Agaat (43 page)

It was the day of the pork measles, the evening after the accident with the tractor winch, December '61, after supper. Agaat brought Jakkie in with ‘great news' on her face, ‘good news'.

She could hear you and Jak were having words again. She could hear it was going to go awry again.

She put the child down on the mat and brought in the coffee after supper and said ‘something' had happened.

Jak was too annoyed to notice. A deputation of workers had come at knocking-off time that afternoon to tell him that they wanted new pit lavatories at their homes, the old ones were dilapidated. You heard it all, you were in your room, exhausted after the day. You'd often spoken to Jak about sanitation for the workers, he simply didn't want to do anything about it.

They were in front of his office door on the front stoep and you heard their complaints clearly.

Yes, Agaat doesn't do the right thing by them and Agaat says it's because of people's shit lying around that the pigs get measles and their slaughter-pig for the month was spoiled and they don't believe her they thought pork just had spots like that and why can't they get a sheep then to slaughter and the mies had said the privies would come and when are they coming then and Agaat had threatened the baas was going to shoot their dogs and is the baas going to do it and where are they supposed to find food for their dogs when they don't have any themselves and Agaat had said their wives can't work for the mies in the kitchen with germs.

You looked out of the open door of the room onto the stoep. There they stood. Lietja's husband, Kitaartjie, and Saar's husband, Piet Skilletjies. You saw them from the back, the ragged seats of pants, the bare patches in the hair from stab wounds, the sloping shoulders. You could smell them, the sharp sweat, the old dirt.

Our children have worms, we want pits with corrugated-iron huts over them and wooden seats, they said.

Jak knew nothing of the morning's doings, nothing of the medicine-dosing and the grumbling at the labourers' houses. He didn't understand what the slaughter-pig had to do with measles and latrines. He told them to get away from his office door, he was busy. You withdrew your head quickly from the window.

It was Dawid there in the office. He had come to speak about his cousin who had been caught in the winch-axle earlier that afternoon with the hay-baling.

Julies is lying in front of the fire and he's talking confused and the doctor said he has concussion, and his foot, his foot isn't so good.

Dawid's voice was calm and serious. He demanded nothing explicitly, just spelt out the details.

It was too much for Jak, all the accidents. You could see it on his face as he sat there twirling his fork that evening after supper. He didn't want to listen when you tried to tell him what had happened that day, of Agaat's doings. Agaat got on his nerves, he said. And there she was again now with Jakkie and ‘something' that had happened.

He put his fork down and leant back in his chair.

What could it be this time? Has the dam burst? Has the horse drowned? How come, Gaat, that you're always the first on the scene? One would swear that there where your eye falls, there trouble erupts. What is it this time?

Later, you signalled to Agaat, tomorrow, now's not the time, make yourself scarce here. But you could see that she was excited.

I want to help you, she signalled with the eyes, I want to provide diversion here at the table. ‘Something' has happened! Just give me a chance! She had Jakkie on her arm. He pointed a tiny finger at her cap.

Go and put him to bed, you said, it's bed-time.

You knew the expression on her face very well. It spoke of wanting to compensate, of wanting to make good all the bad things of the day, wanting reassurance, wanting to be set at ease. It was she who had had to put a stop to the slaughtering of the pig that morning and who had come to call you.

She was right, there was no doubt about that. The meat was permeated all the way into the muscles with little red globules. You had all the pigs caught and one by one you had the bit put into their mouths and you pulled out the tongues yourself with pliers to have a look. They were all infested.

Then you just couldn't any more. Then you made her the messenger.

It was she who had to tell the workers that there wouldn't be any pork this month, she who had to lock the smoking-cabin again where the fire had already been lit to smoke the bacon and had to send them all home empty-handed.

And then it was she again who had to go to the labourers' houses with the medicine and the acid drops in her apron pocket and had to doctor the whole lot against worms as you had instructed her.

When she stayed away for too long, you went to have a look, but you walked around the back so that nobody should see you. You didn't want to interfere. But you felt all of a sudden that it wasn't right that Agaat should be there all on her own.

There she was commandeering the mothers of the children left and right to catch them and bring them nearer because when they saw the medicine bottle they took flight into the wattle-wilderness. Agaat was
pushing and pulling them to stand in line, the big ones full of scratches from the branches and snivelling tearfully, the littl'uns bawling in the dust.

You heard her scolding before you even saw her. You peered round the corner. You saw how she grabbed the children by the hair and pulled their heads back and clamped their noses until they opened their mouths. With every spoonful she scolded.

This is what you get for shitting in the bushes like wild things! Open your porridge-hole! This is what you get for wiping your arses with your hands!

Swallow! swallow! If you spit it out you'll get a swipe through your mug!

And then you guzzle vetkoek again with the same hands, what kind of black muck-mongering is this?

Swallow! swallow! dammit, swallow! and don't leak snot all over my clothes!

You're worse than pigs! They can't help it that they didn't get any brains. They eat your runny shit that lies around here stinking in the sun. That's why they're full of measles. If I come again, then I'll dip the whole lot of you wholesale with a forked stick behind the neck in the sheep-dip, the Lord knows what kind of pestilences are hatching here!

Just look at that child's scabies! When last did she smell a piece of soap? Godalmighty!

Just think what your guts look like! Pauperworms, they crawl up into your heads and gnaw out your brains till you're dancing around with the horrors. And what about those mangy curs? On this farm we shoot everything that has worms quick-quick right between the eyes.

Will you pee on my shoes, you little hotnot! Stand that way, shut your trap and swallow or I'll wind up your little prick for you like fly-paper. Where're your pants?

Agaat made her way through her line and stood back, wiped her hands on her apron. With the spoon in the air she stood and explained.

Now you listen well to me on this day today, you take a spade, you throw all your shit on one pile every day and you make a fire on top, lot of clump-arses that you are. And then you throw soil on top. Even a cat knows to cover up. If I catch one of you dropping your pants in the veld then I'll string barbed wire through his arse!

You stood back against the dirty wall. Your heart was beating fast. You had never seen Agaat like this, had never heard her talk like this. You saw the adults standing laughing at the performance, but not full-out, little half-mast laughs and looking covertly at one another. Then
one of the striplings grabbed the bag of acid drops from her apron pocket and the children descended upon it like ravens.

Rubbish! she screeched and she up and kicked, one, two kicks into the bundle with her black school shoes so that they dispersed chow-chow.

You stood back and pretended to be coming round the corner of the house at speed.

What on earth! What's going on here! you exclaimed.

You looked at her sternly. You picked up the bag of sweets and shared them out in the little dirty hands. You went and stood in front of her. You wanted to cover her.

You explained the cycle of the tapeworm and its stages and its contagiousness. The people looked at you in solemn resignation. You promised there would be proper toilets. You passed the medicine to the women so that they could drink themselves and dose the men. You said there would be water and a washroom. You said you would find a clean pig for the slaughter. As you were saying it, a great murmuring arose and you could see from the faces what was coming. A list without end. Water, bread, meat, milk, roofs, shoes, clothes, soap, candles, sugar, coffee.

Come, Agaat, you said, come, you must go and scrub yourself from head to toe and put on clean clothes, I don't want Jakkie exposed to germs.

The child was on your hip. He felt heavy all of a sudden but you didn't want to hand him over. Agaat's apron was full of spittle and stains from the medicine and dust marks and her cap was at an angle.

Straighten your cap, you signalled with you eyes.

You felt the people looking at you, at you and your child and Agaat. She jutted out her chin and returned their stares and you wanted to say, Agaat no, one doesn't glare like that, but you didn't know how. You smiled ingratiatingly at the people. You wanted to apologise for her, she doesn't know any better, you wanted to say, she's still a child herself, you wanted to say, but they didn't return your look and you didn't know how you could appease them.

You thought you'd have a talk to her after lunch. You couldn't tolerate it, the irate eyes that refused to return to normal, the footsteps that sounded too loud, the outside room whose door was slammed too loudly after she'd been to clean herself there, the new apron that was too white and starched, the cap that perched too upright on her head.

You could have asked, what's the matter, Gaat?

She grated the carrots, garr-garr-garr, in the kitchen where the preparation of the midday meal had in the meantime fallen behind schedule.
She peeled the potatoes with long strokes and vigorously turned the meat over in the pot. She served the meal quickly and without a word and excused herself to go and wash her clothes.

One-fist Punch, Jak said.

You keep out of this, you said.

You heard the zinc bath and the washboard being dragged out into the yard. You could just see how fiercely she was rubbing the apron against the corrugations. After lunch she put Jakkie in his pram as you'd asked her to do to walk him to sleep so that you could go and have a rest.

You used the child. Only through him would she become good again.

You lay open-eyed in your dark room and tried to think about the morning's events.

Where did the words come from? You hadn't taught her like that. Clump-arse. Pauperworms. You had heard them with your own ears. The cruel hand, the hard foot, you had seen them. You turned on your bed, you wanted to turn away from the thoughts, the images of the morning, but they wound around your head like cloths flapping loosely in the wind, obstructing your view.

Then you heard the screen door slam, the wheels of the pram over the linoleum, the frame knocking against the door-jambs, her footsteps.

She spoke rapidly. Down the passage to the bathroom with a quick rap of the knuckles on your half-open door. You heard her yank the first-aid chest from under in the first linen cupboard.

Man in the axle! In the lucerne field! Dawid has switched off the engine. Head against the rocks. They had to cut him loose! He's bleeding, he's hardly breathing. Come! Quickly!

That was the message, but the timbre of the voice said even more.

Get up! it said. This eternal lying down of yours! I can't do everything on my own. It's your farm's botch-up. The whole botch-up of your life. It's your life that I'm stuck with.

You felt numb. The shock seeped into you on top of the consternation of the morning that hadn't yet subsided.

An accident, another accident!

Times without number you'd told Jak to see to it that the labourers did not bale or thresh without the tin sleeve of the axle and that they wore buttoned overalls at all times.

You hadn't seen the axle-guard for a long time. It was extra trouble to cart it along to the fields. Must be lying forgotten somewhere in a shed.

Take a rug, you said, and water. Bring the stretcher from the storeroom.

He tried to hold onto the wheel of the trailer, his pants were winched off him, Agaat said.

You ignored the contemptuous tone, grabbed an old pair of pyjamas of Jak's from the linen cupboard. You'd heard of this kind of accident but this was the first time on Grootmoedersdrift. A sleeve or the tail of a shirt or a loose belt is caught in the open axle and you're flung arse over heels, round and round, limbs shimmying, head against the ground. It could be fatal if somebody didn't press the button in time to turn off the engine.