Slow Man - Coetzee J. M. - Страница 53

'Space for a child behind the rider, yes. But not for another grown-up.'

'Just joking, Paul. No, I wouldn't want to be a burden on you. If I were to go riding I would want a contraption of my own, preferably one with a motor. Do they still sell those little motors that you fasten to bicycles that go putt-putt and help you up the hills? They had them in France, I remember. Deux chevaux, two horses.'

'I know what you mean. But they are not called deux chevaux. Deux chevaux is something else.'

'Or a bath chair. Perhaps that is what I really ought to get for myself. Do you remember bath chairs, the kind with a tasselled sunshade and a steering-bar? We can scout around the antique shops, I'm sure we will find one, Adelaide is just the place for a bath chair. We can ask Miroslav to fix a couple of chevaux to it. Then we will be ready to set out on our adventures, you and I. You already have your nice orange flag and I will get another for myself, with a design.'

'How about a mailed fist? A mailed fist in black on a white field, and beneath it the motto Malleus maleficorum.'

'Malleus maleficorum. Excellent! You really are turning into quite a wit, Paul. Who would have suspected you had it in you. Malleus maleficorum for me and Onward and upward for you. We could tour the whole land, the two of us, the whole of this wide brown land, north and south, east and west. You could teach me doggedness and I could teach you to live on nothing, or nearly nothing. They would write articles about us in the newspapers. We would become a well-loved Australian institution. What an idea! What a capital idea! Is this love, Paul? Have we found love at last?'

Half an hour ago he was with Marijana. But Marijana is behind them now, and he is left with Elizabeth Costello. He puts on his glasses again, turns, takes a good look at her. In the clear late-afternoon light he can see every detail, every hair, every vein. He examines her, then he examines his heart. 'No,' he says at last, 'this is not love. This is something else. Something less.'

'And is that your last word, do you think? No hope of budging you?'

'I am afraid not.'

'But what am I going to do without you?'

She seems to be smiling, but her lips are trembling too.

'That is up to you, Elizabeth. There are plenty of fish in the ocean, so I hear. But as for me, as for now: goodbye.' And he leans forward and kisses her thrice in the formal manner he was taught as a child, left right left.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For their generous advice and assistance, my thanks to Arijana Bozo vic, Catherine Lauga du Plessis, Peter Goldsworthy, Peter Rose, John Williams, and Sharon Zwi.