Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [29]
It will be up to the school inspectors, he learns, to remove false English boys from the English classes. He lives in dread of the day when the inspector will come, run his finger down the register, call out his name, and tell him to pack his books. He has a plan for that day, carefully worked out. He will pack his books and leave the room without protest. But he will not go to the Afrikaans class. Instead, calmly, so as not to attract attention, he will walk over to the bicycle shed, take his bicycle, and ride home so fast that no one can catch him. Then he will close and lock the front door and tell his mother that he is not going back to school, that if she betrays him he will kill himself.
An image of Dr Malan is engraved in his mind. Dr Malan’s round, bald face is without understanding or mercy. His gullet pulses like a frog’s. His lips are pursed.
He has not forgotten Dr Malan’s first act in 1948: to ban all Captain Marvel and Superman comics, allowing only comics with animal characters, comics intended to keep one a baby, to pass through the Customs.
He thinks of the Afrikaans songs they are made to sing at school. He has come to hate them so much that he wants to scream and shout and make farting noises during the singing, particularly during ‘Kom ons gaan blomme pluk,’ with its children gambolling in the fields among chirping birds and jolly insects.
One Saturday morning he and two friends cycle out of Worcester along the De Doorns road. Within half an hour they are out of sight of human habitation. They leave their bicycles at the roadside and strike off into the hills. They find a cave, make a fire, and eat the sandwiches they have brought. Suddenly a huge, truculent Afrikaans boy in khaki shorts appears. ‘Wie het julle toestemming gegee?’ – Who gave you permission?
They are struck dumb. A cave: do they need permission to be in a cave? They try to make up lies, but it is no use. ‘Julle sal hier moet bly totdat my pa kom,’ the boy announces: You will have to wait here till my father comes. He mentions a lat, a strop: a cane, a strap; they are going to be taught a lesson.
He grows light-headed with fear. Here, out in the veld where there is no one to call to, they are going to be beaten. There is no appeal they can make. For the fact is they are guilty, he most of all. He was the one who assured the others, when they climbed through the fence, that it could not be a farm, it was just veld. He is the ringleader, it was his idea from the beginning, there is no one else on to whom the blame can be shifted.
The farmer arrives with his dog, a sly-looking, yellow-eyed Alsatian. Again the questions, this time in English, questions without answers. By what right are they here? Why did they not ask permission? Again the pathetic, stupid defence must be gone through: they did not know, they thought it was just veld. To himself he swears he will never make the same mistake again. Never again will he be so stupid as to climb through a fence and think he can get away with it. Stupid! he thinks to himself: stupid, stupid, stupid!
The farmer does not happen to have a lat or a strap or a whip with him. ‘Your lucky day,’ he says. They stand rooted to the spot, not understanding. ‘Go.’
Stupidly they clamber down the hillside, careful not to run for fear the dog will come after them growling and slavering, to where their bicycles wait at the roadside. There is nothing they can say to redeem the experience. The Afrikaners have not even behaved badly. It is they who have lost.
Ten
In the early mornings there are Coloured children trotting along the National Road with pencil-cases and exercise books, some even with satchels on their backs,