Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [133]
The doors slam. The cars pull off. The dogs bark.
The joke of the afternoon seems small. A small forlorn joke. I can feel it seeping out of me. I feel heavy. I feel dense. I don’t feel sad. I feel tired. Agaat is sad. I know, I can feel it.
She remains standing on the stoep. She calls the dogs back. I hear them panting. I close my eyes. I can picture their tails wagging, their open-mouthed laughing with her. They come to have their heads stroked.
Look at you Boela, where have you been again?
Her voice comes with an effort. She tries to bend it into shape by talking to the dogs, appropriating the liveliness of dogs. Dogs that can come and go and wallow in the dust, in dead things, to appropriate the smell for themselves, to get up and to scrabble with the back feet.
Come here, Koffie, but my goodness, you too. Where do you find mud to roll in now? Oh sis, but you stink!
Agaat doesn’t come in. I can see her standing there. She watches the gate being opened and closed. She remains there longer than usual. She watches the cars turning off into the main road, the billows of dust getting smaller and disappearing over the hill. She feels the weight of the evening waiting, she smells the last still black water of the drift, she sees the dark mountain rearing up and the black tree-tops of Grootmoedersdrift.
But that’s better than nothing, it’s better than me in my white bed in here.
She does not want to come in.
She does not want to enter the house. But there is nowhere else. Nothing else. Not as long as I’m here. This is the cup. This is the book. Drink it, turn its pages.
Ai, I hear, look at how dry you are.
I hear her go down the stoep steps. Water on the cement. It’s the garden hose. The water splat-splats in a feeble stream. Agaat is watering the pot plants. She talks to them. She wants me to hear. That is how I taught her. Plants flourish when you talk to them, especially in pots. They grow shiny leaves. That’s their reply.
Virgin’s tears, she says, hen-and-chickens, hoya, Mackaya bella, delicious monster, peace in the home.
Tonight she gets no further than a roll-call.
The hose drags around to the other side of the stoep. One thing leads to another. Now it’s the bed right under the stoep that the irrigation doesn’t always reach.
Agaat is buying time. She considers what next. She makes plans. How to proceed. How to keep things well-aired and well-lit. Coping with the evening, coping with the morning.
One pot, another pot is dragged across the stoep. Wet terracotta gritty on the cement. The early December move. Then the late-afternoon sun shines in under the veranda and dries everything out.
There, now you’re out of the heat, says Agaat.
She grunts as she comes upright.
Everything is wet. The tap has been closed. The pots have been moved. Now she must in. Now she can’t do anything else. But it’s grown dark. She has somewhere to start. The curtains to draw, the table lamps to switch on. A sign of life she can give. This is a farm. People are living here. Sweetenough’s the name of the wife, Goodenough’s the name of the maid.
I hear her at the front door. She wipes her feet on the cane mat. Once, twice, checks under the soles, once more. A sigh. Then she’s in. She closes the door, locks, latches from the inside. She looks at the latch. She turns round. She looks at the sitting room. She takes one step in, another, she’s on the carpet. Now she’s ready. Now the hand does what it finds to do, the left hand in front, the right hand behind.
I hear a curtain, another, I hear a note, a phrase. Then she finds the tune. Then I find it. It’s for me, Agaat, I know, sing for me there in the sitting room. Blow the wind southerly, she hums. She knows it from the old record of Kathleen Ferrier. Did we throw it away with the clearing-out? Her voice is weak. She clears her throat, starts again.
Sing, Agaat. You sing the old-old tunes. Sing the songs of yesteryear. The music of the front room. Sing of the wind round the corners of the house, the south-easter, the north-wester. The song of the window frames, of the door frames