Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [60]
Don’t be ungrateful I said & if you have something to say say it now don’t nurse grievances but the mouth is set in a thin line. Have a nice cup of tea before you go to bed I said & you can let me know if there’s anything more you want. Don’t you say thank you, then? What kind of manners is this? Didn’t feel like hassling further so I issued the orders instead. 6 o’clock in the morning she must be at her post in the kitchen & make me a nice cup of coffee in the blue coffee pot with the proudpourspout and for the baas in his room on the stoep & milk & sugar & rusks on the tray and I don’t want to see a long face.
Suddenly out of the blue she asked where are my things what happened to my things? I showed hr the suitcase under the washstand. Do you think I want to steal your stuff? I asked. But by then I was feeling really sick couldn’t get to the house in time vomited copiously in the drain there next to the kitchen my stomach in revolt I took a bucket from the kitchen and said at her door throw water in the drain and wash away the puke because the dogs will come and sniff at it there & when I left I said lock your door at night remember you’re a big girl now there are no-goods about.
Well then, more I can’t do for her salvation & my pen is almost dry. Must remember to buy a new bottle of Quink.
Half-past twelve
Did after all just go & peek through the nursery window into the yard & her light is still on at least the door is closed now but the bucket is still just where I left it & there’s a smell of puke in the air in the yard. It will have to be as it wants to be. Too tired to talk once again. Must get to bed now otherwise tomorrow will be too difficult. The child feels as if it’s pressing down in me.
6
Agaat comes in with my midday meal. She speaks with cinnamon. It floats behind her, a pennant of persuasion.
She allows me my nose today.
I must rejoice in my privileges.
I must grit my teeth and put behind me the tooth-polishing and the post-planting, the windmill and the borehole, I must remember she’s also only human and she has her limitations.
As if that convinces me!
I must simply reconcile myself to the fact that she’s left me alone for hours on end the last few days.
I mustn’t hold it against her that she did no more than her duty, thoroughly and at the right time, but without blandishments, without words.
I must know I was asking for it.
I mustn’t be difficult.
I mustn’t go around signalling something that nobody on God’s earth can guess at. I must keep it simple please she has her hands full as it is thank you.
I mustn’t accuse her.
She does everything as well as she can.
She does her very best for me.
That’s the argumentation, the sophistry of spices as she’s sprinkled them for me and mashed in with a fork: the cinnamon, the cardamom, with the butter, the sugar, to a perfect pumpkin puree.
I smell for all I’m worth to get all the messages. If I could, I would have sniffed loudly to say: I understand, Agaat, your meaning is crystal clear to me. Mashed potatoes with meat sauce, sweet pumpkin with cinnamon, red jelly with custard. What more could one want? It’s a whole story on its own, Sunday food on Grootmoedersdrift.
But it’s not Sunday.
What day is it? I ask with my eyes on the calendar, I can’t see that far any more.
Agaat puts the tray down on the trolley. She picks up the hand-bell from the floor where it’s been lying for three days now, it looks strange in her little hand, the gesture with which she puts it into her apron pocket contains an element of self-chastisement.
Monday eleven November, the year of our Lord nineteen ninety-six, she says, the fields are white with wheat.
What would she want me to say if I could talk? Would she ever