I was relieved when Sarie came into the kitchen a few minutes later, as it offered a welcome distraction from worrying about Ruth. I invited her to join me at the dining room table and while she resisted at first, she gave in after I insisted. She’d been our family’s maid as far back as I could remember, and my mother had never allowed the help to sit or eat inside. Some habits apparently died hard.

Sarie was in her seventies and, although tinier than I remembered, having shrunken into herself in the way old people do, she still had arms that were ropy with muscle from a lifetime of manual labor. A multicolored doek covered her head but gray hair sprouted from underneath the front of it. Her eyes shone as they peered at me from behind thick glasses.

“Miesie,” she said, “dis so lekker om jou weer te sien.” Missus, it’s so good to see you again.

“Don’t call me miesie, Sarie. You’re older than I am. I’m the one who should be calling you that. Please call me Delilah.”

“Ag nee, miesie.” She laughed. “I can’t do that even though things are all deurmekaar now that apartheid has ended. White people are acting crazy. Just the other day, Maria told me that her madam, Mevrou van der Merwe, told her to come for tea. Poor Maria thought the madam wanted her to come in and make the tea, so there she was in her apron and slippers, but the madam was all dressed up to serve Maria cake.”

“No!”

“Yes!” Sarie slapped her thigh, laughing as though it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Forty years Maria has worked for the madam and now the madam wants to wait on her and have a visit? It seems like in the new South Africa, white people want to have black friends just to prove they’re not racist, but the only black people they know are their maids and gardeners. This is all Mandela’s fault.”

We both laughed and then she caught me up on farm news and town gossip. Ruth had been paying Sarie and her husband, Stompie, to continue to take care of the property after Ma died and Sarie was grateful for it. “Where else could we get work at our age?” She went on to tell me how Ruth had also paid for Stompie to have hip replacement surgery a few years ago, and that she’d put two of their grandchildren through school.

I was surprised by Ruth’s altruism and, to change the subject, I filled Sarie in on the encounter I’d had with Precious the week before. Even as I did so, I was aware of skimming over the details, leaving out my ridiculous overreaction to the perceived danger. I was ashamed of how I’d allowed the general level of hysteria in the country to affect me.