A man leaving his homeland for a new life takes on an abandoned boy - let's call him David, as his real name is lost - in order to help him locate his mother, or, rather, a mother. He finds a candidate almost randomly and proposes the new family to her:
"Let me be more precise," he says, speaking softly and rapidly. "The boy has no mother. Ever since we got off the boat we have been searching for her. Will you consider taking him?"
"Taking him?"
"Yes, being a mother to him. Being his mother. Will you take him as your son?"
"I don't understand. In fact I understand nothing at all. Are you suggesting that I adopt your boy?"
"Not adopt. Be his mother, his full mother. We have only one mother, each of us. Will you be that one and only mother to him?"
No wonder the man and boy read a children's version of Don Quixote together, the original modern novel, one where identity and belonging are confabulated with fantasy and misperception. Coetzee's novel leaves you wondering if your concepts of self and your understanding of your role in your family and society are what you imagine, or perhaps we are, a bit like the knight-errant, suffering from flattering delusions. In this work, as in life, there is neither a happy nor sad ending, nor an ending at all, just the steady onward sweep of days and hopes and searching.
