Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [208]
When she’s had enough, then she gets up, then she takes the duster. Then I know it helps her to talk to me, but mostly about trivialities. Harmless.
It helps her to believe that I’m harmless. She even wants to believe in my goodness, it seems to me. But then I have to be potent as well, because what would virtue be for Agaat without power?
That’s something she can’t tolerate.
If on the other hand, as happens on some days, she makes me out to be entirely bad, then she feels that she’s bad herself. And that she doesn’t want to be. That she can’t be. Her name is Good.
Would it be good to forgive me? It would be too easy. And it would solve nothing.
Would it be good to take revenge? It’s been a long time since that satisfied her, avenging yourself on a helpless victim is not interesting.
How can I help her?
Too many sentences to spell out. I must keep my text simple. I can’t tell her story on her behalf, and if she’s too tongue-tied and has too little pride to do it herself, then it’s not my fault.
How many Jerseys do you now have in your herd? That I’m allowed to ask. How many heifers are you going to sell in autumn? What’s your price? What does the market look like? She supplies the figures.
If you carry on like this, you’re going to be a rich farmer one day, I’m allowed to say.
What good is it going to do me? her face asks then. When she sees that I’ve caught her out in self-pity, she backtracks quickly. As with the tirade yesterday.
Yes, I just have to give, give, give nowadays to keep the labourers happy. The creatures of late seem to want to guzzle and guts, even steal the dogs’ food out of their bowls around the back. Before you fell ill they were still happy with flour and coffee and now and again their smoked pork and their sack of beans and onions and pumpkins. But no, now it’s a sheep a month on top of it, and then I have to provide for the women and children as well, if the one isn’t suffering from this, then the other complains of that. They eat you out of house and home and they’re too lazy to work, they just want to lie in their hovels. I told Dawid a long time ago the whole lot must go, I want casual labourers, or better still, I get in a team of Transkei kaffirs every now and again, they’re happy anyway with mealie-meal porridge and sour milk.
I said nothing in reply. And she knew why.
In the silence that followed, she took up her embroidery and sat working wordlessly for two hours. That’s the way it often goes since we’ve been able to talk, as if she’s trying to gather strength for the next conversation.
She’s sitting just too far away for me to see what’s she’s doing there on her cloth.
She’ll show me when she’s done, she says.
Apparently it contains all the stitches in the book.
Diagonal ripple-stitch, odd wave-stitch, step-stitch, honeycomb-stitch, blanket-stitch, hemstitch, paving-stitch, wreath-stitch.
There’s still a lot to fill in, she says, filling-in patterns for drawn-fabric work, sheaves, ears of corn, stars, eyelets, flowers, diamonds, wheels, shadow-blocks.
Some parts she has to unpick and redo, though much smaller, otherwise not everything fits in so well. It takes much longer than she thought to get everything in place, she says.
Everything? Every what thing? Rather say it’s a pastime till I’m in my place six feet under.
Sometimes when I can no longer bear it, the two of us together like this, trapped in the room, without any escape, I plead without disguise. I flicker through my tears. One eye flutters more rapidly than the other.
Please, talk to me, I want to talk, I want to explain things.
Sometimes she consents, but venture one sentence into the maze, and she stops.
Look for the butterfly, Agaat! You’ve seen it before! Show it to me!
But mainly she ignores it when I’m like that. Mouth set in a sulk. Chin out. Her eyes flash. The message is clear.
Your soul! Me having to look for your soul! Bugger your soul!
I can guess what she’s feeling, what sentences