Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [46]
And I must also forget. Otherwise I’ll go mad. Or get sick. Can’t afford it now with the child in me.
Took the precaution yesterday of devising a whole list of things to be done today so that she can stay busy one shouldn’t have too much time to think on a day like this. First little routine chores with which to warm hr up sweeping the stoep washing dishes doing laundry & ironing & folding & packing away then the sheep-slaughtering.
I imagine that with the child I won’t have time to supervise personally. A. must become the slaughter-hand on Gdrift. Sent message to the cottages last night Dawid must teach her the basics & I’ll stand by so that he can behave himself. Ten o’clock this morning he’s standing in the kitchen door, no the slaughter animal has already been picked do I want to see it first he asks no I say tether the sheep in the shade & give water because I didn’t want to go too far away from A. she was still ironing shirts & sheets in the spare room & I had to show her how you get the collar smooth without wrinkles & how you fold the sheets.
Everything went reasonably smoothly with the slaughtering except for myself who felt unwell later on at the slaughter-drain. D. & two helpers brought the sheep closer a well-set little wether still half lamb from the little camp of hanslammers that we had to cull. Take it by the ear I said to A. don’t be timid she goes & takes the ear with the little hand & the wether stands & looks at her use your strong hand I say he’ll jerk loose & right then the wether steps back violently I give A. the knife in hr good hand & I say hold her hand show the way next thing D. is all giggly from being so close to the girl’s body & takes the wrong hand so the wether jerks its head & bleats & steps back & squitters a green splodge over D.’s shoes & against A.’s dress & her leg & the farmworkers roll around laughing & next thing the whole yard’s littl’uns are there heyno shouts Dawid he doesn’t know about this if it’s going to work Mies.
A. is still too small for sheep-slaughtering. He must keep his mouth shut & she must learn everything I say she’s clever.
First lesson of sheep-slaughtering I teach her the animal must eat nothing for 3 days so that the gut can be nice & clean & the last day you give bran that absorbs everything that could still be in the stomach & it washes out easily now with all the talking the little sheep was all wild but make it lie down hold it down I say. So D. ups & says usually I get hold of a little sheep like this from behind in the camp before he knows what’s happening to him his throat is cut while he’s still standing & thinking it’s Christmas in the lucerne flowers then when you eat him his meat is sweet because he was never scared.
That’s the second lesson I teach hr: sheep that get panicked before they’re killed have bitter meat they secrete something from the adrenal with the fear so never dawdle with the killing so then they cast the sheep & held its neck over the edge of the cement furrow & the little wether struggled something terrible it can’t carry on like this I thought now I count to three I said to A. her eyes bulging in the sockets come nearer says D. Oh come nearer oh all ye children of the Lord the kitchen-girls sing bend says D. to A. he grasps her hand in his & quickly they draw the blade over the wether’s throat the blood spurts everywhere. A. stands back & the knife falls from her hand & rolls down the incline of the slaughtering-floor no-no-no I say you don’t throw away your knife like that climb in there & take it out the workers kill themselves laughing there you are Arsgaat check that farmgirl they shout. Be quiet I say the dogs lick the blood from A.’s shoes she stands stock-still D. goes to pick up her knife & presses it into