Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [55]
And on what, may I ask? On your speech? What gives you the idea that you can sit and preach to farmers on how to cultivate their lands?
What must they think of me? You and your mother, you’re tarts of one crust, you think you know it all. How am I supposed to show my face ever again at the fertiliser company?
Jak, I said, I can’t help your feeling like that.
Come here, you said to soothe him.
He stood in the middle of the room plucking at his clothes.
And that soil is like a woman whose husband beats her! What kind of crap is that, I ask you? You’re looking for it, you know it, you’re looking for me and you’ll look for me till you find me!
Yes baas, you said to him.
He wasn’t used to that. You stared into the slap without ducking, straight into his eyes.
Jak, you can’t do that to me any more, you said.
He shoved you back onto the bed.
If you want to be my soil, I’ll do on it as I want to. Slapping is nothing! Shoving is child’s play! Now tell me, pray, what kind of soil are you? Clay, perhaps? Dirt? Shale? A bloody rock-ridge? Come on, you’re supposed to be the expert here! Grade yourself for us, perhaps it will be of use to the man who has to plough you!
You got up from the bed. He knocked you flat again.
What does one do with soil, eh? What does one do with it?
You drive a post into it, you grub it, you quarry out a dam! Or you dig a hole for yourself and fall your arse off into it. That’s what happened to me!
He approached threateningly. You held your arms around your stomach. You saw him noticing it. You altered your gesture, you stroked your abdomen.
Jak, you said and put your foot on the arm of a chair, you pulled your dress up into your groin and started undoing your suspender, won’t you please undo my zip?
Do it yourself, he mumbled.
But from his tone you could tell that you had him where you wanted him. You didn’t even have to look in his direction. He stood rocking on his legs, glared at you with bleary eyes.
You undid the zip and stepped out of the dress, unfastened your other stocking and slowly rolled it down your thigh while you looked at him. You slid the straps of your black petticoat over your shoulders and went and lay down on the bed.
What does one call that? So spread open? You wanted to feel it, his powerlessness. It excited you to wait for it. You felt you had the advantage, for the first time.
He was very rough. He just unzipped his trousers and half pulled you off the bed. On your knees against the bed he forced you. He tore your petticoat and gripped your wrists. You turned your head to see it.
Look in front of you! Look in front of you! he yelled and slapped you against the head.
Jak, you should be ashamed of yourself, you said. But you heard your voice. There was a kink in the words. You were in it together, in the shame.
Whore! Jak shouted, whore!
You laughed, that was what you did. You thought you saw a movement in the mirror but there was nothing. There were only the two of you. You and your shadows, it was the red cummerbund, it was the rags of black petticoat over your white shoulders.
What are you looking at? he shouted.
He grabbed a footstool with one hand and threw it at the mirror and shattered it.
He rammed himself into you.
You fastened your hands around the back of his hips and pulled him deeper into you. You dictated a rhythm. For yourself.
Come now, you whispered, you’re still the best, come now. We’re made for each other!
That was what you heard yourself say. You wanted to feel it. Dry. Sore. Good. You had him where you wanted him, you were done with him, he was good only for decoration. To know that, was the reward.
I have something to tell you, you said when he was done.
He leant against you in a daze.
I am pregnant, Jak, you said, and if you ever lift your hand against me again, I will sell the farm and leave you and take your child with me and you will never see him again.
He was too numb to answer back. He half-crawled over you onto the bed and drifted into sleep. His penis dangled out. It looked like a piece of intestine.
A son, he mumbled.