Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [268]
2 October 1954
Drove to Malgas today with Agaat. Wanted to cross the Breede River by punt, but she refused. Punt, she says over and over, she does it with every new word that she learns. Punt, shunt, cunt, I had to put a stop to it, she’s getting far too forward, but I taught her to rhyme myself and there I have it now! I’ll scrub down your tongue with Sunlight soap, I warn. Really not a good tendency these word games at any time, suitable or not. In the end just shut my eyes and sat with the screaming child in the car till they’d hauled us across. Then went through to Witsand. Rainy there. Picked up shells, pebbles. Taught her all the colours of the sea and the beach. Mother-of-pearl lustre, slate-grey, silver-grey, gull-white, mussel-black, stone-grey. Agaat holds everything against her skin and then against mine. White looks whiter against my skin and grey greyer, she announces solemnly. Just like that. The river mouth lagoon was stormy with waves. Later went to sit by the fire in the hotel to dry out. Fortunately no people in the middle of the week, otherwise she would have had to stay in the car. Can see trouble ahead in public places, but she’s still a child. They brought her hot milk in a tin mug.
5 October
I’m getting Agaat used to her role in the house. Put an apple box in front of the sink so that she can reach. Now washes the coffee cups every morning for me. Already quite adroit with the weak hand, inborn carefulness it seems. I indulge her by letting her wash Jak’s socks and handkerchiefs and underpants in the tub in the backyard. She doesn’t want one to look when she’s working with both hands. Sleeve of weak hand always dirty and wet, she doesn’t want me to roll up that side.
9 October 1954
First reading and writing lesson. Using the Biblical ABC, two birds with one stone, went to unearth old alphabet chart in cellar with which Ma still taught me.
A is for Adam, every animal gets a name.
Then Eve his companion to Paradise came.
B is for Babel, a tower they built.
Confusion of tongues the wages of guilt.
C is for Christ, our Redeemer and Lord:
To Him we must listen, His favour afford.
She holds the pencil in the left hand just like the knife. Still shy of the weak hand, keeps it out of the way, hides it more if one looks. I say, Agaat, the Lord made you like that, you needn’t be ashamed.
10 October
Why do my pebbles and shells go grey? asks Agaat, my tongue is tired with licking them. We put them in a glass bottle next to her bed to look pretty again. Water is to shells what love is to the soul of people, I say. Without love the soul turns grey as ash, and dry and cold. I’m brown as mud and my mouth is full of spit, says Agaat. She licks her forearm and shows me. She tucks her hands under her armpits. Loaves in the oven, she says, warm as warm, feel. Becoming really sharp, the little child.
Phoned Ma to tell her how well we’re getting on, full of insinuations as always: Pleased you have something to warm yourself with, my child.
13 October
To the forest with Agaat. Quite high up in the indigenous bush. Told her about the giant emperor butterfly that’s black on the outside and inside blue like an eye when it spreads its wings. The jewel of the forest. Apatura iris. The eye that guards the secret of the soul. Only good people get to see it. Has Même seen it yet? asks Agaat. She looks at me like that, I can’t lie. I hope to see it in my lifetime, I say. We can come every day, she says, how many days are a lifetime? If we find it, then we catch it and put it in a bottle and then it can’t escape, she says. Cruel little grin. Where does it come from? I mustn’t forget that this child led