Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [169]
He was word-perfect as if he’d rehearsed it many times in his head. But he was silent for a long time before continuing.
I don’t know if I want to listen to this, you said.
You turned around and went inside, but he followed you. Agaat came in by the inside door and started clearing the table. Her face was set straight, but you could see she knew exactly what was happening.
Jak started again, more emphatically. Did he want Agaat to hear? You knew that he liked playing to an audience, but here it was as if he was calling a witness.
Once upon a time there was a man who looked at himself in the mirror and thought that he was good enough, he said again, emphasis on every word.
He started stacking the plates himself, something he never did. Agaat kept her eyes averted, but you could see her listening.
To and fro between the kitchen and the dining room the three of you moved as you cleared the table. Jak saw to it that nobody missed a thing. His voice was still hoarse with shouting, full of bitter and sarcastic intonations. It was not the first time that you’d heard something in this mockingly bombastic strain from him, there had been previous times, bits and pieces of it, but now it was a complete tale, causes and effects and details.
Agaat, you said, get going to the outside room.
She ignored you. Her eyes were fixed on Jak.
No problem, Agaat is welcome to stay, Jak said, she’ll be able to use it someday, let her hear by all means, it’s good general background for any domestic drudge. I can do with a bit of credibility in her eyes. She’ll know what I’m talking about.
The man, Jak continued his story, was a farmer, he was rich, he was clever, he was strong. So then he married a woman who admired his talents.
How good-looking you are, how good you are, how wonderful!
But it was all just lip-service.
It was because she thought herself weaker and more stupid than she really was. Ugly duckling, no swan in sight. Sob.
She thought, well then, I’ll just find myself an attractive husband, then it reflects on me as well.
But she felt no better even though he shone fit to burst. She was always worried about everything and always complained about everything. She complained about the earth and complained about the water and complained about the air and complained about the fire. Nothing was ever to her taste. She wanted her husband to right everything that she found wrong on their estate. The ploughshare and the sheep-shear and the stable and the table and the roof and the floor and the mincers and the pincers and the pens and the hens. She wanted him to be the master and control everything as she would do it herself if she herself could be good-looking and strong and clever and rich and be the master. Follow my drift?
Help me with this and help me with that, she whinged and carried on as if she had no hands. Even though she knew everything about farming she fancied that she could initiate nothing without him. She wept when he had to go on a journey and when he was with her, it had to be in such otherwise ways which he didn’t understand, that he got quite discouraged. Stuff me a teddy bear, whistle like a mackerel for me.
You don’t love me enough, you don’t care enough for me, she went around all day sighing and doctored herself with a glass of wine, with a sleeping pill, with cookies, with chocolate, with talking on the telephone.
And she was always full of complaints. My legs are heavy, my arms feel tired. And at night she sleep-walked through the house in her black shawls and with her fluttering eyelashes.
What strange behaviour, the man thought as he led her back to her bed. I give her everything, what else could she want from me? How can I ever make her happy? he wondered as he lay behind her in the dark until she calmed down. And thus he became a hero of introspection, without anybody’s suspecting it, a silent ponderer of his fate, but that’s best left there, dear members of the audience.
So what do you think happened?
Jak had found his stride. He looked at you and Agaat in