Agaat (82 page)

 

I no longer lock her door, except when Jak and I go out, then I feel it's safer like that. I always put her to sleep in any case before we leave. But as soon as I put my foot inside the door tonight, I knew something was wrong.

 

There she was huddled in the corner, eyes staring in the head, lucky I went to look immediately! With the funnel of the bellows in her mouth. Blood everywhere on the bedding, from her hands, nails torn to pieces to the quick. Won't talk, shock or something. Thought at first she'd been assaulted, but the door was locked and I had the key in my handbag. Just now when I went to check, saw the scratch marks on the door, pure splinters! Some panic or other? I can't understand it! Had to bandage her little hands, what a struggle to straighten the arms, her whole body convulsed again.

Mystery cleared up! Only this morning discovered the poo and pee in the corner of the room, under the old telephone directory that I'd given her to play with! Saar, good Lord the woman! forgot yesterday to replace the little chamber pot in the back room after she'd cleaned it! That such a little oversight could cause such a setback, breaks my heart! Probably thought she was going to be given a hiding again because she'd soiled. So she tried to break down the door.

 

Now I have to start all over again.

 

It's not your fault, you had no choice, I've been trying to explain for a whole day, you don't get punished if you couldn't do anything to prevent a bad thing. You don't get punished just because you're a human with natural needs. It was an accident! It's not so bad! It's just an old telephone book! Where else were you supposed to? If you have to go, you have to go. It's Saar's fault. I've scolded Saar.

 

It looks as if she doesn't understand me. Has a wild look in her eyes.

Constipated! Understandable, shame. Doesn't want to eat.

Still hasn't pooed since the fright of the other evening. Small hand got hurt badly from digging away at the door.

Ai good Lord, gave Brooklax to get her tummy going, so then she soiled her pants and ran away I can't find her! Just hope I haven't caused a whole problem here.

Made a huge fire for her and danced and blew with the bellows and pretended we were witches, who's afraid of a big bad poo. Going better!

Every day great progress now, I feel. She's speaking fluently now. She gets a hiding with the duster-stick if she speaks on the in-breath and if she stuffs her knuckle into her mouth and if she doesn't look into my eyes nicely when she talks. That's the minimum, I say, you talk properly with a straight-out breath, you breathe between every sentence and you look at people full-face, otherwise people will think you're devious.

Suppose A. must have a birthday some time or other. Phoned Ma to have enquiries made about her date of birth at the hovels on Goedbegin.

 

She says they don't know exactly. It was before the winter, they think end May '47 or '48. So she must have been four or five when I found her. But May has passed, I don't suppose it matters that much.

 

And Lys sends greetings, apparently. I'm going to bake a chocolate cake tonight with six candles on it. Tomorrow is the day! Agaat's birthday. I feel I must celebrate it so that she can start becoming human here on Gdrift. Explained to her nicely: we commemorate the day that the Lord gave you as gift to yourself and to me.

Perhaps not such a bright idea to let Agaat have a birthday. Didn't
occur to me that you need other people for such a birthday. In the end had Saar's children come in their Sunday best. Handed out cake and cooldrinks at a little table in the backyard. Had to keep an eye all the time. As soon as I turn my back, the taunting starts. Donkey-jaw, dassie-paw. I make eye signals at Agaat. Never mind, they don't know any better. Later just sent the children home and phoned Beatrice to come over. Made Agaat recite rhymes and tell us tales in the sitting room and clapped hands every time when she'd finished. Everything from jack be nimble jack be quick to let us shine for Jesus.

 

Beatrice can't believe it, good heavens, she says, but her praise doesn't sound genuine, she thinks I'm batty to put so much into the child, she says I'm neglecting my social life, she asks what Jak says about it all and then I'm very cautious what I say. Beatrice is at heart a head-girl. She'll never do anything that deviates, take a risk or put herself at hazard for something or somebody else. Never take sides. I understand more clearly all the time that I'll have to believe in this on my own, even though it's literally what everybody is always preaching and professing. Perhaps their problem is exactly that I'm taking the Word so literally.

Today we gardened all day, first plaited a garland from tulip stems and sorrel flowers and then sowed herb seeds in the backyard, I make her chew the seeds to teach her the taste of everything: coriander, dill, poppy-seed, she likes dill best. What does it taste like? I ask. Like drop, she says with a clever face, liquorice. You get drop from me when you're good, soethout, I teach her the Afrikaans word, sweetwood because it's sweet, Agaat because she's good. Drop is drop, she says. So what's a dropper? Perhaps she's very intelligent, she must have heard us talking at fencing-time. A hanging picket, I teach her, because it's not anchored, it just hangs in the fence.

Now that the soul is awakening in her and she's outgrown the terrors of her origins, at least in body (weight and height normal for the first time now), it's time for Agaat to be baptised. As long as it's a private ceremony, says Dominee, it can take place in the white church. He'll arrange for witnesses. He agrees that it's time for her to have the faith of her guardian beatified in her so that she can grown up in the mercy of the covenant.

Difficult to explain to A. about the baptism. Now that she's nice and grown up and can sing and speak, I said, and is obedient and can wash and dress herself and can fasten her buttons and buckles and knows the Bible stories and says her prayers every evening, she must be branded on the forehead as a child of the Lord with water from the font.

 

Must I sit in a chair with my mouth wide open? she asks. Didn't understand at first, only after a while remembered about the tooth-pulling. Must have made a big impression.

 

I took out the album with my own christening-photos to explain. She was fascinated by the christening-dress, went and dug it up out of the linen cupboard to show her. Moths had got into it, full of holes, will have to get rid of it, will in any case probably never be used on Grootmoedersdrift. Over and over she touched the pleats and frills and double collars of the outfit. Old-fashioned full of frills the old thing, still from Ma's family. Why a dress like that? she asks.

 

Christening-dress, confirmation dress, wedding dress, shroud, the four dresses in a woman's life in Christ, I explained. Showed her my wedding dress with the sewn-on voile sleeves. And there I started crying on the pages. Little brown finger smoothes away the wetness. Then I felt the little hand in mine, the first time so of her own accord.

 

Nothing to about cry, I hear.

 

First had to go to the bathroom to regain control of myself. Too much intimacy not a good thing now. She must learn to know her place here.

Finished smocking Agaat's white christening-dress. Looks ever so smart in it. Made her try it on tonight before bedtime to pin up the hem.

 

Must I lie with my legs open before the font? she asks. Still the day of the doctors haunting her.

 

Tried to explain, it's not her legs that she needs to open but her heart, it's not her body but her soul that we're talking about, as her body was healed by the doctor, the Dominee will now mend her soul so that one day she can get into heaven with the angels. She doesn't understand.

Are there going to be cold shiny things that they push into me? No, I say, only the service, and she must just answer yes to all the questions, so that her name that she's been given can be written in the Great Book of Life. Otherwise what? she asks. Otherwise Agaat Lourier will blow around without any purpose, a floating seed in the wind and will never fall to the ground and perish and bear good fruit, I say. She regards me with big eyes.

Nightmares and bedwetting last night. Agaat says she doesn't want to be baptised. I say she must, otherwise she'll burn in the devil's fiery hell. She asks who's the devil, does he have bellows, she says she knows fires, she'd rather burn, she's not scared. I say if she's good we can make a fire the evening of the christening and dance. I'll bake an orange cake. She says she wants to take her bellows along to the christening. It must absolutely be polished for the occasion.

Christening thank God all over late this afternoon! A whole business before the time. Should have expected it, I suppose. Agaat ran away when she had to get dressed. Had to run after her and catch her, Saar and I. Cornered her down in the poplar grove against the bank. Rigid with ferocity again. Had to give her a few good strokes on the buttocks. Didn't want to dress herself. Had to be stuffed into her new clothes piece by piece, white socks up to the knees and shiny shoes, head drawn into the shoulder because the gauze of the bonnet supposedly scratched her in the neck. Your head must be covered in the house of the Lord, I said. Didn't want to let go of the bellows when we had to leave. More than quarter of an hour late. You're disgracing me with your devils on this great day, I said. A Child of the Lord doesn't behave like this. Remember your name means Good, I said, and today you're being given that name by the dominee, he's the servant of the Lord. Does the dominee wear a coat like the doctor's? she asks.

 

Ds van der Lught fortunately patience itself. Let be, he said when I wanted to take away the bellows and settle the bonnet. He'd commandeered the verger and the organist and oubaas Groenewald who looks after the gardens for the occasion. And apart from that it was just the principal elder and myself. Jak would have nothing to do with it. Ma neither.

Yellow light through the wrinkled glass of the church window, Agaat's skin whiter than it is. Cold there in the bare benches, such a thin little tune on one note on the organ from high up in the dark gallery. Agaat all goose pimples when I took her to the front to stand for the service. Bellows drag along. Dominee peers sternly from under his eyebrows as if Agaat and I were guilty of much more than just original sin. We sing:

Then the organist came down and the dominee said: We and our children, and our foundlings, those whom we protect and take pity on, the heathens whom we save from damnation, are conceived and born in sin, the sprinkling with water shows the impurity of our souls. We must distrust ourselves and seek salvation outside ourselves.

 

The late-afternoon sun through the yellow glass catches the shiny edge of the font, it looks as if there's no water in it, I hold Agaat's hand tightly, feel her strain backwards as Dominee's voice becomes progressively deeper and heavier. Thought he might have kept it a bit shorter, it's only Agaat after all. But perhaps I was the one who had to hear it all one more time. Old Groenewald stands there with his hands crossed over his crotch, nods his head, twirls his thumbs over each other. Real old actor.

 

We must crucify our old selves and live in fear of God. If sometimes through weakness we stumble into sin, we must not doubt the mercy of God or remain wallowing in sin.

 

Then first a prayer. Close your eyes, I whisper to Agaat, I peep at the elder who's rocking forward and back and gulping back the sleepiness. Therefore we pray thee to show mercy also to this thine adopted child
and to initiate her through the Holy Ghost into Jesus Christ thine son so that through the baptism she may be buried with Him in death and may be resurrected with Him in the new life. Grant that she will shoulder her cross cheerfully in the service of her guardians and her masters, follow Christ daily and adhere to Him in sincere faith, firm hope and ardent love, until eventually she will meekly leave this life that inevitably issues in death for your sake and so that she may on the last day appear fearlessly before the judgement seat of Christ thine Son.

 

Open your eyes, now you must answer yes to all the questions, I whisper to Agaat. So Dominee peers at Agaat from under his eyebrows. Do you believe in the only true God who created heaven and earth and everything in it out of nothing? Do you believe that nothing in heaven or on the earth happens without His Divine Will? Do you acknowledge that by nature you are wholly incapable of any good and inclined to all evil? Do you profess that through faith you receive forgiveness of your sins in His blood?

 

Agaat utters just one little peep on an in-breath. I squeeze her in the neck so that she should say yes nicely. But no! She takes the handle of the bellows, she squeezes out a little bit of wind, pffft, hey you! I have to nudge her. The organist catches my eye, suppresses a smile. Then I have to prod her in the back to make her step forward. Come, the Dominee beckons, pushing up his gown a little over his right hand, Agaat pulls back, I take her by both her shoulders and steer her to the front, because by now I can feel she's preparing to run away, I prod her until she's standing properly. A cloud moves over the sun, the church goes dark, I feel superstitious, as if the mark of Ham is falling on me as well, hold your head forward, I say, I pull the bonnet backwards, I pinch her in the neck so that she can keep her head up straight, because she keeps on pulling it in as if she's scared she'll be slapped.