Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

It was the day of the pork measles, the evening after the accident with the tractor winch, December ’61, after supper. Agaat brought Jakkie in with ‘great news’ on her face, ‘good news’.

She could hear you and Jak were having words again. She could hear it was going to go awry again.

She put the child down on the mat and brought in the coffee after supper and said ‘something’ had happened.

Jak was too annoyed to notice. A deputation of workers had come at knocking-off time that afternoon to tell him that they wanted new pit lavatories at their homes, the old ones were dilapidated. You heard it all, you were in your room, exhausted after the day. You’d often spoken to Jak about sanitation for the workers, he simply didn’t want to do anything about it.

They were in front of his office door on the front stoep and you heard their complaints clearly.

Yes, Agaat doesn’t do the right thing by them and Agaat says it’s because of people’s shit lying around that the pigs get measles and their slaughter-pig for the month was spoiled and they don’t believe her they thought pork just had spots like that and why can’t they get a sheep then to slaughter and the mies had said the privies would come and when are they coming then and Agaat had threatened the baas was going to shoot their dogs and is the baas going to do it and where are they supposed to find food for their dogs when they don’t have any themselves and Agaat had said their wives can’t work for the mies in the kitchen with germs.

You looked out of the open door of the room onto the stoep. There they stood. Lietja’s husband, Kitaartjie, and Saar’s husband, Piet Skilletjies. You saw them from the back, the ragged seats of pants, the bare patches in the hair from stab wounds, the sloping shoulders. You could smell them, the sharp sweat, the old dirt.

Our children have worms, we want pits with corrugated-iron huts over them and wooden seats, they said.

Jak knew nothing of the morning’s doings, nothing of the medicine-dosing and the grumbling at the labourers’ houses. He didn’t understand what the slaughter-pig had to do with measles and latrines. He told them to get away from his office door, he was busy. You withdrew your head quickly from the window.

It was Dawid there in the office. He had come to speak about his cousin who had been caught in the winch-axle earlier that afternoon with the hay-baling.

Julies is lying in front of the fire and he’s talking confused and the doctor said he has concussion, and his foot, his foot isn’t so good.

Dawid’s voice was calm and serious. He demanded nothing explicitly, just spelt out the details.

It was too much for Jak, all the accidents. You could see it on his face as he sat there twirling his fork that evening after supper. He didn’t want to listen when you tried to tell him what had happened that day, of Agaat’s doings. Agaat got on his nerves, he said. And there she was again now with Jakkie and ‘something’ that had happened.

He put his fork down and leant back in his chair.

What could it be this time? Has the dam burst? Has the horse drowned? How come, Gaat, that you’re always the first on the scene? One would swear that there where your eye falls, there trouble erupts. What is it this time?

Later, you signalled to Agaat, tomorrow, now’s not the time, make yourself scarce here. But you could see that she was excited.

I want to help you, she signalled with the eyes, I want to provide diversion here at the table. ‘Something’ has happened! Just give me a chance! She had Jakkie on her arm. He pointed a tiny finger at her cap.

Go and put him to bed, you said, it’s bed-time.

You knew the expression on her face very well. It spoke of wanting to compensate, of wanting to make good all the bad things of the day, wanting reassurance, wanting to be set at ease. It was she who had had to put a stop to the slaughtering of the pig that morning and who had come to call you.

She was right, there was no doubt about that. The meat was permeated all the way into the muscles with little red globules. You had all the pigs caught and one by one you had the bit put into their mouths and you pulled out the tongues yourself with pliers to have a look. They were all infested.

Then you just couldn’t any more. Then you made her the messenger.

It was she who had to tell the workers that there wouldn’t be any pork this month, she who had to lock the smoking-cabin again where the fire had already been lit to smoke the bacon and had to send them all home empty-handed.

And then it was she again who had to go to the labourers’ houses with the medicine and the acid drops in her apron pocket and had to doctor the whole lot against worms as you had instructed her.

When she stayed away for too long, you went to have a look, but you walked around the back so that nobody should see you. You didn’t want to interfere. But you felt all of a sudden that it wasn’t right that Agaat should be there all on her own.

There she was commandeering the mothers of the children left and right to catch them and bring them nearer because when they saw the medicine bottle they took flight into the wattle-wilderness. Agaat was pushing and pulling them to stand in line, the big ones full of scratches from the branches and snivelling tearfully, the littl’uns bawling in the dust.

You heard her scolding before you even saw her. You peered round the corner. You saw how she grabbed the children by the hair and pulled their heads back and clamped their noses until they opened their mouths. With every spoonful she scolded.

This is what you get for shitting in the bushes like wild things! Open your porridge-hole! This is what you get for wiping your arses with your hands!

Swallow! swallow! If you spit it out you’ll get a swipe through your mug!

And then you guzzle vetkoek again with the same hands, what kind of black muck-mongering is this?

Swallow! swallow! dammit, swallow! and don’t leak snot all over my clothes!

You’re worse than pigs! They can’t help it that they didn’t get any brains. They eat your runny shit that lies around here stinking in the sun. That’s why they’re full of measles. If I come again, then I’ll dip the whole lot of you wholesale with a forked stick behind the neck in the sheep-dip, the Lord knows what kind of pestilences are hatching here!

Just look at that child’s scabies! When last did she smell a piece of soap? Godalmighty!

Just think what your guts look like! Pauperworms, they crawl up into your heads and gnaw out your brains till you’re dancing around with the horrors. And what about those mangy curs? On this farm we shoot everything that has worms quick-quick right between the eyes.

Will you pee on my shoes, you little hotnot! Stand that way, shut your trap and swallow or I’ll wind up your little prick for you like fly-paper. Where’re your pants?

Agaat made her way through her line and stood back, wiped her hands on her apron. With the spoon in the air she stood and explained.

Now you listen well to me on this day today, you take a spade, you throw all your shit on one pile every day and you make a fire on top, lot of clump-arses that you are. And then you throw soil on top. Even a cat knows to cover up. If I catch one of you dropping your pants in the veld then I’ll string barbed wire through his arse!

You stood back against the dirty wall. Your heart was beating fast. You had never seen Agaat like this, had never heard her talk like this. You saw the adults standing laughing at the performance, but not full-out, little half-mast laughs and looking covertly at one another. Then one of the striplings grabbed the bag of acid drops from her apron pocket and the children descended upon it like ravens.