Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [100]
Faint, yes doctor, she’s fainted easily, all along, when she was having a hard time, but not . . . not flight.
Can tolerate her, only her, with no possibility of flight. Hand over hand Agaat casts her lines in my direction. The doctor has long since become merely an excuse to get it all said. She got a fright, now she’s aggressive. Push and shove at a dead thing to get some life into it.
Would Leroux suspect any of this? His voice is soft and businesslike. You can take off the mask in an hour or so, he says.
The towel is taken out from under me. Two pairs of hands turn me on my back. Under my knees I feel Agaat’s arms, the lever and the little auxiliary brace. Leroux takes uncertain hold of me by the upper body. Stupid is his grip, stupid and bereft of messages, such hands, enough to make you feel you’re dead already.
Look, says Agaat, the eyes are opening.
The eyes. As if I’m a perverse child.
Mrs de Wet, can you hear me? This is Leroux.
Fingertips snap before me.
She doesn’t like things in front of her face, says Agaat.
Again the snapping of the fingers.
She’s completely conscious, I can see, doctor.
Mrs de Wet, it’s Doctor Leroux, everything’s under control again now, the phlegm has been knocked out, we cleared your air passages. You fainted, we gave you a bit of oxygen, now you’re as right as rain again.
Leroux’s face looms above mine. He looks at my eyes as if they were the eyes of an octopus, as if he’s not quite sure where an octopus’s eyes are located, as if he doesn’t know what an octopus sees. He shines a little light into my face, he swings it from side to side. I look at him hard, but seeing, he cannot see.
Agaat catches my eye. Wait, let me see, she says.
Leroux stands aside. He shakes his head.
Agaat’s face is above me, her cap shines white, she looks into my eyes. I blink them for her so that she can see what I think. The effrontery! They think that if you don’t stride around on your two legs and make small talk about the weather, then you’re a muscle mass with reflexes and they come and flash lights in your face. Tell the man he must clear out.
A small flicker ripples across Agaat’s face. Ho now hopalong! it means. Her apron creaks as she straightens up. Her translation is impeccable.
She says thank you doctor. She says doctor is welcome to leave now, she’s feeling better. She says thank you for the help, thank you for the oxygen, we can carry on here by ourselves again now.
I close my eyes. He must think she’s crazy.
Again the fingers snapping in front of my face.
She’s conscious, really, doctor, you can leave her alone now, she’s just tired, when she shuts her eyes like that then I know. Everything’s in order, she says, she just wants to sleep now. I know, I know her ways.
Agaat, I don’t know about that, aren’t you imagining things? How can you know it all with such certainty? You can’t get into the ounooi’s head, no matter how much you want to. You know this kind of illness that locks people up like this in themselves, they get a bit dement . . . senile from it. It’s the loneliness, it’s the isolation. You can’t trust that you’re reading them correctly. It’s better to attune yourself to literal meanings, to their essential needs, without subtle intentions, without complicated messages. Otherwise you confuse them, or put all sorts of unnecessary stories in their heads. And as it is they have a hard enough time of it. Don’t you want me to stay over tonight? Do you think . . .?
No thank you doctor, I’m not imagining anything, I know her, she’s far from senile. Perfectly sound of mind still.
Agaat looks at me.
I signal to Agaat yes, and you’re also quite sound of mind. Tell the man our imagination is a shared one, tell him we thought each other up and he’s early, it’s not my time