In the last corner, under the transoms, half buried in sand, his knees drawn up, his hands between his thighs, I come to Friday.
I tug his woolly hair, finger the chain about his throat. ‘Friday,’ I say, I try to say, kneeling over him, sinking hands and knees into the ooze, ‘what is this ship?’
But this is not a place of words. Each syllable, as it comes out, is caught and filled with water and diffused. This is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday.
He turns and turns till he lies at full length, his face to my face. The skin is tight across his bones, his lips are drawn back. I pass a fingernail across his teeth, trying to find a way in.
His mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without. breath, without interruption. It Rows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth. Soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.
About the Author
J. M. Coetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1940 and educated in South Africa and in the United States as a computer scientist and linguist. His novels include Dusklands; In the Heart of the Country, which won the premier South African literary award, the CNA Prize; Waiting for the Barbarians, which was awarded the CNA Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Life & Times of Michael K, which won the Booker Prize and the Prix Étranger Femina; Foe; Age of Iron, which won the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award; The Master of Petersburg, which won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize; Disgrace, which won the Booker Prize; Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man, both longlisted for the Booker Prize; and Diary of a Bad Year. J. M. Coetzee also won the Jerusalem Prize in 1987 and a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction in 1998. His other works include translations, linguistic studies, literary criticism and three volumes of memoir: Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II and Summertime, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He lives in Australia.
Copyright
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-no 017, lndia
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0032, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty Ltd), 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosehank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd; Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in Great Britain by Martin Seeker & Warburg Ltd. 1986
First published in the United States of America by Viking 1987
Published in Penguin Books 1987
Reissued in this edition 2010
Copyright© J M. Coetzee, 1986 All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-241-95011-1
Penguin Books is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. The book in your hands is made from paper certified by the forest Stewardship Council.