The relationship between the magistrate and the barbarian girl is certainly complicated. It begins simply enough in that the barbarian girl is assigned the task of cleaning up the magistrate's rooms. Although she does a poor job of completing this task, the magistrate keeps that to himself and endures the presence of the girl, at first out of pity and then out of selfishness. Although the magistrate wants to see her as more than just a barbarian and desperately wants to see her as human, he cannot quite allow himself to do this out of fear of what others might think, say, or do. The magistrate tries to walk a fine line between these two worlds, privately engaging the girl in a friendly way all the while dismissing her and her peoples publicly. However, the sexual relationship that develops between the two further complicates the matter and the magistrate is left wondering if he is now as evil as anyone on either side of this great culture war.

What is the relationship between the barbarian girl and the magistrate?

J. M. Coetzee explores the relationship between the Magistrate and the girl from the indigenous “barbarians” from the point he takes her in to his home, through his caring for her while she recovers from her injuries—sustained from the soldiers’ torture—even as she works as his kitchen maid, to her return to her people.

Although the Magistrate had been having sexual relations with prostitutes in the town and intellectually desires the girl, he finds that he cannot be aroused to desire her sexually, even though he touches her body while rubbing it with oil. When it comes time for her to be returned to her people, they travel outside the city; he asks her to stay with him but she does not want to do so and goes off with the group of men they had contacted.

The girl is left an orphan and the magistrate wants to take care of her as an act of redemption for his town's cruelty. The magistrate is involved in an ongoing meditation on age and identity and the girl offers an intriguing figure to him, representing a youth, innocence and need for help which he feels he no longer possesses.

Later, he bitterly discovers he has retained these qualities.

This link to a summary might help you. http://www.enotes.com/waiting-for-barbarians-salem/waiting-for-barbarians. If I understand your question, the relationship between the barbarian girl and the magistrate is complicated. He cares for her (meaning physically takes care of her), but is still basically still her captor. She forces him to face the reality of his situation, that he is just as complicit as those who hurt her.

Describe the relationship between the barbarian girl and the magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians.

Waiting for the Barbarians is considered to be an allegory, or a story that reveals a hidden moral or political meaning through it's extensive use symbols and motifs. In this case, it is an allegory of apartheid in South Africa. The magistrate symbolizes the bureaucratic servants that benefit from the empire even if they are removed from some of its greatest abuses, and the girl represents the natives of the empire with her literal scars and injuries symbolizing the damage done. The washing ritual the magistrate operates on the girl and his efforts to return her to her people represent his desire to gain salvation from his culpability within the post-colonial system of oppression. However, especially given the allegorical and symbolic nature of every aspect of their relationship, the reader is left uncomfortable with the way he sexualizes the girl, the way he asks her to stay with him after all, and the way he refuses to see her injuries, instead choosing to think of her as how she was before them. Ultimately the magistrate is also an actor in an oppressive system, and the various ways he tries to take possession over the girl show he has problematic and convoluted views that can never be fully unwound. He finds only partial atonement by his act of martyrdom at the end of the novel.

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