Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [176]
Milk. Cream. Eggs.
Irrigation, dogfood, chickenfeed.
The opening of the doors, the pushing up of the sashes to air the house in the cool of evening.
Supper.
But it’s a lapsed agenda.
Vaguely I can hear the clanking of cans, voices, a honking of geese coming to the dam, the door of the store being rolled open, the bakkie being pulled in.
Could I be dreaming it all? Is this thin distillation of yard noises the soundtrack of a dream? This golden radiance in the room, is it already the light of another order? My sleeping nurse, could her slumbering be a sign that I’m trapped with her in a bell-jar of oblivion?
The strips of sunlight shrink back from the walls, crawl down over the foot of the bed. They catch Agaat’s cap from the side, from behind and from the front. I can make out the embroidery distinctly. From the back it is darkly lit in silhouette, and from the front etched in relief. Negative and positive simultaneously.
The cap’s starched point casts a long rippling shadow on the pleats of the bedspread. Like a horn it looks. Or like the shadow of an old stringy snakeskin, semi-transparent in spots with the elongated shadow-patterns of the weft visible here and there.
White on white the cap is embroidered, in places studded with densely worked stitches. Only when the light falls on it as now, can you see the almost jewel-like contrivance. Now in this late-afternoon light it appears as if inscribed with a confusion of shadow-loops and lines.
Nobody, nobody except Jakkie when he was small, was allowed to look at it straight on. Over the years ever more forbidden, that zone above Agaat’s forehead. When she caught me out staring, she made me feel as if I were peeking through a transparent blouse.
But now she is asleep and I can stare to my heart’s content. The light plays over the riffles and stipples and eyelets and crenellations of the embroidery. The edges of the cap are bordered above and below with a satin fillet and finished with crocheted lacework. Are my eyes playing me tricks here? A design of musical notation I see, notes and keys and staves. As the light quickens and dims through the trellis on the stoep, through the panels of the glass door, through the gauze lining of the curtain, I can make out what is embroidered there. Am I seeing straight? A harp it seems to be, a syrinx, a tambourine, a trumpet, the neck of a lute. And hands I see, all the wrists bent, all fingers on strings and valves and stops.
Agaat stirs. She closes her mouth, she swallows. She feels my gaze. I must close my eyes before she wakes up. I can’t stand it any longer, the fencing with the eyes.
But I can’t stop looking. It’s like looking into clouds. Everything is possible. Wings it looks like, angels’ wings. They arch out gracefully from the backs of the musicians. But the trumpet-player has a pig’s snout. And the beak of the harpist is that of a bat. A wolf, grinning, beats the tambourine. A baboon with balloon-cheeks blows the syrinx, a rat with tiny teeth hangs drooling over the lute.
Agaat opens her eyes. Sleepily. She doesn’t know where she is. She blinks. Embarrassment steals over her face. The embarrassment is shed. Defensiveness takes its place. Confusion over her arm around my feet.
Never mind. You were tired. Good thing that you could rest. Never mind, it’s not serious. Calmly now. Give yourself time to wake up properly. There’s nothing to rush us.
But she’s angry. With herself. Angry that I saw her like that, angry that she’s late with everything. That evening arrived without her. She sits up straight, adjusts her glasses, adjusts her cap.
Don’t be angry. I saw nothing, I’ve also slept, I woke with you. We dreamt. All that I saw was a dream. See, I’m closing my eyes.
I can feel her distrust. Beneath the distrust, something else. Can it be true? I feel her withdraw. My feet miss the warmth. I hear the chair creak as she gets up. I open my eyes. She walks to the door. But she doesn’t open it, she just stands there. Her hands are at her sides, the little one and the big one. Her little shoulder sags. She turns round,