The Childhood of Jesus

by J. M. Coetzee

  He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘You cannot mean that. I myself may seem old and unattractive—I and my desires. But surely you cannot believe that nature itself is ugly.’

  ‘Yes, I can. Nature can partake of the beautiful but nature can partake of the ugly too. Those parts of our bodies that you modestly do not name, not in your godson’s hearing: do you find them beautiful?’

  ‘In themselves? No, in themselves they are not beautiful. It is the whole that is beautiful, not the parts.’

  ‘And these parts that are not beautiful—you want to push them inside me! What should I think of that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tell me what you think.’

  ‘That all your fine talk of paying tribute to beauty is una tontería. If you found me to be an incarnation of the good, you would not want to perform such an act upon me. So why wish to do so if I am an incarnation of the beautiful? Is the beautiful inferior to the good? Explain.’

  ‘Una tontería: what’s that?’

  ‘Nonsense. Rubbish.’

  He gets to his feet. ‘I am not going to excuse myself further, Ana. I don’t find this to be a profitable discussion. I don’t believe you know what you are talking about.’

  ‘Really? You think I am some ignorant child?’

  ‘You may not be a child but, yes, I do think you are ignorant of life. Come,’ he says to the boy, taking his hand. ‘We have had our picnic, now it is time to thank the lady and go off and find ourselves something to eat.’

  Ana reclines, stretches out her legs, folds her hands in her lap, smiles up at him mockingly. ‘Too close to the bone, was it?’ she says.

  Under a blazing sun he strides across the empty parklands, the boy trotting to keep up with him.

  ‘What is a padrino?’ asks the boy.

  ‘A padrino is someone who acts as your father when for some reason your father cannot be there.’

  ‘Are you my padrino?’

  ‘No, I am not. No one invited me to be your padrino. I am just your friend.’

  ‘I can invite you to be my padrino.’

  ‘That is not up to you, my boy. You can’t choose a padrino for yourself, as you can’t choose your father. There isn’t a proper word for what I am to you, just as there isn’t a proper word for what you are to me. However, if you like, you can call me Uncle. When people say, Who is he to you? you can say, He is my uncle. He is my uncle and he loves me. And I will say, He is my boy.’

  ‘But is that lady going to be my mother?’

  ‘Ana? No. Being a mother would not interest her.’

  ‘Are you going to marry her?’

  ‘Of course not. I am not here to find a wife, I am here to help you find your mother, your real mother.’

  He is trying to keep his voice even, his tone light; but the truth is, the attack by the girl has shaken him.

  ‘You were cross with her,’ says the boy. ‘Why were you cross?’

  He halts in his tracks, lifts the boy up, gives him a kiss on the brow. ‘I’m sorry I was cross. I wasn’t cross with you.’

  ‘But you were cross with the lady and she was cross with you.’

  ‘I was cross with her because she treats us badly and I don’t understand why. We had an argument, she and I, a heated argument. But it’s all over now. It was not important.’

  ‘She said you wanted to push something inside her.’

  He is silent.

  ‘What did she mean? Do you really want to push something inside her?’

  ‘It was only a manner of speaking. She meant that I was trying to force my ideas on her. And she was right. One should not try to force ideas upon people.’

  ‘Do I force ideas on you?’

  ‘No, of course not. Now let us find something to eat.’

  They scour the streets east of the parkland, hunting for an eating place of some kind. It is a neighbourhood of modest villas, with now and again a low apartment building. They happen on only a single shop. NARANJAS says the sign, in large letters. The steel shutters are closed, so he cannot see whether it indeed sells oranges or whether Naranjas is just a name.

  He stops a passer-by, an elderly man walking a dog on a lead. ‘Excuse me,’ he says, ‘my boy and I are looking for a café or restaurant where we can get a meal, or failing that a provisions shop.’

  ‘On a Sunday afternoon?’ says the man. His dog sniffs the boy’s shoes, then his crotch. ‘I don’t know what to suggest, unless you are prepared to go into the city.’

  ‘Is there a bus?’

  ‘Number 42, but it doesn’t run on Sundays.’

  ‘So we cannot in fact go into the city. And there is nowhere nearby where we can eat. And all the shops are closed. What then do you suggest we do?’

  The man’s features harden. He tugs at the dog’s lead. ‘Come, Bruno,’ he says.

  In a sour mood he heads back to the Centre. Their progress is slow, since the boy keeps hesitating and hopping to avoid cracks in the paving.

  ‘Come on, hurry up,’ he says irritably. ‘Keep your game for another day.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to fall into a crack.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. How can a big boy like you fall down a little crack like that?’

  ‘Not that crack. Another crack.’

  ‘Which crack? Point to the crack.’

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t know which crack. Nobody knows.’

  ‘Nobody knows because nobody can fall through a crack in the paving. Now hurry up.’

  ‘I can! You can! Anyone can! You don’t know!’

  CHAPTER 5

  DURING THE midday break at work the next day he takes Álvaro aside. ‘Forgive me if I raise a private matter,’ he says, ‘but I am becoming more and more concerned about the youngster’s health, and specifically about his diet, which—as you can see—consists of bread and bread and yet more bread.’

  And indeed they can see the boy, sitting among the stevedores in the lee of the shed, munching dolefully on his half-loaf moistened with water.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he continues, ‘that a growing child needs more variety, more nourishment. One cannot live on bread alone. It is not a universal food. You don’t know where I can buy meat, do you, without making a trip to the city centre?’

  Álvaro scratches his head. ‘Not around here, not around the docklands. There are people who catch rats, I have heard tell. There is no shortage of rats. But for that you will need a trap, and I don’t know offhand where you would lay your hands on a good rat trap. You would probably have to make it yourself. You could use wire, with some kind of trip mechanism.’

  ‘Rats?’

  ‘Yes. Haven’t you seen them? Wherever there are ships there are rats.’

  ‘But who eats rats? Do you eat rats?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t dream of it. But you asked where you could get meat, and that is all I can suggest.’

  He stares long into Álvaro’s eyes. He can see no sign that he is joking. Or if it is a joke, it is a very deep joke.

  After work he and the boy make their way straight back to the enigmatic Naranjas. They arrive as the proprietor is about to let down the shutters. Naranjas is indeed a shop, as it turns out, and does indeed sell oranges, as well as other fruits and vegetables. While the proprietor waits impatiently, he selects as much as the two of them can carry: a small pocket of oranges, half a dozen apples, some carrots and cucumbers.

  Back in their room at the Centre he slices an apple for the boy and peels an orange. While the boy is eating these he cuts a carrot and a cucumber into slim cartwheels and lays them out on a plate. ‘There!’ he says.

  Suspiciously the boy prods the cucumber, sniffs it. ‘I don’t like it,’ he says. ‘It smells.’

  ‘Nonsense. Cucumber has no smell at all. The green part is just the rind. Taste it. It’s good for you. It will make you grow.’ He eats half the cucumber himself, and a whole carrot, and an orange.

  The next morning he revisits Naranjas and buys more fruit—bananas, pears, apricots—wh
ich he brings back to the room. Now they have quite a stock.

  He is late for work, but Álvaro does not remark on it.

  Despite the welcome additions to their diet, the feeling of bodily exhaustion does not leave him. Rather than building up his strength, the daily labour of lifting and carrying seems to be draining him. He is beginning to feel quite wraithlike; he fears he is going to faint in front of his comrades and shame himself.

  He seeks out Álvaro again. ‘I’m not feeling well,’ he says. ‘I haven’t been feeling well for a while. Is there a doctor you can recommend?’

  ‘There is a clinic on Wharf Seven that is open in the afternoons. Go there at once. Tell them you work here; then you won’t have to pay.’

  He follows the signs to Wharf Seven, where there is indeed a little clinic, called simply Cliìnica. The door is open, the counter unmanned. He presses the buzzer, but it does not work.

  ‘Hello!’ he calls out. ‘Is anyone here?’

  Silence.

  He crosses behind the counter and raps on the closed door marked Cirugía. ‘Hello!’ he calls.

  The door opens and he is confronted by a large, florid-faced man in a white laboratory coat on whose collar there is a lush smear of what looks like chocolate. The man is sweating heavily.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he says. ‘Are you the doctor?’

  ‘Come in,’ says the man. ‘Sit down.’ He indicates a chair, removes his glasses, wipes the lenses carefully with a tissue. ‘Do you work here at the docks?’

  ‘On Wharf Two.’

  ‘Ah, Wharf Two. And what can I do for you?’

  ‘For the past week or two I have not been feeling well. There are no specific symptoms except that I get tired easily and now and again have dizzy spells. I think it is probably because of my diet, the lack of nourishment in my diet.’

  ‘When do you have these dizzy spells? At any particular time of day?’

  ‘No particular time. They come when I am tired. I work as a stevedore, loading and unloading, as I told you. It is not work I am accustomed to. In the course of a day I have to cross a gangplank many times. Sometimes as I look down into the space between the quay and the ship’s side, at the waves slapping against the quay, I feel dizzy. I feel I am going to slip and fall and perhaps hit my head and drown.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound to me like undernourishment.’

  ‘Maybe not. But if I were better nourished I would be better able to resist the dizziness.’

  ‘Have you ever had such fears before, fears of falling and drowning?’

  ‘This is not a psychological matter, Doctor. I am a labourer. I do hard work. I carry heavy loads hour after hour. My heart hammers. I am continually at the limit of my powers. It is only natural, surely, that my body should sometimes get to the point of failing, of letting me down.’

  ‘Of course it is natural. But if it is natural why have you come to the clinic? What do you expect from me?’

  ‘Don’t you think you should listen to my heart? Don’t you think you should test me for anaemia? Don’t you think we should discuss possible deficiencies in my diet?’

  ‘I will check your heart as you suggest but I cannot test you for anaemia. This is not a medical laboratory, it is just a clinic, a first-aid clinic for dock workers. Take off your shirt.’

  He removes his shirt. The doctor presses a stethoscope to his chest, directs his gaze to the ceiling, listens. His breath smells of garlic. ‘There is nothing wrong with your heart,’ he says at last. ‘It is a good heart. It will last you many years. You can go back to work.’

  He rises. ‘How can you say that? I am exhausted. I am not myself. My general health deteriorates with every passing day. This was not what I expected when I arrived. Illness, exhaustion, unhappiness—I expected none of these. I have presentiments—not mere intellectual presentiments but actual bodily presentiments—that I am about to collapse. My body is signalling to me, in every way it can, that it is failing. How can you say there is nothing wrong with me?’

  There is silence. Carefully the doctor folds his stethoscope into its black bag and puts it away in a drawer. He sets his elbows on his desk, clasps his hands, rests his chin on his hands, speaks. ‘Good sir,’ he says, ‘I am sure you did not come to this little clinic expecting a miracle. If you were hoping for a miracle, you would have gone to a proper hospital with a proper laboratory. All I can offer you is advice. My advice is simple: don’t look down. You have these attacks of vertigo because you look down. Vertigo is a psychological matter, not a medical matter. Looking down is what sets off the attack.’

  ‘Is that all you can suggest: don’t look down?’

  ‘That is all, unless you have symptoms of an objective nature that you can share with me.’

  ‘No, no such symptoms. No such symptoms at all.’

  ‘How did it go?’ asks Álvaro when he returns. ‘Did you find the clinic?’

  ‘I found the clinic and I spoke to the doctor. He says that I should look up. As long as I keep looking up, all will be well with me. Whereas if I look down, I may fall.’

  ‘That sounds like good, commonsense advice,’ says Álvaro. ‘Nothing fancy. Now why not take the day off and have a bit of a rest?’

  Despite the fresh fruit from Naranjas, despite the assurance of the doctor that his heart is sound and that there is no reason why he should not live for many years, he continues to feel exhausted. Nor does the dizziness go away. Though he heeds the doctor’s advice not to look down as he crosses the gangplank, he cannot block out the menacing sound that the waves make as they slap against the oily quayside.

  ‘It is just vertigo,’ Álvaro reassures him, giving him a pat on the back. ‘Lots of people suffer from it. Fortunately it is only in the mind. It is not real. Ignore it and soon enough it will go away.’

  He is not convinced. He does not believe that what oppresses him will go away.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Álvaro, ‘if by some chance you do slip and fall, you won’t drown. Someone will save you. I will save you. What else are comrades for?’

  ‘You would jump in and save me?’

  ‘If necessary. Or throw you a rope.’

  ‘Yes, throwing a rope would be more efficient.’

  Álvaro ignores the edge to the remark, or perhaps does not pick it up. ‘More practical,’ he says.

  ‘Is this all we ever unload—wheat?’ he asks Álvaro on another occasion.

  ‘Wheat and rye,’ replies Álvaro.

  ‘But is this all we import through the docks: grain?’

  ‘It depends on what you mean by we. Wharf Two is for grain cargoes. If you worked on Wharf Seven you would be unloading mixed cargoes. If you worked on Wharf Nine you would be unloading steel and cement. Haven’t you been around the docks? Haven’t you explored?’

  ‘I have. But the other wharves have always been empty. As they are now.’

  ‘Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? You don’t need a new bicycle every day. You don’t need new shoes every day, or new clothes. But you do have to eat every day. So we need lots of grain.’

  ‘Therefore if I were to transfer to Wharf Seven or Wharf Nine I would have an easier time. I could take whole weeks off work.’

  ‘Correct. If you worked on Seven or Nine you would have an easier time. But you would also not have a full-time job. So, on the whole, you are better off on Two.’

  ‘I see. So it is for the best, after all, that I am here, on this wharf, in this port, in this city, in this land. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.’

  Álvaro frowns. ‘This isn’t a possible world,’ he says. ‘It is the only world. Whether that makes it the best is not for you or for me to decide.’

  He can think of several replies, but refrains from airing them. Perhaps, in this world that is the only world, it would be prudent to put irony behind him.

  CHAPTER 6

  AS HE promised, Álvaro has been teaching the boy chess. When work is slack, they can be seen hunched over a pocket
set in some patch of shade, absorbed in a game.

  ‘He has just beaten me,’ reports Álvaro. ‘Only two weeks and already he is better than me.’

  Eugenio, the most bookish of the stevedores, issues the boy with a challenge. ‘A lightning game,’ he says. ‘We each have five seconds to make our move. One-two-three-four-five.’

  Ringed by spectators, they play their lightning game. In a matter of minutes the boy has Eugenio backed into a corner. Eugenio gives his king a tap and it falls on its side. ‘I’ll think twice before taking you on again,’ he says. ‘You’ve got a real devil in you.’

  In the bus that evening he tries to discuss the game, and Eugenio’s strange remark; but the boy is reticent.

  ‘Would you like me to buy you a chess set of your own?’ he offers. ‘Then you can practise at home.’

  The boy shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to practise. I don’t like chess.’

  ‘But you are so good at it.’

  The boy shrugs.

  ‘If one is blessed with a talent, one has a duty not to hide it,’ he presses on doggedly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because the world is a better place, I suppose, if each of us can excel at something.’

  The boy stares moodily out of the window.

  ‘Are you upset about what Eugenio said? You shouldn’t be. He didn’t mean it.’

  ‘I’m not upset. I just don’t like chess.’

  ‘Well, Álvaro will be disappointed.’

  The next day a stranger makes his appearance at the docks. He is small and wiry; his skin is burned a deep walnut shade; his eyes are deep set, his nose hooked like a hawk’s beak. He wears faded jeans streaked with machine oil, and scarred leather boots.

  From his breast pocket he takes a scrap of paper, hands it to Álvaro, and without a word stands staring into the distance.

  ‘Right,’ says Álvaro. ‘We will be unloading for the rest of the day and most of tomorrow. When you are ready, join the line.’

  From the same breast pocket the stranger produces a pack of cigarettes. Without offering it around, he lights himself one and takes a deep puff.