Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

The picture of the strange horse with the bump on the head where the single whorled horn emerges of course interested her mightily. Saw her sta-a-a-ring at this lot & wanting to ask something but the mouth remained drawn in a thin line. So I just said the horse is a symbol of the wander-weary soul & the Catholics believe that the Mother of God is also a mediator but it’s a superstition J C is the only way to the Father & the mother is secondary.

Did my best to impress upon A. all the possibilities & showed her examples of our embroidered National art & the representations of our History the ships of Van Riebeeck & the distribution of the first farms on the Liesbeeck & the fat-tailed sheep that the Free Burghers exchanged with the Hottentots for beads & cloths & the Voortrekkers & the Oxwagons & the Boer War & the History of Gold & Diamonds. She doesn’t yet realise how advanced such embroidery is but one day when she has learnt for herself how she will understand I said. It’s like that with every art form I explained. You start with the simple & then you practise faithfully every day until you’re ready one day to tackle the scenes from Hist. & then Heaven.

On the off-cut cloth I showed her the first drawn stitches with which the hems of embroidered cloths are finished. Punching hemstitching double hemstitching & Italian hemstitching & then the first basic stitches in the book dice-stitch & step-stitch & Algerian-eye wave-stitch & satin-stitch blanket-stitch & diagonal ripple-stitch prepared everything for her in practice strips on the length of off-cut cloth so that she could practise further on her own.

Explained nicely what a good discipline it is how it calms one after a day’s hard work. It keeps you humble & it keeps you out of idleness it focuses the attention on something useful & distracts from negative thoughts & feelings it calms other people around you & creates a homely atmosphere & it makes time fly & it’s better than sitting in your room in the evening counting your toes practise I said & you’ll never be sorry you learnt it & at the end of the week I want to see the first three practice strips completed.

To encourage her I promised that if in a few months’ time she feels secure with the principles of drawn fabric-work then we can start on her first adult effort on a prettier cloth & then I said to show what I expected of her one day when she’s grown-up — here are the very prettiest cloths that I have enough for a tablecloth for a large table when all its leaves are opened out & then I took the lengths of Glenshee out of the paper & I opened them out on my & her laps. Feel such cloth I said you won’t get your hands on that nowadays but I know with you it will find a good home.

She didn’t touch it just sat there with her hands folded in her lap a little mound under the cloth & hr eyes on the ground as if she wanted to stare a hole into it.

Took no notice & folded the cloth again & wrapped it in the tissue paper & held it out to her. Bless me if she didn’t get up from her chair so ramrod-formal I thought my girl do just what you want you’re not getting me down but she just carried on standing there & damned if she didn’t force me to say what I didn’t want to say & then I said it. Thank you that will be all you may leave. So then she packed everything together in her needlework basket click-clack she snapped it shut & walked off with hr new short-step.

How on earth must I now bring A. round? Won’t have so much time in the next months to devote to hr. Remained sitting there on the stoep for a long time with my hands on my stomach felt the child kicking under my heart. Tried to imagine him in there with his little star-fish hands his progress through blood & water but all that I saw was the parcel of white tissue paper being borne off through the front room out by the kitchen door across the backyard white with new lime the white cloth in its folds in the tissue paper & its being carried into the outside room across the loose linoleum that creaks on the cement & I heard hr think where shall I put it? a clean safe place? The deepest one that she could find in the cupboards & drawers that I’d had nailed together for her. Knew that was what she wondered because I taught her myself precious objects you hide far away where nobody can get to them & you take them out only when you have a very clear idea of what you want to do with them.

I was still sitting like that when next moment there she was in front of me the hands together on the stomach heaven knows where she acquired that affectation. Mothballs! she says to me. Might as well have been a curse so abrupt. Good idea I say. Was really not going to let myself be upset by a little snot-skivvy & I walked to the cupboard in the passage to find it aware all the time of hr eyes on me & how she’s looking at my highly pregnant body as if she wants to burn a hole through me but I just kept myself aloof. Now I think of it that’s what I did right from the start consistently with her: kept my cool & kept my head & swallowed my words. A. has this way of creating dramas where there are no dramas. So I pretended not to see anything & opened the packet of mothballs a gust of moth-killer took my breath away. There she stood with hr hand extended & I was quite startled at the face the eyes wide open as if she’s going to have a fit from what? from tissue paper? From light-and-shadow work? from lengths of cloth that will take a lifetime to embroider? from the biggest midnight-eye mother-moth that heaves her powder-heavy wings before an onslaught of moth-killer? Heaven knows what goes on in the creature’s head.

Two balls are enough & don’t look at me like that I’m not a ghost. Two she said in a hoarse voice the good hand extended as if she’s waiting for punishment. So made sure I didn’t touch the hand & rolled the balls into her palm & quickly she closes her fist zip-zap gone but no running it’s just the new clockwork-step enough to make the apron creak. Remember to wash your hands! I called but my voice wouldn’t come out & I was angry something terrible with her & with myself for reacting like that to hr tricks. Must be the hormones. Dr. said people do have trouble with them during pregnancy.

But I have the feeling deep in my bones & I’m writing it down here now for the record: From the moment that precious cloth left my two hands I’ve felt there is a snake in the grass as sure as my name is Milla de Wet. Must remember to store the mothballs in a different place.

Jak was repelled by your pregnant body. He couldn’t stand being close to you, he couldn’t even hide it any more. Gone he was suddenly on that morning of the twelfth of August with the bakkie to an obstacle race with rowing and swimming and cycling at Witsand. He took Dawid along to transport his bicycle and his canoe for him to the various starting-points. You would have to look after yourself. You’d been booked months in advance into Barrydale’s clinic to be close to your mother. Your suitcase was packed weeks before. You weren’t going to be caught unprepared.

Then the first contractions came right there in the passage after the to-do with the mothballs.

You had to sit down on the telephone stool in the passage. You’d thought another two weeks. The first convulsion had made you feel faint. You phoned, who else, the omniscient.

Look at your watch, your mother said. Note how far apart the contractions are and plan your movements accordingly.

Her voice was hard, business-like, reproving.

You can get here taking your time, even after your waters have broken. The first one usually takes a long time, she said, I had a terrible struggle with you, nine hours on end. Sheer hell it was, so you might as well prepare yourself.