Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee Page B

more he talked the more vehement the grandson became. He was anaemic, he said, he had a weak heart, it was in his papers, no one contested it, yet here they were sending him to the front. They were reassigning clerks and sending them to the front. Did they think they could do without clerks? Did they think they could run the war without a paymaster’s office? If they came looking for him, the regular police or the military police, to take him back and make an example of him, K must play dumb. He must play the idiot and reveal nothing. Meanwhile he, the grandson, would make a hiding-place for himself. He knew the farm, he would find a place where they would never dream of looking. It would be better if K did not know the hiding-place. Could K find him a saw? He needed a saw, he wanted to begin work first thing in the morning. K agreed to look. Thenfollowed a long silence. ‘Is this all you eat?’ asked the grandson. K nodded. ‘You should plant potatoes,’ said the grandson. ‘Potatoes, onions, mealies—anything will grow here if you give it enough water. This is good soil. I’m surprised you don’t grow a few things for yourself down by the dam.’ A pang of disappointment cut through K: even the dam was known about. ‘My grandparents were lucky to find you,’ the grandson went on. ‘People have a hard time finding good farm servants nowadays. What is your name?’ ‘Michael,’ answered K. It was dark now. The grandson stood up uncertainly. ‘You haven’t got a torch?’ he asked. ‘No,’ said K; and watched him pick his way down the hillside in the moonlight.
    Morning came and there was no longer anything for him to do. He could not go to the dam without betraying his garden. He sat on his heels against the wall of the room, feeling the sun warm his body, feeling time pass, till the grandson came climbing the hill again. He is ten years younger than me, K thought. The climb brought a flush to his skin.
    ‘Michael, there is nothing to eat!’ the grandson complained. ‘Don’t you ever go to the shop?’ Without waiting for a reply he pushed open the door of the room and peered inside. He seemed about to pass a comment, but then stopped himself.
    ‘How much do they pay you, Michael?’ he said.
    He thinks I am truly an idiot, thought K. He thinks I am an idiot who sleeps on the floor like an animal and lives on birds and lizards and does not know there is such a thing as money. He looks at the badge on my beret and asks himself what child gave it to me out of what lucky packet.
    ‘Two rand,’ said K. ‘Two rand a week.’
    ‘So what news do you have of my grandparents? Don’t they ever visit?’
    K was silent.
    ‘Where do you come from? You are not from here, are you?’
    ‘I have been all over,’ said K. ‘I have been in the Cape too.’
    ‘Aren’t there sheep on the farm?’ said the grandson. ‘Aren’t there goats? Didn’t I see goats yesterday, ten or twelve goats out beyond the dam?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Come, let’s go and find the goats.’
    K remembered the goat in the mud. ‘Those are goats that have gone wild,’ he said. ‘You will never catch them.’
    ‘We’ll catch them at the dam. The two of us will manage.’
    ‘They come to the dam at night,’ said K. ‘During the day they are out in the veld.’ To himself he thought: A soldier without a gun. A boy on an adventure. To him the farm is just a place of adventure. He said: ‘Leave the goats, I’ll get you something to eat.’
    So while the sound of sawing came from the house, K took his catapult and walked down to the river and in an hour had killed three sparrows and a dove. He brought the dead birds to the front door and knocked. The grandson, stripped to the waist and sweating, came to meet him. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Can you clean them quickly? I would appreciate that.’
    K held up the four dead birds, their feet together in a tangle of claws. There was a pearl of blood at the beak of one of the