Free Foe by J.M. Coetzee Page B

name.)
    '"I
have followed you everywhere," said the girl.
    '"Everywhere?"
said I, smiling.
    "'Everywhere,"
said she.
    '"I
know of one place where you have not followed me," said I. "'I
have followed you everywhere,'' said she. '"Did you follow me
across the ocean?" said I. "'I know of the island,'' said
she. 'It was as if she had struck me in the face. "You know
nothing of the island,'' I retorted. '"I know of Bahia too. I
know you were scouring Bahia for me."
    'By
these words she betrayed from whom she had her intelligence. Burning
with anger against her and against you, I turned on my heel and
slammed the door behind me. For an hour she waited at her post, then
toward evening departed.
    'Who
is she and why do you send her to me? Is she sent as a sign you arc
alive? She is not my daughter. Do you think women drop children and
forget them as snakes lay eggs? Only a man could entertain such a
fancy. If you want me to quit the house, give the order and I will
obey. Why send a child in an old woman's clothes, a child with a
round face and a little O of a mouth and a story of a lost mother?
She is more your daughter than she ever was mine.'
    * *
    'A
brewer. She says that her father was a brewer. That she was born in
Deptford in May of 1702.. That I am her mother. We sit in your
drawing-room and I explain to her that I have never lived in Deptford
in my life, that I have never known a brewer, that I have a daughter,
it is true, but my daughter is lost, she is not that daughter.
Sweetly she shakes her head and begins a second time the story of the
brewer George Lewes my husband. "Then your name is Lewes, if
that is the name of your father," I interrupt. "It may be
my name in law but it is not my name in truth," says she. "If
we were to be speaking of names in truth," say I, "my name
would not be Barton." "That is not what I mean," says
she. "Then what do you mean?" say I. "I am speaking of
our true names, our veritable names," says she.
    'She
returns to the story of the brewer. The brewer haunts gaming-houses
and loses his last penny. He borrows money and loses that too. To
escape his creditors he flees England and enlists as a grenadier in
the Low Countries, where he is later rumoured to perish. I am left
destitute with a daughter to care for. I have a maidservant named Amy
or Emmy. Amy or Emmy asks my daughter what life she means to follow
when she grows up (this is her earliest memory). She replies in her
childish way that she means to be a gentlewoman. Amy or Emmy laughs:
Mark my words, Amy says, the day will yet arrive when we three shall
be servants together. "I have never had a servant in my life,
whether named Amy or Emmy or anything else," I say. (Friday was
not my slave but Cruso's, and is a free man now. He cannot even be
said to be a servant, so idle is his life.) "You confuse me with
some other person."
    'She
smiles again and shakes her head. "Behold the sign by which we
may know our true mother," she says, and leans forward and
places her hand beside mine. "See," she says, "we have
the same hand. The same hand and ~he same eyes."
    'I
stare at the two hands -side by side. My hand is long, hers short.
Her fingers are the plump unformed fingers of a child. Her eyes are
grey, mine brown. What kind of being is she, so serenely blind to the
evidence of her senses?
    '"Did
a man send you here?" I ask -"A gentleman of middle height,
with a mole on his chin, here?"
    '"No,"
she says.
    "'I
do not believe you," I say. "I believe you were sent here,
and now I am sending you away. I request you to go away and not to
trouble me again."
    'She
shakes her head and grips the arm of her chair. The air of calm
vanishes. "I will not be sent away!" she says through
clenched teeth.
    "'Very
well," say I, "if you wish to stay, stay." And I
withdraw, locking the door behind me and pocketing the key.
    'In
the hallway I encounter Friday standing listlessly in a comer (he
stands always in corners, never in the open: he mistrusts space). "It
is