'Does he live on the property?'

'He and his wife have the old stable. I've put in e lectricity. It's quite comfortable. He has another wife in

Adelaide, and children, some of them grown up. He g oes off and spends time there occasionally.'

He leaves Lucy to her tasks and takes a stroll as f ar as the Kenton road. A cool winter's day, the sun

already dipping over red hills dotted with sparse, bleached grass. Poor land, poor soil, he thinks.

Exhausted. Good only for goats. Does Lucy really in tend to spend her life here? He hopes it is only a

phase.

A group of children pass him on their way home from school. He greets them; they greet him back.

Country ways. Already Cape Town is receding into th e past.

Without warning a memory of the girl comes back: of her neat little breasts with their upstanding nipples,

of her smooth flat belly. A ripple of desire passes through him. Evidently whatever it was is not over yet.

He returns to the house and finishes unpacking. A l ong time since he last lived with a woman. He will

have to mind his manners; he will have to be neat.

Ample is a kind word for Lucy. Soon she will be pos itively heavy. Letting herself go, as happens when

one withdraws from the field of love. Qu'est devenu ce front poli, ces cheveux blonds, sourcils voőtés?

Supper is simple: soup and bread, then sweet potato es. Usually he does not like sweet potatoes, but Lucy

does something with lemon peel and butter and allsp ice that makes them palatable, more than palatable.

'Will you be staying a while?' she asks.

'A week? Shall we say a week? Will you be able to b ear me that long?' 'You can stay as long as you like. I'm just afraid you'll get bored.'

'I won't be bored.'

'And after the week, where will you go?'

'I don't know yet. Perhaps I'll just go on a ramble , a long ramble.'

'Well, you're welcome to stay.'

'It's nice of you to say so, my dear, but I'd like to keep your friendship. Long visits don't make for good

friends.'

`What if we don't call it a visit? What if we call it refuge? Would you accept refuge on an indefinite

basis?'

'You mean asylum? It's not as bad as that, Lucy. I' m not a fugitive.'

'Roz said the atmosphere was nasty.'

'I brought it on myself. I was offered a compromise , which I wouldn't accept.'

'What kind of compromise?'

'Re-education. Reformation of the character. The co de-word was counselling.'

'And are you so perfect that you can't do with a li ttle counselling?'

'It reminds me too much of Mao's China. Recantation , self-criticism, public apology. I'm old-fashioned, I

would prefer simply to be put against a wall and sh ot. Have done with it.'

`Shot? For having an affair with a student? A bit e xtreme, don't you think, David? It must go on all the

time. It certainly went on when I was a student. If they prosecuted every case the profession would be

decimated.'

He shrugs. 'These are puritanical times. Private li fe is public business. Prurience is respectable, prurience

and sentiment. They wanted a spectacle: breast-beat ing, remorse, tears if possible. A TV show, in fact. I

wouldn't oblige.'

He was going to add, The truth is, they wanted me c astrated,' but he cannot say the words, not to his

daughter. In fact, now that he hears it through ano ther's ears, his whole tirade sounds melodramatic,

excessive.

'So you stood your ground and they stood theirs. Is that how it was?'

'More or less.'

'You shouldn't be so unbending, David. It isn't her oic to be unbending. Is there still time to reconsider?'

'No, the sentence is final.'

'No appeal?'

'No appeal. I am not complaining. One can't plead g uilty to charges of turpitude and expect a flood of

sympathy in return. Not after a certain age. After a certain age one is simply no longer appealing, an d

that's that. One just has to buckle down and live o ut the rest of one's life. Serve one's time.'

'Well, that's a pity. Stay here as long as you like . On whatever grounds.'

He goes to bed early. In the middle of the night he is woken by a flurry of barking. One dog mechanica lly,

without cease; the loth to admit defeat, join in ag ain.

'Does that go on every night?'

'One gets used to it. I'm sorry.'

He shakes his head.

EIGHT

HE HAS FORGOTTEN how cold winter mornings can be in the uplands of the Eastern Cape. He has not

brought the right clothes: he has to borrow a sweat er from Lucy.

Hands in pockets, he wanders among the flowerbeds. Out of sight on the Kenton road a car roars past, the

sound lingering on the still air. Geese fly in eche lon high overhead. What is he going to do with his time? 'Would you like to go for a walk?' says Lucy behind him.

They take three of the dogs along: two young Doberm anns, whom Lucy keeps on a leash, and the bulldog

bitch, the abandoned one.

Pinning her ears back, the bitch tries to defecate. Nothing comes.

'She is having problems,' says Lucy. 'I'll have to dose her.'

The bitch continues to strain, hanging her tongue o ut, glancing around shiftily as if ashamed to be

watched.

They leave the road, walk through scrubland, then t hrough sparse pine forest.

'The girl you were involved with,' says Lucy - 'was it serious?'

'Didn't Rosalind tell you the story?'

'Not in any detail.'

'She came from this part of the world. From George. She was

in one of my classes. Only middling as a student, b ut very attractive. Was it serious? I don't know. It

certainly had serious consequences.'

'But it's over with now? You're not still hankering after her?' Is it over with? Does he hanker yet? 'Our

contact has ceased,' he says.

'Why did she denounce you?'

'She didn't say; I didn't have a chance to ask. She was in a difficult position. There was a young man , a

lover or ex-lover, bullying her. There were the str ains of the classroom. And then her parents got to hear

and descended on Cape Town. The pressure became too much, I suppose.'

'And there was you.'

'Yes, there was me. I don't suppose I was easy.'

They have arrived at a gate with a sign that says ' SAPPI Industries - Trespassers will be Prosecuted'. They

turn.

'Well,' says Lucy, 'you have paid your price. Perha ps, looking back, she won't think too harshly of yo u.

Women can be surprisingly forgiving.'

There is silence. Is Lucy, his child, presuming to tell him about women?

'Have you thought of getting married again?' asks L ucy.

'To someone of my own generation, do you mean? I wa sn't

made for marriage, Lucy. You have seen that for you rself '

'Yes. But - '

'But what? But it is unseemly to go on preying on c hildren?'

'I didn't mean that. Just that you are going to fin d it more difficult, not easier, as time passes.'

Never before have he and Lucy spoken about his inti mate life. It is not proving easy. But if not to her, then

to whom can he speak?

'Do you remember Blake?' he says. 'Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'?

'Why do you quote that to me?'

'Unacted desires can turn as ugly in the old as in the young.' Therefore?'

'Every woman I have been close to has taught me som ething about myself. To that extent they have made

me a better person.'

'I hope you are not claiming the reverse as well. T hat knowing you has turned your women into better

people.'

He looks at her sharply. She smiles. 'Just joking,' she says.

They return along the tar road. At the turnoff to t he smallholding there is a painted sign he has not noticed

before: 'CUT FLOWERS. CYCADS,' with an arrow:

'Cycads?' he says. 'I thought cycads were illegal.'

'It's illegal to dig them up in the wild. I grow th em from seed. I'll show you.'

They walk on, the young dogs tugging to be free, th e bitch padding behind, panting.

'And you? Is this what you want in life?' He waves a hand toward the garden, toward the house with

sunlight glinting from its roof.

'It will do,' replies Lucy quietly.

It is Saturday, market day. Lucy wakes him at five, as arranged, with coffee. Swaddled against the cold,

they join Petrus in the garden, where by the light of a halogen lamp he is already cutting flowers.

He offers to take over from Petrus, but his fingers are soon so cold that he cannot tie the bunches. H e

passes the twine back to Petrus and instead wraps a nd packs.

By seven, with dawn touching the hills and the dogs beginning to stir, the job is done. The kombi is loaded

with boxes of flowers, pockets of potatoes, onions, cabbage. Lucy drives, Petrus stays behind. The hea ter

does not work; peering through the mistedwindscreen , she takes the Grahamstown road. He sits beside

her, eating the sandwiches she has made. His nose d rips; he hopes she does not notice.

So: a new adventure. His daughter, whom once upon a time he used to drive to school and ballet class, to

the circus and the skating rink, is taking him on a n outing, showing him life, showing him this other,

unfamiliar world.

On Donkin Square stallholders are already setting u p trestle tables and laying out their wares. There is a

smell of burning meat. A cold mist hangs over the t own; people rub their hands, stamp their feet, curse.

There is a show of bonhomie from which Lucy, to his relief, holds herself apart.

They are in what appears to be the produce quarter. On their left are three African women with milk,

masa, butter to sell; also, from a bucket with a we t cloth over it, soup-bones. On their right are an old

Afrikaner couple whom Lucy greets as Tante Miems an d Oom Koos, and a little assistant in a balaclava

cap who cannot be more than ten. Like Lucy, they ha ve potatoes and onions to sell, but also bottled jams,

preserves, dried fruit, packets of buchu tea, honey bush tea, herbs.

Lucy has brought two canvas stools. They drink coff ee from a thermos flask, waiting for the first

customers.

Two weeks ago he was in a classroom explaining to t he bored youth of the country the distinction between

drink and drink up, burned and burnt. The perfectiv e, signifying an action carried through to its

conclusion. How far away it all seems! I live, I ha ve lived, I lived.

Lucy's potatoes, tumbled out into a bushel basket, have been washed clean. Koos and Miems's are still

speckled with earth. In the course of the morning L ucy takes in nearly five hundred rand. Her flowers sell

steadily; at eleven o'clock she drops her prices an d the last of the produce goes. There is plenty of trade

too at the milk-and-meat stall; but the old couple, seated side by side wooden and unsmiling, do less well.

Many of Lucy's customers know her by name: middle-a ged women, most of them, with a touch of the

proprietary in their attitude to her, as though her success were theirs too. Each time she introduces him:

'Meet my father, David Lurie, on a visit from Cape Town.'

'You must be proud of your daughter, Mr Lurie,' the y say. 'Yes, very proud,' he replies.

'Bev runs the animal refuge,' says Lucy, after one of the introductions. 'I give her a hand sometimes. We'll

drop in at her place on the way back, if that is al l right with you.'

He has not taken to Bev Shaw, a dumpy, bustling lit tle woman with black freckles, close-cropped, wiry

hair, and no neck. He does not like women who make no effort to be attractive. It is a resistance he has

had to Lucy's friends before. Nothing to be proud o f: a prejudice that has settled in his mind, settled down.

His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle , indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase

them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does not care to do so, or does not care enough.

The Animal Welfare League, once an active charity i n Grahamstown, has had to close down its operation.

However, a handful of volunteers led by Bev Shaw st ill runs a clinic from the old premises.

He has nothing against the animal lovers with whom Lucy has been mixed up as long as he can remember.

The world would no doubt be a worse place without t hem. So when Bev Shaw opens her front door he

puts on a good face, though in fact he is repelled by the odours of cat urine and dog mange and Jeyes Fluid

that greet them.

The house is just as he had imagined it would be: r ubbishy furniture, a clutter of ornaments (porcelain

shepherdesses, cowbells, an ostrich-feather flywhis k), the yammer of a radio, the cheeping of birds in

cages, cats everywhere underfoot. There is not only Bev Shaw, there is Bill Shaw too, equally squat, drinking tea at the kitchen table, with a beet-red face and silver hair and a sweater with a floppy co llar. 'Sit

down, sit down, Dave,' says Bill. 'Have a cup, make yourself at home.'

It has been a long morning, he is tired, the last t hing he wants to do is trade small talk with these people.

He casts Lucy a glance. 'We won't stay, Bill,' she says, 'I'm just picking up some medicines.'

Through a window he glimpses the Shaws' back yard: an apple tree dropping wormridden fruit, rampant

weeds, an area fenced in with galvanized-iron sheet s, wooden pallets, old tyres, where chickens scratch

around and what looks uncommonly like a duiker snoo zes in a corner.

'What do you think?' says Lucy afterwards in the ca r.

'I don't want to be rude. It's a subculture of its own, I'm sure. Don't they have children?'

'No, no children. Don't underestimate Bev. She's no t a fool. She does an enormous amount of good. She' s

been going into D Village for years, first for Anim al Welfare, now on her own.'

'It must be a losing battle.'

'Yes, it is. There is no funding any longer. On the list of the nation's priorities, animals come nowhere.'

'She must get despondent. You too.'

'Yes. No. Does it matter? The animals she helps are n't despondent. They are greatly relieved.'

'That's wonderful, then. I'm sorry, my child, I jus t find it hard to whip up an interest in the subject. It's

admirable, what you do, what she does, but to me an imal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a

certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-inte ntioned that after a while you itch to go off and do some

raping and pillaging. Or to kick a cat.'

He is surprised by his outburst. He is not in a bad temper, not in the least.

'You think I ought to involve myself in more import ant things,' says Lucy. They are on the open road; she

drives without glancing at him. 'You think, because I am your daughter, I ought to be doing something

better with my life.'

He is already shaking his head. 'No . . . no ... no ,' he murmurs.

`You think I ought to be painting still lives or te aching myself Russian. You don't approve of friends like

Bev and Bill Shaw because they are not going to lea d me to a higher life.'

'That's not true, Lucy.'

'But it is true. They are not going to lead me to a higher life, and the reason is, there is no higher life. This

is the only life there is. Which we share with anim als. That's the example that people like Bev try to set.

That's the example I try to follow. To share some o f our human privilege with the beasts. I don't want to

come back in another existence as a dog or a pig an d have to live as dogs or pigs live under us.'

'Lucy, my dearest, don't be cross. Yes, I agree, th is is the only life there is. As for animals, by all means let

us be kind to them. But let us not lose perspective . We are of a different order of creation from the

animals. Not higher, necessarily, just different. S o if we are going to be kind, let it be out of simp le

generosity, not because we feel guilty or fear retr ibution.'

Lucy draws a breath. She seems about to respond to his homily, but then does not. They arrive at the

house in silence.

NINE

HE IS SITTING in the front room, watching soccer on television. The score is nil-all; neither team seems

interested in winning.

The commentary alternates between Sotho and Xhosa, languages of which he understands not a word. He

turns the sound down to a murmur. Saturday afternoo n in South Africa: a time consecrated to men and

their pleasures. He nods off.

When he awakes, Petrus is beside him on the sofa wi th a bottle of beer in his hand. He has turned the

volume higher.

'Bushbucks,' says Petrus. 'My team. Bushbucks and S undowns.' Sundowns take a corner. There is a melee in the goalmouth. Petrus groans and clasps his head. When the

dust clears, the Bushbucks goalkeeper is lying on t he ground with the ball under his chest. 'He is good! He

is good!' says Petrus. 'He is a good goalkeeper. Th ey must keep him.'

The game ends scoreless. Petrus switches channels. Boxing: two tiny men, so tiny that they barely come

up to the referee's chest, circle, leap in, belabou r each other.

He gets up, wanders through to the back of the hous e. Lucy is lying on her bed, reading. 'What are you

reading?' he says. She looks at him quizzically, th en takes the earplugs out of her ears.

'What are you reading?' he repeats; and then, 'It's not working out, is it? Shall I leave?'

She smiles, lays her book aside. The Mystery of Edw in Drood: not what he would have expected. 'Sit

down,' she says.

He sits on the bed, idly fondles her bare foot. A g ood foot, shapely. Good bones, like her mother. A

woman in the flower of her years, attractive despit e the heaviness, despite the unflattering clothes.

'From my point of view, David, it is working out pe rfectly well. I'm glad to have you here. It takes a while

to adjust to the pace of country life, that's all. Once you find things to do you won't be so bored.'

He nods absentmindedly. Attractive, he is thinking, yet lost to men. Need he reproach himself, or woul d it

have worked out like that anyway? From the day his daughter was born he has felt for her nothing but the

most spontaneous, most unstinting love. Impossible she has been unaware of it. Has it been too much, that

love? Has she found it a burden? Has it pressed dow n on her? Has she given it a darker reading?

He wonders how it is for Lucy with her lovers, how it is for her lovers with her. He has never been afraid

to follow a thought down its winding track, and he is not afraid now. Has he fathered a woman of passi on?

What can she draw on, what not, in the realm of the senses? Are he and she capable of talking about that

too? Lucy has not led a protected life. Why should they not be open with each other, why should they

draw lines, in times when no one else does?

'Once I find things to do,' he says, coming back fr om his wanderings. 'What do you suggest?'

'You could help with the dogs. You could cut up the dog-meat. I've always found that difficult. Then there

is Petrus. Petrus is busy establishing his own land s. You could give him a hand.'

'Give Petrus a hand. I like that. I like the histor ical piquancy. Will he pay me a wage for my labour, do you

think?'

'Ask him. I'm sure he will. He got a Land Affairs g rant earlier this year, enough to buy a hectare and a bit

from me. I didn't tell you? The boundary line goes through the dam. We share the dam. Everything from

there to the fence is his. He has a cow that will c alve in the spring. He has two wives, or a wife and a

girlfriend. If he has played his cards right he cou ld get a second grant to put up a house; then he ca n move

out of the stable. By Eastern Cape standards he is a man of substance. Ask him to pay you. He can affo rd

it. I'm not sure I can afford him any more.'

'All right, I'll handle the dog-meat, I'll offer to dig for Petrus. What else?'

'You can help at the clinic. They are desperate for volunteers.'

'You mean help Bev Shaw.'

'Yes.'

'I don't think she and I will hit it off.'

'You don't need to hit it off with her. You have on ly to help her. But don't expect to be paid. You wi ll have

to do it out of the goodness of your heart.'

'I'm dubious, Lucy. It sounds suspiciously like com munity service. It sounds like someone trying to ma ke

reparation for past misdeeds.'

'As to your motives, David, I can assure you, the a nimals at the clinic won't query them. They won't a sk

and they won't care.'

'All right, I'll do it. But only as long as I don't have to become a better person. I am not prepared to be

reformed. I want to go on being myself I'll do it o n that basis.' His hand still rests on her foot; now he grips

her ankle tight. 'Understood?'

She gives him what he can only call a sweet smile. 'So you are determined to go on being bad. Mad, bad ,

and dangerous to know. I promise, no one will ask y ou to change.' She teases him as her mother used to tease him. Her wit, if anything, sharper. He has always been drawn

to women of wit. Wit and beauty. With the best will in the world he could not find wit in Meláni. But

plenty of beauty.

Again it runs through him: a light shudder of volup tuousness. He is aware of Lucy observing him. He do es

not appear to be able to conceal it. Interesting.

He gets up, goes out into the yard. The younger dog s are delighted to see him: they trot back and forth in

their cages, whining eagerly. But the old bulldog b itch barely stirs.

He enters her cage, closes the door behind him. She raises her head, regards him, lets her head fall again;

her old dugs hang slack.

He squats down, tickles her behind the ears. 'Aband oned, are we?' he murmurs.

He stretches out beside her on the bare concrete. A bove is the pale blue sky. His limbs relax.

This is how Lucy finds him. He must have fallen asl eep: the first he knows, she is in the cage with the

water-can, and the bitch is up, sniffing her feet.

'Making friends?' says Lucy.

'She's not easy to make friends with.'

'Poor old Katy, she's in mourning. No one wants her , and she knows it. The irony is, she must have

offspring all over the district who would be happy to share their homes with her. But it's not in their power

to invite her. They are part of the furniture, part of the alarm system. They do us the honour of trea ting us

like gods, and we respond by treating them like thi ngs.'

They leave the cage. The bitch slumps down, closes her eyes.

'The Church Fathers had a long debate about them, a nd decided they don't have proper souls,' he observes.

'Their souls are tied to their bodies and die with them.'

Lucy shrugs. 'I'm not sure that I have a soul. I wo uldn't know a soul if I saw one.'

'That's not true. You are a soul. We are all souls. We are souls before we are born.'

She regards him oddly.

'What will you do with her?' he says.

'With Katy? I'll keep her, if it comes to that.'

'Don't you ever put animals down?'

'No, I don't. Bev does. It is a job no one else wan ts to do, so she has taken it upon herself. It cuts her up

terribly. You underestimate her. She is a more inte resting person than you think. Even in your own ter ms.'

His own terms: what are they? That dumpy little wom en with ugly voices deserve to be ignored? A

shadow of grief falls over him: for Katy, alone in her cage, for himself, for everyone. He sighs deepl y, not

stifling the sigh. 'Forgive me, Lucy,' he says.

'Forgive you? For what?' She is smiling lightly, mo ckingly.

Tor being one of the two mortals assigned to usher you into the world and for not turning out to be a better

guide. But I'll go and help Bev Shaw. Provided that I don't have to call her Bev. It's a silly name to go by.

It reminds me of cattle. When shall I start?'

'I'll give her a call.'

TEN

THE SIGN OUTSIDE the clinic reads ANIMAL WELFARE LE AGUE W.O. 1529. Below is a line

stating the daily hours, but this has been taped ov er. At the door is a line of waiting people, some w ith

animals. As soon as he gets out of his car there ar e children all around him, begging for money or jus t

staring. He makes his way through the crush, and th rough a sudden cacophony as two dogs, held back by

their owners, snarl and snap at each other.

The small, bare waiting-room is packed. He has to s tep over someone's legs to get in.

'Mrs Shaw?' he inquires. An old woman nods toward a doorway closed off with a plastic curtain. The woman holds a goat on a

short rope; it glares nervously, eyeing the dogs, i ts hooves clicking on the hard floor.

In the inner room, which smells pungently of urine, Bev Shaw is working at a low steel-topped table. W ith

a pencil-light she is peering down the throat of a young dog that looks like a cross between a ridgeba ck

and a jackal. Kneeling on the table a barefoot chil d, evidently the owner, has the dog's head clamped under

his arm and is trying to hold its jaws open. A low, gurgling snarl comes from its throat; its powerful

hindquarters strain. Awkwardly he joins in the tuss le, pressing the dog's hind legs together, forcing it to sit

on its haunches.

'Thank you,' says Bev Shaw. Her face is flushed. 'T here's an abscess here from an impacted tooth. We

have no antibiotics, so -hold him still, boytjie! - so we'll just have to lance it and hope for the be st.'

She probes inside the mouth with a lancet. The dog gives a tremendous jerk, breaks free of him, almost

breaks free of the boy. He grasps it as it scrabble s to get off the table; for a moment its eyes, full of rage

and fear, glare into his.

'On his side - so,' says Bev Shaw. Making crooning noises, she expertly trips up the dog and turns it on its

side. 'The belt,' she says. He passes a belt around its body and she buckles it. 'So,' says Bev Shaw. 'Think

comforting thoughts, think strong thoughts. They ca n smell what you are thinking.'

He leans his full weight on the dog. Gingerly, one hand wrapped in an old rag, the child prises open the

jaws again. The dog's eyes roll in terror. They can smell what you are thinking: what nonsense! 'There ,

there!' he murmurs. Bev Shaw probes again with the lancet. The dog gags, goes rigid, then relaxes.

'So,' she says, 'now we must let nature take her co urse.' She unbuckles the belt, speaks to the child in what

sounds like very halting Xhosa. The dog, on its fee t, cowers under the table. There is a spattering of blood

and saliva on the surface; Bev wipes it off. The ch ild coaxes the dog out.

'Thank you, Mr Lurie. You have a good presence. I s ense that you like animals.'

'Do I like animals? I eat them, so I suppose I must like them, some parts of them.'

Her hair is a mass of little curls. Does she make t he curls herself, with tongs? Unlikely: it would take

hours every day. They must grow that way. He has ne ver seen such a tessitura from close by. The veins on

her ears are visible as a filigree of red and purpl e. The veins of her nose too. And then a chin that comes

straight out of her chest, like a pouter pigeon's. As an ensemble, remarkably unattractive.

She is pondering his words, whose tone she appears to have missed.

'Yes, we eat up a lot of animals in this country,' she says. 'It doesn't seem to do us much good. I'm not sure

how we will justify it to them.' Then: 'Shall we st art on the next one?'

Justify it? When? At the Great Reckoning? He would be curious to hear more, but this is not the time.

The goat, a fullgrown buck, can barely walk. One ha lf of his scrotum, yellow and purple, is swollen like a

balloon; the other half is a mass of caked blood an d dirt. He has been savaged by dogs, the old woman

says. But he seems bright enough, cheery, combative . While Bev Shaw is examining him, he passes a

short burst ofpellets on to the floor. Standing at his head, gripping his horns, the woman pretends to

reprove him.

Bev Shaw touches the scrotum with a swab. The goat kicks. Van you fasten his legs?' she asks, and

indicates how. He straps the right hind leg to the right foreleg. The goat tries to kick again, teeters. She

swabs the wound gently. The goat trembles, gives a bleat: an ugly sound, low and hoarse.

As the dirt comes away, he sees that the wound is a live with white grubs waving their blind heads in the

air. He shudders. 'Blowfly,' says Bev Shaw. 'At lea st a week old.' She purses her lips. 'You should have

brought him in long ago,' she says to the woman. 'Y es,' says the woman. 'Every night the dogs come. It is

too, too bad. Five hundred rand you pay for a man l ike him.'

Bev Shaw straightens up. 'I don't know what we can do. I don't have the experience to try a removal. She

can wait for Dr Oosthuizen on Thursday, but the old fellow will come out sterile anyway, and does she

want that? And then there is the question of antibi otics. Is she prepared to spend money on antibiotic s?'

She kneels down again beside the goat, nuzzles his throat, stroking the throat upward with her own hair.

The goat trembles but is still. She motions to the woman to let go of the horns. The woman obeys. The

goat does not stir. She is whispering. 'What do you say, my friend?' he hears her say. 'What do you say? Is it enough?'

The goat stands stock still as if hypnotized. Bev S haw continues to stroke him with her head. She seem s to

have lapsed into a trance of her own.

She collects herself and gets to her feet. 'I'm afr aid it's too late,' she says to the woman. 'I can't make him

better. You can wait for the doctor on Thursday, or you can leave him with me. I can give him a quiet end.

He will let me do that for him. Shall I? Shall I ke ep him here?'

The woman wavers, then shakes her head. She begins to tug the goat toward the door.

'You can have him back afterwards,' says Bev Shaw. 'I will help him through, that's all.' Though she tries

to control her voice, he can hear the accents of de feat. The goat hears them too: he kicks against the strap,

bucking and plunging, the obscene bulge quivering b ehind him. The woman drags the strap loose, casts it

aside. Then they are gone.

'What was that all about?' he asks.

Bev Shaw hides her face, blows her nose. It's nothi ng. I keep enough lethal for bad cases, but we can't

force the owners. It's their animal, they like to s laughter in their own way. What a pity! Such a good old

fellow, so brave and straight and confident!'

Lethal: the name of a drug? He would not put it bey ond the drug companies. Sudden darkness, from the

waters of Lethe. 'Perhaps he understands more than you guess,' he says. To his own surprise, he is trying

to comfort her. 'Perhaps he has already been throug h it. Born with foreknowledge, so to speak. This is

Africa, after all. There have been goats here since the beginning of time. They don't have to be told what

steel is for, and fire. They know how death comes t o a goat. They are born prepared.'

'Do you think so?' she says. 'I'm not sure. I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being

escorted.'

Things are beginning to fall into place. He has a f irst inkling of the task this ugly little woman has set

herself This bleak building is a place not of heali ng - her doctoring is too amateurish for that - but of last

resort. He recalls the story of- who was it? St Hub ert? - who gave refuge to a deer that clattered into his

chapel, panting and distraught, fleeing the huntsme n's dogs. Bev Shaw, not a veterinarian but a priestess,

full of New Age mumbo jumbo, trying, absurdly, to l ighten the load of Africa's suffering beasts. Lucy

thought he would find her interesting. But Lucy is wrong. Interesting is not the word.

He spends all afternoon in the surgery, helping as far as he is able. When the last of the day's cases has

been dealt with, Bev Shaw shows him around the yard . In the avian cage there is only one bird, a young

fish-eagle with a splinted wing. For the rest there are dogs: not Lucy's well-groomed thoroughbreds bu t a

mob of scrawny mongrels filling two pens to burstin g point, barking, yapping, whining, leaping with

excitement.

He helps her pour out dry food and fill the water-t roughs. They empty two ten-kilogram bags.

'How do you pay for this stuff?' he asks.

'We get it wholesale. We hold public collections. W e get donations. We offer a free neutering service, and

get a grant for that.'

'Who does the neutering?

'Dr Oosthuizen, our vet. But he comes in only one a fternoon a week.'

He is watching the dogs eat. It surprises him how l ittle fighting there is. The small, the weak hold back,

accepting their lot, waiting their turn.

'The trouble is, there are just too many of them,' says Bev Shaw. 'They don't understand it, of course , and

we have no way of telling them. Too many by our sta ndards, not by theirs. They would just multiply and

multiply if they had their way, until they filled t he earth. They don't think it's a bad thing to have lots of

offspring. The more the jollier. Cats the same.'

'And rats.'

'And rats. Which reminds me: check yourself for fle as when you get home.'

One of the dogs, replete, eyes shining with wellbei ng, sniffs his fingers through the mesh, licks them.

'They are very egalitarian, aren't they,' he remark s. 'No classes. No one too high and mighty to smell

another's backside.' He squats, allows the dog to s mell his face, his breath. It has what he thinks of as an

intelligent look, though it is probably nothing of the kind. 'Are they all going to die?' 'Those that no one wants. We'll put them down.'

'And you are the one who does the job.'

'Yes.'

'You don't mind?'

'I do mind. I mind deeply. I wouldn't want someone doing it for me who didn't mind. Would you?'

He is silent. Then: 'Do you know why my daughter se nt me to you?'

'She told me you were in trouble.'

'Not just in trouble. In what I suppose one would c all disgrace.' He watches her closely. She seems

uncomfortable; but perhaps he is imagining it.

'Knowing that, do you still have a use for me?' he says.

'If you are prepared . . .' She opens her hands, pr esses them together, opens them again. She does not know

what to say, and he does not help her.

He has stayed with his daughter only for brief peri ods before. Now he is sharing her house, her life. He

has to be careful not to allow old habits to creep back, the habits of a parent: putting the toilet roll on the

spool, switching off lights, chasing the cat off th e sofa. Practise for old age, he admonishes himself .

Practise fitting in. Practise for the old folks' ho me.

He pretends he is tired and, after supper, withdraw s to his room, where faintly the sounds come to him of

Lucy leading her own life: drawers opening and shut ting, the radio, the murmur of a telephone

conversation. Is she calling Johannesburg, speaking to Helen? Is his presence here keeping the two of

them apart? Would they dare to share a bed while he was in the house? If the bed creaked in the night,

would they be embarrassed? Embarrassed enough to st op? But what does he know about what women do

together? Maybe women do not need to make beds crea k. And what does he know about these two in

particular, Lucy and Helen? Perhaps they sleep toge ther merely as children do, cuddling, touching,

giggling, reliving girlhood - sisters more than lov ers. Sharing a bed, sharing a bathtub, baking ginge rbread

cookies, trying on each other's clothes. Sapphic lo ve: an excuse for putting on weight.

The truth is, he does not like to think of his daug hter in the throes of passion with another woman, a nd a

plain one at that. Yet would he be any happier if t he lover were a man? What does he really want for

Lucy? Not that she should be forever a child, forev er innocent, forever his - certainly not that. But he is a

father, that is his fate, and as a father grows old er he turns more and more - it cannot be helped - t oward

his daughter. She becomes his second salvation, the bride of his youth reborn. No wonder, in fairy-stories,

queens try to hound their daughters to their death!

He sighs. Poor Lucy! Poor daughters! What a destiny , what a burden to bear! And sons: they too must

have their tribulations, though he knows less about that.

He wishes he could sleep. But he is cold, and not s leepy at all.

He gets up, drapes a jacket over his shoulders, ret urns to bed. He is reading Byron's letters of 1820. Fat,

middle-aged at thirty-two, Byron is living with the Guicciolis in Ravenna: with Teresa, his complacent ,

short-legged mistress, and her suave, malevolent hu sband. Summer heat, late-afternoon tea, provincial

gossip, yawns barely hidden. 'The women sit in a ci rcle and the men play dreary Faro,' writes Byron. In

adultery, all the tedium of marriage rediscovered. 'I have always looked to thirty as the barrier to any real

or fierce delight in the passions.'

He sighs again. How brief the summer, before the au tumn and then the winter! He reads on past midnight,

yet even so cannot get to sleep.

ELEVEN

IT IS WEDNESDAY. He gets up early, but Lucy is up b efore him. He finds her watching the wild geese

on the dam.

'Aren't they lovely,' she says. 'They come back eve ry year. The same three. I feel so lucky to be visited. To

be the one chosen.' Three. That would be a solution of sorts. He and Lucy and Melanie. Or he and Melanie and Soraya.

They have breakfast together, then take the two Dob ermanns for a walk.

'Do you think you could live here, in this part of the world?' asks Lucy out of the blue.

'Why? Do you need a new dog-man?'

'No, I wasn't thinking of that. But surely you coul d get a job at Rhodes University - you must have

contacts there - or at Port Elizabeth.'

'I don't think so, Lucy. I'm no longer marketable. The scandal will follow me, stick to me. No, if I t ook a

job it would have to be as something obscure, like a ledger clerk, if they still have them, or a kennel

attendant.'

'But if you want to put a stop to the scandal-monge ring, shouldn't you be standing up for yourself? Do esn't

gossip just multiply if you run away?'

As a child Lucy had been quiet and self-effacing, o bserving him

but never, as far as he knew, judging him. Now, in her middle twenties, she has begun to separate. The

dogs, the gardening, the astrology books, the asexu al clothes: in each he recognizes a statement of

independence, considered, purposeful. The turn away from men too. Making her own life. Corning out of

his shadow. Good! He approves!

'Is that what you think I have done?' he says. 'Run away from the scene of the crime?'

'Well, you have withdrawn. For practical purposes, what is the difference?'

'You miss the point, my dear. The case you want me to make is a case that can no longer be made, Basta.

Not in our day. If I tried to make it I would not b e heard.'

'That's not true. Even if you are what you say, a m oral dinosaur, there is a curiosity to hear the dinosaur

speak. I for one am curious. What is your case? Let us hear it.'

He hesitates. Does she really want him to trot out more of his intimacies?

'My case rests on the rights of desire,' he says. ' On the god who makes even the small birds quiver.'

He sees himself in the girl's flat, in her bedroom, with the rain pouring down outside and the heater in the

corner giving off a smell of paraffin, kneeling ove r her, peeling off her clothes, while her arms flop like

the arms of a dead person. I was a servant of Eros: that is what he wants to say, but does he have the

effrontery? It was a god who acted through me. What vanity! Yet not a lie, not entirely. In the whole

wretched business there was something generous that was doing its best to flower. If only he had known

the time would be so short!

He tries again, more slowly. 'When you were small, when we were still living in Kenilworth, the people

next door had a dog, a golden retriever. I don't kn ow whether you remember.'

'Dimly.'

'It was a male. Whenever there was a bitch in the v icinity it would get excited and unmanageable, and with

Pavlovian regularity the owners would beat it. This went on until the poor dog didn't know what to do. At

the smell of a bitch it would chase around the gard en with its ears flat and its tail between its legs,

whining, trying to hide.'

He pauses. 'I don't see the point,' says Lucy. And indeed, what is the point?

'There was something so ignoble in the spectacle th at I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me,

for an offence like chewing a slipper. A dog will a ccept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing. But

desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.'

'So males must be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked? Is that the moral?'

'No, that is not the moral. What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had

begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed t o be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it

would have been better to shoot it.'

'Or to have it fixed.'

'Perhaps. But at the deepest level I think it might have preferred being shot. It might have preferred that to

the options it was offered: on the one hand, to den y its nature, on the other, to spend the rest of its days

padding about the living-room, sighing and sniffing the cat and getting portly.'

'Have you always felt this way, David?'

'No, not always. Sometimes I have felt just the opp osite. 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 brea the easy

again, while the scapegoat wanders in the wildernes s.'

A statement? A question? Does she believe he is jus t a scapegoat?

'I don't think scapegoating is the best description ,' he says cautiously. 'Scapegoating worked in prac tice

while it still had religious power behind it. You l oaded the sins of the city on to the goat's back an d drove

it out, and the city was cleansed. It worked becaus e everyone knew how to read the ritual, including t he

gods. Then the gods died, and all of a sudden you h ad 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. Pu rgation was replaced by the purge.'

He is getting carried away; he is lecturing. 'Anywa y,' 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 rep ressive apparatus? Bev is in awe of you! You are a

professor. She has never met an old-fashioned profe ssor before. She is frightened of making grammar

mistakes in front of you.'

Three men are coming toward them on the path, or tw o men and a boy. They are walking fast, with

countrymen's long strides. The dog at Lucy's side s lows down, bristles.

'Should we be nervous?' he murmurs.

'I don't know.'

She shortens the Dobermanns' leashes. The men are u pon 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. T he 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 ge stures. The dogs, in a rage, bark and snap. The dog at

Lucy's side tries to tug loose. Even the old bulldo g bitch, whom he seems to have adopted as his own, is

growling softly.

'Petrus!' calls Lucy. But there is no sign of Petru s. '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 ye llow sunhat. His companions are both in overalls. T he

taller of them is handsome, strikingly handsome, wi th a high forehead, sculpted cheekbones, wide, flaring

nostrils.

At Lucy's approach the dogs calm down. She opens th e third cage and releases the two Dobermanns into

it. A brave gesture, he thinks to himself; but is i t 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 o ut 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 a gain, and is about to go in when the door-latch cli cks

shut.

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

The boy 'turns and sprints, heading for the front d oor. 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, th rusting with the stick. Growling softly, the dog ci rcles 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 crumpl es.

He is aware of being dragged across the kitchen flo or. Then he blacks out.

He is lying face down on cold tiles. He tries to st and 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 recove r. 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 ol d 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 stan d 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 somethin g.

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! Spea k to me!'

The door opens, knocking him off balance. Before hi m 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 do wn 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 articl e. If it

entails hitting him with a bottle, he will hit him, hit him as many times as is necessary, if necessar y 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 recogn ise it in time? But they are not harming him, not yet.

Is it possible that what the house has to offer wil l be enough for them? Is it possible they will leav e Lucy

unharmed too?

From behind the house comes the sound of voices. Th e barking of the dogs grows louder again, more

excited. He stands on the toilet seat and peers thr ough 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 soun d: his car. The man reappears empty-handed. For a

moment the two of them look straight into each othe r'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, disc ussing his fate.

He speaks Italian, he speaks French, but Italian an d 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 claspe d

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 l eft behind, that huge enterprise of upliftment? Nothing

that he can see.

Now the tall man appears from around the front, car rying the rifle. With practised ease he brings a

cartridge up into the breech, thrusts the muzzle in to the dogs' cage. The biggest of the German Shephe rds,

slavering with rage, snaps at it. There is a heavy report; blood and brains splatter the cage. For a m oment

the barking ceases. The man fires twice more. One d og, shot through the chest, dies at once; another, with

a gaping throat-wound, sits down heavily, flattens its ears, following with its gaze the movements of this

being who does not even bother to administer a coup de grâce.

A hush falls. The remaining three dogs, with nowher e to hide, retreat to the back of the pen, milling about,

whining softly. Taking his time between shots, the man picks them off.

Footfalls along the passage, and the door to the to ilet swings open again. The second man stands befor e

him; behind him he glimpses the boy in the flowered shirt, eating from a tub of ice-cream. He tries to

shoulder his way out, gets past the man, then falls heavily. Some kind of trip: they must practise it in

soccer.

As he lies sprawled he is splashed from head to foo t with liquid. His eyes burn, he tries to wipe them. He

recognizes the smell: methylated spirits. Strugglin g to get up, he is pushed back into the lavatory. T he

scrape of a match, and at once he is bathed in cool blue flame.

So he was wrong! He and his daughter are not being let off lightly after all! He can burn, he can die; and if

he can die, then so can Lucy, above all Lucy!

He strikes at his face like a madman; his hair crac kles as it catches alight; he throws himself about, hurling

out shapeless bellows that have no words behind the m, only fear. He tries to stand up and is forced down

again. For a moment his vision clears and he sees, inches from his face, blue overalls and a shoe. The toe

of the shoe curls upward; there are blades of grass sticking out from the tread.

A flame dances soundlessly on the back of his hand. He struggles to his knees and plunges the hand into

the toilet bowl. Behind him the door closes and the key turns.

He hangs over the toilet bowl, splashing water over his face, dousing his head. There is a nasty smell of

singed hair. He stands up, beats out the last of th e flames on his clothes.

With wads of wet paper he bathes his face. His eyes are stinging, one eyelid is already closing. He runs a

hand over his head and his fingertips come away bla ck with soot. Save for a patch over one ear, he seems

to have no hair; his whole scalp is

tender. Everything is tender, everything is burned. Burned, burnt. 'Lucy!' he shouts. 'Are you here?'

A vision comes to him of Lucy struggling with the t wo in the blue overalls, struggling against them. He

writhes, trying to blank it out.

He hears his car start, and the crunch of tyres on gravel. Is it over? Are they, unbelievably, going?

'Lucy!' he shouts, over and over, till he can hear an edge of craziness in his voice.

At last, blessedly, the key turns in the lock. By t he time he has the door open, Lucy has turned her b ack on

him. She is wearing a bathrobe, her feet are bare, her hair wet.

He trails after her through the kitchen, where the refrigerator stands open and food lies scattered all over

the floor. She stands at the back door taking in th e carnage of the dog-pens. 'My darlings, my darling s!' he

hears her murmur.

She opens the first cage and enters. The dog with t he throat-wound is somehow still breathing. She ben ds

over it, speaks to it. Faintly it wags its tail. 'Lucy!' he calls again, and now for the first time she turns her gaze on him. A frown appears on her f ace.

'What on earth did they do to you?' she says.

'My dearest child!' he says. He follows her into th e cage and tries to take her in his arms. Gently,

decisively, she wriggles loose.

The living-room is in a mess, so is his own room. T hings have been taken: his jacket, his good shoes, and

that is only the beginning of it.

He looks at himself in a mirror. Brown ash, all tha t is left of his hair, coats his scalp and forehead.

Underneath it the scalp is an angry pink. He touche s the skin: it is painful and beginning to ooze. One

eyelid is swelling shut; his eyebrows are gone, his eyelashes too.

He goes to the bathroom, but the door is closed. 'D on't come in,' says Lucy's voice.

'Are you all right? Are you hurt?'

Stupid questions; she does not reply.

He tries to wash off the ash under the kitchen tap, pouring glass after glass of water over his head. Water

trickles down his back; he begins to shiver with co ld.

It happens every day, every hour, every minute, he tells himself, in every quarter of the country. Count

yourself lucky to have escaped with your life. Coun t yourself lucky not to be a prisoner in the car at this

moment, speeding away, or at the bottom of a donga with a bullet in your head. Count Lucy lucky too.

Above all Lucy.

A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a p acket of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not e nough

cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few t hings. What there is must go into circulation, so that

everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day. T hat is the theory; hold to the theory and to the

comforts of theory. Not human evil, just a vast cir culatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are

irrelevant. That is how one must see life in this c ountry: in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one coul d go

mad. Cars, shoes; women too. There must be some nic he in the system for women and what happens to

them.

Lucy has come up behind him. She is wearing slacks and a raincoat now; her hair is combed back, her

face clean and entirely blank. He looks into her ey es. 'My dearest, dearest . . .' he says, and chokes on a

sudden surge of tears.

She does not stir a finger to soothe him. 'Your hea d looks terrible,' she remarks. 'There's baby-oil in the

bathroom cabinet. Put some on. Is your car gone?'

'Yes. I think they went off in the Port Elizabeth d irection. I must telephone the police.'

'You can't. The telephone is smashed.'

She leaves him. He sits on the bed and waits. Thoug h he has wrapped a blanket around himself, he

continues to shiver. One of his wrists is swollen a nd throbbing with pain. He cannot recollect how he hurt

it. It is already getting dark. The whole afternoon seems to have passed in a flash.

Lucy returns. 'They've let down the tyres of the ko mbi,' she says. 'I'm walking over to Ettinger's. I won't be

long.' She pauses. 'David, when people ask, would y ou mind keeping to your own story, to what happened

to you?'

He does not understand.

'You tell what happened to you, I tell what happene d to me,' she repeats.

'You're making a mistake,' he says in a voice that is fast descending to a croak.

'No I'm not,' she says.

'My child, my child!' he says, holding out his arms to her. When she does not come, he puts aside his

blanket, stands up, and takes her in his arms. In h is embrace she is stiff as a pole, yielding nothing.

TWELVE

ETTINGER IS A SURLY old man who speaks English with a marked German accent. His wife is dead,

his children have gone back to Germany, he is the o nly one left in Africa. He arrives in his three-litre

pickup with Lucy at his side and waits with the eng ine running.

`Yes, I never go anywhere without my Beretta,' he o bserves once they are on the Grahamstown road. He

pats the holster at his hip. 'The best is, you save yourself, because the police are not going to save you, not

any more, you can be sure.'

Is Ettinger right? If he had had a gun, would he ha ve saved Lucy? He doubts it. If he had had a gun, h e

would probably be dead now, he and Lucy both.

His hands, he notices, are trembling ever so lightl y. Lucy has her arms folded across her breasts. Is that

because she is trembling too?

He was expecting Ettinger to take them to the polic e station. But, it turns out, Lucy has told him to drive

to the hospital.

`For my sake or for yours?' he asks her.

'For yours.'

'Won't the police want to see me too?'

'There is nothing you can tell them that I can't,' she replies. 'Or is there?'

At the hospital she strides ahead through the door marked CASUALTIES, fills out the form for him, seat s

him in the waiting room. She is all strength, all p urposefulness, whereas the trembling seems to have

spread to his whole body.

'If they discharge you, wait here,' she instructs h im. 'I will be back to fetch you.'

`What about yourself?'

She shrugs. If she is trembling, she shows no sign of it.

He finds a seat between two hefty girls who might b e sisters, one of them holding a moaning child, and a

man with bloody wadding over his hand. He is twelft h in line. The clock on the wall says 5.45. He closes

his good eye and slips into a swoon in which the tw o sisters continue to whisper together, chuchotantes.

When he opens his eye the clock still says 5.45. Is it broken? No: the minute hand jerks and comes to rest

on 5.46.

Two hours pass before a nurse calls him, and there is more waiting before his turn comes to see the sole

doctor on duty, a young Indian woman.

The burns on his scalp are not serious, she says, t hough he must be wary of infection. She spends more

time on his eye. The upper and lower lids are stuck together; separating them proves extraordinarily

painful.

'You are lucky,' she comments after the examination . 'There is no damage to the eye itself. If they had

used petrol it would be a different story.'

He emerges with his head dressed and bandaged, his eye covered, an ice-pack strapped to his wrist. In the

waiting-room he is surprised to find Bill Shaw. Bil l, who is a head shorter than he, grips him by the

shoulders. 'Shocking, absolutely shocking,' he says . 'Lucy is over at our place. She was going to fetch you

herself but Bev wouldn't hear of it. How are you?'

'I'm all right. Light burns, nothing serious. I'm s orry we've ruined your evening.'

'Nonsense!' says Bill Shaw. 'What else are friends for? You would have done the same.'

Spoken without irony, the words stay with him and w ill not go away. Bill Shaw believes that if he, Bill

Shaw, had been hit over the head and set on fire, t hen he, David Lurie, would have driven to the hospi tal

and sat waiting, without so much as a newspaper to read, to fetch him home. Bill Shaw believes that,

because he and David Lurie once had a cup of tea to gether, David Lurie is his friend, and the two of them

have obligations towards each other. Is Bill Shaw w rong or right? Has Bill Shaw, who was born in

Hankey, not two hundred kilometres away, and works in a hardware shop, seen so little of the world that

he does not know there are men who do not readily m ake friends, whose attitude toward friendships

between men is corroded with scepticism? Modern Eng lish friend from Old Englishfreond, from freon, to

love. Does the drinking of tea seal a love-bond, in the eyes of Bill Shaw? Yet but for Bill and Bev Sh aw, but for old Ettinger, but for bonds of some kind, where would he be now? On the ruined farm with the

broken telephone amid the dead dogs.

'A shocking business,' says Bill Shaw again in the car. 'Atrocious. It's bad enough when you read abou t it

in the paper, but when it happens to someone you kn ow' - he shakes his head - 'that really brings it home

to you. It's like being in a war all over again.'

He does not bother to reply. The day is not dead ye t but living. War, atrocity: every word with which one

tries to wrap up this day, the day swallows down it s black throat.

Bev Shaw meets them at the door. Lucy has taken a s edative, she announces, and is lying down; best not

to disturb her.

'Has she been to the police?'

'Yes, there's a bulletin out for your car.'

'And she has seen a doctor?'

'All attended to. How about you? Lucy says you were badly burned.'

'I have burns, but they are not as bad as they look .'

'Then you should eat and get some rest.'

'I'm not hungry.'

She runs water for him in their big, old-fashioned, cast-iron bath. He stretches out his pale length in the

steaming water and tries to relax. But when it is t ime to get out, he slips and almost falls: he is as weak as

a baby, and lightheaded too. He has to call Bill Sh aw and suffer the ignominy of being helped out of t he

bath, helped to dry himself, helped into borrowed p yjamas. Later he hears Bill and Bev talking in low

voices, and knows it is he they are talking about.

He has come away from the hospital with a tube of p ainkillers, a packet of burn dressings, and a little

aluminium gadget to prop his head on. Bev Shaw sett les him on a sofa that smells of cats; with surprising

ease he falls asleep. In the middle of the night he awakes in a state of the utmost clarity. He has ha d a

vision: Lucy has spoken to him; her words - 'Come t o me, save me!' - still echo in his ears. In the vision

she stands, hands outstretched, wet hair combed bac k, in a field of white light.

He gets up, stumbles against a chair, sends it flyi ng. A light goes on and Bev Shaw is before him in h er

nightdress. 'I have to speak to Lucy,' he mumbles: his mouth is dry, his tongue thick.

The door to Lucy's room opens. Lucy is not at all a s in the vision. Her face is puffy with sleep, she is tying

the belt of a dressing-gown that is clearly not her s.

'I'm sorry, I had a dream,' he says. The word visio n is suddenly too old-fashioned, too queer. 'I thought

you were calling me.' Lucy shakes her head. 'I wasn 't. Go to sleep now.'

She is right, of course. It is three in the morning . But he cannot fail to notice that for the second time in a

day she has spoken to him. as if to a child - a chi ld or an old man.

He tries to get back to sleep but cannot. It must b e an effect of the pills, he tells himself: not a vision, not

even a dream, just a chemical hallucination. Nevert heless, the figure of the woman in the field oflight

stays before him. 'Save me!' cries his daughter, he r words clear, ringing, immediate. Is it possible that

Lucy's soul did indeed leave her body and come to h im? May people who do not believe in souls yet have

them, and may their souls lead an independent life?

Hours yet before sunrise. His wrist aches, his eyes burn, his scalp is sore and irritable. Cautiously he

switches on the lamp and gets up. With a blanket wr apped around him he pushes open Lucy's door and

enters. There is a chair by the bedside; he sits do wn. His senses tell him she is awake.

What is he doing? He is watching over his little gi rl, guarding her from harm, warding off the bad spi rits.

After a long while he feels her begin to relax. A s oft pop as her lips separate, and the gentlest of snores.

It is morning. Bev Shaw serves him a breakfast of c ornflakes and tea, then disappears into Lucy's room.

'How is she?' he asks when she comes back.

Bev Shaw responds only with a terse shake of the he ad. Not your business, she seems to be saying.

Menstruation, childbirth, violation and its afterma th: blood-matters; a woman's burden, women's preser ve.

Not for the first time, he wonders whether women wo uld not be happier living in communities of women,

accepting visits from men only when they choose. Pe rhaps he is wrong to think of Lucy as homosexual. Perhaps she simply prefers female company. Or perhaps that is all that lesbians are: women who have no

need of men.

No wonder they are so vehement against rape, she an d Helen. Rape, god of chaos and mixture, violator of

seclusions. Raping a lesbian worse than raping a vi rgin: more of a blow. Did they know what they were up

to, those men? Had the word got around?

At nine o'clock, after Bill Shaw has gone off to wo rk, he taps on Lucy's door. She is lying with her face

turned to the wall. He sits down beside her, touche s her cheek. It is wet with tears.

'This is not an easy thing to talk about,' he says, 'but have you seen a doctor?'

She sits up and blows her nose. 'I saw my GP last n ight.'

'And is he taking care of all eventualities?'

'She,' she says. 'She, not he. No' - and now there is a crack of anger in her voice - 'how can she? Ho w can a

doctor take care of all eventualities? Have some se nse!'

He gets up. If she chooses to be irritable, then he can be irritable too. 'I'm sorry I asked,' he says. 'What are

our plans for today?'

'Our plans? To go back to the farm and clean up.'

'And then?'

'Then to go on as before.'

'On the farm?'

'Of course. On the farm.'

'Be sensible, Lucy. Things have changed. We can't j ust pick up where we left off.'

`Why not?'

'Because it's not a good idea. Because it's not saf e.'

It was never safe, and it's not an idea, good or ba d. I'm not going back for the sake of an idea. I'm just

going back.'

Sitting up in her borrowed nightdress, she confront s him, neck stiff, eyes glittering. Not her father's little

girl, not any longer.

THIRTEEN

BEFORE THEY SET off he needs to have his dressings changed. In the cramped little bathroom Bev

Shaw unwinds the bandages. The eyelid is still clos ed and blisters have risen on his scalp, but the damage

is not as bad as it could have been. The most painf ul part is the flange of his right ear: it is, as the young

doctor put it, the only part of him that actually c aught fire.

With a sterile solution Bev washes the exposed pink underskin of the scalp, then, using tweezers, lays the

oily yellow dressing over it. Delicately she anoint s the folds of his eyelid and his ear. She does not speak

while she works. He recalls the goat in the clinic, wonders whether, submitting to her hands, it felt the

same peacefulness.

'There,' she says at last, standing back.

He inspects the image in the mirror, with its neat white cap and blanked-out eye. 'Shipshape,' he rema rks,

but thinks: Like a mummy.

He tries again to raise the subject of the rape. 'L ucy says she saw her GP last night.'

'Yes.'

'There's the risk of pregnancy,' he presses on. 'Th ere's the risk of venereal infection. There's the risk of

HIV. Shouldn't she see a gynaecologist as well?'

Bev Shaw shifts uncomfortably. 'You must ask Lucy y ourself '

'I have asked. I can't get sense from her.'

'Ask again.'

It is past eleven, but Lucy shows no sign of emergi ng. Aimlessly he roams about the garden. A grey moo d

is settling on him. It is not just that he does not know what to do with himself. The events of yester day have shocked him to the depths. The trembling, the weakness are only the first and most superficial signs

of that shock. He has a sense that, inside him, a v ital organ has been bruised, abused - perhaps even his

heart. For the first time he has a taste of what it will be like to be an old man, tired to the bone, without

hopes, without desires, indifferent to the future. Slumped on a plastic chair amid the stench of chick en

feathers and rotting apples, he feels his interest in the world draining from him drop by drop. It may take

weeks, it may take months before he is bled dry, bu t he is bleeding. When that is finished, he will be like a

fly-casing in a spiderweb, brittle to the touch, li ghter than rice-chaff, ready to float away.

He cannot expect help from Lucy. Patiently, silentl y, Lucy must work her own way back from the

darkness to the light. Until she is herself again, the onus is on him to manage their daily life. But it has

come too suddenly. It is a burden he is not ready f or: the farm, the garden, the kennels. Lucy's future, his

future, the future of the land as a whole - it is a ll a matter of indifference, he wants to say; let i t all go to

the dogs, I do not care. As for the men who visited them, he wishes them harm, wherever they may be, b ut

otherwise does not want to think about them.

Just an after-effect, he tells himself, an after-ef fect of the invasion. In a while the organism will repair

itself, and I, the ghost within it, will be my old self again. But the truth, he knows, is otherwise. His

pleasure in living has been snuffed out. Like a lea f on a stream, like a puffball on a breeze, he has begun to

float toward his end. He sees it quite clearly, and it fills him with (the word will not go away) desp air. The

blood of life is leaving his body and despair is ta king its place, despair that is like a gas, odourless,

tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the mo ment

when the steel touches your throat.

There is a ring at the doorbell: two young policeme n in spruce new uniforms, ready to begin their

investigations. Lucy emerges from her room looking haggard, wearing the same clothes as yesterday. She

refuses breakfast. With the police following behind in their van, Bev drives them out to the farm.

The corpses of the dogs lie in the cage where they fell. The bulldog Katy is still around: they catch a

glimpse of her skulking near the stable, keeping he r distance. Of Petrus there is no sign.

Indoors, the two policemen take off their caps, tuc k them under their arms. He stands back, leaves it to

Lucy to take them through the story she has elected to tell. They listen respectfully, taking down her every

word, the pen darting nervously across the pages of the notebook. They are of her generation, but edgy of

her nevertheless, as if she were a creature pollute d and her pollution could leap across to them, soil them.

There were three men, she recites, or two men and a boy. They tricked their way into the house, took (she

lists the items) money, clothes, a television set, a CD player, a rifle with ammunition. When her fath er

resisted, they assaulted him, poured spirits over h im, tried to set him on fire. Then they shot the do gs and

drove off in his car. She describes the men and wha t they were wearing; she describes the car.

All the while she speaks, Lucy looks steadily at hi m, as though drawing strength from him, or else dar ing

him to contradict her. When one of the officers ask s, 'How long did the whole incident take?' she says,

'Twenty minutes, thirty minutes.' An untruth, as he knows, as she knows. It took much longer. How much

longer?

As much longer as the men needed to finish off thei r business with the lady of the house.

Nevertheless he does not interrupt. A matter of ind ifference: he barely listens as Lucy goes through her

story. Words are beginning to take shape that have been hovering since last night at the edges of memo ry.

Two old ladies locked in the lavatory / They were t here from Monday to Saturday / Nobody knew they

were there. Locked in the lavatory while his daught er was used. A chant from his childhood come back t o

point a jeering finger. Oh dear, what can the matte r be? Lucy's secret; his disgrace.

Cautiously the policemen move through the house, in specting. No blood, no overturned furniture. The

mess in the kitchen has been cleaned up (by Lucy? w hen?). Behind the lavatory door, two spent

matchsticks, which they do not even notice.

In Lucy's room the double bed is stripped bare. The scene of the crime, he thinks to himself; and, as if

reading the thought, the policemen avert their eyes , pass on.

A quiet house on a winter morning, no more, no less .

'A detective will come and take fingerprints,' they say as they leave. 'Try not to touch things. If yo u

remember anything else they took, give us a call at the station.' Barely have they departed when the telephone repairmen arrive, then old Ettinger. Of the absent Petrus,

Ettinger remarks darkly, 'Not one of them you can t rust.' He will send a boy, he says, to fix the kombi.

In the past he has seen Lucy fly into a rage at the use of the word boy. Now she does not react.

He walks Ettinger to the door.

'Poor Lucy,' remarks Ettinger. 'It must have been b ad for her. Still, it could have been worse.'

'Indeed? How?'

'They could have taken her away with them.'

That brings him up short. No fool, Ettinger.

At last he and Lucy are alone. 'I will bury the dog s if you show me where,' he offers. 'What are you g oing

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 polic ies cover massacres. I will have to find out.'

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

'I have told the whole story. The whole story is wh at I have told.'

He shakes his head dubiously. 'I am sure you have y our 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 intrud ers,

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 e xploit. Is Lucy prepared to concede them that victo ry?

He digs the hole where Lucy tells him, close to the boundary line. A grave for six full-grown dogs: ev en in

the recently ploughed earth it takes him the best p art 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. Contem ptible, 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 reveng e. One by one he tumbles the dogs into the hole, th en

fills it in.

He returns to find Lucy installing a camp-bed in th e 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 d ogs that no longer have need of it.

'Take over my room,' he says. 'I'll sleep here.' An d at once he sets about clearing out his things.

But does he really want to move into this cell, wit h 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. E ating 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 w as a

crime. There is no shame in being the object of a c rime. You did not choose to be the object. You are an

innocent party.'

Sitting across the table from him, Lucy draws a dee p breath, gathers herself, then breathes out again and

shakes her head.

'Can I guess?' he says. 'Are you trying to remind m e 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 po lice. I will tell you, as long as you agree not to raise the

subject again. The reason is that, as far as I am c oncerned, what happened to me is a purely private m atter.

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 doi ng. Do you think that by meekly accepting what

happened to you, you can set yourself apart from fa rmers like Ettinger? Do you think what happened her e

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 y ou 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 ar e 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 apa rt. He is shaken.

FOURTEEN

A NEW DAY. Ettinger telephones, offering to lend th em a gun 'for the meanwhile'. 'Thank you,' he

replies. 'We'll think about it.'

He gets out Lucy's tools and repairs the kitchen do or 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 fortr ess.

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, län dliche 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, follow ing

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 u p 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, c reosoted poles, sheets of galvanized iron, a roll of

plastic piping, and finally, with much noise and co mmotion, two halfgrown sheep, which Petrus tethers to

a fence-post. The lorry makes a wide sweep around t he stable and thunders back down the driveway.

Petrus and his wife disappear inside. A plume of sm oke begins to rise from the asbestos-pipe chimney.

He continues to watch. In a while, Petrus's wife em erges and with a broad, easy movement empties a slo p

bucket. A handsome woman, he thinks to himself, wit h 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 bu ilding 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 aft er hour lying on her bed, staring into space or looking

at old magazines, of which she seems to have an unl imited store. She flicks through them impatiently, as

though searching for something that is not there. O f Edwin Drood there is no more sign.

He spies Petrus out at the dam, in his work overall s. It seems odd that the man has not yet reported to

Lucy. He strolls over, exchanges greetings. 'You mu st have heard, we had a big robbery on Wednesday

while you were away.'

'Yes,' says Petrus, 'I heard. It is very bad, a ver y bad thing. But you are all right now.'

Is he all right? Is Lucy all right? Is Petrus askin g a question? It does not sound like a question, bu t he

cannot take it otherwise, not decently. The questio n is, what is the answer?

'I am alive,' he says. 'As long as one is alive one is all right, I

suppose. So yes, I am all right.' He pauses, waits, allows a silence to develop, a silence which Petru s ought

to fill with the next question: And how is Lucy?

He is wrong. 'Will Lucy go to the market tomorrow?' asks Petrus.

'I don't know.'

'Because she will lose her stall if she does not go ,' says Petrus. 'Maybe.'

'Petrus wants to know if you are going to market to morrow,' he informs Lucy. 'He is afraid you might l ose

your stall.'

'Why don't the two of you go,' she says. 'I don't f eel up to it.'

'Are you sure? It would be a pity to miss a week.'

She does not reply. She would rather hide her face, and he knows why. Because of the disgrace. Because

of the shame. That is what their visitors have achi eved; that is what they have done to this confident ,

modern young woman. Like a stain the story is sprea ding across the district. Not her story to spread but

theirs: they are its owners. How they put her in he r place, how they showed her what a woman was for.

With his one eye and his white skullcap, he has his own measure of shyness about showing himself in

public. But for Lucy's sake he goes through with th e market business, sitting beside Petrus at the stall,

enduring the stares of the curious, responding poli tely to those friends of Lucy's who choose to

commiserate. 'Yes, we lost a car,' he says. 'And th e dogs, of course, all but one. No, my daughter is fine,

just not feeling well today. No, we are not hopeful , the police are overstretched, as I'm sure you know.

Yes, I'll be sure to tell her.'

He reads their story as reported in the Herald. Unk nown assailants the men are called. 'Three unknown

assailants have attacked Ms Lucy Lourie and her eld erly father on their smallholding outside

Salem, making off with clothes, electronic goods an d a firearm. In a bizarre twist, the robbers also shot

and killed six watchdogs before escaping in a 1993 Toyota Corolla, registration CA 507644. Mr Lourie,

who received light injuries during the attack, was treated at Settlers Hospital and discharged.'

He is glad that no connection is made between Ms Lo urie's elderly father and David Lurie, disciple of

nature poet William Wordsworth and until recently p rofessor at the Cape Technical University.

As for the actual trading, there is little for him to do. Petrus is the one who swiftly and efficientl y lays out

their wares, the one who knows the prices, takes th e money, makes the change. Petrus is in fact the on e

who does the work, while he sits and warms his hand s. Just like the old days: bags en Klaas. Except that

he does not presume to give Petrus orders. Petrus d oes what needs to be done, and that is that.

Nevertheless, their takings are down: less than thr ee hundred rand. The reason is Lucy's absence, no d oubt

about that. Boxes of flowers, bags of vegetables ha ve to be loaded back into the kombi. Petrus shakes his

head. 'Not good,' he says. As yet Petrus has offered no explanation for his absence. Petrus has the right to come and go as he wi shes;

he has exercised that right; he is entitled to his silence. But questions remain. Does Petrus know who the

strangers were? Was it because of some word Petrus let drop that they made Lucy their target rather than,

say, Ettinger? Did Petrus know in advance what they were planning?

In the old days one could have had it out with Petr us. In the old days one could have had it out to the

extent of losing one's temper and sending him packi ng and hiring someone in his place. But though Petrus

is paid a wage, Petrus is no longer, strictly speak ing, hired help. It is hard to say what Petrus is, strictly

speaking. The word that seems to serve best, howeve r, is neighbour. Petrus is a

neighbour who at present happens to sell his labour , because that is what suits him. He sells his labour

under contract, unwritten contract, and that contra ct makes no provision for dismissal on grounds of

suspicion. It is a new world they live in, he and L ucy and Petrus. Petrus knows it, and he knows it, a nd

Petrus knows that he knows it.

In spite of which he feels at home with Petrus, is even prepared, however guardedly, to like him. Petr us is

a man of his generation. Doubtless Petrus has been through a lot, doubtless he has a story to tell. He would

not mind hearing Petrus's story one day. But prefer ably not reduced to English. More and more he is

convinced that English is an unfit medium for the t ruth of South Africa. Stretches of English code who le

sentences long have thickened, lost their articulat ions, their articulateness, their articulatedness. Like a

dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud, the lang uage has stiffened. Pressed into the mould of Engli sh,

Petrus's story would come out arthritic, bygone.

What appeals to him in Petrus is his face, his face and his hands. If there is such a thing as honest toil, then

Petrus bears its marks. A man of patience, energy, resilience. A peasant, a paysan, a man of the country. A

plotter and a schemer and no doubt a liar too, like peasants everywhere. Honest toil and honest cunnin g.

He has his own suspicions of what Petrus is up to, in the longer run. Petrus will not be content to plough

forever his hectare and a half. Lucy may have laste d longer than her hippie, gypsy friends, but to Petrus

Lucy is still chickenfeed: an amateur, an enthusias t of the farming life rather than a farmer. Petrus would

like to take over Lucy's land. Then he would like t o have Ettinger's too, or enough of it to run a herd on.

Ettinger will be a harder nut to crack. Lucy is mer ely a transient; Ettinger is another peasant, a man of the

earth, tenacious, eingewurzelt. But Ettinger will d ie one of these days, and the Ettinger son has fled . In

that respect Ettinger has been stupid. A good peasa nt takes care to have lots of sons.

Petrus has a vision of the future in which people l ike Lucy have no place. But that need not make an

enemy of Petrus. Country life has always been a mat ter of neighbours scheming against each other,

wishing on each other pests, poor crops, financial ruin, yet in a crisis ready to lend a hand.

The worst, the darkest reading would be that Petrus engaged three strange men to teach Lucy a lesson,

paying them off with the loot. But he cannot believ e that, it would be too simple. The real truth, he

suspects, is something far more - he casts around f or the word - anthropological, something it would t ake

months to get to the bottom of, months of patient, unhurried conversation with dozens of people, and t he

offices of an interpreter.

On the other hand, he does believe that Petrus knew something was in the offing; he does believe Petrus

could have warned Lucy. That is why he will not let go of the subject. That is why he continues to nag

Petrus.

Petrus has emptied the concrete storage dam and is cleaning it of algae. It is an unpleasant job.

Nevertheless, he offers to help. With his feet cram med into Lucy's rubber boots, he climbs into the da m,

stepping carefully on the slick bottom. For a while he and Petrus work in concert, scraping, scrubbing ,

shovelling out the mud. Then he breaks off.

'Do you know, Petrus,' he says, 'I find it hard to believe the men who came here were strangers. I fin d it

hard to believe they arrived out of nowhere, and di d what they did, and disappeared afterwards like gh osts.

And I find it hard to believe that the reason they picked on us was simply that we were the first whit e folk

they met that day. What do you think? Am I wrong?'

Petrus smokes a pipe, an old-fashioned pipe with a hooked stem and a little silver cap over the bowl. Now

he straightens up, takes the pipe from the pocket o f his overalls, opens the cap, tamps down the tobacco in the bowl, sucks at the pipe unlit. He stares reflectively over the dam wall, over the

hills, over open country. His expression is perfect ly tranquil.

'The police must find them,' he says at last. 'The police must find them and put them in jail. That is the job

of the police.'

But the police are not going to find them without h elp. Those men knew about the forestry station. I am

convinced they knew about Lucy. How could they have known if they were complete strangers to the

district?'

Petrus chooses not to take this as a question. He p uts the pipe away in his pocket, exchanges spade fo r

broom.

'It was not simply theft, Petrus,' he persists. 'Th ey did not come just to steal. They did not come ju st to do

this to me.' He touches the bandages, touches the e ye-shield. 'They came to do something else as well.

You know what I mean, or if you don't know you can surely guess. After they did what they did, you

cannot expect Lucy calmly to go on with her life as before. I am Lucy's father. I want those men to be

caught and brought before the law and punished. Am I wrong? Am I wrong to want justice?'

He does not care how he gets the words out of Petru s now, he just wants to hear them.

'No, you are not wrong.'

A flurry of anger runs through him, strong enough t o take him by surprise. He picks up his spade and

strikes whole strips of mud and weed from the dam-b ottom, flinging them over his shoulder, over the wall.

You are whipping yoursef into a rage, he admonishes himself: Stop it! Yet at this moment he would like to

take Petrus by the throat. If it had been your wife instead of my daughter, he would like to say to Pe trus,

you would not be tapping your pipe and weighing you r words so judiciously. Violation: that is the word he

would like to force out of Petrus. Yes, it was a vi olation, he would like to hear Petrus say; yes, it was an

outrage.

In silence, side by side, he and Petrus finish off the job.

This is how his days are spent on the farm. He help s Petrus clean up the irrigation system. He keeps the

garden from going to ruin. He packs produce for the market. He helps Bev Shaw at the clinic. He sweeps

the floors, cooks the meals, does all the things th at Lucy no longer does. He is busy from dawn to dus k.

His eye is healing surprisingly fast: after a mere week he is able to use it again. The burns are taki ng

longer. He retains the skullcap and the bandage ove r his ear. The ear, uncovered, looks like a naked pink

mollusc: he does not know when he will be bold enou gh to expose it to the gaze of others.

He buys a hat to keep off the sun, and, to a degree , to hide his face. He is trying to get used to looking odd,

worse than odd, repulsive - one of those sorry crea tures whom children gawk at in the street. 'Why doe s

that man look so funny?' they ask their mothers, an d have to be hushed.

He goes to the shops in Salem as seldom as he can, to Grahamstown only on Saturdays. All at once he ha s

become a recluse, a country recluse. The end of rov ing. Though the heart be still as loving and the moon

be still as bright. Who would have thought it would come to an end so soon and so suddenly: the roving ,

the loving!

He has no reason to believe their misfortunes have made it on to the gossip circuit in Cape Town.

Nevertheless, he wants to be sure that Rosalind doe s not hear the story in some garbled form. Twice he

tries to call her, without success. The third time he telephones the travel agency where she works.

Rosalind is in Madagascar, he is told, scouting; he is given the fax number of a hotel in Antananarivo .

He composes a dispatch: 'Lucy and I have had some b ad luck. My car was stolen, and there was a scuffle

too, in which I took a bit of a knock. Nothing seri ous - we're both fine, though shaken. Thought I'd l et you

know in case of rumours. Trust you are having a goo d time.' He gives the page to Lucy to approve, then to

Bev Shaw to send off To Rosalind in darkest Africa.

Lucy is not improving. She stays up all night, clai ming she cannot sleep; then in the afternoons he fi nds

her asleep on the sofa, her thumb in her mouth like a child. She has lost interest in food: he is the one who

has to tempt her to eat, cooking unfamiliar dishes because she refuses to touch meat. This is not what he came for - to be stuck in the back of beyond, warding off demons, nursing his

daughter, attending to a dying enterprise. If he ca me for anything, it was to gather himself, gather h is

forces. Here he is losing himself day by day.

The demons do not pass him by. He has nightmares of his own in which he wallows in a bed of blood, or,

panting, shouting soundlessly, runs from the man wi th the face like a hawk, like a Benin mask, like Thoth.

One night, half sleepwalking, half demented, he str ips his own bed, even turns the mattress over, looking

for stains.

There is still the Byron project. Of the books he b rought from Cape Town, only two volumes of the lett ers

are left - the rest were in the trunk of the stolen car. The public library in Grahamstown can offer n othing

but selections from the poems. But does he need to go on reading? What more does he need to know of

how Byron and his acquaintance passed their time in old Ravenna? Can he not, by now, invent a Byron

who is true to Byron, and a Teresa too?

He has, if the truth be told, been putting it off f or months: the moment when he must face the blank p age,

strike the first note, see what he is worth. Snatch es are already imprinted on his mind of the lovers in duet,

the vocal lines, soprano and tenor, coiling wordles sly around and past each other like serpents. Melod y

without climax; the whisper of reptile scales on ma rble staircases; and, throbbing in the background, the

baritone of the humiliated husband. Will this be wh ere the dark trio are at last brought to life: not in Cape

Town but in old Kaffraria?

FIFTEEN

THE TWO YOUNG sheep are tethered all day beside the stable on a bare patch of ground. Their bleating,

steady and monotonous, has begun to annoy him. He s trolls over to Petrus, who has his bicycle upside

down and is working on it. 'Those sheep,' he says - 'don't you think we could tie them where they can

graze?'

'They are for the party,' says Petrus. 'On Saturday I will slaughter them for the party. You and Lucy must

come.' He wipes his hands clean. 'I invite you and Lucy to the party.'

'On Saturday?'

'Yes, I am giving a party on Saturday. A big party. '

'Thank you. But even if the sheep are for the party , don't you think they could graze?'

An hour later the sheep are still tethered, still b leating dolefully. Petrus is nowhere to be seen.

Exasperated, he unties them and tugs them over to t he damside, where there is abundant grass.

The sheep drink at length, then leisurely begin to graze. They are black-faced Persians, alike in size, in

markings, even in their movements. Twins, in all li kelihood, destined since birth for the butcher's knife.

Well, nothing remarkable in that. When did a sheep last die of old age? Sheep do not own themselves, do

not own their lives. They exist to be used, every l ast ounce of them, their flesh to be eaten, their bones to

be crushed and fed to poultry.

Nothing escapes, except perhaps the gall bladder, w hich no one will eat. Descartes should have thought of

that. The soul, suspended in the dark, bitter gall, hiding.

'Petrus has invited us to a party,' he tells Lucy. 'Why is he throwing a party?'

'Because of the land transfer, I would guess. It go es through officially on the first of next month. It's a big

day for him. We should at least put in an appearanc e, take them a present.'

'He is going to slaughter the two sheep. I wouldn't have thought two sheep would go very far.'

'Petrus is a pennypincher. In the old days it would have been an ox.'

'I'm not sure I like the way he does things - bring ing the slaughter-beasts home to acquaint them with the

people who are going to eat them.'

'What would you prefer? That the slaughtering be do ne in an abattoir, so that you needn't think about it?'

'Yes.'

'Wake up, David. This is the country. This is Afric a.' There is a snappishness to Lucy nowadays that he sees no justification for. His usual response is to

withdraw into silence. There are spells when the tw o of them are like strangers in the same house.

He tells himself that he must be patient, that Lucy is still living in the shadow of the attack, that time needs

to pass before she will be herself. But what if he is wrong? What if, after an attack like that, one is never

oneself again? What if an attack like that turns on e into a different and darker person altogether?

There is an even more sinister explanation for Lucy 's moodiness, one that he cannot put from his mind.

'Lucy,' he asks the same day, out of the blue, 'you aren't hiding something from me, are you? You didn 't

pick up something from those men?'

She is sitting on the sofa in pyjamas and dressing- gown, playing with the cat. It is past noon. The ca t is

young, alert, skittish. Lucy dangles the belt of th e gown before it. The cat slaps at the belt, quick, light

paw-blows, one-two-three-four.

'Men?' she says. 'Which men?' She flicks the belt t o one side; the cat dives after it.

Which men? His heart stops. Has she gone mad? Is sh e refusing to remember?

But, it would appear, she is only teasing him. 'Dav id, I am not a child any more. I have seen a doctor , I

have had tests, I have done everything one can reas onably do. Now I can only wait.'

'I see. And by wait you mean wait for what I think you mean?'

'Yes.'

'How long will that take?'

She shrugs. 'A month. Three months. Longer. Science has not yet put a limit on how long one has to wait.

For ever, maybe.'

The cat makes a quick pounce at the belt, but the g ame is over now.

He sits down beside his daughter; the cat jumps off the sofa, stalks away. He takes her hand. Now that he

is close to her, a faint smell of staleness, unwash edness, reaches him. 'At least it won't be for ever , my

dearest,' he says. 'At least you will be spared tha t.'

The sheep spend the rest of the day near the dam wh ere he has tethered them. The next morning they are

back on the barren patch beside the stable.

Presumably they have until Saturday morning, two da ys. It seems a miserable way to spend the last two

days of one's life. Country ways - that is what Luc y calls this kind of thing. He has other words:

indifference, hardheartedness. If the country can p ass judgment on the city, then the city can pass

judgment on the country too.

He has thought of buying the sheep from Petrus. But what will that accomplish? Petrus will only use the

money to buy new slaughter-animals, and pocket the difference. And what will he do with the sheep

anyway, once he has bought them out of slavery? Set them free on the public road? Pen them up in the

dog-cages and feed them hay?

A bond seems to have come into existence between hi mself and the two Persians, he does not know how.

The bond is not one of affection. It is not even a bond with these two in particular, whom he could no t

pick out from a mob in a field. Nevertheless, sudde nly and without reason, their lot has become import ant

to him.

He stands before them, under the sun, waiting for t he buzz in his mind to settle, waiting for a sign.

There is a fly trying to creep into the ear of one of them. The ear twitches. The fly takes off; circl es,

returns, settles. The ear twitches again.

He takes a step forward. The sheep backs away uneas ily to the limit of its chain.

He remembers Bev Shaw nuzzling the old billy-goat w ith the ravaged testicles, stroking him, comforting

him, entering into his life. How does she get it ri ght, this communion with animals? Some trick he doe s

not have. One has to be a certain kind of person, p erhaps, with fewer complications.

The sun beats on his face in all its springtime rad iance. Do I have to change, he thinks? Do I have to

become like Bev Shaw?

He speaks to Lucy. 'I have been thinking about this party of Petrus's. On the whole, I would prefer not to

go. Is that possible without being rude?'

'Anything to do with his slaughter-sheep?' 'Yes. No. I haven't changed my ideas, if that is what you mean. I still don't believe that animals have

properly individual lives.

Which among them get to live, which get to die, is not, as far as I am concerned, worth agonizing over.

Nevertheless . . 'Nevertheless?'

'Nevertheless, in this case I am disturbed. I can't say why.'

'Well, Petrus and his guests are certainly not goin g to give up their mutton chops out of deference to you

and your sensibilities.'

'I'm not asking for that. I would just prefer not t o be one of the party, not this time. I'm sorry. I never

imagined I would end up talking this way.'

'God moves in mysterious ways, David.'

'Don't mock me.'

Saturday is looming, market day. 'Should we run the stall?' he asks Lucy. She shrugs. 'You decide,' she

says. He does not run the stall.

He does not query her decision; in fact he is relie ved.

Preparations for Petrus's festivities begin at noon on Saturday with the arrival of a band of women ha lf a

dozen strong, wearing what looks to him like church going finery. Behind the stable they get a fire going.

Soon there comes on the wind the stench of boiling offal, from which he infers that the deed has been

done, the double deed, that it is all over.

Should he mourn? Is it proper to mourn the death of beings who do not practise mourning among

themselves? Looking into his heart, he can find onl y a vague sadness.

Too close, he thinks: we live too close to Petrus. It is like sharing a house with strangers, sharing noises,

sharing smells.

He knocks at Lucy's door. 'Do you want to go for a walk?' he asks.

'Thanks, but no. Take Katy.'

He takes the bulldog, but she is so slow and sulky that he grows irritated, chases her back to the farm, and

sets off alone on an eight-kilometre loop, walking fast, trying to tire himself out.

At five o'clock the guests start arriving, by car, by taxi, on foot. He watches from behind the kitche n

curtain. Most are of their host's generation, staid , solid. There is one old woman over whom a particu lar

fuss is made: wearing his blue suit and a garish pi nk shirt, Petrus comes all the way down the path to

welcome her.

It is dark before the younger folk make an appearan ce. On the breeze comes a murmur of talk, laughter

and music, music that he associates with the Johann esburg of his own youth. Quite tolerable, he thinks to

himself- quite jolly, even.

'It's time,' says Lucy. 'Are you coming?'

Unusually, she is wearing a knee-length dress and h igh heels, with a necklace of painted wooden beads

and matching earrings. He is not sure he likes the effect.

`All right, I'll come. I'm ready.'

'Haven't you got a suit here?'

'No.'

'Then at least put on a tie.'

'I thought we were in the country.'

'All the more reason to dress up. This is a big day in Petrus's life.'

She carries a tiny flashlight. They walk up the tra ck to Petrus's house, father and daughter arm in ar m, she

lighting the way, he bearing their offering.

At the open door they pause, smiling. Petrus is now here to be seen, but a little girl in a party dress comes

up and leads them in.

The old stable has no ceiling and no proper floor, but at least it is spacious and at least it has electricity.

Shaded lamps and pictures on the walls (Van Gogh's sunflowers, a Tretchikoff lady in blue, Jane Fonda in

her Barbarella outfit, Doctor Khumalo scoring a goa l) soften the bleakness. They are the only whites. There is dancing going on, to the old-fashioned African jazz he had heard.

Curious glances are cast at the two of them, or per haps only at his skullcap.

Lucy knows some of the women. She commences introdu ctions. Then Petrus appears at their side. He

does not play the eager host, does not offer them a drink, but does say, 'No more dogs. I am not any m ore

the dog-man,' which Lucy chooses to accept as a jok e; so all, it appears, is well.

'We have brought you something,' says Lucy; 'but pe rhaps we should give it to your wife. It is for the

house.'

From the kitchen area, if that is what they are to call it, Petrus summons his wife. It is the first time he has

seen her from close by. She is young - younger than Lucy - pleasant-faced rather than pretty, shy, clearly

pregnant. She takes Lucy's hand but does not take h is, nor does she meet his eyes.

Lucy speaks a few words in Xhosa and presents her w ith the package. There are by now half a dozen

onlookers around them. 'She must unwrap it,' says P etrus.

'Yes, you must unwrap it,' says Lucy.

Carefully, at pains not to tear the festive paper w ith its mandolins and sprigs of laurel, the young w ife

opens the package. It is a cloth in a rather attrac tive Ashanti design. 'Thank you,' she whispers in E nglish.

'It's a bedspread,' Lucy explains to Petrus.

`Lucy is our benefactor,' says Petrus; and then, to Lucy: 'You are our benefactor.'

A distasteful word, it seems to him, double-edged, souring the moment. Yet can Petrus be blamed? The

language he draws on with such aplomb is, if he onl y knew it, tired, friable, eaten from the inside as if by

termites. Only the monosyllables can still be relie d on, and not even all of them.

What is to be done? Nothing that he, the one-time t eacher of communications, can see. Nothing short of

starting all over again with the ABC. By the time t he big words come back reconstructed, purified, fit to

be trusted once more, he will be long dead.

He shivers, as if a goose has trodden on his grave.

'The baby - when are you expecting the baby?' he as ks Petrus's wife.

She looks at him uncomprehendingly.

'In October,' Petrus intervenes. 'The baby is comin g in October. We hope he will be a boy.'

`Oh. What have you got against girls?'

'We are praying for a boy,' says Petrus. 'Always it is best if the first one is a boy. Then he can show his

sisters - show them how to behave. Yes.' He pauses. 'A girl is very expensive.' He rubs thumb and

forefinger together. 'Always money, money, money.'

A long time since he last saw that gesture. Used of Jews, in the old days: money-money-money, with the

same meaningful cock of the head. But presumably Pe trus is innocent of that snippet of European

tradition.

'Boys can be expensive too,' he remarks, doing his bit for the conversation.

'You must buy them this, you must buy them that,' c ontinues Petrus, getting into his stride, no longer

listening. 'Now, today, the man does not pay for th e woman. I pay.' He floats a hand above his wife's head;

modestly she drops her eyes. 'I pay. But that is ol d fashion. Clothes, nice things, it is all the same: pay,

pay, pay.' He repeats the finger-rubbing. 'No, a bo y is better. Except your daughter. Your daughter is

different. Your daughter is as good as a boy. Almos t!' He laughs at his sally. 'Hey, Lucy!'

Lucy smiles, but he knows she is embarrassed. 'I'm going to dance,' she murmurs, and moves away.

On the floor she dances by herself in the solipsist ic way that now seems to be the mode. Soon she is j oined

by a young man, tall, loose-limbed, nattily dressed . He dances opposite her, snapping his fingers, flashing

her smiles, courting her.

Women are beginning to come in from outside, carryi ng trays

of grilled meat. The air is full of appetizing smel ls. A new contingent of guests floods in, young, no isy,

lively, not old fashion at all. The party is gettin g into its swing.

A plate of food finds its way into his hands. He pa sses it on to Petrus. 'No,' says Petrus - 'is for you.

Otherwise we are passing plates all night.'

Petrus and his wife are spending a lot of time with him, making him feel at home. Kind people, he thin ks.

Country people. He glances across at Lucy. The young man is dancing only inches from her now, lifting his legs high and

thumping them down, pumping his arms, enjoying hims elf.

The plate he is holding contains two mutton chops, a baked potato, a ladle of rice swimming in gravy, a

slice of pumpkin. He finds a chair to perch on, sha ring it with a skinny old man with rheumy eyes. I a m

going to eat this, he says to himself. I am going t o eat it and ask forgiveness afterwards.

Then Lucy is at his side, breathing fast, her face tense. 'Can we leave?' she says. 'They are here.'

'Who is here?'

'I saw one of them out at the back. David, I don't want to kick up a fuss, but can we leave at once?'

'Hold this.' He passes her the plate, goes out at t he back door.

There are almost as many guests outside as inside, clustered around the fire, talking, drinking, laughing.

From the far side of the fire someone is staring at him. At once things fall into place. He knows that face,

knows it intimately. He thrusts his way past the bo dies. I am going to be kicking up a fuss, he thinks. A

pity, on this of all days. But some things will not wait.

In front of the boy he plants himself. It is the th ird of them, the dull-faced apprentice, the running -dog. 'I

know you,' he says grimly.

The boy does not appear to be startled. On the cont rary, the boy

appears to have been waiting for this moment, stori ng himself up for it. The voice that issues from his

throat is thick with rage. 'Who are you?' he says, but the words mean something else: By what right ar e

you here? His whole body radiates violence.

Then Petrus is with them, talking fast in Xhosa.

He lays a hand on Petrus's sleeve. Petrus breaks of f, gives him an impatient glare. 'Do you know who t his

is?' he asks Petrus.

'No, I do not know what this is,' says Petrus angri ly. 'I do not know what is the trouble. What is the

trouble?'

'He - this thug - was here before, with his pals. H e is one of them. But let him tell you what it is about. Let

him tell you why he is wanted by the police.'

'It is not true!' shouts the boy. Again he speaks t o Petrus, a stream of angry words. Music continues to

unfurl into the night air, but no one is dancing an y longer: Petrus's guests are clustering around them,

pushing, jostling, interjecting. The atmosphere is not good.

Petrus speaks. 'He says he does not know what you a re talking about.'

'He is lying. He knows perfectly well. Lucy will co nfirm.'

But of course Lucy will not confirm. How can he exp ect Lucy to come out before these strangers, face the

boy, point a finger, say, Yes, he is one of them. H e was one of those who did the deed?

'I am going to telephone the police,' he says.

There is a disapproving murmur from the onlookers.

'I am going to telephone the police,' he repeats to Petrus. Petrus is stony-faced.

In a cloud of silence he returns indoors, where Luc y stands waiting. 'Let's go,' he says.

The guests give way before them. No longer is there friendliness in their aspect. Lucy has forgotten the

flashlight: they lose their way in the dark; Lucy h as to take off her shoes; they blunder through pota to beds

before they reach the farmhouse.

He has the telephone in his hand when Lucy stops hi m. 'David, no, don't do it. It's not Petrus's fault. If you

call in the police, the evening will be destroyed f or him. Be sensible.'

He is astonished, astonished enough to turn on his daughter. Tor God's sake, why isn't it Petrus's fault?

One way or another, it was he who brought in those men in the first place. And now he has the effrontery

to invite them back. Why should I be sensible? Real ly, Lucy, from beginning to end I fail to understand. I

fail to understand why you did not lay real charges against them, and now I fail to understand why you are

protecting Petrus. Petrus is not an innocent party, Petrus is with them.'

'Don't shout at me, David. This is my life. I am th e one who has to live here. What happened to me is my

business, mine alone, not yours, and if there is on e right I have it is the right not to be put on trial like this,

not to have to justify myself- not to you, not to a nyone else. As for Petrus, he is not some hired lab ourer

whom I can sack because in my opinion he is mixed u p with the wrong people. That's all gone, gone with the wind. If you want to antagonize Petrus, you had better be sure of your facts first. You can't call in the

police. I won't have it. Wait until morning. Wait u ntil you have heard Petrus's side of the story.'

'But in the meantime the boy will disappear!'

'He won't disappear. Petrus knows him. In any event , no one disappears in the Eastern Cape. It's not that

kind of place.'

`Lucy, Lucy, I plead with you! You want to make up for the wrongs of the past, but this is not the way to

do it. If you fail to stand up for yourself at this moment, you will never be able to hold your head u p again.

You may as well pack your bags and leave. As for th e police, if you are too delicate to call them in now,

then we should never have involved them in the firs t place. We should just have kept quiet and waited for

the next attack. Or cut our own throats.'

'Stop it, David! I don't need to defend myself befo re you. You don't know what happened.'

`I don't know?'

'No, you don't begin to know. Pause and think about that. With regard to the police, let me remind you

why we called them in in the first place: for the s ake of the insurance. We filed a report

because if we did not, the insurance would not pay out.'

'Lucy, you amaze me. That is simply not true, and y ou know it. As for Petrus, I repeat: if you buckle at

this point, if you fail, you will not be able to li ve with yourself. You have a duty to yourself, to t he future,

to your own self-respect. Let me call the police. O r call them yourself '

'No.'

No: that is Lucy's last word to him. She retires to her room, closes the door on him, closes him out. Step

by step, as inexorably as if they were man and wife , he and she are being driven apart, and there is nothing

he can do about it. Their very quarrels have become like the bickerings of a married couple, trapped

together with nowhere else to go. How she must be r ueing the day when he came to live with her! She

must wish him gone, and the sooner the better.

Yet she too will have to leave, in the long run. As a woman alone on a farm she has no future, that is clear.

Even the days of Ettinger, with his guns and barbed wire and alarm systems, are numbered. If Lucy has

any sense she will quit before a fate befalls her w orse than a fate worse than death. But of course sh e will

not. She is stubborn, and immersed, too, in the lif e she has chosen.

He slips out of the house. Treading cautiously in t he dark, he approaches the stable from behind.

The big fire has died down, the music has stopped. There is a cluster of people at the back door, a door

built wide enough to admit a tractor. He peers over their heads.

In the centre of the floor stands one of the guests , a man of middle age. He has a shaven head and a b ull

neck; he wears a dark suit and, around his neck, a gold chain from which hangs a medal the size of a f ist,

of the kind that chieftains used to have bestowed o n them as a symbol of office. Symbols struck by the

boxful in a foundry in Coventry or Birmingham; stam ped on the one side with the head of sour Victoria,

regina et imperatrix, on the other with gnus or ibi ses rampant. Medals, Chieftains, for the use of. Sh ipped

all over the old Empire: to Nagpur, Fiji, the Gold Coast, Kaffraria.

The man is speaking, orating in rounded periods tha t rise and fall. He has no idea what the man is saying,

but every now and then there is a pause and a murmu r of agreement from his audience, among whom,

young and old, a mood of quiet satisfaction seems t o reign.

He looks around. The boy is standing nearby, just i nside the door. The boy's eyes flit nervously across

him. Other eyes turn toward him too: toward the str anger, the odd one out. The man with the medal

frowns, falters for a moment, raises his voice.

As for him, he does not mind the attention. Let the m know I am still here, he thinks, let them know I am

not skulking in the big house. And if that spoils t heir get-together, so be it. He lifts a hand to his white

skullcap. For the first time he is glad to have it, to wear it as his own.

SIXTEEN

ALL OF THE next morning Lucy avoids him. The meeting she promised with Petrus does not take place.

Then in the afternoon Petrus himself raps at the ba ck door, businesslike as ever, wearing boots and

overalls. It is time to lay the pipes, he says. He wants to lay PVC piping from the storage dam to the site of

his new house, a distance of two hundred metres. Ca n he borrow tools, and can David help him fit the

regulator?

'I know nothing about regulators. I know nothing ab out plumbing.' He is in no mood to be helpful to

Petrus.

`It is not plumbing,' says Petrus. 'It is pipefitti ng. It is just laying pipes.'

On the way to the dam Petrus talks about regulators of different kinds, about pressure-valves, about

junctions; he brings out the words with a flourish, showing off his mastery. The new pipe will have to

cross Lucy's land, he says; it is good that she has given her permission. She is 'forward-looking'. 'S he is a

forward-looking lady, not backward-looking.'

About the party, about the boy with the flickering eyes, Petrus says nothing. It is as though none of that

had happened.

His own role at the dam soon becomes clear. Petrus needs him not for advice on pipefitting or plumbing

but to hold things, to pass him tools - to be his h andlanger, in fact. The role is not one he

objects to. Petrus is a good workman, it is an educ ation to watch him. It is Petrus himself he has begun to

dislike. As Petrus drones on about his plans, he gr ows more and more frosty toward him. He would not

wish to be marooned with Petrus on a desert isle. H e would certainly not wish to be married to him. A

dominating personality. The young wife seems happy, but he wonders what stories the old wife has to tell.

At last, when he has had enough, he cuts across the flow. Petrus,' he says, 'that young man who was at

your house last night - what is his name and where is he now?'

Petrus takes off his cap, wipes his forehead. Today he is wearing a peaked cap with a silver South Afr ican

Railways and Harbours badge. He seems to have a col lection of headgear.

'You see,' says Petrus, frowning, 'David, it is a h ard thing you are saying, that this boy is a thief. He is very

angry that you are calling him a thief. That is wha t he is telling everyone. And I, I am the one who m ust be

keeping the peace. So it is hard for me too.'

'I have no intention of involving you in the case, Petrus. Tell me the boy's name and whereabouts and I

will pass on the information to the police. Then we can leave it to the police to investigate and bring him

and his friends to justice. You will not be involve d, I will not be involved, it will be a matter for the law.'

Petrus stretches, bathing his face in the sun's glo w. Tut the insurance will give you a new car.'

Is it a question? A declaration? What game is Petru s playing? 'The insurance will not give me a new ca r,'

he explains, trying to be patient. 'Assuming it isn 't bankrupt by now because of all the car-theft in this

country, the insurance will give me a percentage of its own idea of what the old car was worth. That w on't

be enough to buy a new car. Anyhow, there is a prin ciple involved. We can't leave it to insurance

companies to deliver justice. That is not their bus iness.'

'But you will not get your car back from this boy. He cannot give you your car. He does not know where

your car is. Your car is gone. The best is, you buy another car with the insurance, then you have a ca r

again.'

How has he landed in this dead-end? He tries a new tack. 'Petrus, let me ask you, is this boy related to

you?'

'And why', Petrus continues, ignoring the question, 'do you want to take this boy to the police? He is too

young, you cannot put him in jail.'

`If he is eighteen he can be tried. If he is sixtee n he can be tried.'

'No, no, he is not eighteen.'

'How do you know? He looks eighteen to me, he looks more than eighteen.'

'I know, I know! He is just a youth, he cannot go t o jail, that is the law, you cannot put a youth in jail, you

must let him go!' For Petrus that seems to clinch the argument. Heavily he settles on one knee and begins to work the

coupling over the outlet pipe.

'Petrus, my daughter wants to be a good neighbour - a good citizen and a good neighbour. She loves the

Eastern Cape. She wants to make her life here, she wants to get along with everyone. But how can she d o

so when she is liable to be attacked at any moment by thugs who then escape scot-free? Surely you see! '

Petrus is struggling to get the coupling to fit. Th e skin of his hands shows deep, rough cracks; he gi ves

little grunts as he works; there is no sign he has even heard.

'Lucy is safe here,' he announces suddenly. 'It is all right. You can leave her, she is safe.'

But she is not safe, Petrus! Clearly she is not saf e! You know what happened here on the twenty-first. '

`Yes, I know what happened. But now it is all right .'

'Who says it is all right?'

'I say.'

'You say? You will protect her?'

'I will protect her.'

'You didn't protect her last time.'

Petrus smears more grease over the pipe.

`You say you know what happened, but you didn't pro tect her last time,' he repeats. 'You went away, and

then those three thugs turned up, and now it seems you are friends with one of them. What am I suppose d

to conclude?'

It is the closest he has come to accusing Petrus. B ut why not? 'The boy is not guilty,' says Petrus. 'He is

not a criminal. He is not a thief '

'It is not just thieving I am speaking of. There wa s another crime as well, a far heavier crime. You s ay you

know what happened. You must know what I mean.'

'He is not guilty. He is too young. It is just a bi g mistake.'

'You know?'

'I know.' The pipe is in. Petrus folds the clamp, t ightens it, stands up, straightens his back. 'I know. I am

telling you. I know.'

'You know. You know the future. What can I say to t hat? You have spoken. Do you need me here any

longer?'

'No, now it is easy, now I must just dig the pipe i n.'

Despite Petrus's confidence in the insurance indust ry, there is no movement on his claim. Without a ca r he

feels trapped on the farm.

On one of his afternoons at the clinic, he unburden s himself to Bev Shaw. 'Lucy and I are not getting on,'

he says. 'Nothing remarkable in that, I suppose. Pa rents and children aren't made to live together. Under

normal circumstances I would have moved out by now, gone back to Cape Town. But I can't leave Lucy

alone on the farm. She isn't safe. I am trying to p ersuade her to hand over the operation to Petrus an d take

a break. But she won't listen to me.'

'You have to let go of your children, David. You ca n't watch over Lucy for ever.'

'I let go of Lucy long ago. I have been the least p rotective of fathers. But the present situation is different.

Lucy is objectively in danger. We have had that dem onstrated to us.'

'It will be all right. Petrus will take her under h is wing.'

'Petrus? What interest has Petrus in taking her und er his wing?'

'You underestimate Petrus. Petrus slaved to get the market garden going for Lucy. Without Petrus Lucy

wouldn't be where she is now. I am not saying she o wes him everything, but she owes him a lot.'

'That may be so. The question is, what does Petrus owe her?'

'Petrus is a good old chap. You can depend on him.'

'Depend on Petrus? Because Petrus has a beard and s mokes a pipe and carries a stick, you think Petrus is

an old-style kaffir. But it is not like that at all . Petrus is not an old-style kaffir, much less a go od old chap.

Petrus, in my opinion, is itching for Lucy to pull out. If you want proof, look no further than at wha t

happened to Lucy and me. It may not have been Petru s's brainchild, but he certainly turned a blind eye, he

certainly didn't warn us, he certainly took care no t to be in the vicinity.' His vehemence surprises Bev Shaw. 'Poor Lucy,' she whispers: 'she has been through such a lot!'

'I know what Lucy has been through. I was there.'

Wide-eyed she gazes back at him. 'But you weren't t here, David. She told me. You weren't.'

You weren't there. You don't know what happened. He is baffled. Where, according to Bev Shaw,

according to Lucy, was he not? In the room where th e intruders were committing their outrages? Do they

think he does not know what rape is? Do they think he has not suffered with his daughter? What more

could he have witnessed than he is capable of imagi ning? Or do they think that,where rape is concerned,

no man can be where the woman is? Whatever the answ er, he is outraged, outraged at being treated like an

outsider.

He buys a small television set to replace the one t hat was stolen. In the evenings, after supper, he and Lucy

sit side by side on the sofa watching the news and then, if they can bear it, the entertainment.

It is true, the visit has gone on too long, in his opinion as well as in Lucy's. He is tired of living out of a

suitcase, tired of listening all the while for the crunch of gravel on the pathway. He wants to be abl e to sit

at his own desk again, sleep in his own bed. But Ca pe Town is far away, almost another country. Despit e

Bev's counsel, despite Petrus's assurances, despite Lucy's obstinacy, he is not prepared to abandon hi s

daughter. This is where he lives, for the present: in this time, in this place.

He has recovered the sight of his eye completely. H is scalp is healing over; he need no longer use the oily

dressing. Only the ear still needs daily attention. So time does indeed heal all. Presumably Lucy is h ealing

too, or if not healing then forgetting, growing sca r tissue around the memory of that day, sheathing i t,

sealing it off. So that one day she may be able to say, 'The day we were robbed,' and think of it mere ly as

the day when they were robbed.

He tries to spend the daytime hours outdoors, leavi ng Lucy free to breathe in the house. He works in t he

garden; when he is tired he sits by the dam, observ ing the ups and downs of the duck family, brooding on

the Byron project.

The project is not moving. All he can grasp of it a re fragments. The first words of the first act still resist

him; the first notes remain as elusive as wisps of smoke. Sometimes he fears that the characters in th e

story, who for more than a year have been his ghost ly companions, are beginning to fade away. Even the

most appealing of them, Margarita Cogni, whose pass ionate contralto attacks

hurled against Byron's bitch-mate Teresa Guiccioli he aches to hear, is slipping. Their loss fills him with

despair, despair as grey and even and unimportant, in the larger scheme, as a headache.

He goes off to the Animal Welfare clinic as often a s he can, offering himself for whatever jobs call for no

skill: feeding, cleaning, mopping up.

The animals they care for at the clinic are mainly dogs, less frequently cats: for livestock, D Village

appears to have its own veterinary lore, its own ph armacopoeia, its own healers. The dogs that are bro ught

in suffer from distempers, from broken limbs, from infected bites, from mange, from neglect, benign or

malign, from old age, from malnutrition, from intes tinal parasites, but most of all from their own fertility.

There are simply too many of them. When people brin g a dog in they do not say straight out, 'I have

brought you this dog to kill,' but that is what is expected: that they will dispose of it, make it dis appear,

dispatch it to oblivion. What is being asked for is , in fact, Lösung (German always to hand with an

appropriately blank abstraction): sublimation, as a lcohol is sublimed from water, leaving no residue, no

aftertaste.

So on Sunday afternoons the clinic door is closed a nd locked while he helps Bev Shaw lösen the week's

superfluous canines. One at a time he fetches them out of the cage at the back and leads or carries them

into the theatre. To each, in what will be its last minutes, Bev gives her fullest attention, stroking it,

talking to it, easing its passage. If, more often t han not, the dog fails to be charmed, it is because of his

presence: he gives off the wrong smell (They can sm ell your thoughts), the smell of shame. Nevertheless,

he is the one who holds the dog still as the needle finds the vein and the drug hits the heart and the legs

buckle and the eyes dim.

He had thought he would get used to it. But that is not what happens. The more killings he assists in, the

more jittery he gets. One Sunday evening, driving h ome in Lucy's kombi, he actually has to stop at the roadside to recover himself. Tears flow down his face that he cannot stop; his hand s

shake.

He does not understand what is happening to him. Un til now he has been more or less indifferent to

animals. Although in an abstract way he disapproves of cruelty, he cannot tell whether by nature he is

cruel or kind. He is simply nothing. He assumes tha t people from whom cruelty is demanded in the line of

duty, people who work in slaughterhouses, for insta nce, grow carapaces over their souls. Habit hardens: it

must be so in most cases, but it does not seem to b e so in his. He does not seem to have the gift of

hardness.

His whole being is gripped by what happens in the t heatre. He is convinced the dogs know their time has

come. Despite the silence and the painlessness of t he procedure, despite the good thoughts that Bev Sh aw

thinks and that he tries to think, despite the airt ight bags in which they tie the newmade corpses, th e dogs

in the yard smell what is going on inside. They fla tten their ears, they droop their tails, as if they too feel

the disgrace of dying; locking their legs, they hav e to be pulled or pushed or carried over the thresh old. On

the table some snap wildly left and right, some whi ne plaintively; none will look straight at the needle in

Bev's hand, which they somehow know is going to har m them terribly.

Worst are those that sniff him and try to lick his hand. He has never liked being licked, and his firs t

impulse is to pull away. Why pretend to be a chum w hen in fact one is a murderer? But then he relents.

Why should a creature with the shadow of death upon it feel him flinch away as if its touch were

abhorrent? So he lets them lick him, if they want t o, just as Bev Shaw strokes them and kisses them if they

will let her.

He is not, he hopes, a sentimentalist. He tries not to sentimentalize the animals he kills, or to

sentimentalize Bev Shaw. He avoids saying to her, ' I don't know how you do it,' in order not to have to

hear her say in return, 'Someone has to do it.' He does not dismiss the possibility that at the deepest level

Bev Shaw may be not a liberating angel but a devil, that beneath her show of compassion may hide a hea rt

as leathery as a butcher's. He tries to keep an ope n mind.

Since Bev Shaw is the one who inflicts the needle, it is he who takes charge of disposing of the remains.

The morning after each killing session he drives th e loaded kombi to the grounds of Settlers Hospital, to

the incinerator, and there consigns the bodies in t heir black bags to the flames.

It would be simpler to cart the bags to the inciner ator immediately after the session and leave them t here

for the incinerator crew to dispose of. But that wo uld mean leaving them on the dump with the rest of the

weekend's scourings: with waste from the hospital w ards, carrion scooped up at the roadside, malodorous

refuse from the tannery - a mixture both casual and terrible. He is not prepared to inflict such dishonour

upon them.

So on Sunday evenings he brings the bags to the far m in the back of Lucy's kombi, parks them overnight ,

and on Monday mornings drives them to the hospital grounds. There he himself loads them, one at a time,

on to the feeder trolley, cranks the mechanism that hauls the trolley through the steel gate into the flames,

pulls the lever to empty it of its contents, and cr anks it back, while the workmen whose job this norm ally

is stand by and watch.

On his first Monday he left it to them to do the in cinerating. Rigor mortis had stiffened the corpses

overnight. The dead legs caught in the bars of the trolley, and when the trolley came back from its trip to

the furnace, the dog would as often as not come rid ing back too, blackened and grinning, smelling of

singed fur, its plastic covering burnt away. After a while the workmen began to beat the bags with the

backs of their shovels before loading them,

to break the rigid limbs. It was then that he inter vened and took over the job himself.

The incinerator is anthracite-fuelled, with an elec tric fan to suck air through the flues; he guesses that it

dates from the 1950s, when the hospital itself was built. It operates six days of the week, Monday to

Saturday. On the seventh day it rests. When the cre w arrive for work they first rake out the ashes from the

previous day, then charge the fire. By nine a.m. te mperatures of a thousand degrees centigrade are bei ng

generated in the inner chamber, hot enough to calci fy bone. The fire is stoked until mid-morning; it takes

all afternoon to cool down. He does not know the names of the crew and they do not know his. To them he is simply the man who

began arriving on Mondays with the bags from Animal Welfare and has since then been turning up earlier

and earlier. He comes, he does his work, he goes; h e does not form part of the society of which the

incinerator, despite the wire fence and the padlock ed gate and the notice in three languages, is the hub.

For the fence has long ago been cut through; the ga te and the notice are simply ignored. By the time the

orderlies arrive in the morning with the first bags of hospital waste, there are already numbers of wo men

and children waiting to pick through it for syringe s, pins, washable bandages, anything for which ther e is a

market, but particularly for pills, which they sell to muti shops or trade in the streets. There are v agrants

too, who hang about the hospital grounds by day and sleep by night against the wall of the incinerator, or

perhaps even in the tunnel, for the warmth.

It is not a sodality he tries to join. But when he is there, they are there; and if what he brings to the dump

does not interest them, that is only because the pa rts of a dead dog can neither be sold nor be eaten.

Why has he taken on this job? To lighten the burden on Bev

Shaw? For that it would be enough to drop off the b ags at the dump and drive away. For the sake of the

dogs? But the dogs are dead; and what do dogs know of honour and dishonour anyway?

For himself, then. For his idea of the world, a wor ld in which men do not use shovels to beat corpses into a

more convenient shape for processing.

The dogs are brought to the clinic because they are unwanted: because we are too menny. That is where he

enters their lives. He may not be their saviour, th e one for whom they are not too many, but he is pre pared

to take care of them once they are unable, utterly unable, to take care of themselves, once even Bev S haw

has washed her hands of them. A dog-man, Petrus onc e called himself. Well, now he has become a dog-

man: a dog undertaker; a dog psychopomp; a harijan.

Curious that a man as selfish as he should be offer ing himself to the service of dead dogs. There must be

other, more productive ways of giving oneself to th e world, or to an idea of the world. One could for

instance work longer hours at the clinic. One could try to persuade the children at the dump not to fill their

bodies with poisons. Even sitting down more purpose fully with the Byron libretto might, at a pinch, be

construed as a service to mankind.

But there are other people to do these things - the animal welfare thing, the social rehabilitation thing,

even the Byron thing. He saves the honour of corpse s because there is no one else stupid enough to do it.

That is what he is becoming: stupid, daft, wronghea ded.

SEVENTEEN

THEIR WORK AT the clinic is over for the Sunday. Th e kombi is loaded with its dead freight. As a last

chore he is mopping the floor of the surgery.

'I'll do that,' says Bev Shaw, coming in from the y ard. 'You'll be wanting to get back.'

'I'm in no hurry.'

'Still, you must be used to a different kind of lif e.'

'A different kind of life? I didn't know life came in kinds.'

'I mean, you must find life very dull here. You mus t miss your own circle. You must miss having women

friends.'

'Women friends, you say. Surely Lucy told you why I left Cape Town. Women friends didn't bring me

much luck there.'

'You shouldn't be hard on her.'

'Hard on Lucy? I don't have it in me to be hard on Lucy.'

'Not Lucy - the young woman in Cape Town. Lucy says there was a young woman who caused you a lot

of trouble.' 'Yes, there was a young woman. But I was the troublemaker in that case. I caused the young woman in

question at least as much trouble as she caused me. '

'Lucy says you have had to give up your position at the university. That must have been difficult. Do you

regret it?' What nosiness! Curious how the whiff of scandal excites

women. Does this plain little creature think him in capable of shocking her? Or is being shocked anothe r of

the duties she takes on - like a nun who lies down to be violated so that the quota of violation in the world

will be reduced?

'Do I regret it? I don't know. What happened in Cap e Town brought me here. I'm not unhappy here.'

But at the time - did you regret it at the time?'

'At the time? Do you mean, in the heat of the act? Of course not. In the heat of the act there are no doubts.

As I'm sure you must know yourself '

She blushes. A long time since he last saw a woman of middle age blush so thoroughly. To the roots of her

hair.

`Still, you must find Grahamstown very quiet,' she murmurs. 'By comparison.'

'I don't mind Grahamstown. At least I am out of the way of temptation. Besides, I don't live in

Grahamstown. I live on a farm with my daughter.'

Out of the way of temptation: a callous thing to sa y to a woman, even a plain one. Yet not plain in

everyone's eyes. There must have been a time when B ill Shaw saw something in young Bev. Other men

too, perhaps.

He tries to imagine her twenty years younger, when the upturned face on its short neck must have seemed

pert and the freckled skin homely, healthy. On an i mpulse he reaches out and runs a finger over her lips.

She lowers her eyes but does not flinch. On the con trary, she responds, brushing her lips against his hand -

even, it might be said, kissing it - while blushing furiously all the time.

That is all that happens. That is as far as they go . Without another word he leaves the clinic. Behind him

he hears her switching off the lights.

The next afternoon there is a call from her. 'Can w e meet at the

clinic, at four,' she says. Not a question but an a nnouncement, made in a high, strained voice. Almost he

asks, 'Why?', but then has the good sense not to. N onetheless he is surprised. He would bet she has no t

been down this road before. This must be how, in he r innocence, she assumes adulteries are carried out:

with the woman telephoning her pursuer, declaring h erself ready.

The clinic is not open on Mondays. He lets himself in, turns the key behind him in the lock. Bev Shaw is

in the surgery, standing with her back to him. He f olds her in his arms; she nuzzles her ear against his

chin; his lips brush the tight little curls of her hair. 'There are blankets,' she says. 'In the cabin et. On the

bottom shelf.'

Two blankets, one pink, one grey, smuggled from her home by a woman who in the last hour has probably

bathed and powdered and anointed herself in readine ss; who has, for all he knows, been powdering and

anointing herself every Sunday, and storing blanket s in the cabinet, just in case. Who thinks, because he

comes from the big city, because there is scandal a ttached to his name, that he makes love to many wom en

and expects to be made love to by every woman who c rosses his path.

The choice is between the operating table and the f loor. He spreads out the blankets on the floor, the grey

blanket underneath, the pink on top. He switches of f the light, leaves the room, checks that the back door

is locked, waits. He hears the rustle of clothes as she undresses. Bev. Never did he dream he would sl eep

with a Bev.

She is lying under the blanket with only her head s ticking out. Even in the dimness there is nothing

charming in the sight. Slipping off his underpants, he gets in beside her, runs his hands down her bod y.

She has no breasts to speak of. Sturdy, almost wais tless, like a squat little tub.

She grasps his hand, passes him something. A contra ceptive. All

thought out beforehand, from beginning to end.

Of their congress he can at least say that he does his duty. Without passion but without distaste eith er. So

that in the end Bev Shaw can feel pleased with herself. All she intended has been accomplished. He, David Lurie, has been

succoured, as a man is succoured by a woman; her fr iend Lucy Lurie has been helped with a difficult visit.

Let me not forget this day, he tells himself, lying beside her when they are spent. After the sweet yo ung

flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is what I have come t o. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even

less than this.

'It's late,' says Bev Shaw. 'I must be going.'

He pushes the blanket aside and gets up, making no effort to hide himself. Let her gaze her fill on her

Romeo, he thinks, on his bowed shoulders and skinny shanks. It is indeed late. On the horizon lies a last

crimson glow; the moon looms overhead; smoke hangs in the air; across a strip of waste land, from the

first rows of shacks, comes a hubbub of voices. At the door Bev presses herself against him a last time,

rests her head on his chest. He lets her do it, as he has let her do everything she has felt a need to do. His

thoughts go to Emma Bovary strutting before the mir ror after her first big afternoon. I have a lover! I have

a lover! sings Emma to herself. Well, let poor Bev Shaw go home and do some singing too. And let him

stop calling her poor Bev Shaw. If she is poor, he is bankrupt.

EIGHTEEN

PETRUS HAS BORROWED a tractor, from where he has no idea, to which he has coupled the old rotary

plough that has lain rusting behind the stable sinc e before Lucy's time. In a matter of hours he has

ploughed the whole of his land. All very swift and businesslike; all very unlike Africa. In olden times, that

is to say ten years ago, it would have taken him da ys with a hand-plough and oxen.

Against this new Petrus what chance does Lucy stand ? Petrus arrived as the dig-man, the carry-man, the

water-man. Now he is too busy for that kind of thin g. Where is Lucy going to find someone to dig, to

carry, to water? Were this a chess game, he would s ay that Lucy has been outplayed on all fronts. If she

had any sense she would quit: approach the Land Ban k, work out a deal, consign the farm to Petrus, return

to civilization. She could open boarding kennels in the suburbs; she could branch out into cats. She could

even go back to what she and her friends did in the ir hippie days: ethnic weaving, ethnic pot-decoration,

ethnic basket-weaving; selling beads to tourists.

Defeated. It is not hard to imagine Lucy in ten yea rs' time: a heavy woman with lines of sadness on he r

face, wearing clothes long out of fashion, talking to her pets, eating alone. Not much of a life. But better

than passing her days in fear of the next attack,

when the dogs will not be enough to protect her and no one will answer the telephone.

He approaches Petrus on the site he has chosen for his new residence, on a slight rise overlooking the

farmhouse. The surveyor has already paid his visit, the pegs are in place.

'You are not going to do the building yourself, are you?' he asks.

Petrus chuckles. 'No, it is a skill job, building,' he says. 'Bricklaying, plastering, all that, you n eed to be

skill. No, I am going to dig the trenches. That I c an do by myself. That is not such a skill job, that is just a

job for a boy. For digging you just have to be a bo y.'

Petrus speaks the word with real amusement. Once he was a boy, now he is no longer. Now he can play at

being one, as Marie Antoinette could play at being a milkmaid.

He comes to the point. 'If Lucy and I went back to Cape Town, would you be prepared to keep her part o f

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 lik e.'

'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. T here was a

time when he thought he might become friends with P etrus. Now he detests him.

Talking to Petrus is like punching a bag filled wit h sand. 'I don't see that either of us is entitled to question

Lucy if she decides to take a break,' he says. 'Nei ther you nor I.'

'How long I must be farm manager?'

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

are agreeable.'

'And I must do all the things - I must feed the dog s, 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 k ombi?'

`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 Ne w Brighton station, where he may identify and recla im 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 Lu cy to Port Elizabeth and then to New Brighton, wher e

they follow directions to Van Deventer Street, to a flat, fortress-like police station surrounded by a two-

metre 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 direct ed along a maze of corridors to the Vehicle Theft U nit.

Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse, a plump, blond littl e 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 h ouse 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 bef ore you set them free, to have me identify them? No w

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 c ar,' he says. 'My car had CA plates. It says so on the

docket.' He points to the number on the sheet: CA 5 07644.

'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 m y 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 ca r, so whoever was arrested can't be whoever took my

car.'

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

wheel.

'I didn't realize you were keen for them to be caug ht,' he says. He can hear the irritation in his voice but

does nothing to check it. 'If they are caught it me ans 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 st ate they

are in. So let us forget about that.'

He gathers himself. He is becoming a nag, a bore, b ut 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 n ot 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 s orry. 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, in difference, 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 b ring back the dead?

Sitting on the sidewalk not five yards away, a woma n 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 wa s .

. . expected. But why did they hate me so? I had ne ver set eyes on them.'

He waits for more, but there is no more, for the mo ment. '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 w asn't. It

came down from the ancestors.'

'That doesn't make it easier. The shock simply does n'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, un til things have improved in this country. Go overse as.

Go to Holland. I'll pay. When you come back you can take stock, make a fresh start.'

'If I leave now, David, I won't come back. Thank yo u for the offer, but it won't work. There is nothing you

can suggest that I haven't been through a hundred t imes myself.'

'Then what do you propose to do?'

'I don't know. But whatever I decide I want to deci de by myself, without being pushed. There are thing s

you just don't understand.'

`What don't I understand?'

'To begin with, you don't understand what happened to me that day. You are concerned for my sake,

which I appreciate, you think you understand, but f inally you don't. Because you can't.'

He slows down and pulls off the road. 'Don't,' says Lucy. 'Not here. This is a bad stretch, too risky to stop.'

He picks up speed. 'On the contrary, I understand a ll too well,' he says. 'I will pronounce the word we have

avoided hitherto. You were raped. Multiply. By thre e men.'

'And?'

'You were in fear of your life. You were afraid tha t after you had been used you would be killed. Disp osed

of. Because you were nothing to them.'

'And?' Her voice is now a whisper.

'And I did nothing. I did not save you.'

That is his own confession.

She gives an impatient little flick of the hand. 'D on't blame yourself David. You couldn't have been

expected to rescue me. If they had come a week earl ier, I would have been alone in the house. But you are

right, I meant nothing to them, nothing. I could fe el it.'

There is a pause. 'I think they have done it before ,' she resumes, her voice steadier now. 'At least the two

older ones have. I think they are rapists first and foremost. Stealing things is just incidental. A side-line. I

think they do rape.'

`You think they will come back?'

'I think I am in their territory. They have marked me. They will come back for me.'

'Then you can't possibly stay.'

'Why not?'

'Because that would be an invitation to them to ret urn.'

She broods a long while before she answers. 'But is n't there another way of looking at it, David? What if .

. . what if that is the price one has to pay for st aying on? Perhaps that is how they look at it; perh aps that is

how I should look at it too. They see me as owing s omething. They see themselves as debt collectors, tax

collectors. Why should I be allowed to live here wi thout paying? Perhaps that is what they tell

themselves.'

'I am sure they tell themselves many things. It is in their interest to make up stories that justify them. But

trust your feelings. You said you felt only hatred from them.'

'Hatred . . . When it comes to men and sex, David, nothing surprises me any more. Maybe, for men, hati ng

the woman makes sex more exciting. You are a man, y ou ought to know. When you have sex with

someone strange - when you trap her, hold her down, get her under you, put all your weight on her - isn't it

a bit like killing? Pushing the knife in; exiting a fterwards, leaving the body behind covered in blood -

doesn't it feel like murder, like getting away with murder?'

You are a man, you ought to know: does one speak to one's father like that? Are she and he on the same

side?

'Perhaps,' he says. 'Sometimes. For some men.' And then rapidly, without forethought: 'Was it the same

with both of them? Like fighting with death?'

'They spur each other on. That's probably why they do it together. Like dogs in a pack.'

'And the third one, the boy?'

'He was there to learn.'

They have passed the Cycads sign. Time is almost up . 'If they had been white you wouldn't talk about them in this way,' he says. 'If they had been white thugs

from Despatch, for instance.'

'Wouldn't I?'

'No, you wouldn't. I am not blaming you, that is no t the point. But it is something new you are talking

about. Slavery. They want you for their slave.'

`Not slavery. Subjection. Subjugation.'

He shakes his head. 'It's too much, Lucy. Sell up. Sell the farm to Petrus and come away.'

'No.'

That is where the conversation ends. But Lucy's wor ds echo in his mind. Covered in blood. What does sh e

mean? Was he right after all when he dreamt of a be d of blood, a bath of blood?

They do rape. He thinks of the three visitors drivi ng away in the not-too-old Toyota, the back seat pi led

with household goods, their penises, their weapons, tucked warm and satisfied between their legs - purring

is the word that comes to him. They must have had e very reason to be pleased with their afternoon's work;

they must have felt happy in their vocation.

He remembers, as a child, poring over the word rape in newspaper reports, trying to puzzle out what

exactly it meant, wondering what the letter p, usua lly so gentle, was doing in the middle of a word he ld in

such horror that no one would utter it aloud. In an art-book in the library there was a painting called The

Rape of the Sabine Women: men on horseback in skimp y Roman armour, women in gauze veils flinging

their arms in the air and wailing. What had all thi s attitudinizing to do with what he suspected rape to be:

the man lying on top of the woman and pushing himse lf into her?

He thinks of Byron. Among the legions of countesses and kitchenmaids Byron pushed himself into there

were no doubt those who called it rape. But none su rely had cause to fear that the session would end with

her throat being slit. From where he stands, from w here Lucy stands, Byron looks very old-fashioned

indeed.

Lucy was frightened, frightened near to death. Her voice choked, she could not breathe, her limbs went

numb. This is not happening, she said to herself as the men forced her down; it is just a dream, a

nightmare. While the men, for their part, drank up her fear, revelled in it, did all they could to hurt her, to

menace her, to heighten her terror. Call your dogs! they said to her. Go on, call your dogs! No dogs? Then

let us show you dogs!

You don't understand, you weren't there, says Bev S haw. Well, she is mistaken. Lucy's intuition is right

after all: he does understand; he can, if he concen trates, if he loses himself, be there, be the men, inhabit

them, fill them with the ghost of himself. The ques tion is, does he have it in him to be the woman?

From the solitude of his room he writes his daughte r a letter:

'Dearest Lucy, With all the love in the world, I mu st say the following. You are on the brink of a

dangerous error. You wish to humble yourself before history. But the road you are following is the wrong

one. It will strip you of all honour; you will not be able to live with yourself. I plead with you, li sten to

me.

'Your father.'

Half an hour later an envelope is pushed under his door. 'Dear David, You have not been listening to m e. I

am not the person you know. I am a dead person and I do not know yet what will bring me back to life.

All I know is that I cannot go away.

'You do not see this, and I do not know what more I can do to make you see. It is as if you have chosen

deliberately to sit in a corner where the rays of t he sun do not shine. I think of you as one of the t hree

chimpanzees, the one with his paws over his eyes.

'Yes, the road I am following may he the wrong one. But if I leave the farm now I will leave defeated, and

will taste that defeat for the rest of my life.

'I cannot be a child for ever. You cannot be a fath er for ever. I know you mean well, but you are not the

guide I need, not at this time.

'Yours, Lucy.'

That is their exchange; that is Lucy's last word. The business of dog-killing is over for the day, the black bags are piled at the door, each with a bod y and a

soul inside. He and Bev Shaw lie in each other's ar ms on the floor of the surgery. In half an hour Bev will

go back to her Bill and he will begin loading the b ags.

'You have never told me about your first wife,' say s Bev Shaw. 'Lucy doesn't speak about her either.'

Lucy's mother was Dutch. She must have told you tha t. Evelina. Evie. After the divorce she went back to

Holland. Later she remarried. Lucy didn't get on wi th the new stepfather. She asked to return to South

Africa.'

'So she chose you.'

'In a sense. She also chose a certain surround, a c ertain horizon. Now I am trying to get her to leave again,

if only for a break. She has family in Holland, fri ends. Holland may not be the most exciting of place s to

live, but at least it doesn't breed nightmares.'

'And?'

He shrugs. 'Lucy isn't inclined, for the present, t o 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 t o live. I was what used to be called a scholar. I wrote

books about dead people. That was where my heart wa s. 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 hav e 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 brea th to sing. He is on the point of setting off for Greece.

At the age of thirty-five he has begun to understan d that life is precious.

Sunt Iacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt: th ose will be Byron's words, he is sure of it. As for the

music, it hovers somewhere on the horizon, it has n ot come yet.

'You mustn't worry,' says Bev Shaw. Her head is aga inst his chest: presumably she can hear his heart, with

whose beat the hexameter keeps step. 'Bill and I wi ll 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 hai r. 'It will be all right,' she whispers. 'You will see.'

NINETEEN

THE HOUSE IS part of a development that must, fifte en or twenty years ago, when it was new, have

seemed rather bleak, but has since been improved wi th 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: 'He llo?'

'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 unif orm:

marine-blue tunic, white knee-length stockings, ope n-necked shirt. She has Melanie's eyes, Melanie's wide

cheekbones, Melanie's dark hair; she is, if anythin g, more beautiful. The younger sister Melanie spoke of,

whose name he cannot for the moment recollect.

'Good afternoon. When do you expect your father hom e?'

'School comes out at three, but he usually stays la te. 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 crumb s 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 sav e

me, he thinks - what am I doing here?

'You can sit down if you like.'

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

'Desiree.'

Desiree: now he remembers. Melanie the firstborn, t he 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, b ut 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 diff erences: different pulsings of the blood, different

urgencies of passion. The two of them in the same b ed: an experience fit for a king.

He shivers lightly, looks at his watch. 'Do you kno w 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 wit h 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 h e comes upon a sign reading OFFICE. Inside sits a

plump middle-aged secretary doing her nails. 'I'm l ooking 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, regard s him in a puzzled way.

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

'Oh,' says Isaacs, and sits down again. He is weari ng 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,' h e says.

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

'Please.'

There is a framed picture on the desk. From where h e 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 w hat do I owe this pleasure?'

He had expected to be tense, but in fact finds hims elf 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 nothi ng.

'Since then I have been at a loose end. I was passi ng 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 mecha nical 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 bega n 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 li ttle adventure. Men of a certain kind. Does the man

behind the desk have adventures? The more he sees o f 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 g oes out, you strike a match and start another one. That is

how I used to think. Yet in the olden days people w orshipped fire. They thought twice before letting a

flame die, a flame-god. It was that kind of flame y our 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 gi rl'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 w eek. She has resumed her studies, they gave her a

special dispensation to do that, I'm sure you can u nderstand, 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?'

'I have a daughter myself, you will be interested t o hear. She owns a farm; I expect to spend some of my

time with her, helping

out. Also I have a book to complete, a sort of book . One way or another I will keep myself busy.'

He pauses. Isaacs is regarding him with what strike s him as piercing attention.

'So,' says Isaacs softly, and the word leaves his l ips like a sigh: 'how are the mighty fallen!'

Fallen? Yes, there has been a fall, no doubt about that. But mighty? Does mighty describe him? He thin ks

of himself as obscure and growing obscurer. A figur e from the margins of history.

`Perhaps it does us good', he says, 'to have a fall every now and then. As long as we don't break.'

'Good. Good. Good,' says Isaacs, still fixing him w ith that intent look. For the first time he detects a trace

of Melanie in him: a shapeliness of the mouth and l ips. On an impulse he reaches across the desk, tries to

shake the man's hand, ends up by stroking the back of it. Cool, hairless skin.

'Mr Lurie,' says Isaacs: 'is there something else y ou want to tell me, besides the story of yourself a nd

Melanie? You mentioned there was something on your heart.'

`On my heart? No. No, I just stopped by to find out how Melanie was.' He rises. 'Thank you for seeing me,

I appreciate it.' He reaches out a hand, straightfo rwardly this time. 'Goodbye.'

'Goodbye.'

He is at the door - he is, in fact, in the outer of fice, which is now empty - when Isaacs calls out: ' Mr Lurie!

Just a minute!' He returns.

`What are your plans for the evening?'

'This evening? I've checked in at a hotel. I have n o plans.'

'Come and have a meal with us. Come for dinner.'

'I don't think your wife would welcome that.'

'Perhaps. Perhaps not. Come anyway. Break bread wit h us. We eat at seven. Let me write down the

address for you.'

‘You don't need to do that. I have been to your hom e already, and met your daughter. It was she who

directed me here.' Isaacs does not bat an eyelid. ' Good,' he says.

The front door is opened by Isaacs himself. 'Come i n, come in,' he says, and ushers him into the living-

room. Of the wife there is no sign, nor of the seco nd daughter.

'I brought an offering,' he says, and holds out a b ottle of wine.

Isaacs thanks him, but seems unsure what to do with the wine. Van I give you some? I'll just go and open

it.' He leaves the room; there is a whispering in t he kitchen. He comes back. 'We seem to have lost th e

corkscrew. But Dezzy will borrow from the neighbour s.' They are teetotal, clearly. He should have thought of that. A tight little petit-bourgeois household, frugal,

prudent. The car washed, the lawn mowed, savings in the bank. All their resources concentrated on

launching the two jewel daughters into the future: clever Melanie, with her theatrical ambitions; Desi ree,

the beauty.

He remembers Melanie, on the first evening of their closer acquaintance, sitting beside him on the sofa

drinking the coffee with the shot-glass of whisky i n it that was intended to - the word comes up reluc tantly

- lubricate her. Her trim little body; her sexy clo thes; her eyes gleaming with excitement. Stepping o ut in

the forest where the wild wolf prowls.

Desiree the beauty enters with the bottle and a cor kscrew. As she crosses the floor towards them she

hesitates an instant, conscious that a greeting is owed. 'Pa?' she murmurs with a hint of confusion, h olding

out the bottle.

So: she has found out who he is. They have discusse d him, had a tussle over him perhaps: the unwanted

visitor, the man whose name is darkness.

Her father has trapped her hand in his. 'Desiree,' he says, 'this is Mr Lurie.'

`Hello, Desiree.'

The hair that had screened her face is tossed back. She meets his gaze, still embarrassed, but stronger now

that she is under her father's wing. 'Hello,' she m urmurs; and he thinks, My God, my God!

As for her, she cannot hide from him what is passin g through her mind: So this is the man my sister has

been naked with! So this is the man she has done it with! This old man!

There is a separate little dining-room, with a hatc h to the kitchen. Four places are set with the best cutlery;

candles are burning. 'Sit, sit!' says Isaacs. Still no sign of his wife. 'Excuse me a moment.' Isaacs

disappears into the kitchen. He is left facing Desi ree across the table. She hangs her head, no longer so

brave.

Then they return, the two parents together. He stan ds up. 'You haven't met my wife. Doreen, our guest, Mr

Lurie.'

'I am grateful to you for receiving me in your home , Mrs Isaacs.'

Mrs Isaacs is a short woman, growing dumpy in middl e age, with bowed legs that give her a faintly rolling

walk. But he can see where the sisters get their lo oks. A real beauty she must have been in her day.

Her features remain stiff, she avoids his eye, but she does give the slightest of nods. Obedient; a go od wife

and helpmeet. And ye shall be as one flesh. Will th e daughters take after her?

'Desiree,' she commands, 'come and help carry.'

Gratefully the child tumbles out of her chair.

'Mr Isaacs, I am just causing upset in your home,' he says. 'It was kind of you to invite me, I appreciate it,

but it is better that I leave.'

Isaacs gives a smile in which, to his surprise, the re is a hint of gaiety. 'Sit down, sit down! We'll be all

right! We will do it!' He leans closer. 'You have t o be strong!'

Then Desiree and her mother are back bearing dishes : chicken in a bubbling tomato stew that gives off

aromas of ginger and cumin, rice, an array of salad s and pickles. Just the kind of food he most missed ,

living with Lucy.

The bottle of wine is set before him, and a solitar y wine glass. 'Am I the only one drinking?' he says .

`Please,' says Isaacs. 'Go ahead.'

He pours a glass. He does not like sweet wines, he bought the Late Harvest imagining it would be to th eir

taste. Well, so much the worse for him.

There remains the prayer to get through. The Isaacs take hands; there is nothing for it but to stretch out his

hands too, left to the girl's father, right to her mother. 'For what we are about to receive, may the Lord

make us truly grateful,' says Isaacs. 'Amen,' say h is wife and daughter; and he, David Lurie, mumbles

'Amen' too and lets go the two hands, the father's cool as silk, the mother's small, fleshy, warm from her

labours.

Mrs Isaacs dishes up. 'Mind, it's hot,' she says as she passes his plate. Those are her only words to him.

During the meal he tries to be a good guest, to tal k entertainingly, to fill the silences. He talks about Lucy,

about the boarding kennels, about her bee-keeping a nd her horticultural projects, about his Saturday morning stints at the market. He glosses over the attack, mentioning only that his car was stolen. He talks

about the Animal Welfare League, but not about the incinerator in the hospital grounds or his stolen

afternoons with Bev Shaw.

Stitched together in this way, the story unrolls wi thout shadows. Country life in all its idiot simplicity.

How he wishes it could be true! He is tired of shad ows, of complications, of complicated people. He lo ves

his daughter, but there are times when he wishes sh e were a simpler being: simpler, neater. The man wh o

raped her,

the leader of the gang, was like that. Like a blade cutting the wind.

He has a vision of himself stretched out on an oper ating table. A scalpel flashes; from throat to groin he is

laid open; he sees it all yet feels no pain. A surg eon, bearded, bends over him, frowning. What is all this

stuff? growls the surgeon. He pokes at the gall bla dder. What is this? He cuts it out, tosses it aside. He

pokes at the heart. What is this?

'Your daughter - does she run her farm all alone?' asks Isaacs.

'She has a man who helps sometimes. Petrus. An Afri can.' And he talks about Petrus, solid, dependable

Petrus, with his two wives and his moderate ambitio ns.

He is less hungry than he thought he would be. Conv ersation flags, but somehow they get through the

meal. Desiree excuses herself, goes off to do her h omework. Mrs Isaacs clears the table.

'I should be leaving,' he says. 'I am due to make a n early start tomorrow.'

'Wait, stay a moment,' says Isaacs.

They are alone. He can prevaricate no longer.

'About Melanie,' he says.

'Yes?'

'One word more, then I am finished. It could have t urned out differently, I believe, between the two of us,

despite our ages. But there was something I failed to supply, something' - he hunts for the word - 'lyrical. I

lack the lyrical. I manage love too well. Even when I burn I don't sing, if you understand me. For which I

am sorry. I am sorry for what I took your daughter through. You have a wonderful family. I apologize f or

the grief I have caused you and Mrs Isaacs. I ask f or your pardon.'

Wonderful is not right. Better would be exemplary.

'So,' says Isaacs, 'at last you have apologized. I wondered when it was coming.' He ponders. He has no t

taken his seat; now he begins to pace up and down. 'You are sorry. You lacked the lyrical, you say. If you

had had the lyrical, we would not be where we are t oday. But I say to myself, we are all sorry when we are

found out. Then we are very sorry. The question is not, are we sorry? The question is, what lesson have

we learned? The question is, what are we going to d o now that we are sorry?'

He is about to reply, but Isaacs raises a hand. 'Ma y I pronounce the word God in your hearing? You are

not one of those people who get upset when they hea r God's name? The question is, what does God want

from you, besides being very sorry? Have you any id eas, Mr Lurie?'

Though distracted by Isaacs's back-and-forth, he tr ies to pick his words carefully. 'Normally I would say',

he says, 'that after a certain age one is too old t o learn lessons. One can only be punished and punis hed.

But perhaps that is not true, not always. I wait to see. As for God, I am not a believer, so I will ha ve to

translate what you call God and God's wishes into m y own terms. In my own terms, I am being punished

for what happened between myself and your daughter. I am sunk into a state of disgrace from which it will

not be easy to lift myself. It is not a punishment I have refused. I do not murmur against it. On the

contrary, I am living it out from day to day, tryin g to accept disgrace as my state of being. Is it enough for

God, do you think, that I live in disgrace without term?'

'I don't know, Mr Lurie. Normally I would say, don' t ask me, ask God. But since you don't pray, you have

no way to ask God. So God must find his own means o f telling you. Why do you think you are here, Mr

Lurie?'

He is silent.

I will tell you. You were passing through George, a nd it occurred to you that your student's family was

from George, and you thought to yourself, Why not? You didn't plan on it, yet now

you find yourself in our home. That must come as a surprise to you. Am I right?' 'Not quite. I was not telling the truth. I was not just passing through. I came to George for one reas on

alone: to speak to you. I had been thinking about i t for some time.'

'Yes, you came to speak to me, you say, but why me? I'm easy to speak to, too easy. All the children at my

school know that. With Isaacs you get off easy - th at is what they say.' He is smiling again, the same

crooked smile as before. 'So who did you really com e to speak to?'

Now he is sure of it: he does not like this man, do es not like his tricks.

He rises, blunders through the empty dining-room an d down the passage. From behind a half-closed door

he hears low voices. He pushes the door open. Sitti ng on the bed are Desiree and her mother, doing

something with a skein of wool. Astonished at the s ight of him, they fall silent.

With careful ceremony he gets to his knees and touc hes his forehead to the floor.

Is that enough? he thinks. Will that do? If not, wh at more?

He raises his head. The two of them are still sitti ng there, frozen. He meets the mother's eyes, then the

daughter's, and again the current leaps, the curren t of desire.

He gets to his feet, a little more creakily than he would have wished. 'Good night,' he says. 'Thank y ou for

your kindness. Thank you for the meal.'

At eleven o'clock there is a call for him in his ho tel room. It is Isaacs. 'I am phoning to wish you s trength

for the future.' A pause. 'There is a question I ne ver got to ask, Mr Lurie. You are not hoping for us to

intervene on your behalf, are you, with the univers ity?'

'To intervene?'

'Yes. To reinstate you, for instance.'

'The thought never crossed my mind. I have finished with the university.'

Because the path you are on is one that God has ord ained for you. It is not for us to interfere.'

'Understood.'

TWENTY

HE RE-ENTERS Cape Town on the N2. He has been away less than three months, yet in that time the

shanty settlements have crossed the highway and spr ead east of the airport. The stream of cars has to slow

down while a child with a stick herds a stray cow o ff the road. Inexorably, he thinks, the country is

coming to the city. Soon there will be cattle again on Rondebosch Common; soon history will have come

full circle.

So he is home again. It does not feel like a homeco ming. He cannot imagine taking up residence once

more in the house on Torrance Road, in the shadow o f the university, skulking about like a criminal,

dodging old colleagues. He will have to sell the ho use, move to a flat somewhere cheaper.

His finances are in chaos. He has not paid a bill s ince he left. He is living on credit; any day now h is credit

is going to dry up.

The end of roaming. What comes after the end of roa ming? He sees himself, white-haired, stooped,

shuffling to the corner shop to buy his half-litre of milk and half-loaf of bread; he sees himself sit ting

blankly at a desk in a room full of yellowing paper s, waiting for the afternoon to peter out so that he can

cook his evening meal and go to bed. The life of a superannuated scholar, without hope, without prospe ct:

is that what he is prepared to settle for?

He unlocks the front gate. The garden is overgrown, the

mailbox stuffed tight with flyers, advertisements. Though well fortified by most standards, the house has

stood empty for months: too much to hope for that i t will not have been visited. And indeed, from the

moment he opens the front door and smells the air h e knows there is something wrong. His heart begins to

thud with a sick excitement.

There is no sound. Whoever was here is gone. But ho w did they get in? Tiptoeing from room to room, he

soon finds out. The bars over one of the back windo ws have been torn out of the wall and folded back, the windowpanes smashed, leaving enough of a hole for a child or even a small man to climb through. A mat

of leaves and sand, blown in by the wind, has caked on the floor.

He wanders through the house taking a census of his losses. His bedroom has been ransacked, the

cupboards yawn bare. His sound equipment is gone, h is tapes and records, his computer equipment. In his

study the desk and filing cabinet have been broken open; papers are scattered everywhere. The kitchen has

been thoroughly stripped: cutlery, crockery, smalle r appliances. His liquor store is gone. Even the

cupboard that had held canned food is empty.

No ordinary burglary. A raiding party moving in, cl eaning out the site, retreating laden with bags, boxes,

suitcases. Booty; war reparations; another incident in the great campaign of redistribution. Who is at this

moment wearing his shoes? Have Beethoven and Janáce k found homes for themselves or have they been

tossed out on the rubbish heap?

From the bathroom comes a bad smell. A pigeon, trap ped in the house, has expired in the basin. Gingerly

he lifts the mess of bones and feathers into a plas tic packet and ties it shut.

The lights are cut off, the telephone is dead. Unle ss he does something about it he will spend the nig ht in

the dark. But he is too depressed to act. Let it al l go to hell, he thinks, and sinks into a chair and closes his

eyes.

As dusk settles he rouses himself and leaves the ho use. The first stars are out. Through empty streets,

through gardens heavy with the scent of verbena and jonquil, he makes his way to the university campus.

He still has his keys to the Communications Buildin g. A good hour to come haunting: the corridors are

deserted. He takes the lift to his office on the fi fth floor. The name-tag on his door has been remove d. DR

S. OTTO, reads the new tag. From under the door com es a faint light.

He 'mocks. No sound. He unlocks the door and enters .

The room has been transformed. His books and pictur es are gone, leaving the walls bare save for a poster-

size blowup of a comic-book panel: Superman hanging his head as he is berated by Lois Lane.

Behind the computer, in the half-light, sits a youn g man he has not seen before. The young man frowns.

'Who are you?' he asks. 'I'm David Lurie.'

'Yes? And?'

'I've come to pick up my mail. This used to be my o ffice.' In the past, he almost adds.

'Oh, right, David Lurie. Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I put it all in a box. And some other stuff of your s that I

found.' He waves. 'Over there.'

'And my books?'

'They are all downstairs in the storage room.'

He picks up the box. 'Thank you,' he says.

'No problem,' says young Dr Otto. 'Can you manage t hat?'

He takes the heavy box across to the library, inten ding to sort through his mail. But when he reaches the

access barrier the machine will no longer accept hi s card. He has to do his sorting on a bench in the lobby.

He is too restless to sleep. At dawn he heads for t he mountainside and sets off on a long walk. It has

rained, the streams are in spate. He breathes in th e heady scent of pine. As of today he is a free man , with

duties to no one but himself. Time lies before him to spend as he wishes. The feeling is unsettling, but he

presumes he will get used to it.

His spell with Lucy has not turned him into a count ry person. Nonetheless, there are things he misses - the

duck family, for instance: Mother Duck tacking abou t on the surface of the dam, her chest puffed out with

pride, while Eenie, Meenie, Minie and Mo paddle bus ily behind, confident that as long as she is there they

are safe from all harm.

As for the dogs, he does not want to think about th em. From Monday onward the dogs released from life

within the walls of the clinic will be tossed into the fire unmarked, unmourned. For that betrayal, wi ll he

ever be forgiven? He visits the bank, takes a load of washing to the laundry. In the little shop where for years he has bought

his coffee the assistant pretends not to recognize him. His neighbour, watering her garden, studiously

keeps her back turned.

He thinks of William Wordsworth on his first stay i n London, visiting the pantomime, seeing Jack the

Giant Killer blithely striding the stage, flourishi ng his sword, protected by the word Invisible writt en on

his chest.

In the evening he calls Lucy from a public telephon e. 'I thought I'd phone in case you were worried about

me,' he says. 'I'm fine. I'll take a while to settl e down, I suspect. I rattle about in the house like a pea in a

bottle. I miss the ducks.'

He does not mention the raid on the house. What is the good of burdening Lucy with his troubles?

'And Petrus?' he asks. 'Has Petrus been looking aft er you, or is he still wrapped up in his housebuilding?'

'Petrus has been helping out. Everyone has been hel pful.'

'Well, I can come back any time you need me. You ha ve only to say the word.'

'Thank you, David. Not at present, perhaps, but one of these days.'

Who would have guessed, when his child was born, th at in time he would come crawling to her asking to

be taken in?

Shopping at the supermarket, he finds himself in a queue behind Elaine Winter, chair of his onetime

department. She has a whole trolleyful of purchases , he a mere handbasket. Nervously she returns his

greeting.

'And how is the department getting on without me?' he asks as cheerily as he can.

Very well indeed - that would be the frankest answe r: We are getting on very well without you. But she is

too polite to say the words. 'Oh, struggling along as usual,' she replies vaguely.

'Have you been able to do any hiring?'

'We have taken on one new person, on a contract bas is. A young man.'

I have met him, he might respond. A right little pr ick, he might add. But he too is well brought up. 'What

is his specialism?' he inquires instead.

'Applied language studies. He is in language learni ng.'

So much for the poets, so much for the dead masters . Who have not, he must say, guided him well. Aliter,

to whom he has not listened well.

The woman ahead of them in the queue is taking her time to pay. There is still room for Elaine to ask the

next question, which should be, And how are you get ting on, David?, and for him to respond, Very well,

Elaine, very well.

'Wouldn't you like to go ahead of me?' she suggests instead,

gesturing toward his basket. 'You have so little.'

'Wouldn't dream of it, Elaine,' he replies, then ta kes some pleasure in observing as she unloads her

purchases on to the counter: not only the bread and butter items but the little treats that a woman living

alone awards herself - full cream ice cream (real a lmonds, real raisins), imported Italian cookies, chocolate

bars - as well as a pack of sanitary napkins.

She pays by credit card. From the far side of the b arrier she gives him a farewell wave. Her relief is

palpable. 'Goodbye!' he calls over the cashier's he ad. 'Give my regards to everyone!' She does not loo k

back.

As first conceived, the opera had had at its centre Lord Byron and his mistress the Contessa Guiccioli .

Trapped in the Villa Guiccioli in the stifling summ er heat of Ravenna, spied on by Teresa's jealous

husband, the two would roam through the gloomy draw ing-rooms singing of their baulked passion. Teresa

feels herself to be a prisoner; she smoulders with resentment and nags Byron to bear her away to anoth er

life. As for Byron, he is full of doubts, though to o prudent to voice them. Their early ecstasies will , he

suspects, never be repeated. His life is becalmed; obscurely he has begun to long for a quiet retireme nt;

failing that, for apotheosis, for death. Teresa's s oaring arias ignite no spark in him; his own vocal line,

dark, convoluted, goes past, through, over her. That is how he had conceived it: as a chamber-play about love and death, with a passionate young woman

and a once passionate but now less than passionate older man; as an action with a complex, restless mu sic

behind it, sung in an English that tugs continually toward an imagined Italian.

Formally speaking, the conception is not a bad one. The characters balance one another well: the trapped

couple, the discarded mistress hammering at the win dows, the jealous

husband. The villa too, with Byron's pet monkeys ha nging languidly from the chandeliers and peacocks

fussing back and forth among the ornate Neapolitan furniture, has the right mix of timelessness and decay.

Yet, first on Lucy's farm and now again here, the p roject has failed to engage the core of him. There is

something misconceived about it, something that doe s not come from the heart. A woman complaining to

the stars that the spying of the servants forces he r and her lover to relieve their desires in a broom -closet -

who cares? He can find words for Byron, but the Ter esa that history has bequeathed him - young, greedy,

wilful, petulant - does not match up to the music h e has dreamed of, music whose harmonies, lushly

autumnal yet edged with irony, he hears shadowed in his inner ear.

He tries another track. Abandoning the pages of not es he has written, abandoning the pert, precocious

newlywed with her captive English Milord, he tries to pick Teresa up in middle age. The new Teresa is a

dumpy little widow installed in the Villa Gamba wit h her aged father, running the household, holding the

purse-strings tight, keeping an eye out that the se rvants do not steal the sugar. Byron, in the new ve rsion,

is long dead; Teresa's sole remaining claim to immo rtality, and the solace of her lonely nights, is the

chestful of letters and memorabilia she keeps under her bed, what she calls her reliquie, which her grand-

nieces are meant to open after her death and peruse with awe.

Is this the heroine he has been seeking all the tim e? Will an older Teresa engage his heart as his hea rt is

now?

The passage of time has not treated Teresa kindly. With her heavy bust, her stocky trunk, her abbrevia ted

legs, she looks more like a peasant, a contadina, t han an aristocrat. The complexion that Byron once s o

admired has turned hectic; in summer she is overtak en with attacks of asthma that leave her heaving for

breath.

In the letters he wrote to her Byron calls her My f riend, then My love, then My love for ever. But the re are

rival letters in existence, letters she cannot reac h and set fire to. In these letters, addressed to h is English

friends, Byron lists her flippantly among his Itali an conquests, makes jokes about her husband, allude s to

women from her circle with whom he has slept. In th e years since Byron's death, his friends have written

one memoir after another, drawing upon his letters. After conquering the young Teresa from her husband ,

runs the story they tell, Byron soon grew bored wit h her; he found her empty-headed; he stayed with he r

only out of dutifulness; it was in order to escape her that he sailed off to Greece and to his death.

Their libels hurt her to the quick. Her years with Byron constitute the apex of her life. Byron's love is all

that sets her apart. Without him she is nothing: a woman past her prime, without prospects, living out her

days in a dull provincial town, exchanging visits w ith women-friends, massaging her father's legs when

they give him pain, sleeping alone.

Can he find it in his heart to love this plain, ord inary woman? Can he love her enough to write a musi c for

her? If he cannot, what is left for him?

He comes back to what must now be the opening scene . The tail end of yet another sultry day. Teresa

stands at a second-floor window in her father's hou se, looking out over the marshes and pine-scrub of the

Romagna toward the sun glinting on the Adriatic. Th e end of the prelude; a hush; she takes a breath. Mio

Byron, she sings, her voice throbbing with sadness. A lone clarinet answers, tails off, falls silent. Mio

Byron, she calls again, more strongly.

Where is he, her Byron? Byron is lost, that is the answer. Byron wanders among the shades. And she is

lost too, the Teresa he loved, the girl of nineteen with the blonde ringlets who gave herself up with such

joy to the imperious Englishman, and afterwards str oked his brow as he lay on her naked breast, breathing

deeply, slumbering after his great passion.

Mio Byron, she sings a third time; and from somewhe re, from the caverns of the underworld, a voice sings

back, wavering and disembodied, the voice of a ghos t, the voice of Byron. Where are you? he sings; and

then a word she does not want to hear: secca, dry. It has dried up, the source of everything. So faint, so faltering is the voice of Byron that Teresa has to sing his words back to him, helping hi m

along breath by breath, drawing him back to life: h er child, her boy. I am here, she sings, supporting him,

saving him from going down. I am your source. Do yo u remember how together we visited the spring of

Arqu?? Together, you and I. I was your Laura. Do yo u remember?

That is how it must be from here on: Teresa giving voice to her lover, and he, the man in the ransacked

house, giving voice to Teresa. The halt helping the lame, for want of better.

Working as swiftly as he can, holding tight to Tere sa, he tries to sketch out the opening pages of a libretto.

Get the words down on paper, he tells himself. Once that is done it will all be easier. Then there will be

time to search through the masters - through Gluck, for instance - lifting melodies, perhaps - who knows?

- lifting ideas too.

But by steps, as he begins to live his days more fu lly with Teresa and the dead Byron, it becomes clea r

that purloined songs will not be good enough, that the two will demand a music of their own. And,

astonishingly, in dribs and drabs, the music comes. Sometimes the contour of a phrase occurs to him

before he has a hint of what the words themselves w ill be; sometimes the words call forth the cadence;

sometimes the shade of a melody, having hovered for days on the edge of hearing, unfolds and blessedly

reveals itself. As the action begins to unwind, fur thermore, it calls up of its own accord modulations and

transitions that he feels in his blood even when he has not the musical resources to realize them.

At the piano he sets to work piecing together and w riting down the beginnings of a score. But there is

something about the sound of the piano that hinders him: too rounded, too physical, too rich. From the

attic, from a crate full of old books and toys of L ucy's, he recovers the odd little seven-stringed ba njo that

he bought for her on the streets of KwaMashu when s he was a child. With the aid of the banjo he begins to

notate the music that Teresa, now mournful, now ang ry, will sing to her dead lover, and that pale-voiced

Byron will sing back to her from the land of the sh ades.

The deeper he follows the Contessa into her underwo rld, singing her words for her or humming her vocal

line, the more inseparable from her, to his surpris e, becomes the silly plink-plonk of the toy banjo. The

lush arias he had dreamed of giving her he quietly abandons; from there it is but a short step to putting the

instrument into her hands. Instead of stalking the stage, Teresa now sits staring out over the marshes

toward the gates of hell, cradling the mandolin on which she accompanies herself in her lyric flights;

while to one side a discreet trio in knee-breeches (cello, flute, bassoon) fill in the entr'actes or comment

sparingly between stanzas.

Seated at his own desk looking out on the overgrown garden, he marvels at what the little banjo is

teaching him. Six months ago he had thought his own ghostly place in Byron in Italy would be somewhere

between Teresa's and Byron's: between a yearning to prolong the summer of the passionate body and a

reluctant recall from the long sleep of oblivion. B ut he was wrong. It is not the erotic that is calling to him

after all, nor the elegiac, but the comic. He is in the opera neither as Teresa nor as Byron nor even as some

blending of the two: he is held in the music itself , in the flat, tinny slap of the banjo strings, the voice that

strains to soar away from the ludicrous instrument but is continually reined back, like a fish on a line.

So this is art, he thinks, and this is how it does its work! How strange! How fascinating!

He spends whole days in the grip of Byron and Teres a, living on black coffee and breakfast cereal. The

refrigerator is empty, his bed is unmade; leaves ch ase across the floor from the broken window. No

matter, he thinks: let the dead bury their dead.

Out of the poets I learned to love, chants Byron in his cracked monotone, nine syllables on C natural; but

life, I found (descending chromatically to F), is a nother story. Plink-plunk-plonk go the strings of t he

banjo. Why, O why do you speak like that? sings Ter esa in a long reproachful arc. Plunk-plink-plonk go

the strings.

She wants to be loved, Teresa, to be loved immortal ly; she wants to be raised to the company of the

Lauras and Floras of yore. And Byron? Byron will be faithful unto death, but that is all he promises. Let

both be tied till one shall have expired.

My love, sings Teresa, swelling out the fat English monosyllable she learned in the poet's bed. Plink, echo

the strings. A woman in love, wallowing in love; a cat on a roof, howling; complex proteins swirling in

the blood, distending the sexual organs, making the palms sweat and voice thicken as the soul hurls its longings to the skies. That is what Soraya and the others were for: to suck the complex proteins out o f his

blood like snake-venom, leaving him clear-headed an d dry. Teresa in her father's house in Ravenna, to her

misfortune, has no one to suck the venom from her. Come to me, mio Byron, she cries: come to me, love

me! And Byron, exiled from life, pale as a ghost, e choes her derisively: Leave me, leave me, leave me be!

Years ago, when he lived in Italy, he visited the s ame forest between Ravenna and the Adriatic coastli ne

where a century and a half before Byron and Teresa used to go riding. Somewhere among the trees must

be the spot where the Englishman first lifted the s kirts of his eighteen-year-old charmer, bride of another

man. He could fly to Venice tomorrow, catch a train to Ravenna, tramp along the old riding-trails, pass by

the very place. He is inventing the music (or the m usic is inventing him) but he is not inventing the

history. On those pine-needles Byron had his Teresa - 'timid as a gazelle,' he called her - rumpling her

clothes, getting sand into her underwear (the horse s standing by all the while, incurious), and from the

occasion a passion was born that kept Teresa howlin g to the moon for the rest of her natural life in a fever

that has set him howling too, after his manner.

Teresa leads; page after page he follows. Then one day there emerges from the dark another voice, one he

has not heard before, has not counted on hearing. F rom the words he knows it belongs to Byron's daught er

Allegra; but from where inside him does it come? Wh y have you left me? Come and fetch me! calls

Allegra. So hot, so hot, so hot! she complains in a rhythm of her own that cuts insistently across the voices

of the lovers.

To the call of the inconvenient five-year-old there comes no answer. Unlovely, unloved, neglected by h er

famous father, she has been passed from hand to han d and finally given to the nuns to look after. So hot,

so hot! she whines from the bed in the convent wher e she is dying of la mal'aria. Why have you forgotten

me?

Why will her father not answer? Because he has had enough of life; because he would rather be back

where he belongs, on death's other shore, sunk in h is old sleep. My poor little baby! sings Byron,

waveringly, unwillingly, too softly for her to hear . Seated in the shadows to one side, the trio of

instrumentalists play the crablike motif, one line going up, the other down, that is Byron's.

TWENTY-ONE

ROSALIND TELEPHONES. 'Lucy says you are back in tow n. Why haven't you been in touch?'

`I'm not yet fit for society,' he replies. 'Were yo u ever?' comments Rosalind drily.

They meet in a coffee-shop in Claremont. 'You've lo st weight,' she remarks. 'What happened to your ear?'

'It's nothing,' he replies, and will not explain fu rther.

As they talk her gaze keeps drifting back to the mi sshapen ear. She would shudder, he is sure, if she had to

touch it. Not the ministering type. His best memori es are still of their first months together: steamy

summer nights in Durban, sheets damp with perspirat ion, Rosalind's long, pale body thrashing this way

and that in the throes of a pleasure that was hard to tell from pain. Two sensualists: that was what h eld

them together, while it lasted.

They talk about Lucy, about the farm. 'I thought sh e had a friend living with her,' says Rosalind. 'Grace.'

'Helen. Helen is back in Johannesburg. I suspect th ey have broken up for good.'

'Is Lucy safe by herself in that lonely place?'

'No, she isn't safe, she would be mad to feel safe. But she will stay on nevertheless. It has become a point

of honour with her.'

'You said you had your car stolen.'

'It was my own fault. I should have been more caref ul.'

'I forgot to mention: I heard the story of your tri al. The inside story.

'My trial?'

'Your inquiry, your inquest, whatever you call it. I heard you didn't perform well.'

'Oh? How did you hear? I thought it was confidentia l.' 'That doesn't matter. I heard you didn't make a good impression. You were too stiff and defensive.'

'I wasn't trying to make an impression. I was stand ing up for a principle.'

'That may be so, David, but surely you know by now that trials are not about principles, they are about

how well you put yourself across. According to my s ource, you came across badly. What was the principle

you were standing up for?'

'Freedom of speech. Freedom to remain silent.'

'That sounds very grand. But you were always a grea t self-deceiver, David. A great deceiver and a great

self-deceiver. Are you sure it wasn't just a case o f being caught with your pants down?'

He does not rise to the bait.

'Anyway, whatever the principle was, it was too abs truse for your audience. They thought you were just

obfuscating. You should have got yourself some coac hing beforehand. What are you going to do about

money? Did they take away your pension?'

'I'll get back what I put in. I am going to sell th e house. It's too big for me.'

'What will you do with your time? Will you look for a job?'

'I don't think so. My hands are full. I'm writing s omething.'

'A book?'

'An opera, in fact.'

'An opera! Well, that's a new departure. I hope it makes you lots of money. Will you move in with Lucy ?'

'The opera is just a hobby, something to dabble at. It won't make money. And no, I won't be moving in

with Lucy. It wouldn't be a good idea.'

'Why not? You and she have always got on well toget her. Has something happened?'

Her questions are intrusive, but Rosalind has never had qualms about being intrusive. 'You shared my b ed

for ten years,' she once said - 'Why should you hav e secrets from me?'

'Lucy and I still get on well,' he replies. 'But no t well enough to live together.'

'The story of your life.'

'Yes.'

There is silence while they contemplate, from their respective angles, the story of his life.

'I saw your girlfriend,' Rosalind says, changing th e subject. 'My girlfriend?'

'Your inamorata. Melanie Isaacs - isn't that her na me? She is in a play at the Dock Theatre. Didn't yo u

know? I can see why you fell for her. Big, dark eye s. Cunning little weasel body. Just your type. You must

have thought it would be another of your quick flin gs, your peccadilloes. And now look at you. You hav e

thrown away your life, and for what?'

'My life is not thrown away, Rosalind. Be sensible. '

'But it is! You have lost your job, your name is mu d, your friends avoid you, you hide out in Torrance

Road like a tortoise afraid to stick its neck out o f its shell. People who aren't good enough to tie y our

shoelaces make jokes about you. Your shirt isn't ir oned, God know who gave you that haircut, you've go t -

' She arrests her tirade. 'You are going to end up as one of those sad old men who poke around in rubb ish

bins.'

'I'm going to end up in a hole in the ground,' he s ays. 'And so are you. So are we all.'

'That's enough, David, I'm upset as it is, I don't want to get into an argument.' She gathers up her p ackages.

'When you are tired of bread and jam, give me a cal l and I'll cook you a meal.'

The mention of Melanie Isaacs unsettles him. He has never been given to lingering involvements. When

an affair is over, he puts it behind him. But there is something unfinished in the business with Melan ie.

Deep inside him the smell of her is stored, the sme ll of a mate. Does she remember his smell too? Just

your type, said Rosalind, who ought to know. What i f their paths cross again, his and Melanie's? Will

there be a flash of feeling, a sign that the affair has not run its course?

Yet the very idea of reapplying to Melanie is crazy . Why should she speak to the man condemned as her

persecutor? And what will she think of him anyway - the dunce with the funny ear, the uncut hair, the

rumpled collar? The marriage of Cronus and Harmony: unnatural. That was what the trial was set up to punish, once all the

fine words were stripped away. On trial for his way of life. For unnatural acts: for broadcasting old seed,

tired seed, seed that does not quicken, contra natu ram. If the old men hog the young women, what will be

the future of the species? That, at bottom, was the case for the prosecution. Half of literature is about it:

young women struggling to escape from under the wei ght of old men, for the sake of the species.

He sighs. The young in one another's arms, heedless , engrossed in the sensual music. No country, this, for

old men. He seems to be spending a lot of time sigh ing. Regret: a regrettable note on which to go out.

Until two years ago the Dock Theatre was a cold sto rage plant where the carcases of pigs and oxen hung

waiting to be transported

across the seas. Now it is a fashionable entertainm ent spot. He arrives late, taking his seat just as the lights

are dimming. 'A runaway success brought back by pop ular demand': that is how Sunset at the Globe Salon

is billed in its new production. The set is more st ylish, the direction more professional, there is a new lead

actor. Nevertheless, he finds the play, with its cr ude humour and nakedly political intent, as hard to endure

as before.

Melanie has kept her part as Gloria, the novice hai rdresser. Wearing a pink caftan over gold lame tigh ts,

her face garishly made up, her hair piled in loops on her head, she totters onstage on high heels. The lines

she is given are predictable, but she delivers them with deft timing in a whining Kaaps accent. She is

altogether more sure of herself than before - in fa ct, good in the part, positively gifted. Is it possible that in

the months he has been away she has grown up, found herself? Whatever does not kill me makes me

stronger. Perhaps the trial was a trial for her too ; perhaps she too has suffered, and come through.

He wishes he could have a sign. If he had a sign he would know what to do. If, for instance, those absurd

clothes were to burn off her body in a cold, privat e flame and she were to stand before him, in a reve lation

secret to him alone, as naked and as perfect as on that last night in Lucy's old room.

The holidaymakers among whom he is seated, ruddy-fa ced, comfortable in their heavy flesh, are enjoying

the play. They have taken to Melanie-Gloria; they t itter at the risque jokes, laugh uproariously when the

characters trade slurs and insults.

Though they are his countrymen, he could not feel m ore alien among them, more of an impostor. Yet

when they laugh at Melanie's lines he cannot resist a flush of pride. Mine! he would like to say, turning to

them, as if she were his daughter.

Without warning a memory comes back from years ago: of someone he picked up on the N1 outside

Trompsburg and gave a

ride to, a woman in her twenties travelling alone, a tourist from Germany, sunburnt and dusty. They dr ove

as far as Touws River, checked into a hotel; he fed her, slept with her. He remembers her long, wiry l egs;

he remembers the softness of her hair, its feather- lightness between his fingers.

In a sudden and soundless eruption, as if he has fa llen into a waking dream, a stream of images pours

down, images of women he has known on two continent s, some from so far away in time that he barely

recognizes them. Like leaves blown on the wind, pel l-mell, they pass before him. A fair field full of-folk:

hundreds of lives all tangled with his. He holds hi s breath, willing the vision to continue.

What has happened to them, all those women, all tho se lives? Are there moments when they too, or some

of them, are plunged without warning into the ocean of memory? The German girl: is it possible that at

this very instant she is remembering the man who pi cked her up on the roadside in Africa and spent the

night with her?

Enriched: that was the word the newspapers picked o n to jeer at. A stupid word to let slip, under the

circumstances, yet now, at this moment, he would st and by it. By Melanie, by the girl in Touws River; by

Rosalind, Bev Shaw, Soraya: by each of them he was enriched, and by the others too, even the least of

them, even the failures. Like a flower blooming in his breast, his heart floods with thankfulness.

Where do moments like this come from? Hypnagogic, n o doubt; but what does that explain? If he is being

led, then what god is doing the leading? The play is grinding on. They have come to the point where Melanie gets her broom tangled in the electric

cord. A flash of magnesium, and the stage is sudden ly plunged into darkness. 'Jesus Christ, jou dom meid!'

screeches the hairdresser.

There are twenty rows of seats between himself and Melanie, but he hopes she can at this moment, across

space, smell him, smell his thoughts.

Something raps him lightly on the head, calling him back to the world. A moment later another object flits

past and hits the seat in front of him: a spitball of paper the size of a marble. A third hits him in the neck.

He is the target, no doubt of that.

He is supposed to turn and glare. Who did that? he is supposed to bark. Or else stare stiffly ahead,

pretending not to notice.

A fourth pellet strikes his shoulder and bounces in to the air. The man in the next seat steals a puzzled

glance.

On stage the action has progressed. Sidney the hair dresser is tearing open the fatal envelope and reading

aloud the landlord's ultimatum. They have until the end of the month to pay the back rent, failing which

the Globe will have to close down. 'What are we goi ng to do?' laments Miriam the hair-washing woman.

'Sss,' comes a hiss from behind him, soft enough no t to be heard at the front of the house. Sss.'

He turns, and a pellet catches him on the temple. S tanding against the back wall is Ryan, the boyfriend

with the ear-ring and goatee. Their eyes meet. 'Pro fessor Lurie!' whispers Ryan hoarsely. Outrageous

though his behaviour is, he seems quite at ease. Th ere is a little smile on his lips.

The play goes on, but there is around him now a def inite flurry of unrest. Sss,' hisses Ryan again. 'Be

quiet!' exclaims the woman two seats away, directin g herself at him, though he has uttered not a sound.

There are five pairs of knees to fight past ('Excus e me .. . Excuse me'), cross looks, angry murmuring s,

before he can reach the aisle, find his way out, em erge into the windy, moonless night.

There is a sound behind him. He turns. The point of a cigarette glows: Ryan has followed him into the

parking lot.

'Are you going to explain yourself?' he snaps. 'Are you going to explain this childish behaviour?'

Ryan draws on his cigarette. 'Only doing you a favo ur, prof. Didn't you learn your lesson?'

'What was my lesson?'

'Stay with your own kind.'

Your own kind: who is this boy to tell him who his kind are? What does he know of the force that drives

the utmost strangers into each other's arms, making them kin, kind, beyond all prudence? Omnis gens

quaecumque se in se pecere vult. The seed of genera tion, driven to perfect itself, driving deep into the

woman's body, driving to bring the future into bein g. Drive, driven.

Ryan is speaking. Let her alone, man! Melanie will spit in your eye if she sees you.' He drops his cigarette,

takes a step closer. Under stars so bright one migh t think them on fire they face each other. 'Find yourself

another life, prof. Believe me.'

He drives back slowly along the Main Road in Green Point. Spit in your eye: he had not expected that. His

hand on the steering wheel is trembling. The shocks of existence: he must learn to take them more lightly.

The streetwalkers are out in numbers; at a traffic light one of them catches his eye, a tall girl in a minute

black leather skirt. Why not, he thinks, on this ni ght of revelations?

They park in a cul-de-sac on the slopes of Signal H ill. The girl is drunk or perhaps on drugs: he can get

nothing coherent out of her. Nonetheless, she does her work on him as well as he could expect. Afterwa rds

she lies with her face in his lap, resting. She is younger than she had seemed under the streetlights,

younger even than Melanie. He lays a hand on her he ad. The trembling has ceased. He feels drowsy,

contented; also strangely protective.

So this is all it takes!, he thinks. How could I ev er have forgotten it?

Not a bad man but not good either. Not cold but not hot, even at his hottest. Not by the measure of Teresa;

not even by the measure of Byron. Lacking in fire. Will that be the verdict on him, the verdict of the

universe and its all-seeing eye? The girl stirs, sits up. 'Where are you taking me?' she mumbles. 'I'm taking you back to where I found

you.'

TWENTY-TWO

HE STAYS IN contact with Lucy by telephone. In thei r conversations she is at pains to assure him that all

is well on the farm, he to give the impression that he does not doubt her. She is hard at work in the

flowerbeds, she tells him, where the spring crop is now in bloom. The kennels are reviving. She has tw o

dogs on full board and hopes of more. Petrus is bus y with his house, but not too busy to help out. The

Shaws are frequent visitors. No, she does not need money.

But something in Lucy's tone nags at him. He teleph ones Bev Shaw. 'You are the only person I can ask,'

he says. 'How is Lucy, truthfully?'

Bev Shaw is guarded. 'What has she told you?'

'She tells me that everything is fine. But she soun ds like a zombie. She sounds as if she is on

tranquillizers. Is she?'

Bev Shaw evades the question. However, she says - a nd she seems to be picking her words carefully -

there have been `developments'.

'What developments?'

'I can't tell you, David. Don't make me. Lucy will have to tell you herself '

He calls Lucy. 'I must make a trip to Durban,' he s ays, lying. 'There is the possibility of a job. May I stop

off for a day or two?'

`Has Bev been speaking to you?'

'Bev has nothing to do with it. May I come?'

He flies to Port Elizabeth and hires a car. Two hou rs later he turns off the road on to the track that leads to

the farm, Lucy's farm, Lucy's patch of earth.

Is it his earth too? It does not feel like his eart h. Despite the time he has spent here, it feels lik e a foreign

land.

There have been changes. A wire fence, not particul arly skilfully erected, now marks the boundary

between Lucy's property and Petrus's. On Petrus's s ide graze a pair of scrawny heifers. Petrus's house has

become a reality. Grey and featureless, it stands o n an eminence east of the old farmhouse; in the

mornings, he guesses, it must cast a long shadow.

Lucy opens the door wearing a shapeless smock that might as well be a nightdress. Her old air of brisk

good health is gone. Her complexion is pasty, she h as not washed her hair. Without warmth she returns his

embrace. 'Come in,' she says. 'I was just making te a.

They sit together at the kitchen table. She pours t ea, passes him a packet of ginger snaps. 'Tell me a bout

the Durban offer,' she says.

`That can wait. I am here, Lucy, because I am conce rned about you. Are you all right?'

'I'm pregnant.'

'You are what?'

'I'm pregnant.'

`From whom? From that day?'

`From that day.'

'I don't understand. I thought you took care of it, you and your GP.

'No.'

'What do you mean, no? You mean you didn't take car e of it?'

'I have taken care. I have taken every reasonable c are short of what you are hinting at. But I am not having

an abortion. That is something I am not prepared to go through with again.' 'I didn't know you felt that way. You never told me you did not believe in abortion. Why should there be a

question of abortion anyway? I thought you took Ovr al.'

'This has nothing to do with belief. And I never sa id I took Ovral.'

'You could have told me earlier. Why did you keep i t from me?'

'Because I couldn't face one of your eruptions. Dav id, I can't run my life according to whether or not you

like what I do. Not any more. You behave as if ever ything I do is part of the story of your life. You are the

main character, I am a minor character who doesn't make an appearance until halfway through. Well,

contrary to what you think, people are not divided into major and minor. I am not minor. I have a life of

my own, just as important to me as yours is to you, and in my life I am the one who makes the decision s.'

An eruption? Is this not an eruption in its own rig ht? 'That's enough, Lucy,' he says, taking her hand across

the table. 'Are you telling me you are going to hav e the child?'

'Yes.'

'A child from one of those men?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Why? I am a woman, David. Do you think I hate chil dren? Should I choose against the child because of

who its father is?'

'It has been known. When are you expecting it?'

'May. The end of May.'

'And your mind is made up?'

'Yes.'

'Very well. This has come as a shock to me, I confe ss, but I will stand by you, whatever you decide. There

is no question about that. Now I am going to take a walk. We can talk again later.'

Why can they not talk now? Because he is shaken. Be cause there is a risk that he too might erupt.

She is not prepared, she says, to go through with i t again. Therefore she has had an abortion before. He

would never have guessed it. When could it have bee n? While she was still living at home? Did Rosalind

know, and was he kept in the dark?

The gang of three. Three fathers in one. Rapists ra ther than robbers, Lucy called them - rapists cum

taxgatherers roaming the area, attacking women, ind ulging their violent pleasures. Well, Lucy was wrong.

They were not raping, they were mating. It was not the pleasure principle that ran the show but the

testicles, sacs bulging with seed aching to perfect itself. And now, lo and behold, the child! Already he is

calling it the child when it is no more than a worm in his daughter's womb. What kind of child can see d

like that give life to, seed driven into the woman not in love but in hatred, mixed chaotically, meant to soil

her, to mark her, like a dog's urine?

A father without the sense to have a son: is this h ow it is all going to end, is this how his line is going to

run out, like water dribbling into the earth? Who w ould have thought it! A day like any other day, clear

skies, a mild sun, yet suddenly everything is chang ed, utterly changed!

Standing against the wall outside the kitchen, hidi ng his face in his hands, he heaves and heaves and

finally cries.

He installs himself in Lucy's old room, which she h as not taken back. For the rest of the afternoon he

avoids her, afraid he will come out with something rash.

Over supper there is a new revelation. 'By the way, ' she says, 'the boy is back.'

'The boy?'

'Yes, the boy you had the row with at Petrus's part y. He is staying with Petrus, helping him. His name is

Pollux.'

'Not Mncedisi? Not Nqabayakhe? Nothing unpronouncea ble, just Pollux?'

'P-O-L-L-U-X. And David, can we have some relief fr om that terrible irony of yours?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Of course you do. For years you used it against me when I was a child, to mortify me. You can't have

forgotten. Anyway, Pollux turns out to be a brother of Petrus's wife's. Whether that means a real brother I

don't know. But Petrus has obligations toward him, family obligations.' 'So it all begins to come out. And now young Pollux returns to the scene of the crime and we must behave

as if nothing has happened.'

'Don't get indignant, David, it doesn't help. Accor ding to Petrus, Pollux has dropped out of school an d

can't find a job. I just want to warn you he is aro und. I would steer clear of him if I were you. I su spect

there is something wrong with him. But I can't orde r him off the property, it's not in my power.'

'Particularly - ' He does not finish the sentence.

'Particularly what? Say it.'

'Particularly when he may be the father of the chil d you are carrying. Lucy, your situation is becomin g

ridiculous, worse than ridiculous, sinister. I don' t know how you can fail to see it. I plead with you , leave

the farm before it is too late. It's the only sane thing left to do.'

'Stop calling it the farm, David. This is not a far m, it's just a piece of land where I grow things - we both

know that. But no, I'm not giving it up.'

He goes to bed with a heavy heart. Nothing has chan ged between Lucy and himself, nothing has healed.

They snap at each other as if he has not been away at all.

It is morning. He clambers over the new-built fence . Petrus's wife is hanging washing behind the old

stables. 'Good morning,' he says. 'Molo. I'm lookin g for Petrus.'

She does not meet his eyes, but points languidly to ward the building site. Her movements are slow, hea vy.

Her time is near: even he can see that.

Petrus is glazing windows. There is a long palaver of greetings that ought to be gone through, but he is in

no mood for it. 'Lucy tells me the boy is back agai n,' he says. 'Pollux. The boy who attacked her.'

Petrus scrapes his knife clean, lays it down. 'He i s my relative,' he says, rolling the r. 'Now I must tell him

to go away because of this thing that happened?'

'You told me you did not know him. You lied to me.'

Petrus sets his pipe between his stained teeth and sucks vigorously. Then he removes the pipe and give s a

wide smile. 'I lie,' he says. 'I lie to you.' He su cks again. Tor why must I lie to you?'

'Don't ask me, ask yourself, Petrus. Why do you lie ?'

The smile has vanished. 'You go away, you come back again -why?' He stares challengingly. 'You have no

work here. You come to look after your child. I als o look after my child.'

'Your child? Now he is your child, this Pollux?'

'Yes. He is a child. He is my family, my people.'

So that is it. No more lies. My people. As naked an answer as he could wish. Well, Lucy is his people.

'You say it is bad, what happened,' Petrus continue s. 'I also say it is bad. It is bad. But it is finish.' He takes

the pipe from his mouth, stabs the air vehemently w ith the stem. 'It is finish.'

'It is not finished. Don't pretend you don't know w hat I mean. It is not finished. On the contrary, it is just

beginning. It will go on long after I am dead and y ou are dead.'

Petrus stares reflectively, not pretending he does not understand. 'He will marry her,' he says at las t. 'He

will marry Lucy, only he is too young, too young to be marry. He is a child still.'

'A dangerous child. A young thug. A jackal boy.'

Petrus brushes aside the insults. 'Yes, he is too y oung, too young. Maybe one day he can marry, but no t

now. I will marry.'

'You will marry whom?'

'I will marry Lucy.'

He cannot believe his ears. So this is it, that is what all the shadow-boxing was for: this bid, this blow!

And here stands Petrus foursquare, puffing on the e mpty pipe, waiting for a response.

'You will marry Lucy,' he says carefully. 'Explain to me what you mean. No, wait, rather don't explain .

This is not something I want to hear. This is not h ow we do things.'

We: he is on the point of saying, We Westerners.

'Yes, I can see, I can see,' says Petrus. He is pos itively chuckling. 'But I tell you, then you tell Lucy. Then

it is over, all this badness.'

'Lucy does not want to marry. Does not want to marr y a man. It is not an option she will consider. I can't

make myself clearer than that. She wants to live he r own life.' 'Yes, I know,' says Petrus. And perhaps he does indeed know. He would be a fool to underestimate Petru s.

'But here', says Petrus, 'it is dangerous, too dang erous. A woman must be marry.'

'I tried to handle it lightly,' he tells Lucy after wards. 'Though I could hardly believe what I was he aring. It

was blackmail pure and simple.'

`It wasn't blackmail. You are wrong about that. I h ope you didn't lose your temper.'

'No, I didn't lose my temper. I said I would relay his offer, that's all. I said I doubted you would be

interested.'

'Were you offended?'

'Offended at the prospect of becoming Petrus's fath er-in-law? No. I was taken aback, astonished,

dumbfounded, but no, not offended, give me credit f or that.'

'Because, I must tell you, this is not the first ti me. Petrus has been dropping hints for a while now. That I

would find it altogether safer to become part of hi s establishment. It is not a joke, not a threat. At some

level he is serious.'

'I have no doubt that in some sense he is serious. The question is, in what sense? Is he aware that yo u are .

. . ?'

'You mean, is he aware of my condition? I have not told him. But I am sure his wife and he will have put

two and two together.'

'And that won't make him change his mind?'

'Why should it? It will make me all the more part o f the family. In any event, it is not me he is after, he is

after the farm. The farm is my dowry.'

`But this is preposterous, Lucy! He is already marr ied! In fact, you told me there are two wives. How can

you even contemplate it?'

'I don't believe you get the point, David. Petrus i s not offering me a church wedding followed by a

honeymoon on the Wild Coast. He is offering an alli ance, a deal. I contribute the land, in return for which

I am allowed to creep in under his wing. Otherwise, he wants to remind me, I am without protection, I am

fair game.'

'And that isn't blackmail? What about the personal side? Is there no personal side to the offer?'

'Do you mean, would Petrus expect me to sleep with him? I'm not sure that Petrus would want to sleep

with me, except to drive home his message. But, to be frank, no, I don't want to sleep with Petrus.

Definitely not.'

'Then we need not discuss it any further. Shall I c onvey your decision to Petrus - that his offer is not

accepted, and I won't say why?'

'No. Wait. Before you get on your high horse with P etrus, take a moment to consider my situation

objectively. Objectively I am a woman alone. I have no brothers. I have a father, but he is far away and

anyhow powerless in the terms that matter here. To whom can I turn for protection, for patronage? To

Ettinger? It is just a matter of time before Etting er is found with a bullet in his back. Practically speaking,

there is only Petrus left. Petrus may not be a big man but he is big enough for someone small like me. And

at least I know Petrus. I have no illusions about h im. I know what I would be letting myself in for.'

'Lucy, I am in the process of selling the house in Cape Town. I am prepared to send you to Holland.

Alternatively I am prepared to give you whatever yo u need to set yourself up again somewhere safer than

here. Think about it.'

It is as if she has not heard him. 'Go back to Petr us,' she says. 'Propose the following. Say I accept his

protection. Say he can put out whatever story he li kes about our relationship and I won't contradict him. If

he wants me to be known as his third wife, so be it . As his concubine, ditto. But then the child becomes

his too. The child becomes part of his family. As f or the land, say I will sign the land over to him as long

as the house remains mine. I will become a tenant o n his land.'

'A bywoner.'

'A bywoner. But the house remains mine, I repeat th at. No one enters this house without my permission.

Including him. And I keep the kennels.'

'It's not workable, Lucy. Legally it's not workable . You know that.' 'Then what do you propose?'

She sits in her housecoat and slippers with yesterday's newspaper on her lap. Her hair hangs lank; she is

overweight in a slack, unhealthy way. More and more she has begun to look like one of those women who

shuffle around the corridors of nursing homes whisp ering to themselves. Why should Petrus bother to

negotiate? She cannot last: leave her alone and in due course she will fall like rotten fruit.

'I have made my proposal. Two proposals.'

'No, I'm not leaving. Go to Petrus and tell him wha t I have said. Tell him I give up the land. Tell him that

he can have it, title deed and all. He will love th at.'

There is a pause between them.

'How humiliating,' he says finally. 'Such high hope s, and to end like this.'

'Yes, I agree, it is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again. Perhaps that i s what I

must learn to accept. To start at ground level. Wit h nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No c ards,

no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity.'

'Like a dog.'

'Yes, like a dog.'

TWENTY-THREE

IT IS MID-MORNING. He has been out, taking the bull dog Katy for a walk. Surprisingly, Katy has kept

up with him, either because he is slower than befor e or because she is faster. She snuffles and pants as

much as ever, but this no longer seems to irritate him.

As they approach the house he notices the boy, the one whom Petrus called my people, standing with his

face to the back wall. At first he thinks he is uri nating; then he realizes he is peering in through t he

bathroom window, peeping at Lucy.

Katy has begun to growl, but the boy is too absorbe d to pay heed. By the time he turns they are upon him.

The flat of his hand catches the boy in the face. ' You swine!' he shouts, and strikes him a second tim e, so

that he staggers. 'You filthy swine!'

More startled than hurt, the boy tries to run, but trips over his own feet. At once the dog is upon hi m. Her

teeth close over his elbow; she braces her forelegs and tugs, growling. With a shout of pain he tries to pull

free. He strikes out with a fist, but his blows lac k force and the dog ignores them.

The word still rings in the air: Swine! Never has h e felt such elemental rage. He would like to give the boy

what he deserves: a sound thrashing. Phrases that a ll his life he has avoided seem suddenly just and right:

Teach him a lesson, Show him his place. So this is what it is like, he thinks! This is what it is like to be a

savage! He gives the boy a good, solid kick, so tha t lie sprawls sideways. Pollux! What a name!

The dog changes position, mounting the boy's body, tugging grimly at his arm, ripping his shirt. The boy

tries to push her off, but she does not budge. 'Ya ya ya ya ya!' he shouts in pain. 'I will kill you!' he shouts.

Then Lucy is on the scene. 'Katy!' she commands.

The dog gives her a sidelong glance but does not ob ey.

Falling to her knees, Lucy grips the dog's collar, speaking softly and urgently. Reluctantly the dog r eleases

her grip.

'Are you all right?' she says.

The boy is moaning with pain. Snot is running from his nostrils. 'I will kill you!' he heaves. He seems on

the point of crying.

Lucy folds back his sleeve. There are score-marks f rom the dog's fangs; as they watch, pearls of blood

emerge on the dark skin.

'Come, let us go and wash it,' she says. The boy su cks in the snot and tears, shakes his head.

Lucy is wearing only a wrapper. As she rises, the s ash slips loose and her breasts are bared. The last time he saw his daughter's breasts they were the demure rosebuds of a six-year-old. Now they are

heavy, rounded, almost milky. A stillness falls. He is staring; the boy is staring too, unashamedly. Rage

wells up in him again, clouding his eyes.

Lucy turns away from the two of them, covers hersel f. In a single quick movement the boy scrambles to

his feet and dodges out of range. 'We will kill you all!' he shouts. He turns; deliberately trampling the

potato bed, he ducks under the wire fence and retre ats toward Petrus's house. His gait is cocky once more,

though he still nurses his arm.

Lucy is right. Something is wrong with him, wrong i n his head. A violent child in the body of a young

man. But there is more,

some angle to the business he does not understand. What is Lucy up to, protecting the boy?

Lucy speaks. 'This can't go on, David. I can cope w ith Petrus and his aanhangers, I can cope with you, but

I can't cope with all of you together.'

'He was staring at you through the window. Are you aware of that?'

'He is disturbed. A disturbed child.'

'Is that an excuse? An excuse for what he did to yo u?' Lucy's lips move, but he cannot hear what she s ays.

'I don't trust him,' he goes on. 'He is shifty. He is like a jackal sniffing around, looking for misch ief. In the

old days we had a word for people like him. Deficie nt. Mentally deficient. Morally deficient. He should be

in an institution.'

'That is reckless talk, David. If you want to think like that, please keep it to yourself. Anyway, wha t you

think of him is beside the point. He is here, he wo n't disappear in a puff of smoke, he is a fact of life.' She

faces him squarely, squinting into the sunlight. Ka ty slumps down at her feet, panting lightly, pleased with

herself; with her achievements. 'David, we can't go on like this. Everything had settled down, everything

was peaceful again, until you came back. I must hav e peace around me. I am prepared to do anything,

make any sacrifice, for the sake of peace.'

'And I am part of what you are prepared to sacrific e?' She shrugs. 'I didn't say it, you said it.'

'Then I'll pack my bags.'

Hours after the incident his hand still tingles fro m the blows. When he thinks of the boy and his thre ats, he

seethes with anger. At the same time, he is ashamed of himself. He condemns himself absolutely. He has

taught no one a lesson - certainly not the boy. All he has done is to estrange himself further from Lu cy. He

has

shown himself to her in the throes of passion, and clearly she does not like what she sees.

He ought to apologize. But he cannot. He is not, it would seem, in control of himself. Something about

Pollux sends him into a rage: his ugly, opaque litt le eyes, his insolence, but also the thought that like a

weed he has been allowed to tangle his roots with L ucy and Lucy's existence.

If Pollux insults his daughter again, he will strik e him again. Du musst dein Leben ändern!: you must

change your life. Well, he is too old to heed, too old to change. Lucy may be able to bend to the temp est;

he cannot, not with honour.

That is why he must listen to Teresa. Teresa may be the last one left who can save him. Teresa is past

honour. She pushes out her breasts to the sun; she plays the banjo in front of the servants and does not care

if they smirk. She has immortal longings, and sings her longings. She will not be dead.

He arrives at the clinic just as Bev Shaw is leavin g. They embrace, tentative as strangers. Hard to be lieve

they once lay naked in each other's arms.

'Is this just a visit or are you back for a while?' she asks.

'I am back for as long as is necessary. But I won't be staying with Lucy. She and I aren't hitting it off. I am

going to find a room for myself in town.'

'I'm sorry. What is the problem?'

'Between Lucy and myself? Nothing, I hope. Nothing that can't be fixed. The problem is with the people

she lives among. When I am added in, we become too many. Too many in too small a space. Like spiders

in a bottle.' An image comes to him from the Inferno: the great marsh of Styx, with souls boiling up in it like

mushrooms. Vedi l'anime di color cui vine l'ira. So uls overcome with anger, gnawing at each

other. A punishment fitted to the crime.

'You are talking about that boy who has moved in wi th Petrus. I must say I don't like the look of him. But

as long as Petrus is there, surely Lucy will be all right. Perhaps the time has come, David, for you t o stand

back and let Lucy work out solutions for herself. W omen are adaptable. Lucy is adaptable. And she is

young. She lives closer to the ground than you. Tha n either of us.'

Lucy adaptable? That is not his experience. 'You ke ep telling me to stand back,' he says. 'If I had stood

back from the beginning, where would Lucy be now?'

Bev Shaw is silent. Is there something about him th at Bev Shaw can see and he cannot? Because animals

trust her, should he trust her too, to teach him a lesson? Animals trust her, and she uses that trust to

liquidate them. What is the lesson there?

'If I were to stand back,' he stumbles on, 'and som e new disaster were to take place on the farm, how

would I be able to live with myself?'

She shrugs. 'Is that the question, David?' she asks quietly.

'I don't know. I don't know what the question is an y more. Between Lucy's generation and mine a curtai n

seems to have fallen. I didn't even notice when it fell.'

There is a long silence between them.

'Anyway,' he continues, 'I can't stay with Lucy, so I am looking for a room. If you happen to hear of

anything in Grahamstown, let me know. What I mainly came to say is that I am available to help at the

clinic.'

'That will be handy,' says Bev Shaw.

From a friend of Bill Shaw's he buys a half-ton pic kup, for which he pays with a cheque for R woo and

another cheque for R7000 postdated to the end of th e month.

'What do you plan to use it for?' says the man.

'Animals. Dogs.'

'You will need rails on the back, so that they won' t jump out. I know someone who can fit rails for yo u.'

'My dogs don't jump.'

According to its papers the truck is twelve years o ld, but the engine sounds smooth enough. And anyway ,

he tells himself, it does not have to last for ever . Nothing has to last for ever.

Following up an advertisement in Grocott's Mail, he hires a room in a house near the hospital. He gives

his name as Lourie, pays a month's rent in advance, tells his landlady he is in Grahamstown for outpatient

treatment. He does not say what the treatment is fo r, but knows she thinks it is cancer.

He is spending money like water. No matter.

At a camping shop he buys an immersion heater, a sm all gas stove, an aluminium pot. Carrying them up to

his room, he meets his landlady on the stairs. 'We don't allow cooking in the rooms, Mr Lourie,' she s ays.

'In case of fire, you know.'

The room is dark, stuffy, overfurnished, the mattre ss lumpy. But he will get used to it, as he has got used

to other things.

There is one other boarder, a retired schoolteacher . They exchange greetings over breakfast, for the r est do

not speak. After breakfast he leaves for the clinic and spends the day there, every day, Sundays inclu ded.

The clinic, more than the boarding-house, becomes h is home. In the bare compound behind the building

he makes a nest of sorts, with a table and an old a rmchair from the Shaws and a beach umbrella to keep

off the worst of the sun. He brings in the gas stov e to make tea or warm up canned food: spaghetti and

meatballs, snoek and onions. Twice a day he feeds t he animals; he cleans out their pens and occasionally

talks to them; otherwise he reads or dozes or, when he has the premises to himself, picks out on Lucy's

banjo the music he will give to Teresa Guiccioli.

Until the child is born, this will be his life. One morning he glances up to see the faces of three little boys peering at him over the concrete wall. He

rises from his seat; the dogs start barking; the bo ys drop down and scamper off whooping with exciteme nt.

What a tale to tell back home: a mad old man who si ts among the dogs singing to himself?

Mad indeed. How can he ever explain, to them, to th eir parents, to D Village, what Teresa and her lover

have done to deserve being brought back to this wor ld?

TWENTY-FOUR

IN HER WHITE nightdress Teresa stands at the bedroo m window. Her eyes are closed. It is the darkest

hour of the night: she breathes deeply, breathing i n the rustle of the wind, the belling of the bullfrogs.

'Che vuol dir,' she sings, her voice barely above a whisper - `Che vuol dir questa solitudine immensa? Ed

io,' she sings - 'che Sono?'

Silence. The solitudine immensa offers no reply. Ev en the trio in the corner are quiet as dormice.

'Come!' she whispers. 'Come to me, I plead, my Byro n!' She opens her arms wide, embracing the

darkness, embracing what it will bring.

She wants him to come on the wind, to wrap himself around her, to bury his face in the hollow between

her breasts. Alternatively she wants him to arrive on the dawn, to appear on the horizon as a sun-god

casting the glow of his warmth upon her. By any mea ns at all she wants him back.

Sitting at his table in the dog-yard, he harkens to the sad, swooping curve of Teresa's plea as she co nfronts

the darkness. This is a bad time of the month for T eresa, she is sore, she has not slept a wink, she is

haggard with longing. She wants to be rescued -from the pain, from the summer heat, from the Villa

Gamba, from her father's bad temper, from everythin g.

From the chair where it rests she picks up the mand olin. Cradling it like a child, she returns to the window.

Plink-plunk goes the mandolin in her arms, softly, so as not to wake her father. Plink-plunk squawks t he

banjo in the desolate yard in Africa.

Just something to dabble at, he had said to Rosalin d. A lie. The opera is not a hobby, not any more. I t

consumes him night and day.

Yet despite occasional good moments, the truth is t hat Byron in Italy is going nowhere. There is no action,

no development, just a long, halting cantilena hurl ed by Teresa into the empty air, punctuated now and

then with groans and sighs from Byron offstage. The husband and the rival mistress are forgotten, might

as well not exist. The lyric impulse in him may not be dead, but after decades of starvation it can crawl

forth from its cave only pinched, stunted, deformed . He has not the musical resources, the resources of

energy, to raise Byron in Italy off the monotonous track on which it has been running since the start. It has

become the kind of work a sleepwalker might write.

He sighs. It would have been nice to be returned tr iumphant to society as the author of an eccentric little

chamber opera. But that will not be. His hopes must be more temperate: that somewhere from amidst the

welter of sound there will dart up, like a bird, a single authentic note of immortal longing. As for

recognizing it, he will leave that to the scholars of the future, if there are still scholars by then. For he will

not hear the note himself, when it comes, if it com es - he knows too much about art and the ways of ar t to

expect that. Though it would have been nice for Luc y to hear proof in her lifetime, and think a little better

of him.

Poor Teresa! Poor aching girl! He has brought her b ack from the grave, promised her another life, and

now he is failing her. He hopes she will find it in her heart to forgive him.

Of the dogs in the holding pens, there is one he ha s come to feel

a particular fondness for. It is a young male with a withered left hindquarter which it drags behind i t.

Whether it was born like that he does not know. No visitor has shown an interest in adopting it. Its period

of grace is almost over; soon it will have to submi t to the needle. Sometimes, while he is reading or writing, he releases it from the pen and lets it frisk, in its grotesque

way, around the yard, or snooze at his feet. It is not 'his' in any sense; he has been careful not to give it a

name (though Bev Shaw refers to it as Driepoot); ne vertheless, he is sensible of a generous affection

streaming out toward him from the dog. Arbitrarily, unconditionally, he has been adopted; the dog woul d

die for him, he knows.

The dog is fascinated by the sound of the banjo. Wh en he strums the strings, the dog sits up, cocks its

head, listens. When he hums Teresa's line, and the humming begins to swell with feeling (it is as though

his larynx thickens: he can feel the hammer of bloo d in his throat), the dog smacks its lips and seems on

the point of singing too, or howling.

Would he dare to do that: bring a dog into the piec e, allow it to loose its own lament to the heavens

between the strophes of lovelorn Teresa's? Why not? Surely, in a work that will never be performed, all

things are permitted?

On Saturday mornings, by agreement, he goes to Donk in Square to help Lucy at the market stall.

Afterwards he takes her out to lunch.

Lucy is slowing down in her movements. She has begu n to wear a self-absorbed, placid look. She is not

obviously pregnant; but if he is picking up signs, how much longer before the eagle-eyed daughters of

Grahamstown pick them up too?

'How is Petrus getting on?' he asks.

'The house is finished, all but the ceilings and th e plumbing. They are in the process of moving in.'

'And their child? Isn't the child just about due?'

'Next week. All very nicely timed.'

'Has Petrus dropped any more hints?'

'Hints?'

'About you. About your place in the scheme.'

'No.'

'Perhaps it will be different once the child' - he makes the faintest of gestures toward his daughter, toward

her body - 'is born. It will be, after all, a child of this earth. They will not be able to deny that. '

There is a long silence between them.

'Do you love him yet?'

Though the words are his, from his mouth, they star tle him.

'The child? No. How could I? But I will. Love will grow - one can trust Mother Nature for that. I am

determined to be a good mother, David. A good mothe r and a good person. You should try to be a good

person too.'

'I suspect it is too late for me. I'm just an old l ag serving out my sentence. But you go ahead. You a re well

on the way.'

A good person. Not a bad resolution to make, in dar k times.

By unspoken agreement, he does not, for the time be ing, come to his daughter's farm. Nonetheless, one

weekday he takes a drive along the Kenton road, lea ves the truck at the turnoff, and walks the rest of the

way, not following the track but striking out over the veld.

From the last hillcrest the farm opens out before h im: the old house, solid as ever, the stables, Petrus's new

house, the old dam on which he can make out specks that must be the ducks and larger specks that must be

the wild geese, Lucy's visitors from afar.

At this distance the flowerbeds are solid blocks of colour: magenta, carnelian, ash-blue. A season of

blooming. The bees must be in their seventh heaven.

Of Petrus there is no sign, nor of his wile or tile jackal boy who runs with them. But Lucy is at work

among the flowers; and, as he picks his way down th e hillside, he can see the bulldog too, a patch of fawn

on the path beside her.

He reaches the fence and stops. Lucy, with her back to him, has not yet noticed him. She is wearing a pale

summer dress, boots, and a wide straw hat. As she b ends over, clipping or pruning or tying, he can see the milky, blue-veined skin and broad, vulnerable tendons of the backs of her knees: the least beautiful part of

a woman's body, the least expressive, and therefore perhaps the most endearing.

Lucy straightens up, stretches, bends down again. F ield-labour; peasant tasks, immemorial. His daughte r

is becoming a peasant.

Still she is not aware of him. As for the watchdog, the watchdog appears to be snoozing.

So: once she was only a little tadpole in her mothe r's body, and now here she is, solid in her existence,

more solid than he has ever been. With luck she wil l last a long time, long beyond him. When he is dead

she will, with luck, still be here doing her ordina ry tasks among the flowerbeds. And from within her will

have issued another existence, that with luck will be just as solid, just as long-lasting. So it will go on, a

line of existences in which his share, his gift, wi ll grow inexorably less and less, till it may as we ll be

forgotten.

A grandfather. A Joseph. Who would have thought it! What pretty girl can he expect to be wooed into bed

with a grandfather? Softly he speaks her name. 'Luc y!'

She does not hear him.

What will it entail, being a grandfather? As a fath er he has not been much of a success, despite tryin g

harder than most. As a grandfather he will probably score lower than average too. He lacks the virtues of

the old: equanimity, kindliness, patience. But

perhaps those virtues will come as other virtues go : the virtue of passion, for instance. He must have a

look again at Victor Hugo, poet of grandfatherhood. There may be things to learn.

The wind drops. There is a moment of utter stillnes s which he would wish prolonged for ever: the gentl e

sun, the stillness of midafternoon, bees busy in a field of flowers; and at the centre of the picture a young

woman, das ewig Weibliche, lightly pregnant, in a s traw sunhat. A scene ready-made for a Sargent or a

Bonnard. City boys like him; but even city boys can recognize beauty when they see it, can have their

breath taken away.

The truth is, he has never had much of an eye for r ural life, despite all his reading in Wordsworth. Not

much of an eye for anything, except pretty girls; a nd where has that got him? Is it too late to educate the

eye?

He clears his throat. 'Lucy,' he says, more loudly.

The spell is broken. Lucy comes erect, half-turns, smiles. 'Hello,' she says. 'I didn't hear you.'

Katy raises her head and stares shortsightedly in h is direction. He clambers through the fence. Katy

lumbers up to him, sniffs his shoes.

'Where is the truck?' asks Lucy. She is flushed fro m her labours and perhaps a little sunburnt. She lo oks,

suddenly, the picture of health.

'I parked and took a walk.'

'Will you come in and have some tea?'

She makes the offer as if he were a visitor. Good. Visitorship, visitation: a new footing, a new start.

Sunday has come again. He and Bev Shaw are engaged in one of their sessions of Lösung. One by one he

brings in the cats, then the dogs: the old, the bli nd, the halt, the crippled, the maimed, but also th e young,

the sound - all those whose term has come. One by

one Bev touches them, speaks to them, comforts them , and puts them away, then stands back and watches

while he seals up the remains in a black plastic sh roud.

He and Bev do not speak. He has learned by now, fro m her, to concentrate all his attention on the animal

they are killing, giving it what he no longer has d ifficulty in calling by its proper name: love.

He ties the last bag and takes it to the door. Twen ty-three. There is only the young dog left, the one who

likes music, the one who, given half a chance, woul d already have lolloped after his comrades into the

clinic building, into the theatre with its zinc-top ped table where the rich, mixed smells still linger ,

including one he will not yet have met with in his life: the smell of expiration, the soft, short smell of the

released soul.

What the dog will not be able to work out (not in a month of Sundays! he thinks), what his nose will n ot

tell him, is how one can enter what seems to be an ordinary room and never come out again. Something happens in this room, something unmentionable: here the soul is yanked out of the body; briefly it hangs

about in the air, twisting and contorting; then it is sucked away and is gone. It will be beyond him, this

room that is not a room but a hole where one leaks out of existence.

It gets harder all the time, Bev Shaw once said. Ha rder, yet easier too. One gets used to things getting

harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used t o be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet. He ca n

save the young dog, if he wishes, for another week. But a time must come, it cannot be evaded, when he

will have to bring him to Bev Shaw in her operating room (perhaps he will carry him in his arms, perhaps

he will do that for him) and caress him and brush b ack the fur so that the needle can find the vein, and

whisper to him and support him in the moment when, bewilderingly, his legs buckle; and then, when the

soul is out, fold him up and pack him away in his b ag, and the next day wheel the bag into the flames and

see that it is burnt, burnt up. He will do all that for him when his time comes. It will be little eno ugh, less

than little: nothing.

He crosses the surgery. 'Was that the last?' asks B ev Shaw. 'One more.'

He opens the cage door. 'Come,' he says, bends, ope ns his arms. The dog wags its crippled rear, sniffs his

face, licks his cheeks, his lips, his ears. He does nothing to stop it. 'Come.'

Bearing him in his arms like a lamb, he re-enters t he surgery. 'I thought you would save him for anoth er

week,' says Bev Shaw. 'Are you giving him up?'

'Yes, I am giving him up.'