Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [124]
Swallow! Gaat said.
The coffee went down without any problems. But then the egg mixture wouldn’t pour smoothly down the tube. Agaat took it mouthful by mouthful out of the bottle and blew it into him through the tube.
After that it was the raw linseed-and-lime cream. The full two prescribed pints.
Then the two of you unlocked the clamp. Enlivened by the stimulants, the bull allowed himself to be prodded out of the crush pen. You drove him slowly to the clean straw that you’d had brought in and covered him in sacks where he stood, because then he had the shivers.
When did OuKarel appear on the scene? Next thing you noticed, there he was crushing his hat, a vaaljapie breath issuing from his mouth.
You had to flash a warning look otherwise Agaat would have scolded the old man. He was just sober enough to help. You rounded up the cows three at a time and dosed them with the boys holding their heads up. The cows shat and pissed and tried to step back and coughed. Then everybody had to let go to let them finish coughing. Raw linseed oil down the wrong gullet was the greatest risk. Terrible pneumonia could be the result.
Twice you and Agaat rushed back to the house to mix more medicine.
By six o’clock you trained the bakkie’s headlights on the scene and sent home for lanterns. Agaat and yourself you fitted out with headlamps from Jak’s mountaineering equipment. Like a cyclopic eye Gaat’s headlamp shone in the dark.
One cow looked as if she was going to succumb and had to be given a stomach-pump.
Jakkie was cold and hungry and cried.
Take him, Agaat, you said, go and bathe him and give him food, he’s upset, I’ll take charge here now. Wait until he’s asleep then you come and call me.
At half past six Jak returned from tennis. Flabbergasted. In white clothes and all he plunged into the ooze of manure and mud to help. Anew you doctored the bull with coffee and brandy to stimulate his heart. At seven o’clock the vet turned up from the clubhouse, even more sozzled than Karel. Jak went and dragged Dawid and his cousin out of the huts to come and help. Agaat returned with Jakkie tied to her back in a blanket. She went and stood in front of Dawid and Kadys. Without a word she made them both drink half a bottle of sweet coffee and three gulps of laced egg-white to fix the hangover. The bakkie lights were on them. Everybody was watching. They did as they were told. The women and the boys whispered. Dawid’s face was squint. The vet stood back as if he was scared he would also be accosted.
Now you two go and milk the Jerseys, they must be sore by this time, she said. You sent Saar along to keep an eye because they were stepping very high indeed.
Men! you and Agaat signalled to each other with the eyes. But your part of the message was vitiated by her look. Some women! it said.
By four o’clock that morning the tulip poison had been counteracted. You administered barley-water and linseed-lime because the animals couldn’t drink ordinary water. But the new herd had been saved. Hamburg was starting to see better out of his eyes. He stopped peeing and started shitting less and less. Just the one cow that had been given the enema was looking weakish.
Everybody who had helped was ready to drop from hunger and fatigue. Agaat went home and for the second time that day washed and dressed in clean clothes.
The kitchen was a chaos, lime and oil on the floor and all the separated yolks standing around everywhere in dishes and bowls. All the egg, Agaat said, overwhelmed for the first time that day, you could see.
Never mind, we can use it, you said, let’s make food for the people, they must be starving. You mixed the batter and Agaat started baking vetkoek and bacon and fried onion and pans full of scrambled eggs. Along with big jugs of sweet rooibos tea with milk you helped her to serve it in the backyard.
Aitsa, such a whitecap cattle-quack, the servants teased Agaat, how she blows a bull full of brandy!
There was new respect in the teasing and in the attitude, even of the big men