Agaat (45 page)

Could get the smell from where I was sitting behind the trunk next to the rock fig. Then they waited & I waited. Half an hour later an hour so that my legs started cramping but I couldn't budge so dead quiet was it only a kokkewiet calling.

 

But when is he coming? asked Jakkie. Be quiet you'll hear him approaching up high there in the leaves said A. I could see Jakkie was getting restless. What do you think we're waiting for? asked A. For the emperor of course said Jakkie what does he look like? Black like the dark moon
from outside said A. but all blue November-sky from the inside no not powder-blue rather wet-blue silvery & when he unfolds himself you look into the eye. What eye? Jakkie asked & he blink-blinked his eyes at A. No, it doesn't work like that she said. He folds open his wings & it's the Eye of Everything. But when they're closed, there's nothing. Like hip up hop down? asked Jakkie. Yes, just like a fire like great love it's all & it's nothing & your soul perishes in the flames but the story is told from generation to generation. Shhht I can hear him! He's coming!

 

Had heard the fluttering earlier. Always thought it was the forest thrush.

 

Close your eyes said A. to Jakkie. Bring him nearer with your will.

 

So there we sit the three of us with closed eyes & I add my will to theirs to make a miracle happen & there it happens!

 

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is Jakkie's face with a shiny spot reflecting from the lid onto him. But it's not only shiny it's blue as if a little window has opened on his forehead. There the butterfly is poised on the shiny lid & eats banana with its wings spread wide so that the one side shows blue. Apatura iris the giant purple emperor butterfly. There the two of them sit with the sun on their heads & the blue reflection leaps from Jakkie's forehead to A.'s cap & the butterfly opens & closes its wings & it flies away a hip hop jewel & then it descends again for more. Between the lids he to-&-fros. The span of its wings greater than you can imagine. As large as two open hands with crossed thumbs. Nymphalidae the family of the carrion eaters.

They still haven't told me. Jak asks at breakfast this morning so what secret have the three of you got now do tell me too? Then I see A. looking at me from where she is bringing Jakkie his porridge but I pretended not to know anything & I ask: What did you see yesterday in the Keurtjiekloof? He puts his finger in front of his mouth & gives A. a secret look & says riddle me ree the night is black & the day is blue & the soul is closed at first & then folded open what is it? Eat your porridge says A. with a straight face & I see she hu-uhs at him with her eyes not to let out anything. It's time that you went to school said Jak you're becoming far too smart here under Gaat. But he's so inquisitive he comes & grabs my diary here from under me to see what I'm writing but he can't make out my writing just as well I'm always in such a rush.
Let go I say it's private. Then you should rather not sit & write it up in public he says, it's like lifting your skirts & peeing in the main street.

What can it all mean? Sometimes so overwhelmed by what I experience every day I'm crying as I sit here & write. Don't know exactly what it is. Not sadness rather gladness & fear. Envy perhaps? but why? & of what?

 

Have just been to look for Jakkie & A. then I saw them playing in the orchard by the pear trees—snow-white in blossom—their latest game. Jakkie has discovered the airplane that Jak built for him way back under the lean-to only a skeleton & the paint is all peeled off but it still has wings & wheels. He made A. drag it out all the way down to the irrigation furrow. She fixed the head of an old fan to the front for a propeller. He sits in the seat & she sits in the grass with her back against the fuselage & looks in front of her. They pretend he takes off & flies away. Went & sat on the edge of the irrigation furrow behind the pomegranate orchard to hear.

 

How high are you now? asks Agaat.
As high as the mountains! says Jakkie.
Do tell me everything that you see.
I see a bird!
What kind of a bird is it?
I don't know!
Well then, ask him what kind of bird he is!
I can't!
Put your hand out & catch him & bring him home, then I'll ask him
what kind of bird he is.
There he flies away!
Fly after him!
I can't he's gone!
Then I know what his name is!
What?
I'm not allowed to say it out loud, I must whisper it in your ear.
But I'm up here!
Well then come down again!
I'm coming! Here I come!
Come down, I can see you already! Here you come! Look out for the
tower silo!
I come! I see you, here I am!

Then Jakkie jumps from the little plane into A.'s arms & she rolls in the grass with him & laughs they sit up & he holds his hand behind his ear & she whispers a whole long story into it & his eyes widen in surprise & she pulls her head away & he shakes his head for no & she nods her head for yes & he wants to ask something & she lays her finger on her lips & he lays his finger on his.

I'm itching.

Possibly because I couldn't laugh. The theatrics with the neighbour's wife yesterday, perhaps that was too macabre. Milla, the drama queen. Jak's name for me. What in heaven's name would he have said if he'd seen me here like this? Or done?

Closing scene. She-devil with shingles. Perhaps he would have emptied a bucket of water on me and lowered the curtain.

Thursday 3 December 1996. Twelve o'clock.

Itch.

Nobody who knows it or to whom I can say it. Possibly not a drama. Something for the stage, though, Jak. Art in miniature. The Scourge of the Seven-Year Itch.

This bed. A chrome railing. Covers up to my chin. Under that my skin heaving with the itch.

Where is Agaat? When is she coming?

Itch.

Not a word that one could sing, except in a hotnot song perhaps, words for Agaat's St Vitus's dance with which she keeps the demons at bay. I hear the servants talk of it, the to-and-fro-ing over the yard at night.

The Sunday morning

The Sunday morning

I didn't care

My mommy's words keep

Fresh in Tupperware.

I can scratch myself—that would have to be the message of the Gospel.

Where is Agaat?

Job itched.

But he wasn't paralysed, and he had a potsherd.

Could it have been itching that caused the creation? They say the stress of isolation causes people to scratch their heads.

Why is Agaat not coming?

Who led the Bear out into the firmament? Who swathed the sea in a mantle of mist? All too pretty. Who clothed man in skin, made him susceptible to itching?

I can see myself in the mirror. As far as I can make out there is nothing swarming over my face, no nest of spiders erupted on the bedspread.

In a life-skills booklet, a Do It Yourself, I read that when you become aware of an unpleasant sensation in your body, you must concentrate on it. With a quiet mind. Deathward set. First you will become curious. And after that you will see it as an opportunity. Apparently you will discover that the sensation doesn't remain the same. What you had assumed to be one sense impression with one name, is in fact a sequence of different impressions, nameless and unnameable. Like clouds they will drift past and disappear. Temporary. Unimportant. Like everything. Like breakfast cereal.

Definitely a less far-fetched doctrine of salvation than the Resurrection after three days. Short Form. Doesn't need volumes.

In the beginning was the Skin and the Skin was God and the Skin itched in the outer darkness. No name needed, you need indeed then only say: I am who I am.

Where is the wretched Van der Lught with his chubby cheeks so that I can see his face when he hears it?

The world as the impotence of an itching God, and the sons of men, they scratch Him.

Milla, calm down.

Left side, front quadrant, twenty to seven if my head were a clock face.

That's where it started.

A prick, like that of a mosquito bite.

I said to myself, nothing can bite you here, no flea could survive here.

But one thing leads to another. A second prick right next to the first, twenty-three minutes to seven, as if from a mosquito grazing in a circle. Zimmmm-zoommm. Oh mosquito, where is thy sting? I would be able to extract it with my imagination.

But it was not a mosquito.

It was legion. Snap, Crackle and Pop. All over my scalp. But not Rice Crispies.

Harpies, swarming like seconds, like fractions of fugitive seconds, minuscule little black monsters, scourging the dome of my skull.

And if I'm not permitted to scratch, give me the Book then, I'll rewrite it, from front to back, with my hand set in a cast of iron. The waste and wild and the streets of jasper. With itching I shall replace them. It's momentous enough.

And after that the hordes migrated over my neck and they gathered their forces in pools of itch in the hollows of my collarbone. And their numbers were vast and they migrated along my backbone, in columns, in a multitude of battle arrays. And in the fullness of time they returned by the front route, with intensified force, all along my ribs. They excavated me under my breasts, arrow-headed letters strayed from a text. And they marched across my belly, an inflamed track of itching all the way to the pit of my navel, amen.

Preacher-tick.

Ringworm.

Rubella.

Shingles.

Scab.

So many mansions in my Father's house.

On my flank, on my shin, against my inner arm, squamous.

I wait, my hands inert hooks next to my sides, my mouth bitter.

Drool.

Squirm.

Tears.

Sweat.

Do it yourself.

My cheeks itch, my forehead, my gums underneath my lips. It itches all along the cleft of my buttocks, all the way into the inside of my hole, all along the white ridge running there, where Agaat cut me at the birth, and further, in every grey membranous fold of my posterior does it itch. Can I say it? All the way into my cunt. Cunt. Milla Redelinghuys's cunt itches. Who would ever have suspected she had such a foul mouth? Not if it is gagged. Cunt. What is deeper than cunt? All the way into the depth of my black irrational womb it itches me.

Here she comes!

Lord, Ounooi, what's the matter now?

She's next to my bed, she searches in my eyes. She swabs my face with a tissue. Gary Player.

Drenched with sweat!

She throws off the covers.

Now I mustn't mislead her.

Are you so hot then?

No, but carry on with your list, the list you made for me!

Is it the shivers?

No!

Can't you breathe?

No!

Are you in pain?

Is itching pain? How must I reply? No, itching is not pain. It's suffering, yes, but it's like somebody who suffers an urgent call of nature. Relief is what one wants. Not comfort. Not nursing. People with an itch and people with an urgent call of nature, they belong in a farce. In a Greek comedy, perhaps? A philosopher shitting in the shadow of national monuments, a guffawing catharsis. The yearning for inconsolability is something else. That's for tragedies. But nobody itches in tragedies.

So blink, Ounooi, blink your eyes, I can see you're in a terrible state here, I'm asking, is it sore somewhere?

Perhaps ‘somewhere' is a start.

Yes, somewhere!

Your head? Is your head sore again?

Yes, my head!

Headache?

No!

But your head all the same?

Yes!

Headache syrup?

No!

Neck stiff!

No, no, stay with the head!

Head? Is it lying uncomfortably?

Uncomfortable yes!

If only she would touch my head, that could be a start. It's not the first time.

She rearranges the pillow. My head keels over on the pillow. Prickly pear full of Christmas lights.

Better like that?

No!

Well what then? With the head? Nightmares? Nasty thoughts?

No! Yes! Yes!

What, Ounooi? Be clear! You're giving double messages! No! or Yes!

That time again on Grootmoedersdrift! Yes-and-no time! say her eyes.

I must prevent her from getting angry. Nightmares, nasty thoughts, those she can't tolerate from me. I must just be good and stay good.

She holds out her little hand and then the strong hand. In, out, like switches. In, out.

Give with the one hand and take with the other it means. Yes or no. Be clear.

No! No! No! Agaat, my head! Put your hand on my head!

I flicker upwards with my eyes.

She places her hand on my forehead. Under her hands is an infestation of fine mites, under the palm it tingles, it squirms, it wells up out of the deep, it's not mites, it's maggots.

You don't have a fever, Ounooi, what is it then?

Don't take your hand away, keep it right there! I move my eyes to and fro, up and down.

Agaat strokes from my forehead, backwards over my hair. Backwards. Once. Once more.

My whole scalp erupts in one blaze, from the front, worse than ever.

I close my eyes, open them quickly, I to-and-fro them, turned up in their sockets.

Scratch my head! Scratch my head! My goddamned, scabby skull! Scratch it!

I see the light come on in Agaat's eyes. I see the smile. She wants to suppress it but she can't.

Stutterers, deaf-mutes, idiots, cripples, the lame, the itchers? Why does one want to laugh at them? I don't know, Agaat. And bugger you too, Agaat!