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You know what, Ounooi, now that you’re shitting yourself so gloriously over there, I suddenly feel like a little glass of sherry. The one of which you always pour me a bit when we make trifle. What do you say, would you mind? It’s almost Christmas in any case. O come all ye faithful! Unto us a child is given! And apart from that, we have something to drink to, it seems to me. Here in our small corner!

Agaat’s back is straight. She walks briskly. I hear the lid of the liquor cabinet slam. Bang! And then Tchi! Left about-turn!

She returns with the Old Brown sherry and a little glass. She unscrews the cap, prepares to pour, looks at me.

Shame, dry-mouth, she says, but it wouldn’t agree with you, I’m afraid. She presses the open bottle in front of my nose.

Your health, she says, have you finished shitting now?

She looks at me with hard eyes. She doesn’t want to read my gaze.

It feels as if my foundation is falling out. The cramps come at intervals. Writhe. I could writhe with pain, clamp my arms around my stomach, could groan, take a deep breath and exhale. I could. Fold double.

Why are you looking at me like that, are you dumb? she asks but she doesn’t wait for a reply. She knocks back the sherry in one gulp. Looks at the glass, smacks her lips.

Right, she says, that gives cheer, where were we? She grabs the duster, pushes her glasses back on her nose. She reads the names in four-square march-time, taps the duster on the map like a metronome.

Uitvlugt, Niekerksbog, Avontuur.

Skeiding, Omkyk, Eigenaardigheid.

Lekkerwater. Laaste Liefde.

Vryheid.

Vermaaklikheid.

The grandfather clock strikes in between the names, a litany of longings, aspirations, achievements, losses. Agaat leaves space for the quarter. Cease-fire. Eleven o’clock. Another glass of sherry. Fantastic performance. She advances her positions.

Napky and Dipka and Kinkoe.

Caledon, Stanford, Napier.

Hermanus, Bredasdorp, Riviersonderend.

It’s released from her like a flood, the names of the towns. We stayed over here (she on sacks with the smelly servant in the hovel), visited there (tea and cake for her in the shade of a great old bluegum what more could one wish for), we went to fetch this (three bolts of tweed from a ship that had run aground), or buy that (genuine Dutch tulip bulbs that flowered yellow that year), and sold something else for a song (an out-of-tune piano on which I’d still played her Farewell ye halls of marble, farewell ye hills and dales). Here was a farmer’s day (a greybeard in a white coat directed parking), there a sale in execution (even the spades and pitchforks), a horse race (which big-mouth fell off his horse?), a meeting of paunches with bums sagging in khaki pants (like pigs with measles). Here was a sheep on the spit (for her the shin-bone that I kept in a white napkin), there a circus (peeped through a chink), a show, a dance, a day of prayer for rain.

All along the old battle positions.

Everything that you forgot and never even noted in your little books, says Agaat.

I was asking for this. Now there is no remedy. Now I get what I asked for and more. My bowels may be empty but now it’s Agaat’s turn to flush her system. She rattles off the farm names. Ting-ting on the brass band’s triangle, a horseshoe on which she beats time with the tip of her duster. Such heights and flats, vleis here, kraals there, dams, spruits, drifts, fountains where she had to sit outside and hold the fort and got sheep’s lung to eat.

Granted here and Begun there.

Welgelegen, Nietverdiend, Goedgevonden, Laatgevonden, well-situated, undeserved, found well or late.

A neck, a head, a ridge, a corner.

A kloof, a bush, a well.

From map to map, hoped, rejoiced, expected.

Sonderkos and Grootbaklei, Droëbek and Natteschoot. Out of Food but Full of Fight, Dry of Mouth and Wet of Loin: Agaat’s inventions.

Spanned out, turned back, rested, trekked, stayed.

Dankbaar.

Nooitgedacht.

Pious assertions of gratitude, feigned surprise at such good fortune.

Môrester