Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [32]
Behind the drawn curtains I can hear the stoep furniture being moved. That is Saar. Tock, goes her broom, tock, tock, as she sweeps the corners of the stoep. Tock, tock, tock. There’s her face now in front of the chink, an oblique section of Saar, headscarf, many-coloured apron. Of the chink in the curtain, if she spots it, she takes no notice. Her gaze terminates against the little glass panes of the swing-door. I might as well not have been here.
Soil is everything, you said to Jak, healthy soil yields healthy animals and healthy people.
You were on the fallow land where OuKarel Okkenel and his son had harvested the previous November. It was your first March together on Grootmoedersdrift, 1948. You stepped on the spade, a chunk of the crust broke loose, you picked up a handful of soil, rubbed it, let it sift through your fingers. The fine grains that become slightly clayey in rainy weather, you’d known it from childhood, knew what it smelt like when it got wet.
It was ten o’clock in the morning. The sun was blazing down on your head. You’d with difficulty got Jak to accompany you. The previous day you’d had to negotiate with OuKarel.
You and your clan stay on on the farm, Karel, you said, I’ll pay you a wage, but we’re now going to sow ourselves.
Ai, Kleinnooi, OuKarel said. You saw how wrinkled he was. He stood there crumpling up his hat in front of him. I thought my Dawid-boy . . .
You interrupted him. Dawid can stay on if he wants to work, oldster, you said, but I’m saying the sharing is over, we’re going to farm professionally here now, you plough in the wrong way, the soil washes away, we’re going to start ploughing with rippers on the contour.
You tried to explain the idea of the soil blanket to him, but he just stood there gaping at you.
You’ll get your rations same as always, end of the month, you said. He just nodded, put his hat back on.
Jak was the next one who had to be instructed in how things were going to be run.
I want to go and show you something, you said.
It had better be something big, he said from behind his motoring magazine.
It is, you said. It’s the beginning and the end of everything.
You loaded a spade and a pickaxe and a sieve into the bakkie. You wanted to teach him about soil, but he just stood there next to you on the land kicking at clods. You thought: How must I move you? Must I first till you here amongst the stubble? Will that make you listen to me?
That was what you thought, but what you said was: You really must help me to think here, my husband. Without you I can’t tackle this thing.
Don’t think you can bribe me with sweet talk, Jak muttered.
You kissed him on the mouth. He drew away slightly. He didn’t like kissing.
Look, you said, this is now the one type of dryland that you find here, shallow soil on shale. Tends towards acidic. Poor in phosphorus.
Jak shrugged. And?
And so lime supplements and superphosphate. And salt lick for the animals.
You’d brought along the ground-plan with illustrations. You’d made a thorough study, you thought he had to get on top of things. He wouldn’t touch the new publications on the agricultural development of the district, never mind listening to the extension officer. There on the land under the bright March sun you tried again. You stood close to him. You made sure that your hip was pressing against the small of his back. You showed him the photographs of the vertical sections.
Nine inches deep on the hills and then rock, you explained, it’s a pretty slender resource.
You’d noticed how meagre his knowledge was. His so-called diploma, he’d just seen to it that he enrolled, attended one or two classes, never even did the practicals. You had to teach him to sit on a tractor. A cow’s udder gave him the creeps.
You get yellowish and reddish shallow soil along the hills, you tried. Mispah and Glenrosa. Sometimes it stretches down a bit deeper. Down below on the slopes in the untilled veld it’s