Later, we’re all sitting on the couch. Mandla is on my lap and I’m holding him with one hand while holding the girl’s bandaged hand with the other. Dee cleaned the bite up and even gave her a rabies shot, which she had in that emergency first-aid kit she travels with. She’s apologized over and over for leaving the droëwors on the table where Mandla could reach it until I finally have to shush her.

The girl looks uncomfortable to be sitting down next to me but she’s staring at my boy like he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

“What did you say your name was again?” She’s told me twice but I’ve been so focused on Mandla that I can barely concentrate.

“Zodwa,” she says.

She’s a very pretty girl with beautiful, glowing skin. I wish I knew how she gets it like that because it doesn’t matter how much body lotion I rub onto Mandla, his skin always looks dry and gray. Her hair is tied back in two braids and the whites of her eyes glow in the gloom. She has a quiet but firm voice.

“Zodwa,” I repeat. “You saved Mandla’s life.”

“Mandla. That’s his name?”

“Yes, it means—”

“I know what it means,” she says. “I’m Zulu.”

All the time we’re speaking, she keeps her eyes fixed on Mandla and he seems equally taken with her because he keeps reaching out to her.

“How did you know to do that?” I ask her. “Are you a nurse or something?”

She shakes her head. “I looked after all the children in my grandmother’s village when I was little. I learned then what to do.”

“Thank God you did.”

“Did you come here looking for a job?” Dee asks. “Is that why you came?”

She stares at Dee blankly. It must be the shock.

“Did you hear we were looking for a maid?” I prompt. “Because if you want a job, you have it. You’re hired!”

Zodwa looks at Mandla for a second as though making a decision, and then she smiles. “Yes,” she says. “I was looking for a job.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Zodwa

1 July 1995

Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa

This is madness,” Thembeka says as Zodwa packs her few possessions into the very kit bag Leleti used to ferry Mandla away. “You’re really going to do it? Work for them?”

Zodwa doesn’t reply. She just keeps folding her clothes and tucking them away in the bag.

“As a maid, Zodwa? What would your mother think?”

Zodwa knows exactly what her mother would think, but Leleti should have thought of that before she took Zodwa’s baby away and gave him to white people.

When Thembeka doesn’t get a response, she tries a different tack. “They have your child. Your son. Why didn’t you just take him and bring him home?”