Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [66]
And then?
And then the baas shouts at me and says why am I just standing there can’t I see the bloody Spout-mongrel has him by the throat I must help I must take the hay fork.
The Aga’s door slammed and the fire leapt out of the plate-holes as the evening meal was being warmed.
Dawid looked away.
Nooi, he said, I’m sorry . . .
For what, Dawid?
Again Dawid looked at his father.
The old man was to the point, but you could see he had something else on his mind, there was an expression on his face as if he was rehearsing to look pathetic.
My hip is sore, my boy, have your say and have done, Karel said, the people want to cook their evening food here.
You saw how OuKarel was looking at the saucepans as the lids were lifted and the food was stirred with the pot-spoons. Meat with dumplings and sweet potatoes and fennel bulbs with white sauce it was. The beetroot salad was being grated together with onion. There was a bacon and spinach soup. A lot of food for three people. The old man’s eyes were starting to water from it all.
And then, Dawid?
Then I said, Baas, the way I see it the hay-fork is meant for shovelling hay and I’m not being paid to do the baas’s dirty work, I’m the foreman, and all I did then was to close the stable door so that nobody could see further what was happening in there because then they were rolling this way and that way there and Mister Makkelwyn pinned the baas’s arms down so that he couldn’t use his fists.
Two new loaves were being turned out of the tins, a pound of butter was being taken out. The sounds in the kitchen were loud in your ears.
And then?
So then I stood there because then I wanted to see that Mister Makkelwyn came out of it okay. But I needn’t have worried because the baas was completely winded by then and then Mister Makkelwyn got up and dusted his arse and put out his hand to help the baas up and then the baas slapped away the hand and then Mister Makkelwyn said well then the baas would have to manage on his own with his fancy horses and the baas must please take the money he still owes him to his brother’s house in Suurbraak this very evening he’ll spare him the embarrassment of arriving at The Glen to apologise to the stable-master, and it will be so much and so much and if the baas doesn’t do it he’ll go and charge him with assault even if it’s just for a case number in the book and even if it’s just to warn the sergeant about what’s happening here on Grootmoedersdrift.
There was a silence in which only the swishing of the riding crop against the pants was audible. You were weighing up what to say next.
OuKarel took the gap.
Grootmoedersdrift, ai, ai, a . . . I’ve now been coming along for ever . . . He shook his head.
Here, you knew, the real story was coming out.
I’m tired of working, Kleinnooi, I’m asking for a little pension, Kleinnooi, I must buy medicine for my rheumatism and I now want to rest at home and now and again at least eat a bit of meat and buy a tin of peaches.
You were amazed. As if it was nothing, not one word of commentary about the happenings in the stable, a stone in the stream, to step over on.
I’ll see what I can do, Karel, you said.
You knew better than to ask: But what does this have to do with anything and why now?
It was a time-honoured negotiation and it was as effective as it was subtle.
Dawid was not behindhand either.
We’re hungry, Nooi, our children follow the baas and pick up the guinea-fowl that he shoots to glory but then he chases them away, we can’t live on milk and askoek alone, Nooi . . .
There was a pause. He put the crop down on the kitchen table.
On milk and askoek and . . . pumpkin, Nooi, can the nooi not top up our rations with a bit of pork and fat and beans?
I’ll see what I can do, Dawid, you said.
Pumpkin. The word was flagged for you like a red pennant, a red pinhead with which one marks