Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

A. is still too small for sheep-slaughtering. He must keep his mouth shut & she must learn everything I say she’s clever.

First lesson of sheep-slaughtering I teach her the animal must eat nothing for 3 days so that the gut can be nice & clean & the last day you give bran that absorbs everything that could still be in the stomach & it washes out easily now with all the talking the little sheep was all wild but make it lie down hold it down I say. So D. ups & says usually I get hold of a little sheep like this from behind in the camp before he knows what’s happening to him his throat is cut while he’s still standing & thinking it’s Christmas in the lucerne flowers then when you eat him his meat is sweet because he was never scared.

That’s the second lesson I teach hr: sheep that get panicked before they’re killed have bitter meat they secrete something from the adrenal with the fear so never dawdle with the killing so then they cast the sheep & held its neck over the edge of the cement furrow & the little wether struggled something terrible it can’t carry on like this I thought now I count to three I said to A. her eyes bulging in the sockets come nearer says D. Oh come nearer oh all ye children of the Lord the kitchen-girls sing bend says D. to A. he grasps her hand in his and quickly they draw the blade over the wether’s throat the blood spurts everywhere. A. stands back and the knife falls from her hand and rolls down the incline of the slaughtering-floor no-no-no I say you don’t throw away your knife like that climb in there and take it out the workers kill themselves laughing there you are Arsgaat check that farmgirl they shout. Be quiet I say the dogs lick the blood from A.’s shoes she stands stock-still D. goes to pick up her knife and presses it into her hand. Saar comes with the white enamel basin the workers yell catch the blood eat the meat the wool is white the meat is sweet give over I scold it’s hr first slaughtering-turn & then the little wether’s eyes roll back in its head and its upper lip retracts and the ridges on the nose smooth out & the ears lie flat I show A. all the signs and right there the wether’s body contracts into a lump & he gives an almighty kick against her shins all the hands let go & he lets fly another splodge all over her feet.

Take note of lesson 3: You don’t let go of the feet too soon it’s a convulsion kick it’s a death-throe & the animal is half-dead but that hurts the most.

And there I see Jak standing hand in the side & watching the whole business. Now that looks prosperous to me Milla, he says: Butcher baker butler then you can make her head-girl over a hundred. If only he’d rather attend to his own business it’s after all entirely at his insistence.

Have just gone to peek again if the outside room’s light is switched off yet do hope everything works out right with hr there in the back I feel all the time as if I’ve forgotten something.

10 o’clock

Everything quiet windows shut tight back there must be sleeping I can’t get the slaughtering out of my head after all it’s just ordinary sheep-slaughtering. Why do I want to write up everything? Did I leave something undone? Didn’t I teach her everything, step by step? Not easy but everybody must go through it the first time.

Lesson 4: Bleed well till empty otherwise the meat is spongy.

Lesson 5: hygiene. Provide a cloth & water you can’t slaughter if you’re covered in sheep manure look how the flies swarm. Bent down there heavy of body as I am & washed the sheep manure from her legs & shoes & next thing her knees start jerking fits fits yell the littl’uns be quiet I say no more from you or you don’t get any lung.

I took her hand with the knife & I bent behind her & I started cutting open from the gash in the throat. Had some trouble with the sternum now you & D. carry on alone I say to A., & press the knife in her hand sing I say to D. so that she can take some strength sikketir sikketir sikketeat sings D. the lamb comes to the block with its wool & its meat sing along A. I say so that you can get some life but her mouth is a straight line & then suddenly she gets some life & she looks me a very straight look & she takes the knife.

Not to cut too deep I say here is lesson 6: We don’t want dung & piss on everything & she cuts shallow & clean all along the belly-line really quite to my surprise.

Then D. took her two hands in his & he pulled the entrails loose & the whole heap of guts fell out & I felt sick & went into the house but I vomited & had done because we were right in the middle & I couldn’t leave A. there alone, then they sorted the intestines so that she could see the dirty & the clean the pizzle & the bladder & the gall-bladder & the small intestine & the large intestine on one side & heartlungskidneysliver on the other. A.’s right sleeve by that time full of blood as if she’d been injured & I nauseous all the time & irritated with the circumstances & the spectators.

Lesson 7: The one place where you can soon find out whether a sheep is healthy is in the intestines. Look for worms in the gut & parasites in the lungs they must be nice & spongy & red & the liver soft & dark the right size like the fist of your right hand. Small & hard or waterlogged means there’s something wrong with the heart quite probably with the whole sheep the heart is the blood’s windmill I teach her if it doesn’t cast the whole animal dries out.

Made A. touch everything & identify everything. Just after a while couldn’t take the bloody sleeve dragging through everything any longer either you take off that jersey I say or we push that sleeve up but A. latches onto the bloody sleeve with her thumb. Dawid hangs the sheep under the bluegums from wire hooks in the heels so then A. can’t reach. He brings an apple box no I say it’s not strong enough cut longer hooks so then the kitchen-girls start singing oi oi oi five pigs in a heap, raise the girl or lower the sheep.

Shut your traps I say but they dance buttocks in the air all around A. her lip trembles & I say it’s just kitchen-skivvies don’t take any notice of them they’re getting only head & guts & tonight you’re having chops.

There the sheep is hanging cut off the head I say it’s dripping on her feet. So then I see D. first cuts off the ear & pushes it into A.’s pocket without notches not marked yet for slaughter as we do with the hanslammers. Saw him say something to A. which I couldn’t hear & I didn’t want to ask in front of everybody (must beware of intimate contact between A. & the men-workers).

Then D. shows A. how she should loosen the skin & push away the meat from the membrane & I hold it & at first it’s a struggle she cuts now too deep now too shallow. I say take your fist knead the skin loose from the membrane while you feed the blade & only then it improved a little the right fist in the white crocheted jersey a bloody stump looked as if it had been amputated but she persevered well even though it took three times longer than usual but then she knew all the cuts also from the neck to the loin & the groin & what one can best use it for, for braai, for roasting, for baking in the oven or for stewing.

Well done my little girl now you know meat. Next time we slaughter an ox you’ll get to be the prime butcher here on Grootmoedersdrift I said we’ll just have to think of something for that little arm of yours a butcher’s sleeve.

Noon silence. The floorboards in the passage creak. Is it somebody standing by the telephone table, shifting weight from one leg to the other? Or studying a photograph on the wall, or hesitating, overtaken by a thought, an afterthought? To-ing and fro-ing? Pro-ing and conning? The floorboards creak of their own accord.