“Ground coffee was it, Mr. Bosman?” Ophelia tries to break up the dangerous mood. “I have salt pork and dried apricots half-price, and a loaf of sugar bread, baked fresh this morning. I have samples.”

The fear in Ophelia’s voice brings me back to reason. I want to strike Bosman’s face for shrinking Mother’s voice and body to the size of a child, but he is taller, stronger, and whiter than I’ll ever be. And even if by some miracle I could beat him to the ground, I’d lose Mother and Lottie and my freedom. The law favors Bosman. The law is forever on his side.

“I see you got your girl from a white man,” Bosman says to Mother, and his ugly expression makes me flinch. “A man with deep pockets from the look of those fancy boots.”

I understand why Mother left this place and never came back. She left to save herself. She left so that when Rian and I were born in far-off Manzini to a white engineer, we’d have what she didn’t: enough food to eat, an education, the freedom to dream of a better future, and the power to reach out and grab it. I suddenly know it’s my turn to be brave.

“Come.” I take Mother’s hand and squeeze warmth into her cold fingers. “We have a long walk back.”

With my heart in my mouth, I push past Bosman, who probes Mother’s blank expression, hoping to catch a glimpse of the frightened girl he stalked across the hills all those years ago. He wants to feel her fear. He feeds on it.

Mother gives him nothing and raises her head. She shuts him out as if he isn’t there. Lottie shoves past Bosman’s other shoulder and opens the door to the sunshine.

30

Joyful

I stagger onto the pavement and give Mother a sideways glance. Beautiful Mother, who ran from this place and came back to save me from humiliation. Clever Mother, who found a gentle man to love her, even if his love is part-time and given to her in secret. Her hand trembles in mine, and I stop to catch my breath. A few seconds at most, but it’s enough to regain control of my emotions and find the high ground from which to view Bosman in the right perspective: Small, mean, left behind. And a liar. To hate my mother’s singing is to hate life and all the joyful moments in it.

“This country,” Mother says in a shaky voice. “Oh, this country.”

Bosman has resurrected the scared girl dressed in secondhand clothing and eaten up by the shame of being poor and unprotected. I need to swallow my rage and get her back to our thick carpet on the living room floor and our moonlit walks along the length of Live Long Street, and the sound of Father’s voice on the end of the line.

“Adele,” Lottie says. “We should leave.”