Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [108]
Made myself scarce because next thing I heard sniffling there in the kitchen & I don’t know whether it’s Lietja or A. that’s bawling but A. doesn’t cry of course. Then I heard J. there in the kitchen egging A. on: Go & sing your white stepmother a little song, go on: Anything you can do I can do better.
A. in the outside room all afternoon. Very quiet.
There’s not a single farmer of my acquaintance who could do that sum.
How can I do it to her?
That October after Jakkie’s birth, after the battle with Agaat over the christening robe, five things happened that changed everything on Grootmoedersdrift. First Jak had the cattle-troughs with licks & the salt blocks removed from the lands. And then you noticed one day that the farm boys’ wire cars were no longer built from wire but from bones. White vertebrae, white ribs, white collarbones, little white carts of death rattling over the yard. Without your putting two and two together. The third thing was Jak’s new hunting rifles. What was he on his way to do when he left the house with the long leather bags? You didn’t want to know. And then there were your diaries. Somebody was reading your diaries. Or that’s what you thought. But most important of all was the change that came over Agaat. You saw her looking with new eyes at the two of you. But mainly at Jak, as if she was noticing him for the first time.
Five things that preceded that first catastrophe. Five things that helped shape all future catastrophes.
In the evenings there were the squabbles over the farm as usual, over your compost heaps, over your pumpkins amongst the pear trees.
It’s not a laboratory, Jak, you said, it’s mixed farming, the surfaces can’t be bare and sterile without a sign of the processes that keep a farm healthy.
There he sat, pushed away his plate of food, taking apart his rifles and putting them together again, firing silent shots at the ornaments in the sitting room. Through the sights. Click. Click. You thought it would drive you mad. It fascinated Agaat. Not the rifles. Jak’s face, his hands.
Then she brought home the story one evening. End of October 1960 it was.
The cows are eating tins.
Just as Jak was taking his first mouthful.
What tins now?
You had Jakkie in your lap, were trying to get him to take to his bottle.
Paraffin tins, car-oil tins, turpentine tins, sheep-dip tins, molasses tins, she said.
That they pick up where, Agaat? you asked.
You were incredulous. Why would cows eat tins? You thought she was inventing it to pay you back for the punishments she’d suffered.
Agaat was silent.
Ag, the stupid cows of yours, said Jak, probably calving again, you know they’re always full of shit then, if it’s not the trembles, then it’s something else.
I’m just asking, where do they find that particular collection of tins to eat? Do they select them in the supply shed?
You looked at Agaat.
The tins are lying in the little grazing at the back next to the river amongst the stones, Agaat said.
Full sentence with prepositions. From a grammar book for second-language speakers.
She jutted out her chin.
Jak pointed his fork at Agaat. They’re my tins, leave them just there where they are, or you’ll be given another field to plough!
You handed Jakkie to her. He wouldn’t drink so well with you. She just stood there with the child in her arms.
It’s my shooting range, dammit,