Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [189]
Right, Agaat, Mrs de Wet here understands the trade-off!
An evacuation for an exposition! Fair enough!
A poop for a peep!
A panful for a panorama of Grootmoedersdrift!
Who else could think up that anagnorisis should coincide with catharsis?
Yes, Agaat, right enough, what is Mrs de Wet going to see? Mrs de Wet is going to see her arse. I know how your mind works. First Jak and now I. Calculated in such a way that we have only ourselves to thank.
Now she wants me to applaud. Now that I’m tired and worn out with everything that she’s been pushing under my nose. Now that I’ve become so feeble and so heavy of breath. Now that I must shit for old times’ sake. Without any pressure of my own. A mere sewer.
And here my spinach is now. Steaming in a saucer on the bridge. A bit of bicarbonate of soda to make it green.
But first there is another manoeuvre.
A shake manoeuvre. Little brown bottle. Shiny teaspoon.
First the Pink Lady, says Agaat, then the spinach.
The Lady is pink as the gums of dentures are pink. She is deposited on the seam of my tongue. She tastes of chalk and chewing gum. Three times she enters me. Agaat pleats her mouth.
Yuck, she says, I don’t know how you get it down.
Never mind, Agaat, I know.
Just a spoonful of spinach makes the medicine go down, Agaat sings.
Three sips of chlorophyll.
With every teaspoon her excitement increases. She can’t hide it. Could never. From the beginning her area of expertise. Ever since I’ve been unable to get onto the toilet seat myself, clean myself, she started formulating her rules and regulations, more and more complicated as my paralysis increased. Clean and unblocked she wanted to keep me all through my sickbed.
As if the second coming itself would take place along that passage.
Three sips of sweet black cellulose.
Tasty, the little prunes, says Agaat.
My dosing is a hurried business tonight. Who wouldn’t start becoming impatient for a denouement? Agaat has switched off the music. Doesn’t want to miss anything. Especially not my crapulent opening chords.
It’s explosive, I know, the mixture of pink and green and black gunge. A rainbow preceding the deluge. An old Grootmoedersdrift recipe.
My stomach starts churning. Ghorrr! it goes. Ghorrr! and gharrr! and gu! and blub! And in between the little singing sounds, zimmm-zoommm.
Agaat’s merry-go-round. Music to her ears.
Strike up, she says with a straight face.
She pulls the sheets from me. No nonsense tonight. We’re going to make doubly sure. She puts on latex gloves. She pops a suppository from its silver container. Translucent it is. Glycerine. For the laxation of the sensitive system. It has the shape of a bomb.
Not even time to turn me on my side tonight. A short cut will do as well. She pushes a hand in between my legs from the front. She runs a finger through the split of my buttocks to find the right entrance. She pushes in a finger to relax the sphincter.
Nothing wrong with the arse, she mutters. Old nag’s arse. Wouldn’t say it’s been cut open. Mommy’s mattress button.
The point of the pill is hard. She pushes it in without ceremony.
Take it, she says, take, swallow it. Otherwise I’m taking the horse’s pill-gun.
Listening is all very well, but who has ever argued with a sphincter?
She pushes it in still deeper.
I feel the muscle slip shut, contract the pill into my anus. Immediately I feel the effect.
Plop, plop, Agaat discards the gloves into the bin. She doesn’t cover me again with the sheet.
Hold on, she says to me, I’m just returning the tray.
As casually as if-you-please.
Hold on.
Am I Atlas? The myth is the wrong way round. The earth like heaven is not above us, but inside us. For us to retain in our cavities and to surrender through our orifices.
What do I hear Agaat sing as she marches down the corridor? Not Italian, no.
Tho’ there’s one motor gone we will still carry on, We’re coming in on a wing and a prayer.
There the pan perches covered with its clean white cloth. There hang the maps rolled up against the wall. There’s a merry rattling in the kitchen. Small arms. Beyond