Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [252]
Twice I fell.
To the ringing of bells.
Both times she scolded me terribly.
Now see how everything’s flooded here! You’ll break a hip and then what are we going to do? It’s because you stand there like a lizard staring at the sun, what for? There’s nothing to be seen there. It’s the end of the road.
On such evenings she brought the wheelchair and pushed me shhhirrr, through the water back to my room and left me right there while she mopped up the passage.
The bath I could write off.
The most difficult in the end was getting me into the tub itself.
With the new automatic wheelchair IBot, July 1995 I got it, the trip from my room to the bathroom took less than two minutes, but eventually it became impossible for Agaat to get me out of the chair onto the side of the bath. My back was too limp, I could no longer be of any use with the holding or supporting. Only in one arm did I still have a little bit of grip.
Well, then I’ll just have to piggy-back you, Agaat said, and crouched in front of the wheelchair.
I remember the evening, I was naked already on the leather seat, she’d taken off my white nightgown over my head, she’d removed my neckbrace so that my head lolled on my chest. Surrounded by the shiny black levers and control knobs and gear sticks I looked to myself like a rag doll, the chair like a rampant animal.
Willy-nilly I had to gaze at my own lap, at the meagre little tuft of hair there. I couldn’t lift my head to avert my eyes.
Come on, press the forward tilt button and then you let yourself slide down onto my back. Hook that one little-bit-of-an-arm around my neck, I’m waiting!
Her voice sounded as if she were saying: Come, come, switch off the winch-axle, hook on the shallow-tooth harrow, or, get the mowing-snaffle into her mouth.
Farming as usual.
I groaned to signify, perhaps we should just give it up. In front of me the big white cross looked like a traffic sign.
Quarantine.
Beware.
Cripples crossing.
To the pool of healing? No, a fantasy of flight.
Agaat’s arms were extended backwards to catch hold of me, the thin one and the thick in the black sleeves of the housedress, the cuffs white wing-tips. Her head was held high, the back of the cap peaked in the air, a crane taking off.
Press on the knob! Agaat called. Who dares, wins!
What next then once I’m on your back? I groaned, are you going to chuck me off with a hup from one shoulder like a sack into the water?
I wouldn’t have groaned if I’d thought I could utter intelligible words, but an emotion I could then still express with my sounds.
I looked at the tub full of water. I saw it suddenly, in a flash, Agaat, the moment that she feels my full weight on her, jerking up her shoulder sideways and throwing me, against the wall, so that I fall down into the bath, a red veil in the water, bubbles.
Domestic help and nurse of years’ standing maintains it was an accident.
What are you hanging there betwixt heaven and earth for, Ounooi? Are you seeing ghosts again? she said. Come now, I can’t spend the rest of my life squatting here on my haunches. Giddy up! I have a horse and a shiny dappled horse!
A fantasy of horse-riding.
Elevated Forward Slow Tilt. One finger can still find the little icon on the control panel. The IBot zoomed and reared up and whooshed. Agaat lifted her hindquarters to get to the right height to catch hold of me. The apron’s bow around her middle a sharp white lily on a pool.
And I’m coming to fetch you yet, she sang.
My buttocks were sticking to the leather seat. She got hold of me by my thighs on both sides and pulled me off onto her back. Hup! she shook me up onto her back. My arms a slack harness on both sides of her head. Hup! over her hips, astride.
Oh, I have a horse!
Tighten your arms around my neck!
My head fell forward on her shoulder. Her hair against my cheek. Always softer than I thought. Her neck. The nine-star. The sinews