Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [127]
20 October after eight
Went to peep what they’re doing there in the back. Sparks from the chimney fireworks on the outside room’s roof it hisses & sputters as the hot ash is blown into the rain (October rain! Two fields harvested already. Does though seem as if it will clear tomorrow. Can’t abide a hassle with wet wheat).
Peered through the chink in the curtains could only make out the silhouette A. on an apple box in front of the fireplace with Jakkie on her lap. No other light a tremendous fire. Pressed my ear against the pane couldn’t hear anything. Jakkie in his crawler his hair a halo around his head A.’s cap illuminated with the glow of the fire looks as if it could burst into flame at any moment. All the strange things plastered into the fireplace not exactly what one would call a work of art. Mouldings half Romish & creepy where does she get it from?
Jakkie pushes his little fingers into the black nostrils of the lynx skull A. strokes over the imprint of hare’s-foot fern he points at the horseshoe in the middle above she counts the abalone shells set around the edge one two three four five she holds him so that he can touch the marbles quick with the fire the taws with the green & yellow banderoles inside the small milky marbles bluish & reddish she shows the hollows of the dassie-foot he stirs the spoor of the steenbok she shows the tears of the snow he laughs at the shiny puddles of water she tickles the pistil of the arum the vaulting of the lily’s lip the ravel on the tip with which the lily’s body was bound before it opened in the vlei. From her mouth I can see she’s singing to him. Her foot is marking time her knee is hopping. Wide-eyed he listens. Points at the black mole on her cheek she opens her eyes wide he presses on it with his tiny pink finger she pretends it’s a switch a magic spot she moves her scalp to wiggle her ears & the point of her cap he laughs he roars.
11
Milla, can you hear me? This is me, Beatrice.
Her voice is loud. As if she’s trying to penetrate a wall.
Beatrice of Friswind, you know me, don’t you!
What further aspect of herself would she select to remind me who she is? How much does she think my memory has shrivelled from lying still?
She opts for the more recent past.
I was at the signing of the will not so long ago, do you remember?
Hatted and gloved, I remember. I too was powdered and lipsticked for the occasion. Agaat’s great pleasure in life. With a white spot on the forehead, to remind me that I am a snooper at freshly-whitewashed window sills. But how does Beatrice expect me to show that I recognise her? Smite my hands together and jubilate? Long-time-no-see-how-is-your-suckling-pig-farming?
I don’t even want to open my eyes.
It’s me, Thys’s wife, can you hear me? Now her voice is lower, with feigned sympathy, as if she wants to say: Me, you nearest neighbour to whom you told everything about your life.
Why did I ever tell her anything? Now she’s lusting after more. She’s here for the scrapings from the pot, for the last meat on the bones.
She hangs over me, her face inches from me. She smells of sweat and powder. She comes even closer. Her breath smells of frikkadel. Her sympathy smacks of frikkadel.
She knows nothing about me, can now no longer know anything about me. What I told her at that time about Jak wasn’t news to her. I could see on her face that I was just a mirror for her, the darting glance, the shame, the repressed rage. Confession in the kitchen, we know, is treason against the sitting room. And it’s the sitting room that must be defended, at all costs. That I now understand. And that’s where Jak was right, I suppose. All hands on deck, I remember, he used to call on reporting for duty in the sitting room when people came to visit.
If I could suddenly