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It’s very quiet.

Agaat has a plan. The one sprouts forth from the other. The drill has struck water.

I pretend to be asleep when she comes into the room. I spy on her through my eye-lashes. She regards the wall next to my bed where the blue specks of light play. Didn’t think it would work so well, did you? I wish I could say that to her. I see a little incipient smile. She comes closer, even closer, she comes and stands by my bed, bends, until her head is at my height. There’s a wisp of straw in her hair behind the gable of her cap. Lay-away chicken nest! She comes upright, looks down at me. I open my eyes and find hers.

I’ve seen it! I blink.

I flash my eyes at the wall, at the mirror, to and fro, try to move my eyebrows. Thank you very much! It’s wonderful, Agaat, my garden.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who has the loveliest garden of them all? she asks.

Satisfaction on her face.

She puts her hand into her apron pocket.

Close your eyes.

She places something in my hand, something cool and smooth it is, she holds her hand under my hand.

Open your eyes.

It’s a big brown egg.

A double-yolk, I bet, she says. Tonight I’m making you scrambled egg, Ounooi, you’ve been eating far too little of late. Not a lot into you, not a poop out of you. And I haven’t embroidered a stitch. We must eat early tonight. I want to get working.

Work, for the night is coming, that’s what I think, but what I signal is: that will be nice, I’ve been wanting an egg for a long time.

Then that’s fine, says Agaat, a good appetite is not to be sneezed at and a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse.

I close my eyes. I can’t trust my gaze. Better not take any chances. Give no cause for misunderstanding. Rejoice in the success of the first round.

I hear her clatter in the kitchen. It sounds extremely lively in there tonight. Renewed effort? At what? Courage for what lies ahead? How long? The yolk and the white are whisked together. From cradle to grave. The screen door slams. She goes in and out at the kitchen door. Scrambled eggs. What an ado simply to scramble an egg? Sounds like a five-course. I can feel her excitement. Positive energy. The Cape is Dutch again, how long can it last?

She brings my tray. A candle? A vase? And, for the first time again in how many months—a twig of the rambling rose! Crepuscule! Floppy copper-coloured petals, the inside darker, a lively rust colour, a Cape robin’s bib. The evening has been brought indoors for me.

The eye is the window of the soul, but a mirror helps, says Agaat. A picture of primness, but I can see she’s very pleased with her handiwork.

She cranks down my bed.

Lower the sheep, she says through her breathing.

She pulls herself up on her stool.

Raise the girl, she says. Her voice is soft, palliative.

The egg goes down well. She has brought it to the exact degree of just-done, but still good and moist, and, if I must judge, strained it twice through a tea-strainer so that the texture is uniformly smooth.

Without hurry she spoons up the egg pulp in small spoonfuls, and brings it inside, sees to it that I swallow, once, twice, everything without emphasis.

Her little hand is resting on my waist, in its white crocheted sleeve. With that she gauges my breathing so that she can bring in the teaspoonfuls at the right rhythm and tempo. Her starched clothes make a sound every time she leans forward, the shoulder bands of the apron as they tense and relax, her arms as they rub against the turn-ups of her sleeves. The stool creaks rhythmically as she shifts her weight.

I am hungry. There is something beneficent about the taste of the egg. It tastes of butter and cream. Agaat wants to pamper me, and herself, for the breakthrough, for my gratitude.

I understand the bustle back there. I can see her, spatula in the little hand, the bowl with the whisked-up egg in the strong hand, standing by the frying-pan in which the butter is already foaming, and then suddenly having an idea, putting everything