Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [164]
Come here, you said, come taste this wine.
It’s the middle of the night, Jak said, you’ll wake up everybody.
You opened your arms to him.
Good Lord, Milla, why here? What’s got into you? Jak asked.
It was your reply that was wrong, your reply to the question of what had got into you.
Love, you said, love and longing for you.
You’re sozzled, that’s what, Jak said and gathered his pyjamas in front. He looked aside to where you’d placed the wine and the flowers on the table next to the silver candlesticks and shook his head.
You got up and pressed yourself against his back and moved your hands along his flanks.
What’s with you? Are you randy all of a sudden because you’re in love with somebody else? Jak asked. What would make me good enough all of a sudden, it’s not as if I can do anything right in your eyes, is it?
Don’t talk like that, you pleaded, you know there’s always been only one man in my life.
Jak snorted, took the wine out of the ice bucket, looked at the label, took a long draught from the bottle and put it back.
Do you really not love me at all any more then, Jakop, you asked in his ear, just say that you love me, just hold me.
Why did that infuriate him so?
He turned round and grabbed you by the shoulders.
You, he said, you with your needle-sharp intellect and tongue to match, you’ve always been too simple-minded to understand that it doesn’t work like that. Love is not something one asks for.
But you never give it to me, I do so long for it, I’m alone, Jak, I need you.
He let go of you and waved his hands about his head.
Jak, you said, smell the night, and went and stood in front of him and moved your pelvis against his.
We’ve made everything on the farm as we want it, can’t we also try to make each other happy?
You took his hard penis in your hand. He pushed you away.
Leave me alone dammit, he swore, I’m not your toolbox!
You let the straps of your petticoat slip down your shoulders and pressed your breasts against him.
No! he said, no, Milla! and pushed you away, stood away from you, glared at you until you covered yourself with your hands. At last you could no longer bear his stare. You lowered your face into your hands. You collapsed onto the sofa.
Just tell me what I do wrong, you sobbed, I no longer know . . .
What you do wrong?! No, my dear Milla, you do everything perfectly right, all the way to the stage swoon, let there be no mistake about that. Right, I’ll tell you what I think. You think I’m stupid. You think you can play with me. Who do you want to look like in all your silly get-ups? Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Some Like it Hot? It doesn’t work, you know. A bloody scrap of black lace, after all the years of breaking me down and disparaging me. I’d rather go and pull my own wire, thank you!
No names, no roll-call, he said, and turned round.
Jak, wait, you said, but he wouldn’t hear you.
Jak, wait! he mimicked you in a whingeing voice, and gave the dining-room table a shove. You nauseate me, that’s what, I puke from your affectations.
With a hiccup the table rolled off the edge of the carpet, the bottle of Nederburg Rhine Riesling chinking in the wine holder, the larkspur trembling in the vase, the candle flame juddering in the candlesticks. Jak gave it another hard shove. As far as the furthest wall of the sitting room it rolled, past the half-moon table with the white swans of blown glass, and stopped next to the gramophone under the portrait of your great-great-grandmother.
Poor Jak de Wet, look at him, see what his wife has made of him, Jak said, as if addressing the portrait. First the stud bull. Then the obelisk. What dost thou say, O Great-great-grandmother? You are after all the origin of the world around here!
Jak kicked against the table-leg. The table bumped against the wall. The ice bucket fell down and the bottle broke. The record got stuck. You saw the needle in the pick-up head slide and bounce over the grooves. Will you ever forget the disfigured song, the treacherous smell of fennel?