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Slowly she spelled out the big words: Movement spec-trum exercise. Mo-di-fied food con-sis-ten-cy.

And in the same breath she said, I’ve finished eating, you can come out now from behind the door, we might as well get to work on this, you and I.

You and I. Indeed. We’re still getting to work, if work is what one can call what has been happening in this room the past few months.

One could have decided not even to get started on it.

Because it would be too much.

I would have had to settle it on my own while I could still move, that’s what. Short and sweet. But I procrastinated every time. Just this first, just that first, must first clear up, first get my life in order before I put an end to it one day neatly tied up with a string. But I couldn’t.

I left the decision to her.

Euthanasia isn’t something that she can even consult me on any more.

Such a possibility doesn’t appear on her list.

How would she in any case have to formulate it?

Must I put an end to you?

Are you ready?

How do you want me to prepare you?

Or must I overpower you unexpectedly?

Do you want to know how I’m going to do it?

Do you want to choose the method yourself?

A pillow over your head? A drink? A pill? A crowbar? A knife?

She’ll never be able to say it. She chose the strait and narrow. Simply doing from hour to hour what was given to her hand to do. First things first, one thing at a time, according to a plan. As if it made sense, as if it held promise.

Why does she ignite the little bit of hope in me every day? Hope of a turn, a way out, a satisfactory conclusion, of which you could say with certainty that it was good?

I find that on some days I long for it more than on other days.

I heard the phone ringing early this morning. It was Leroux.

She was short with him.

Perhaps he had been hopeful. Because, no, she said, she’s still with us, and well. Well, well, well. I understand. I’ll do that. Right. Goodbye doctor. Yes, doctor. No, doctor. Goodbye.

And now she thinks I’m sleeping again after drinking my thick sweet tea with the bit of chilli powder that she believes is good for me. I heard her send the servants home. She wiped my face quickly this morning and beyond that did not touch me, as if she were suddenly scared that I might fall apart. I tried to reassure her.

Thank you, I feel better after the phlegm is out, lighter, I breathe more easily.

But she avoided my eyes, didn’t want to help me speak, knew it was just to comfort her.

I can’t help her.

Twice already I’ve heard her pick up the receiver and put it down again. She wants to phone. I wait. What does Agaat want to say? Whom does she want to phone?

She phones often, the chemist, the co-op, the shop. Orders things, organises things. And people phone here and she speaks to them and tells them, according to who is phoning, more or less. Rather less, more less, less and less. Platitudes. Truisms. The chickens are laying well, the harvest is almost in, her feet are cold sometimes. When she says that, they ring off quickly. People don’t want to hear about my ever more chilly feet.

If it’s Jakkie, she speaks loudly on purpose, repeats everything he says. About his research amongst primitive tribes, his travels. He gets to all of Africa, it seems, just not South Africa. Here he apparently only wants fieldworkers. Agents it sounds like, who listen to songs and send them on to him. To then be preserved in the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology. It seems to her Americans have money to waste, says Agaat.

Jakkie.

Sometimes I think she makes it up, that he rings, that he asks after me, that he says he will come.

But how would I know?

My child the great absence.

What he inherited from me and Jak is definitely recognisable. Slightly melancholy, sometimes quite sharp with his tongue. Agaat one hears most clearly in him. The sayings, the songs, the rhymes, in which he has an obsessive interest. Sometimes she sings something on the phone for him if he can’t remember the words any more.

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