Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [179]
Nay what, Jak said, this is not a picnic, we’re going to match our strength against nature. You just see to it that we build up our stamina beforehand, and have the food ready when we return.
Was it all as unexpected as it felt that morning? Not really. The signs had been there had you but wanted to notice them. Perhaps even then Agaat had a much better overview. She was always the one to draw your attention to Jakkie’s growing up, to his first steps, his first daring leaps, first circuit alone on the bicycle, first swim across the river. She was the one who always summoned you: Come and see, just come and see what he can do. Also when Jak taught him the abseiling technique down the tower silo. Your appeal: Just listen to what he can sing, made a feeble show against these achievements. You were tied to him only by this one thin thread of music, and you weren’t sure whether he just played along to humour you.
When Jak heard you making music, he would lure him away. Musical morbs again, he would say, and took him along to go running or rowing. They achieved the best times for father-and-son teams in the holiday races at Witsand, came home with glittering trophies and gilt canoes mounted on wooden blocks. They had ventured into the mountains for a day on occasion. But this project was too large. The scratches and the bruises and the gashed heads that you would have to doctor again. But that would be the least. Now there was a risk of exposure, of getting lost, in the wilderness, in the cold.
But was even that your real concern? My child, you thought, I’m losing my child, first to Agaat and now to Jak, the child of whom I’d dreamt. You put your hand on Jakkie’s curly head, felt him strain away.
I’m going along, said Agaat, she was behind Jakkie’s chair, her hands on the backrest.
So am I, you said.
Jakkie looked from one to the other, his eyes uncertain.
We’re going alone, said Jak. What do we want in the mountains with a wonky-legged woman and a one-armed golliwog? You could never leave your silly little farm all on its own? What would happen then?
He winked at Jakkie.
The cows would get scarlet fever, the wethers would drown themselves one by one in the drinking trough, go on, Jakkie, what else would happen?
The chickens would lay chocolates, the chimneys would start whistling, Jakkie laughed, relieved to be joking. He was in his father’s team now.
Yes, you see, he knows it already, Jak said, the windows would bulge out, the windmills would run off, the goffels would cut out each other’s goolies, the rams would cover the women. These two bat pilots don’t dare look away for a moment. Just look at their control panel!
Jak was on a roll, with hands and feet he demonstrated.
Air pressure, altitude, tail-wind, cruising speed, wheels, wings, long-drop, snot-smear, squitter straight into the drift!
Jakkie roared with laughter.
Or is it a stupid old ship they’re steering, Jakkie, port, starboard, goose-turd, sink!
There was nothing you could do about it.
Nothing Agaat could or would do about it.
But in whose team was she? you wondered. Perhaps ‘team’ was the wrong word, she wasn’t in a team, a pivot she was, a kingpin, you’d felt for a while now how the parts gyrated around her, faster and faster, even though she was the least.
We’re going along, you said again.
You two, said Jak, you stay exactly where you are and see to it that the bluegums don’t contract typhus, and that Grootmoedersdrift doesn’t disappear down a sinkhole, not so, Jakkie? And on Saturday 18 September you see to it that you’re waiting for us in the pass with food and coffee and clothes. Come in the red bakkie so that we can see you clearly from up there.
It rained on the Saturday when you and Agaat had to go and fetch them. The whole week that they were gone you’d smelt it coming on, heard the susurration before the first drops fell. A countrywide rain it would