Disgrace Page 14

  His whole being is gripped by what happens in the theatre. He is convinced the dogs know their time has come. Despite the silence and the painlessness of the procedure, despite the good thoughts that Bev Shaw thinks and that he tries to think, despite the airtight bags in which they tie the newmade corpses, the dogs in the yard smell what is going on inside. They flatten their ears, they droop their tails, as if they too feel the disgrace of dying; locking their legs, they have to be pulled or pushed or carried over the threshold. On the table some snap wildly left and right, some whine plaintively; none will look straight at the needle in Bev’s hand, which they somehow know is going to harm them terribly.

  Worst are those that sniff him and try to lick his hand. He has never liked being licked, and his first impulse is to pull away. Why pretend to be a chum when in fact one is a murderer? But then he relents. Why should a creature with the shadow of death upon it feel him flinch away as if its touch were abhorrent? So he lets them lick him, if they want to, just as Bev Shaw strokes them and kisses them if they will let her.

  He is not, he hopes, a sentimentalist. He tries not to sentimentalize the animals he kills, or to sentimentalize Bev Shaw. He avoids saying to her, ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ in order not to have to hear her say in return, ‘Someone has to do it.’ He does not dismiss the possibility that at the deepest level Bev Shaw may be not a liberating angel but a devil, that beneath her show of compassion may hide a heart as leathery as a butcher’s. He tries to keep an open mind.

  Since Bev Shaw is the one who inflicts the needle, it is he who takes charge of disposing of the remains. The morning after each killing session he drives the loaded kombi to the grounds of Settlers Hospital, to the incinerator, and there consigns the bodies in their black bags to the flames.

  It would be simpler to cart the bags to the incinerator immediately after the session and leave them there for the incinerator crew to dispose of. But that would mean leaving them on the dump with the rest of the weekend’s scourings: with waste from the hospital wards, carrion scooped up at the roadside, malodorous refuse from the tannery – a mixture both casual and terrible. He is not prepared to inflict such dishonour upon them.

  So on Sunday evenings he brings the bags to the farm in the back of Lucy’s kombi, parks them overnight, and on Monday mornings drives them to the hospital grounds. There he himself loads them, one at a time, on to the feeder trolley, cranks the mechanism that hauls the trolley through the steel gate into the flames, pulls the lever to empty it of its contents, and cranks it back, while the workmen whose job this normally is stand by and watch.

  On his first Monday he left it to them to do the incinerating. Rigor mortis had stiffened the corpses overnight. The dead legs caught in the bars of the trolley, and when the trolley came back from its trip to the furnace, the dog would as often as not come riding back too, blackened and grinning, smelling of singed fur, its plastic covering burnt away. After a while the workmen began to beat the bags with the backs of their shovels before loading them, to break the rigid limbs. It was then that he intervened and took over the job himself.

  The incinerator is anthracite-fuelled, with an electric fan to suck air through the flues; he guesses that it dates from the 1950s, when the hospital itself was built. It operates six days of the week, Monday to Saturday. On the seventh day it rests. When the crew arrive for work they first rake out the ashes from the previous day, then charge the fire. By nine a.m. temperatures of a thousand degrees centigrade are being generated in the inner chamber, hot enough to calcify bone. The fire is stoked until mid-morning; it takes all afternoon to cool down.

  He does not know the names of the crew and they do not know his. To them he is simply the man who began arriving on Mondays with the bags from Animal Welfare and has since then been turning up earlier and earlier. He comes, he does his work, he goes; he does not form part of the society of which the incinerator, despite the wire fence and the padlocked gate and the notice in three languages, is the hub.

  For the fence has long ago been cut through; the gate and the notice are simply ignored. By the time the orderlies arrive in the morning with the first bags of hospital waste, there are already numbers of women and children waiting to pick through it for syringes, pins, washable bandages, anything for which there is a market, but particularly for pills, which they sell to muti shops or trade in the streets. There are vagrants too, who hang about the hospital grounds by day and sleep by night against the wall of the incinerator, or perhaps even in the tunnel, for the warmth.

  It is not a sodality he tries to join. But when he is there, they are there; and if what he brings to the dump does not interest them, that is only because the parts of a dead dog can neither be sold nor be eaten.

  Why has he taken on this job? To lighten the burden on Bev Shaw? For that it would be enough to drop off the bags at the dump and drive away. For the sake of the dogs? But the dogs are dead; and what do dogs know of honour and dishonour anyway?

  For himself, then. For his idea of the world, a world in which men do not use shovels to beat corpses into a more convenient shape for processing.

  The dogs are brought to the clinic because they are unwanted: because we are too menny. That is where he enters their lives. He may not be their saviour, the one for whom they are not too many, but he is prepared to take care of them once they are unable, utterly unable, to take care of themselves, once even Bev Shaw has washed her hands of them. A dog-man, Petrus once called himself. Well, now he has become a dog-man: a dog undertaker; a dog psychopomp; a harijan.

  Curious that a man as selfish as he should be offering himself to the service of dead dogs. There must be other, more productive ways of giving oneself to the world, or to an idea of the world. One could for instance work longer hours at the clinic. One could try to persuade the children at the dump not to fill their bodies with poisons. Even sitting down more purposefully with the Byron libretto might, at a pinch, be construed as a service to mankind.

  But there are other people to do these things – the animal welfare thing, the social rehabilitation thing, even the Byron thing. He saves the honour of corpses because there is no one else stupid enough to do it. That is what he is becoming: stupid, daft, wrongheaded.

  SEVENTEEN

  THEIR WORK AT the clinic is over for the Sunday. The kombi is loaded with its dead freight. As a last chore he is mopping the floor of the surgery.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ says Bev Shaw, coming in from the yard. ‘You’ll be wanting to get back.’

  ‘I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘Still, you must be used to a different kind of life.’

  ‘A different kind of life? I didn’t know life came in kinds.’

  ‘I mean, you must find life very dull here. You must miss your own circle. You must miss having women friends.’

  ‘Women friends, you say. Surely Lucy told you why I left Cape Town. Women friends didn’t bring me much luck there.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be hard on her.’

  ‘Hard on Lucy? I don’t have it in me to be hard on Lucy.’

  ‘Not Lucy – the young woman in Cape Town. Lucy says there was a young woman who caused you a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Yes, there was a young woman. But I was the troublemaker in that case. I caused the young woman in question at least as much trouble as she caused me.’

  ‘Lucy says you have had to give up your position at the university. That must have been difficult. Do you regret it?’

  What nosiness! Curious how the whiff of scandal excites women. Does this plain little creature think him incapable of shocking her? Or is being shocked another of the duties she takes on – like a nun who lies down to be violated so that the quota of violation in the world will be reduced?

  ‘Do I regret it? I don’t know. What happened in Cape Town brought me here. I’m not unhappy here.’

  ‘But at the time – did you regret it at the time?’

  ‘At the time? Do you mean, in the heat of the act? Of co
urse not. In the heat of the act there are no doubts. As I’m sure you must know yourself.’

  She blushes. A long time since he last saw a woman of middle age blush so thoroughly. To the roots of her hair.

  ‘Still, you must find Grahamstown very quiet,’ she murmurs. ‘By comparison.’

  ‘I don’t mind Grahamstown. At least I am out of the way of temptation. Besides, I don’t live in Grahamstown. I live on a farm with my daughter.’

  Out of the way of temptation: a callous thing to say to a woman, even a plain one. Yet not plain in everyone’s eyes. There must have been a time when Bill Shaw saw something in young Bev. Other men too, perhaps.

  He tries to imagine her twenty years younger, when the upturned face on its short neck must have seemed pert and the freckled skin homely, healthy. On an impulse he reaches out and runs a finger over her lips.

  She lowers her eyes but does not flinch. On the contrary, she responds, brushing her lips against his hand – even, it might be said, kissing it – while blushing furiously all the time.

  That is all that happens. That is as far as they go. Without another word he leaves the clinic. Behind him he hears her switching off the lights.

  The next afternoon there is a call from her. ‘Can we meet at the clinic, at four,’ she says. Not a question but an announcement, made in a high, strained voice. Almost he asks, ‘Why?’, but then has the good sense not to. Nonetheless he is surprised. He would bet she has not been down this road before. This must be how, in her innocence, she assumes adulteries are carried out: with the woman telephoning her pursuer, declaring herself ready.

  The clinic is not open on Mondays. He lets himself in, turns the key behind him in the lock. Bev Shaw is in the surgery, standing with her back to him. He folds her in his arms; she nuzzles her ear against his chin; his lips brush the tight little curls of her hair. ‘There are blankets,’ she says. ‘In the cabinet. On the bottom shelf.’

  Two blankets, one pink, one grey, smuggled from her home by a woman who in the last hour has probably bathed and powdered and anointed herself in readiness; who has, for all he knows, been powdering and anointing herself every Sunday, and storing blankets in the cabinet, just in case. Who thinks, because he comes from the big city, because there is scandal attached to his name, that he makes love to many women and expects to be made love to by every woman who crosses his path.

  The choice is between the operating table and the floor. He spreads out the blankets on the floor, the grey blanket underneath, the pink on top. He switches off the light, leaves the room, checks that the back door is locked, waits. He hears the rustle of clothes as she undresses. Bev. Never did he dream he would sleep with a Bev.

  She is lying under the blanket with only her head sticking out. Even in the dimness there is nothing charming in the sight. Slipping off his underpants, he gets in beside her, runs his hands down her body. She has no breasts to speak of. Sturdy, almost waistless, like a squat little tub.

  She grasps his hand, passes him something. A contraceptive. All thought out beforehand, from beginning to end.

  Of their congress he can at least say that he does his duty. Without passion but without distaste either. So that in the end Bev Shaw can feel pleased with herself. All she intended has been accomplished. He, David Lurie, has been succoured, as a man is succoured by a woman; her friend Lucy Lurie has been helped with a difficult visit.

  Let me not forget this day, he tells himself, lying beside her when they are spent. After the sweet young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is what I have come to. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even less than this.

  ‘It’s late,’ says Bev Shaw. ‘I must be going.’

  He pushes the blanket aside and gets up, making no effort to hide himself. Let her gaze her fill on her Romeo, he thinks, on his bowed shoulders and skinny shanks.

  It is indeed late. On the horizon lies a last crimson glow; the moon looms overhead; smoke hangs in the air; across a strip of waste land, from the first rows of shacks, comes a hubbub of voices. At the door Bev presses herself against him a last time, rests her head on his chest. He lets her do it, as he has let her do everything she has felt a need to do. His thoughts go to Emma Bovary strutting before the mirror after her first big afternoon. I have a lover! I have a lover! sings Emma to herself. Well, let poor Bev Shaw go home and do some singing too. And let him stop calling her poor Bev Shaw. If she is poor, he is bankrupt.

  EIGHTEEN

  PETRUS HAS BORROWED a tractor, from where he has no idea, to which he has coupled the old rotary plough that has lain rusting behind the stable since before Lucy’s time. In a matter of hours he has ploughed the whole of his land. All very swift and businesslike; all very unlike Africa. In olden times, that is to say ten years ago, it would have taken him days with a hand-plough and oxen.

  Against this new Petrus what chance does Lucy stand? Petrus arrived as the dig-man, the carry-man, the water-man. Now he is too busy for that kind of thing. Where is Lucy going to find someone to dig, to carry, to water? Were this a chess game, he would say that Lucy has been outplayed on all fronts. If she had any sense she would quit: approach the Land Bank, work out a deal, consign the farm to Petrus, return to civilization. She could open boarding kennels in the suburbs; she could branch out into cats. She could even go back to what she and her friends did in their hippie days: ethnic weaving, ethnic pot-decoration, ethnic basket-weaving; selling beads to tourists.

  Defeated. It is not hard to imagine Lucy in ten years’ time: a heavy woman with lines of sadness on her face, wearing clothes long out of fashion, talking to her pets, eating alone. Not much of a life. But better than passing her days in fear of the next attack, when the dogs will not be enough to protect her and no one will answer the telephone.

  He approaches Petrus on the site he has chosen for his new residence, on a slight rise overlooking the farmhouse. The surveyor has already paid his visit, the pegs are in place.

  ‘You are not going to do the building yourself, are you?’ he asks.

  Petrus chuckles. ‘No, it is a skill job, building,’ he says. ‘Bricklaying, plastering, all that, you need to be skill. No, I am going to dig the trenches. That I can do by myself. That is not such a skill job, that is just a job for a boy. For digging you just have to be a boy.’

  Petrus speaks the word with real amusement. Once he was a boy, now he is no longer. Now he can play at being one, as Marie Antoinette could play at being a milkmaid.

  He comes to the point. ‘If Lucy and I went back to Cape Town, would you be prepared to keep her part of the farm running? We would pay you a salary, or you could do it on a percentage basis. A percentage of the profits.’

  ‘I must keep Lucy’s farm running,’ says Petrus. ‘I must be the farm manager.’ He pronounces the words as if he has never heard them before, as if they have popped up before him like a rabbit out of a hat.

  ‘Yes, we could call you the farm manager if you like.’

  ‘And Lucy will come back one day.’

  ‘I am sure she will come back. She is very attached to this farm. She has no intention of giving it up. But she has been having a hard time recently. She needs a break. A holiday.’

  ‘By the sea,’ says Petrus, and smiles, showing teeth yellow from smoking.

  ‘Yes, by the sea, if she wants.’ He is irritated by Petrus’s habit of letting words hang in the air. There was a time when he thought he might become friends with Petrus. Now he detests him. Talking to Petrus is like punching a bag filled with sand. ‘I don’t see that either of us is entitled to question Lucy if she decides to take a break,’ he says. ‘Neither you nor I.’

  ‘How long I must be farm manager?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, Petrus. I haven’t discussed it with Lucy, I am just exploring the possibility, seeing if you are agreeable.’

  ‘And I must do all the things – I must feed the dogs, I must plant the vegetables, I must go to the market – ’

  ‘Petrus, there is no need to mak
e a list. There won’t be dogs. I am just asking in a general way, if Lucy took a holiday, would you be prepared to look after the farm?’

  ‘How I must go to the market if I do not have the kombi?’

  ‘That is a detail. We can discuss details later. I just want a general answer, yes or no.’

  Petrus shakes his head. ‘It is too much, too much,’ he says.

  Out of the blue comes a call from the police, from a Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse in Port Elizabeth. His car has been recovered. It is in the yard at the New Brighton station, where he may identify and reclaim it. Two men have been arrested.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ he says. ‘I had almost given up hope.’

  ‘No, sir, the docket stays open two years.’

  ‘What condition is the car in? Is it driveable?’

  ‘Yes, you can drive it.’

  In an unfamiliar state of elation he drives with Lucy to Port Elizabeth and then to New Brighton, where they follow directions to Van Deventer Street, to a flat, fortress-like police station surrounded by a two-metre fence topped with razor wire. Emphatic signs forbid parking in front of the station. They park far down the road.

  ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ says Lucy.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I don’t like this place. I’ll wait.’

  He presents himself at the charge office, is directed along a maze of corridors to the Vehicle Theft Unit. Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse, a plump, blond little man, searches through his files, then conducts him to a yard where scores of vehicles stand parked bumper to bumper. Up and down the ranks they go.

  ‘Where did you find it?’ he asks Esterhuyse.

  ‘Here in New Brighton. You were lucky. Usually with the older Corollas the buggers chop it up for parts.’