boarding kennels, about her bee-keeping and her horticultural projects, about his Saturday morning stints at the market. He glosses over the attack, mentioning only that his car was stolen. He talks about the Animal Welfare League, but not about the incinerator in the hospital grounds or his stolen afternoons with Bev Shaw.
Stitched together in this way, the story unrolls without shadows. Country life in all its idiot simplicity. How he wishes it could be true! He is tired of shadows, of complications, of complicated people. He loves his daughter, but there are times when he wishes she were a simpler being: simpler, neater. The man who raped her, the leader of the gang, was like that. Like a blade cutting the wind.
He has a vision of himself stretched out on an operating table. A scalpel flashes; from throat to groin he is laid open; he sees it all yet feels no pain. A surgeon, bearded, bends over him, frowning. What is all this stuff? growls the surgeon. He pokes at the gall bladder. What is this? He cuts it out, tosses it aside. He pokes at the heart. What is this?
'Your daughter - does she run her farm all alone?' asks Isaacs.
'She has a man who helps sometimes. Petrus. An African.' And he talks about Petrus, solid, dependable Petrus, with his two wives and his moderate ambitions.
He is less hungry than he thought he would be. Conversation flags, but somehow they get through the meal. Desiree excuses herself, goes off to do her homework. Mrs Isaacs clears the table.
'I should be leaving,' he says. 'I am due to make an early start tomorrow.'
'Wait, stay a moment,' says Isaacs.
They are alone. He can prevaricate no longer.
'About Melanie,' he says.
'Yes?'
'One word more, then I am finished. It could have turned out differently, I believe, between the two of us, despite our ages. But there was something I failed to supply, something' - he hunts for the word - 'lyrical. I lack the lyrical. I manage love too well. Even when I burn I don't sing, if you understand me. For which I am sorry. I am sorry for what I took your daughter through. You have a wonderful family. I apologize for the grief I have caused you and Mrs Isaacs. I ask for your pardon.'
Wonderful is not right. Better would be exemplary.
'So,' says Isaacs, 'at last you have apologized. I wondered when it was coming.' He ponders. He has not taken his seat; now he begins to pace up and down. 'You are sorry. You lacked the lyrical, you say. If you had had the lyrical, we would not be where we are today. But I say to myself, we are all sorry when we are found out. Then we are very sorry. The question is not, are we sorry? The question is, what lesson have we learned? The question is, what are we going to do now that we are sorry?'
He is about to reply, but Isaacs raises a hand. 'May I pronounce the word God in your hearing? You are not one of those people who get upset when they hear God's name? The question is, what does God want from you, besides being very sorry? Have you any ideas, Mr Lurie?'
Though distracted by Isaacs's back-and-forth, he tries to pick his words carefully. 'Normally I would say', he says, 'that after a certain age one is too old to learn lessons. One can only be punished and punished. But perhaps that is not true, not always. I wait to see. As for God, I am not a believer, so I will have to translate what you call God and God's wishes into my own terms. In my own terms, I am being punished for what happened between myself and your daughter. I am sunk into a state of disgrace from which it will not be easy to lift myself. It is not a punishment I have refused. I do not murmur against it. On the contrary, I am living it out from day to day, trying to accept disgrace as my state of being. Is it enough for God, do you think, that I live in disgrace without term?'
'I don't know, Mr Lurie. Normally I would say, don't ask me, ask God. But since you don't pray, you have no way to ask God. So God must find his own means of telling you. Why do you think you are here, Mr Lurie?'
He is silent.
I will tell you. You were passing through George, and it occurred to you that your student's family was from George, and you thought to yourself, Why not? You didn't plan on it, yet now you find yourself in our home. That must come as a surprise to you. Am I right?'
'Not quite. I was not telling the truth. I was not just passing through. I came to George for one reason alone: to speak to you. I had been thinking about it for some time.'
'Yes, you came to speak to me, you say, but why me? I'm easy to speak to, too easy. All the children at my school know that. With Isaacs you get off easy - that is what they say.' He is smiling again, the same crooked smile as before. 'So who did you really come to speak to?'
Now he is sure of it: he does not like this man, does not like his tricks. He rises, blunders through the empty dining-room and down the passage. From behind a half-closed door he hears low voices. He pushes the door open. Sitting on the bed are Desiree and her mother, doing something with a skein of wool. Astonished at the sight of him, they fall silent. With careful ceremony he gets to his knees and touches his forehead to the floor. Is that enough? he thinks. Will that do? If not, what more?
He raises his head. The two of them are still sitting there, frozen. He meets the mother's eyes, then the daughter's, and again the current leaps, the current of desire.
He gets to his feet, a little more creakily than he would have wished. 'Good night,' he says. 'Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for the meal.'
At eleven o'clock there is a call for him in his hotel room. It is Isaacs. 'I am phoning to wish you strength for the future.' A pause. 'There is a question I never got to ask, Mr Lurie. You are not hoping for us to intervene on your behalf, are you, with the university?'
'To intervene?'
'Yes. To reinstate you, for instance.'
'The thought never crossed my mind. I have finished with the university.'
Because the path you are on is one that God has ordained for you. It is not for us to interfere.'
'Understood.'
