Saar came to call me just now from the garden in the back, come and see, Mies, what Agaat is playing. On tiptoe through the kitchen door and peep at her from behind the door. Wouldn’t there be an inquisition of the rag doll on the telephone stool! She deliberately places the doll filled with river sand in such a position that she has to fall off. Then she falls off, then she gets a slap, then she falls off, then she gets a finger in the eye!
Sit, doll, sit! If you can’t sit up straight nicely and look at me, and answer me when I speak to you, then I’m phoning the police!
Next thing she clambers onto the telephone stool, takes the receiver off its cradle. Hello, hello police? Come and fetch her, lock her up! She’s full of stuffing! She looks at me cheekily! She plays dumb! She does her business in her panties!
No lack of imagination, whatever else may be wanting!
19
The sharpening of the knives.
How many hours ago? I was still asleep, if you can call it sleep, the drowsy delirium in which I drift.
Sudden swishing sounds in the dark by the bed’s head.
Mighty striking-up. Last movement. Metal on metal. Con brio.
From the movement of air against my face I could infer her position. To and fro the rhythm firmed, a rocking to the tempo of the sleeper. She was whetting without varying the angle of the whetting-rod to my bed, a duller sound close to her body, a high sibilant hiss at the furthest point of the rod. The point of the rod was on the railing at the head of the bed, a whetting-wind over my forehead.
Oh, Agaat, what else will you still think up for me? Sharpening knives over the tip of my comatose nose.
It was the big knife, to judge by the sound, the one with the three silver studs on the handle. And it was the longest whetting-rod, the heavy one with the cast-iron handle, the one that’s stored in the long bottom drawer next to the old Aga because it doesn’t fit anywhere else.
It was a culinary demonstration. How old was she? Not old enough yet to handle sharp objects.
See, you support the rod against your waist and the point you rest on the edge of the table.
But that was long ago. The point of the rod now on the top railing of my bed, close to my head. The point of support the midriff of Agaat.
Dangerous game! If the rod were to slip! If the knife were to skip! If the blade were to snap! The meaning of danger! Life-threatening!
Yes, that’s how you do it! Remind me that I still exist! No lack of imagination! Whatever else may be wanting!
How many hours ago? Perhaps she too can no longer count down my hours cleanly. Perhaps she tallies them now by the sharpening of knives, by blades of grass, by the blooms of the bougainvillea dropping with the lightest of rustlings on the stoep.
My honed, grass-light hours.
The apron bands creaked as she sharpened.
Where are you rowing me to, Agaat, to what coast, to what river mouth?
Seven knives I counted by ear, they’re all there, down to the very thin worn-down little one with the crooked blade for scraping carrots and cucumbers in the kitchen of Grootmoedersdrift. Through my chinks I could see them flashing.
Wings of herons, a stormy sky.
Where are you flying to with blades, Agaat, to which high Langeberg horizon?
The bed sang.
In my closeness she found hollows of marrow for me. What more could I want?
Come and stand here in front of me, you’re big enough to learn to handle sharp objects.
I take her hands in mine, the small hand in my right hand. I press the whetting-rod against her body, the strong hand holds the knife, I show her the stroke, it must sing, I say, come let’s make the knives sing!
Why, she asks, do my hands feel as if they’re asleep for hours after I’ve been sharpening?
That shows you’re doing it right, it means the knowledge is going into you, into your flesh and into your bones so that you won’t forget the lesson: You shall know a good kitchen by the edges of its knives, a farm by the sharpness of its shares and its scythes.
Did I imagine that I heard our whetting-song? On the in-breath?
Hey ho, hitch up the wagon.
Yes, Agaat, the wheat stands white in the fields. The front-cutter mows a swathe through the blades of wheat. Over the contours the wagon rocks with its load of golden sheaves. My bed with shiny railings, filled with Kleintrou and filled with Daeraad.
Can I still believe my ears?
Yes, I heard it, the rustling of newspaper, peels falling on a tin surface. The big enamel bowl from Ma’s time, the one with the three red roses in the base, the white one with the black riffled edge around the top, and the spreading black patches where the enamel has gone. No longer suitable for milk, but good enough for blood, for peels. I could discern it through my fissures, the great white stain catching and reflecting the light, a cloud drifting through the room.
Shall I come to rain? Shall I be brought to fruition? Sweet? A sweeter ending than one would have expected after this? How?
A lengthy peeling it was. Hours on end. A slicing, a grating. At long intervals the chunks plashed into bowls of water.
Why is she whetting and peeling here in my room? Why do I see her shadow low down there on the floor? A shadow on her knees? A cloud dripping onto a cloud?
The smell was green and sweet and raw, traces of beans, lazy housewife, of peas, sugarsnow, of cabbage, of carrots, of turnips and radishes, of freshly-pulled fennel bulbs, the whole vegetable garden below the drift, the irrigation water, the loam darkened with barrow-loads of compost.
With the thud of the boer pumpkin on the floorboards I started to understand.
I was supposed to be able to hear the kitchen. In full concert. Pull out all the stops.
Toccata and fugue.
I had to hear and smell what it would be like when I’m gone. The onset of the funeral meal, with how much conviction it would be undertaken. The preparation for the guests, with concentration, with dedication, with virtuoso fingering.
It was supposed to console me. It was supposed to reassure me. I was in the knives, I was in the peels, in the drawers, in the enamel bowls, I was the rich black compost, I was the soil, and nothing would ever grow without me. Nothing, to the end of time, without my having farmed here, and none of the people remaining here and living off the land.
My last meal. That was what she was preparing for me. For the abstemious guest of honour.
Eight o’clock. Will she come and eat it on my behalf?
The table is set. Damask, flowers, wine, candles, silver, crystal, porcelain. Four courses at the foot of my bed.
She removed the plaster from my staring eye, she splinted open the collapsed one, she put drops in both so that I could behold it all.
Here come the dishes now. Here they come one by one. The white porcelain. Here, gliding past, is the large oval platter with the leg of lamb, complete with the knuckle-bone. Garnished with rosemary, blue blooms and all. Fatty rind crisp and brown.
She’d been grazed on bushy scrub for extra taste and flavour, earmarked early on, cleansed with milk and bran, stalked from behind where she was a-dreaming in the clover, and before she knew it, before fear could bane her. .
Ag Agaat, you would have lent a hand there with your butcher’s sleeve! You would have done it clean and fast, with respect for the wool, respect for the membranes.
She flourishes open the napkin in a single sweep, tucks it into the front of her apron, gardenia on her bib.
Forty-three years together on earth.
Her cap tilts forward. For the sake of the invisible congregation.
We’re laughing at them the merest bit, I see, Agaat.
Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, let these thy gifts to us be blessed.