Age of Iron

by J. M. Coetzee

  'There is nothing I can reply but 'Yes' when you put that question, to me. But let me tell you what it is like to utter that 'Yes.' It is like being on trial for your life and being allowed only two words, Yes and No. Whenever you take a breath to speak out, you are warned by the judges: 'Yes or No: no speeches.' 'Yes,' you say. Yet all the time you feel other words stirring inside you like life in the womb. Not like 'a 'child kicking, not yet, but like the very beginnings, like the deep-down stirring of knowledge a woman has when she is pregnant.

  'There is not only death inside me. There is life too. The death is strong, the life is weak. But my duty is to the life. I must keep it alive. I must.

  'You do not believe in words. You think only blows are real, blows and bullets. But listen to me: can't you hear that the words I speak are real? Listen! They may only be air but they come from my heart, from my womb. They are not Yes, they are not No. What is living inside me is something else, another word. And I am fighting for it, in my manner, fighting for it not to be stifled. I am like one of those Chinese mothers who know that their child will be taken away from them, if it is a daughter, and done away with, because the need, the family's need, the village's need, is for sons with strong arms. They know that after the birth someone will come into the room, someone whose face will be hidden, who will take the child, from the midwife's arms and, if the sex is wrong, turn his back on them, out of delicacy, and stifle it just like that, pinching the little nose to, holding the jaw shut. A minute and all is done.

  'Grieve if you like, the mother is told afterwards: grief is only natural. But do not ask: What is this thing called a son? What is this thing called a daughter, that it must die?

  'Do not misunderstand me. You are a son, somebody's son. I am not against sons. But have you ever seen a newborn baby? Let me tell you, you would find it hard to tell the difference between boy and girl. Every baby has the same puffy-looking fold between the legs. The spout, the tendril that is said to mark out the boy is no great thing, really. Very little to make the difference between life and death. Yet everything else, everything indefinite, everything that gives when you press it, is condemned unheard, I am arguing for that unheard.

  'You are tired of listening to old people, I can see. You are itching to be a man and do a man's things. You are tired of getting ready for life. It is time for life itself, you think. What an error you are making! Life is not following a stick, a pole, a flagstaff, a gun, and seeing where it will take you. Life is not around the corner. You are already in the midst of life.'

  The telephone rang.

  'It's all right, I am not going to answer it,' I said.

  In silence we waited for the ringing to stop.

  'I don't know your name,' I said.

  'John.'

  John: a nom de guerre if ever I heard one.

  'What are your plans?'

  He looked uncomprehending.

  'What do you plan, to do? Do you want to stay here?'

  'I must go home.'

  'Where is home?'

  He stared back at me doggedly, too tired to think up another lie. 'Poor child,' I whispered.

  I did not mean to spy. But I was wearing slippers, the door to Florence 's room was open, his back was to me. He was sitting on the bed, intent on some object he had in his hand. When he heard me he gave a start and thrust it beneath the bedclothes.

  'What is it you have there?' I asked.

  'It is nothing,' he said, giving me one of his forced stares.

  I would not have pressed him had I not noticed that a length of skirting-board had been prised from the wall and lay on the floor, revealing unplastered brickwork.

  'What are you up to?' I said. 'Why are you pulling the room to pieces?'

  He was silent.

  'Show me what you are hiding.'

  He shook his head.

  I peered at the wall. There was a gap in the brickwork where a ventilator had been let in; through the gap one could reach under the floorboards.

  'Are you putting things under the floor?'

  'I am not doing anything. '

  I dialled the number Florence had left. A child answered. 'Can I speak to Mrs Mkubukeli,' I said. Silence. 'Mrs Mkubukeli. Florence.'

  Murmurs, then, a woman's voice: 'Who do you want to speak to?'

  'Mrs Mkubukeli. Florence.'

  'She is not here.'

  'This is Mrs Curren,' I said, 'Mrs Mkubukeli used to work for me. I am phoning about her son's friend, the boy who calls himself John, I don't know his real name. It is important. If Florence is not there, can I speak to Mr Thabane?'

  Again a long silence. Then a man's voice: 'Yes, this is Thabane.'

  'This is Mrs Curren. You remember, we met. I am phoning about Bheki's friend, from his school. Perhaps you don't know, but he has been in hospital.'

  'I know.'

  'Now he has left the hospital, or run away, and come here. I have reason to believe he has a weapon of some kind, I don't know what exactly, which he and Bheki must have hidden in Florence 's room. I think that is why he has come back.'

  'Yes,' he said flatly.

  'Mr Thabane, I am not asking you to assert authority over the boy. But he is not well. He was quite badly injured. And I think he is in an emotionally disturbed state. I don't know how to get in touch with his family, I don't even know whether he has family in Cape Town. He won't tell me. All I am asking is that someone should come and talk to him, someone he trusts, and take him away before something happens to him.'

  'He is in an emotionally disturbed state. What do you mean?'

  'I mean he needs help. I mean he may not be responsible for his actions. I mean he has had a blow to the head. I mean I cannot take care of him, it is beyond me. Someone must come.'

  'I will see.'

  'No, that is not good enough. I want an undertaking.'

  'I will ask someone to fetch him. But I cannot tell you when.'

  'Today?'

  'I cannot say today. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow. I will see.'

  'Mr Thabane, let me make one thing clear to you. I am not trying to prescribe to this boy or to anyone else what he should do with his life. He is old enough and self-willed enough to do what he will do. But as for this killing, this bloodletting in the name of comradeship, I detest it with all my heart and soul. I think it is barbarous. That is what I want to say.'

  'This is not a good line, Mrs Curren. Your voice is very tiny, very tiny and very far away. I hope you can hear me.'

  'I can hear you. '

  'Good. Then let me say, Mrs Curren, I don't think you understand very much about comradeship.'

  'I understand enough, thank, you.'

  'No, you don't,' he said, quite certain of himself. 'When you are body and soul in the struggle as these young people are, when you are prepared to lay down your lives for each other without question, then a bond grows up that is stronger than any bond you will know again. That is comradeship. I see it every day with my own eyes. My generation has nothing that can compare. That is why we must stand back for them, for the youth. We stand back but we stand behind them. That is what you cannot understand, because you are too far away.'

  'I am far away, certainly,' I said, 'far away and tiny. Nevertheless, I fear I know comradeship all too well. The Germans had comradeship, and the Japanese, and the Spartans. Shaka's impis too, I am sure. Comradeship is nothing but a mystique of death, of killing and dying, masquerading as what you call a bond (a bond of what? Love? I doubt it.). I have no sympathy with this comradeship. You are wrong, you and Florence and everyone else, to be taken in by it and, worse, to encourage it in children. It is just another of those icy, exclusive, death-driven male constructions. That is my opinion.'

  More passed between us, but I won't repeat it. We exchanged opinions. We agreed to differ.

  The afternoon dragged on. No one came to fetch the boy. I lay in bed, groggy with drugs, a cushion under my back, trying with one small adjustment after another to ease the pain, longing for
sleep, dreading the dream of Borodino.

  The air thickened, it began to rain, From the blocked gutter came a steady drip. The smell of cat urine wafted in from the carpet on the landing. A tomb, I thought: a late bourgeois tomb. My head turned this way and that. Grey hair on the pillow, unwashed, lank. And in Florence 's room, in the growing dark, the boy, lying on his back with the bomb or whatever it is in 'his hand, his eyes wide open, not veiled now but clear: thinking, more than, thinking, envisioning. Envisioning the moment of glory when he will arise, fully himself at last, erect, powerful, transfigured. When the fiery flower will unfold, when the pillar of smoke will rise. The bomb on his chest like a talisman: as Christopher Columbus lay in the dark of his cabin, holding the compass to his chest, the mystic instrument that would guide him to the Indies, the Isles of the Blest. Troops of maidens with bared breasts singing to him, opening their arms, as he wades to them through the shallows holding before him the needle that never wavers, that points forever in one direction, to the future.

  Poor' child! Poor child! From somewhere tears sprang and blurred my sight. Poor John, who in the old days would have been destined to be a garden boy and eat bread and jam for lunch at the back door and drink out of a tin, battling now for all the insulted and injured, the trampled, the ridiculed, for all the garden boys of South Africa!

  In the cold early morning I heard the gate to the courtyard being tried. Vercueil, I thought: Vercueil is back. Then the doorbell rang, once, twice, long rings, peremptory, impatient, and I knew it was not Vercueil.

  It takes me minutes nowadays to get downstairs, particularly if I am befuddled by the pills. While I crept down in the half-dark they went on ringing the bell, rapping at the door. 'I am coming!' I called as loudly as I could. But I was too slow. I heard the courtyard gate swing open. There was a burst of knocking at the kitchen door, and voices speaking Afrikaans. Then, as flat and unremarkable as one stone striking another, came the sound of a shot.

  A silence fell in which I clearly heard the tinkle of breaking glass. 'Wait!' I called, and ran, truly ran – I did not know I had it in me – to the kitchen door. 'Wait!' I called, slapping at the pane, fumbling with the bolts and chains – 'Don't do anything!'

  There was someone in a blue overcoat standing on the veranda with his back to me. Though he must have heard me, he did not turn.

  I drew the last bolt, flung the door open, appeared among them. I had forgotten my gown, my feet were bare, I stood there in my white nightdress like, for all I know, a body risen from the dead. 'Wait!' I said. 'Don't do anything yet, he is just a child!'

  There were three of them. Two were in uniform. The third, wearing a pullover with reindeer running in a band across his chest, held a pistol pointing downward. 'Give me a chance to talk to him,' I said, splashing through the night's puddles. They stared in astonishment but did not try to stop me.

  The window of Florence 's room was shattered. The room itself was in darkness; but, peering through the hole, I could make out a figure crouched beside the bed at the far end.

  'Open the door, my boy,' I said. 'I won't let them hurt you, I promise.'

  It was a lie. He was lost, I had no power to save him. Yet something went out from me to 'him. I ached to embrace him, to protect him.

  One of the policemen appeared beside me, pressed against the wall. 'Tell him to come out,' he said. I turned on him in a fury. 'Go away!' I screamed, and fell into a fit of coughing.

  The sun was coming up, rosy, in a sky full of drifting cloud.

  'John!' I called through the coughing. 'Come out! I will not let them do anything to you.'

  Now the man in the pullover was at my side. 'Tell him to pass out his weapons,' he said in a low voice.

  'What weapons?'

  'He has a pistol, I don't know what else. Tell him to pass everything out.'

  'First promise you will not hurt him.'

  His fingers closed on my arm. I resisted, but he was too strong. 'You are going to catch pneumonia out here,' he said. Something descended on me from behind: a coat, an overcoat, one of the policemen's overcoats. 'Neem haar binne,' he murmured. They guided me back to the kitchen and closed the door on me.

  I sat down, stood up again. The coat stank of cigarette smoke. I dropped it on the floor and opened the door. My feet were blue with cold. 'John!' I called. The three men were huddled over a radio. The one who had given me his coat turned with an exasperated air. 'Lady, it is dangerous out here,' he said. He bundled, me indoors again, then could not find the key to lock the door,

  'He is just a child,' I said.

  'Let us do our work, lady,' he replied.

  'I am watching you,' I said: 'I am watching everything you do. I tell you, he is just a child!'

  He drew a breath as though about to respond, then let it out in a sigh and waited for me to talk myself out. A young man, solid, raw-boned. Son to someone, cousin to many. Many cousins, many aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles, standing about him, behind him, above him like a chorus, guiding, admonishing.

  What could I say? What did we have in common to make intercourse possible, except that he was here to defend me, to defend my interests, in the wider sense?

  'Ek staan nie aan jou kant nie,' I said. 'Ek staan aan die temkant.' I stand on the other side. But on the other bank too, the other bank of the river. On the far bank, looking back.

  He turned, inspecting the stove, the sink, the racks, occupying die ou dame while his friends did their business outside. All in a day's work.

  'That's all,' I said. 'I'm finished. I wasn't talking to you anyway.'

  To whom then? To you: always to you. How I live, how I lived: my story.

  The doorbell rang. More men, men in boots and caps and camouflage uniforms, tramping through the house. They clustered at the kitchen window. 'Hy sit daar in die buitekamer,' explained the policeman, pointing to Florence 's room, 'Daar's net die een deur en die een venster.'

  'Nee, dan het ons horn,' said one of the newcomers.

  'I warn you, I'm watching everything you do,' I said.

  He turned to me. 'Do you know this boy?' he said.

  'Yes, I know him.'

  'Did you know he had arms?'

  I shrugged. 'God save the unarmed in these days.'

  Someone else came in, a young woman in uniform with a crisp, clean air about her. 'Is dit die dame die?' she said; and then, to me: 'We are going to clear the house for a little while, till this business is over. Is there anywhere you, would like to go, friends or relatives?'

  'I am not leaving. This is my house.'

  Her friendliness, her concern did not waver. 'I know,' she said, 'but it's too dangerous to stay, For just a little while we must ask you to leave.'

  The men at the window had stopped talking now: they were impatient for me to be gone. 'Bel die ambulans,' said one of them. 'Ag, sy kan sommer by die stasie wag,' said the woman. She turned to me. 'Come now, Mrs… ' She waited for me to supply the name. I did not. 'A nice warm cup of tea,' she offered.

  'I am not going.'

  They paid my words no more attention than they would a child's. 'Gaan had 'n kombers,' said the man – 'sy's amper biou pan die koue.'

  The woman went upstairs and came back with the quilt from my bed. She wrapped it around me, gave me a hug, then helped me into my slippers, No sign of disgust at my legs, my feet. A good girl, reared to make someone a good wife.

  'Are there are any pills or medicines or anything else you want to take along?' she asked.

  'I'm not leaving,' I repeated, gripping my chair.

  Murmured words passed between her and the men. Without warning I was lifted, from behind, under the arms. The woman took my legs. Like a carpet they carried me to the front door; Pain racked my back. 'Put me down!' I cried,

  'In a minute,' said the woman, soothingly,

  'I have cancer!' I screamed – 'Put me down!'

  Cancer! What a pleasure to fling the word at them! It stopped them in their tracks like a knife. 'Sit ha
ar neer, dalk kom haar iets oor,' said the man holding me – 'Ek het mos gese jy moet die ambulans bel.' Gingerly they laid me down on the sofa.

  'Where is the pain?' asked the woman, frowning,

  'In my heart,' I said, She looked puzzled. 'I have cancer of the heart.' Then she understood; she shook her head as if shaking off flies.

  'Does it pain you to be carried?'

  'It pains me all the time,' I said.

  She caught the eye of the man behind me; something passed between them so amusing that she could not keep back a smile.

  'I caught it by drinking from the cup of bitterness,' I plunged on. What did it matter if they thought me dotty? 'You will probably catch it too one day. It is hard to escape.'

  There was a crash of breaking glass. Both of them rushed from the room; I got up and limped behind.

  Nothing had changed except that a second windowpane was gone, The courtyard itself was empty; the policemen, half a dozen of them now, were crouching on the veranda, guns at the ready.

  'Weg!' shouted one of them furiously, 'Kry haar weg!'

  The woman bundled me indoors. As she closed the door there was a curt explosion, a fusillade of shots, then a long stunned silence, then, low talk and, from somewhere, the sound of Vercueil's dog yapping.

  I tried to pull open the door, but the woman, held me tight,

  'If you have hurt him. I will never forgive you,'1 said.

  'It's all right, we'll phone again for the ambulance,' she said, trying to soothe me.

  But the ambulance was already there, drawn up on the sidewalk. Scores of people were gathering excitedly from all directions, neighbours, passers-by, young and old, black and white; from the balconies of the flats people stared down. By the tame the policewoman and I emerged from the front door they were wheeling the body, covered in a blanket, down the driveway, and loading it aboard.

  I made to climb into the ambulance after it; one of the attendants even took my arm to help me in; but a policeman intervened. 'Wait, we'll send another ambulance for her,' he said,

  'I don't want another ambulance,' I said. He put on a kindly, nonplussed look. 'I want to go with him,' I said, and made another attempt to climb in. The quilt fell to my feet.