Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat

A boy who wants a knife, he said, when Jakkie had finished singing and he was given his presents, must be able to dock a sheep’s tail. Then we can also see at the same time if that so-called English coolie knife is worth anything. Then Jakkie ran away.

Agaat, go and look for your little baas and bring him here, on the spot, Jak ordered.

You signalled at her with your eyes, look for him but don’t find him. She looked back at you with blunt eyes. It didn’t take her very long. Then you heard the crying. Across the yard she was dragging him by the ear with the little hand, by the arm with the strong hand, Jakkie straining back.

My goodness, but will you walk up straight and behave yourself on your birthday, Agaat scolded.

Where was the little blighter? Jak asked.

In the lucerne shed, right on top of all the bales. I had to drag him down there. Then he bit me, look.

Agaat held out her arm to Jak. Self-righteous. An open bite it was. Swollen, the tooth-marks still visible.

Well I never! Jak exclaimed, the choirboy, if he can bite a coon, he can dock a sheep as well! Bring the little bugger round the back, not through the sitting room, look how dirty he is. Where’s his knife? Bring his knife!

You can still see it in front of you. There Jakkie is standing in the backyard with the knife shut in his fist. There you are standing, bent over with the lamb’s head clamped between your legs. There is Agaat. She is pushing Jakkie forward by the neck.

Open, come on, open the blade, the big one, have you got porridge in your little hands then, my lad? Jak pretending it’s the most usual thing on earth.

The children came closer. Great louts some of them, with voices like geese.

Glass-head, they shout. Sissy! Sing high false notes to mock him.

Why did you not stop it then? You could have stopped it. But you helped with it. You wanted to get it over and done with. You didn’t know how else.

Jak’s eyes were on you. Agaat’s eyes were on you. Did they recognise each other’s reasons? You did. You recognised everybody’s reasons.

Jak had bought Jakkie a little motorbike to go for rides with him and you’d said over your dead body, he’s too small, he’ll get hurt. You’d quarrelled about it at table after dinner the night before.

He’s a child, you’d said. Let him be, he’s still collecting birds’ eggs, he’s still shooting his bow and arrow, he swims in the river, he plays hide-and-seek with Agaat, it’s his life, now you want to come and spoil him with dangerous things that make a noise and smoke up a stink here in the yard.

You and your skivvy, you mollycoddle him, you talk your women’s twaddle into his head, I can’t get close to him or you surround him.

Agaat had come in with the coffee.

He’s a child, you’d said, he’s still only eight little years old. You can’t expect from him now already. .

Agaat had plonked the coffee pot down hard in front of your nose.

Not too much, she’d said to you, it’s strong.

Her voice was direct. You were silent. She had silenced you. You knew the tone, for your own good you’d better not say another word, the message was clear.

Has the cake been iced? you’d asked.

Done, she’d said. Pink and green. Children’s cake.

You two and your everlasting cake! Jak had said and got up and walked out.

And so then the crisis the following day, the lamb, the knife, was the beginning of a new alliance. If not the beginning, then a discovery of the possibilities.

You played along willy-nilly. You didn’t know how else. You could find nothing to say.

Jakkie was white-faced, his head hunched between his shoulders.

Agaat pinched him in the shoulder until he bent his back. She put the knife in his left hand and held it there with her strong hand. So that she could help him, she said. Was it help? Jakkie’s kneecaps were trembling.

Mamma, no, he whined, please, Gaat, please, I can’t.

You can, Boetie, Agaat said, she looked at you, she was speaking for both of you, pretending to be speaking for both of you, and there wasn’t a splinter’s worth of space between her words.

You’re Gaat’s big boy aren’t you! Your même is here, she’s holding him nicely, and I’m here, a sheep can’t walk around with such a long tail, it gets worms. Shut your eyes tight and make limp your elbow, then I’ll help you.

The last she said softly, quickly, next to his ear.

But it was you she was looking at. Full in the eyes. Hold tight, here it is, the look said. One hanslam for you. And one for me.

Agaat cut, one quick stroke. The tail was in her hand. Jak led the applause. The blood spurted on Jakkie’s legs. The lamb jerked loose, ran head-first straight into the wall of the backyard.

Take your bloody knife! take it, I don’t want it! Jakkie cried. He threw the knife as far as he could. With long strides he ran out of the backyard.

Girlie! they shouted after him, girlie! Little hanslam! Pietertjie!

Rinse the blood from the cement, but this instant, you said to Agaat. And see to it that that sheep is given wound ointment.

This instant, she mocked. She went and picked up the knife where it had fallen, wiped the knife on her apron where you were standing by, the one side and the other side, two red gashes over the white cotton, and folded the blade back into the knife.

You know it stains, you said.

There is nothing, said Agaat, that you can’t get out with cold water and Sunlight soap and a bit of Jik.

You woke up later that night. A floorboard had creaked in the passage. Jak had sent the child to bed without supper for bad behaviour and now he’d come out. To the bathroom you heard him pad on bare feet. You heard the lid of the toilet, thought you heard the door of the bathroom cabinet. Then a window opening, a soft thud in the backyard. The grandfather clock struck quarter past one. You’d known for a long time that they spoke through his bedroom window at night, he on his elbows at the window, she on the butcher’s block against the wall. You knew that he sometimes climbed through the window and went and crawled into bed with her. From when he was very small you’d found him sleeping with her.

They both knew that it was against the rules, Jak would have a fit. Comfort is what he went to seek after his terrible birthday.

You lay listening with open eyes. You were sad. Who was there to comfort you? You’d had to eat Jakkie’s birthday food alone with Jak at table that night.

Don’t you think that was enough for one day? you’d asked. Can’t he just come and have his food?

He must learn he doesn’t disgrace his father in front of guests, Jak had said.

Agaat had served you silently. Her roast chicken and browned oven-potatoes and pumpkin fritters, Jakkie’s favourites. You saw her afterwards dishing up her food in the kitchen. But she didn’t eat. She washed the dishes and went straight to her room and left the two of you there without serving the dessert. When you took the trifle out of the fridge there was a big hole on the one side. You dished up in the kitchen so Jak shouldn’t see it.

You couldn’t sleep. You heard the outside room’s door open and close again, more softly. It still scuffed, ghrrrr over the cement floor. It had subsided further over the years. Why had you never had it fixed? Possibly because you preferred to hear all the ins and outs? For a long time you lay like that, but you heard nothing more. Later barefoot to the kitchen without switching on the lights. There was a glow in Agaat’s room, sparks above the chimney. The door was closed.

You opened the kitchen door quietly, held the screen door so that it shouldn’t slam behind you. Peered through an opening in the outside room’s curtain. There was Jakkie in front of the fire in his pyjamas. Agaat in her nightdress busy in front of her two-plate stove. Water on the boil in the big pot, the lid turned upside-down, a plate covered with another inside the lid. She was wearing her cap for the operation. The glow of the fire shone through it as she passed to and fro in front of the fireplace. It threw a long pointed shadow on the walls, the shadow shrank and twisted in the corners as she moved. Then she brought a white cloth and unfolded it on the floor in front of Jakkie, a glass of water on it. A plate. A spoon. In the air in front of his nose. Wiggle waggle. Sorry it’s the only cutlery I have. Off with the covering plate. Steam. Agaat’s supper. Jakkie’s wing, the pope’s nose, the back portion that had lain longest in the gravy.