Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [279]
Just look at that head! Jakkie said. Only you heard the mockery.
Yes, now isn’t that spiff, Hannibal, Jak said, and turned to the sheep, we’re talking about your head.
Jak was on one knee next to the ram and took its jaw in his hands.
Big, strong, open face, alert and masculine.
He pulled open the mouth a bit so that one could see the gums and the teeth.
Broad mouth, free of blemishes. And just feel that silky-soft skin on the nose.
Jakkie rubbed over the nose with cautious fingers.
He’d never realised, he said, that a sheep had such a long nose.
As it should be, Jak said, long and finely-curved, and just see how wide a curve the horns make around the head and how big the ears are, lively soft ears for his baas.
Here and there and everywhere Jak touched the ram, as if he were sculpting something.
Broad in the shoulders, broad in the chest, deep ribcage. Sturdy flanks. See how spacious the leap of the ribs, how straight the topline from the neck to the tail, square across the rump, well-filled buttocks, enough place for the balls.
He squeezed the soft downy scrotum lightly.
The ram picked up its back foot and step-stepped when Jak touched its nuts. Jak caught the paw and steadied the ram by the horn with his other hand.
Wait, Hannibal, he said, we’re inspecting your feet. Straight and strong from the heel to the knee, he won’t stumble or twist, this sheep. Just look at that hoof, nice and amber in colour.
Jak got up and closed up the wool where he’d opened it.
Jeez, Pa, Jakkie said, you should become a praise-singer for sheep, that was quite a text for the prodigal son.
You weren’t surprised that evening at table when Jak got going.
So what do you say about the political situation these days? he asked Jakkie.
Really, is it necessary, you tried to intervene, we’re enjoying our meal so much.
For Agaat’s sake you said that, to console her where she was standing with a guarded expression over her dishes. Because we weren’t enjoying our meal. There was a silence around the table.
Agaat’s hand. It was impressive what she’d brought about there. Extra special just for the family, on top of all the preparations for the great feast the following day. All the old favourites, the choice dishes that Jakkie had grown up with, were on the table. A steamed river eel on spinach to start. Chicken pie, ox tongue, roast hare with field mushrooms that she’d dried the previous autumn, stewed dried peaches and roast potatoes, green beans with onion and shiny sweet-potatoes and cauliflower with mustard cheese sauce and pumpkin fritters, and a salad of baby beetroot in a vinegar reduction, and baby onions in a sweet-and-sour sauce. Everything dished up in the best porcelain and garnished with fresh parsley and chives and rosemary and mint.
She hadn’t as usual first asked permission to use the best table linen and the crystal glasses and the silver. There were two candelabra with candles and a flat table arrangement of cinerarias and creeper shoots. Around Jakkie’s plate she’d made a birthday garland of the first blue wine-cup babiana that she’d gone to gather in the fynbos-kloof.
What made you think that it was for herself as well? You tried to remember why you’d forgotten her birthday. Twelfth of July. The thought made the food congeal in your mouth. The day of the telephone conversation? Had that been the birthday?
You could find out if you wanted to. You’d be able to get Jakkie on his own, could ask him if she’d really been talking to him that day. Whether it was on the twelfth of July. But you said nothing then, you remained silent. You felt it welling up around you, the tide of things that had to be said. Your arms felt numb. You felt hot. Your whole body was itching.
I’m asking, what do my son’s politics look like these days? Jak insisted. Jak had drunk too much. You placed your hand on his, but he shook it off, gesticulated with his fork in the air.
He’s in the Air Force after all, surely he must know more than the