Age of Iron

by J. M. Coetzee

  Though I clutch a pillow over my head the remorseless thudding still reaches me. 'When are the schools going to open again?' I ask peevishly. 'I will tell him to stop,' says Florence. A minute later the thudding stops.

  Last year, when the troubles in the schools began, I spoke my mind to Florence. 'In my day we considered education a privilege,' I said. 'Parents would scrimp and save to keep their children in school. We would have thought it madness to burn a school down.

  'It is different today,' replied Florence.

  'Do you approve of children burning down their schools?'

  'I cannot tell these children what to do,' said Florence. 'It is all changed today. There are no more mothers and fathers.'

  'That is nonsense,' I said. 'There are always mothers and fathers. ' On that note our exchange ended.

  Of trouble in the schools the radio says nothing, the television says nothing, the newspapers say nothing. In the world they project all the children of the land are sitting happily at their desks learning about the square on the hypotenuse and the parrots of the Amazonian jungle. What I know about events in. Guguletu depends solely on what Florence tells me and on what I can learn by standing on the balcony and peering north-east: namely, that Guguletu is not burning today, or, if it is burning, is burning with a low flame.

  The country smoulders, yet with the best will in the world I can only half-attend. My true attention is all inward, upon the thing, the word, the word for the thing inching through my body. An ignominious occupation, and in times like these ridiculous too, as a banker with his clothes on fire is a joke while a burning beggar is not. Yet I cannot help myself. 'Look at me!' I want to cry to Florence – 'I too am burning!'

  Most of the time I am careful to hold the letters of the word apart like the jaws of a trap. When I read I read warily, jumping over lines or even whole paragraphs when from the corner of an eye I catch the shadow of the word waiting in ambush.

  But in the dark, in bed, alone, the temptation to look at it grows too strong. I feel myself almost pushed toward it. I think of myself as a child in a long white dress and straw hat on a great empty beach. Sand flies all around me. I hold my hat tight, I plant my feet, I brace myself against the wind. But after a while, in this lonely place where no one is watching, the effort becomes too great. I relax. Like a hand in the small of my back, the wind gives me a push. It is a relief to stop resisting. First walking, then racing, I allow the wind to take me.

  It takes me, night after night, to The Merchant of Venice. 'Do I not eat, sleep, breathe like you?' cries Shylock the Jew: 'Do I not bleed like you?' brandishing a dagger with a pound of bleeding flesh impaled on its point. 'Do I not bleed like you?' come the words of the Jew with the long beard and skullcap dancing in rage and anguish on the stage.

  I would cry my cry to you if you were here. But you are not. Therefore it must be to Florence. Florence must be the one to suffer these moments when a veritable blast of fear goes out from me scorching the leaf on the bough. 'It will be all right':: those are the words I want to hear uttered. I want to be held to someone's bosom, to Florence 's, to yours, to anyone's, and told that it will be all right.

  Lying in bed last night with, a pillow under my hip, my arms pressed to my chest to keep the pain from moving, the clock showing 3.45, I thought with envy and yearning of Florence in her room, asleep, surrounded by 'her sleeping children, the four of them breathing in their four different measures, every breath strong and clean.

  Once I had everything, I thought. Now you have everything and I have nothing.

  The four breathings went on, without falter, and the soft ticking of the clock.

  Folding a sheet of paper in two, I wrote Florence a note: 'Am having a bad night. Will try to sleep late. Please keep the children quiet. Thank you. EC.' I went downstairs and propped it in the middle of the kitchen table. Then, shivering, I returned to bed, took the four o'clock pills, closed my eyes, folded, my arms, and waited for sleep that did not come.

  What I want from Florence I cannot have. Nothing of what I want can I have.

  Last year, when the little one was still a babe in arms, I gave Florence a ride out to Brackenfell, to the place where her husband works.

  No doubt she expected me to drop her there and drive off. But out of curiosity, wanting to see the man, to see them together, I came in with her.

  It was late on a Saturday afternoon. From the parking lot we followed a dusty track past two long, low sheds to a third shed where a man in blue overalls stood in a wire enclosure with chickens – pullets really – milling around his legs. The girl, Hope, tugged herself free, dashed ahead and gripped the mesh. Between the man and Florence something passed: a glance, a question, a recognition.

  But there was no time for greetings. He, William, Florence 's husband, had a job and the job could not be interrupted. His job was to pounce on a chicken, swing it upside down, grip the straggling body between his knees, twist a wire band around its legs, and pass it on to a second, younger man, who would hang it, squawking and flapping, on a hook on a clattering overhead conveyor that took it deeper into the shed where a third man in oilskins splashed with blood, gripped its head, drew its neck taut, and cut it through with a knife so small it seemed part of his hand, tossing the head in the same movement into a bin full of other dead heads.

  This was William's work, and this I saw before I had the time or the presence of mind to ask whether I wanted to see it. For six days of the week this was what he did. He bound the legs of chickens. Or perhaps he took turns with the other men and hung chickens from hooks or cut off heads. For three hundred rand a month plus rations. A work he had been doing for fifteen years. So that it was not inconceivable that some of the bodies I had stuffed with breadcrumbs and egg-yolk, and sage and rubbed with oil and garlic had been held, at the last, between the legs of this man, the father of Florence 's children. Who got up at five in the morning, while I was still asleep, to hose out the pans under the cages, fill the feed-troughs, sweep the sheds, and then, after breakfast, begin the slaughtering, the plucking and cleaning, the freezing of thousands of carcases, the packing of thousands of heads and feet, miles of intestines, mountains of feathers.

  I should have left at once, when I saw what was going on. I should have driven off and done my best to forget all about it. But instead I stood at the wire enclosure, fascinated, as the three men dealt out death to the flightless birds. And beside me the child, her fingers gripping the mesh, drank in the sight too.

  So hard and yet so easy, killing, dying.

  Five o'clock came, the end of the day, and I said goodbye. While I was driving back to this empty house, William took Florence and the children to the living-quarters. He washed; she cooked a supper of chicken and rice on the paraffin stove, then fed the baby. It was Saturday. Some of the other farm-workers were out visiting, recreating themselves. So Florence and William were able to put the children to bed in an empty bunk and go for a walk, just the two of them, in the warm dusk.

  They walked along the side of the road. They spoke about the past week, about how it had been; they spoke about their lives.

  When they came back the children were fast asleep. For the sake of privacy they hung a blanket in front of their bunk. Then they had the night to themselves, all save the half-hour when Florence slipped out and, in the dark, fed the baby.

  On Sunday morning William – not his true name but the name by which he is known in the world of his work – put on his suit and hat and good shoes. He and Florence walked to the bus stop, she with the baby on her back, he holding Hope's hand. They took a bus to Kuilsrivier, then a taxi to the home in. Guguletu of the sister with whom their son lodged.

  It was after ten o'clock and beginning to grow hot. Church was over; the living-room was crowded with visitors, full of talk. After a while the men went off; it was time for Florence to help her sister with the cooking. Hope fell asleep on the floor. A dog came In, licked her face, was chased away; she was lifted, still sleeping, on to
the sofa. In a private moment Florence gave her sister the money for Bheki's rent, for his food, his shoes, his schoolbooks; her sister put it away in her bodice. Then Bheki made his appearance and greeted his mother. The men came back from wherever they had been and they all had lunch: chicken from the farm, or factory or plant or whatever it Is, rice, cabbage, gravy. From outside Bheki's friends began to call: hurriedly he finished his food and left the table.

  All of this happened. All of this must have happened. It was an ordinary afternoon in Africa: lazy weather, a lazy day. Almost It is possible to say: This Is how life should be.

  The time came for them to leave. They walked to the bus stop, Hope riding now on her father's shoulders. The bus arrived; they said goodbye. The bus bore Florence and her daughters off. It bore them to Mowbray, from where they took another bus to St George's Street, and then a third up Kloof Street. From, Kloof Street they walked. By the time they reached Schoonder Street the shadows were lengthening.

  It was time to give Hope, fretful and tired, her supper, to bath the baby, to finish, yesterday's ironing.

  At least It is not cattle he is slaughtering, I told myself; at least it is only chickens, with their crazy chicken-eyes and their delusions of grandeur. But my mind would not leave the farm, the factory, the enterprise where the husband of the woman who lived side by side with me worked, where day after day he bestrode his pen, left and right, back and forth, around and around, in a smell of blood and feathers, in an uproar of outraged, squawking, reaching down, scooping up, gripping, binding, hanging. I thought of all the men across the breadth of South Africa who, while I sat gazing out of the window, were killing chickens, moving earth, barrowful upon barrowful; of all the women sorting oranges, sewing buttonholes. Who would ever count them, the spadefuls, the oranges, the buttonholes, the chickens? A universe of labour, a universe of counting: like sitting in front of a clock all day killing the seconds as they emerged, counting one's life away.

  Ever since Vercueil took my money he has been drinking; steadily, drinking not only wine but brandy. Some days he does not drink till noon, using the hours of abstinence to make surrender more voluptuous. More often he Is intoxicated by the time he leaves the house in mid-morning.

  The sun was shining bleakly today when he returned from his outing. I was upstairs on the balcony; he did not see me as he sat down in the yard with his back to the wall, the dog beside him. Florence 's son was already there, with a friend I had not seen before, and Hope, devouring their every move with her eyes. They had a radio on; the scraping and thudding of the music was even worse than the tennis ball.

  'Water,' Vercueil called to the boys – 'Bring me some water.'

  The new boy, the friend, crossed the yard and squatted beside him. What passed between them I did not hear. The boy stretched out a hand. 'Give,' he said.

  Lazily Vercueil beat down his hand.

  'Give it to me,' the boy said, and on his knees began to tug the bottle from Vercueil's pocket.

  Vercueil resisted, but only lackadaisically.

  The boy unscrewed the cap and poured the brandy out on to the ground. Then he tossed the bottle aside. It shattered. A stupid thing to do: I almost called out.

  'They are making you into a dog!' said the boy. 'Do you want to be a dog?'

  The dog, Vercueil's dog, whined eagerly.

  'Go to hell,' replied Vercueil with a thick tongue.

  'Dog!' said the boy. 'Drunkard!'

  He turned his back on Vercueil and went back to Bheki, a swagger in his walk. What a self-important child, I thought. If this is how the new guardians of the people conduct themselves, Lord spare us from them.

  The little girl sniffed at the brandy and wrinkled her nose.

  'You go to hell too,' said Vercueil, waving her away. She did not stir. Then at once she turned and ran to her mother's room.

  The music ground on. Vercueil fell asleep, slumped sideways against the wall with the dog's head on his knee. I returned to my book. After a while the sun went behind the clouds and it grew chilly. A light drizzle began to fall. The dog shook itself and went into the shed. Vercueil got to his feet and followed. I gathered my things.

  Inside the shed there was a commotion. First the dog scuttled out, faced around, and stood barking; then Vercueil emerged backwards; then the two boys followed. As the second boy, the friend, neared him, Vercueil struck out and hit him on the neck with the flat of his hand. The boy drew in his breath with a hiss of surprise: even from the balcony I heard it. He struck back at Vercueil, who stumbled and nearly fell. The dog danced around, yapping. The boy struck Vercueil again, and now Bheki joined in. 'Stop it!' I shouted down at them. They paid me no heed. Vercueil was on the ground; they were kicking him; Bheki took out the belt from his trousers and began to lash him. ' Florence!' I shouted – 'Stop them!' Vercueil put his hands over his face to protect himself. The dog made a leap at Bheki; Bheki knocked it backwards and went on flailing Vercueil with his belt. 'Stop it, you two!' I shouted, gripping the rail. 'Stop it at once or I'll call the police!'

  Then Florence appeared. She spoke sharply, and the boys backed off. Vercueil struggled to his feet. I came downstairs as fast as I could.

  'Who is this boy?' I asked Florence.

  The boy stopped speaking to Bheki and regarded me. I did not like that look: arrogant, combative.

  'He is a friend from school,' said Florence.

  'He must go home,' I said. 'This is getting too much for me. I can't have brawling in my back yard. I can't have strangers walking in and out. '

  There was blood coming from Vercueil's lip. Strange to see blood on that leathery face. Like honey on ashes.

  'He is not a stranger, he is visiting,' said Florence.

  'Must we have a pass to come in here?' said Bheki. He and his friend exchanged glances. 'Must we have a pass?' They waited for my answer, challenging me. The radio was still playing: an inhuman noise, wearying: I wanted to clasp my hands over my ears.

  'I did not say anything about passes,' I said. 'But what right does he have to come here and assault this man? This man lives here. It is his home.'

  Florence 's nostrils flared.

  'Yes,' I said, turning to her, 'he lives here too, it is his.'

  'He lives here,' said Florence, 'but he is rubbish. He is good for nothing.'

  'Jou moer!' said Vercueil. He had taken off his hat and was punching out the crown; now he raised the hand with the hat as if to strike her. 'Jou moer!'

  Bheki snatched the hat from him and tossed it up on to the garage roof. The dog barked furiously. Slowly the hat tumbled down the slope of the roof.

  'He is not a rubbish person,' I said, lowering my voice, speaking to Florence alone. 'There are no rubbish people. We are all people together.'

  But: Florence had no desire to be preached to. 'Good for nothing but drinking,' she said. 'Drink, drink, drink all day. I do not like him here.'

  A good-for-nothing: was that what he was? Yes, perhaps: good-for-nothing: a good old English word, heard too seldom nowadays.

  'He is my messenger,' I said.

  Florence regarded me suspiciously.

  'He is going to carry messages for me,' I said.

  She shrugged. Vercueil shambled off with his hat and his dog. I heard the gate-latch click. 'Tell the boys to leave him alone,' I said. 'He is doing no harm.'

  Like an old tom chased off by the rising males, Vercueil has gone into hiding to lick his wounds. I foresee myself searching the parks, calling softly, 'Mr Vercueil! Mr Vercueil!' An old woman In search of her cat.

  Florence is openly proud of how Bheki got rid of the good-for-nothing, but predicts that he will be back as soon as it starts raining. As fox me, I doubt we will see him as long as the boys are here. I said so to Florence. 'You are showing Bheki and his friends that they can raise their hands against their elders with impunity. 'That is a mistake. Yes, whatever you may think of him, Vercueil Is their elder!

  'The more you give in, Florence, the more outrageously
the children will behave. You told me you admire your son's generation because they are afraid of nothing. Be careful: they may start by being careless of their own lives and end by being careless of everyone else's. What you admire in them Is not necessarily what is best.

  'I keep thinking of what you said the other day: that there are no more mothers and fathers. I can't believe you mean it. Children cannot grow up without mothers or fathers. The burnings and killings one hears of, the shocking callousness, even this matter of beating Mr Vercueil – whose fault is it in the end? Surely the blame must fall on parents who say, 'Go, do as you wish, you are your own master now, I give up authority over you.' What child In his heart truly wants to be told that? Surely he will turn away in confusion, thinking to himself, 'I have no mother now, I have no father: then let my mother be death, let my father be death.' You wash your hands of them and they turn into the children of death.'

  Florence shook her head. 'No, ' she said firmly.

  'But do you remember what you told me last year, Florence, when those unspeakable things were happening in the townships? You said, to me, "I saw a woman on fire, burning, and when she screamed for help, the children laughed and threw more petrol on her." You said, "I did not think I would live to see such a thing."'

  'Yes, I did say that, and it is true. But who made them so cruel? It is the whites who made them so cruel! Yes!' She breathed deeply, passionately. We were in the kitchen. She was doing the ironing. The hand that held the iron pressed down hard. She glared at me. Lightly I touched her hand. She raised the iron. On the sheet was the beginning of a brown scorch-mark.

  No mercy, I thought: a war without mercy, without limits. A good war to miss.

  'And when they grow up one day,' I said softly, 'do you think the cruelty will leave them? What kind of parents will they become who were taught that the time of parents is over? Can parents be recreated once the idea of parents has been destroyed within us? They kick and beat a man because he drinks. They set people on fire and laugh while they burn to death. How will they treat their own children? What love will they be capable of? Their hearts are turning to stone before our eyes, and what: do you say? You say, 'This is not my child, this is the white man's child, this is the monster made by the white man.' Is that all you can say? Are you going to blame them on the whites and turn your back?'