Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

Jak knocked over the gravy boat.

Agaat cleaned up without twitching a muscle, as if these were gestures and a text that she knew. As if Jak were an actor whose words she was rehearsing with him to check that he was word-perfect.

How does the rest of it go, Agaat? Don’t you remember it any more, your good Afrikaner education? Jak asked. Agaat just looked at him, the cloth with which she was mopping up the gravy in her hand.

Yes, Gaat, what are you staring at me like that for? Or are you perhaps drinking in my every word? But your mouth is zipped up of course! Talking is the baas’s responsibility high and dry here on his little box. You and your miesies, you can put on the nappy and cook the pumpkin and cut the roup from a chicken’s tongue, but when it’s a matter of judgement and interpretation then you’re mute, the two of you. Not that you ever shut up, oh, no, it’s an eternal chattering. Ad nauseam. About what? About nothing I’m telling you. Tra-lee tra-la. But if the shit hits the fan, he who’s the baas gets to clean the fan. He must start up the whole shit-story here and explain the parable. You can lay nothing but wind-eggs, you and Madame Butterfly here.

Jak peered at you, his gaze unsteady with alcohol. Or what am I talking? MiIla my pilla oh so silla? Are you also saying nothing tonight?

You didn’t look up. Jak got up unsteadily from his chair and struck his breast.

It’s my tragedy this, Agaat. You’re standing there with your lip latched to your chin because you know, don’t you, that your history has already been written up for you, day and date. Who would ever think of one day telling my tale? It wouldn’t be for the mass market.

You two, you are the trashy novel, ladies’ fiction for the airport.

The women of Grootmoedersdrift!

Agaat Lourier and Milla Redelinghuys, a tale that will rend the heart of every mother! Deep, I tell you! The stone and the bat! The silenced minority, the last domestic trench, the aborted revolution, now on the shelves for the first time! Mother Smother and Maid Overpaid!

That evening late you went to sit in the garden. You wanted to think, you couldn’t understand what point it was that Jak was trying to make, whether he had a point. It must have been very late when you got up from the garden bench, a clear night, Orion had shifted across to the west already. The plovers called out in overflight, a broken scale, two notes, three notes, four. It was Easter and you could hear the new lambs bleating on the hills beyond the drift.

You wanted to go to your room through the stoep door. Jak’s light was on. You heard movement, a sound, you went back down the stairs and went and stood on a terrace further on and higher up from where you could see into his office. Just the central rod, the upper halves of the weights, as he lifted them, were visible for a moment, then they disappeared, jerkily, dangerously fast.

You climbed onto the stump of the cut-down fig tree under his window. His face was upside down. At this angle it looked like a mask. He was naked except for a truss of synthetic material around his waist. His chest was heaving, the sinews in his neck thin with straining, the muscles in his upper arms quivering. The weights were clearly too heavy. Between the grunts you heard other sounds. Only then could you make out the expression on his face. Tears down his cheeks. Bubbles of mucus under his nose.

You wanted to go in to him. I am part of this pain, you wanted to say to him, but you couldn’t. You leant your head against the window sill and listened till the sobs died down.

When it was still, you looked again. He was curled up there on the carpet. Around him the shiny rods and the round iron disks were scattered. His arms were around his head. There was a moth around the light, large loose shadows flapped in the room. From the gleam of the red midriff support you could see his breathing. He wasn’t sleeping. His jaws were moving as he muttered.

Jak’s tale.

Agaat’s tale.

Selvage and face.

You had eavesdropped on them both. The tales that were clenched back behind jawbones, those that were roared into the wind, into the reeds, into the blowing bluegum tatters, those that were broadcast through the chimneys, those that were distilled from the depths of the bottle, those that were declaimed on the dust roads of the dryland, those that were muttered into mouthpieces.

Was there somebody on the other side that day when you heard Agaat talking on the phone? Or had it been designed specially for your ears? How could you know? You had been her teacher.

You were standing behind the door in the kitchen where you knew she often stood listening when you were talking on the phone.

Yes, Jakkie, Agaat was saying, that’s not news to me, you know, I know, everybody knows your mother and your father, they’re not easy people, but we all have our faults. And they’ll always be your mother and your father.

No, I’m not defending them, I’m just saying.

Stop it, what do you want me to say? They’ve always been nothing but good to me.

What do you mean? I have food, I have clothes, I have a house. . and everything. .

No, you can’t say that, no you can’t.

Jakkie, stop it, your father would never say anything like that. You’re making it up because you’re very angry with him.

No, Jakkie, they look after me and they’re my people.

No, I’m not hiding it, why would I now stand here and lie to you?

Your mother has a hard time with him, he’s difficult, but she’s also difficult.

No, Jakkie, it’s not that bad either.

No, I don’t know what he said to you and I don’t want to know, if he has a complaint, he can tell me about it himself.

No, I don’t interfere.

No, that’s their business.

No, I’m not playing dumb. And I’m not playing innocent.

That’s not true. I know everything and see everything.

No, I say nothing to nobody. Why should I? They don’t do me any harm.

No, you don’t know what you’re saying.

Never mind. Never you mind now, Boetie, why are you so obstreperous this morning?

Of course I want you to stay!

Of course! You’re my brother. You’re the only little brother I have.

No, you needn’t worry about me, I can look after myself.

I’ll miss you, yes, more even than I miss you already.

Of course I’ll write. I’ll write even more.

I will, every week.

About the clover.

About the rain too.

About the drift, everything.

I will.

About the wind.

About the smell of my fennel, they say it’s sprung up all the way to Mossel Bay!

I’ll give you seeds to take along.

Of course I love you, terribly much, you don’t know how much.

No, you don’t know, you can’t know. You’re my child too, you know that, don’t you? But first come to have your birthday with Gaat. I’m making everything that you like. For one last time. Your sheep’s neck and sweet pumpkin, your lovely chicken pie.

No, you can’t possibly want to pull out now.

No, it’s all been arranged, Jakkie!

No, it would break my heart, listen to me!

No, go on, come now. Your mother and I are gardening for you for August.

Sowed yes. Namaqualand daisies. Bokbaai vygies. Your father’s even rented an aeroplane for you.

Never! Oh no! Just forget it!

No, I’d be far too scared.

No, I’ll never. Not a damn. Over the Kapokberg? Oh heavens no, Jakkie.

Over the plain? To the rivermouth?

No! Not why not, just not.

The y of the why and the double-u of the trouble-you.

Yes, Boetie.

The tip of the fern.

Never mind now, I know it’s hard.

Yes, I know you must. You must talk, yes. I want to hear it all.

No, I won’t shut my ears to it, I’m not stupid, I know what I know.