Agaat (71 page)

 

Bought a cup of ice-cream for A. and myself afterwards from the café. Needed it. Went and sat in a quiet spot next to the river with her. Couldn't get the ice-cream into her. Knuckle in the mouth. Quite closed up all over again. On the way back bought a celluloid windmill on a stick and showed her how it works. Sang her an old song, The Magic Mill, from my childhood and was moved to tears by it myself.

She didn't want to take it from me. I held it out of the car window with one hand so that it could spin.

Watched her in the mirror. Sits there with large eyes fixed in her face. It looks as if she's crying without tears.

 

Nothing to cry about, Aspatat, I say, we're getting you ready for life, that's all. Just the tiniest flickering when I mention her name. But it's not your real name, I say. Your name you still have to be given.

Had a terrible storm of crying, couldn't stop. Too many emotions for
one day I suppose. Jak says I'm putting it on. He says it's New Year's disease.

 

She would take in absolutely nothing. No tea. No jelly. So took her to the room early. I can't any more. Feel as if I have to start all over. Have just been to peer through the slot at what she's doing. Sits in the corner all hunched up with rigid eyes and looks at the door. She's cottoned on to the spy-slot. I put all the drawn teeth into her shoes so that the mouse can bring money.

 

Can still not stop crying. Don't know what about.

 

Jak mocks me by repeating the rhymes that I say to her.

He says I mustn't blubber now, I must now chew what I've bitten off, he says I must go and cry somewhere else, he wants to sleep. So now I'm sitting here in the living room. The house is heavy and still. It feels as if a disaster has struck. Is it of my doing?

Jelly for breakfast, afternoon and evening. That's all she'll eat. I can see the mouth is still sore from the drawing of the teeth. Sit with her in the garden in the morning. Sing everything that comes into my head, talk non-stop everything I can think of, all the names of the flowers. Clack my teeth, smack my lips, click my tongue, show all the speaking mouth parts. Imitate all sounds, brrr goes the tractor, bzzz goes the bee, clippety-clop gallops the horse, moo says the cow, baabaa says the sheep.

 

Tried to explain her surname, Lourier, to her with the twigs of the laurel tree. Aspatat Lourier, down at the weir, Aspatat Lourier feels no fear. She slowly started to thaw a bit today. Watches me surreptitiously when I'm not looking. Still won't take anything from me. Sweets, yes, but only when I'm not looking. I don't want to teach her underhand ways. I close my eyes with the sweets open in my hand, she doesn't take them, she's more wary than a tame meerkat.

Have a sore throat from all the singing and talking. How long still before she's going to become human? I feel I must prove something. To myself, to Jak, to my mother, to the community. Why do I always give myself the most difficult missions? The most difficult farm, the most difficult husband, and now this damaged child without a name?

 

I've exceeded the limits of my abilities with her. As if I'm trying to come to terms with something in myself. What exactly is it that's driving me? With something like this most normal people would give up before they've even started on it. Perhaps those nurses were right after all, the little sceptical doctor? Perhaps I'm just wasting everybody's time here? And then without any guarantee of success either, without support from the community. But is it fair? People here are quite prepared to clap hands if you've accomplished anything unusual, are only too fond of bragging of an achievement from among their own ranks, as long as it never cost them any extra money or effort. If it had been another country, would it have been better? But every country has its share of pettiness, I suppose.

I have nightmares about the child. Dream I pull out her tongue like an aerial, one section, two, three, longer and longer I pull it out, my hands slip as I try to get a grip on it, there's no end to it, she laughs from the back of her throat, thousands upon thousands of red tonsils wave like seaweed, her tongue shudders in my hands, like a fishing rod, there's something heavy biting and tugging at the line, pulling me off my feet, drawing me in, into her mouth, then I wake up screaming. Jak shakes me by the shoulders and slaps my face. He says he's not giving it much longer. He says the day will come when I'll open my eyes and she'll be gone for ever. He'll see to it, he says, and nobody'll breathe a word. I, I say, I'll breathe a word.

Breakthrough! This morning in the garden, all of a sudden, her gaze perks up. She raises her little eyebrows, the mole on her cheek moves up and down. She looks past my shoulder, looks at something behind me. Then she looks straight in my eyes for the very first time, and then back again over my shoulder, as if she wants to say: Look behind you! Look! Beware! Look! I play back with my eyes, raise my eyebrows: What do you see? Behind you! she signals with her eyes. What can it be? I make my eyes ask to and fro. She looks more and more urgently, she holds
my gaze, she directs my eyes, I'm almost overcome with feeling her own will stirring, the very first time!!!

 

So then it turned out it was Jak all the time who'd stood there making faces at her behind my back. He gets more out of her than I. He laughs, says it's easy, all it is, she knows who's actually the baas here on Grootmoedersdrift, just maybe she'll succeed one day in bringing it home to his wife as well.

I use Jak's code now. It works well. I look past her. Look, I say with my eyes, look behind you. What? asks her gaze. Look, look, beware behind you, there's something. Then I step back, pretend I'm trying to get away from the ‘something'. It's the only way to get her to move in my direction, a kind of scampering crawl, then she stops, on all fours, just before she reaches me. I don't want to scare her, but it's the only way. When at last she dares to look round, I show her, ag, it's only a cloud, it's the sun, it's a tree, it's a bird. Nothing to be scared of!

 

Now we play it all the time. She's starting to bluff back with her gaze. She understands quite well how it works, the eye game. Now I can at least spare my voice a bit, I was getting quite hoarse. Now there definitely is communication, I'm certainly not imagining it. I set my eyes in every possible way, I look in surprise at a spot right behind her, then she jumps round, or I stare soulfully at a place far behind her, she gazes into my eyes for a long time before turning round to see what it is.

She's in thrall to my eyes now. She looks everywhere that I look. Ever more complicated bluffing games we play, surprise games, guessing games. I could never have dreamed you can achieve so much with your eyes.

 

For instance I look past her but she doesn't look. You'd better see what's going on there, I signal with my eyes, but she doesn't look, she holds out. It's very very pretty! I signal, or, it's really ugly, or, it's terribly creepy, or, it's very nice, or, it's going to catch you!

 

At last she looks, mostly there's nothing in particular and when she looks back I evade her glance, all innocence. Then she comes and stands against me until I look at her. Then I shut my eyes to indicate: Close
your eyes. Then I put down a cookie or a sweet somewhere. Then I signal again, look there, behind you is something nice. But then I have to look away until she's eaten it. I must just take care that she doesn't react to reward exclusively. There won't always be a reward. She must simply learn to speak now. You can't live by looking alone. I take out the duster. She's going to get Japie, I say, on her backside, if she won't talk.

I always have a struggle with her in the mornings, she lies all huddled up and doesn't want to budge. Just like a little cold animal that has to warm up first. Now I've thought up a warming-up exercise. ‘The Greeting to the Sun' I call it. I demonstrate it to her, first nice and high on the toes, then stretch with one arm, then stretch with the other (the little weak arm I still have to operate for her, but I'm sure it'll catch up), one big step forward, one big step backward, dip at the knees, down with the head, up with the head, good morning, o mighty king sun!

 

If she doesn't want to, I rap her with the stick of the feather duster, that usually does the trick. I simply have to apply discipline here. We're going to do it every morning, I say, until you jump out of bed in the mornings and do it of your own accord.

She must guess what I'm looking at, we play, she must point to what I'm looking at. At first the hand was close to the body, just a little protruding finger pointing, this or that, now she's pointing with the whole arm, has even been running these last two days to the tree or its shadow, or the red-hot pokers, or the row of agapanthus, or the tap, or the fish pond or the stoep steps and then I call the name of the thing: Flower! Stone! Water! then she touches it quickly, as if she's afraid it'll bite. Perhaps she learns more from my saying a few words than from my talking non-stop.

I no longer have to lock her up all the time during the day. She follows me everywhere. Are you my tail, I ask? She only looks for my eyes. I show her in my picture book: Horse's tail, pig's tail, sheep's tail, dog's tail. There is a little finger pointing now, with its own will and purpose. Horse's eye, pig's eye, sheep's eye, dog's eye, she shows. I leave the books with her in the room. She pages for herself when I don't look, but with such cautious fingers as if the pages are scorching her.

First day without nappy and without accident. This morning there was pee in the pot, so she must have got up by herself in the night, or early this morning. Saar says she poos in the garden when we're not looking.

 

Don't poo in the garden, Aspatat, I say, you'll get worms again, poo in your pot otherwise you're not getting any jelly.

Jelly threat works well. For two days didn't get any jelly. Comes into the kitchen today to show me with the eyes: Come and see! Come and see! until I follow her down the passage. Look! the eyes signal. Look! the protruding finger points. A fine turd in the pot it was!

 

Oh sis! I say, one doesn't show people one's poo, it's impolite, you say nicely: Excuse me, I'm going to the bathroom, and you do your number two nicely and wipe your tail nicely and then you get jelly. Now you've pooed in the pot nicely, but don't think it's that easy, jelly you'll get when you've learnt to speak nice full sentences.

 

Then it looked at the ground and jutted out the chin! First sulk! First clear facial expression to play on my feelings! It excited me very much, but I can't show it. Tidy up your face, then you'll have jelly, I say. Then she rearranged the face and looked me straight in the eye, ever so sanctimonious. I had to look away. Couldn't help wanting to laugh. Just like a little puppy that begs even though she knows she's not allowed to.

Is eating well now, every day. Chicken and vegetables, with the hands when I'm not looking. First little slice of brown bread as well. Just has to be hungry enough. Doesn't want to handle cutlery herself yet. Just as if she doesn't want the insides of her hands to be seen. A few times already I've forced open the hands, pressed in the palms, felt through all knucklebones, couldn't feel anything wrong, except that the small hand is colder and limper. Perhaps also it's just become lazy, from being hidden all the time and never being used, the little arm though is clearly deformed.

 

You could fold the pink sweet's wrapper, I say, don't think I didn't see it. You can do everything with those little hands of yours. She just stares at me with big eyes.

I open the little weak hand and put the hand-bell in it, I shake it with my hand folded around hers, but when I let go, she drops the bell.

Devised a little game, call-each-other-with-bells. I take the bronze bell and she has the silver one with her in the room. If she answers my ringing with her ringing, I'll unlock the door of her room, I say. I ring it in the kitchen and creep closer and peep through the slot. What would make her so scared of picking up something, I wonder? She sits and just looks at the bell, does though hold it now for a few seconds if I put it in her deformed hand. We're going to make it strong, I say, we're going to make it clever just like your other hand, we're going to exercise it and give it nice things to do every day.

Went to see Ds van der Lught in town this morning. Quite patient and fatherly. It's a very big responsibility, he says, but the Lord put it in your way to teach you patience and humility.

 

Only over tea could I bring myself to touch on the matter of the name. The nicknames with which she grew up in her own home, he just shook his head, was immediately very helpful, took thick reference books off his shelf. ‘Agaat' he suggested then. Odd name, don't know it at all, but then he explained, it's Dutch for Agatha, it's close to the sound of Asgat with the guttural ‘g', it's a semi-precious stone, I say, quite, he says, you only see the value of it if it's correctly polished, but that's not all, look with me in the book here, it's from the Greek ‘agathos' which means ‘good'. And if your name is good, he says, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like a holy brand it will be, like an immanent destiny, the name on the brow, to do good, to want to be good, goodness itself. We'll have her baptised accordingly when she's a bit bigger, when she can understand what's happening to her, he says. Then we knelt and he prayed for me and for Agaat and the commission I'd accepted and he thanked the Lord for another heathen soul added to the flock by the good works of a devoted child of God, a stalk gathered into the sheaf.