Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [205]
She holds up the full urine bag for me to see. Dark yellow, almost amber-coloured it is, but not clear.
Cloudy, she says, but it makes the bluest blue.
She opens the stoep door, holds the bag far away from her, walks out with small brisk steps. I watch the mirror. There she is in image now. She knows the range of the reflection, she’ll see to it that she stays within it.
Douse the fire with cream, put out the flames with my last dark fluids.
I mustn’t complain, I was asking for it.
The hydrangeas are deep purplish-blue, just the colour for my funeral arrangements. That’s what she wants to say with the whole palaver of emptying the bag so conspicuously. She knows I can see her in the mirror. There are other hydrangeas around the corner as well where she could go and empty it out. But these are from the mother stock. Here she learnt to empty her own little chamber pot.
That’s the kind of risk I run since I’ve been able to talk to her. Her punishments become subtler. The message is: Your influence will be felt for a long time yet, even unto the capillary roots of the plants of your garden. I’ll keep up the old traditions for you.
I see her crouch down between the leaves. Only her behind sticks out.
I understand, Agaat. You turn your arse on the last conflagration that you’ve perpetrated here in the sickbay.
She stands back. She examines her handiwork. Beautiful voluptuous, purple orbs of flowers.
Pissy, pissy in the pot, who makes the bluest of the lot?
Am I imagining things, or is she shaking her head there?
How dare I ask her such things? Imagine, she an arsonist! Am I going out of my mind now?
Go ahead and shake your head, Agaat. I know it was you. Who else?
She puts the empty bag down on the lawn. Here come the little scissors from the top pocket of her apron. She snips one, two, three, four, five flowers. She moves out of range. She’ll go round the back to the kitchen to put them in water, then go and select a vase in the sitting room. Perhaps I’ll be lucky. Perhaps I’ll be given flowers next to my bed today. That will teach me to keep my questions to myself.
I wonder about the timing of the sudden appearance of our new means of communication. The old alphabet chart. Would she have remembered it all of a sudden out of the blue? A technique she read about long ago in the pamphlets and conveniently forgot about? Or did she avoid it because she was too tired? Because she realised she would be empowering me in my last moments here where I no longer hesitate to speak my mind? Because she could guess what would come out, what had to come out between us?
Perhaps it will never come out, perhaps there’s even less of a chance now than before. Perhaps that which has to be said has nothing to do with the truth.
And do I myself know what it is? Is the truth beyond what happened or didn’t happen, what happened how and where? Beyond the facts? I’m the one who’s being tested to see whether I have the words to arrive there.
Perhaps it was the maps that gave her the idea. The place names. The pointing at the dots of the towns till I nod, yes, tell me about Protem, tell me about Klipdale, what happened there, what we did there, who we saw there.
Shall I ask her? How did you come upon the idea of hanging it there, the alphabet chart, the old yellowed, varnished cardboard sheet with the fold down the middle, with the ornate capitals and the Bible pictures and the scenes from the history of salvation, stiff prophets and visions amongst grapevines and sheaves of corn?
I could ask, now that I can pose questions.
Why did you keep it till now? After all, you’ve known all along that I’m itching to talk, you could surely have guessed that I’m lying here brooding over all my life?
I could confront her with it. Perhaps she’d only wave a little blue book in front of my nose. Because