'Goodbye.'
He is at the door - he is, in fact, in the outer office, which is now empty - when Isaacs calls out: 'Mr Lurie!
Just a minute!' He returns.
`What are your plans for the evening?'
'This evening? I've checked in at a hotel. I have no plans.'
'Come and have a meal with us. Come for dinner.'
'I don't think your wife would welcome that.'
'Perhaps. Perhaps not. Come anyway. Break bread with us. We eat at seven. Let me write down the address for you.'
‘You don't need to do that. I have been to your home already, and met your daughter. It was she who directed me here.' Isaacs does not bat an eyelid. 'Good,' he says.
The front door is opened by Isaacs himself. 'Come in, come in,' he says, and ushers him into the livingroom. Of the wife there is no sign, nor of the second daughter.
'I brought an offering,' he says, and holds out a bottle of wine.
Isaacs thanks him, but seems unsure what to do with the wine. Van I give you some? I'll just go and open it.' He leaves the room; there is a whispering in the kitchen. He comes back. 'We seem to have lost the corkscrew. But Dezzy will borrow from the neighbours.'
They are teetotal, clearly. He should have thought of that. A tight little petit-bourgeois household, frugal, prudent. The car washed, the lawn mowed, savings in the bank. All their resources concentrated on launching the two jewel daughters into the future: clever Melanie, with her theatrical ambitions; Desiree, the beauty.
He remembers Melanie, on the first evening of their closer acquaintance, sitting beside him on the sofa drinking the coffee with the shot-glass of whisky in it that was intended to - the word comes up reluctantly - lubricate her. Her trim little body; her sexy clothes; her eyes gleaming with excitement. Stepping out in the forest where the wild wolf prowls.
Desiree the beauty enters with the bottle and a corkscrew. As she crosses the floor towards them she hesitates an instant, conscious that a greeting is owed. 'Pa?' she murmurs with a hint of confusion, holding out the bottle.
So: she has found out who he is. They have discussed him, had a tussle over him perhaps: the unwanted visitor, the man whose name is darkness.
Her father has trapped her hand in his. 'Desiree,' he says, 'this is Mr Lurie.'
`Hello, Desiree.'
The hair that had screened her face is tossed back. She meets his gaze, still embarrassed, but stronger now that she is under her father's wing. 'Hello,' she murmurs; and he thinks, My God, my God!
As for her, she cannot hide from him what is passing through her mind: So this is the man my sister has been naked with! So this is the man she has done it with! This old man!
There is a separate little dining-room, with a hatch to the kitchen. Four places are set with the best cutlery; candles are burning. 'Sit, sit!' says Isaacs. Still no sign of his wife. 'Excuse me a moment.' Isaacs disappears into the kitchen. He is left facing Desiree across the table. She hangs her head, no longer so brave.
Then they return, the two parents together. He stands up. 'You haven't met my wife. Doreen, our guest, Mr Lurie.'
'I am grateful to you for receiving me in your home, Mrs Isaacs.'
Mrs Isaacs is a short woman, growing dumpy in middle age, with bowed legs that give her a faintly rolling walk. But he can see where the sisters get their looks. A real beauty she must have been in her day. Her features remain stiff, she avoids his eye, but she does give the slightest of nods. Obedient; a good wife and helpmeet. And ye shall be as one flesh. Will the daughters take after her?
'Desiree,' she commands, 'come and help carry.'
Gratefully the child tumbles out of her chair.
'Mr Isaacs, I am just causing upset in your home,' he says. 'It was kind of you to invite me, I appreciate it, but it is better that I leave.'
Isaacs gives a smile in which, to his surprise, there is a hint of gaiety. 'Sit down, sit down! We'll be all right! We will do it!' He leans closer. 'You have to be strong!'
Then Desiree and her mother are back bearing dishes: chicken in a bubbling tomato stew that gives off aromas of ginger and cumin, rice, an array of salads and pickles. Just the kind of food he most missed, living with Lucy.
The bottle of wine is set before him, and a solitary wine glass. 'Am I the only one drinking?' he says.
`Please,' says Isaacs. 'Go ahead.'
He pours a glass. He does not like sweet wines, he bought the Late Harvest imagining it would be to their taste. Well, so much the worse for him.
There remains the prayer to get through. The Isaacs take hands; there is nothing for it but to stretch out his hands too, left to the girl's father, right to her mother. 'For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful,' says Isaacs. 'Amen,' say his wife and daughter; and he, David Lurie, mumbles
'Amen' too and lets go the two hands, the father's cool as silk, the mother's small, fleshy, warm from her labours.
Mrs Isaacs dishes up. 'Mind, it's hot,' she says as she passes his plate. Those are her only words to him. During the meal he tries to be a good guest, to talk entertainingly, to fill the silences. He talks about Lucy, about the
