Disgrace

by J. M. Coetzee

  ‘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 head.

  ‘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 contrary, we are invited to understand and sympathize. But there is a limit to sympathy. For though he lives among us, he is not one of us. He is exactly what he calls himself: a thing, that is, a monster. Finally, Byron will suggest, it will not be possible to love 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, Lucifer, Cain, it is all the same to them.

  They finish the poem. He assigns the first cantos of Don Juan and ends the class early. Across their heads he calls to her: ‘Melanie, can I have a word with you?’

  Pinch-faced, exhausted, she stands before him. Again his heart goes out to her. If they were alone he would embrace her, try to cheer her up. My little dove, 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 difficult. 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 can’t have him disrupting my classes. Tell him that, from me.

  ‘As for yourself, you are going to have to give more time to your work. You are going to have to attend 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. You 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. It does not matter if you are not prepared, the point is to get it behind you. Let us set a date. How about next Monday, during the lunch break? That will give you the weekend to do the reading.’

  She raises her chin, meets his eye defiantly. Either she has not understood or she is refusing the opening.

  ‘Monday, here in my office,’ he repeats.

  She rises, slings her bag over her shoulder.

  ‘Melanie, I have responsibilities. At least go through the motions. Don’t make the situation more complicated than it need be.’

  Responsibilities: she does not dignify the word with 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 helmets, but he recognizes them nevertheless. Melanie, on the pillion, sits with knees wide apart, pelvis arched. A quick shudder of lust tugs him. I have been there! he thinks. Then the motorcycle surges forward, bearing her away.

  FIVE

  SHE DOES NOT appear for her examination on Monday. Instead, in his mailbox he finds an official withdrawal card: Student 771010ISAM Ms M Isaacs has withdrawn from COM 312 with immediate effect.

  Barely an hour later a telephone call is switched through 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 has 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 university and do so well, and then drop out before the end. I wonder if I can ask, Professor, can you have a chat with her, talk some sense into her?’

  ‘Have you spoken to Melanie yourself? Do you know what is behind this decision?’

  ‘We spent all weekend on the phone to her, her mother 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 always takes things so to heart, Professor, that’s her nature, she gets very involved. But if you talk to her, maybe you can persuade her to think again. She has such respect for you. We don’t want her to throw away all these years for nothing.’

  So Melanie-Meláni, with her baubles from the Oriental 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 daughter lost respect for me weeks ago, and with good reason. That is what he ought to say. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he says instead.

  You will not get away with it, he tells himself afterwards. Nor will father Isaacs in faraway George forget this conversation, with its lies and evasions. I’ll see what I can do. Why not come clean? I am the worm 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 withdraw. 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 be only one explanation. The story must be out.

  He is in the department office when he hears a voice behind him: ‘Where can I find Professor Lurie?’

  ‘Here I am,’ he says without thinking.

  The man who has spoken is small, thin, stoop-shouldered. He wears a blue suit too large for him, he smells of 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 educated and all that, but what you have done is not right.’ He pauses, shakes his head. ‘It is not right.’

  The two secretaries do not pretend to hide their curiosity. 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 because we think we can trust you. If we can’t trust the university, who can we trust? We never thought we were sending our daughter into a nest of vipers. No, Professor Lurie, you may be high and mighty and have 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 face.’

  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 attend to.’ Like a thing of wood, he turns and leaves.

&
nbsp; Into the crowded corridor Isaacs follows him. ‘Professor! 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 surprising dispatch, a memorandum arrives from the office of the Vice-Rector (Student Affairs) notifying him that a complaint has been lodged against him under article 3.1 of the university’s Code of Conduct. He is requested to contact the Vice-Rector’s office at his earliest convenience.

  The notification – which arrives in an envelope marked Confidential – is accompanied by a copy of the code. Article 3 deals with victimization or harassment on grounds of race, ethnic group, religion, gender, sexual preference, or physical disability. Article 3.1 addresses victimization or harassment of students by teachers.

  A second document describes the constitution and competences 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 ill-fitting suit, must be behind it, he and cousin Pauline, the plain one, the duenna. They must have talked her into 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, glancing at his daughter, daring her to object.

  There is a form to fill in. The form is placed before them, and a pen. A hand takes up the pen, a hand he has kissed, a hand he knows intimately. First the name 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 slows, 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 bold upper loop, the downward gash of the I, the flourish of the final s.

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

  He calls the Vice-Rector’s office and is given a five 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 Winter, chair of his department, and Farodia Rassool from Social Sciences, who chairs the university-wide committee on discrimination.

  ‘It’s late, David, we know why we are here,’ says Hakim, ‘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 by Ms Melanie Isaacs. Also about’ – he glances at Elaine Winter – ‘some pre-existing irregularities that seem to involve Ms Isaacs. Elaine?’

  Elaine Winter takes her cue. She has never liked him; she regards him as a hangover from the past, the sooner cleared away the better. ‘There is a query about Ms Isaacs’s attendance, David. According to her – I spoke to her on the phone – she has attended only two classes in the past month. If that is true, it should have been reported. She also says she missed the mid-term test. Yet’ – she glances at the file in front of her – ‘according to your records, her attendance is unblemished and she has a mark of seventy for the mid-term.’ She regards him quizzically. ‘So unless there are two Melanie Isaacs . . .’

  ‘There is only one,’ he says. ‘I have no defence.’

  Smoothly Hakim intervenes. ‘Friends, this is not the time or place to go into substantial issues. What we should do’ – he glances at the other two – ‘is clarify procedure. I need barely say, David, the matter will be handled in the strictest confidence, I can assure you 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 legal representative will have an opportunity to challenge its composition. Its hearings will be held in camera. In the meantime, until the committee has made its recommendation to the Rector and the Rector has acted, 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 procedures and perhaps get legal advice.’

  He is about to reply, but Hakim raises a warning hand. ‘Sleep on it, David,’ he says.

  He has had enough. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, I’m not a child.’

  He leaves in a fury. But the building is locked and the doorkeeper has gone home. The back exit is locked too. Hakim has to let him out.

  It is raining. ‘Share my umbrella,’ says Hakim; then, 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 tennis 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 common-room, does a hush fall on the chatter, 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 the first Baudelaire class?

  The gossip-mill, he thinks, turning day and night, grinding reputations. The community of the righteous, holding their sessions in corners, over the telephone, 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. ‘Let’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 certain 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 scandal to blow over.’

  ‘What kind of undertakings?’

  ‘Sensitivity training. Community service. Counselling. 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: ‘YOUR 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 veterans. It reassures him that Rosalind still lives nearby: perhaps she feels the same way about him. Someone to 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 marriage, 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 through, 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 latest 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 – fifty-two? Do you think a young girl finds any pleasure in going to bed with a man of that age? Do you think she 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 expect sympathy from anyone else either. No sympathy, no mercy, not in this day and age. Everyone’s hand will be against you, and why not? Really, how could you?’

  The old tone has entered, the tone of the last years 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 throes of passion. That is what whores are for, after all: to put up with the ecstasies of the unlovely.