Agaat (48 page)

 

This evening after supper I see she's embroidering a red & black cushion & she's ostensibly telling Jakkie his bedtime stories and there she deviates from Hansel and Gretel & makes the witch say to the boy: Look so you think don't you the sea is a friendly place where you play with coloured balls & chew sugarsticks & row in a yellow canoe there are
black slimes below on the bottom there lurks an animal in the depths it blows through its nostrils filthy foams & it bites its own tail & it curls around the world like a clamp & it cramps in its guts with fury & then the water churns & that's where waves come from & you think you row & you think you swim & you think it's holidays with the colourful sun umbrellas but it's not. How dare she? So I fly up on the spot & I scold my goodness but don't be so malicious & I grab the cushion. A dragon it is with spiky wings scale by scale embroidered & above in death's-head letters WITSAND. I show it to Jak & he says don't come and moan to me now you filled that creature's mind with all sorts of things when she was small I told you to watch out you never can tell how it's going to hatch one day in a fuzzy-head.

 

Must get Jakkie under my hand a bit more. Spend more time music-making. That's all he enjoys doing with me. If I can just get him going first. Singing & recorder-playing.

All packed and ready to go this morning then Jak wouldn't leave because he's heard at the café that there's to be a beach race this afternoon for Father & Son in which he wants to take part with Jakkie. He's creating massive trouble for me. The fridge had been cleaned & the freezer defrosted & all the frozen fish & tupperware filled with bouillons that A. had packed neatly to take along in boxes. So then we had to unpack everything again & switch on the freezer & A. grumbles nonstop throughout. She'd heard what Jak said last night & she's good & fuming today. He has to watch his step she says the jaw stuck out all the way—I'll make him a nice puffer-fish soup I have the recipe of a widow from Port Beaufort. God defend us.

 

The lamb, Jakkie's hanslam. Was that the moment you felt something turning? Or before that already? You had hold of it in front by the neck-wool and Agaat was standing at the back with Jakkie in front of her.

You were under the eyes of Jak and under the eyes of Agaat. Between the two of them they had stared you into a corner. The lamb started bleating. Initially it had come running of its own accord. Agaat had called it.

Pietertjie. With its little fat tail. It thought it was going to be given the teat. But now it was scared. Now it started shying away with the head. You had to hold it tightly. It was actually too big already to be a hanslam but Jakkie was besotted with it. Every morning before school
he went with Agaat to give it milk, a great greeting it was through the fence, a bleating. Every afternoon he went to fetch it out of the little camp. Then it came into the kitchen and stood head-butting while Jakkie was having his afternoon meal that Agaat had kept warm for him. Then they did homework, heads together at the kitchen table with the lamb that came and pressed against their knees.

It was Jakkie's eighth birthday. Agaat gave him a knife as a present. On special order. A real Rodgers penknife from England, Sheffield, with two blades, bought from the Malay in Suurbraak. You baked cakes, Agaat and you, cupcakes, sponge cake cut in cubes for the party. People had been invited, lots of children. He was shy but you made him sing for the guests and accompanied him on the piano.
Heimwee
, by S. le Roux Marais. The adults were amazed. Beatrice listened wide-eyed. The children stood giggling, with glasses of cooldrink in their hands and cheeks bulging with cake. Jak was embarrassed.

A boy who wants a knife, he said, when Jakkie had finished singing and he was given his presents, must be able to dock a sheep's tail. Then we can also see at the same time if that so-called English coolie knife is worth anything. Then Jakkie ran away.

Agaat, go and look for your little baas and bring him here, on the spot, Jak ordered.

You signalled at her with your eyes, look for him but don't find him. She looked back at you with blunt eyes. It didn't take her very long. Then you heard the crying. Across the yard she was dragging him by the ear with the little hand, by the arm with the strong hand, Jakkie straining back.

My goodness, but will you walk up straight and behave yourself on your birthday, Agaat scolded.

Where was the little blighter? Jak asked.

In the lucerne shed, right on top of all the bales. I had to drag him down there. Then he bit me, look.

Agaat held out her arm to Jak. Self-righteous. An open bite it was. Swollen, the tooth-marks still visible.

Well I never! Jak exclaimed, the choirboy, if he can bite a coon, he can dock a sheep as well! Bring the little bugger round the back, not through the sitting room, look how dirty he is. Where's his knife? Bring his knife!

You can still see it in front of you. There Jakkie is standing in the backyard with the knife shut in his fist. There you are standing, bent over with the lamb's head clamped between your legs. There is Agaat. She is pushing Jakkie forward by the neck.

Open, come on, open the blade, the big one, have you got porridge in your little hands then, my lad? Jak pretending it's the most usual thing on earth.

The children came closer. Great louts some of them, with voices like geese.

Glass-head, they shout. Sissy! Sing high false notes to mock him.

Why did you not stop it then? You could have stopped it. But you helped with it. You wanted to get it over and done with. You didn't know how else.

Jak's eyes were on you. Agaat's eyes were on you. Did they recognise each other's reasons? You did. You recognised everybody's reasons.

Jak had bought Jakkie a little motorbike to go for rides with him and you'd said over your dead body, he's too small, he'll get hurt. You'd quarrelled about it at table after dinner the night before.

He's a child, you'd said. Let him be, he's still collecting birds' eggs, he's still shooting his bow and arrow, he swims in the river, he plays hide-and-seek with Agaat, it's his life, now you want to come and spoil him with dangerous things that make a noise and smoke up a stink here in the yard.

You and your skivvy, you mollycoddle him, you talk your women's twaddle into his head, I can't get close to him or you surround him.

Agaat had come in with the coffee.

He's a child, you'd said, he's still only eight little years old. You can't expect from him now already . . .

Agaat had plonked the coffee pot down hard in front of your nose.

Not too much, she'd said to you, it's strong.

Her voice was direct. You were silent. She had silenced you. You knew the tone, for your own good you'd better not say another word, the message was clear.

Has the cake been iced? you'd asked.

Done, she'd said. Pink and green. Children's cake.

You two and your everlasting cake! Jak had said and got up and walked out.

And so then the crisis the following day, the lamb, the knife, was the beginning of a new alliance. If not the beginning, then a discovery of the possibilities.

You played along willy-nilly. You didn't know how else. You could find nothing to say.

Jakkie was white-faced, his head hunched between his shoulders.

Agaat pinched him in the shoulder until he bent his back. She put the knife in his left hand and held it there with her strong hand. So that she could help him, she said. Was it help? Jakkie's kneecaps were trembling.

Mamma, no, he whined, please, Gaat, please, I can't.

You can, Boetie, Agaat said, she looked at you, she was speaking for both of you, pretending to be speaking for both of you, and there wasn't a splinter's worth of space between her words.

You're Gaat's big boy aren't you! Your même is here, she's holding him nicely, and I'm here, a sheep can't walk around with such a long tail, it gets worms. Shut your eyes tight and make limp your elbow, then I'll help you.

The last she said softly, quickly, next to his ear.

But it was you she was looking at. Full in the eyes. Hold tight, here it is, the look said. One hanslam for you. And one for me.

Agaat cut, one quick stroke. The tail was in her hand. Jak led the applause. The blood spurted on Jakkie's legs. The lamb jerked loose, ran head-first straight into the wall of the backyard.

Take your bloody knife! take it, I don't want it! Jakkie cried. He threw the knife as far as he could. With long strides he ran out of the backyard.

Girlie! they shouted after him, girlie! Little hanslam! Pietertjie!

Rinse the blood from the cement, but this instant, you said to Agaat. And see to it that that sheep is given wound ointment.

This instant, she mocked. She went and picked up the knife where it had fallen, wiped the knife on her apron where you were standing by, the one side and the other side, two red gashes over the white cotton, and folded the blade back into the knife.

You know it stains, you said.

There is nothing, said Agaat, that you can't get out with cold water and Sunlight soap and a bit of Jik.

 

You woke up later that night. A floorboard had creaked in the passage. Jak had sent the child to bed without supper for bad behaviour and now he'd come out. To the bathroom you heard him pad on bare feet. You heard the lid of the toilet, thought you heard the door of the bathroom cabinet. Then a window opening, a soft thud in the backyard. The grandfather clock struck quarter past one. You'd known for a long time that they spoke through his bedroom window at night, he on his elbows at the window, she on the butcher's block against the wall. You knew that he sometimes climbed through the window and went and crawled into bed with her. From when he was very small you'd found him sleeping with her.

They both knew that it was against the rules, Jak would have a fit. Comfort is what he went to seek after his terrible birthday.

You lay listening with open eyes. You were sad. Who was there to comfort you? You'd had to eat Jakkie's birthday food alone with Jak at table that night.

Don't you think that was enough for one day? you'd asked. Can't he just come and have his food?

He must learn he doesn't disgrace his father in front of guests, Jak had said.

Agaat had served you silently. Her roast chicken and browned oven-potatoes and pumpkin fritters, Jakkie's favourites. You saw her afterwards dishing up her food in the kitchen. But she didn't eat. She washed the dishes and went straight to her room and left the two of you there without serving the dessert. When you took the trifle out of the fridge there was a big hole on the one side. You dished up in the kitchen so Jak shouldn't see it.

You couldn't sleep. You heard the outside room's door open and close again, more softly. It still scuffed, ghrrrr over the cement floor. It had subsided further over the years. Why had you never had it fixed? Possibly because you preferred to hear all the ins and outs? For a long time you lay like that, but you heard nothing more. Later barefoot to the kitchen without switching on the lights. There was a glow in Agaat's room, sparks above the chimney. The door was closed.

You opened the kitchen door quietly, held the screen door so that it shouldn't slam behind you. Peered through an opening in the outside room's curtain. There was Jakkie in front of the fire in his pyjamas. Agaat in her nightdress busy in front of her two-plate stove. Water on the boil in the big pot, the lid turned upside-down, a plate covered with another inside the lid. She was wearing her cap for the operation. The glow of the fire shone through it as she passed to and fro in front of the fireplace. It threw a long pointed shadow on the walls, the shadow shrank and twisted in the corners as she moved. Then she brought a white cloth and unfolded it on the floor in front of Jakkie, a glass of water on it. A plate. A spoon. In the air in front of his nose. Wiggle waggle. Sorry it's the only cutlery I have. Off with the covering plate. Steam. Agaat's supper. Jakkie's wing, the pope's nose, the back portion that had lain longest in the gravy.

Softly they spoke while he was eating. You couldn't hear. You could only see the faces, the cautious opening-up after the terrors of the day. When he'd finished she handed back the pocket-knife. In his palm she put it and enfolded his hand with hers. Jakkie pointed at her forearm. She rolled back the sleeve of her nightdress. Together they bent over the bite wound. He took a roll of plaster out of the top pocket of his pyjamas. No, it must remain open, Agaat explained. She bethought herself,
took a pair of scissors out of her needlework basket, cut off a length and allowed him to stick it on.

Suddenly Jakkie pressed his head against her body. His face distorted. Agaat pressed him close to her with both arms. For a long time they sat like that. She rocked forward and backward gently with him. After a while she whispered something in his ear, got up, took the spoon to wash it, came back, set an enamel milk-bowl full of trifle in front of him.

You turned round. You couldn't look any longer. The faces in the soft light of the fire. The confidence. The ease. The forgiveness, asked, given, sealed. The soft bodies in the night-clothes. You didn't recognise your child, nor Agaat's body, the curves you could see silhouetted against the fire in the nylon nightdress. You saw her folding open her bedclothes for him. You turned back from the window, pushed your fist into your mouth so that they shouldn't hear you groan.