Nothing happened for several days. And then, one morning, Emily knocked on my door, and I tied my dressing gown belt and hurried after her to the kitchen, to find Tiny, bruised and crying, again. Why didn’t you call Howard, I said, why? She cried, she covered her face with her hands.

Sidney came. He left the compresses and aspirin, he made a cold comment again, to me. He left. I watched him walk away from the front door, carrying his black doctor’s bag, on his way to his car, to another patient. A more legitimate patient, he no doubt thought. I knew Sidney’s way of thinking. A white child with a sore throat, tonsilitis, nothing more, something like that. That’s how it was.

Howard, I think, washed his hands of it, he said no more about it. He left it, I suppose, to me. To manage the backyard and the servants, and Tiny, whom I, after all, had carelessly hired. Perhaps it wouldn’t happen again.

Except one day Tiny disappeared. I mean, she was no longer in her room at the back, she had taken her things with her too. Emily was as shocked as we were. She was upset for days. Emily sent word to Alexandra, to the house where Tiny’s children lived. But they had not seen Tiny, either.

I went to see Tiny’s room. The iron bed, elevated on bricks, two under each of the four legs. The thin mattress, its bedding gone too. The upside-down milkcrates that served as her table. The concrete floor. That’s all.

Howard went to the local police station this time. He gave them her name; he said she was a friend of his maid. He didn’t — couldn’t — say she worked for us. I followed up with calls to the police station, every day. I spoke, each time, to a desultory young man, who sounded bored. No ma’am, he said. No ma’am, no information.

Tiny had only been with us a short while.

But a disappeared woman, what does that mean?

OTHERWISE our domestic routine, and the children’s routines, carried on as before.

Emily told me that she talked to Joseph in the garden room from time to time, now. I feel for him, ma’am, she said. I was surprised.

What does he tell you, Emily, I said. She was stirring in a mixing bowl, I remember, because Helena was there, agitating, asking about a cake, what kind of cake would Emily make, today. Wait, wait, patience! Emily said. Helena ran off. What does he say, Emily? I said. He said he is so grateful for all this, for this room, ma’am. He told me he goes with the comrades in the car at night, they go to Soweto, his other friends, his comrades are there. We are working, working, you know that? That’s what he told me, ma’am.

Emily was pleased, I was pleased, to hear he left the room at night. He was less imprisoned, then. I suddenly felt less imprisoned, myself.