Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

In the grey light of morning the rainbow looks different. Darker than last night by lamplight. Then it looked like an empty bright stage-set where actors were due to appear, singers, to bring life to it. Now it looks like a hole in the plastering, a dark plane against the white wall. Dark rainbow.

Agaat is tired this morning. Her face is withdrawn. She appears by my bedside less frequently than usual. She avoids my eyes. Her embroidery lies folded on the chair. On top of it lies the little blue book open at where she was last reading before I fainted. The building of the fireplace.

Sometimes I think it’s no longer I who am the target of the reading. She does it for herself, to generate energy. To squeeze anew from history a last pressing of indignation, but not so as to destroy me with it the more easily, but as a shot in the arm, as fuel for herself to carry on nursing me every day.

Because her arms are tired. I can feel how she struggles when she has to turn me, lift my legs, my hands.

Her feet are sore, I can hear she walks with difficulty. She’s burnt out.

How valiant was she not at the start, in those early days when we had just heard what was wrong with me. Fired with enthusiasm even. She thought she would handle it, as she had handled all illness and death in her life.

She was upset that I wouldn’t take her with me to Cape Town, alarmed when I came back after a week.

Leroux came to fetch me and brought me back again. I pretended to be sleeping in the car. I didn’t want to listen to his chatter. I thought of Agaat, how I was to convey it to her. A few times I felt the wind buffet the car, heard him swear, felt the car swerve as he corrected. It was a wild wind typical of the change of season and it raged all the way from Groote Schuur to The Spout. When we got out in the yard I could see the willows by the dam being blown to one side. I could smell the fennel, sharp as always when the wind blew just before the rains.

12 May 1993 it was. A Wednesday afternoon. Agaat served tea and rusks in the sitting room.

In her eyes the full orchestra was playing.

So here you are again! Alive and kicking! Pure affectation! Didn’t I tell you! Or what am I saying? Let’s have it! If there’s more to know, I want to know it! Now! This minute! Winter pains? Frozen shoulder?

I shuttered my regard, answered cautiously, later-later-clear-out-now.

It was what he’d suspected all along, said Leroux and added milk to his tea.

Not hypochondria. Not this time.

Small smile, quickly wiped away. In front of him lay the papers with the results of the tests.

I must plan, he said.

One and a bit of sugar.

I must make provision.

Doctor Stir-well.

I must start formulating a living will.

Doctor Dunk-a-rusk.

You’re never done with such a testament. You can always change it again. In the end it really only has to state in black and white what must happen one day when you can no longer change anything yourself.

T chirr-tchirr, the creeper against the pane.

Who must do it then. .

Picks a crumb out of the tea.

Who may change something then. .

I heard a dog’s bark downwind blow away right out of its mouth.

Who may change something on your behalf. . take decisions on your behalf. . now do I understand what he means?

Ticks, with the teaspoon in the saucer.

I must consider it well, I have enough time, he said. Three years, maybe five in my case. I must realise he himself does after all think very progressively about these matters, he always wants only to alleviate all and any suffering as much as possible and he is at my service I need only speak the word, do I understand?

As far as possible. Alleviate he wants to.

Up-and-down with his eyebrows. Read-me-I’m-an-open-book-my-name-is-Euthanasia-Leroux-MB Ch.B.

Well, in my book there’s little scope for speculation, Doc. I was born Redelinghuys, house of reason.

I beg your pardon?

I said, time will tell.

I wanted him to leave. Agaat was listening from behind the kitchen door. I could hear the floorboards creak. She had taken a dislike to the man from early on, could imitate his would-be fatherly blanditudes to a nicety.

At the front door he pressed a transparent blue plastic case full of blue and red pamphlets and brochures into my hands, also a book on all kinds of atrophies and publicity magazines on appliances, and folded my thumbs around the handle for me.

Do take well-informed decisions now, Mrs de Wet, he said, fortunately I know you are of a practical bent, somebody who wants to be in control at all times. And you are a farmer. Illnesses and suffering are a farmer’s daily bread. And fortunately you have no dependants at this stage who could hamper you. . er. . whom you have to concern yourself about.

The self-correction was half lost in the thunderous bang of the back door.

Grootmoedersdrift is situated in a draught. That was what we always said to one another at that time of year.

And wait, he said, it almost slipped my mind.

Three paces and he was next to his car. A big white plastic bag appeared.

On appro, he said, the newest appliances on the market, I thought I would do some shopping for you in the meantime while I was in town. Try them out, see what works, we can settle later.

He pressed the bag into my arms on top of the case.

A sheet of paper fluttered to the ground, he snatched it up and stuck it on my chest on top of everything else.

Oh, and then there’s this table, the whole profile at a glance, he said, symptoms, medicine, therapy.

Bedside manner in the Overberg, I thought, physician heal thyself.

And as he drove out at the gate, I thought: Milla has all of it.

Only now do I realise what I was trying to think that day. Because now I almost have it all behind me.

To make of nothing an all.

That was what Agaat made of me. The lamer, the more nothing I became, the more she put into me. I never had any defence. It was her initiative. To make me a lucky packet of myself. The person who has to wither so that the book of her life can be filled. As in like manner the great God had to shrink to make room for his creation. Or something to that effect. Even now I still can’t quite get a clean grip on the idea. It’s a sort of sum with varying balances but with retention of all the contents, only distributed in very specific packagings.

I went to lie down on my bed until Agaat rang the bell for supper. She had cooked specially to celebrate my return: Lamb pie, green beans with onion and bacon, stewed peaches, potatoes, boiled, floury as I like them, a ripe red tomato salad with onions. Damask. Candles. Flowers.

Welcome home.

Even a bottle of wine from the cellar.

Eat, she said, it will give you strength.

She served me, poured wine for me. The meat in the pie was finer than usual, so that I didn’t have to cut it. I was hungry. I was melancholy with feeling what hunger felt like. I wiped my eyes with my napkin. She pretended not to see it. While I was eating, she talked softly, gave me an edited-for-the-sickbed version of what had been happening on the farm in the meantime. She made me at home in my room afterwards. Hot-water bottle, new bedsocks, softest wool, look, I knitted them for you while you were away. Waited for me to speak, pleaded with the eyes, please, I’m Agaat, I’m here, with you, speak to me, tell me what is happening.

Another time, I indicated with my hand.

She switched off the light.

Sleep, she said in the dark in my direction, then you’ll feel better.

Later I became aware of a murmuring and got up to go and see. I listened in the passage. It was her voice.

Dys-pha-gia, can’t swallow, dys-ar-thria, can’t talk, sia-lor-rhoea, incessant drooling.