Estudio del nivel de precios de frutas y hortalizas en relación al consumidor consumidor

6.1

(Projection: 1959.

Jak is doing sit-ups. Milla/Maiden enters wearing work clothes covered in dirt.)

JAK The farmer herself. What was it today?

MILLA/MAIDEN (Terse.)

Walked the far slope with the surveyor. My calves ache.

JAK

Why do you drudge yourself like that? You’re not a bloody slave.

MILLA/MAIDEN Somebody’s got to pay attention to the farm.

JAK

Why even bother with the kak. Fertilizer makes it easy.

MILLA/MAIDEN

Fertilizer. That’s all you’re ever on about, Jak de Wet. But working with nature…

JAK Oh ho! Here we go! A lecture.

MILLA/MAIDEN

Working with nature is like playing a game. It’s subtle and complex. Everything is important. The smallest insect, even the mouldering tree…

JAK

The mouldering tree? Christ, Milla, It’s simple. Buy the fertilizer. Put it down. Plough the field. Reap the harvest. That’s it. No mystical talk about bugs and soil. Put that energy into making us a child.

MILLA/MAIDEN

I’ll go for tests. The doctor can prescribe me an aid. (Beat.) There’s help for men, too.

JAK

Over my dead body! There’s nothing wrong with me. Or with you, for that matter. It’s all in your head. It’s because you wear yourself out like this.

MILLA/MAIDEN What else am I supposed to do? You offer no help.

JAK

Because you don’t really want help! You love complaining!

MILLA/MAIDEN I do not.

JAK

Get the bloody machines to do it and stop running yourself into the ground.

MILLA/MAIDEN

I was taught to farm the right way. The old way. The machines don’t respect the land – they ruin it for a quick profit.

JAK

You don’t complain about the money when there’s food on the table.

MILLA/MAIDEN We must be smart about this, Jak.

JAK I am being smart.

MILLA/MAIDEN We’re a team, Jak. You and I.

JAK

Is that what I’m a part of? A team? What race, then, are we running, dear wife?

MILLA/MAIDEN

All I mean is that it takes the both of us to make the land work. And to make a child.

(Beat.) I get such pressure from ma.

JAK

Don’t listen to that mother of yours. A violent tea cosy if ever there was one.

MILLA/MAIDEN

She’s never approved of me. Always under such scrutiny at her house. And then I come home, barely off the stoep and get an earful from Mr. Fertilizer.

JAK Milla – get over yourself.

MILLA/MAIDEN Am I never allowed to feel weak? To need you?

JAK

I hate it when you’re in this state. Go wash yourself off. Have a cry in the tub. Then we can talk.

(He exits.)

MILLA/MAIDEN Jak, wait! (Beat. Calling out.) Agaat?

6.2

(Projection: 1960.

Milla/Maiden touches up her makeup. She massages her stomach.)

MILLA/MAIDEN (Softly.) January 1. Gelukkige nuwe jaar.

(Lights shift: A party. Only Milla/Maiden and Jak can be seen clearly, each in their own pool of light.

Maybe the other guests are obscured by projected cigarette smoke? Jazz beneath the chatter.) VOICE ONE (V.O.)

Two-stage! Two-stage! Wheat, fallow, wheat, fallow!

VOICE TWO (V.O.)

Or better still: wheat on wheat! With the new fertilizers they have now you can’t go wrong. Bumper crops every single year I’m telling you.

VOICE ONE (V.O.) An Overberg miracle!

VOICE TWO (V.O.) That’s right. And Jak de Wet over here’s living proof.

JAK

That’s the way of the future, man – science and farming. A match made in heaven.

MILLA/MAIDEN

Scientific or not I don’t agree. Just look at the condition of the soil. Thinner and poorer by the year. Just look at the dust when the wind blows before sowing-time, look how it erodes in winter. From sowing wheat all the time. From greed. And from worry. Because the bought-on-credit fertilizer still has to be paid off. And the Land Bank is squeezing.

VOICE THREE (V.O.)

That’s right! I owed them. Then they forced me to sell all my wheat to them, at cost.

Their idea is, it’s our fertilizer, so it’s our wheat.

(There is general commotion at this statement.

Milla/Maiden taps her glass with her knife.) MILLA/MAIDEN

Listen! The real point is: the Overberg is the breadbasket of the whole country.

Remember: good wheat and good bread, and the nation’s well fed. You can’t take out of the soil more than you put into it. And here we are now, a little group of people at the southern tip of Africa in the process of totally destroying this national asset within the space of a few decades.

(Chorus of “Hear, hear!” from the gathered crowd.)

JAK

Milla, please, stop, you’re making a fool of yourself.

VOICE THREE (V.O.) Give her a chance!

MILLA/MAIDEN

It’s the rhythms of nature that you have to respect as the Creator determined them. That’s what agriculture should be based on. This new greed is barbaric - it’s a form of sacrilege.

If a farmer clears and levels his land year after year it’s as good as beating his wife every night!

(Lights shift. Jak grabs Milla/Maiden roughly by the arm and shoves her. He is very drunk.)

JAK Good God! You think you know everything!

MILLA/MAIDEN You’re drunk.

JAK Your mouth’s too big!

MILLA/MAIDEN Jak, I have something to tell you.

JAK

Christ, Milla, what gives you the idea that you can sit and preach to farmers on how to cultivate their lands? What must you think of me? (Beat.) How am I supposed to show my face ever again at the fertilizer company?

MILLA/MAIDEN Jak, come here. I have something to tell you.

JAK

And that “soil is like a woman whose husband beats her”? What kind of crap is that, I ask you? You’re asking for it, you know?

MILLA/MAIDEN

(Milla/Maiden places her hands on her stomach. An invitation.)

(Milla/Maiden removes her dress slowly. Jak lunges at her. Lights shift. The figures on the floor are in semi-darkness. Milla/Mother is suddenly

illuminated.)

MILLA/MOTHER

He was very rough. Tore your petticoat and gripped your wrists.

JAK Look in front of you! Look in front of you!

MILLA/MAIDEN Jak, you should be ashamed of yourself!

JAK Whore! Whore!

MILLA/MOTHER

You thought you saw a movement in the mirror but there was nothing. Only the two of you.

JAK What are you looking at?

MILLA/MOTHER He grabbed a footstool with one hand and threw it.

(The sound of a stool crashing into a mirror.

Prismatic blue light washes over the stage and then is gone.)

MILLA/MOTHER But you dictated the rhythm. For yourself.

(Lights down on Milla/Mother, up on Jak and Milla/Maiden)

MILLA/MAIDEN I’m pregnant, Jak.

JAK A son.

MILLA/MAIDEN

And if you ever lift your hand against me again, I will sell the farm and leave you and take your child with me and you will never see him again.

SCENE SEVEN