Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

No, the point is that I’ve now arrived here unexpectedly, don’t you see? Perhaps I’ve just come upon it too soon, if you understand what I mean.

No, Lord, Thys, why must I always have such a time getting something into your head, my dear husband. Suicide! Suicide! That’s what I say yes. Perhaps they both, you know, how do they say? a joint, a shared, how does one say? a linked, perhaps they decided it’s the only way out of the misery, a team effort, ai, what is the word again? Because I tell you it’s crawling with pills and pans in there and it smells of dead!

No, Thys, I’m not going into that room again!

No, Thys, please. I’m not going to revive Agaat, I don’t doctor coons!

No, I want to leave now I feel too weird here. It’s a. . a. . double-decker! How does one say it?

Well then just come immediately please!

No fine, fine, I’ll wait till you come, I’ll wait outside. And Thys, ring the doctor and ring the police and ring Dominee van der Lught. I’m going to ring off now Thys, I have to get out of this house, it gives me the creeps, I’m waiting for you in front, just come, bring Magda along, she lays out bodies doesn’t she, tell her it’s a twin, bye Thys bye!

Beatrice picks up speed down the passage. Trot-trot slip-slide into the sitting room as she cuts the corner. Clicks-clicks go the heels. Rattles the front door. Must have locked behind her when she came in. Neighbour’s wife incarcerated with cadavers. My cadaver, your cadaver, us together in our palaver.

Here comes Agaat now. Heard the whole phone conversation, that I can tell from the footsteps. From the kitchen she comes, from behind the door where she’s been eavesdropping, down the passage, quickly. She looks agitated when she comes into my room, cap at a crazy angle. She comes and stands close to me, looks into my eyes.

What do I hear you’ve been flickering here? What kind of flickering with the eyes and what kind of peeling back? Are you feeling faint?

No, Agaat, it’s a joke.

She’s too alarmed to read me correctly.

Sorry, Ounooi, I overslept, completely, I’m sorry. Ai.

She takes off the mask, wipes away my drool, smoothes cream on my face where the edge of the mask has pressed against my cheeks.

I flicker with my eyes, everything’s fine Agaat, I could die laughing, I laugh.

She doesn’t see it.

Nooi Beatrice, she must have got a fright, I was lying there in my room with the oxygen mask, with the extra one, I wanted to see how it works, whether it works well, whether you can breathe from it. If I get extra breath from it, how it feels to get extra breath. Then I went to sleep, must have been from too much breath, then I went into such a deep, deep sleep, I’m sorry. Then I woke up from the window. Then nooi Beatrice pushed open the window from the outside.

Agaat fiddles with my eyelids, she draws the upper lid over the lower, presses on the soft spots under my eyes, as if she wants to arrange them properly, living eyes, that don’t just peel back for nothing.

So what kind of flickering is nooi Beatrice talking about?

Relax, Agaat, it’s funny, can’t you see? Come on, laugh a bit! Laugh so that I can hear it. I want to hear laughter. Laugh Agaat, I want to see what you look like when you laugh, when last did we have a really good joke here? The laughing corpses. The one with peeled-back eyes, the other one drunk on air. The one old ghost was lean and the other old ghost was fat, do you remember, Agaat, the song? We used to sing it to Jakkie when he was small, when we were bathing him. Then I blew out my cheeks and you sucked in your cheeks and I sang high and you sang low and then he crowed with laughter.

Agaat pulls here and pushes there in the room. She’s too much off her stride to interpret me. What matters now is what it looks like to outsiders.

Tsk, she says, here the stretcher still is, clean forgot!

She slams shut the camp stretcher, goes to stow it in the passage cupboard, prepares for inspection. Then she looks in the mirror. Just look at me now, she says. She pins her cap on straight. I catch her eye in the mirror. She’s standing with a mouth full of hairpins. I’ve never seen Agaat pinning her cap in place.

Sorry, Ounooi, she mumbles through the pins, just let me pull myself together here.

Agaat, I flicker, please, can’t you see how funny it is?

I’m coming Ounooi, I’m coming, I must explain nicely to baas Thys, I must go and see where nooi Beatrice is now.

Let the woman be, let her be, didn’t you hear what she said? She doesn’t doctor coons.

Agaat comes closer.

What are you saying, Ounooi? I’m causing scandal here? No, that’s not what you’re saying.

I roll my eyes back to the garden where Beatrice is now wringing her tiny hands, I show how I peeled back my eyes for her. I peel my eyes back and back, I flicker them, I look straight at her, I laugh. Over and over in the same sequence I explain. I make my eyes shine, I make my eyes sparkle.

Agaat, but look, look, I have only my eyes to tell a joke, my dear Agaat who wants to breathe on my behalf and falls asleep wearing an oxygen mask, laugh then, laugh with me!

A smile steals across Agaat’s mouth.

Ho Ounooi, you didn’t really pretend? Act?

She can’t say it.

Yes, you’ve got it, you’ve got it, I Milla de Wet, née Redelinghuys, who has been lying here for months now on my back wasting away, I today pretended, yes, feigned, yes acted out the dance of death, so do your bit. If I can mock, how much more can’t you? It’s the last joke, can’t you see?

Right, says Agaat, very funny. But this is not the time for games. You heard who all was being informed.

Exactly, Agaat, the whole titocracy wants to see the double-decker suicide!

Cars arrive in the yard, the dogs bark.

All the stuff in the sitting room, says Agaat. They must just not think I’m trying to rob you.

She’s left before I can stop her. She’s going to establish a firebreak at the front door. Agaat, but here you are alive and kicking! Questions, exclamations. She tries to explain. Thys and the dominee and Magda the cadaver connoisseur. Agaat does not invite them in. But they want to see, see with their own eyes. They press past her. But she gets to the front, I hear her soles in the passage, backwards, backwards. She precedes them into the room, her arms wide as if she wants to dam them up behind her apron. She signals at me with the eyes, I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them. She comes to stand by my bed. Puts her hand on my shoulder.

I am framed, I am pre-eminent, my moment of glory. I turn my eyes slowly from her to the company clustering in the doorway craning their necks. I look at my neighbours, the keepers of law and order, the purveyors of benevolence, the profferers of prayers, the conjurers of contumely and catastrophe. One by one I cull their stares, until I have collected them all in mine, the stupefaction and the shame, and the fear.

We are prepared for the season, the ounooi and I, says Agaat. We have fruitcake and tea for you all, don’t we Ounooi?

I blink my eyes slowly in affirmation. And I point them with an extended wink in the direction of the sitting room.

Go forth. Eat cake.

But now they’re in a hurry. No, they don’t want to sit down.

I listen to Agaat taking leave of the guests at the door.

He is so grateful for the good hands in which her ounooi finds herself, says the dominee.

We do our best, says Agaat.

I’ll settle the hash of the sheep-stealers, says the sergeant.

Rather bring the troops, says Agaat, the robbers work in teams.

Twock-twock-twock Thys descends the stoep staircase in his big shoes.

Have a nice day, Agaat, bye-bye, Magda calls gaily.

Not a sound from Beatrice.