Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [29]
Right, says Agaat, the full piano, tooth by tooth, from the middle down the front to the back, first cheek-side then tongue-side, we start at the top.
She puts down the toothbrush in a bowl on the trolley. She puts on a pair of latex gloves. The rubber clicks and snaps. The small hand looks like a mole. It burrows blindly into the glove. The other hand looks like pliers.
The monkey mourns the monkey’s mate, she sings on a held-in breath.
She takes the mouth-clamp out of the sterile water. She lets it drip. Then she spins the screw closed. Wrrrr, it turns back on its thread. The drops spatter my face.
I flicker with my eyes, please watch what you’re doing!
Ag so sorry, she says. She swabs my cheek with a piece of cotton wool. Swab, swab, swab. Left right left.
And monkey tears are cold and wet, she carries on singing.
Lord, I say with my eyes, Lord you.
I beg yours? asks Agaat.
She compresses the spring of the screw and manoeuvres it into my mouth. The flat cold foot of stainless steel rests on my tongue, the curved upper part fits into the hollow of my palate. She releases the spring. My mouth starts to open.
Jacked up, says Agaat.
She looks out of the door while she winds open the screw in my mouth. She knows the procedure. She likes Leroux’s gadgets. The dry-polish toothbrush was a real winner. It gives her an opportunity to get into my mouth, under my tongue, behind my teeth.
Dry polish spares you, she said that day when she unpacked the toothbrush, we must use that mouth of yours for nothing but swallowing.
Now, she says, concentrate, breathe.
My jaws creak.
A bit more, says Agaat, she turns the screw, so that we can reach everywhere nicely, she says.
With the last few turns she looks at what she’s doing. She avoids my eyes. Her gaze is fixed on my mouth cavity. There’s a flickering on her face.
In the road is a hole, she says.
I know the rest. In the hole is a stone, in the stone is a sound. Riddle me ree, perhaps you can tell what this riddle may be.
Now she’s looking into my eyes.
We do it in one go, she says. That’s better than stopping half-way. Otherwise you taste the nasty stuff, right? And then you want to swallow, but we’re saving your swallowing for food, right?
Tsiiiimmm, goes the brush, tsiiimmm-tsoommm in the air.
I close my eyes. I feel Agaat pulling away my upper lip from my front teeth. It can take half an hour or five minutes. It depends. If she sees tears, I’m punished. The toothbrush is on its slowest setting. It makes a low drilling sound when it touches my teeth. My whole head vibrates with it. The powder drifts up my nose. I concentrate. I breathe. I mustn’t choke.
And day and night in sun and moon, she takes up the song, as if nothing has intervened. She works her way through the teeth in my upper jaw. She lifts up my lip like the edge of a carpet.
The monkey sings the same old tune.
She peels away my lower lip from my guns. For my lower jaw she has a hymn.
Delay not, delay not, o sinner, draw near, she sings, the waters of life are now flowing for thee. She switches off the toothbrush.
Keep still, she says, I hear a dog barking. She pulls off one glove, shrrrts.
I lie with my mouth prised open. The air is cold in my mouth, the chrome plate presses against my palate. On my tongue seeps the chalky taste of the powder.
I hear no dog barking. Turtledoves are what I hear.
The doves of my yard.
Everything carries on as always, everything will be as it was, the shadows of the bluegums, the doves of morning. The next morning even, when I am gone, will be filled with the usual sounds, as if nothing had happened. The bail will jingle against the bucket, the storeroom door will scuff the threshold, the laughter of the farm boys down by the drift playing with their wire cars on the little bridge, you’ll hear it all the way from the yard, as now, the screen door will bang with the morning’s in-and-out around the kitchen.
Agaat scrapes her shoes on the front-door mat. She comes down the passage. I heard the bakkie come back. Perhaps Dawid had gone to