Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [184]
If she had children, she would not only do her utmost to purge them of their Coetzee inheritance, she would think seriously of doing what Carol is doing: whisking them out of the country, giving them a fresh start in America or Australia or New Zealand, places where they can look forward to a decent future. But as a childless woman she is spared having to make that decision. She has another role prepared for her: to devote herself to her husband and to the farm; to live as good a life as the times allow, as good and as fair and as just.
The barrenness of the future that yawns before Lukas and herself – this is not a new source of pain, no, it returns again and again like a toothache, to the extent that it has by now begun to bore her. She wishes she could dismiss it and get some sleep. How is it that this cousin of hers, whose body manages to be both scrawny and soft at the same time, does not feel the cold, while she, who is undeniably more than a few kilos over her best weight, has begun to shiver? On cold nights she and her husband sleep tight and warm against each other. Why does her cousin’s body fail to warm her? Not only does he not warm her, he seems to suck her own body heat away. Is he by nature as heatless as he is sexless?
A ripple of true anger runs through her; and, as if sensing it, this male being beside her stirs. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, sitting upright.
‘Sorry for what?’
‘I lost track.’
She has no idea what he is talking about and is not going to inquire. He slumps down and in a moment is asleep again.
Where is God in all of this? With God the Father she finds it harder and harder to have dealings. What faith she once had in Him and His providence she has by now lost. Godlessness: an inheritance from the godless Coetzees, no doubt. When she thinks of God, all she can picture is a bearded figure with a booming voice and a grand manner who inhabits a mansion on top of a hill with hosts of servants rushing around anxiously, doing things for Him. Like a good Coetzee, she prefers to steer clear of people like that. The Coetzees look askance at self-important folk, crack jokes about them sotto voce. She may not be as good at jokes as the rest of the family, but she does find God a bit of a trial, a bit of a bore.
Now I must protest. You are really going too far. I said nothing remotely like that. You are putting words of your own in my mouth.
I’m sorry, I must have got carried away. I’ll fix it. I’ll tone it down.
Cracking jokes sotto voce. Nevertheless, does God in His infinite wisdom have a plan for her and for Lukas? For the Roggeveld? For South Africa? Will things that look merely chaotic today, chaotic and purposeless, reveal themselves at some future date to be part of some vast, benign design? For instance: Is there a larger explanation for why a woman in the prime of her life must spend four nights a week sleeping alone in a dismal second-floor room in the Grand Hotel in Calvinia, month after month, perhaps even year after year, with no end in sight; and for why her husband, a born farmer, must spend most of his time trucking other people’s livestock to the abattoirs in Paarl and Maitland – an explanation larger than that the farm would go under without the income these soul-destroying jobs bring in? And is there a larger explanation for why the farm that the two of them are slaving to keep afloat will in the fullness of time pass into the care not of a son of their loins but of some ignoramus nephew of her husband’s, if it is not swallowed down by the bank first? If, in God’s vast, benign design, it was never intended that this part of the world – the Roggeveld, the Karoo – should be profitably farmed, then what exactly is His intention for it? Is it meant to fall back into the