Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [281]
Jak’s tongue was dragging. His gestures were emphatic.
At least he’s not violent, you thought. You tried to catch Agaat’s eye in case he should become violent. She feigned blindness to you, her eyes were on Jakkie who was taking substantial gulps from his new glass of wine.
How about it, Agaat? Jak prodded, you’re the exception here after all. Your nooi has already taught you nicely how to write, hasn’t she. Dear sir, yours respectfully, if I may make so bold. More Afrikaans than the whole lot of newspaper journalists can dream of. You after all write long letters to dear gracious Captain de Wet here. He can surely not have thrown them away. Perhaps he should collect them and post them to dear Mrs Joubert so that she can brush up your Dutch a bit so that everyone can understand it. Then you’ll have a new life. Then they’ll come and interview you. That Poppie didn’t know whether she was coming or going, so, apparently, they thronged around her to make TV movies. Over and over the same story of her long journey she had to tell, she must have got bored to death, wouldn’t surprise me if in the end she started adding on a journey here and a journey there, to at least keep the matter interesting for herself.
Jakkie shook his head, covered his face with his hands.
Jak, that’s enough, you said.
Jak kept talking over your interjection. How about it, Agaat? You wouldn’t have to add on anything if they asked you. Your story is better than the back page of the Rapport.
Bring pen and paper, then I’ll give you the long and short of it, he said to Agaat.
She didn’t move, remained looking in front of her. Jak walked up and down dictating.
White woman childless steals baby woolly with one arm stop one-armed woolly catches baby boy on mountain pass stop toy aeroplane explodes stop woolly saves stop woolly gives tit/shit/bread/head.
Perhaps you’d prefer a little song, Jak said. Your mother here after all always taught you little songs. That’s what you understand.
Jak didn’t sing. Here beyond the hill on our farm, he said, the sheep get bluetongue, the wheat gets rust, wifey blubbers, hubby batters, you name it, every disaster in the book.
And then? The son grows up, he squashes his father flat on the rocks of the Huis River, he becomes a soldier, a fighter pilot, for three years he bombs every FAPLA, SWAPO, MPLA and Cuban from an Impala in the moonlight in South West.
And look at him now! Strikes a funk at twenty-five in the year of our Lord nineteen eighty-five in our beleaguered South Africa, with bugger-all to say for himself. Just when we need him most.
And the woolly just writes on.
Jak first saluted Agaat, and then Jakkie.
I’m sure you are aware, dear Captain, that Mrs de Wet, your esteemed mother, opens all her servant’s letters to her son here . . .
Jakkie glared at you for a moment, and then at Agaat. He blinked his eyes slowly, and put his head on his arms on the table.
So, Agaat, Jak said, that’s the story. Can you think us up a conclusion? After all, you’re used to embroidering!
How long did it last? Half an hour, an hour? Jak looked as if he was going to start crying. He slammed his fist on the table, but there was no strength in the blow.
Don’t you people have anything to say? he shouted.
He rocked drunkenly on his feet.
Don’t you have anything to say then! What does one have to do to make you wake up? Spineless! That’s why things will end badly for us! That’s why the enemy is sharpening its teeth on our borders! The Afrikaner women, they who should be carrying the torch, they’re useless, the Afrikaner youth, characterless, without ideals, even the Afrikaner skivvies are struck dumb! Is this what our ancestors