They stand and Klein Maynard removes his cap before reaching out to shake Dee’s hand. She leaves him hanging.

“Entertaining AWB members now, are you?” she asks me acidly.

“I beg your pardon?” I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What’s the AWB?”

“It’s the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging,” she replies through gritted teeth. “An Afrikaner resistance movement.”

Klein Maynard takes his hand back and shoves it in his pocket. “That’s right. We’re members,” he says proudly, indicating their outfits, which I now realize aren’t hunting camo but uniforms.

There is an insignia on each side of his chest: a red, white, and black one that looks like a variation of the Nazi symbol, and the Vierkleur insignia, a flag that was designed for the South African Republic that stopped existing a hundred years ago.

“These idiots are part of the group who could have killed me at the airport if I’d arrived half an hour later,” Dee says, turning to me. “More than thirty of them were arrested in connection with all the bombings that have been happening across the country. You’re fraternizing with terrorists.”

“The ANC’s chief terrorist is now president of the country, so it seemed to work out quite well for them,” Klein Maynard says. “How many bombings weren’t they responsible for back in the day? All we’re doing is fighting back and defending what’s ours. You’d better believe there’s a civil war coming, the whites against the blacks, and you’d better hope people like us will protect kaffir boeties like you when they come for you in your sleep.”

He glares at her menacingly and so I step between them. “Dee, why don’t you go inside while I finish up with our guests over here?”

“Be careful,” she says. “Like Ma always said, if you lie down with dogs, you’re going to wake up with fleas.”

“Come,” Klein Maynard says to Henning, “let’s go.” He turns back to me. “The offer is valid for a day. Let me know what you decide.”

They pull off in a cloud of dust and I watch openmouthed as they go. “What the hell was that about? One minute we’re sitting like civilized people having drinks and the next you march up here and start attacking them.”

“My God,” she says. “Did you not hear a word I said?”

“It’s not illegal to belong to the AWB, is it? They’re perfectly within their rights to belong to whatever organization they want.”

“They’re militant racists, Ruth. Neo-Nazi white supremacists. Do you not see the hypocrisy of defending them when two days ago you wanted us to keep a black baby?”

It’s my turn to glare at her. “I don’t see what one has got to do with the other. And you’re the one who made me give up that black baby, remember?”