Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [18]
Fortunately, you said, you did the right thing.
You did, Jak said. He looked at you quickly and looked away.
Then he started.
I would have stepped on the brake and tried to pass on the right if you hadn’t stopped me.
In his voice was the slightest undertone of a sulk.
You were wonderful, you consoled him, you drive well, I feel safe with you.
You shifted up your skirt and took his hand and pressed it between your legs so that he could feel how wet you were. All the way to Grootmoedersdrift he drove with one hand and touched you with the other. In your lap the homestead keys jingled as he moved his hand.
You closed your eyes, but you couldn’t banish the image of the spilling spattering scattering melons from your eyes. The whole car smelt of it.
how does a sickness begin? botulism from eating skeletons but where do the skeletons come from? loco-disease nenta preacher-tick-affliction smut-ball bunt black-rust glume-blotch grubs beetles snails moths army caterpillars all invisible onsets soil is more long-suffering than wheat more long-suffering than sheep soil sickens slowly in hidden depths from tilling from flattening with the back of the spade from heavy grubbing in summer wind i am neither sheep nor wheat did i think then i was god that i had to lie and take it did i think then i was a mountain or a hill or a ridge and who told me that and who decided stones had no rights for stones can waste away from being denied from being abused and who decided who is the ploughed and who ploughs and why did i not get up and why not go away and what would have happened if i had resisted her my mother my instructress of amenability foot-rot will-wilt green-sick nasella-clump charlock disillusioned despot skeleton in the ground now it has struck will strike at me because i did not strike back i smother in words that nobody can hear i clamp myself gather my waters my water-retaining clods my loam my shale i am fallow field but not decided by me who will gently plough me on contour plough in my stubbles and my devil’s-thorn fertilise me with green-manure and with straw to stiffen the wilt that this wilderness has brought on this bosom and brain? who blow into my nostrils with breath of dark humus? who sow in me the strains of wheat named for daybreak or for hope? how will my belated harvest reflect and in what water? who will harvest who shear who share my fell my fleece my sheaf my small white pips? who will chew me until i bind for i have done as was done unto me the sickness belongs to us two.
21 April 1960
Off to a good start today with the fixing up of the rooms the outside room and the nursery. Understand for the first time why everything had to happen the way it did God’s great Providence. Had the nursery painted & the outside room whitewashed inside & out nice & tidy snow-white. Plascon for the one & whitewash for the other—economical—can always redo it. Washable Plascon for nursery busy little hands dirty little feet! A good opportunity while I’m about it to have all the outside rooms rewashed & for once to get everything in the backyard nice and tidy.
A. is getting the middle storeroom it has the largest window and a small one at the back as well.
Had carried out & sorted & thrown away & managed to squeeze everything into two other little rooms spades forks wheelbarrows small garden tools chicken-feed & pigs’ supplementary feed & bone-meal & bags of compost for the garden had everything packed in the one and all the old furniture in the other. Had best bed & mattress & kitchen table & scrubbing-table and washstand (the one with the little tiles) carried into A’s rm. All the necessary fortunately in stock. Considered a carpet but J. won’t have any of it will make a plan left-over length of linoleum fitted loose for the time being easier to keep clean in any case.
Now everything is as it should be suppose it’s the right thing to do for everyone