Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [278]
Now watch closely, he shouted above the din to Jakkie, no mess, no splinters, no force, as quick as breaking your neck.
It was a little year-old merino ewe, earmarked for the knife, a well-filled round fringe of wool on the forehead, the ears velvety, pinkish, the wrinkled nose of her race, the mouth already slightly crooked and shrunken under the nipple-coloured snout.
Jak pressed the head down on the neck, pushed it against the blade with his hands on either side on the cheeks. There was a jolt as the teeth of the saw seized the wool and then it was bone, a scream rising higher and higher as the fleece got thicker along the forehead.
Jak came away from the blade with the two open halves to show you. It looked like a cross-section model in a biology laboratory, the soft grey hemispheres of the brain, the white sinus chambers, the brown furrows of the nasal passages, the mouth cavity with the long halves of purplish tongue, thinner than you’d expect, from which a trickle of blood was welling, the jaw with the two front teeth sawn apart.
Easy, see, said Jak and clapped the two halves closed like a book. He turned the head at a right angle and starting from the snout he cut it up into cubes with rapid strokes, so that the outsides fell open onto the sawing surface like the pieces of a jigsaw. He switched off the machine, removed the blade and put it in the sink, and swept the blocks into the off-cuts pail with the back of his hand.
Child’s play, he said, and with his foot he pushed the pail in by the door of the cool-room.
What could have been going through Jak’s head? The logic of his sightseeing tour escaped you.
Next was Jak’s new merino stud rams. Under the direction of the stock-breeding expert of the Tygerhoek experimental farm he’d done experiments to determine the influence of the various feeds and feed supplements on the fertility of the sheep. You listened to him explaining all this to Jakkie. You could have sworn he was a stud farmer.
There were four rams, a dozen or so ewes, each in a separate pen with a number and a steel post-box in which the records of their feeding schedule were kept.
What you see here is worth tens of thousands of rand, said Jak, all the champions of Katbosch and Zoetendals Valley and Van Rheenen’s Heights.
They’re all very close already to the Super Utility Merino. That’s the objective.
Jakkie wasn’t listening. As if he were on the look-out, his eyes kept wandering in the direction of the road which one could see from the pens.
What he was looking for, said Jak, was one hundred per cent pre-potency, a lambing rate of a hundred and fifty per cent, early weaning time and the greatest possible uniformity and regularity of build, plus then super-wool qualities.
You all had to examine the one ram with him.
Hannibal, it said on the tin name-tag.
If you consider, Jak said, that there were only fat-tailed Hottentot sheep with knock-knees and Cape sheep covered in tatters in this country when the white man arrived here, then we’ve come a long way.
The ram retreated slightly on its delicate little feet as you approached.
Down on your haunches, said Jak, otherwise he’ll get a fright.
He clicked his tongue and murmured reassuringly.
Finer of fleece than the Rambouillet and even than the Vermont, hardier than the Saxony, more compact than the Australian, such a South African merino. Perfectly adapted to our conditions.
Jak folded open the fleece on the back so that you could see the wool.
Four inches, very soft, not a cross-thread in sight, just see how wide is the staple, he said. Feel. Top spinning quality. Look at the deep crimp.
Jak isolated one tuft.
He took Jakkie’s hand and put his fingers on the tuft. See how it stands up, nice cauliflower tip as well. Just feel the character. Deep character.
He opened the fleece in two other places.
Just see, everywhere the same, even to the belly, and well-oiled throughout.
Jakkie was more interested in his father