Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [128]
Would you understand that, Beatrice? In your book, I imagine, the dying may not mock?
Nevertheless, dear neighbour, note, my mask nowadays is made of hard green plastic. My life has changed. I am harmless to you, impervious to that God of mutually humbugging neighbourliness and pretentious poets. I am delivered to the mercy of my diary of former days. And it runs deeper than little kitchen secrets, I can tell you. And at present God is vengeful as in his youth, and it feels a whole lot more honest. Indeed, He has become a woman. He is now named Agaat, not that I think you can understand Greek. ‘Agaat’, do you know what else it also means apart from the name for a semi-precious stone?
I can feel Beatrice shying away from me. Unsatisfied. What did she expect? The Ave Maria in sign language?
How would she have got in here? What’s happened to Agaat?
Through half-closed eyelids I can make out that the curtains are drawn. But it’s not the morning light shining through, it’s not morning.
It’s afternoon, late afternoon. What’s Beatrice doing here? She was supposed to come in the morning, tomorrow morning. Then Agaat would be away in town.
But Agaat didn’t come to say goodbye, didn’t say she was leaving now. She put on the oxygen mask for me. That was the last time I saw her.
She said, rest a while, breathe easily.
She said, just don’t faint again, please not.
That was after lunch. It was today after all. Could the days be starting to play tricks on me? First spoon of jelly then I almost choked. So then she had to thump me again to get it out, first come and sit behind me to do the Heimlich, several times in succession. The first time that Agaat has entered my bed in broad daylight.
Today it was, I’m not confused.
Her heart thumping against my back. Her legs on either side of my body. Her arms around my stomach. A trace of anxiety mingled with her starched medicinal smells. After she’d got me calmed down, she was pale, didn’t want to look me in the eye.
She put on the mask, her hand on my chest, regulated the oxygen, drew the curtains.
Rest a while.
Let me die, I asked with my eyes.
No, Agaat said with her eyes, don’t be otherwise.
The elastic of the oxygen mask pulls my hair at the back painfully. No way that I could convey this to Beatrice. And what could she do about it? She’d sooner touch the tail of a crocodile than me. And I have one Tamer. She who can open the doors of my face.
I hear the chirping of sparrows. Late afternoon. Exuberant sparrows that can breathe again after the scorching day. Thirty-eight degrees, Agaat said. Oh, for the breath of the tiniest sparrow! If I could inhale it into me. I would live the better for it. I’d be able to spit in the face of the inquisitive wife of my neighbour. By her sneezings a light doth shine.
Could we open the curtains just a bit?
We. Overberg plural. The fact that Beatrice can consult the realm of death on domestic matters makes her light-headed. Light streams into the room. I can feel her watching my face.
I’m sorry if I gave you a fright. I thought I might as well come this afternoon. I’ll stay over if you like. I spoke to Agaat on the phone this morning. She wants to go to town tomorrow, she asked if I would stay with you in the morning. But