Slow Man - Coetzee J. M. - Страница 31

'Don't glare, Paul. I'm just joking, just keeping the conversation going. Be assured, I have learned my lesson. No more matchmaking, I promise. If you have made up your mind that no one can replace Marijana in your affections, that it has to be Marijana or nothing, I yield, I accept. I should inform you, however, that Marianna, poor Marianna, the other one, is deeply hurt at the way she has been treated. Sobs into her handkerchief. Be of good heart, I tell her, there are plenty of fish in the ocean. But she will not be consoled. After what she put herself through for your sake, her pride has taken quite a knock. He finds me too fat! she wails. Nonsense, I say – his heart is elsewhere, that is all.

'But perhaps I misinterpret you entirely. Perhaps it is not requital of love that you are after. Or perhaps your quest for love disguises a quest for something quite different. How much love does someone like you need, after all, Paul, objectively speaking? Or someone like me? None. None at all. We do not need love, old people like us. What we need is care: someone to hold our hand now and then when we get trembly, to make a cup of tea for us, help us down the stairs. Someone to close our eyes for us when the time comes. Care is not love. Care is a service that any nurse worth her salt can provide, as long as we don't ask her for more.'

She pauses for a breath; at last he has a chance to speak. 'I came here looking for Drago,' he says, 'not to listen to you sharpening your wit upon me. I understand perfectly well the difference between love and care. I have never expected Marijana to love me. My hope, as a sixtyish gent, is simply to do what good I can for her and her children. As for my feelings, my feelings are my own business. I will certainly not thrust them on Marijana again.

'One word more, since you are determined to be sceptical. Don't underestimate the desire in each of us, the human desire, to extend a protective wing.'

'In each of us?'

'Yes, in each of us. Even in you. If you are human.'

Enough talk. His arms are aching, he is feeling the heat, he would like to sit. But if he were to settle down beside Mrs Costello, they would look too much like what they are not: an old married couple taking a breather. And there is, after all, one more thing to be said.

'Why pour all this effort into me, Mrs Costello? I am such a small fish, really. Have you never asked yourself whether taking me up might not have been a mistake – whether I might not be a mistake from beginning to end?'

A young couple in a pedal-boat in the shape of a giant swan pass by, smiling cheerily.

'Of course I have asked myself that, Paul. Many times. And of course, by some standards, you are a small fish. The question is, by what standards? The question is, how small? Patience, I tell myself: perhaps there is something yet to be squeezed out of him, like a last drop of juice out of a lemon, or like blood out of a stone. But yes, you may be right, you may indeed be a mistake, I will concede that. If you were not a mistake I would probably not still be here in Adelaide. I stay on because I don't know what to do about you.

'Should I therefore concede? Should I abandon you and start anew somewhere else? I am sure that would make you happy. But I can't. Too much of a blow to my pride. No, I have to press on to the end.'

'To the end?'

'Yes, to the bitter end.'

He hopes to hear more. He hopes to hear what the end will be. But her mouth has snapped shut, she stares away from him.

'Anyway,' he pursues, 'in the course of trying to understand what you are doing in my life, I have come up with one hypothesis after another. I won't rehearse them all, though I will say that none is very flattering to you. The first, and still the most plausible, is that you want me as a model for a character in a book. In that case, let me repeat what I was saying a moment ago, and what you seem to have trouble accepting. Ever since the day of my accident, ever since I could have died but seem to have been spared, I have been haunted by the idea of doing good. Before it is too late I would like to perform some act that will be – excuse the word – a blessing, however modest, on the lives of others. Why, you ask? Ultimately, because I have no child of my own to bless as a father does. Having no child was the great mistake of my life, I will tell you that. For that my heart bleeds all the time. For that there is a blessure in my heart.

'Smile if you wish, Mrs Costello. But let me remind you, once upon a time I was a pukkah little Catholic boy. Before the Dutchman uprooted us and brought us to the ends of the earth I had my schooling from the good sisters of Lourdes. And as soon as we arrived in Ballarat I was committed to the care of the Christian Brothers. Why would you want to do that, boy? Why would you want to commit a sin? Can you not see how Our Lord's heart bleeds for your sin? Jesus and his bleeding heart have never faded from memory, even though I have long since put the Church behind me. Why do I mention this? Because I don't want to hurt Jesus any more by my actions. I don't want to make his heart bleed. If you want to be my chronicler, you will need to understand that.'

'A pukkah little Catholic boy. I can see that, Paul. I can see it all too clearly. Don't forget, I am a proper Irish Catholic girl myself, a Costello from Northcote in Melbourne. But go on, go on, I find this rich, I find this fascinating.'

'In my earlier life I did not speak as freely about myself as I do today, Mrs Costello. Decency held me back, decency or shame. But you are a professional, I remind myself, in the business of confidences, like a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant.'

'Or a priest. Don't forget the priests, Paul.'

'Or a priest. Anyhow, since my accident I have begun to let some of that reticence slip. If you don't speak now, I say to myself, when will you speak? So: Would Jesus approve? That is the question I put to myself nowadays, continually. That is the standard I try to meet. Not as scrupulously as I should, I must admit. Forgiveness, for instance: I have no intention of forgiving the boy who drove his car into me, no matter what Jesus may say. But Marijana and her children – I want to extend a protective hand over them, I want to bless them and make them thrive. That is something you ought to take account of in me, and I don't think you do.'

What he has said about discarding reticence, about speaking his heart, is not, strictly speaking, true. Even to Marijana he has not really opened his heart. Why then does he lay himself bare before the Costello woman, who is surely no friend to him? There can be only one answer: because she has worn him down. A thoroughly professional performance on her part. One takes up position beside one's prey, and waits, and eventually one's prey yields. The sort of thing every priest knows. Or every vulture. Vulture lore.

'Sit, Paul,' she says. 'I can't keep on squinting up at you.'

He flops down heavily beside her.

'Your bleeding heart,' she murmurs. The declining sun glances so piercingly off the surface of the water that she has to shade her eyes. The duck family, more than a family, the duck clan, is gathering for another assault on the land. Evidently he, the intruder, has been assessed and found harmless.

'Yes, my bleeding heart.'

'The heart can be a mysterious organ, the heart and its movements. Dark, the Spanish call it. The dark heart, el oscuro corazon. Are you sure you are not just a little dark-hearted, Paul, despite your many good intentions?'

He had thought he would make a peace overture; he had thought of offering the woman, if not a roof for the night, then at least an air ticket back to Melbourne. But now the old irritation comes flooding back. 'And are you sure,' he replies icily, 'that you are not seeing complications where they do not exist, for the sake of those dreary stories you write?'