The Death of Jesus

by J. M. Coetzee

  ‘Then on your head be it.’

  CHAPTER 7

  SATURDAY COMES around, and he cycles out to the orphanage in time for the football match. But the grounds of the orphanage are deserted.

  In a recreation room he comes upon three girls playing table tennis.

  ‘Is there no football today?’ he asks.

  ‘They are playing away,’ replies one of the girls.

  ‘Do you know where?’

  She shakes her head. ‘We don’t like football.’

  ‘Do you know a boy named David who joined the orphanage recently?’

  The girls exchange glances, giggle. ‘Yes, we know him.’

  ‘I am going to write a note which I want you to give to him when he comes back. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  On a scrap of paper he writes: I paid a visit this morning in the hope of seeing your team in action, but without luck. I will try again this coming Saturday. Let me know if there is anything you need from home. Inés sends her love. Bolívar misses you. Your loving Simón.

  Whether Inés truly sends her love he does not know. Since the boy left she has been in a cold fury, refusing to speak to him.

  The days pass slowly. He does a lot of dancing alone in his apartment. It elevates him to a pleasantly mindless state; and when he is tired out, he can sleep. Good for the heart, good for the soul, he tells himself as he sinks into darkness. Certainly better than drinking.

  It is the afternoons, the empty afternoons, that are the worst. He takes the dog for walks but avoids the football games in the park and the boys’ curious questions (What has happened to David? When is he coming back?). Bolívar is getting too old for long walks, so for the most part they settle down together, he and the dog, in the little stone garden around the corner, dozing, killing time.

  With David gone, he reflects, Bolívar is all that is left holding our little family together. Is this what Inés and I are reduced to: being parents to an elderly dog?

  Saturday arrives. Again he cycles to the orphanage. The football game is already on the go. The orphans are pitted against a team in black-and-white striped shirts that is clearly more skilful and better coached than the ragged band of innocents from the apartment blocks had been. As he joins the cluster of adults watching from the sidelines, three of the black-and-white team perform a slick interpassing manoeuvre that leaves the defenders stranded and nearly issues in a goal.

  David, playing on the far wing, looks smart in his blue shirt with the number 9 on the back.

  ‘Who are we playing against?’ he inquires of the young man next to him.

  The young man looks at him oddly. ‘Los Halcones. The orphanage team.’

  ‘And the score?’

  ‘No score yet.’

  The black-and-whites are adept at keeping possession of the ball. Repeatedly the children from the orphanage challenge and are left floundering. There is an ugly moment when one of the black-and-white players is charged down and sent sprawling. Dr Fabricante, as referee, has stern words for the offender.

  Just before the half-time break a black-and-white forward lures the goalkeeper out, then coolly lofts the ball over his head into the goal.

  During the break Dr Fabricante gathers the orphans in the middle of the pitch and gives every evidence of instructing them in what strategy to pursue in the second half. It seems odd to him, Simón, that the referee should be acting as coach of one of the teams, but no one else seems to mind.

  In the second half David plays on the side of the field where he is standing. He can thus see clearly what follows when for the one and only time the ball reaches the boy in clear space. With ease he spirits himself past one defender, past a second. But then, with the way to the goal open before him, he trips over his own feet and falls flat on his face. Among the spectators there is a ripple of amusement.

  The game ends in victory for the black-and-whites. In silence, crestfallen, Los Halcones troop off the field.

  He catches up with David as he is about to disappear into the changing-room. ‘Well played, my boy,’ he says. ‘Do you have a message for your mother? She is upset, you know, that you do not come home.’

  David turns on him a smile that he can only call kindly. ‘Thank you for coming, Simón, but you must not come again. You must leave me to do what I have to do.’

  CHAPTER 8

  THE FEATURE of the orphanage that most puzzles him is its school. Why does Dr Fabricante run an autonomous school when he could easily send his charges to public schools? There cannot be more than two hundred children in the orphanage. It makes no sense to engage teachers and hold classes for so few students, some of them as young as five, some almost old enough to go out into the world—no sense, that is, unless the kind of schooling Fabricante wants for his orphans is radically different from what the public schools offer. Arroyo called Fabricante a foe of book learning. What if he proves to be a foe of Don Quixote? Will David submit to being schooled for a life without adventure, a life as a plumber?

  Weeks pass without news from the orphanage. At last, exasperated by his inaction, Inés comes knocking at the door. ‘This has gone on long enough,’ she announces. ‘I am going to the orphanage to fetch David. Are you with me or against me?’

  ‘With you, as always,’ he replies.

  ‘Then come.’

  With no one to direct them, it takes them a while to locate the classrooms, which—they eventually find—are in an isolated building, ranged on two sides of a long corridor open to the skies. Which classroom is David’s? He raps on a door at random and enters. The teacher, a young woman, stops in mid-flow and glares at the two of them. ‘Yes?’ she says.

  David is not among the children sitting neatly and quietly at their desks. ‘My apologies,’ he says. ‘Wrong room.’

  They knock at a second door, enter what looks like a workshop, with long benches instead of desks and woodworking tools hanging on the walls. The children—all boys—interrupt their respective tasks to stare at the intruders. A man in overalls, evidently the teacher, comes forward. ‘May I ask your business?’ he says.

  ‘I am sorry to interrupt. We are looking for a boy named David who joined the school recently.’

  ‘We are his parents,’ says Inés. ‘We have come to fetch him home.’

  ‘This is Las Manos, señora,’ says the teacher. ‘No one here has parents.’

  ‘David does not belong in Las Manos,’ says Inés. ‘He belongs at home, with us. Tell me where to find him.’

  The teacher shrugs and turns his back on them.

  ‘He is in señora Gabriela’s class,’ pipes up one of the children. ‘The last room on this side.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Inés.

  This time it is Inés who pushes the door open, ahead of him. They see David at once, in the middle of the front row, wearing a dark-blue smock like all the other children. He shows no surprise at seeing them.

  ‘Come, David,’ says Inés. ‘Time to say goodbye to this place. Time to come home.’

  David shakes his head. There is a murmur around the room.

  The teacher speaks up, señora Gabriela, a woman of middle age. ‘Please leave my classroom at once,’ she says. ‘If you do not leave, I will be forced to call the director.’

  ‘Call your director,’ says Inés. ‘I would like to tell him to his face what I think of him. Come, David!’

  ‘No,’ says the boy.

  ‘Explain to me, David: who are these people?’ says señora Gabriela.

  ‘I don’t know them,’ says the boy.

  ‘That is nonsense,’ says Inés. ‘We are his parents. Do as you are told, David. Take off that ugly uniform and come.’

  The boy does not stir. Inés grips him by the arm and yanks him to his feet.

  With a furious motion he shakes himself free. ‘Don’t touch me, woman!’ he shouts, glaring.

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that!’ says Inés. ‘I am your mother!’

  ‘You are not! I
am not your child! I am nobody’s child! I am an orphan!’

  Señora Gabriela interposes herself. ‘Señor, señora, that is enough! Please leave at once. You have caused enough of a disturbance. David, sit down, compose yourself. Children, return to your seats.’

  There is nothing more to be achieved. ‘Come, Inés,’ he whispers, and leads her out.

  After their ignominious failure to recover the boy, Inés declares she will have nothing more to do with them—with David or with him, Simón. ‘From now on I will be leading my own life.’ He bows his head in silence and withdraws.

  Time passes. Then, early one morning, there is a knock on his door. It is Inés. ‘I have had a call from the orphanage. Something has happened to David. He is in the infirmary. They want us to fetch him. Do you want to come? If not, I will go by myself.’

  ‘I will come.’

  The infirmary is situated well away from the main buildings. They enter to find David sitting in a wheelchair by the door, fully dressed, his satchel on his lap, looking pale and strained. Inés gives him a kiss on the forehead, which he accepts abstractedly. He, Simón, tries to embrace him but is brushed off.

  ‘What has happened to you?’ says Inés.

  The boy remains silent.

  A nurse materializes. ‘Good afternoon, you must be David’s guardians, about whom he speaks so much. I am Sister Luisa. David has been through a rough spell, but he has been brave, haven’t you, David?’

  The boy ignores her.

  ‘What is going on here?’ says Inés. ‘Why was I not informed?’

  Before Sister Luisa can respond, the boy cuts in. ‘I want to go. Can we go?’

  With Inés stalking angrily ahead, he and Sister Luisa wheel the boy through the grounds past groups of curious children. ‘Goodbye, David!’ one of them calls.

  Inés holds open the door of the car. One on each side, he and Sister Luisa raise the boy to his feet and ease him into the back seat. He yields like a crumpled toy.

  He, Simón, turns to face Sister Luisa. ‘So that is all? No word of explanation? Is David being sent home because he is not good enough for you, for your institution? Or do you expect us to fix him up and bring him back? What has happened to him? Why can’t he walk?’

  ‘I have an infirmary to run all by myself, with no assistance,’ says Sister Luisa. ‘David is a fine young man and he will soon be well again, but he needs special care and I don’t have time for that.’

  ‘And does your director, your Dr Fabricante, know about this, or are you getting rid of David on your own initiative because you are too busy to take care of him? I ask again: what has happened to him?’

  ‘I fell,’ says the boy, from the back of the car. ‘We were playing football and I fell. That’s all.’

  ‘Have you broken a bone?’

  ‘No,’ says the boy. ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘He has been seen by a doctor,’ says Sister Luisa. ‘Twice. He has a general inflammation of the joints. The doctor gave him an injection to bring down the swelling but it has not been effective.’

  ‘So this is what your orphanage does to children,’ says Inés. ‘Does it have a name, this disease for which he was given an injection?’

  ‘It is not a disease, it is an inflammation of the joints,’ says Sister Luisa. ‘Inflammations are not uncommon among children in the growing phase.’

  ‘That is nonsense,’ says Inés. ‘I have never heard of a child growing so fast that he can’t walk on his own two legs. It is a scandal, what you have done to him.’

  Sister Luisa shrugs. It is cold, she wants to get back to the snug infirmary. ‘Goodbye, David,’ she says, and waves through the window.

  Children from the orphanage gather curiously around, wave as they drive off.

  ‘Now you must speak, David,’ says Inés. ‘Start at the beginning. Tell us what happened.’

  ‘There is nothing to tell. We were in the middle of a game and I fell and I couldn’t get up, so they put me in the infirmary. They thought I had broken my leg, but the doctor came and he said it was not broken.’

  ‘Were you in pain?’

  ‘No. The pain comes in the night.’

  ‘And then? Tell me what happened next.’

  He, Simón, intervenes. ‘That is enough for now, Inés. Tomorrow we will take him to a doctor, a proper doctor, and get a proper diagnosis. After that we will know how to proceed. In the meantime, my boy, I cannot tell you how happy your mother and I are that you are coming home. It will be a new chapter in the book of your life. Who won the football game?’

  ‘Nobody. They scored a goal that was good and we scored a goal that was good and we scored a goal that was not so good.’

  ‘All goals count in football, good or bad. A good goal plus a bad goal is two goals, so you won.’

  ‘I said and. I said we scored a good goal and we scored a bad goal. And isn’t the same as plus.’

  They reach the apartment block. Despite the pain in his back it is left to him to carry the boy upstairs like a sack of potatoes.

  In the course of the evening, bit by bit, a fuller account emerges. Even before the fateful game of football, it turns out, there had been premonitions: all of a sudden David’s legs would give way and he would find himself sprawling on the ground as if he had been slapped by a giant hand. A moment later his vital forces would return and he could pick himself up.

  From the outside it looked as if he had simply tripped over his own feet. But then came the day when he fell and the strength did not flow back into his legs. He had lain on the field, helpless as a beetle, until they had come with a stretcher and carried him away. From that day onward he had been in the infirmary, missing his classes.

  Food in the infirmary was horrible: boiled cereal in the morning, soup with toast in the evening. Everyone in the infirmary hated the food and wanted to get out.

  His legs were sore all the time. Sister Luisa made him do exercises to strengthen them but the exercises did not help.

  The pain was worst at night. Some nights he could not sleep because of the pain.

  Sister Luisa had a room of her own next to the ward but she got into a bad temper if she was woken so no one ever called her.

  The pain was in his knees but also in his ankles. Sometimes it would lessen the pain if he lay with his knees pressed to his chest.

  Dr Julio paid a brief visit every second day because inspecting the infirmary was one of his duties, but never spoke to him, David, because he was cross with him for falling during the football game.

  ‘I am sure that is not true,’ says he, Simón. ‘I do not happen to like Dr Julio, but I am sure he would not bear a grudge against a child for being ill.’

  ‘I am not ill,’ says David. ‘There is something wrong with me.’

  ‘Having something wrong with you and being ill are different ways of saying the same thing.’

  ‘They are not the same. Dr Julio does not believe I am a real orphan. He only wants me in his orphanage to play football.’

  ‘I am sure that is not true. But do you still want to be an orphan, now that you have seen what goes on in an orphanage?’

  ‘I am a real orphan. Las Manos is not a real orphanage.’

  ‘It looks pretty real to me. What do you think a real orphanage looks like?’

  ‘I can’t say yet. I will recognize it when I see it.’

  ‘Anyway,’ says Inés, ‘you are home now, where you belong. You have learned your lesson.’

  The boy is silent.

  ‘What would you like to eat tonight? Choose anything you wish. This is a big day for all of us.’

  ‘I want mashed potato with peas. And pumpkin with cinnamon. And cocoa. A big mug.’

  ‘Good. I will fry some chicken livers to go with the mashed potato.’

  ‘No. I’m not eating chicken meat anymore.’

  ‘Is that what they teach you at the orphanage—that you must not eat chicken meat?’

  ‘I taught myself.’

  ‘You
have lost a lot of weight. You need to build up your strength.’

  ‘I don’t need strength.’

  ‘We all need our strength. What about some nice fish?’

  ‘No. Fish are alive too.’

  ‘Potatoes are alive. Peas are alive. They are just alive in a different way. If you refuse to eat living things you will waste away and die.’

  The boy is silent.

  ‘But this is a great day, so we are not going to quarrel,’ says Inés. ‘I will make potatoes and peas and carrots. We don’t have pumpkin. I will buy pumpkin tomorrow. Now it is time for you to take a bath.’

  It has been a long time since he last saw the boy naked, and he is disturbed by what he sees. The boy’s hip bones jut out like an old man’s. His knee joints are visibly swollen and there is an ugly raw patch on the small of his back.

  ‘What happened to your back?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says the boy. ‘It is just sore. I am sore all over.’

  ‘You poor child,’ he says, and gives him a clumsy hug. ‘You poor child! What has happened to you?’

  Sobs convulse the boy. ‘Why does it have to be me?’ he weeps.

  ‘We will see a doctor tomorrow and he will give you medicine that will soon put you right. Now let us have our bath, then a nice supper, then Inés will give you a pill to make you sleep. In the morning everything will look different, I promise.’

  Inés gives him not one pill but two, and he does at last fall asleep, curled up on one side with his knees to his chest.

  ‘So he has come home,’ he says to Inés. ‘Maybe we are not such bad parents after all.’

  Inés gives the ghost of a smile. He reaches out and takes her hand, a gesture she for once permits.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE DOCTOR they see is a paediatrician, a consultant at the city hospital, strongly recommended by Inocencia, one of Inés’s colleagues at Modas Modernas (‘My little girl used to cough and wheeze all the time, none of the doctors could help her, we were desperate, then we took her to Dr Ribeiro, and she has not had a single episode since then’).

  Dr Ribeiro turns out to be a plump, balding man in his middle years. He wears glasses with such large frames that his face seems to disappear behind them. He greets Inés and him, Simón, abstractedly: all his attention is given to David.