Agaat (26 page)

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 takes too much time & trouble.

 

Count yourself lucky I said that you were chosen & kept on & that you got to where you are today where there are people who look after you it's sheer mercy & if you bleed I said you put on the pads. Demonstrated with the elastic & the loops 5 times a day the first 3 days & you wash yourself every time you put on a new one with hot water & soap & rub Mum in your groin when you put on a new one & if I ever pick up a whiff on you there's trouble & the dirty ones you put together in a paper bag & you push it deep into the bin where the dogs can't get to it. If the bleeding ever stays away don't even come & tell me, just take your things & go because then I never want to set eyes on you again.

Don't feel well since I've been there in the outside room must get more rest I suppose at this stage. Week 34. Dr. did say I would tire easily but I must make time for myself. Would be good to have more time to write up everything that happens here. Might just skip things that could be important. Saar says A. isn't all there she looks as if she walks in hr sleep. See A.'s light's on late at night I suppose she's reading because I forbade hr to read in the day it sets a bad example to the other servants & she has more than enough work to do & I'm scared J. will catch hr reading he's totally opposed to the idea teach a baboon to read tonight & tomorrow he'll be dictating to you he says perhaps I can teach her the basics of embroidery it's a better pastime at least then she'll be producing something.

Slept this afternoon. Feel it's close now. Two weeks too early? Everybody says the firstborn is late mostly. Worried about A. I think she's scared of me of what is to happen to me & she tries to hide it behind affectations this morning again when the rain stopped at last. Bring along your embroidery book & come & sit here with me on the stoep I said because I wanted to comfort hr a bit too after the whole sermon on the monthlies & I might as well use my rest break usefully & give hr something of value. Did after all envision it like that from the start just didn't get around to it. Bring your needlework basket I said.

 

And right there it begins. She turns around as if a snake has bitten her & looks me straight in the eye rude! All I'm saying is you must bring along your needlework basket but then & there I lose my temper completely because I'm made to feel I must justify myself. Who does she think she is the little scallywag full of airs & adopts a pose standing half to attention the feet together the back rigid the arms bent at the elbows the right hand in the left hand held under the chest & the chin stuck out all the way to wherever.

 

What do you want me to say? I thought. So I said what I wanted to say in any case: your embroidery book & your needlework basket bring them but she just stood there as if she were on stage. So that will be all thank you was all I said as if I were also on stage & only then she looked satisfied. Nods the head as if she's a doll & off she goes with little measured steps the legs hinging only from the knee down as if she's scared that something will drop out from under her. Where would she get that from? Had to shut up the other servants because there they go laughing like drains about the little airs. Ignore I said it passes by itself.

 

Went to look for an off-cut of coarse-woven material in the ragbag. Halfway through I had another idea. In the bottom drawer of the linen cupboard I remembered there were still precious lengths of material from my mother's trousseau that she'd never used & so I chose the biggest most beautiful piece 2 cloths 6 x 3 yards Glenshee linen still wrapped in the white tissue paper just as Ma must have got it. I thought let me reward her & give her something to show I understand it's not all such plain sailing for hr.

 

Here next to me on the bench I showed her she must sit when she came out on the stoep but she didn't want to. Brings the stoep chair closer by
your leave & puts it next to the bench. So there I had to move closer myself to be near enough to page through the book with hr. You're provoking me I thought but rather said nothing. Sheep-slaughtering I said is not the beginning & the end of the world or stoep-polishing or onion-plaiting or pumpkin-stacking. Farming is only one half of a housekeeper's work. Thought I had to put the point strongly because I've been driving her a bit hard this last month.

 

Embroidery I said is the other half & fine decorative needlework & knitting & crocheting. They belong to the finer things in life they are age-old arts & rich traditions from the domain of woman. Look at me I said because she was staring in front of her & pretended to be struck deaf. I want you to be knowledgeable & I want you to teach yourself & make it your own that will be proof that I haven't wasted my time with you I said to her.

 

So I opened the book at my inscription in front & made her read out aloud what I had underlined in the Introduction. Embroidery creates an atmosphere of true values in a house & speaks of the personality of its creator it demonstrates the difference between a developed & an uncivilised nation.

 

Showed hr all the prettiest examples of drawn-fabric work & white-work & black-work & shadow-work & ravel-work & showed pictures how an embroidered table cloth makes all the difference to a full tea-table setting & how embroidered napkins can make any meal look like that of a king. Told her about the wall hangings of the tabernacle as described in Exod. richly embroidered by hand & about the first piece of embroidery from the 4
^th
century B.C. & about the embroidered cloths in which the mummies of Egypt were wrapped for the long journey to the realm of the dead & of the pelicans & the jackals & all the figures of the gods & of how everything was embroidered with the greatest of care on fine woven cloth so that the deceased should not feel alone & would arrive in the kingdom of heaven completely wrapped up in his culture & history & faith. Also explained about the church embroidery at which thousands of nuns sat labouring day after day in poor light in their cells to the glory of God of the Opus Anglicanum & the great French tapestry of the walled garden in which a snow-white unicorn comes to rest with its head on the lap of the Virgin Mary.

The picture of the strange horse with the bump on the head where the single whorled horn emerges of course interested her mightily. Saw her sta-a-a-ring at this lot & wanting to ask something but the mouth remained drawn in a thin line. So I just said the horse is a symbol of the wander-weary soul & the Catholics believe that the Mother of God is also a mediator but it's a superstition J C is the only way to the Father & the mother is secondary.

 

Did my best to impress upon A. all the possibilities & showed her examples of our embroidered National art & the representations of our History the ships of Van Riebeeck & the distribution of the first farms on the Liesbeeck & the fat-tailed sheep that the Free Burghers exchanged with the Hottentots for beads & cloths & the Voortrekkers & the Oxwagons & the Boer War & the History of Gold & Diamonds. She doesn't yet realise how advanced such embroidery is but one day when she has learnt for herself how she will understand I said. It's like that with every art form I explained. You start with the simple & then you practise faithfully every day until you're ready one day to tackle the scenes from Hist. & then Heaven.

 

On the off-cut cloth I showed her the first drawn stitches with which the hems of embroidered cloths are finished. Punching hemstitching double hemstitching & Italian hemstitching & then the first basic stitches in the book dice-stitch & step-stitch & Algerian-eye wave-stitch & satin-stitch blanket-stitch & diagonal ripple-stitch prepared everything for her in practice strips on the length of off-cut cloth so that she could practise further on her own.

 

Explained nicely what a good discipline it is how it calms one after a day's hard work. It keeps you humble & it keeps you out of idleness it focuses the attention on something useful & distracts from negative thoughts & feelings it calms other people around you & creates a homely atmosphere & it makes time fly & it's better than sitting in your room in the evening counting your toes practise I said & you'll never be sorry you learnt it & at the end of the week I want to see the first three practice strips completed.

 

To encourage her I promised that if in a few months' time she feels secure with the principles of drawn fabric-work then we can start on her first adult effort on a prettier cloth & then I said to show what I expected of her one day when she's grown-up—here are the very
prettiest cloths that I have enough for a tablecloth for a large table when all its leaves are opened out & then I took the lengths of Glenshee out of the paper & I opened them out on my & her laps. Feel such cloth I said you won't get your hands on that nowadays but I know with you it will find a good home.

 

She didn't touch it just sat there with her hands folded in her lap a little mound under the cloth & hr eyes on the ground as if she wanted to stare a hole into it.

 

Took no notice & folded the cloth again & wrapped it in the tissue paper & held it out to her. Bless me if she didn't get up from her chair so ramrod-formal I thought my girl do just what you want you're not getting me down but she just carried on standing there & damned if she didn't force me to say what I didn't want to say & then I said it. Thank you that will be all you may leave. So then she packed everything together in her needlework basket click-clack she snapped it shut & walked off with hr new short-step.

 

How on earth must I now bring A. round? Won't have so much time in the next months to devote to hr. Remained sitting there on the stoep for a long time with my hands on my stomach felt the child kicking under my heart. Tried to imagine him in there with his little star-fish hands his progress through blood & water but all that I saw was the parcel of white tissue paper being borne off through the front room out by the kitchen door across the backyard white with new lime the white cloth in its folds in the tissue paper & its being carried into the outside room across the loose linoleum that creaks on the cement & I heard hr think where shall I put it? a clean safe place? The deepest one that she could find in the cupboards & drawers that I'd had nailed together for her. Knew that was what she wondered because I taught her myself precious objects you hide far away where nobody can get to them & you take them out only when you have a very clear idea of what you want to do with them.

 

I was still sitting like that when next moment there she was in front of me the hands together on the stomach heaven knows where she acquired that affectation. Mothballs! she says to me. Might as well have been a curse so abrupt. Good idea I say. Was really not going to let myself be upset by a little snot-skivvy & I walked to the cupboard in the passage to find it aware all the time of hr eyes on me & how she's looking at my highly pregnant body as if she wants to burn a hole through me but I just kept myself aloof. Now I think of it that's what I did right from
the start consistently with her: kept my cool & kept my head & swallowed my words. A. has this way of creating dramas where there are no dramas. So I pretended not to see anything & opened the packet of mothballs a gust of moth-killer took my breath away. There she stood with hr hand extended & I was quite startled at the face the eyes wide open as if she's going to have a fit from what? from tissue paper? From light-and-shadow work? from lengths of cloth that will take a lifetime to embroider? from the biggest midnight-eye mother-moth that heaves her powder-heavy wings before an onslaught of moth-killer? Heaven knows what goes on in the creature's head.