Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

Around me Agaat is clearing up the battlefield. She thinks she’s distracting my attention with her rainbow. The buckets with the swabs full of phlegm she bustles away first, the kidney-shaped dish with the gouts of wet cotton wool, the sponges, the cloths, the water that smells of Milton and lavender. Swiftly she works, before her work of art’s effect on me evaporates.

But I hear the screwing of the lids of the jars and tubes, see the sure-handed strokes with which the trolley is wiped, the quick snatch with which the slimy sponge on the bridge is grabbed away, the jingling assurance with which the brand-new rigging of oxygen tubes and snorkels and mouthpieces is rolled up. That, all the movements conspire to assert, now belongs to the past. Now we are in another safer place. The rainbow has been brought in for you. A complete colour chart. The origin, the fullness, the foundation of all.

What am I supposed to do with it all? It’s the wrong medicine. Completeness. The death of the song, of the small dusty tale.

Rainbow of death.

Is it meant to hypnotise me?

Perfection, purity, order. Adversaries are they all, the devil’s own little helpers.

How my heart burns to tell her this! Now that I can see it. Now that it’s too late.

Friday 23 September 1960 nine o’clock in the evening.

A. is terribly excited about Jakkie’s christening in a week’s time. Have just gone out at the front door & surreptitiously walked round the back of the house & peeped into the kitchen window to see what she’s getting up to there. Wouldn’t she close the kitchen door after supper & tell me I’m not allowed in now she’ll come & call me when she’s done. Looks like at least two cakes & a savoury tart that are under construction there as far as I can see. The whole table is packed with stuff & there’s a hectic beating & a mixing & a singing at the top of her voice all my recipe books open in a line bowls full of batter & icing-sugar & grated orange peel & plates full of chopped bacon & onion & parsley. Everything for the dominee & his elder who are coming tomorrow morning to discuss the arrangements for the christening.

Saturday 24 September quarter past eight morning

Have just had to go & do inspection. A. came to call me to come & see if everything’s right. Fresh flowers arranged in the sitting room (she’s been up since crack of dawn) & her cakes have risen beautifully orange & chocolate covered under netting on tea table & the best cups put out & cake plates & forks the savoury tart is all ready to be baked everything is ship-shape. I did think this was all rather a to-do, & the eyes shine & the chin juts all the way out & then it came out: Seems she wants to carry Jakkie into the church. I ask you! Won’t I big-please get the dominee’s permission.

Now obviously this is totally out of the question! Couldn’t bring myself to tell her this on the spot, what with all the trouble she’s gone to with the baking & all. Oh good heavens.

To crown it all she’s embroidered a christening robe for Jakkie. Here & there a bit of a tangle but it’s something quite exceptional. Morning glories & bunches of grapes round the seams & the collar everything white on white & the most delicate little white buttons & ribbons & belts of soft brushed silk cloth with a slight sheen — good enough for a little prince. Must have taken hours & hours of work. But it’s obviously unheard of, a coloured girl in church & everything has already been arranged in any case, & Jak’s niece will bring him in in their old family christening robe.

A. says she wants to hold him for the sprinkling isn’t she a baptised child of the Lord as well she says & he won’t cry if she holds him. There she does have a point.

Saturday afternoon 5 o’clock 24 September

Too upset really to write but dear Lord in heaven how on earth could I have proposed it to Ds van der Lught? Perhaps I should really have done it & then she could rather have had it from his own mouth she was in any case listening behind the kitchen door all the time.

So there is the christening robe on the sideboard neatly wrapped in white tissue paper & A. serves the cake all prim & properly with little serviettes & Dominee praises her extravagantly but he doesn’t eat any cake only the elder nibble-nibbles a bit because of course by that time they’d been on house visits all morning & already full of cake & there she had to recite Psalm 23 & Dominee asks her everything about sin & redemption & she knows it all & he praises her to high heaven isn’t she so tidy & in her place & so clean & he can see her heart is as white as driven snow. All I could see was that Jak was going to lose his temper.

All the time she’s signalling to me with her eyes so that only I can see: Show him my christening robe with the result that I ate far too much cake just to show her it’s good thank you you’re my right hand & later she brought Jakkie in & then Jak sent hr out because then we had to kneel & pray & I looked at the chintz on the chair & when it was my turn to pray I couldn’t get out a word & Jakkie started screaming & A. comes & picks him up & soothes him there so that he can have the pre-baptismal blessing pronounced upon him & Dominee prays & the elder prays & they just can’t seem to stop & under the prayer I look at A. & she’s standing there with open eyes big-please asks her mouth but I couldn’t ask & then we still had to sing as well The Lord Bless thee out of Zion & A. joins in with the second voice & Dominee & the elder look at each other & they say let’s sing another verse but I feel ashamed because coloureds don’t sing with white people in the sitting room J. almost has a fit on the spot but he has to behave in front of Dominee & I see he’s threatening A. she must stop but sing she does.

When at last they left I rushed out of there & I walked off in some direction with Jakkie in his pram sick of all the cake & when I got to the dam at the ducks’ landing place there was would you believe it the white parcel; with the christening robe. The same that had just recently been on the sideboard! I thought at first I was seeing things.

Come out! I shouted Come out! because then I knew A. was hiding there somewhere amongst the reeds to torment me. Lord knows how she got there so soon must have taken a short-cut through the little vlei but she wasn’t coming out & then I took the parcel & chucked it far into the dam. Then it took a long time to sink & all the time I knew she was watching. Threw a few clods of earth in there to chase her out but it didn’t work. What a spectacle, good Lord.

So now we’re going to have a whole drama about it again.

Better go & have a look at what’s happening it’s been dead quiet all afternoon. A. nowhere to be seen. Jak had to see to his own lunch. Six o’clock now. Still don’t hear anything stirring in the kitchen. Perhaps she’ll come back when it’s Jakkie’s bath-time. How are we to look each other in the eye?

Last Sunday of September 1960

A. in a mighty huff. As good as her baking was for Dominee’s visit so disastrous was everything for the christening tea. Deliberately upset a jug of milk on the tray & the guests’ shoes were full of dogshit because she hadn’t swept the garden path. Remained sitting in the car during the christening service even though Dominee had said she could sit in the side-room & listen to the service. Didn’t even want to pose in the little church park with the blue cranes for a photo with Jakkie in his christening robe.

Will bloody-well not let myself be buggered around by her. Will make her work until she is tractable so that she can see what it cost. Faith & sweat & blood of generations just so that she who’s Agaat can live off the fat of the land on Gdrift & pluck the fruits through no effort of her own.