Slow Man by Coetzee J. M

Author:Coetzee, J. M. [Coetzee, J. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-01-17T22:55:28+00:00

He stays up past midnight waiting for Drago. But it is not until the next day that Drago comes back. 'I've got a friend with me downstairs,' he announces on the entryphone. 'Can she come up?'

A friend, a girlfriend: so that is where he spent the night! 'Yes, come up.' But when he opens the door he nearly cries out with exasperation. By the side of a grubby, weary-looking Drago stands Elizabeth Costello. Will he never be rid of the woman?

He and she eye each other warily, like feuding dogs. 'Drago and I bumped into each other on Victoria Square,' she says. 'That's where he was spending the night. In the company of some new mates. Who were inducting him into the fruits of the Barossa.'

'I thought you said you were staying with a friend,' he says to Drago.

'It didn't work out. I'm OK.'

I'm OK. The boy is clearly not OK. He seems sunk in dejection, which a bout of drinking cannot have helped.

'Have you spoken to your mother?'

The boy nods.

'And?'

'I phoned her. I told her I'm not coming back.'

'I'm not asking about you, I'm asking about her. How is she?'

'She's OK.'

'Take a shower, Drago. Go on. Clean yourself up. Have a nap. Then go home. Make peace with your father. I'm sure he is sorry for what he did.'

'He's not sorry. He's never sorry.'

'May I put in a word?' says Elizabeth Costello. 'Drago's father is unlikely to be sorry as long as he is convinced he is in the right. That, at least, is how I see it. As for Marijana, whatever she may tell her son on the phone, she is certainly not OK. If she has taken refuge with her sister-in-law, that is only because she has nowhere else to go. Her sister-in-law is not sympathetic to her.'

'This is Lidie? Lidie is Jokic's sister?'

'Lidija Karadzic. Miroslav's sister, Drago's aunt. Lidie and Marijana do not get on, have never got on. In Lidie's opinion, what is being dished out to Marijana is no more than she deserves. "Where there is smoke there is fire," says Lidie. A Croatian proverb.'

'How on earth can you know these things? How do you know what Lidie says?'

The Costello woman brushes the question aside. 'To Lidie it does not matter whether in truth Marijana is having an extramarital affair. What matters is that stories are being whispered in the rather narrow circle of the Croatian community. Pay heed, Paul, don't curl your lip with disdain. Gossip, public opinion, jama as the Romans called it, makes the world go round – gossip, not truth. You tell us you are in truth not having an affair with Drago's mother because you and she have not in truth (excuse me, Drago) had sexual intercourse. But what counts as sexual intercourse nowadays? And how do we weigh a quick deed in a dark corner as against months of fevered longing? When love is the subject, how can an outside observer ever be sure of the truth of

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