Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

17 February 1954

Agaat reacts to her new name! I say her bedtime prayer: Gentle Jesus my name’s Agaat make clean and pure my heart. She doesn’t close her eyes, keeps gazing at me wide-eyed. Agaat is good, Agaat is sweet, Agaat’s a child of the Lord and He keeps watch over her while she sleeps. Good as gold, as rain, as salt, good as the blaze in the heart of the wood. I don’t know if my words achieve anything, I feel the child must learn to associate herself with beautiful and good things, shame still so small and already so damaged by life. I sing to her: Sleep my child, sleep tight, with roses bedight and Sleep baby sleep, Your daddy tends the sheep. Perhaps I should change the words, the child instead of my child and something I don’t know what instead of ‘your daddy’, I wouldn’t want her to get wrong ideas now, but I don’t suppose it can do any harm, she’s so small still.

20 February 1954

Agaat’s brought me something for the first time, and taken something from me. Truly a big mile-stone!

This morning still half-asleep I had this bright idea. Just suddenly knew it would work given that the hand-bell won’t, something with a greater effect, a more dramatic function it should have, and I thought and I thought and suddenly I knew just the thing! Dug up my father’s old tinderbox, demonstrated how you strike the flintstone till you get a spark. Made a little fire on a piece of corrugated iron in the backyard with wisps of grass and pine cones. Great interest! All eyes! On the haunches tight against me. Go and fetch another pine cone, I say. Would you believe it she actually goes and fetches another pine cone! Actually knows where to find a pine cone! And comes and gives it in my hand!

Do you want it? I ask then, do you want the tinderbox? The little hand appears, and takes it out of my hand, careful not to touch me, but tightly the little hand clasps and tightly the little hand holds and she fiddles with it and smells it, the tinder smell.

In front of me! While I’m there! Praise the Lord!

Taught her one doesn’t play with fire, only when I’m there is she allowed to strike the flintstone or light a match. It may help to exercise the lazy hand because you can’t operate the tinderbox with just one hand. Taught her you say thank you when you’re given a present. And if you can’t say it with your mouth, then you say it with your eyes. Slow blink with the eyes, once and a small bow of the head means ‘thank you’ I teach her. Thank you for jelly, thank you for food and clothes and a house, thank you for a tinderbox. Solemnly went and squirreled it away in her hessian sack.

Phoned home. Could have known what the reaction would be. Watch out, says my mother, everything you put in there, will come back to you.

25 February 1954

Made a fire again! This time with a magnifying glass from Jak’s office. Will have to get him another one, he looks at the maps with it. White-hot outside. I got burnt blood-red on my neck from sitting still in the sun with the lens. A newspaper fire. Go and fetch grass, I say, go on, go and fetch twigs. Gone and back in a flash she was. Knows about making a fire, it seems. Then believe it or not she holds out her hand for the lens. How does one ask? Please, you say. Otherwise you look straight in the eye of the one who must give and you blink twice quickly with the eyelids. We practised till I was satisfied. Big please. Pretty please. Then again thank you, thank you very, very much with the eyes, close the eyelids slowly and nod forward with the head. She put the lens also in the sack with her other things. Must get her another bag, or a little suitcase, the sack stinks.

27 February 1954

A third fire! Agaat thinks I can do magic. With a flat bit of softwood, half mouldy with wood-mite, and a straight stick. Next to the river in the shade. It took hours, later the sweat was pouring off me, you can’t let go, otherwise you have to start all over again. Twirl, twirl, twirl in the little hole. Up and down, my hands burning after a while. First you smell it, the first little curl of smoke appears, up from the base of the stick. Agaat on her knees, looks as if she wants to stare it on fire. Blinks the eyes, looks at me, blinks the eyes, blinks at the turn-stick, blinks at the flat piece of wood. Please! Please! Fire fire in my hand, I say, who sees the first spark in the land? When the smoke was curling properly, I took out the stick, here comes the little hand with the smallest, finest threads of dry straw. As if she’s done it often before, as if she knows exactly how, she sprinkles a few shreds into the hole, blows with pursed lips, could hardly believe it, anther shred she adds, blows with the gentlest breath, until the little flame leaps up. Wherever did you see it, Agaat? How do you know so well to start a fire? Who taught you?

Then she looks over my left shoulder, I look round, see nothing, then she looks over my right shoulder, I look round, still nothing, then she looks on the ground, then in the air, then in the palm of her strong hand! And I fold it open nicely and make a show of looking and see nothing. All prim and proper she looks at me!

I think that’s the first joke, the first tale that she’s told me.

Who taught you about fire?

The Nowherewoman, the woman without name, who is everywhere but who can’t be seen, she taught me about starting a fire.

Then I continued the tale: Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted to learn how to start a fire, and I watched her closely to see if she’d give an indication, hot or cold, but she doesn’t let herself be read.

Perhaps there were concrete and specific circumstances when she was still very small, many more, far worse than one could dream up in a fairy tale.

4 March 1954

Agaat is a closed book. Sometimes I think she’s wiser than she is. Sometimes I think she’s retarded. When you have to communicate through the eyes, live by inferences, misunderstandings are easy. I must remember she’s only a child. Seriously damaged. I mustn’t want to read too much into things. I mustn’t expect too much. Can’t help thinking it’s the most challenging and also the most promising task I’ve ever set myself, that the Lord entrusted to me to enrich and fortify me in my spiritual life, to feed my capacity to love my neighbour, to sharpen my insight into my fellow man. I must write down the commission. I must write how I found her otherwise I’ll forget how it was, but it seems too much, I’m scared to commit it to writing. Would I find the right words?

6 March

I encourage her to touch things and tug at them, open her hands, to give, receive. Go and fetch my little book, I say, so that I can write down how you are. She knows exactly what I’m talking about, brings it and opens it for me on a blank page. It’s going better by the day now. Must silence her because she grabs the silver hand-bell in the dining room and then J. comes to eat and the food isn’t nearly ready. It’s just the talking that must still be sorted out, everything else will follow quickly once we’ve got that on track.

11 March

I play shadow puppets for her against the wall. Rabbit, snake, camel, dove. She opens her hands now, the strong hand more readily than the weak, the sly hand, the monkey paw, as I call it. I take the little hand in mine, I open and close it, open and close so that it can become human, I say, but she doesn’t like it, she always keeps it half out of play, the weak arm always half out of the way, as if it’s private property. I count to five on the fingers of the good hand, I give them names. Pinkie, Golddinky, Laureltree, Eye-washer, Bugsquasher. At night I leave a candle-end with her. I peep through the slot to see what she’s doing. She lies and stares at the flame for hours. Plays shadows against the wall with her hands. Weak hand makes the snout, ears, tail. Strong hand the neck of the buck, the head of the horse. Earlier this evening I thought I heard a whispering on a long in-breath like somebody counting sheep and not wanting to lose tally, I suppose I mustn’t expect miracles. She doesn’t sleep before the candle is burnt down. Every evening before bedtime she brings the candlestick so that I can fit a new candle-end, she carries it to her room as if it’s a great treasure.