Agaat (63 page)

You stood there for a long time in front of the dark hole of the door before you could turn away.

So then Jakkie brought a little girlfriend home for the first time after the matric exams. More to satisfy Jak than anything else I think because he doesn't seem to be wildly excited. Was quite the little gentleman but I know him his heart isn't in it. The poor little thing talks nineteen to the dozen from nervousness & Jak drinks too much & of course couldn't stand it any more after a while & goes & fetches an old poetry anthology of mine from the shelf. No she must realise the little Isabel in this house high literature is read. How well does she know her poetry he wants to know. Jakkie still tried to put a stop to it but Jak was in full declamatory flight. Oh show me the place where once we stood once when you were mine. They fled out of there the children as soon as they had a chance ai I was so embarrassed.

 

Apparently Jakkie wanted to take her along to Witsand but now of course she doesn't want to come any more. A. smiles about this because now she'll have Jakkie to herself. He won't fall for her type says A. she's too light for him for what type then I ask. The fynbos & cave type says Agaat or spring tide whatever that may mean but she seems quite taken with her own diagnosis.

 

The last few holidays he's spent long hours reading in his room with a plate of A.'s cookies except when J. orders him to varnish the woodwork or otherwise he goes for long runs on his own or goes fishing with A. & reads her stories & poems. Tanned & muscled the child. Can sometimes not believe how attractive he is. Something of a daredevil too, just like his father, thinks nothing of swimming into the sea & emerging somewhere else far away. The girls peek at him & he banters with them but that's all. He sometimes goes out when there's a party & stays out late but then I always hear afterwards he found a book to read somewhere in a room. Perhaps this year I should have a party for him at our house to celebrate his results.

 

They'll hear early in January he says he's not worried about it. But does he have other worries? He can be so absent. Easy-going in the daily round but reserved in a new way the last few years. He feels further & further away from me. J. says it's because he thinks he's better than us since he's been to Paul Roos he's got a swollen head in that town of snobs they say it's contagious. I say Jakkie is not as self-satisfied as his
father he's looking for himself. Look what look! Jak exclaims his country is looking for him let him go & put some hair on his chest in the Defence Force the enemy is ready to take over the country. I tell Jak for somebody who can think up such outlandish theories on his own wife his political pronouncements really are extremely simple-minded.

Went & made the mistake of wanting to take Jakkie along to church this morning. At first he didn't want to. Said it was too hot for a suit but J. said to him my boy you'll do as I say. Not that J. is all that religious either it's more a matter of being seen in the right place & perhaps that's what irks Jakkie.

 

He's been through his catechism & all along with the other boys in Stellenbosch & I see his Bible lying there on his night-table but how things are with him spiritually I wouldn't know he talks to me about nothing except trivialities. Today he really had the fidgets in the pew & sighed & sat with his forehead in his hands & bit his cheeks & vanished into thin air when we got here & he's not turning up for lunch.

 

Dominee preached on the spies in the land of Canaan. A wee bit over-inspired perhaps but still a striking analogy that he drew. Numbers 13. Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: Of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man & these were their names: Of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur. Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori. Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh etc. The application turned out to be the border war & the instruction to the Afrikaner spies just as to the children of Israel & see the land what it is; & the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many & about Caleb who said Let us go up at once & possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. And about the nay-sayers who said it was impossible & brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel such as that the children of Anak were descended from giants & would crush the Israelites like locusts & about the people who murmured against Moses & Aaron: Wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives & children should be the prey? The dominee warned from the pulpit against false prophets who speak excellent Afrikaans & cite the Bible & don't hesitate to undermine their own nation in their mother-tongue & in their church. Beyers Naude of course & that other Kotze
dominee from Johannesburg. Then he followed through the analogy & concluded quite strikingly with a list of the sons of the Overberg who have been called up for the January intake: Of the Delports of Grootbos, Erik, the son of Flip, of the Du Toits of Riviersonderend, Hugo, the son of Lieb, of the Neethlings of Lindeshof, Jurie, the son of Gaf. Then Jak said half in jest in the car: And of the de Wets of Grootmoedersdrift: Jakobus Christiaan, the son of J.C. Senior & Kamilla née Redelinghuys. Would Jakkie not go & get up on his hind legs about it something terrible heaven knows why it's not as if it was meant ill.

Mountain still overcast after the snow yesterday dark blue in the south with rainbow it's cold & still perhaps another precipitation advancing. Listening to Schubert's string quintet in C major (that second movement, where does it spring from? from the approach of death?) some or other moth that has eaten the covers of my records ai I have so little time for myself on this farm. Feel as if I've forgotten everything I ever learnt. J. gone to drop Jakkie at Cape Town station. Didn't want to go along. A. neither. Took leave here at home for her sake she can't exactly give him a hug in her apron there amongst all the people.

 

Lots of talking at table again last night A. standing there with hr hands on her stomach hr face in the shadows. I know what she's thinking: He's still so young. The plan is that directly after his basic training at Valhalla & the officer's course in Waterkloof he'll join the Air Force permanently & after his flying training at Langebaan Road go to university for his engineering degree three birds with one stone says J. he won't have to interrupt his studies later for national service he earns a salary while he's studying & with every exam that he passes he gets more stripes & further promotion is guaranteed. Apparently the best & most honourable career for a young man in SA today & if he's lucky he'll get the chance on top of it all to wipe out communists.

 

Wonder where A. is. Disappeared into thin air when they left here. What on earth does she do to console herself?

J. not back yet. A. is though a plume of smoke in the chimney. Comfort fire. Must be cold after her escapades. Tracked hr this afternoon down next to the wild-fig avenue & further down next to the river she couldn't cross rushing water so there she stood & did hr funny
movements forward & back turn around stamping the feet the arm up the cap down. Could only half make out hr singing by standing at the water upstream & downstream. Snowstorm. Perhaps not all there in the top storey.

Just heard the door of the outside room open & and peeked behind the woodshed at her feeding the hanslammers again the singing quite gives me the shivers. Couldn't make head or tail perhaps if I try to write down what I remember of it. Child is gone/time is short/put in the oar/ shift round the rudder/put up the chock/wind up the ratchet/under the mill sits the one-armed dwarf/hear her turn/it's the meal it's the snow it's the salt it's the bone/listen to it grind/agaat agaat agaat.