Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [260]
It would be fatal not to seek reconciliation. And you were the one most deeply in the wrong, you had most to be forgiven for.
She had you exactly where she wanted you.
She desired more than just a functional settlement, she wanted you just right for the feast. Cheerful, gentle. For Jakkie’s sake she wanted it. For the neighbours and the community. She wanted to keep her household together, and you had to help her with it.
And she wanted it, in spite of years of training in dissembling, and for the sake of a good farewell, all candid and sincere as well. For that not one of you was equipped.
She knew it very well, even though all her preparations proceeded according to plan. A grimace of chill chagrin was around her mouth, her crooked shoulder was skewer and sharper as she bustled about.
You couldn’t help her. How were the two of you to break through it? Table settings, words of welcome, pluming fountains, the prescribed dishes carried in steaming at the prescribed hour. That was the order of Grootmoedersdrift, the tradition, an annual institution, the swank party for Jakkie, the only child, the heir, the eternal to-do about him.
You took no initiative. You surrendered yourself to Agaat’s ministrations, also to her attempts at reconciliation if that was what one could call them: The passing of an object marginally closer than was necessary, the less formal tone, the stray remarks on the weather that she slipped in, the rose in the vase on the dining table in the evenings, the extra trouble she took with your and Jak’s food and clothes.
Give me your party dresses, Ounooi, Agaat would say after lunch, let me go through them a bit for you, there won’t be time at the last minute. Her tone was strict, but in her eyes there was something pleading.
Two days later all the dresses with seams and hems taken in or let out as necessary and buttons and zippers sewn on, washed and ironed and fragrantly arrayed in your wardrobe. And all you could say was: Thank you, Gaat, I never seem to get round to it myself.
To win Jak’s favour Agaat unpacked his whole shoe cupboard and waxed and polished everything, even his riding saddles and leggings.
These she then left in a line in front of the cupboard for a day or two so that he could inspect them before she packed them away.
And Jak, too, could say nothing but: Thank you, Gaat, what is a farmer without well-maintained footwear.
With such little sentences you all defused the tension between you, that which you would conspire to withhold from Jakkie.
Are there ashtrays in the marquee, Gaat? you’d ask, when in fact what you really wanted to ask was: Is there a chance, do you think, that we could persuade him to stay on for a few days after the guests have left?
Will you make two green and two red pennants for the landing strip, Gaat? Jak asked and Agaat would set her mouth in a tight line and go and execute the task conscientiously and Jak would follow her with his eyes, you could see, with his real question congealed on his lips: Do you know how long his pass is this time? Do you know where he’s planning to go when his contract expires?
Shall we order ice in town, Ounooi? Then they’ll deliver it on Friday at seven, half we can keep in the little slaughterhouse’s cool-room for the Saturday? Agaat asked while you could tell from her tone that she really wanted to say: I’d never chuck hot water on you, surely you know that!
It was as if you’d all thrown in the towel.
Yes, Gaat, Jak would often say of an evening just before Jakkie’s arrival, a glass of wine nonchalantly in his hand, whatever would we have done without you? Here we are stuck on Grootmoedersdrift, worn down in body and spirit, and you place liver patties and tomato salad before us and set the pace every day. Don’t you ever get tired of it, then?
You looked at her where, without any sign of even having heard, she was dishing up food. Solid under the lamplight her bib, her chest solid,