Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

Jakkie pushes his little fingers into the black nostrils of the lynx skull A. strokes over the imprint of hare’s-foot fern he points at the horseshoe in the middle above she counts the abalone shells set around the edge one two three four five she holds him so that he can touch the marbles quick with the fire the taws with the green & yellow banderoles inside the small milky marbles bluish & reddish she shows the hollows of the dassie-foot he stirs the spoor of the steenbok she shows the tears of the snow he laughs at the shiny puddles of water she tickles the pistil of the arum the vaulting of the lily’s lip the ravel on the tip with which the lily’s body was bound before it opened in the vlei. From her mouth I can see she’s singing to him. Her foot is marking time her knee is hopping. Wide-eyed he listens. Points at the black mole on her cheek she opens her eyes wide he presses on it with his tiny pink finger she pretends it’s a switch a magic spot she moves her scalp to wiggle her ears & the point of her cap he laughs he roars.

Milla, can you hear me? This is me, Beatrice.

Her voice is loud. As if she’s trying to penetrate a wall.

Beatrice of Friswind, you know me, don’t you!

What further aspect of herself would she select to remind me who she is? How much does she think my memory has shrivelled from lying still?

She opts for the more recent past.

I was at the signing of the will not so long ago, do you remember?

Hatted and gloved, I remember. I too was powdered and lipsticked for the occasion. Agaat’s great pleasure in life. With a white spot on the forehead, to remind me that I am a snooper at freshly-whitewashed window sills. But how does Beatrice expect me to show that I recognise her? Smite my hands together and jubilate? Long-time-no-see-how-is-your-suckling-pig-farming?

I don’t even want to open my eyes.

It’s me, Thys’s wife, can you hear me? Now her voice is lower, with feigned sympathy, as if she wants to say: Me, you nearest neighbour to whom you told everything about your life.

Why did I ever tell her anything? Now she’s lusting after more. She’s here for the scrapings from the pot, for the last meat on the bones.

She hangs over me, her face inches from me. She smells of sweat and powder. She comes even closer. Her breath smells of frikkadel. Her sympathy smacks of frikkadel.

She knows nothing about me, can now no longer know anything about me. What I told her at that time about Jak wasn’t news to her. I could see on her face that I was just a mirror for her, the darting glance, the shame, the repressed rage. Confession in the kitchen, we know, is treason against the sitting room. And it’s the sitting room that must be defended, at all costs. That I now understand. And that’s where Jak was right, I suppose. All hands on deck, I remember, he used to call on reporting for duty in the sitting room when people came to visit.

If I could suddenly find my tongue, I’d be able to tell it to you in so many words: All that we could think up to do, you and I, all our lives, was to unbosom ourselves in our inner chamber before the Lord. Oh hearken to me, your little girl-child meek and mild, oh preserve me, your bleeding virgin, bless me, woman of your nation, but what did that make Him? An insurance agent placating his policy-holders? A panjandrum of the harem? I don’t know about you, friend, but in my married life God was not on the side of the unmaskers. He was the great Mask himself. Our polygamous Heavenly Spouse. Do you remember Mrs Missionary van der Lught’s recommendation? That we should pray to Him in our Overberg Version of Psalm 119, Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way. Indeed. Here I lie now, biered for the fatherland.

Would you understand that, Beatrice? In your book, I imagine, the dying may not mock?

Nevertheless, dear neighbour, note, my mask nowadays is made of hard green plastic. My life has changed. I am harmless to you, impervious to that God of mutually humbugging neighbourliness and pretentious poets. I am delivered to the mercy of my diary of former days. And it runs deeper than little kitchen secrets, I can tell you. And at present God is vengeful as in his youth, and it feels a whole lot more honest. Indeed, He has become a woman. He is now named Agaat, not that I think you can understand Greek. ‘Agaat’, do you know what else it also means apart from the name for a semi-precious stone?

I can feel Beatrice shying away from me. Unsatisfied. What did she expect? The Ave Maria in sign language?

How would she have got in here? What’s happened to Agaat?

Through half-closed eyelids I can make out that the curtains are drawn. But it’s not the morning light shining through, it’s not morning.

It’s afternoon, late afternoon. What’s Beatrice doing here? She was supposed to come in the morning, tomorrow morning. Then Agaat would be away in town.

But Agaat didn’t come to say goodbye, didn’t say she was leaving now. She put on the oxygen mask for me. That was the last time I saw her.

She said, rest a while, breathe easily.

She said, just don’t faint again, please not.

That was after lunch. It was today after all. Could the days be starting to play tricks on me? First spoon of jelly then I almost choked. So then she had to thump me again to get it out, first come and sit behind me to do the Heimlich, several times in succession. The first time that Agaat has entered my bed in broad daylight.

Today it was, I’m not confused.

Her heart thumping against my back. Her legs on either side of my body. Her arms around my stomach. A trace of anxiety mingled with her starched medicinal smells. After she’d got me calmed down, she was pale, didn’t want to look me in the eye.

She put on the mask, her hand on my chest, regulated the oxygen, drew the curtains.

Rest a while.

Let me die, I asked with my eyes.

No, Agaat said with her eyes, don’t be otherwise.

The elastic of the oxygen mask pulls my hair at the back painfully. No way that I could convey this to Beatrice. And what could she do about it? She’d sooner touch the tail of a crocodile than me. And I have one Tamer. She who can open the doors of my face.

I hear the chirping of sparrows. Late afternoon. Exuberant sparrows that can breathe again after the scorching day. Thirty-eight degrees, Agaat said. Oh, for the breath of the tiniest sparrow! If I could inhale it into me. I would live the better for it. I’d be able to spit in the face of the inquisitive wife of my neighbour. By her sneezings a light doth shine.

Could we open the curtains just a bit?

We. Overberg plural. The fact that Beatrice can consult the realm of death on domestic matters makes her light-headed. Light streams into the room. I can feel her watching my face.

I’m sorry if I gave you a fright. I thought I might as well come this afternoon. I’ll stay over if you like. I spoke to Agaat on the phone this morning. She wants to go to town tomorrow, she asked if I would stay with you in the morning. But then she didn’t sound altogether together to me. So I came over quickly to see if you’re managing here. You never know what the creatures will get up to if you don’t keep an eye on them. And with you so helpless here, for all you know they’re robbing you blind, I don’t mean Agaat of course, I mean the others. It’s not as if she can be everywhere all the time. I wonder where she is. Somewhere in the back I suppose. I knocked but nobody came. And the front door was wide open. And there’s a whole pile of loose stuff in the sitting room, looks as if it’s been put out to be carried off. I’ll tell her she should really lock the doors, my goodness, you two women so alone here in the place, nowadays you can’t be sure of your own life. I must say, Milla, I’ve often wondered whether she’s really competent enough to look after you here on her own, but I hear from Mrs le Roux that Doctor is very satisfied. She’s better than a nurse apparently, knows every need of yours, and is very meticulous with everything. Ai, one can just be grateful that some of them are still like that.