Agaat (7 page)

Off to a good start today with the fixing up of the rooms the outside room and the nursery. Understand for the first time why everything had to happen the way it did God's great Providence. Had the nursery painted & the outside room whitewashed inside & out nice & tidy snow-white. Plascon for the one & whitewash for the other—economical—can always redo it. Washable Plascon for nursery busy little hands dirty little feet! A good opportunity while I'm about it to have all the outside rooms rewashed & for once to get everything in the backyard nice and tidy.

 

A. is getting the middle storeroom it has the largest window and a small one at the back as well.

 

Had carried out & sorted & thrown away & managed to squeeze everything into two other little rooms spades forks wheelbarrows small garden tools chicken-feed & pigs' supplementary feed & bone-meal & bags of compost for the garden had everything packed in the one and all the old furniture in the other. Had best bed & mattress & kitchen table & scrubbing-table and washstand (the one with the little tiles) carried into A's rm. All the necessary fortunately in stock. Considered a carpet but J. won't have any of it will make a plan left-over length of linoleum fitted loose for the time being easier to keep clean in any case.

 

Now everything is as it should be suppose it's the right thing to do for everyone's sake. It's not as if there was any other way out. Phoned
Beatrice to tell her of my decision & she's now considerably relieved & full of sweet talk & wants to propose me for chairlady of the WAU. Imagine! I could slap the woman, really.

 

Situation with J. God be thanked better now that I'm doing something about the matter. That it should cost so much but I'd rather not think about it. How long will he remain satisfied? He's threatening to burn my diaries. He says if he has to clear out his stuff all the time as if it's trash why can my books litter the place secret writing without full stops and commas perhaps I should go and read it out loud on radio so that he too can get to know the soul of woman and the distress of hr hand-maid.

 

Would in any case have to get in a nursemaid farmgirls too dirty & uneducated. J. thinks he's now shown what he can do with wheat & isn't all that interested in the farm any more & I ever more involved in the farming it can't be neglected with the arrival of the child. A. will have to be my eyes and ears here on Gdrift. Must be ever more vigilant & keep my hand on routines of shearing & sowing & slaughtering. Planning & management bore him. Soil & water are all my responsibility & I tell him that's the difference between a living and a dead farm. He says he's going to write a piece in the
Farmer's Weekly
: The options of a gentleman farmer, a living farm with a dead wife or a dead farm with a living wife now I'm giving up pleading.

 

J. at least looks after the purchases & that's where I let it be now. Just wish he'd do his own research about implements & stop messing around with agents. Have a way of disappearing off the face of the earth with their commission & only when you're stuck in the middle of the harvest with a broken-down combine do you hear about faulty parts that you should have had replaced before you even switched on the thing. A careless species. Cheap psychology & flashy talk. J. will just have to learn through his mistakes.

 

Will really not be able to manage without a good childminder. A. can write & read & cook well can trust her 100% very diligent very conscientious should really not be too much of a problem & she'll develop nicely in time to come.

 

Considering salary, savings account post office. Still have to convince J. of that he says she gets food & clothing & a roof over her head from
beginning to end that's better than life assurance with Sanlam. For the time being he's satisfied with his stoep office.

 

Have to put on a brave face all the time. Feeling nauseous. Faint. See black & have to sit down. All these things that change so quickly. Must just keep going & think of nothing. Or listen to music. Bach. Bach always helps. Have to wait till J. is out otherwise I'll have to hear again put a sock in the holy barrel organ.

Half past nine on the alarm clock. Punctual to the second. From her footfall I can tell that I've gone and unleashed something again. Tchi, tchi, tchi, go her soles on the floor as she approaches down the passage, extra emphasis in the heels. Touchy when I want something out of the normal routine. Better not look her in the eye then. I keep my gaze on the white paper on which my hand lies in its splint.

She puts down the tray on the dressing table. She picks up the pen that has fallen from my hand. She grunts as she comes upright.

Ai, ai, she says, ai ai ai, what monkey business is this now?

She pulls out the clipboard from under my hand, turns it upside down, looks at it and tilts it back at me again. She holds out the paper with the wavering line and taps on it with the back of the pen.

L, she sounds, l, so that I can see her tongue in the front of her mouth.

L is for lie, she says. I know you're lying.

She adjusts three of the bed's back panels so that I tilt slightly, at a bit more of an angle, my head higher, but still on my back. That's my best position for breathing.

Lie lady lie, Agaat singspeaks through her teeth on the inhalation, lie lady lie, while she pushes in the pegs and retightens the screws.

A change, she says, is as good as a holiday. Are you lying more comfortably now, Ounooi?

I blink my eyes once very slowly. That means I'm lying more comfortably now, thank you, but you're missing the point, use your intelligence, say all the letters of the alphabet containing a downstroke, say them: p, h, f, m, n, l, t, i, j, k.

Our telepathy isn't operating today. I blink once more, a whit faster. That means, let me be then, take it away.

She pulls the splint from my hand. She doesn't have to loosen it, it's wide, the whole sleeve and hand, like the arm-guard of a falconer it looks. If only my word would come and perch on it, tame and obedient, if I could pull a hood with little bells over its head. A lesser kestrel with the speckled chest, with the wimpled wingtips, that glides over the land, that hangs in the currents of air, tilting between the horizons, Potberg in the south and Twaalfuurkop in the north, here on the back of my hand, a witness.

It will take time to make clear that the downstroke is the beginning of an m and that m stands for map, that I want to see the maps of Grootmoedersdrift, the maps of my region, of my place. Fixed points, veritable places, the co-ordinates of my land between the Korenlandrivier and the Buffeljagsrivier, a last survey as the crow flies, on dotted lines, on the axes between longitude and latitude. I want to see the distances recorded and certified, between the main road and the foothills, from the stables to the old orchard, I want to hook my eye to the little blue vein with the red bracket that marks the crossing, the bridge over the drift, the little arrow where the water of the drift wells up, the branchings of the river. A plan of the layout of the yard, the plans of the outbuildings, the walls, the roof trusses, the fall of the gutters, the figures and words in clear print. I shall walk along a boundary fence and count the little carcases strung up by the butcher-bird, I shall find an island in the river, overgrown with bramble bushes, I shall duck under the beams of a loft and settle myself on a hessian bag and revel in knowing that nobody knows where I am. Places to clamp myself to, a space outside these chambered systems of retribution, something on which to graft my imagination, my memories, an incision, a notch, an oculation leading away from these sterile planes.

Agaat moves the bridge closer to the bed and places the tray on it.

She puts on the neckbrace.

Headlock, she says, otherwise the old beast will waggle.

She takes the bowl of porridge in the good hand, the teaspoon in the tiny fingertips of the other hand protruding from her sleeve. She spoons the porridge to cool it, blows on it.

Not what goeth into the mouth defileth, she says.

She brings the first spoonful, holds it close, waits until she can see the rhythm of my breathing and puts it into my mouth between the inhaling and the exhaling. I keep the little bit of lukewarm porridge on my tongue until I can swallow it. I can feel that it won't be long now before I have to start using the swallowing apparatus.

But I postpone. It's a risk, apparently. What can I lose? This forced
feeding? This forced life? This crush pen to eternity?

And then, when the gullet gives in, says Leroux, he will do a tracheotomy and insert a feeding-tube under the epiglottis. The next step is the ventilator plus another pipe in my stomach. With that I'll then have to go and lie in the hospital in town.

But I don't want to. I want to stay here, with Agaat, in my place that I know. I have signed, she has signed. Nobody can force us. It's the two of us who risk each other.

I feel the porridge ooze down both sides of my tongue before I'm ready for it. I close my eyes and picture the sluice in the irrigation furrow, the water damming up, a hand pulling out the locking-peg and lifting the plate in its grooves, letting through the water, and lowering it again, so that it bumps shut in the track of the sluice frame below. That's how I try to activate my swallowing.

Every time a risk, the chance of an enfeebled reflex of imagination.

That's how Leroux put it to us. Every mouthful a leap in the dark.

On that score, according to him, there should be no misunderstanding between us.

Misunderstanding.

He doesn't know what he's saying, the man.

I swallow once more.

That's it, says Agaat, who dares wins. Concentrate, Ounooi, there's another one coming. Third time lucky.

The third swallow exhausts me. I close my eyes, bit by bit I manage to filter it through. When at last it's down, I open my eyes, I open my mouth and I try to say m. I know very well how it's done. I must close my mouth, take my tongue out of the way, press my lips together and breathe out quickly, abruptly, through my nose, and open my mouth a soft nasal plop. A short, humming sound it must be, unvoiced, a vibration as brief as a second, a whimper of pain, a murmur of assent. M for map.

Gaat rushes to my aid.

Are you choking, Ounooi? Wait, wait, I'll help you. Calmly now. Just a small breath now and then swallow and breathe out. Swallow, Ounooi, swallow, I'll rub, come now, swallow just once.

I feel her fingertips on my throat. Lightly she massages, as Leroux demonstrated, only better because she's fed countless little dying animals in her life.

Fledglings. Nobody who could raise them like Agaat. With bread, with raw wheat-pulp from her mouth, chewed with her spit. From pigeon to bearded vulture. All of them she brought through. Always.
And let fly eventually. Out of her hand, into the open skies. Sometimes the more dependent kind kept returning for a while. She'd be flattered, would still put out food for the first few days, every day a little less, to wean them. Later she chased them from the enamel plates that she no longer filled with bread and seed.

Fly! Grow wild again! Look after yourselves now! she called and waved her arms in the air, the powerful left chasing away sternly, the puny little flutter-arm following.

Remove the food bowls, I used to say, otherwise they keep hoping.

Lightly, on the in-breath, all the way up my gullet she rubs in small circular movements, and with the exhaling she rubs down, down, trying to strengthen the last little bit of my swallowing reflex. To swallow, to cross a mountain, up on the one side, with effort, and down on the other, downhill but no easier. How false are the promises of the poets.

Über allen Gipfeln

Ist Ruh',

In allen Wipfeln

Spürest du

Kaum einen Hauch;

Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.

Warte nur, balde

Ruhest du auch.

Why am I thinking of this now? The little old poem learnt by heart with Herr Doktor Blumer when I was still a student?

It's not my time yet, far yet from fledgling-death.

I open my eyes wide, quickly. I'm not a shitling! I want to see a map of my farm! This domain enclosed in chrome railings, this sterile room where you've got me by the gullet, I'm more than that! I'm more than a rabbit in a cage!

Agaat takes away her hand quickly.

What now? Is there something in your mouth that bothers you? Let me have a look.

It's a logical second, a familiar problem, food that can't be swallowed and gets stuck to the roof of the mouth. That's the drill.

Agaat presses my tongue flat with an ice-cream stick, she peers into my mouth. I try once again to get out my m, perhaps it's easier now that the front part of my tongue isn't clinging to the roof of my mouth.