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.
If you want a nice surprise, open your mouth and shut your eyes, says Agaat.
I keep my eyes wide open to keep her attention. She looks. Like one standing in bright sunshine at the mouth of a cave, she peers into me.
I blink my eyes slowly, regularly, as encouragement.
Find it, Agaat, find the word in my mouth, find the impulse from which it must sprout, fish it out as intention, as yearning. The outlines of Grootmoedersdrift, its beacons, its heights, its valleys. You cannot deny me that.