Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

Dawid looked at his father.

Talk, the old man said to him, I’m here as your witness.

Dawid looked you straight in the eye. You didn’t like it.

Mister Makkelwyn ticked off the baas. He rubbed against the leg of his pants with the crop.

Over what?

Because the baas rides the horses through the piss and then Mister Makkelwyn has to struggle with foundered horses for days.

And then?

Then the baas shoved him in the chest and told him to shut his bloody trap.

And then?

Then Mister Makkelwyn said he wouldn’t shut his trap and he wouldn’t be sworn at and shoved around by a pipsqueak who had no respect for a noble animal.

Dawid shifted his weight.

Carry on, OuKarel said.

Then the baas whipped him across the face with the crop and then Mister Makkelwyn grabbed the tip of the crop and then the baas pulled Mister Makkelwyn down on the ground and wanted to kick him and then Mister Makkelwyn grabbed the baas by the leg and then he fell and by this time they’re both flat on the ground rolling in the straw and horse-shit and the baas can’t get the better of Mister Makkelwyn, because Mister Makkelwyn holds him down so that he can’t do a thing.

And then?

And then the baas shouts at me and says why am I just standing there can’t I see the bloody Spout-mongrel has him by the throat I must help I must take the hay fork.

The Aga’s door slammed and the fire leapt out of the plate-holes as the evening meal was being warmed.

Dawid looked away.

Nooi, he said, I’m sorry. .

For what, Dawid?

Again Dawid looked at his father.

The old man was to the point, but you could see he had something else on his mind, there was an expression on his face as if he was rehearsing to look pathetic.

My hip is sore, my boy, have your say and have done, Karel said, the people want to cook their evening food here.

You saw how OuKarel was looking at the saucepans as the lids were lifted and the food was stirred with the pot-spoons. Meat with dumplings and sweet potatoes and fennel bulbs with white sauce it was. The beetroot salad was being grated together with onion. There was a bacon and spinach soup. A lot of food for three people. The old man’s eyes were starting to water from it all.

And then, Dawid?

Then I said, Baas, the way I see it the hay-fork is meant for shovelling hay and I’m not being paid to do the baas’s dirty work, I’m the foreman, and all I did then was to close the stable door so that nobody could see further what was happening in there because then they were rolling this way and that way there and Mister Makkelwyn pinned the baas’s arms down so that he couldn’t use his fists.

Two new loaves were being turned out of the tins, a pound of butter was being taken out. The sounds in the kitchen were loud in your ears.

And then?

So then I stood there because then I wanted to see that Mister Makkelwyn came out of it okay. But I needn’t have worried because the baas was completely winded by then and then Mister Makkelwyn got up and dusted his arse and put out his hand to help the baas up and then the baas slapped away the hand and then Mister Makkelwyn said well then the baas would have to manage on his own with his fancy horses and the baas must please take the money he still owes him to his brother’s house in Suurbraak this very evening he’ll spare him the embarrassment of arriving at The Glen to apologise to the stable-master, and it will be so much and so much and if the baas doesn’t do it he’ll go and charge him with assault even if it’s just for a case number in the book and even if it’s just to warn the sergeant about what’s happening here on Grootmoedersdrift.

There was a silence in which only the swishing of the riding crop against the pants was audible. You were weighing up what to say next.

OuKarel took the gap.

Grootmoedersdrift, ai, ai, a. . I’ve now been coming along for ever. . He shook his head.

Here, you knew, the real story was coming out.

I’m tired of working, Kleinnooi, I’m asking for a little pension, Kleinnooi, I must buy medicine for my rheumatism and I now want to rest at home and now and again at least eat a bit of meat and buy a tin of peaches.

You were amazed. As if it was nothing, not one word of commentary about the happenings in the stable, a stone in the stream, to step over on.

I’ll see what I can do, Karel, you said.

You knew better than to ask: But what does this have to do with anything and why now?

It was a time-honoured negotiation and it was as effective as it was subtle.

Dawid was not behindhand either.

We’re hungry, Nooi, our children follow the baas and pick up the guinea-fowl that he shoots to glory but then he chases them away, we can’t live on milk and askoek alone, Nooi. .

There was a pause. He put the crop down on the kitchen table.

On milk and askoek and. . pumpkin, Nooi, can the nooi not top up our rations with a bit of pork and fat and beans?

I’ll see what I can do, Dawid, you said.

Pumpkin. The word was flagged for you like a red pennant, a red pinhead with which one marks a critical point on a map.

You had two big enamel bowls of food dished up, and a little pail of soup and both the loaves and the pound of butter and had a bottle of preserved peaches brought from the pantry.

Jak, you knew, wouldn’t be returning for supper, and you weren’t really hungry.

Ai Nooi, I didn’t really mean. . OuKarel said, and you believed his self-exoneration, but Dawid’s face, it was a whole little drama when he took the baskets of food from you, emboldened with his own words about what had happened over in the stables, backed up by his father’s request. Even though the request had come from loyalties of a former time and even though it was grafted onto old understandings.

Ai, but this is now going to taste like something, he said, and thank you very much, Nooi, I’m glad we understand each other here.

Come Dawid, OuKarel said and put on his hat. You could see from the old man’s back that he thought his son was going too far.

What you had to understand, what had been implied as understood, was more than you could write down in a day.

In the doorway Karel turned round.

I’m also not altogether useless, Kleinnooi, I can show the young men how it’s done, I can still lend a hand with the little soft jobs, just let me know if the kleinnooi needs me. And send regards when the kleinnooi talks to the ounooi, when the ounooi comes here, tell her to have me called there at the drift, I want to see how the ounooi is getting on.

That was another clear message.

You knew better than to confront Jak, he the fit muscled master of Grootmoedersdrift wrestled to the ground on a stable floor and pinned down by a coloured man twenty years his senior.

You saw to it that his riding clothes were washed and ironed and his leggings polished and his riding helmet dusted the dents beaten out and the plush of green velvet brushed up. You collected it all neatly in a little pile for him on the sofa in his stoep office with the leather crop that Dawid had brought along, buffed to a shine and leant at an angle against the curve of the helmet.

In the end it was the dogs. You were always furious when you caught him at it.

But he turned his hand into a caress, redirected his foot at a ball or a stick. He said you were mad, he was just playing with the dogs.

Ma did not seem surprised when she discovered it one day. It was the first weekend of July. She had come over to help with the final preparations, did at least say that the new rooms were a good idea. At you she looked with a mixture of disapprobation and fascination and pity. You were heavy and slow, your knees and ankles thick and red.