In the Heart of the Country by J M Coetzee

Author:J M Coetzee [J.M. Coetzee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

176. I bundle my skirt around my knees and lower my legs into the hole. I push myself backward into the dark. Hendrik leans on his spade watching.

I am wholly inside. I try to stretch but cannot extend my legs.

I curl up in the cool earth and turn away from the light. My hair is full of dirt. I close my eyes the better to relish the dark. I search my heart and can find no reason to leave. I could make this my second home. I could get Hendrik to bring me food. I would not need much. At night I could crawl out to stretch my legs. Perhaps in time I would even learn to howl to the moon, to prowl around the sleeping farmhouse looking for scraps. I can find no reason to open my eyes again.

‘Yes,’ I tell Hendrik. My voice is thick, my words boom in my head. ‘It’s big enough. Help me out.’ He leans down, watching the mouth of his mistress move in the shadow of the hole.

177. The body lies ready on the bathroom floor sewn into a grey tarpaulin. I have heard that seamen put the last stitch through the nose, to make sure, but I cannot bring myself to do so. I have not wept at my task. It is not that my heart is hard. There must be someone to wash the corpse, there must be someone to dig the grave.

178. I emerge on to the stoep and call in a strong steady voice: ‘Hendrik!’

Hendrik rises from his spot of shade and crosses the yard.

‘Hendrik, please fetch the wheelbarrow and put it at the kitchen door.’

‘Yes, miss.’

When he comes to the back door I am waiting for him.

‘Come and help me carry the body.’

He looks dubiously at me. This is the moment at which he baulks. I am ready for it.

‘Hendrik, I want to speak frankly. We can’t wait any longer. It is hot, the baas must be buried. There are only you and I who can do it. I can’t do it by myself, and I don’t want strangers interfering. This is a family matter, something private. Do you understand what I am saying?’

‘What about a minister?’ He is mumbling, he is uncertain, he will give no trouble.

‘Come on, Hendrik, we have no time to waste. Help me carry it.’

I turn, he follows.

179. We lift the parcel, he at the head, I at the feet, and carry it through the house into the sunlight. There is no one to see us. There has never been anyone to see what goes on here. We are outside the law, therefore live only by the law we recognize in ourselves, going by our inner voice. My father reclines in his wheelbarrow, making a last tour of his domain. We trudge up the track to the graveyard, Hendrik pushing, I keeping the bundled legs from slipping sideways.

180. Hendrik will have nothing to do with the burying. ‘No, miss,’ he says again and again, backing away and shaking his head.

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