Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [41]
You get sore, you get stiff, your blood doesn’t flow properly, you get cold, your feet get blue, look how blue they are already, you get constipated, your general condition deteriorates if you won’t allow me to exercise you.
Allow, I say with my eyes, allow!
She grabs one arm by the wrist, straightens the elbow with the little hand. Wide circular movements she makes, first one way round and then the other way round.
Windmill in the south-east, she says, windmill in the north-west. Ickshee, ickshee, ickshee. Water in the dam, mud in the ditch, step on her head, dirty rotten bitch.
My arm terminating in its stiff claw swings through the air. Agaat is breathing faster, her eyes are shining.
Now bend, she says. She works the elbow joint.
Knick knack knick, she says, bend the tree, snap the stick.
My other arm is a lighthouse tower. It sweeps over wild waves. Agaat blows the horn. Two bass notes.
What do you say, Missis? We’re having fun, aren’t we? Now we’re giving this old body of yours a run for its money.
My bonnie lies over the ocean, she sings, my bonnie lies over the sea.
Agaat’s colour is high. Her breath comes panting. I catch her eye.
Agaat, you’re hurting me!
Just don’t be touchy, she says.
Slowly, I flicker, slowly with what’s left of me.
Shuddup, now the legs, says Agaat, but no sound comes from her, only her lips move.
Giddy-up, Shanks’ pony, she says aloud, and with my legs she forms an angle of ninety degrees above my torso. She bends my dangling feet up and down.
Her feet are going east, she sings, but she is going west.
Agaat plants corner posts. She puts them into holes. She hammers them in with a ten-pound mallet. She anchors them with braces, she paints them silver, she hangs the droppers. I smell tar. She sets up the drawbar. She tightens the wire till it sings. My ankles, my toes.
We have take-off, she says as she propellers them in her hands.
And now, she says, now to rise above this earthly vale of tears. Nourish also our souls with the bread of life, oh Lord.
She gathers me, the little arm under the backs of my legs, the strong arm under my arms.
Dough, dough, she says, rise for us. Hup! she says and lifts me, almost lifts me up, off the bed.
Kneaded well, waited long, she says, hup once more.
Shake out the raisins, she says, shake them out, God-hup helpyou!
I bounce slightly on the bed as she lets go of me.
She stands back. Arms akimbo. Her chest rises and falls.
Lighter by the day, she says.
She extends the little hand to me. With her strong hand she extracts the stunted little finger from the bundle of fingers of her crippled hand. She keeps the little finger apart between thumb and index finger, in the air before my nose.
Soon, she says, soon I’ll lift you with my little finger.
The first seven years on Grootmoedersdrift. Every day of the month you adjusted yourself again. Took iron pills and ate radishes. Prayed and spread your legs for Jak.
During the day you worked yourself silly on the farm. Tennis elbow from cutting silage, wrist infections from helping with the milking, cramps in your calves from walking the contours on the steep slopes with the surveyor day after day. In the evenings you had to lie in the bath for hours on end with the mustard extracts that Ma had given you.
Why do you drudge yourself like that? Jak asked, you’re not a bloody slave!
He was furious when you were ill. You could feel it in the body that he rammed into you.
Modern appliances are the answer, Milla, he said, these aren’t the Middle Ages any more. Why churn on with lucerne and lupins and compost when there’s fertiliser?
It’s all about synergies, Jak, you tried to staunch the flow, a game one has to play. With nature. It’s subtle. Nature is subtle and complex.
Everything is important. To the smallest insect, even the mouldering tree, the deepest stone in the drift.
The deepest stone in the drift. That made you cry.
You’re a fine one to talk! Jak scolded. Subtle! Bah! Nature! And you can’t get pregnant!
I’ll go for tests, you sniffed, for treatment, there