Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee

Author:J. M. Coetzee [Coetzee, J. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Unread
ISBN: 9780099461920
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2004-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

5

The Humanities in Africa

I

She has not seen her sister in twelve years, not since their mother's funeral that rainy day in Melbourne. That sister, whom she continues to think of as Blanche but whose public name has for so long been Sister Bridget that she must by now think of herself as a Bridget, has moved--for good, it seems--to Africa, following a vocation. Trained as a classical scholar, retrained as a medical missionary, she has risen to be administrator of a hospital of no mean size in rural Zululand. Since Aids swept over the region, she has concentrated the energies of the Hospital of the Blessed Mary on the Hill, Marianhill, more and more on the plight of children born infected. Two years ago Blanche wrote a book, Living for Hope, about the work of Marianhill. Unexpectedly the book caught on. She did a lecture tour of Canada and the United States, publicizing the work of the Order, raising money; she was featured in Newsweek. So, having given up an academic career for a life of obscure toil, Blanche is suddenly famous, famous enough, now, to be having an honorary degree conferred on her by a university in her adopted country.

It is for that degree, for the ceremony of its conferral, that she herself, Elizabeth, Blanche's younger sister, has come to a land she does not know and has never particularly wanted to know, to this ugly city (she flew in only hours ago, saw it spread out below her with its acres of scarred earth, its vast sterile mine dumps). She is here, and she is tired to the bone. Hours of her life lost in the passage over the Indian Ocean; futile to believe she will ever recover them. She ought to take a nap, perk herself up, recover her humour, before she encounters Blanche; but she is too restless, too disoriented, too--she feels it obscurely--unwell. Is it something she picked up on the plane? To fall sick among strangers: what misery! She prays she is wrong.

They have installed the two of them at the same hotel, Sister Bridget Costello and Ms Elizabeth Costello. When the arrangements were made, it was enquired whether they would prefer single rooms or a shared suite. Single rooms, she said; and she would guess Blanche said likewise. She and Blanche were never truly close; she has no wish, now that they have passed beyond being women of a certain age to being, frankly, old women, to have to listen in on Blanche's bedtime prayers or see what fashion of underwear the Sisters of the Marian Order go in for.

She unpacks, fusses around, switches on the television, switches it off again. Somehow or other, in the middle of all of this, she falls asleep, flat on her back, shoes and all. She is woken by the telephone. Blindly she gropes for the receiver. Where am I? she thinks. Who am I? 'Elizabeth?' says a voice. 'Is that you?'

They meet in the lounge of the hotel.

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