Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [228]
Have a sore throat from all the singing and talking. How long still before she’s going to become human? I feel I must prove something. To myself, to Jak, to my mother, to the community. Why do I always give myself the most difficult missions? The most difficult farm, the most difficult husband, and now this damaged child without a name?
I’ve exceeded the limits of my abilities with her. As if I’m trying to come to terms with something in myself. What exactly is it that’s driving me? With something like this most normal people would give up before they’ve even started on it. Perhaps those nurses were right after all, the little sceptical doctor? Perhaps I’m just wasting everybody’s time here? And then without any guarantee of success either, without support from the community. But is it fair? People here are quite prepared to clap hands if you’ve accomplished anything unusual, are only too fond of bragging of an achievement from among their own ranks, as long as it never cost them any extra money or effort. If it had been another country, would it have been better? But every country has its share of pettiness, I suppose.
10 January
I have nightmares about the child. Dream I pull out her tongue like an aerial, one section, two, three, longer and longer I pull it out, my hands slip as I try to get a grip on it, there’s no end to it, she laughs from the back of her throat, thousands upon thousands of red tonsils wave like seaweed, her tongue shudders in my hands, like a fishing rod, there’s something heavy biting and tugging at the line, pulling me off my feet, drawing me in, into her mouth, then I wake up screaming. Jak shakes me by the shoulders and slaps my face. He says he’s not giving it much longer. He says the day will come when I’ll open my eyes and she’ll be gone for ever. He’ll see to it, he says, and nobody’ll breathe a word. I, I say, I’ll breathe a word.
16 January
Breakthrough! This morning in the garden, all of a sudden, her gaze perks up. She raises her little eyebrows, the mole on her cheek moves up and down. She looks past my shoulder, looks at something behind me. Then she looks straight in my eyes for the very first time, and then back again over my shoulder, as if she wants to say: Look behind you! Look! Beware! Look! I play back with my eyes, raise my eyebrows: What do you see? Behind you! she signals with her eyes. What can it be? I make my eyes ask to and fro. She looks more and more urgently, she holds my gaze, she directs my eyes, I’m almost overcome with feeling her own will stirring, the very first time!!!
So then it turned out it was Jak all the time who’d stood there making faces at her behind my back. He gets more out of her than I. He laughs, says it’s easy, all it is, she knows who’s actually the baas here on Grootmoedersdrift, just maybe she’ll succeed one day in bringing it home to his wife as well.
17 January
I use Jak’s code now. It works well. I look past her. Look, I say with my eyes, look behind you. What? asks her gaze. Look, look, beware behind you, there’s something. Then I step back, pretend I’m trying to get away from the ‘something’. It’s the only way to get her to move in my direction, a kind of scampering crawl, then she stops, on all fours, just before she reaches me. I don’t want to scare her, but it’s the only way. When at last she dares to look round, I show her, ag, it’s only a cloud, it’s the sun, it’s a tree, it’s a bird. Nothing to be scared of!
Now we play it all the time. She’s starting to bluff back with her gaze. She understands quite well how it works, the eye game. Now I can at least spare my voice a bit, I was getting quite hoarse. Now there definitely is communication, I’m certainly not imagining it. I set my eyes in every possible