Agaat (70 page)

 

I'm scared she'll take to her heels again, I keep her locked up in the back when I can't be with her. I feel bad about it but what else can I do? A lead? Perhaps not a bad idea for the first while. Dog lead with harness? Perhaps she doesn't even want to run off.

When I put her up straight, she won't stiffen her legs. Falls over, plays dead when I get close. What wild animals do, insects, when they feel danger threatening. Fall over. Protective colouring. Try not to be seen. Instinct.

 

Today she's sitting in the corner in a little heap with her knuckle in her mouth. A sign of progress already, I suppose, that at least she's sitting up. Yesterday she crawled in under the bed. I had to drag her out of there three times. Clung to the bed-leg with the good hand. Surprisingly tough, the little monkey, that hand I just about had to prise open to get her to let go. The third time I gave her a sharp slap over the buttocks. She must learn, my goodness. She can't come and play her tricks on me. Showed her Japie. A good old-fashioned duster with a solid wooden handle.

 

How old could she be? Four? Five? Could be anything, she looks badly undernourished and underdeveloped to me.

 

I must first get her into condition a bit before I take her to the doctor. Don't really want to hear what all he'll have to say. Mother says I'm off my rocker. Who put it in my way? I ask. You, Mother, as you put everything in my way.

 

Jak paces up and down scolding. Do you think you're a saint? he asks. Who are you going to wear yourself to a rag for now? Whose victim are you going to make yourself now? All I need to concern myself with is becoming a real mother, he says. Better that he insults me than that he says nothing.

Must simply go and sit and write down how it came about, the whole story, right from the beginning. The dam, the whirligigs round and round, the door creaking open. But it feels too long, too much. Where does something like that really begin? I must make time, before the details of it fade. I must supply the background, put into words the commission. Perhaps that will help me to look beyond the trees and see the forest.

Dense as a stone. Not a peep. Close, black, dense, light, like coal. Won't talk. Won't eat. Clenches her hands in fists, one knuckle in the mouth, it's all pink and raw already.

She refuses absolutely to look at me. Her eyes just scamper furtively past my legs. Shrinks away when I come closer, turns the head away as if expecting a blow.

 

I try everything. Today pulled her in an apple box cart (OuKarel's handiwork with a strap around the legs and across the chest so that she can't escape) to the dam. Sat by the water's edge. Won't look, won't see. Showed her the whirligigs again, ducklings, everything that she should be able to recognise, but she shows no reaction. Pulled her to the drift, showed her the little boat, one day we'll row in it, I say, but the neck stays between the shoulders.

 

Dug up a cap because the head looks bad, all bare like that and full of sores. She doesn't like things on her head it seems, she pulls it off when I'm not looking, at least it's a sign of life.

 

Gave her worm medicine. Soiled her panties something dreadful. Scolded and gave a good hiding with the duster handle, what's the use? She's very far behind her age I think. Could see the worms, flat pieces of tapeworm, round dog-worms.

 

Ordered nappies from the chemist, waterproof drawers. Wet her bed three nights running. Mattress ruined. Had fourth bath, still tightly-rolled into a bundle. Pitch would sooner soak out of a ship than the stiffness in this child's limbs. Can't reach anywhere with the washcloth. She keeps her head pulled in, arms rigid against the body, knees clenched together.

Aspatat has a cold! Coughing and snottering. Must be from the first washing there in the dam on Goedbegin. Fancy a bit more co-operation with the eating, maybe because the nose is blocked, so she has to open her mouth to breathe. At least she's swallowing better. Jaws more relaxed. Must start with proteins. Today fish oil and vitamin C. Hellish battle. Gave malt syrup and lecithin on porridge. Sweet things do the trick, it seems. Will have to start using it as reward.

 

Sawed a hole in the door of the back room. Had Dawid install an old copper post-box flap over the slit. I must be able to see what she does when she's alone. Suspect she's sly, suspect she's pretending to be stupid. Remembered the hessian sack Lys gave along, put it in the room with her. She looks at it for hours. Doesn't move.

Head-sores healing nicely.

 

Went and dug up my old children's books in the cellar. Read rhymes to her. Who'd have thought that! I remember them bit-by-bit as I come across them.

Jak says I'm wasting my time and why am I spoiling our Christmas? I ask where is your faith, where is your heart? I possess neither the one nor the other, I do it exclusively for myself, for nobody else, he says. I don't dare use other people for my own purposes like that, he says. I'll see what comes of it, apparently.

 

He's just jealous, feels neglected. I devote all my free time to her.

 

Must succeed in this, I must make it work, make it worthwhile.

 

It feels as if the whole world is against me. First Mother, now Jak.

 

Must go and see the dominee about this, the child can't stay so nameless.

Now I have a cold! Must have got it from her. Jak says it's but the beginning. He doesn't want to go anywhere near her. She gives him the creeps, he says, the idea gives him the creeps. He says I'm sick. He taps against his head when I peer through the slot at what she's doing. What a whopper of a Christmas present I've got, he says. Unto us a child is born, unto us a woolly's given, out loud down the passage, I say, Jak bethink yourself, what if she can hear and understand you?

 

Perhaps after all better get to the doctor if he can still see me before Christmas. Her poo is completely yellow from all the runny food she's eating.

 

Made red jelly and custard, showed it to her dished up in a bowl and said if she was good and allowed me to wash her nicely in the bath, she
could have it. She's still not looking at me, but it does seem as if she hears me. (Must have ears tested. Deaf and dumb perhaps? I remember the funny high squeaking sounds. Retarded perhaps? You never know with these people. Generations of in-breeding, violence, disease, alcohol. Children of Ham.)

 

Fifth bath, still no relaxation in the limbs. It's almost as if she's holding her breath. Teeth do seem to part more easily, I fancy. She bites the spoon. Let go, I say, let go then you get more. I have to pull at it and wiggle it, then she lets go after a while.

 

Just like a dog. Reward works. Got down a fair amount of jelly.

 

She can have it every day if she's good, I say. If she learns nicely to sit on the pot for me, learns nicely to look me in the eye, eats her other food nicely and takes her medicine. Learns to sit nice and upright and to walk smartly. If she's a good girl. Only then.

 

Practise every day with her on pot at regular times. Hour after breakfast, hour after supper. Sit, I say. Pee. Poo. Push. I make little moaning sounds to encourage her. Pour water out of a glass into a jug for the pee. She is closed, shut as a vault. She presses her head into her lap. Then I walk out and lock the door and watch her through the slit. She hasn't noticed it yet because she's always looking down at the ground. She crawls off the pot as soon as I'm out, slither-crawls into the corner of the room as if she's trying to squeeze herself into the wall. Then I relent and put on the nappy. The privates look better but they're stretched and loose. Shudder to think what happened there. Wanted to put in my finger to feel, but she locks closed her legs. Doctor will have to look.

 

She has to get moving, then the poo will also get going. I tell her she mustn't be so timid. She could run like a hare that day at Mother's. I tap out the rhyme of the rabbit for her on the table-top.

Both of us recovered fortunately. Christmas day rather quiet. Ma came but she didn't even go to look in the back room. I put the radio in the room with Aspatat while we were eating so that she could listen to the Christmas carols. It can get hot there in the back room with the door shut like that, but I can't really let her wander around at will.

 

Definite progress in the eating department. Little by little, but we're getting there. This morning mealie-meal porridge with a little lump of butter and syrup, this afternoon mashed potatoes, meat sauce, sweet pumpkin puree. Cinnamon porridge this evening. And red jelly and custard. A bit more lively, I think. Jak's gone to friends in town, but I can't yet leave her here alone.

Great breakthrough! Got the bright idea just now, after reading her a bedtime story. Put three pink Star sweets in her hessian sack, left it at the foot of the bed.

 

I wonder what's in here, I said. Do you still remember? They're your own little things that you know! Do you remember Lys? Lys packed it for you to play with when you came here. Don't you just want to have a look? Perhaps there's something good inside that I put in there for you.

Go on, you like sweet things, don't you? Then I went out and peeped through the spy-hole to see what she would do.

 

The room was in twilight. I switched off the light in the passage to see better. Dead-still she lay under the covers for a long time. Then she sat up straight, there's a hand creeping out! First the strong one, then the little paw like a flat-iron. Then she sat up even straighter. First stared fixedly at the sack. Then her eyes moved. The first time in just this way, I could see the whites showing. Forward inclination in the body, the head rigid on the neck. My heart beat very fast. I could feel myself straining my own body forward, as if it was I that had to get to the sack. My knuckles I see are raw where I bit them from the tension, didn't even notice.

 

Fist in the mouth, fist out of the mouth she sits there, sits weighing and wondering, an eternity it felt like. Hand creeping cautiously to the lip of the sack. Gauging with the fingertips the hessian fringe, then the ravels of the sack between thumb and forefinger. Then she pulled in her breath sharply. Open is the hand, in slips the hand, mole wriggling in the sack! Deeper and deeper up to the elbow. Further still up to the armpit. Then the other hand, the weak one, like an outrider. Feel feel feel. There! Got it! Then both hands are working. Wrapping off. Teeth apart. Quickly she slips it into the mouth-hole. Lump in the cheek. Sucks. Smoothes flat the bit of paper, folds it, can you believe it! with quick precise little fingers, and puts the paper back into the bag!

 

I trembled. I couldn't believe it. But that wasn't all.

 

Then she took the moleskin and the little wheel and the stick out of the sack. Mole in the neck, stick in the wheel. Head at an angle. Fur against the cheek. Point against the rim. One, two, three, small revolutions she makes with the little wheel on the cover. Everything together again, from the beginning, breathe in and once more. Mole in the neck, stick in the wheel, roll! Bull's-eye! Her own game! I told Jack when he came home.

 

Fantastic! he shouted, bravo! He clapped hands loudly. His face was ugly. Now you've broken her in. Clay in your hands. A blank page. Now you can impress anything upon her. Just see to it that you know your story, Milla. It'd better be a good one. The one that you fobbed off on me didn't work so well.

Lord, he can be so terrible.

 

So phoned Mother instead. She just listened. Right at the end she said what I suppose I could have expected: You're making yourself a bed, Milla, but it's your life, you must do as you see fit. She did though ask whether I'd taken her to a doctor. Suppose I must do something about it.

Took her today for a once-over. Don't know if it was a good thing. She's terrified all over again. Ai, it breaks my heart, after all my trouble the last few days to tame her. While I was about it I had all the milk-teeth drawn at the out-patient's clinic for the coloureds there next to old Kriek's rooms. Set up a commotion, certainly not mute. They don't give anaesthetic there. Blood on the new frock in front. Had to apologise to the next doctor because I didn't want to drive back all the way to the farm then to go and get clean clothes on her. Ramrod-rigid and wild and convulsive she was all the time, threw her little hat as far as she could. It took two sisters to hold her down on the trolley bed. The internal examination showed exactly what I'd suspected. Multiple penetration, says the little chap, Leroux's holiday partner. He's too young, looks pretty inexperienced to me, but on top of that he was arrogant as well. He doesn't know if she'll ever be able to have children. All the better, we both of us thought. Apart from that there's nothing wrong. The flat black moles are not malignant, be can burn off the one on her cheek, he says, but he thinks it gives her face a bit of character—I think he's making fun of me. There are, though, signs of malnutrition. Weak right hand and arm probably an ante-natal injury. Eyes, ears, throat, nose, pooper, examined all the holes. Tonsils will have to go. She was fairly upset by all the shiny instruments. The squeaking noise again. Inoculations high up on the little deformed arm. Took blood samples. Pale gums and rim of eye suggest anaemia, but that can be put right. She has to be fed lots of liver and spinach. Doctor can't say if she's mentally in order. Looks to him like a state of shock. I must bring her again when she can talk, then he'll be able to form an opinion. He stares at me with such blunt eyes, the little doctor. How do I get her to talk? I ask. I must decide how much I want to spend, he says. Remediation is nowadays possible for all kinds of handicaps. It depends on what your ultimate goal is with someone like that, he says. Half provoking, as if he suspects me of something. Got annoyed with the man, as if I had to account for myself to him. I'll work on her myself until she's caught up, I said. I'll look after her, she has nobody else on the face of the earth. There are
few people who are prepared to do so much for the underprivileged, Mrs de Wet. Drily. Felt humiliated when I walked out of there. What kind of attitude is that to somebody who wants to do something that everyone is forever preaching and praying about? Love thy neighbour as thyself? Then they should by rights rather be asking: What can we do to help you with the poor child on whom you've taken pity? Hypocrites! The old wall-eyed nurse Schippers and so-called highly educated Sister Goedhals with their po faces in their white uniforms, tchi, tchi, on the crêpe-soled shoes, they stared me out of the door of the consulting room, as if I were trespassing on their territory, as if I'd polluted it. That's the last time that I'll take them Christmas prunes! How is the world supposed to become a better place if that's how the medical profession feels about the under-privileged?