Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [79]
What is she whistling for me to hear there where she is in the dark?
Oh ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road . . .
What is that rattling under my bed? The cellar door? Here right beneath me in the right wing? What would she be looking for there?
Muffled from below the floorboards, under the concrete floor layer, the whistling sounds just loud enough so that I can make out the tune.
An’ I’ll be in Scotland before ye’ . . .
The extra mile, Leroux said, that woman walks the extra mile for you.
night of resurrection sunday night one foot before the other slowly in front of my mirror it is I here I stand four limbs nothing that is wanting here roll away the stone before my foot I ask slowly until I stand in front of the pantry shelf flour bag in the palms sugar bag in the palms mixing-bowl in the palms milk jug in two hands god in heaven restore to me in your name the grip in my fingers six eggs one by one in each palm a cake is a manual exercise forgive me my trespasses sieve spoon pan oven I will I want I can the cock of monday morning crows a dent in the flour separate the whites from the yolks the first egg breaks wrong the second remains closed hopefully whole the third also falls and so the fourth to the fifth and the sixth there are seven shells in the flour.
12 August 1960 ten past eight
A. is going to give me grey hairs yet, I can see it coming. This morning when she brought in the coffee the dog prodded his nose into her again.
Smelt nothing just Mum & starch & a tiny line of mud on the seam of hr apron from hr nocturnal escapades but for the rest spotlessly clean everything.
Have just been to do inspection in her room. Old black umbrella standing in the corner & a paint tin on a sack tip-tip, it drips in the tin. There’s a patch of mould on the ceiling suppose roof must be rusted through will have to take it in hand. For the rest everything clean & tidy. Looked in hr cupboard she’s wearing the bras I see even though they are too big & the pack of Dr White’s has not been used further I suppose she doesn’t know how but I seem to remember one of the elastics to which it’s fixed was missing the evening when she disappeared with hr suitcase. I know that dog it does that with women who are bleeding. Had half hoped she would pick up the Facts of Life from the other servants but no help from that source. Leave hr alone she’s white I heard Saar say to Lietja. Had hoped that with the move to the outside room she would throw in her lot with the others—not altogether of course but just so that she can learn to know her place.
So I had hr called & went & spoke the necessary there in the back don’t know if it was enough you can’t be strict enough with them at that age. If you start bleeding between your legs every month I said to hr you’re a risk here on Gdrift you can bring to nought everything that we’ve done for you overnight & I know you wander about after dark & if I ever catch you in the labourers’ houses or discover you’ve been to D. & his crowd at night I’ll give you the boot in the blink of an eye where will you go then? Your place is here on Gdrift I said so see to it that you toe the line. She just stared at me. Don’t act stupid I said. You know what the bull does to the cow & what comes of it? just pain & suffering & you’re not quite right you’re deformed & they did bad things to you when you were small so you can’t have children in any case even if you want to & maybe it’s hereditary & you know what happens to the late lamb whose mother casts him off? We can’t go around raising them all as hanslammers it