It was the Saturday street. The street had as many names as there were days in the week, as many as there were hours in a day. Saturday had one profound meaning. You had got past Friday. You were still alive. After this came the other meanings. You had money in your pocket. Tomorrow was Sunday, and that meant no work. You could live late today, and sleep late tomorrow. So you put on your best, you jingled your coins and you lounged about the corners watching the girls arm in arm flaunting their skirts the length of the street. That was the Saturday street. Lots of people, come today gone tomorrow, very hot, making up now for the banshee time around midnight when Saturday night would reach its climax.

Tsotsi saw it very quickly and closed his mind to it. He had seen it before. Free of the embarrassment and humiliation he had felt in buying the milk, he was free now to hurry without a loss of pride. He slipped the tin into his coat pocket and pushed forward. People felt safe in the daylight and that made it harder to move through the crowds on the pavement. On Fridays they opened up and made a path for him.

When he reached his room he was sweating. He closed the door behind him, putting a chair against it so that no one could enter unexpectedly. The window, or rather the hole in the wall since there was no glass, he covered up with the thin square of wood which he used for that purpose when it was cold or raining and the wind blew. Only then, feeling safe from inquisitive eyes or interruption, did he take the shoebox from its hiding place under the bed. He put it down carefully on the table, pulled up a chair, sat down, and then took off the lid to examine its contents.

It was still alive and seemed to be sleeping. A foul, acrid smell rose up from the box, but he didn’t notice it because for a moment he was again awed by what he saw. This was man. This small, almost ancient, very useless and abandoned thing was the beginning of a man. It had legs and arms, a head and a body, but even when he allowed for that, he still could not see how this would one day straighten out, smooth and shape itself into manhood. Even asleep its face was cross-grained with complaint. The head was misshapen. It looked more like an egg. The body was covered with patches of fuzzy hair.

When his first surprize was passed, Tsotsi noticed the smell. He left the table to fetch an old coat hanging on a nail behind the door, first bundling it up before putting it down. Then very carefully he took the baby out of the box and put it down on the coat. He was proud of that, the idea to use the coat. The baby looked better resting on it than it would have on the bare, bottle-stained tabletop. Catching himself with the feeling of pride he frowned, pursed his lips and worked on. Apart from a stain on the bottom the box was still all right, which meant the smell was coming from the baby. He examined it. The smell was coming from its clothes, the rags in which it was wrapped.