Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [233]
His attested incompetence in matters of the heart; transference (Freudian style) in the classroom and his repeated failures to manage it.
Undated fragment
His father works as a bookkeeper for a firm that imports and sells components for Japanese cars. Because most of these components are made not in Japan but in Taiwan, South Korea, or even Thailand, they cannot be called authentic parts. On the other hand, because they do not come in forged manufacturers’ packaging but proclaim (in small print) their country of origin, they are not pirate parts either.
The owners of the firm are two brothers, now in late middle age, who speak English with eastern European inflections and pretend to be innocent of Afrikaans though in fact they were born in Port Elizabeth and understand street Afrikaans perfectly well. They employ a staff of five: three counter hands, a bookkeeper, and a bookkeeper’s assistant. The bookkeeper and his assistant have a little wood and glass cubicle of their own to insulate them from the activities around them. As for the hands, they spend their time bustling back and forth between the counter and the racks of auto parts that stretch into the shadowy recesses of the store. The chief counter hand, Cedric, had been with them from the start. No matter how obscure a part may be – a fan housing for a 1968 Suzuki three-wheeler, a kingpin bush for an Impact five-ton truck – Cedric will unerringly know where to find it.
Once a year the firm does a stocktaking during which every part bought or sold, down to the last nut and bolt, is accounted for. It is a major undertaking: most dealers would shut their doors for the duration. But Acme Auto Parts has got where it has got, say the brothers, by staying open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. five days of the week, plus 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturdays, come hell or high water, fifty-two weeks of the year, Christmas and New Year excepted. Therefore the stocktaking has to be done after hours.
As bookkeeper his father is at the centre of operations. During the stocktaking period he sacrifices his lunch hour and works late into the evening. He works alone, without help: working overtime, and therefore catching a late train home, is something that neither Mrs Noerdien, his father’s assistant, nor even the counter hands is prepared to do. Riding the trains after dark has become too dangerous, they say: too many commuters are being attacked and robbed. So after closing time it is only the brothers, in their office, and his father, in his cubicle, who stay behind, poring over documents and ledgers.
‘If I had Mrs Noerdien for just one extra hour a day,’ says his father, ‘we could be finished in no time. I could call out the figures and she could check. Doing it by myself is hopeless.’
His father is not a qualified bookkeeper; but during the years he spent running his own legal practice he picked up at least the rudiments. He has been the brothers’ bookkeeper for twelve years, ever since he gave up the law. The brothers, it must be presumed – Cape Town is not a big city – are cognisant of his chequered past in the legal profession. They are cognisant of it and therefore – it must be presumed – keep a close watch on him, in case, even so close to retirement, he should think of trying to diddle them.
‘If you could bring the ledgers home with you,’ he suggests to his father, ‘I could give you a hand with the checking.’
His father shakes his head, and he can guess why. When his father refers to the ledgers, he does so in hushed tones, as though they were holy books, as though keeping them were a priestly function. There is more to keeping books, his attitude would seem to suggest, than applying elementary arithmetic to columns of figures.
‘I don’t think I can bring the ledgers home,’ his father says. ‘Not on the train. The brothers would never allow it.’
He can appreciate that. What would become of Acme if his father were mugged and the sacred books stolen?
‘Then let me come in to the city at the end of the day, at closing time, and take over from Mrs Noerdien.