The Death of Jesus

by J. M. Coetzee

  He pleads Pablo’s cause to Inés. ‘What do we know about dogs?’ he says. ‘Human beings die and then wake up as new selves in a new world. Maybe when dogs die they wake up in the same world, this world, again and again. Maybe that is a dog’s destiny. Maybe that is what it means to be a dog. But do you not find it strange that fate should lead me to a cage holding a dog who could easily be Bolívar as Bolívar was ten years ago? Won’t you at least come and take a look? You will be able to tell at once whether he is Bolívar re-embodied or just another dog.’

  Inés is unmoved. ‘Bolívar is not dead,’ she says. ‘We neglected him, we forgot to feed him, he felt abandoned, he left us. He is wandering around somewhere in the city, eating out of trash cans.’

  ‘If you will not give a home to Pablo, I may be forced to take him myself,’ he says. ‘I can’t just let him be put down. It is too unfair.’

  ‘Do as you wish,’ says Inés. ‘But then he will be your dog, not mine.’

  He returns to the clinic. ‘I have decided to take Pablo,’ he announces.

  ‘I am afraid you are too late,’ says the nurse. ‘A couple came in yesterday, soon after you, and adopted him with no hesitation. He was just what they were looking for, they said. They run a poultry farm on the outskirts of the city. They need a dog who will keep predators away.’

  ‘Can you give me their address?’

  ‘I am sorry, I am not allowed to do that.’

  ‘Then could you let this farming couple know that if it does not work out, if for some reason Pablo turns out not to be the dog they are looking for, there is someone else who will offer him a home?’

  ‘I will do that.’

  There is something crazy—he can see it all too clearly—in his quest for Bolívar. No wonder Inés is so abrupt with him. The body of their son has not been laid to rest—in fact no one seems prepared to tell them straight out what has become of the body—yet here he is, scouring the city for a runaway dog. What is wrong with him?

  He buys a pot of paint, visits all the walls and lamp posts he can remember where he pasted his LOST notices, and blacks them out. Give up, he tells himself. The dog is gone.

  He cannot claim to have loved Bolívar. He was not even fond of him. But then, love was never an appropriate feeling to have for Bolívar. Bolívar demanded something quite different: to be left alone in his being. He, Simón, respected that demand. In return the dog left him alone in his being, and perhaps left Inés alone too.

  With David it was a different story. In a sense Bolívar was a normal dog, overindulged perhaps, lazy perhaps, in his late years somewhat gluttonous perhaps, a dog who did a lot of sleeping, who in some accountings could be said to have slept his life away. But in another sense Bolívar never slept, not when David was around, or, if he slept, slept with one eye open, one ear cocked, watching over him, keeping him from harm. If Bolívar had a lord and master, David was he.

  Until the end. Until the great harm came from which he could not save his master. Is that perhaps the deeper reason why Bolívar is gone: he has gone to find his master, wherever he may be, find him and bring him back?

  Dogs do not understand death, do not understand how a being can cease to be. But perhaps the reason (the deeper reason) why they do not understand death is that they do not understand understanding. I Bolívar breathe my last in a gutter in the rain-lashed city and at the same moment I Pablo find myself in a wire cage in a stranger’s backyard. What is there that demands to be understood in that?

  He, Simón, is learning. First he went to school with a child, now he is going to school with a dog. A life of learning. He ought to be thankful.

  He visits the Asistencia again. This time he asks for a list of poultry farms. The Asistencia has no such list. Go to the market, the clerk advises him: ask around. He goes to the market and asks around. One thing leads to another; soon he is standing at the door of a galvanized iron shed in the valley above the city, calling out, ‘Hello! Is anyone here?’

  A young woman emerges, wearing rubber boots, smelling of ammonia.

  ‘Good day, I am sorry to trouble you,’ he says, ‘but have you recently taken in a dog from Dr Jull the veterinarian?’

  The young woman whistles cheerily and a dog comes bounding up. It is Pablo.

  ‘I saw this dog while he was being held in Dr Jull’s backyard and wanted very much to take him, but by the time I had consulted my wife he was gone. I do not know what you paid, but I am prepared to offer you a hundred reales.’

  The young woman shakes her head. ‘Pablo is just what we need here. He is not for sale.’

  He thinks of telling her about Bolívar—about Bolívar’s place in his life, in Inés’s life, in the life of the boy, about the gap that has been left by the double departure of the dog and the boy, about his vision of Bolívar lying dead in a gutter in the back streets of the city and his second vision of Bolívar re-embodied in Pablo—but then decides not to, it is too complicated. ‘Let me leave my telephone number,’ he says. ‘My offer stands. A hundred reales, two hundred, whatever it takes. Goodbye, Pablo.’ He stretches out a hand to stroke the dog’s head. The dog flattens his ears and growls low in his throat. ‘Goodbye, señora.’

  CHAPTER 21

  HE AND Inés sit in silence over the remains of a meal.

  ‘Is this how we are going to spend the rest of our days, you and I?’ he says at last. ‘Growing old in a city where neither of us feels at home, mourning our loss?’

  Inés does not reply.

  ‘Inés, can I tell you something David said to me shortly before the end? He said he thought that after he was gone you and I would have a child together. I did not know how to reply. In the end I said you and I did not have that kind of relationship. But have you thought of adopting a child—one of the children from the orphanage, for instance? Or several? Have you thought of the two of us starting again from the beginning and raising a proper family?’

  Inés gives him a cold, hostile look. Why? Is his proposal contemptible?

  He and Inés have been together for over four years, long enough to have seen the worst of each other, and the best. Neither is, to the other, an unknown quantity.

  ‘Answer me, Inés. Why not start all over, before it is too late?’

  ‘Too late for what?’

  ‘Before we are too old—too old to bring up children.’

  ‘No,’ says Inés. ‘I do not want a child from the orphanage in my home, sleeping in my child’s bed. It is an insult. I am astonished at you.’

  There are nights when he wakes up with what he can swear is the boy’s voice ringing in his ears: Simón, I can’t sleep, come and tell me a story! or Simón, I am having a bad dream! or Simón, I am lost, come and save me! He presumes the voice comes to Inés too, unsettling her sleep, but he does not ask.

  He avoids the football games in the park behind the apartment block. But sometimes, in the figure of a child dashing across the road or scampering up the stairway, he glimpses the image of David and feels a gust of the bitterest resentment that his child alone should be taken away while the ninety-nine others are left unscathed to play and be happy. It seems monstrous that the darkness should have swallowed him up, that there should be no outcry, no clamour, no tearing of hair or gnashing of teeth, that the world should continue to spin on its axis as if nothing had happened.

  He calls at the Academy to pick up David’s belongings, and without knowing how or why finds himself in Arroyo’s chambers laying bare his heart. ‘I am ashamed to confess to it, Juan Sebastián, but I look at David’s young friends and find myself wishing they had died in his place—one of them, all of them, it makes no difference. An evil spirit, a spirit of pure malignancy, seems to have taken possession of me and I cannot shake it off.’

  ‘Do not be too harsh with yourself, Simón,’ says Arroyo. ‘The turmoil you feel will pass, given time. A door opens, a child enters; the same door closes, the child is gone, all is as it was before. Nothing in the world has changed. Yet it is no
t so, not quite. Even if we cannot see it, hear it, feel it, the earth has shifted.’ Arroyo pauses, regards him intently. ‘Something has occurred, Simón, something that is not nothing. When you feel the bitterness rising in you, remember that.’

  There is a cloud over his brain, or else the spirit of darkness is at work, but at this moment he cannot see it, certainly cannot grasp it, Arroyo’s something that is not nothing. What mark has David left behind? None. None at all. Not so much as the beat of a butterfly’s wing.

  Arroyo speaks. ‘If I may change the subject, colleagues of mine have suggested that we gather together formally, staff and students, to pay our respects to your son. Will you and Inés join us?’

  Arroyo is as good as his word. The very next morning activities at the Academy are suspended as students assemble to honour their lost classmate. He and Inés are the only outsiders present.

  Arroyo addresses the gathering. ‘David arrived among us years ago as a student of dance, but soon revealed himself to be not a student but a teacher, a teacher to all of us. I do not need to remind you how when he danced for us we would stand still in wonder.

  ‘The privilege fell to me to be among his students. In our sessions together I would play the part of musician and he the part of dancer, but truly, when he began to dance, dance became music and music became dance. From him the dance flowed into my hands and fingers, and into my spirit too. I was the instrument on which he played. He exalted me, as I know from your testimonies he exalted you too, and everyone whose life he touched.

  ‘The music I will play for you today is music I learned from him. When the music has ended we will observe a minute of silent reflection. Then we will disperse, bearing the memory of his music within us.’

  Arroyo sits down at the organ and begins to play. At once he, Simón, recognizes the measure. It is the measure of Seven, elaborated with an unfamiliar sweetness and grace. He feels for Inés’s hand, grips it, closes his eyes, gives himself over to the music.

  From the stairway comes a sudden clatter, and a surge of young bodies bursts into the studio. At their head is Maria Prudencia from the orphanage bearing a placard pinned to a stick. LOS DESINVITADOS, it reads: the uninvited. Behind her, side by side, come Dr Fabricante and señora Devito, followed by a host of orphans, as many as a hundred. In their midst, borne on the shoulders of four of the older boys, is a simple coffin, painted white, which, in a planned manoeuvre, they convey to the stage and set down.

  Dr Fabricante gives a nod, and the four coffin-bearers are joined on the stage by señora Devito. Through all this Arroyo makes no move to intervene: he seems bemused.

  Señora Devito addresses the gathering. ‘Friends!’ she calls out. ‘This is a sad occasion for all of you. You have lost one of your number; there is a gap in your midst. But I bring you a message, and the message is a joyous one. The coffin you see before you, which has been borne through the streets of the city all the way from Las Manos on the shoulders of these young comrades of David, is a symbol of his death but also of his life. Maria! Esteban!’

  Maria and the tall pimply youth who is her companion step up and, without a word, upend the coffin and slide the lid aside. The coffin is empty.

  Esteban speaks. His voice is unsteady, his face is flushed, he is clearly uncomfortable. ‘We, the orphans of Las Manos, having been present at the bedside of David during his last travails, decided…’ He casts a desperate look at Maria, who whispers in his ear. ‘Decided that we would celebrate his passing by passing on his message.’

  Now it is Maria’s turn. She speaks with unexpected composure. ‘We call this the coffin of David, and as you can see it is empty. What does that say to us? It says to us that he is not gone, that he is still with us. Why is the coffin white? Because this may feel like a sad day but it is not really a sad day. That is all. That is what we wanted to say.’

  Dr Fabricante gives another nod. The orphans replace the lid on the coffin and hoist it upon their shoulders. ‘Thank you, all of you,’ señora Devito calls out above the noise. She wears a smile that he can only call rapturous. ‘Thank you for permitting the children of Las Manos, too often passed over and forgotten, to take part in your memorial.’ And, as abruptly as they had arrived, the orphans file out of the studio and down the stairs, bearing the coffin with them.

  The next morning, as he and Inés are having breakfast, Alyosha comes knocking at the door. ‘Señor Arroyo asks me to beg your pardon for the chaos yesterday. We were taken completely by surprise. Also, you forgot these.’ He holds out David’s dancing slippers.

  Without a word Inés takes the slippers and leaves the room.

  ‘Inés is upset,’ he says. ‘It has not been easy for her. I am sure you understand. Shall we go outdoors, you and I? We could take a walk in the park.’

  It is a pleasant day, cool, wind-still. The sound of their footsteps is muffled by a thick bed of fallen leaves.

  ‘Did David ever show you his coin trick?’ says Alyosha, out of the blue.

  ‘His coin trick?’

  ‘The trick where he flips a coin and it comes up heads every time. Ten times, twenty times, thirty times.’

  ‘He must have had a double-headed coin.’

  ‘He could do it with any coin you gave him.’

  ‘No, he never showed me that particular trick. But until I put a stop to it he used to play at dice with Dmitri, and Dmitri said that David could throw a double six whenever he wanted to. What other tricks did he have?’

  ‘The trick with the coin was the only one I got to see. I was never able to work out how he did it. Something to wonder about.’

  ‘I suppose if one has very fine muscular control one can flip a coin or throw dice in exactly the same way each time. That must be the explanation.’

  ‘He did the trick only to amuse us,’ says Alyosha, ‘but he did say once that if he wanted to he could use it to bring the pillars crashing down.’

  ‘What on earth did he mean: bring the pillars crashing down?’

  ‘No idea. You know how David was. He would never tell you his meaning directly. Always left it to you to puzzle things out.’

  ‘Did he do his coin trick for Juan Sebastián?’

  ‘No, just for the children in his class. I told Juan Sebastián about it, but he was not interested. He said that nothing David did surprised him.’

  ‘Alyosha, did David ever mention a message he was carrying?’

  ‘A message? No.’

  ‘David divided people up according to whether or not they were fit to hear his message. I fell among the no-hopers—too plodding, too earthbound. I thought he might have elevated you to the other camp, the camp of the elect. I thought he might have revealed his message to you. He was fond of you. You were fond of him too, I could see that.’

  ‘I was not just fond of him, Simón, I loved him. We all did. I would have laid down my life for him. Truly. But no—he gave me no message.’

  ‘On the last night I spent with him he spoke on and on about his message—spoke about it without actually saying what it was. Now Dmitri claims that the message was revealed to him, in full. As you know, ever since the days of Ana Magdalena, Dmitri has insisted there is or was a special bond between David and himself, a secret affinity. I never believed him—he is such a liar. But now, as I say, he is putting out a story that David left a message behind and he alone is its bearer.

  ‘The children at the orphanage have been particularly receptive to his story. That must have been why they invaded the memorial yesterday. David’s message was destined for them, says Dmitri, and for the orphans of the world in general, but he died too early to deliver it in person, so only he, Dmitri, got to hear the whole of it. He is using his friend from the hospital to spread the story. You saw her yesterday: the petite woman with the blonde hair. She backs up everything he says.’

  ‘And what is the message, according to Dmitri?’

  ‘He will not say. I am not surprised. That is how he operates—keeping his opponents guessing.
In my opinion the whole thing is una estafa, a confidence trick. If he does have a message, it is one he himself has made up.’

  ‘I thought Dmitri was sentenced to be locked up for life. How does he come to be free again?’

  ‘Goodness knows. He claims to have seen the error of his ways and repented. He claims to be a new man, reformed. He is plausible. People want to believe him, or at least to give him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Well, you should hear what Juan Sebastián has to say about him.’

  That evening he speaks to Inés. ‘Inés, did David ever show you a trick he could do, tossing a coin and making it come up heads every time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alyosha says he used to do the trick for his schoolmates. And did he ever tell you about a message he was going to leave behind?’

  Inés turns to face him. ‘Does everything have to be brought out into the open, Simón? Can I not have a little space that is my own?’

  ‘I am sorry, I had no idea you felt that way.’

  ‘You have no idea how I feel about anything. Have you ever considered how I felt when I was shunted aside by those people at the hospital—We are looking for the real mother, you are not the real mother, go away—as if David were some foundling, some orphan? You may find insults like that easy to swallow, but I do not. As far as I am concerned, David was taken from me when he most needed me, and I will never forgive the people who took him, never, including that Dr Fabricante.’

  It is clear he has touched a raw nerve. He tries to take her hand, but she pushes him off angrily. ‘Go away. Leave me alone. You are just making things worse.’

  Relations with Inés have never been easy. Though they have been in Estrella for four years, she remains restless, unsettled, unhappy. More often than not, he is the one she chooses to blame for her unhappiness: he was the one who stole her away from Novilla and the pleasing life she led there in the company of her brothers. Yet the fact is, David could not have had a more devoted mother. He, Simón, has been devoted too, in his way. But he could always foresee the day when the boy would shrug him off for good (You can’t tell me what to do, you are not my father). In the case of Inés the bond seemed altogether stronger and deeper, altogether less easy to escape from.