Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

Oh bat oh bat

butter and bread

you come in here

you’re good as dead!

He says I mustn’t blubber now, I must now chew what I’ve bitten off, he says I must go and cry somewhere else, he wants to sleep. So now I’m sitting here in the living room. The house is heavy and still. It feels as if a disaster has struck. Is it of my doing?

6 January 1954

Jelly for breakfast, afternoon and evening. That’s all she’ll eat. I can see the mouth is still sore from the drawing of the teeth. Sit with her in the garden in the morning. Sing everything that comes into my head, talk non-stop everything I can think of, all the names of the flowers. Clack my teeth, smack my lips, click my tongue, show all the speaking mouth parts. Imitate all sounds, brrr goes the tractor, bzzz goes the bee, clippety-clop gallops the horse, moo says the cow, baabaa says the sheep.

Tried to explain her surname, Lourier, to her with the twigs of the laurel tree. Aspatat Lourier, down at the weir, Aspatat Lourier feels no fear. She slowly started to thaw a bit today. Watches me surreptitiously when I’m not looking. Still won’t take anything from me. Sweets, yes, but only when I’m not looking. I don’t want to teach her underhand ways. I close my eyes with the sweets open in my hand, she doesn’t take them, she’s more wary than a tame meerkat.

Have a sore throat from all the singing and talking. How long still before she’s going to become human? I feel I must prove something. To myself, to Jak, to my mother, to the community. Why do I always give myself the most difficult missions? The most difficult farm, the most difficult husband, and now this damaged child without a name?

I’ve exceeded the limits of my abilities with her. As if I’m trying to come to terms with something in myself. What exactly is it that’s driving me? With something like this most normal people would give up before they’ve even started on it. Perhaps those nurses were right after all, the little sceptical doctor? Perhaps I’m just wasting everybody’s time here? And then without any guarantee of success either, without support from the community. But is it fair? People here are quite prepared to clap hands if you’ve accomplished anything unusual, are only too fond of bragging of an achievement from among their own ranks, as long as it never cost them any extra money or effort. If it had been another country, would it have been better? But every country has its share of pettiness, I suppose.

10 January

I have nightmares about the child. Dream I pull out her tongue like an aerial, one section, two, three, longer and longer I pull it out, my hands slip as I try to get a grip on it, there’s no end to it, she laughs from the back of her throat, thousands upon thousands of red tonsils wave like seaweed, her tongue shudders in my hands, like a fishing rod, there’s something heavy biting and tugging at the line, pulling me off my feet, drawing me in, into her mouth, then I wake up screaming. Jak shakes me by the shoulders and slaps my face. He says he’s not giving it much longer. He says the day will come when I’ll open my eyes and she’ll be gone for ever. He’ll see to it, he says, and nobody’ll breathe a word. I, I say, I’ll breathe a word.

16 January

Breakthrough! This morning in the garden, all of a sudden, her gaze perks up. She raises her little eyebrows, the mole on her cheek moves up and down. She looks past my shoulder, looks at something behind me. Then she looks straight in my eyes for the very first time, and then back again over my shoulder, as if she wants to say: Look behind you! Look! Beware! Look! I play back with my eyes, raise my eyebrows: What do you see? Behind you! she signals with her eyes. What can it be? I make my eyes ask to and fro. She looks more and more urgently, she holds my gaze, she directs my eyes, I’m almost overcome with feeling her own will stirring, the very first time!!!

So then it turned out it was Jak all the time who’d stood there making faces at her behind my back. He gets more out of her than I. He laughs, says it’s easy, all it is, she knows who’s actually the baas here on Grootmoedersdrift, just maybe she’ll succeed one day in bringing it home to his wife as well.

17 January

I use Jak’s code now. It works well. I look past her. Look, I say with my eyes, look behind you. What? asks her gaze. Look, look, beware behind you, there’s something. Then I step back, pretend I’m trying to get away from the ‘something’. It’s the only way to get her to move in my direction, a kind of scampering crawl, then she stops, on all fours, just before she reaches me. I don’t want to scare her, but it’s the only way. When at last she dares to look round, I show her, ag, it’s only a cloud, it’s the sun, it’s a tree, it’s a bird. Nothing to be scared of!

Now we play it all the time. She’s starting to bluff back with her gaze. She understands quite well how it works, the eye game. Now I can at least spare my voice a bit, I was getting quite hoarse. Now there definitely is communication, I’m certainly not imagining it. I set my eyes in every possible way, I look in surprise at a spot right behind her, then she jumps round, or I stare soulfully at a place far behind her, she gazes into my eyes for a long time before turning round to see what it is.

20 January

She’s in thrall to my eyes now. She looks everywhere that I look. Ever more complicated bluffing games we play, surprise games, guessing games. I could never have dreamed you can achieve so much with your eyes.

For instance I look past her but she doesn’t look. You’d better see what’s going on there, I signal with my eyes, but she doesn’t look, she holds out. It’s very very pretty! I signal, or, it’s really ugly, or, it’s terribly creepy, or, it’s very nice, or, it’s going to catch you!

At last she looks, mostly there’s nothing in particular and when she looks back I evade her glance, all innocence. Then she comes and stands against me until I look at her. Then I shut my eyes to indicate: Close your eyes. Then I put down a cookie or a sweet somewhere. Then I signal again, look there, behind you is something nice. But then I have to look away until she’s eaten it. I must just take care that she doesn’t react to reward exclusively. There won’t always be a reward. She must simply learn to speak now. You can’t live by looking alone. I take out the duster. She’s going to get Japie, I say, on her backside, if she won’t talk.

21 January 1954

I always have a struggle with her in the mornings, she lies all huddled up and doesn’t want to budge. Just like a little cold animal that has to warm up first. Now I’ve thought up a warming-up exercise. ‘The Greeting to the Sun’ I call it. I demonstrate it to her, first nice and high on the toes, then stretch with one arm, then stretch with the other (the little weak arm I still have to operate for her, but I’m sure it’ll catch up), one big step forward, one big step backward, dip at the knees, down with the head, up with the head, good morning, o mighty king sun!

If she doesn’t want to, I rap her with the stick of the feather duster, that usually does the trick. I simply have to apply discipline here. We’re going to do it every morning, I say, until you jump out of bed in the mornings and do it of your own accord.

22 January

She must guess what I’m looking at, we play, she must point to what I’m looking at. At first the hand was close to the body, just a little protruding finger pointing, this or that, now she’s pointing with the whole arm, has even been running these last two days to the tree or its shadow, or the red-hot pokers, or the row of agapanthus, or the tap, or the fish pond or the stoep steps and then I call the name of the thing: Flower! Stone! Water! then she touches it quickly, as if she’s afraid it’ll bite. Perhaps she learns more from my saying a few words than from my talking non-stop.