Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

Without Agaat you couldn’t have managed it, you said in your little speech at the first spring celebration the following year. At Agaat’s suggestion you presented a garden festival and fund-raising drive for the border soldiers. You invited the local branches of the WAU and the Women’s Mission Union and the Southern Cross and the tea-drinking was opened by the dominee’s wife with scripture and prayer and closed with a hymn.

You peeped at Agaat where she was standing behind the cake table with her hand held in front of her stomach. Her eyes weren’t shut during the prayer. And with the closing hymn she stared straight into the blue sky and swayed lightly on her heels as she sang along, her black-and-white clothes sharply etched against the purple irises in the bed behind her, her fine descant floating above the hymn there in the open.

O goodness God’s ne’er praised enow, who would it not profoundly move.

who unpacks the boxes from bockmann independent living aids? see the fat green letters on the brown cardboard it’s fall 1994 land of hope and glory who cuts open the brown packing-tape? who pulls off blocks of foamalite and plastic packaging? it’s metal tubes chrome rods support surfaces who reads the instructions? who click-clacks the pieces into one another there they stand my externalised skeletons my walking frames one with legs one with wheels

tarantula or fortuna

choose!

who grabs the spider by the head? who shows the way? this is how you do it you lean forward on the crossbar who says it’s like walking with a little table but without the top? don’t look at your feet your feet are of no importance you drag them after your legs you keep straight you make a rigid knee the other one is like walking with the tea-trolley but without the tea you roll ahead you drag behind the wheels are braked you can adjust them if they turn too easily you fall

who shall tell the walker from the frame? and the wheel from the revolution? the imitator from the imitated?

who walks demonstration laps on the red polished stoep? who turns round at the furthest point with retracted chin with pursed lips? who cries soundlessly without tears?

I see she makes a rigid knee she flattens her feet she drops the arches drops her shoulders they bulge under apron bands her knuckles show white on the chrome

we’ll take both she says

the frame for the morning the wheels for the evening we support your last steps so god willing twofold.

Wednesday 16 December 1953 quarter past three (day one Day of the Covenant!)

The great clean-up has begun. She’s still groggy with the valerian. I thought I’d grasp my opportunity. Cut off the hair and washed with tar medicine and then with shampoo and applied ointment. Bad ringworm. Fiddled out the gouts of ear wax with matches and cotton wool and cut the nails. Big struggle to get the teeth brushed. Gums inflamed, lots of rotten teeth. Milk teeth fortunately, must be extracted, the whole lot while we’re about it. Disinfected the mouth with extract of cloves. The whole body first rubbed with oils and then soaked in a hot bath for half an hour, afterwards scrubbed down with hard sponge and nailbrush and soap. Scabs, raw patches everywhere. Half limp, the little body. Eyes keep falling shut. Look at me, Asgat, I say, everything will turn out all right. Must think up another name.

Dried well and the whole body rubbed with oil again, all the nicks and cuts disinfected and covered with plasters. Full of little black moles. Must have them looked at, some of them don’t seem right to me. Privates extremely tender and inflamed. God knows what happened to the creature, discarded, forgotten. Tomorrow to the doctor so that he can have a look at her. Who knows she may have all kinds of diseases. Must get inoculated.

Pox. Diphtheria. Polio. Can’t have an infection erupting here on the farm.

Made her bed in the back room. No window, door can be locked. Immediately fast asleep. In old pyjama jacket of Jak’s. Quite lost in it. Gave her another double dose of tranquillisers so that she can sleep for a long time. Suffering from shock it seems. Suppose to be expected.

Still 16 December half past eight

It’s dead quiet but a different kind of quiet to the usual. As if the house has acquired an ominous charge. Went to see, she’s out like a light.

Have brought something huge upon myself here. Feel exhausted/weepy/ angry with myself or something.

Jak goes about grinding his teeth chronically. Selfish, he mumbles, what about me? I wait for the explosion. I’m trying to think of a name that will suit her, that she will take as her own, something not too far from what she’s used to. Agnes, Aggenys, Anna. Perhaps then Aspatat provisionally, it’s better than nothing and it’s better than Asgat, ash-pit, ash arse, good Lord above!

18 December ten o’clock

I must force her to eat, clamp her between my knees, force open the jaws with one hand, push spoon between the teeth, tip, quickly press the mouth shut. With the other hand rub the throat to make her swallow. Only thin milky porridge, lots of sugar. Won’t chew anything. Put down a bottle with teat next to her, she doesn’t even look at it.

I’m scared she’ll take to her heels again, I keep her locked up in the back when I can’t be with her. I feel bad about it but what else can I do? A lead? Perhaps not a bad idea for the first while. Dog lead with harness? Perhaps she doesn’t even want to run off.

When I put her up straight, she won’t stiffen her legs. Falls over, plays dead when I get close. What wild animals do, insects, when they feel danger threatening. Fall over. Protective colouring. Try not to be seen. Instinct.

Today she’s sitting in the corner in a little heap with her knuckle in her mouth. A sign of progress already, I suppose, that at least she’s sitting up. Yesterday she crawled in under the bed. I had to drag her out of there three times. Clung to the bed-leg with the good hand. Surprisingly tough, the little monkey, that hand I just about had to prise open to get her to let go. The third time I gave her a sharp slap over the buttocks. She must learn, my goodness. She can’t come and play her tricks on me. Showed her Japie. A good old-fashioned duster with a solid wooden handle.

How old could she be? Four? Five? Could be anything, she looks badly undernourished and underdeveloped to me.

I must first get her into condition a bit before I take her to the doctor. Don’t really want to hear what all he’ll have to say. Mother says I’m off my rocker. Who put it in my way? I ask. You, Mother, as you put everything in my way.

Jak paces up and down scolding. Do you think you’re a saint? he asks. Who are you going to wear yourself to a rag for now? Whose victim are you going to make yourself now? All I need to concern myself with is becoming a real mother, he says. Better that he insults me than that he says nothing.

19 December ten o’clock morning

Must simply go and sit and write down how it came about, the whole story, right from the beginning. The dam, the whirligigs round and round, the door creaking open. But it feels too long, too much. Where does something like that really begin? I must make time, before the details of it fade. I must supply the background, put into words the commission. Perhaps that will help me to look beyond the trees and see the forest.

19 December half past two afternoon

Dense as a stone. Not a peep. Close, black, dense, light, like coal. Won’t talk. Won’t eat. Clenches her hands in fists, one knuckle in the mouth, it’s all pink and raw already.