Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [201]
Joana came into the room where we were sitting, still wearing her raincoat (I remember that long raincoat of hers). ‘My sister,’ said Maria Regina, as if she was explaining who this new person was rather than introducing her. Joana said nothing, just looked shy, and as for Mr Coetzee the teacher, he almost knocked over the coffee table trying to get to his feet.
Why is Maria Regina besotted with this foolish man? What does she see in him? That was the question I asked myself. It was easy enough to guess what a lonely célibataire might see in my daughter, who was turning into a real dark-eyed beauty though she was still only a child, but what made her learn poems by heart for this man, something she had never done for her other teachers? Had he perhaps been whispering words to her that had turned her head? Was that the explanation? Was there something going on between the two of them that she was keeping secret from me?
Now if this man were to become interested in Joana, I thought to myself, it would be a different story. Joana may not have a head for poetry, but at least she has her feet on the ground.
‘Joana is working this year at Clicks,’ I said. ‘To get experience. Next year she will take a management course. To be a manager.’
Mr Coetzee nodded abstractedly. Joana said nothing at all.
‘Take off your coat, my child,’ I said, ‘and drink some tea.’ We did not normally drink tea, we drank coffee. Joana brought home some tea the day before for this guest of ours, Earl Grey tea it was called, very English but not very nice, I wondered what we were going to do with the rest of the packet.
‘Mr Coetzee is from the school,’ I repeated to Joana, as if she did not know. ‘He is telling us how he is not English but is nevertheless the English teacher.’
‘I am not, properly speaking, the English teacher,’ Mr Coetzee interjected, addressing Joana. ‘I am the Extra English teacher. That means I have been hired by the school to help students who are having difficulty with English. I try to get them through the examinations. So I am a kind of examination coach. That would be a better description of what I do, a better name for me.’
‘Do we have to talk about school?’ said Maria Regina. ‘It is so boring.’
But what we were talking about was not boring at all. Painful, perhaps, for Mr Coetzee, but not boring. ‘Go on,’ I said to him, ignoring her.
‘I do not intend to be an examination coach for the rest of my life,’ he said. ‘It is something I am doing for the present, something I happen to be qualified to do, in order to make a living. But it is not my vocation. It is not what I was called into the world to do.’
Called into the world. More and more strange.
‘If you would like me to explain my philosophy of teaching I can do so,’ he said. ‘It is quite brief, brief and simple.’
‘Go on,’ I said, ‘let us hear your brief philosophy.’
‘What I call my philosophy of teaching is in fact a philosophy of learning. It comes out of Plato, modified. Before true learning can occur, I believe, there must be in the student’s heart a certain yearning for the truth, a certain fire. The true student burns to know. In the teacher she recognizes, or apprehends, the one who has come closer than herself to the truth. So much does she desire the truth embodied in the teacher that she is prepared to burn her old self up to attain it. For his part, the teacher recognizes and encourages the fire in the student, and responds to it by burning with an intenser light. Thus together the two of them ascend to a higher realm. So to speak.’
He paused, smiling. Now that he had had his say he seemed more relaxed. What a strange, vain man! I thought. Burn herself up! What nonsense he talks! Dangerous nonsense too! Out of Plato! Is he making fun of us? But Maria Regina, I noticed, was leaning forward, devouring his face with her eyes. Maria Regina did not think he was joking. This is not good! I said to