Disgrace

  ‘Do you remember me? David Lurie, from Cape Town.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Isaacs, and sits down again. He is wearing the same overlarge suit: his neck vanishes into the jacket, from which he peers out like a sharp-beaked bird caught in a sack. The windows are closed, there is a smell of stale smoke.

  ‘If you don’t want to see me I’ll leave at once,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ says Isaacs. ‘Sit. I’m just checking attendances. Do you mind if I finish first?’

  ‘Please.’

  There is a framed picture on the desk. From where he sits he cannot see it, but he knows what it will be: Melanie and Desiree, apples of their father’s eye, with the mother who bore them.

  ‘So,’ says Isaacs, closing the last register. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  He had expected to be tense, but in fact finds himself quite calm.

  ‘After Melanie lodged her complaint,’ he says, ‘the university held an official inquiry. As a result I resigned my post. That is the history; you must be aware of it.’

  Isaacs stares at him quizzically, giving away nothing.

  ‘Since then I have been at a loose end. I was passing through George today, and I thought I might stop and speak to you. I remember our last meeting as being . . . heated. But I thought I would drop in anyway, and say what is on my heart.’

  That much is true. He does want to speak his heart. The question is, what is on his heart?

  Isaacs has a cheap Bic pen in his hand. He runs his fingers down the shaft, inverts it, runs his fingers down the shaft, over and over, in a motion that is mechanical rather than impatient.

  He continues. ‘You have heard Melanie’s side of the story. I would like to give you mine, if you are prepared to hear it.

  ‘It began without premeditation on my part. It began as an adventure, one of those sudden little adventures that men of a certain kind have, that I have, that keep me going. Excuse me for talking in this way. I am trying to be frank.

  ‘In Melanie’s case, however, something unexpected happened. I think of it as a fire. She struck up a fire in me.’

  He pauses. The pen continues its dance. A sudden little adventure. Men of a certain kind. Does the man behind the desk have adventures? The more he sees of him the more he doubts it. He would not be surprised if Isaacs were something in the church, a deacon or a server, whatever a server is.

  ‘A fire: what is remarkable about that? If a fire goes out, you strike a match and start another one. That is how I used to think. Yet in the olden days people worshipped fire. They thought twice before letting a flame die, a flame-god. It was that kind of flame your daughter kindled in me. Not hot enough to burn me up, but real: real fire.’

  Burned – burnt – burnt up.

  The pen has stopped moving. ‘Mr Lurie,’ says the girl’s father, and there is a crooked, pained smile on his face, ‘I ask myself what on earth you think you are up to, coming to my school and telling me stories – ’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s outrageous, I know. That’s the end. That’s all I wanted to say, in self-defence. How is Melanie?’

  ‘Melanie is well, since you ask. She phones every week. She has resumed her studies, they gave her a special dispensation to do that, I’m sure you can understand, under the circumstances. She is going on with theatre work in her spare time, and doing well. So Melanie is all right. What about you? What are your plans now that you have left the profession?’

  ‘I have a daughter myself, you will be interested to hear. She owns a farm; I expect to spend some of my time with her, helping out. Also I have a book to complete, a sort of book. One way or another I will keep myself busy.’

  He pauses. Isaacs is regarding him with what strikes him as piercing attention.

  ‘So,’ says Isaacs softly, and the word leaves his lips like a sigh: ‘how are the mighty fallen!’

  Fallen? Yes, there has been a fall, no doubt about that. But mighty? Does mighty describe him? He thinks of himself as obscure and growing obscurer. A figure from the margins of history.

  ‘Perhaps it does us good’, he says, ‘to have a fall every now and then. As long as we don’t break.’

  ‘Good. Good. Good,’ says Isaacs, still fixing him with that intent look. For the first time he detects a trace of Melanie in him: a shapeliness of the mouth and lips. On an impulse he reaches across the desk, tries to shake the man’s hand, ends up by stroking the back of it. Cool, hairless skin.

  ‘Mr Lurie,’ says Isaacs: ‘is there something else you want to tell me, besides the story of yourself and Melanie? You mentioned there was something on your heart.’

  ‘On my heart? No. No, I just stopped by to find out how Melanie was.’ He rises. ‘Thank you for seeing me, I appreciate it.’ He reaches out a hand, straightforwardly this time. ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He is at the door – he is, in fact, in the outer office, which is now empty – when Isaacs calls out: ‘Mr Lurie! Just a minute!’

  He returns.

  ‘What are your plans for the evening?’

  ‘This evening? I’ve checked in at a hotel. I have no plans.’

  ‘Come and have a meal with us. Come for dinner.’

  ‘I don’t think your wife would welcome that.’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. Come anyway. Break bread with us. We eat at seven. Let me write down the address for you.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that. I have been to your home already, and met your daughter. It was she who directed me here.’

  Isaacs does not bat an eyelid. ‘Good,’ he says.

  The front door is opened by Isaacs himself. ‘Come in, come in,’ he says, and ushers him into the living-room. Of the wife there is no sign, nor of the second daughter.

  ‘I brought an offering,’ he says, and holds out a bottle of wine.

  Isaacs thanks him, but seems unsure what to do with the wine. ‘Can I give you some? I’ll just go and open it.’ He leaves the room; there is a whispering in the kitchen. He comes back. ‘We seem to have lost the corkscrew. But Dezzy will borrow from the neighbours.’

  They are teetotal, clearly. He should have thought of that. A tight little petit-bourgeois household, frugal, prudent. The car washed, the lawn mowed, savings in the bank. All their resources concentrated on launching the two jewel daughters into the future: clever Melanie, with her theatrical ambitions; Desiree, the beauty.

  He remembers Melanie, on the first evening of their closer acquaintance, sitting beside him on the sofa drinking the coffee with the shot-glass of whisky in it that was intended to – the word comes up reluctantly – lubricate her. Her trim little body; her sexy clothes; her eyes gleaming with excitement. Stepping out in the forest where the wild wolf prowls.

  Desiree the beauty enters with the bottle and a corkscrew. As she crosses the floor towards them she hesitates an instant, conscious that a greeting is owed. ‘Pa?’ she murmurs with a hint of confusion, holding out the bottle.

  So: she has found out who he is. They have discussed him, had a tussle over him perhaps: the unwanted visitor, the man whose name is darkness.

  Her father has trapped her hand in his. ‘Desiree,’ he says, ‘this is Mr Lurie.’

  ‘Hello, Desiree.’

  The hair that had screened her face is tossed back. She meets his gaze, still embarrassed, but stronger now that she is under her father’s wing. ‘Hello,’ she murmurs; and he thinks, My God, my God!

  As for her, she cannot hide from him what is passing through her mind: So this is the man my sister has been naked with! So this is the man she has done it with! This old man!

  There is a separate little dining-room, with a hatch to the kitchen. Four places are set with the best cutlery; candles are burning. ‘Sit, sit!’ says Isaacs. Still no sign of his wife. ‘Excuse me a moment.’ Isaacs disappears into the kitchen. He is left facing Desiree across the table. She hangs her head, no longer so brave.

  Then they return, the two parents together. He stands up. ‘You haven’t met
my wife. Doreen, our guest, Mr Lurie.’

  ‘I am grateful to you for receiving me in your home, Mrs Isaacs.’

  Mrs Isaacs is a short woman, growing dumpy in middle age, with bowed legs that give her a faintly rolling walk. But he can see where the sisters get their looks. A real beauty she must have been in her day.

  Her features remain stiff, she avoids his eye, but she does give the slightest of nods. Obedient; a good wife and helpmeet. And ye shall be as one flesh. Will the daughters take after her?

  ‘Desiree,’ she commands, ‘come and help carry.’

  Gratefully the child tumbles out of her chair.

  ‘Mr Isaacs, I am just causing upset in your home,’ he says. ‘It was kind of you to invite me, I appreciate it, but it is better that I leave.’

  Isaacs gives a smile in which, to his surprise, there is a hint of gaiety. ‘Sit down, sit down! We’ll be all right! We will do it!’ He leans closer. ‘You have to be strong!’

  Then Desiree and her mother are back bearing dishes: chicken in a bubbling tomato stew that gives off aromas of ginger and cumin, rice, an array of salads and pickles. Just the kind of food he most missed, living with Lucy.

  The bottle of wine is set before him, and a solitary wine glass.

  ‘Am I the only one drinking?’ he says.

  ‘Please,’ says Isaacs. ‘Go ahead.’

  He pours a glass. He does not like sweet wines, he bought the Late Harvest imagining it would be to their taste. Well, so much the worse for him.

  There remains the prayer to get through. The Isaacs take hands; there is nothing for it but to stretch out his hands too, left to the girl’s father, right to her mother. ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful,’ says Isaacs. ‘Amen,’ say his wife and daughter; and he, David Lurie, mumbles ‘Amen’ too and lets go the two hands, the father’s cool as silk, the mother’s small, fleshy, warm from her labours.

  Mrs Isaacs dishes up. ‘Mind, it’s hot,’ she says as she passes his plate. Those are her only words to him.

  During the meal he tries to be a good guest, to talk entertainingly, to fill the silences. He talks about Lucy, about the boarding kennels, about her bee-keeping and her horticultural projects, about his Saturday morning stints at the market. He glosses over the attack, mentioning only that his car was stolen. He talks about the Animal Welfare League, but not about the incinerator in the hospital grounds or his stolen afternoons with Bev Shaw.

  Stitched together in this way, the story unrolls without shadows. Country life in all its idiot simplicity. How he wishes it could be true! He is tired of shadows, of complications, of complicated people. He loves his daughter, but there are times when he wishes she were a simpler being: simpler, neater. The man who raped her, the leader of the gang, was like that. Like a blade cutting the wind.

  He has a vision of himself stretched out on an operating table. A scalpel flashes; from throat to groin he is laid open; he sees it all yet feels no pain. A surgeon, bearded, bends over him, frowning. What is all this stuff? growls the surgeon. He pokes at the gall bladder. What is this? He cuts it out, tosses it aside. He pokes at the heart. What is this?

  ‘Your daughter – does she run her farm all alone?’ asks Isaacs.

  ‘She has a man who helps sometimes. Petrus. An African.’ And he talks about Petrus, solid, dependable Petrus, with his two wives and his moderate ambitions.

  He is less hungry than he thought he would be. Conversation flags, but somehow they get through the meal. Desiree excuses herself, goes off to do her homework. Mrs Isaacs clears the table.

  ‘I should be leaving,’ he says. ‘I am due to make an early start tomorrow.’

  ‘Wait, stay a moment,’ says Isaacs.

  They are alone. He can prevaricate no longer.

  ‘About Melanie,’ he says.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘One word more, then I am finished. It could have turned out differently, I believe, between the two of us, despite our ages. But there was something I failed to supply, something’ – he hunts for the word – ‘lyrical. I lack the lyrical. I manage love too well. Even when I burn I don’t sing, if you understand me. For which I am sorry. I am sorry for what I took your daughter through. You have a wonderful family. I apologize for the grief I have caused you and Mrs Isaacs. I ask for your pardon.’

  Wonderful is not right. Better would be exemplary.

  ‘So,’ says Isaacs, ‘at last you have apologized. I wondered when it was coming.’ He ponders. He has not taken his seat; now he begins to pace up and down. ‘You are sorry. You lacked the lyrical, you say. If you had had the lyrical, we would not be where we are today. But I say to myself, we are all sorry when we are found out. Then we are very sorry. The question is not, are we sorry? The question is, what lesson have we learned? The question is, what are we going to do now that we are sorry?’

  He is about to reply, but Isaacs raises a hand. ‘May I pronounce the word God in your hearing? You are not one of those people who get upset when they hear God’s name? The question is, what does God want from you, besides being very sorry? Have you any ideas, Mr Lurie?’

  Though distracted by Isaacs’s back-and-forth, he tries to pick his words carefully. ‘Normally I would say’, he says, ‘that after a certain age one is too old to learn lessons. One can only be punished and punished. But perhaps that is not true, not always. I wait to see. As for God, I am not a believer, so I will have to translate what you call God and God’s wishes into my own terms. In my own terms, I am being punished for what happened between myself and your daughter. I am sunk into a state of disgrace from which it will not be easy to lift myself. It is not a punishment I have refused. I do not murmur against it. On the contrary, I am living it out from day to day, trying to accept disgrace as my state of being. Is it enough for God, do you think, that I live in disgrace without term?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Lurie. Normally I would say, don’t ask me, ask God. But since you don’t pray, you have no way to ask God. So God must find his own means of telling you. Why do you think you are here, Mr Lurie?’

  He is silent.

  ‘I will tell you. You were passing through George, and it occurred to you that your student’s family was from George, and you thought to yourself, Why not? You didn’t plan on it, yet now you find yourself in our home. That must come as a surprise to you. Am I right?’

  ‘Not quite. I was not telling the truth. I was not just passing through. I came to George for one reason alone: to speak to you. I had been thinking about it for some time.’

  ‘Yes, you came to speak to me, you say, but why me? I’m easy to speak to, too easy. All the children at my school know that. With Isaacs you get off easy – that is what they say.’ He is smiling again, the same crooked smile as before. ‘So who did you really come to speak to?’

  Now he is sure of it: he does not like this man, does not like his tricks.

  He rises, blunders through the empty dining-room and down the passage. From behind a half-closed door he hears low voices. He pushes the door open. Sitting on the bed are Desiree and her mother, doing something with a skein of wool. Astonished at the sight of him, they fall silent.

  With careful ceremony he gets to his knees and touches his forehead to the floor.

  Is that enough? he thinks. Will that do? If not, what more?

  He raises his head. The two of them are still sitting there, frozen. He meets the mother’s eyes, then the daughter’s, and again the current leaps, the current of desire.

  He gets to his feet, a little more creakily than he would have wished. ‘Good night,’ he says. ‘Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for the meal.’

  At eleven o’clock there is a call for him in his hotel room. It is Isaacs. ‘I am phoning to wish you strength for the future.’ A pause. ‘There is a question I never got to ask, Mr Lurie. You are not hoping for us to intervene on your behalf, are you, with the university?’

  ‘To intervene?’

  ‘Yes. To rein
state you, for instance.’

  ‘The thought never crossed my mind. I have finished with the university.’

  ‘Because the path you are on is one that God has ordained for you. It is not for us to interfere.’

  ‘Understood.’

  TWENTY

  HE RE-ENTERS Cape Town on the N2. He has been away less than three months, yet in that time the shanty settlements have crossed the highway and spread east of the airport. The stream of cars has to slow down while a child with a stick herds a stray cow off the road. Inexorably, he thinks, the country is coming to the city. Soon there will be cattle again on Rondebosch Common; soon history will have come full circle.

  So he is home again. It does not feel like a homecoming. He cannot imagine taking up residence once more in the house on Torrance Road, in the shadow of the university, skulking about like a criminal, dodging old colleagues. He will have to sell the house, move to a flat somewhere cheaper.

  His finances are in chaos. He has not paid a bill since he left. He is living on credit; any day now his credit is going to dry up.

  The end of roaming. What comes after the end of roaming? He sees himself, white-haired, stooped, shuffling to the corner shop to buy his half-litre of milk and half-loaf of bread; he sees himself sitting blankly at a desk in a room full of yellowing papers, waiting for the afternoon to peter out so that he can cook his evening meal and go to bed. The life of a superannuated scholar, without hope, without prospect: is that what he is prepared to settle for?

  He unlocks the front gate. The garden is overgrown, the mailbox stuffed tight with flyers, advertisements. Though well fortified by most standards, the house has stood empty for months: too much to hope for that it will not have been visited. And indeed, from the moment he opens the front door and smells the air he knows there is something wrong. His heart begins to thud with a sick excitement.

  There is no sound. Whoever was here is gone. But how did they get in? Tiptoeing from room to room, he soon finds out. The bars over one of the back windows have been torn out of the wall and folded back, the windowpanes smashed, leaving enough of a hole for a child or even a small man to climb through. A mat of leaves and sand, blown in by the wind, has caked on the floor.