Summary
Maureen goes out and picks wild greens and wild spinach with the other women. It’s hard work. They move around the fields and she follows, catching on. She chats a little with them, but mostly they work. July’s wife points and laughs at Maureen’s white calves. Maureen laughs back at her. They work through the day. She brings the greens home and cooks them. Time drags. She naps on the bed in the day, her body covered in fleas. Her hair is knotty, her clothes dirty. She stares around the land.
She finds July fixing the bakkie. She asks him what the matter is. He says that he’s worried about her working in the fields. She doesn’t understand. He says that the women can pick the greens for her. She says she wants to do it. He says she shouldn’t. They argue over this. Finally she asks him if it’s because he doesn’t want her talking to his wife. Is he worried that she might tell his wife about the woman in the city?
July refuses to answer this. He’s upset. Then he tells her that there’s a small problem. The chief has asked for the family to come see him. He explains that the tribal chief of the region learned that a white family lives here and he wants them to go to him.
Maureen is worried the next day as they tidy themselves up as best as they can and drive in the bakkie with their kids as well as July and his friend Daniel. Bam isn’t worried. They drive through fields and come to a piece of land with a modern construction, unlike the mud huts. The chief’s assistant, a large man in a mismatched suit, greets them, asks them their reason for coming, and sends them further down the road to the chief.
When the chief comes out of his house, July and Daniel get down on their knees. The people in the fields stand still. The chief is a thin man, dressed in a traditional robe. July interprets for him. He wants Bam to tell him what’s happening in Johannesburg. Bam tells him that the chief’s people have finally taken over. The chief doesn’t believe that the whites aren’t fighting back. Bam explains that they are, but they’re outnumbered and the South Africans are getting support and weapons from Mozambique and Botswana among other places. They’re finally united, he says. The chief asks if the Russians and Cubans are going to invade, but Bam has no answer.
The chief says he doesn’t want all these other African tribes invading his land. He wants Bam to teach him to shoot his rifle. Bam is amazed, and explains that the rifle is for shooting birds. He doesn’t understand why the chief isn’t in support of black people rising up. Bam says that it’s wonderful that they’re finally overthrowing their white oppressors. The chief wants Bam to show him how to shoot and he wants Bam and white people to defend his people when the Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho people come.
Bam and Maureen are stunned. Bam says that he doesn’t kill people. The chief laughs at this dismissively, saying that he would if they threatened his own people. The chief asks them then if they are being treated well and given everything they need at Mwawate’s place. They realize that this is July’s actual name. Maureen says, “We owe him everything” (121).
Analysis
The tension between July and Maureen doesn’t go away in this pivotal section; it is merely compounded as Maureen pushes him, provocatively asking if he’s afraid she’ll tell his wife the truth. While her assertiveness is strong, her motives are ambiguous. It’s unclear what it is that she feels about July’s adultery, or if she even thinks of it as such. Perhaps she merely resists July telling her what to do. It seems there might be something impulsive in her driving her to provoke him though. A striking moment of passive aggression occurs when it seems that July can’t fix the bakkie. Maureen tells him to stop trying, that Bam will do it. She begins to walk away, but then she comes back and says what she feels “nobody else should hear,” muttering in a quiet voice, “Don’t worry, he won’t steal it from you” (101).
There’s a distinct childishness to this provocation and it brings to mind her own childhood near the mines where her father was a mine boss in racist, segregated conditions. Is Maureen’s current situation bringing some latent racism out of her? Is there something about the reversal of her and July’s roles that’s causing her to act out in ways that she doesn’t recognize in herself? Maybe, however, what she wants is for them to be equal and the imbalance, the power he has over her, irritates her. Of course to become equal would require a reassessment of their past roles.
Outwardly, consciously, she remains the liberal woman who married Bam. However, in these chapters, Bam and Maureen are forced to face the irony of their outward liberal position. They are in support of a black revolution, but the chief is not. He wants the old order to be maintained. There’s a universal resonance to this dilemma. What happens when the people whose cause you champion have a different view of what is best for them? What if some black people don’t want an end to the white governance and apartheid of the country? How do you tell them they’re wrong?
A certain aspect of this dynamic may be reflected in the tension between Maureen and July. She wants for them to be equal. He would prefer to continue to think of her as her as his boss; he insists on continuing to refer to Bam as his master. While Maureen idealizes equality, she is also unable to establish it, instead needling July, using her knowledge about his past as a power over him.
At the end of this section there’s a sense of being held hostage that arises from the chief’s demand that Bam teach him to shoot people. How can they go against him? Not only do they owe him for their protection, but he’s also a black tribal leader, the essential voice of the very people whose cause they defend.
