Agaat (40 page)

What more must I think up to get hr down? Braying hides ploughing waterproofing tarpaulins seeder-sums! All in vain! It's a year later & again it's exactly the same damn nonsense as last year. Seems seasonal. Don't want to end up in those maelstroms with her again.

 

So tonight the macaroni comes to the table again burnt to a cinder & Jak takes one look & gets up & drives away at speed. Waited till Jakkie was away & took a mouthful of J.'s brandy to calm myself & then went & knocked at A's door. Said she had to come to the kitchen immediately. At first she won't utter yea or nay & stares at the ground.

 

Now you're going to look at me my girl I say look me in the eyes & tell me what in heaven's name is wrong this time? A small flickering on her face but I keep my cool—would it do now to give hr the idea that she's won here & I ask: What on God's earth must I do with you to get you good again? & then of course I said the wrong thing: I can't live any longer with such a person in my house. But wouldn't she give me a quick look. I'm not in your house she says I'm in the outside room right there I almost explode with anger but I restrain myself & ask again: What must I do to get you good?

 

I want a fireplace, she says. I ask you!

 

Full of specifications on top of that: a grid & fire-irons & a mantel-piece. In my room. It's damp. Its walls are mouldering. I'm cold.

 

Just like that full in my face.

 

It's October I say. It'll be winter again she says. It's winter when I have my birthday.

 

Oh Lord is that what's been going on all the time! With Jakkie's birthday being in August A.'s in July of course went by disregarded again. How can she expect of me to remember that as well? But then for the sake of sweet peace I said I'm sorry & I said: A fireplace—what do you think of yourself! She gave me that look of hers & showed with her fingers & she said: I took your bull for you by the nose so that he could be dosed.

 

What could I raise against that? Her list could have been much longer.

From early this morning there's been a breaking & hammering in the backyard & A.'s stuff has been carried out in a pile. Decided after all to have a fireplace installed in her room. It gets cold back there in the winter & Jakkie is now spending all his time with hr. Will have to teach hr to drive as well. Don't want another crisis when Jak or Dawid isn't here.

 

Where have you ever in your life heard of slave quarters with a built-in fireplace says J., does she think she's a royal skivvy with a pedigree in Scotland? If I were him I say I'd keep my mouth shut she led his holy Hamburg by the nose for him & blew wine spirits into him while he the so-called master was prancing about volleying on the tennis court.

 

Had the dish & grid welded last week & had the lime mixed for the whitewashing on the outside & the black chimney pot is standing ready & the iron cross-beam to go above the grate so that the whole operation can be completed in a few days. See to it that it draws properly I said to D. there's no point in going to all the trouble & then we're stuck with smother & smoke inside the room. It must be got ready & right before we start the harvest there's no time for toiling & moiling.

Have just been to have a peep in the backyard. Hearth-hole has been broken through. It's going to be a half-outside roundbelly fireplace otherwise
it will take up too much space inside. A. is standing in the middle of the floor with hr hands in front of hr & looks at the foundation of the hearth being laid. The labourers yell so can we come & fry our scratchings by your fire? our sheep's tails our sheep's heads? can we stew our porcupine over your coals or are you going to be otherwise with your fire? She doesn't twitch a muscle but I know her she's very taken with it. More than that. She looks inspired. Lord in heaven help us the girl.

D. had me called to the kitchen they've finished plastering & whitewashing on the outside he says but inside's a problem. Apparently A. is particular about the plastering around the hearth-hole. They must do what she says I command. He feels queasy says D. the builders are teasing A. between the legs. Send them home I say he'll just have to help her on his own with the finishing-off inside just as long as it gets finished.

 

She doesn't want to be helped says D. she wants to do it herself on her own it's her altar. Heaven help. Altar. For what sacrifice?

Strangely quiet in the backyard all afternoon. Went & looked out of the nursery window & lo & behold there are Saar & Lietja peering into A.'s window they're pushing & shoving each other. Had better go & investigate.

A. had gone to dig potatoes in the field for supper so then I went & peeped through the window. A cloth draped in front of the fireplace a bucket of plastering-cement & a pointed trowel & a bucket of water & a snow-white block-brush & a few shoe boxes all with lids on. Typical. Grabbed my opportunity & went to have a peek. Quartz pebbles & skulls & shells & baby's toes & sea urchins from Witsand. Couldn't look any further.

Instructed D. to teach A. to drive the bakkie. She refuses point-blank. Will just have to teach her the ropes myself. In a week we're mowing.

Waited till J. was out this afternoon before taking the old Chevvy down to the fields with A. & Jakkie. Coaxed & wheedled there you have your fireplace now I said exactly as you wanted it now it's my turn. She looks
at me askance won't give me the child to hold won't get in behind the wheel. Perhaps I should just let it be. The fireplace seems in any case to have the desired effect. Everything is running smoothly again. Bread is rising chickens are laying flower garden spick & span big fires every evening. Hear her singing & telling stories to Jakkie there in the back. Every morning the white cloth is draped over the opening. Can't see anything of what she's been getting up to there only the heaps of ash & the half-burnt logs on the ash heap next to the compost heap. She cleans it up every morning early. Tends her fireplace like a verger.

Went to peep what they're doing there in the back. Sparks from the chimney fireworks on the outside room's roof it hisses & sputters as the hot ash is blown into the rain (October rain! Two fields harvested already. Does though seem as if it will clear tomorrow. Can't abide a hassle with wet wheat).

 

Peered through the chink in the curtains could only make out the silhouette A. on an apple box in front of the fireplace with Jakkie on her lap. No other light a tremendous fire. Pressed my ear against the pane couldn't hear anything. Jakkie in his crawler his hair a halo around his head A.'s cap illuminated with the glow of the fire looks as if it could burst into flame at any moment. All the strange things plastered into the fireplace not exactly what one would call a work of art. Mouldings half Romish & creepy where does she get it from?

 

Jakkie pushes his little fingers into the black nostrils of the lynx skull A. strokes over the imprint of hare's-foot fern he points at the horseshoe in the middle above she counts the abalone shells set around the edge one two three four five she holds him so that he can touch the marbles quick with the fire the taws with the green & yellow banderoles inside the small milky marbles bluish & reddish she shows the hollows of the dassie-foot he stirs the spoor of the steenbok she shows the tears of the snow he laughs at the shiny puddles of water she tickles the pistil of the arum the vaulting of the lily's lip the ravel on the tip with which the lily's body was bound before it opened in the vlei. From her mouth I can see she's singing to him. Her foot is marking time her knee is hopping. Wide-eyed he listens. Points at the black mole on her cheek she opens her eyes wide he presses on it with his tiny pink finger she pretends it's a switch a magic spot she moves her scalp to wiggle her ears & the point of her cap he laughs he roars.

Milla, can you hear me? This is me, Beatrice.

Her voice is loud. As if she's trying to penetrate a wall.

Beatrice of Friswind, you know me, don't you!

What further aspect of herself would she select to remind me who she is? How much does she think my memory has shrivelled from lying still?

She opts for the more recent past.

I was at the signing of the will not so long ago, do you remember?

Hatted and gloved, I remember. I too was powdered and lipsticked for the occasion. Agaat's great pleasure in life. With a white spot on the forehead, to remind me that I am a snooper at freshly-whitewashed window sills. But how does Beatrice expect me to show that I recognise her? Smite my hands together and jubilate? Long-time-no-see-how-is-your-suckling-pig-farming?

I don't even want to open my eyes.

It's me, Thys's wife, can you hear me? Now her voice is lower, with feigned sympathy, as if she wants to say: Me, you nearest neighbour to whom you told everything about your life.

Why did I ever tell her anything? Now she's lusting after more. She's here for the scrapings from the pot, for the last meat on the bones.

She hangs over me, her face inches from me. She smells of sweat and powder. She comes even closer. Her breath smells of frikkadel. Her sympathy smacks of frikkadel.

She knows nothing about me, can now no longer know anything about me. What I told her at that time about Jak wasn't news to her. I could see on her face that I was just a mirror for her, the darting glance, the shame, the repressed rage. Confession in the kitchen, we know, is treason against the sitting room. And it's the sitting room that must be
defended, at all costs. That I now understand. And that's where Jak was right, I suppose. All hands on deck, I remember, he used to call on reporting for duty in the sitting room when people came to visit.

If I could suddenly find my tongue, I'd be able to tell it to you in so many words: All that we could think up to do, you and I, all our lives, was to unbosom ourselves in our inner chamber before the Lord. Oh hearken to me, your little girl-child meek and mild, oh preserve me, your bleeding virgin, bless me, woman of your nation, but what did that make Him? An insurance agent placating his policy-holders? A panjandrum of the harem? I don't know about you, friend, but in my married life God was not on the side of the unmaskers. He was the great Mask himself. Our polygamous Heavenly Spouse. Do you remember Mrs Missionary van der Lught's recommendation? That we should pray to Him in our Overberg Version of Psalm 119, Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way. Indeed. Here I lie now, biered for the fatherland.

Would you understand that, Beatrice? In your book, I imagine, the dying may not mock?

Nevertheless, dear neighbour, note, my mask nowadays is made of hard green plastic. My life has changed. I am harmless to you, impervious to that God of mutually humbugging neighbourliness and pretentious poets. I am delivered to the mercy of my diary of former days. And it runs deeper than little kitchen secrets, I can tell you. And at present God is vengeful as in his youth, and it feels a whole lot more honest. Indeed, He has become a woman. He is now named Agaat, not that I think you can understand Greek. ‘Agaat', do you know what else it also means apart from the name for a semi-precious stone?

I can feel Beatrice shying away from me. Unsatisfied. What did she expect? The Ave Maria in sign language?

How would she have got in here? What's happened to Agaat?