Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [57]
Ai, Milla, what a wonderful man you married, if only Thys were like him.
You played along for a while.
What’s wrong with Thys? you asked, he looks like a real pillar of strength to me.
Thys, he, he is . . . hard.
But with you? you asked, with you he is surely soft?
Beatrice looked away.
What got into you? Did you want to shock her? Perhaps you thought your pregnancy gave you licence, gave you power, liberty to be open-hearted.
Pretty Jak de Wet is a dog, Beatrice, you said. A Doberman if you like, fine of build with a beautiful muzzle, but a dog nevertheless.
Then you told her about Jak, about how he treated you. She listened.
You told her everything about the painting of the cabinets and the dragging across the cement and the scratches and the bruises and how it had gone on over the years, and how he had withdrawn into himself, a time-bomb waiting to explode. She’d always thought there was something wrong, she said. The more you told, the less she wanted to hear, but you kept her there.
Why did I marry him, Beatrice? you asked, who is this man? The more I stare at these photos to try and understand, the more the mystery deepens.
Perhaps, Beatrice began, you could see she was hesitant, perhaps you wanted to share in his . . . in his . . .
Beatrice looked away. You waited for her to continue.
Perhaps you’re dependent on his . . .
She took her handbag, left her sentence hanging in the air. You changed the subject.
No, you said, don’t go yet, it’s your turn now, you talk to me now, I also guess my guesses about you, you know.
And then you saw it, how she clammed shut, how the defensiveness came over her, over her mouth and into her eyes. More than defensiveness, disgust, judgement. Of you, not of Jak.
I shall never talk out of the house, Milla. Marriage is holy and it’s private. Everything depends on that. Thys has his faults but he’s a good human being, a good man, and I stand by him through thick and thin, as I promised before the holy Lord.
On her heel she turned and walked out. You went and sat on a chair there in Jak’s room, in his display case, as if his displayed wares had to forgive you for what you’d let out of the bag. What dark mood was it that drove you out of there? You took his camera that was lying on his desk, and went looking for him.
You found him in the implement shed with the new ripper. You walked across the yard slowly, your body was big, it was a month before Jakkie’s arrival. The plough had been delivered that very morning by the agent of International Harvester. You had a good reason to go and look for him because lunch was on the table. The shed was dark, you stood still for your eyes to adjust. Jak was standing caressing the seed hopper of the new plough. His lips were moving.
Soilmaster, you heard him say. The word sounded clearly in the shed. He squatted into the backside of the plough, his eyes closed while he played his hands up and down over the teeth.
You wanted to turn away and leave, you held the camera behind your back, but he’d already seen you.
Milla, he called after you.
Come and eat, you wanted to say, but then you said something else.
Then you said to him, move the plough out under the wild fig, I want to take photos. And you walked back to the house with your heart filled with dark feelings and you paged through his wardrobe until you found an olive-green shirt.
This will show off the red of the plough more clearly, you said, they’re complementary colours, red and green.
And then you posed him, like this and like that, and you aimed from below and from above, from near and from far, full and half and quarter profiles.
Smile, you said. Pensive. Say cheese, sing, happy days are here again, sing, I talk to the trees.
The farm kids also wanted to be in the photos. They swarmed all over the plough like bats and fiddled and fidgeted everywhere as if they might find something edible there. And then Jak said abruptly, that’s enough, he was tired now. Certainly the first time that you’d heard him say that of a photo session.