Slow Man - Coetzee J. M.. Страница 34

'Perhaps I am a Jew. Are you sure I am not a Jew?'

'OK, forget it. It slip from my tongue. Is nothing. You don't want to talk to me, say so, is finished.'

'Of course I want to talk. Of course I want to help. Why am I on this earth but to help? Give me the particulars. Tell me when and where it happened, this business of the silver chain. And tell me more about Blanka's friend, the one who was with her in the shop.'

'I got it here. Shop is Happenstance' – she spells the word – 'on Rundle Mall, and Mr Matthews is manager.'

'And when did it happen, the business with Happenstance?'

'Friday. Friday afternoon.'

'And her friend?'

'Blanka won't say her friend's name. Maybe Tracy. I don't know.'

'Let me see what I can do, Marijana. I am not the best person for this kind of thing, but I will see what I can do. Where can I reach you?'

'You can phone, you got my number.'

'Phone you at home? I thought you were staying with your sister-in-law. I wrote to you care of your sister-in-law. Didn't you get my letter?'

There is a long silence. 'Is all finished,' says Marijana at last. 'You can phone me.'

What Marijana wants is a man of influence, and he is not a man of influence, he is not even sure he approves of the phenomenon of the man of influence. But this must be how things are done in Croatia, so for Marijana's sake and the sake of her unhappy daughter, who must surely have learned her lesson by now – namely, to be more careful when she steals things – he is prepared to try. Is Marijana wrong, after all, to believe that a man with a smooth name like Rayment and a comfortable home in an eminently comfortable part of the city and money to give away can make things happen in a way that an auto mechanic with a funny name like Jokic cannot?

'Mr Matthews?' he says.

'Yes.'

'May I have a word with you in private?'

Happenstance – which sells what it calls gear – is not, however, the kind of establishment where one can have a word in private. It is, at most, five metres square. There are tightly packed racks of clothing, there is a counter and a till, there is music rattling from somewhere above them, and that is all. So what he has to say to Mr Matthews has to be said in the open.

'A girl was detained here for shoplifting,' he says. 'Last Friday. Blanka Jokic. Do you recall the case?'

Mr Matthews, who either is or is not a Jew, and who has been all affability thus far, stiffens visibly. Mr Matthews is in his twenties; he is tall and slim; he has wide, dark eyebrows and bleached hair that stands up in spikes.

'My name is Paul Rayment,' he presses on. 'I am a friend of the Jokic family. May I tell you something about Blanka?'

The boy – what else is he but a boy? – nods guardedly.

'Blanka has never done anything like this before. Since last Friday she has been through a great deal of torment, self-torment. She is ashamed of what she did. She is reluctant to show her face in public. She has, I would venture to say, learned her lesson. She is just a child; I don't believe any good will be achieved by prosecuting her. So I have come to make a proposal. I want to pay for the item she took, which I understand was a silver chain retailing for fifty dollars.'

'Forty-nine ninety-five.'

'I am in addition, if you will agree to drop charges, prepared to buy goods from you to the value of, say, five hundred dollars. As a sign of good will. And all entirely above board.'

Young Mr Matthews shakes his head. 'It's company policy,' he says. 'Every year we lose five per cent of turnover, all branches, to shoplifting. We've got to send a signal to shoplifters out there: steal from us and you get prosecuted. The full weight of the law. Zero tolerance. That's our policy. I'm sorry.'

'You lose five per cent but you build that five per cent back into your prices. I'm not criticising you, I'm just pointing out a fact. You have a policy aimed at shoplifters. Fair enough. But Blanka isn't a shoplifter. She is just a child thinking as a child thinks, stupidly. Bad luck is what happens to other people, she thinks, it won't happen to me. Well, now she knows bad things can happen to her too. If you wanted to teach her a lesson, you have taught her a lesson. She won't forget it. She won't steal again, it is not worth it, it has made her too miserable. So back to my offer. You make a phone call, retract the charge; I pay for the chain and in addition buy five hundred dollars worth of stuff, right here, right now.'

Mr Matthews is wavering visibly.

'Six hundred dollars. Here is my card. The police don't enjoy prosecuting these cases. They have better uses for their time.'

'It's not a decision I can make, like, unilaterally. I'll speak to the manager.'

'You are the manager.'

'I'm just the manager of this outlet. There is our area manager. I'll speak to him. But I can't promise anything. As I say, it's company policy to prosecute. That's the only way we can send a signal we are serious.'

'Speak to your area manager now. Give him a call. I'll wait.'

'Mr DeVito is out of town. He'll be back Monday.'

'Mr DeVito may be out of town but he is not unreachable. Give him a call. Settle this business.'

Young Mr Matthews retreats behind the till, turns his back on him, and brings out his cell phone. Young Mr Matthews is in the process of having his day spoiled, and by a cripple too. He is not a bully by nature, but probing for weakness in the boy, and then putting pressure on him, squeezing him, has been a not unpleasurable experience. Blanka Jokic: Matthews will not forget the name soon.

The assistant, a girl with ghastly white make-up and violet lips, has been watching them covertly. He signals her to come over. 'Help me pick out some gear,' he says. 'Up-to-the-minute. For a fourteen-year-old.'

A friend of the family. That is how he presents himself to Happenstance, that is how Happenstance sees him: as an elderly gent with a disability who for God knows what reason chooses to watch over the welfare of a girl with a funny name. And it is true. He is indeed that elderly gent, that good-hearted benefactor. True, but not the whole truth. If he battles the crowds on Rundle Mall, if he bargains and cajoles and pays for stuff he does not need, it is not, or not just, for the sake of a child he has never laid eyes on.

What does it look like to Marijana, this will to give with which he so doggedly pursues her? Has she had other clients like him, other doting old men? Surely you must know. Surely a woman always knows. I love you. How it must have jarred and irritated her: words of love from an object of mere nursing, mere care. Irritating but not, in the end, serious. The fantasy, working its way to the surface, of a man cooped up too long alone; an infatuation; not the real thing.

What would it take to make Marijana see him as the real thing? What is the real thing? Physical desire? Sexual intimacy? They have been intimate, he and Marijana, for some while now – for longer than some love affairs last, start to finish. But all the intimacy, all the nakedness, all the helplessness has been on one side. One-way traffic; no exchange; not even a kiss – not the merest peck on the cheek. Two ex-Europeans!

'You OK?' says a voice.

He is staring into the eyes, the entirely kindly eyes, of a young woman in blue uniform. A police officer.

'Yes. Why should I not be OK?'

She casts a glance at the man by her side, another officer. 'Where do you live?'

'In North Adelaide. On Coniston Terrace.'

'And how are you going to get home?'

'I am going to walk to Pulteney Street and take a taxi. Is there anything wrong with that?'

'Nothing. Nothing wrong.'

He hooks the Happenstance bags over an arm, grips his crutches, and heaves himself up from the trash container against which he has been resting. Without a word, holding his head high, he picks his way through the crowd.