Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

He thanked her for the food and the garden and the planning of the whole feast. She is someone who reaches great heights, she is someone who spreads her wings wide, she showed him as a child how the blue crane becomes airborne, white-throat crows go from here to great Tradouw, she showed him what a tailwind does to the flight of a weaver, and a headwind to a gull, she named the clouds for him and taught him to read the currents in the air and told how the devil constructed whirl-winds from the dust of the hills.

And: It will be an honour and a privilege for him to take her as his first passenger on a special birthday flight.

There was loud applause. ‘Smear that mouth with jam!’ one shouted. ‘Real smooth talker De Wet!’

Jakkie handed the parcel, wrapped in your gift wrap, to Agaat. It was also her birthday recently, he said, and it’s something she’ll need for her first flight.

‘Open it! Open it!’ people shouted.

Agaat struggled with the paper, embarrassed with the little hand that didn’t want to grip properly in front of an audience. Jakkie took it out of her hand and stripped off the sticky-tape and gave it back to her.

Take it out, he gestured with his head.

It was a shimmering, shiny raw silk headscarf, plain red. It slithered and shone in the lamplight as Agaat shook out the folds.

You saw Agaat’s eyes flashing. How could she say: Blow in my face so that I can smell whether you’ve been drinking? Could she tell from his words that he was too eloquent? How far is it permitted for a servant to investigate the breath of her kleinbaas?

You thought of the scene of Jakkie five years old blowing into Agaat’s face where she was standing before him on her knees.

Stole chocolates!

Chewed fennel seeds!

Ate apricot jam on your bread! she could guess with shut eyes.

Why hadn’t you tried to talk Jakkie out of the idea of flying?

You took him by the shoulder. Hard he is, you thought, far removed from me. Even without the stiff blue serge of his captain’s uniform his body felt unyielding.

You want to make a spectacle of her. That’s all you said.

He removed your hand from his body and put it aside as if it were a marmot. You were close enough, you could smell the liquor on his breath. He had a contrary look in his eyes.

Ma, he said, what happens now, is between me and Agaat. My bit I’ve done. .

He looked away before he carried on talking.

She’ll get into that Cessna with me and feel how it feels to be as free as a bird. Because that’s what she’s scared of. That’s what you’re all scared of. You’re more scared of freedom than you are of the communists. Even if it fell into your laps you wouldn’t recognise it or know what to do with it.

So I’m not permitted to say what I want to say. Agaat’s orders, she actually thinks she can prevent the whole assembled Overberg’s evening being spoilt for them here. Then she has to pay for it. I’m not the one who’s making a spectacle of her, she’s making a spectacle of herself. It was on her behalf amongst others that I wanted to speak. So if I may not do it, and she can not do it, better then that we go up into the air together.

Jakkie glared at you.

Perhaps she’ll be able to tell me at last up there in the clouds where she came from and how she ended up here on Grootmoedersdrift, in her stupid cap and school shoes, there in the back in the outside room, so faithful, so prematurely aged and so set in her ways, with her embroidery and her writing pads, a tyrant over others here on the farm.

They hate her, they mock her. It’s you who made her like that, Ma, you and Pa. She’s more screwed up than Frankenstein’s monster.

You sound like your father, you wanted to say, it’s a different story, but it’s the same arrogance.

But you didn’t. You were ashamed that he could say one thing and do the opposite and not notice it.

You went in the jeep to the landing strip, at speed over the drift and slip-slide round the bend on the other side of the bridge, because it had been flooded till recently. Jakkie was driving, a whole line of cars following with guests who didn’t want to miss it.

You’re not going to fly with me in that apron and with that white cap on your head, Jakkie said to Agaat.

I am, said Agaat.

You are not your apron and your cap, Agaat, Jakkie said, and turned round to her.

I am, Agaat said.

Well, then tonight you’re going to feel what it’s like for a change not being yourself, because that’s what you wanted from me and I did as you said. Where’s the scarf?

I’m not wearing the scarf, she said.

Take off that bishop’s cap of yours and tie on the scarf, Gaat. And off with that apron, this moment!

Then look in front of you, said Agaat.

Aitsa, Jak said, now the current’s flowing!

They laughed, your husband and your son.

You saw sparks, a rustling of the static electricity in the scarf as Agaat pulled it out of her apron pocket. You got out, following Jak and Jakkie.

Around the runway there was a bustle of men setting up the two rows of tractor headlights for the take-off. A few women had come along and were standing to one side chatting. Children were swarming around the plane. You turned away. There was a full moon, a clear night with the chill of the recent winter still in the air. You turned back again. The little white plane at the far end of the runway looked as if it had been glued together from planks, a splash of white paint against the black outlines of the hills.

Jakkie climbed in. Against the light you could see him checking the controls. The headlight came on, a harsh beam over the stony ground of the fallow field, and then the red and green lights on the tips of the wings. The engine putt-putted and took and when it was at full strength, the propeller started turning slowly, faster and faster till it was only a grey haze in front of the nose. A cloud of dust was slowly being churned up around the body. In the fumes you could see the tailfin waggling, first to the right and then to the left.

Then the passenger door opened, a hand beckoned. The back door of the jeep opened, the red scarf was tied round Agaat’s head, nurse-style, with a peak in front and a triangular flap at the back. How did she figure it out so soon? you wondered. Would she have practised in her room in the evenings with all the scarves that Jakkie had brought home over the years?

The children yelled. In between the men called out with hands cupped in front of their mouths.

Strap yourself in, Gaat!

Say your prayers, Gaat!

Hee, now you’re going to see a flying goffel!

God, but she’ll shit herself, the creature!

Piss in her pants!

If she’s wearing pants!

Jakkie, do you have a pee-pot in that fly-machine?

She’s going to puke!

Fly her till she pukes on the Catholics’ roof!

On the apostolics!

On the kaffir location!

Agaat looked neither left nor right. Up against the stepladder she climbed, the tip of the scarf was fluttering wildly in the slipstream. With the little hand she held it behind her head. It was half an Agaat up there on the running-board, her hips narrow without the waist-band of the apron, her shoulder crooked without the white cross-bands. She hoisted herself into the door-opening with the strong hand. The little door slammed shut. Through the window you could see her staring straight ahead, her chin to the fore, her lips a thin line.

And then they were away with a jolt and a bump, faster and faster until the head lifted at the far end of the runway. For a moment they were invisible behind the plateau. You could hear the engine labour for height. Then they arced back. Once, twice, three times the headlight dipped and the wings waggled to one side. The children waved and shouted at the salute.