Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [131]
No, through the window, the door was locked, but I could see, the girl’s bed is next to the window.
No, I don’t know, I was out of there so fast.
A tube? No, I don’t know about tubes, Thys.
What?
Poison? No, Lord, Thys, I don’t know, but now is not the time.
Yes, I hear you. Just come. No, Thys, gas or poison, it doesn’t matter.
No, the point is that I’ve now arrived here unexpectedly, don’t you see? Perhaps I’ve just come upon it too soon, if you understand what I mean.
No, Lord, Thys, why must I always have such a time getting something into your head, my dear husband. Suicide! Suicide! That’s what I say yes. Perhaps they both, you know, how do they say? a joint, a shared, how does one say? a linked, perhaps they decided it’s the only way out of the misery, a team effort, ai, what is the word again? Because I tell you it’s crawling with pills and pans in there and it smells of dead!
No, Thys, I’m not going into that room again!
No, Thys, please. I’m not going to revive Agaat, I don’t doctor coons!
No, I want to leave now I feel too weird here. It’s a . . . a . . . double-decker! How does one say it?
Well then just come immediately please!
No fine, fine, I’ll wait till you come, I’ll wait outside. And Thys, ring the doctor and ring the police and ring Dominee van der Lught. I’m going to ring off now Thys, I have to get out of this house, it gives me the creeps, I’m waiting for you in front, just come, bring Magda along, she lays out bodies doesn’t she, tell her it’s a twin, bye Thys bye!
Beatrice picks up speed down the passage. Trot-trot slip-slide into the sitting room as she cuts the corner. Clicks-clicks go the heels. Rattles the front door. Must have locked behind her when she came in. Neighbour’s wife incarcerated with cadavers. My cadaver, your cadaver, us together in our palaver.
Here comes Agaat now. Heard the whole phone conversation, that I can tell from the footsteps. From the kitchen she comes, from behind the door where she’s been eavesdropping, down the passage, quickly. She looks agitated when she comes into my room, cap at a crazy angle. She comes and stands close to me, looks into my eyes.
What do I hear you’ve been flickering here? What kind of flickering with the eyes and what kind of peeling back? Are you feeling faint?
No, Agaat, it’s a joke.
She’s too alarmed to read me correctly.
Sorry, Ounooi, I overslept, completely, I’m sorry. Ai.
She takes off the mask, wipes away my drool, smoothes cream on my face where the edge of the mask has pressed against my cheeks.
I flicker with my eyes, everything’s fine Agaat, I could die laughing, I laugh.
She doesn’t see it.
Nooi Beatrice, she must have got a fright, I was lying there in my room with the oxygen mask, with the extra one, I wanted to see how it works, whether it works well, whether you can breathe from it. If I get extra breath from it, how it feels to get extra breath. Then I went to sleep, must have been from too much breath, then I went into such a deep, deep sleep, I’m sorry. Then I woke up from the window. Then nooi Beatrice pushed open the window from the outside.
Agaat fiddles with my eyelids, she draws the upper lid over the lower, presses on the soft spots under my eyes, as if she wants to arrange them properly, living eyes, that don’t just peel back for nothing.
So what kind of flickering is nooi Beatrice talking about?
Relax, Agaat, it’s funny, can’t you see? Come on, laugh a bit! Laugh so that I can hear it. I want to hear laughter. Laugh Agaat, I want to see what you look like when you laugh, when last did we have a really good joke here? The laughing corpses. The one with peeled-back eyes, the other one drunk on air. The one old ghost was lean and the other old ghost was fat, do you remember, Agaat, the song? We used to sing it to Jakkie when he was small, when we were bathing him. Then I blew out my cheeks