The Childhood of Jesus

by J. M. Coetzee

‘Remember,’ says Álvaro, ‘no smoking on the hold.’

  The man gives no sign that he has heard. Tranquilly he gazes around. The smoke from his cigarette rises into the still air.

  His name, Álvaro lets it be known, is Daga. No one calls him anything else, not ‘the new man,’ not ‘the new guy.’

  Despite his small stature, Daga is strong. He staggers not a millimetre when the first sack is dropped onto his shoulders; he ascends the ladder swiftly and steadily; he lopes down the gangplank and heaves the sack into the waiting cart with no sign of effort. But then he retreats into the shadow of the shed, squats on his heels, and lights another cigarette.

  Álvaro marches up to him. ‘No breaks, Daga,’ he says. ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘What’s the quota?’ says Daga.

  ‘There is no quota. We are paid by the day.’

  ‘Fifty sacks a day,’ says Daga.

  ‘We move more than that.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘More than fifty. No quota. Each man carries what he can.’

  ‘Fifty. No more.’

  ‘Get up. If you have to smoke, wait for the break.’

  Things come to a head at noon that Friday, when they are being paid. As Daga approaches the wooden board that serves as a table, Álvaro leans down and whispers in the paymaster’s ear. The paymaster nods. He sets Daga’s money on the board before him.

  ‘What’s this?’ says Daga.

  ‘Your pay for the days you have worked,’ says Álvaro.

  Daga picks up the coins and with a quick, contemptuous movement flings them back in the paymaster’s face.

  ‘What’s that for?’ says Álvaro.

  ‘Rat’s wage.’

  ‘That’s the rate. That’s what you earned. That’s what we all earn. Do you want to say we are all rats?’

  The men crowd around. Discreetly the paymaster shuffles his papers together and closes the lid of his cashbox.

  He, Simón, feels the boy gripping his leg. ‘What are they doing?’ he whines. His face is pale and anxious. ‘Are they going to fight?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Tell Álvaro not to fight. Tell him!’ The boy tugs at his fingers, tugs and tugs.

  ‘Come, let’s move away,’ he says. He draws the boy towards the breakwater. ‘Look! Do you see the seals? The big one with his nose in the air is the male, the bull seal. And the others, the smaller ones, are his wives.’

  From the crowd comes a sharp cry. There is a flurry of motion.

  ‘They are fighting!’ whines the boy. ‘I don’t want them to fight!’

  A half-circle of men has formed around Daga, who crouches down, a faint smile on his lips, one arm stretched forward. In his hand glints the blade of a knife. ‘Come!’ he says, and makes a beckoning motion with the knife. ‘Who is next?’

  Álvaro sits on the ground, hunched over. He seems to be clutching his chest. There is a streak of blood on his shirt.

  ‘Who is next?’ repeats Daga. No one stirs. He comes erect, folds the knife, slips it into his hip pocket, lifts the cashbox, upends it on the board. Coins shower everywhere. ‘Pussies!’ he says. He counts out what he wants, gives the drum a derisory kick. ‘Help yourselves,’ he says, and turns his back on the men. Leisurely he mounts the paymaster’s bicycle and pedals away.

  Álvaro gets to his feet. The blood on his shirt comes from his hand, oozing from a slash across the palm.

  He, Simón, is the senior man or at least the eldest: he should take the lead. ‘You need a doctor,’ he tells Álvaro. ‘Let’s go.’ He gestures to the boy. ‘Come—we are going to take Álvaro to the doctor.’

  The boy does not stir.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  The boy’s lips move but he can hear no word. He bends closer. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

  ‘Is Álvaro going to die?’ whispers the boy. His whole body is rigid. He is shivering.

  ‘Of course not. He has a cut on his hand, that’s all. He needs a plaster to stop the bleeding. Come. We will take him to the doctor and the doctor will fix him up.’

  In fact Álvaro is already on his way, accompanied by another of the men.

  ‘He was fighting,’ says the boy. ‘He was fighting and now the doctor is going to cut off his hand.’

  ‘Nonsense. Doctors don’t cut off hands. The doctor is going to wash the cut and put a plaster on it, or maybe sew it shut with needle and thread. Tomorrow Álvaro will be back at work and we will have forgotten all about it.’

  The boy stares at him piercingly.

  ‘I am not fibbing,’ he says. ‘I would not fib to you. Álvaro’s wound is not serious. That man, señor Daga or whatever his name is, didn’t mean to hurt him. It was an accident. The knife slipped. Sharp knives are dangerous. That is the lesson to remember: not to play with knives. If you play with knives you can get hurt. Álvaro got hurt, fortunately not seriously. And señor Daga has left us, taken his money and gone. He won’t be back. He didn’t belong here, and he knows it.’

  ‘You mustn’t fight,’ says the boy.

  ‘I won’t, I promise you.’

  ‘You must never fight.’

  ‘I am not in the habit of fighting. And Álvaro wasn’t fighting. He was just trying to protect himself. He tried to protect himself and he got cut.’ He stretches out his hand, to show how Álvaro tried to protect himself, how Álvaro suffered the cut.

  ‘Álvaro was fighting,’ says the boy, pronouncing the words with solemn finality.

  ‘Protecting yourself isn’t fighting. Protecting yourself is a natural instinct. If someone tried to hit you, you would protect yourself. You wouldn’t think twice. Look.’

  In all their time together he has never laid a finger on the boy. Now, suddenly, he raises a threatening hand. The boy does not bat an eyelid. He feints a slap to his cheek. He does not flinch.

  ‘All right,’ he says. ‘I believe you.’ He lets his hand drop. ‘You are right, I was wrong. Álvaro should not have tried to protect himself. He should have been like you. He should have been brave. Now shall we stroll over to the clinic and see how he is getting on?’

  Álvaro comes to work the next day with the injured hand in a sling. He refuses to discuss the incident. Taking their lead from him, the men too do not talk about it. But the boy keeps nagging. ‘Is señor Daga going to bring the bicycle back?’ he asks. ‘Why is he called señor Daga?’

  ‘No, he won’t be coming back,’ he replies. ‘He doesn’t like us, he doesn’t enjoy the kind of work we do, he has no reason to come back. I don’t know if Daga is his real name. It doesn’t matter. Names don’t matter. If he wants to call himself Daga, then let him.’

  ‘But why did he steal the money?’

  ‘He didn’t steal the money. He didn’t steal the bicycle. Stealing means taking what doesn’t belong to you while no one is looking. We were all looking while he took the money. We could have stopped him, but we didn’t. We chose not to fight with him. We chose to let him go. Surely you approve. You are the one who says we shouldn’t fight.’

  ‘The man should have given him more money.’

  ‘The paymaster? The paymaster should have given him whatever he wanted?’

  The boy nods.

  ‘He couldn’t do that. If the paymaster paid each of us whatever we wanted, he would run out of money.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because we all want more than is due to us. That’s human nature. Because we all want more than we are worth.’

  ‘What is human nature?’

  ‘It means the way human beings are built, you and I and Álvaro and señor Daga and everyone else. It means the way we are when we come into the world. It means what we all have in common. We like to believe we are special, my boy, each of us. But, strictly speaking, that cannot be so. If we were all special, there would be no specialness left. Yet we continue to believe in ourselves. We go down into the ship’s hold, into the heat and dust, we heave sacks onto our backs and lug them up into the light, we see
our friends toiling just like us, doing exactly the same work, nothing special about it, and we feel proud of them and of ourselves, all comrades labouring together with a common goal; yet in a little corner of our hearts, which we keep hidden, we whisper to ourselves, Nevertheless, nevertheless, you are special, you will see! One day, when we are least expecting it, there will be a blast on Álvaro’s whistle and we will all be summoned to assemble on the quayside, where a great crowd will be waiting, and a man in a black suit with a tall hat; and the man in the black suit will call on you to step forward, saying, Behold this singular worker, in whom we are well pleased! and he will shake your hand and pin a medal on your chest—For Service Beyond the Call of Duty, the medal will say—and everyone will cheer and clap.

  ‘It is human nature to have dreams like that, even if it would be wise to keep them to ourselves. Like all of us, señor Daga thought he was special; but he didn’t keep the thought to himself. He wanted to be singled out. He wanted to be recognized.’

  He halts. There is no sign on the boy’s face that he has understood a word. Is today one of his stupid days or is he just being stubborn?

  ‘Señor Daga wanted to be praised and given a medal,’ he says. ‘When we didn’t give him the medal he dreamed of, he took money instead. He took what he thought he was worth. That’s all.’

  ‘Why didn’t he get a medal?’ says the boy.

  ‘Because if we all got medals then medals would be worth nothing. Because medals have to be earned. Like money. You don’t get a medal just because you want one.’

  ‘I would give señor Daga a medal.’

  ‘Well, maybe we should ask you to be our paymaster. Then we will all get medals and as much money as we want and next week there will be nothing left in the moneybox.’

  ‘There’s always money in the moneybox,’ says the boy. ‘That’s why it is called the moneybox.’

  He throws up his hands. ‘I won’t argue with you if you are going to be silly.’

  CHAPTER 7

  SOME WEEKS after they first presented themselves at the Centre, a letter arrives from the office of the Ministerio de Reubicación in Novilla informing him that he and his family have been allocated an apartment in the East Village, occupation to be effected no later than noon on the coming Monday.

  East Village, familiarly known as the East Blocks, is an estate to the east of the parklands, a cluster of apartment blocks separated by expanses of lawn. He and the boy have already explored there, as they have explored its twin estate, West Village. The blocks making up the village are of identical pattern, four floors high. On each floor six apartments face upon a square that holds such communal amenities as a children’s playground, a paddle pool, a bicycle rack, and washing lines. East Village is generally held to be more desirable than West Village; they can count themselves lucky to be sent there.

  The move from the Centre is easily effected, for they own few possessions and have made no friends. Their neighbours have been, on one side, an old man who dodders around in his dressing gown talking to himself, and on the other a stand-offish couple who pretend not to understand the Spanish he speaks.

  The new apartment, on the second floor, is modest in scale and sparsely furnished: two beds, a table and chairs, a chest of drawers, steel shelving. A tiny annexe contains an electric cooker on a stand and a basin with running water. A sliding screen hides a shower and toilet.

  For their first supper in the Blocks he makes the boy’s favourite food, pancakes with butter and jam. ‘We are going to like it here, aren’t we?’ he says. ‘It will be a new chapter in our life.’

  Having advised Álvaro that he is not well, he has no qualms about taking days off from work. He is earning more than enough for their needs, there is little to spend his money on, he does not see why he should exhaust himself to no purpose. Besides, there are always new arrivals looking for casual work who can fill in for him at the docks. So some mornings he spends simply lazing abed, dozing and waking, enjoying the sunny warmth that pours in through the windows of their new home.

  I am girding my loins, he tells himself. I am girding my loins for the next chapter in this enterprise. By the next chapter he means the quest for the boy’s mother, the quest that he does not yet know where to commence. I am concentrating my energies; I am making plans.

  While he relaxes, the boy plays outdoors in the sandpit or on the swings, or else roams among the washing lines, humming to himself, winding himself like a cocoon in drying bedsheets, then gyrating and unwinding himself. It is a game he never seems to tire of.

  ‘I don’t think our neighbours will be pleased to see you handling their freshly laundered washing,’ he says. ‘What do you find so attractive about it?’

  ‘I like the way it smells.’

  The next time he crosses the courtyard, he discreetly presses his face into a sheet and draws a deep breath. The smell is clean and warm and comforting.

  Later that day, glancing out of the window, he sees the boy sprawled on the lawn head to head with another, bigger boy. They seem to be conversing intimately.

  ‘I see you have a new friend,’ he remarks over lunch. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Fidel. He can play the violin. He showed me his violin. Can I get a violin too?’

  ‘Does he live in the Blocks?’

  ‘Yes. Can I have a violin too?’

  ‘We will see. Violins cost a lot of money, and you will need a teacher, you can’t just pick up a violin and play.’

  ‘Fidel’s mother teaches him. She says she can teach me too.’

  ‘It’s good that you have made a new friend, I am glad for you. As for violin lessons, perhaps I should first have a chat with Fidel’s mother.’

  ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘We can go later, after your nap.’

  Fidel’s apartment is on the far side of the courtyard. Even before he can knock, the door is thrown open and Fidel stands before them, sturdy, curly-headed, smiling.

  Though no larger than theirs and not as sunny, the apartment has a more welcoming air, perhaps because of its bright curtains with their cherry-blossom motif repeated across the bedspreads.

  Fidel’s mother comes forward to greet him: an angular, even gaunt young woman with prominent teeth and hair drawn tight behind her ears. In an obscure way he is disappointed by this first sight of her, though he has no reason to be.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirms, ‘I have told your son he can join Fidelito in his music lessons. Later we can reassess and see if he has the aptitude and the will to progress.’

  ‘That is very kind of you. Actually, David is not my son. I don’t have a son.’

  ‘Where are his parents?’

  ‘His parents…That is a difficult question. I will explain when we have more time. About the lessons: will he need a violin of his own?’

  ‘With beginners I usually start on the recorder. Fidel’—she draws her son closer, he hugs her affectionately—‘Fidel learned the recorder for a year before he began the violin.’

  He turns to David. ‘Do you hear that, my boy? First you learn to play the recorder, then after that the violin. Agreed?’

  The boy pulls a face, shoots a glance at his new friend, is silent.

  ‘It is a big undertaking, to become a violinist. You won’t succeed if your heart isn’t in it.’ He turns to Fidel’s mother. ‘May I ask, how much do you charge?’

  She gives him a surprised look. ‘I don’t charge,’ she says. ‘I do it for the music.’

  Her name is Elena. It is not the name he would have guessed. He would have guessed Manuela, or even Lourdes.

  He invites Fidel and his mother on a bus ride out to the New Forest, a ride that Álvaro has recommended (‘It was once a plantation, but it has been allowed to go wild—you will like it’). From the bus terminus the two boys race ahead up the path, while he and Elena stroll behind.

  ‘Do you have many students?’ he asks her.

  ‘Oh, I’m not a proper music teacher. I have just a few children who
m I help with the basics.’

  ‘How do you make a living if you don’t charge?’

  ‘I take in sewing. I do this and that. I get a small grant from the Asistencia. I have enough. There are more important things than money.’

  ‘Do you mean music?’

  ‘Music, yes, but also how one lives. How one is to live.’

  A good answer, a serious answer, a philosophic answer. He is, for a moment, silenced.

  ‘Do you see lots of people?’ he asks. ‘I mean’—he grasps the nettle—‘is there a man in your life?’

  She frowns. ‘I have friends. Some are women, some are men. I don’t distinguish between them.’

  The path narrows. She goes ahead; he falls behind, eyeing the sway of her hips. He prefers a woman with more flesh on her bones. Nevertheless, he likes Elena.

  ‘As for me, it is not a distinction I can give up,’ he says. ‘Or would wish to give up.’

  She slows to let him catch up, gives him a straight look. ‘No one should have to give up what is important to him,’ she says.

  The two boys return, panting after their run, glowing with health. ‘Have we got anything to drink?’ demands Fidel.

  It is not until they are in the bus, going home, that he has another chance to speak to Elena.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he says, ‘but the past is not dead in me. Details may have grown fuzzy, but the feel of how life used to be is still quite vivid. Men and women, for instance: you say you have got beyond that way of thinking; but I haven’t. I still feel myself to be a man, and you to be a woman.’

  ‘I agree. Men and women are different. They have different roles to play.’

  The two boys, in the seat in front of them, are whispering together, giggling. He takes Elena’s hand in his. She does not pull free. Nevertheless, by the inscrutable means by which the body speaks, her hand gives answer. It dies in his grasp like a fish out of water.

  ‘May I ask,’ he says: ‘Are you beyond feeling anything for a man?’

  ‘I don’t feel nothing,’ she replies slowly and carefully. ‘On the contrary, I feel goodwill, much goodwill. Towards both you and your son. Warmth and goodwill.’