It was almost twelve o’clock. Fortunately the road was drying out. You drove hard. The rock faces loomed up, closer all the time, rougher, greyer, swallowing you. Deeper and deeper, it felt, you were sinking into the body of the mountain, deeper into the black shadows, with every corner that you took.
What does the river look like? you asked Agaat to divert her attention.
Full, she said.
What else?
Shiny.
Is it far down?
Far. And near.
She whispered. There was a white ring around her mouth.
Suddenly it was lukewarm between your legs. Inside you something dropped and heaved and pushed. It was your time. It wasn’t going to take nine hours, Ma was wrong. It would be Agaat’s baby, you knew, but you didn’t say it out loud.
You were in the middle of the pass. The lay-bys were on your right. After fifteen minutes you had to pull in at the first one that appeared. This time the pains lasted longer. You breathed deeply. One more shift, you thought, another fifteen minute’s driving, perhaps we’ll make it after all. Suddenly you were angry with your mother. Furious that you’d listened to her hard voice and her harsh advice. You could have simply stayed at home. Saar was there, you could have summoned Beatrice. The one stank of body odour and the other of sanctity, but at least they had experience. You could have had the doctor called from Swellendam. There were hundreds of things that you could have thought of yourself instead of asking her. As if she had a monopoly on wisdom, she had after all only had you, the wisdom of a single child. Your resentful thoughts inclined you to brutality towards Agaat. You couldn’t stop yourself. Now you sounded just like your mother.
Yes, Agaat, you said, that’s the way of the world, you see what life’s like. So it has been written. Come, you know your Bible, don’t you. What does it say in Genesis about having children?
Agaat got out two words.
In sorrow, she said.
From the corner of your eye you saw her tighten her mouth, look at the watch. Seven minutes, she said.
My mamma has a goat, you started reciting, because you hadn’t meant to sound that fierce, my mamma has a goat, she wants to have him shod. Come Agaat, what’s next?
One two three four five six seven, said Agaat, her voice was quavering, but mamma doesn’t know how many nails she’s got.
You watched the lay-bys as you passed them. You had to fight against the illusion that it was the car that was stationary and that it was the mountain that had wrenched loose out of its grooves and was gnashing past you, a merry-go-round of grey rock faces, rocky inlets. You knew them all, the stopping-places. You were aiming for the one by the waterfall. There was most space there, there were a few bushes to park behind.
Tradouw, you thought, a child of the Tradouw. Gantouw, the way of the eland, Tradouw, the way of the women.
You brought the car to a standstill in a shower of stones.
Agaat did as you said, placed newspapers and blankets on the back seat, with two doubled-over clean sheets on top. You had to lie down. It felt as if you were tearing apart, as if your spine was splitting.
Sing, you said, sing me something.
Breathe, said Agaat, you said I had to tell you to breathe, breathe, and blow. Blow! Blow!
She waited till you started breathing and blowing. Then she herself took a breath so deep it lifted her shoulders and struck up. Oh moon, Agaat sang for you, you drift so slow on your bright throne.
Her voice emerged too high, out of tune. She cleared her throat, started again. Firm this time, and low, nicely on pitch. The moon, kept on a short tow-rope, tight and low along the horizon. She pulled off your wet underclothing over your legs and covered your upper body with a blanket as you did with the cows in winter. She put a blanket roll under your head.
So calm so clear, she sang, and I so sad and lone.
Now wash your hands, you said. Pour the water into the basin, add two caps of Dettol, wash your hands again, wash me from below, take a cloth, take the red soap, wash well. Have ready the scissors, the knife, the floss, the string, the cloths, the sheets, the smelling salts, line everything up where you can reach easily. There’ll be a lot of blood, don’t get a fright, just do everything you’d do with a cow. And sing, carry on singing here for me, so that I can get hold of a rhythm. Sing something fast.
The boys are cutting the corn tonight, corn tonight, Agaat sang.
Her voice rose, you blew.
My love’s hanging in the berry-bush, berry-bush.
You felt pressure in you, downwards, outwards pressure like a tree-trunk.
Now push, she said, my love is hanging in the bitter-berry-bush.
Breathe! Push! Blow!
You bellowed.
Breathe, breathe, breathe, push Agaat said.
You felt her weak hand low on your belly, there it was feeling, this side and that side of the bulge it pressed, like a spatula against a ball of dough, and gathered you lightly from below your navel and stroked down over your lower belly, one two three times. As you had taught her to feel over animals, whether the lamb was lying transverse or the calf was breeched.
Push, said Agaat, he’s lying right, his head’s in the hole, I can feel him.
Look who’s coming in from outside out, she sang, on the intake of breath.
Breathe in, push, blow, blow, blow!
The other hand was inside you, you felt, the strong one, it reamed you as one reams a gutter.
Breathe in and blow, now you must push, Agaat said, he’s coming, I feel him, he’s hanging in the bush, he’s hanging nicely, he’s hanging like a berry, head first.
Now you must, now you must, Agaat coaxed. Softly, rapidly, urgently, the language that you spoke to the Simmentals that had such trouble calving. You heard yourself, your voice was in her. You heard your father with animals, when you were small, when you stood next to him in the old stable on Grootmoedersdrift, the language of women that he could speak better than your mother.
Now take a breath now, a gasp, a groan
get yourself up now little tradouw
little buttermilk stand ready
now I’m pulling your même her ears to the front
mother macree little mother cow
point that cunt of yours
nowwe’regettingthere!
now now now push the womb
blow on the bellows
throw this wombbeast of yours out of the crate
throw over the rowers of dattem
throw out the iron
push him
give him
give him littlecalf to me
give the bluegumbloom
give him in the nest the shitling
ai!
You couldn’t any more. You were depleted.
He’s stuck he’s stuck his head is stuck in the hole.
Agaat was in panic, you could hear.
Take the scissors! you screamed. You felt it, the cold steel against you, it felt too slow, she was hesitating.
Cut, God! you screamed, cut open all the way to the hole!
You felt the sharp incision, one blow, another blow. There was a spurt of blood out of you all the way up to the upholstery, it dripped back onto you.
You felt a slipping, you tore, you were open, you screamed, you called, bitterly, you listened to, held your ears like. Like tarns, like eddies, like echo-bearing chasms, like wind-winnowed waterfall, you held them till you heard what was neither of you nor of Agaat.
The sound.
You strained upright, heard the scissors clatter to the ground, saw the strings dangling, slime and threads of blood out of you.
A bundle was put down on you, a bawl swaddled in cloths, your arms were gathered together from where they were dispersed, the arm from the river first and then from the mountain, from left and from right your arms were placed around the bundle, a tiny white cocoon with red palm-prints, a big one on one side, an unfurled fan, and on the other side the bloody forepaw of an otter. Agaat’s mismatched hands that had performed the deed for you.