Summary
In this chapter, Mandisa describes the injustice her people have dealt with for generations. This gives the reader an inside perspective on the deep roots of hatred that spurred violence from Mxolisi. Mandisa begins the chapter by describing a knowledge "with which [she] was born" (121). It is a knowledge that she and all the other children inherited early, "at such an early age it is as though it was there the moment I came to know myself" (121). This is a knowledge of injustice and the memory of a grave violation of humanity. It was everywhere in their lives, and Mandisa saw it when her father came home from a hard day of work, or her mother argued with her bosses. The hand that caused their suffering had a face, and everyone knew who to blame. When Tata came home on payday with barely enough money for survival, Mandisa's mother exclaimed: "We have come thus to hunger, for white people stole our land" (121).
The grand theft, that of the Xhosa people's land, is a fact taken for granted in her life. Mandisa knew it as intimately as she knew to respect her parents or do her schoolwork. But she was taught a false narrative at school, one that celebrated white settlers that arrived in South Africa in the 1800s. When her paternal grandmother passed away, Mandisa got the opportunity to learn more about her community's history from her paternal grandfather. He taught Mandisa a series of lessons by telling her segments of their oral tradition every day. Mandisa describes her grandfather Tatomkhulu as having "small eyes in a small lean round face," and always a smile for his granddaughter (121). But when he asked Mandisa what she has been learning in school, he lost his characteristic smile. He claimed that Mandisa has been lied to by her teachers, and decided to rectify that. Mandisa's grandfather asked what the settlers meant when they called the area the "Cape of Storms," and was unsatisfied with Mandisa's response, which cited a rough sea and many broken ships. Why would they then rename the land to Cape of Good Hope, if the sea did not stop killing the settlers? "Because the sea was no longer as important to them," said Tatomkhulu, "They had decided to stay here" (122). The settlers called the area they found the Cape of Storms, but the true storm was not in the water, "the biggest storm they themselves brought" (122). They came for food and water, but, liking what they found, decided to stay and take the land from those already there. And so they inspired hatred in "the hearts of the people of this land," so deep that it might remain after 300 years (122).
Through the lessons, a story of violence between the Xhosa people and the settlers emerged. Mandisa was taught in school that Nongawuse was a false prophet who had all the Xhosa people kill their cattle. She was taught that her ancestors complied due to superstition and ignorance, but Tatomkhulu was irate at these lies. The Xhosa killed all their cattle, he told his granddaughter, but it was not because of ignorance or superstition, but terrible desperation at the invasion of their land by white settlers. So deep did the roots of hatred run, that "a cattle-worshipping nation killed all its precious herds" (123). Cattle are deeply significant animals in the Xhosa culture: not only are they a sign of wealth, they sustain the people with meat, milk, and hides. They are integral to marriage ceremonies, funerals, and in wartime negotiations. For a whole nation to slaughter all its cattle, it must have been triggered by only the deepest abomination. The goal was to drive all of the settlers back to the sea, where the prophet had told them they would all drown. Not only did the Xhosa kill all of their cattle, but they also burned all of their crops to the ground. A massive sacrifice was the only thing that could surpass such terrible abomination.
On the day of the sacrifice, the settlers were not run out of South Africa, and the Xhosa were left without land, cattle or crops. They were vulnerable to the ravaging that was to come. People began to die in the hundreds of thousands, and the settlers directed them toward the mines, where they might find a meager means to survival. The final condemnation came with the introduction of money, which would put black people under the control of the white settlers for hundreds of years to come. That original desperation and hatred remained, passed on from parent to child despite the government's best efforts to teach the children lies.
Mandisa brings us back to her present as she wakes from her nap. It is 1 PM, and Mxolisi is still not home. For a moment, all is fine, and the room shines in the afternoon sunlight. Siziwe cooked fried eggs, and the smell wakes Mandisa's empty stomach. But in moments the horror of the night before comes rushing back and Mandisa worriedly asks her daughter what she missed as she slept: did Mxolisi finally come home? Instead of offering her relief, Siziwe tells her mother that Lunga had left the home after being called on by some strangers in a car talking about Mxolisi. Siziwe uses this news to tell her mother what she had been suspecting all along: "It seems as though it's something to do with what happened to the white girl yesterday" (128). Mandisa's world spins and she must sit: "my body gone all liquid, I watched myself pour it onto the chair" (129). Mandisa faces the truth for the first time.
After they eat, a car drives up in front of their gate. Inside, Mandisa finds a man she doesn't know. It is the minister that turned Mxolisi and his friends away from the church the morning before. Reverend Mananga asks about Mxolisi's whereabouts because he has come with the good news that he has found a place for the boys to meet. As he is telling Mandisa this, he pulls out a piece of paper and writes a message. He crumples up the paper and passes it to Mandisa, all the while continuing a conversation with himself about Mxolisi going to visit him the next day. He departs, and on the note, Mandisa reads: "Take a taxi to Khayelitsha, and get off at the last stop" (130). Mandisa follows the directions, and there she finds a girl, who tells her to take one more stop beyond the city's limits. At the stop, she once again encounters the minister, who tells her that a red car will come for her. When the people inside ask her for directions, she must respond "I do not live hereabouts" (133). She finds the red car and is taken to a house where she finally finds her son.
Mxolisi is wearing clothing that isn't his. He is clean but looks exhausted as he asks his mom if she has come alone. They look at each other for just a moment before they are in each other's arms. They are both crying, "our cheeks, so close together, wet with tears of an unacknowledged sorrow," which Mandisa takes as a bad sign—she cannot remember the last time she saw her son cry (135). She has a number of questions for her son: where have you been, why are the police looking for you, and "why are so many people taking all this trouble to hide you?" (135). Mxolisi looks at her with fear, and, still crying, tells his mother: "They say I did it" (135). He claims that he was one of hundreds to throw stones at the car, but Mandisa is not satisfied: "a knife killed her" (135). Again, Mxolisi responds that many people stabbed Amy, but Mandisa must press: "Were you one of them? One of the many people who stabbed the girl?" (136). Mxolisi stays silent, and his inability to deny the terrible question might as well be an admission. He begins to sob, so Mandisa gathers him to her chest and holds him on the couch. She waits until he calms to ask him why, asking him quietly and with "no remonstration" or "accusation" in her voice. But again, Mxolisi responds "I was not the only one there" (136).
The chapter ends in fear. Both Mxolisi and Mandisa are terrified, and they have both begun to yell. Mxolisi will not admit to the murder, will not tell his mother why he did it or why so many people are trying to protect him from the consequences of his actions. Mandisa knows the truth but attempts to deny it, if even to herself. She yells at him for just a moment but is soon overcome by sobs. They return to each other arms.
Analysis
A number of important themes are touched on in this chapter, including the meaning of motherhood, the importance of shared history, and the power of hatred. Mandisa asks, in particular, what it means for a people to have been traumatized for generations. She believes that the original hatred that caused thousands of cattle-worshipping people to kill all of their very means for survival never left the hearts of the Xhosa people. The white government has seen this hatred and has tried to destroy it. Their means of doing so involved lying to the children in their schools, as Tatokhulu tells his granddaughter: "What can one expect? After all, they are paid by the same Boer government... the same people who stole our land" (123). Education is a means of liberation, which is why black people had to rely on themselves and their oral history in order to know the truth. The school system has failed the black communities, and schoolchildren were left to deal with this terrible hatred on their own. This is the situation Mxolisi was raised into, and it is the situation that spurred him to violence.
Hatred itself is also examined in this chapter. Mandisa asks what hatred means, and by describing it as a "storm in the heart," she is able to describe a state of being that is wild and uncontrollable. Tatomkhulu teaches his granddaughter that hatred is more powerful than any true storm can be: "You can run from those and seek shelter elsewhere, perhaps escape from them all together" (123). The heart, by contrast, cannot be run away from: "How does one run away from the heart, one's own or that of another?" (123). The reader is finally taught about the origins of the oppression of black people in South Africa and learns along with Mandisa not to trust the white man in any regard. When they arrived, the settlers took what they wanted from the people already living there. By introducing money, "the button without a hole." to the Xhosa people, they took advantage of the weak state of the community in order to gain control of the group and create a dependency. The injustice of this situation was never able to be reversed, even though the population of black people far surpassed that of white people in the country. Mandisa writes of a situation in which the eruption of this hatred into violence is more than inevitable—it is 300 years in coming.
Not only does Tatamkhulu's history lesson teach Mandisa about hatred, but it is also a powerful metaphor for the interaction of the two groups in the country. On the day of the sacrifice, after the Xhosa people have destroyed all of their wealth and most sacred animals, they all look to the sky in the hope that the sun would turn back at the zenith and set in the east. This would be a sign that the settlers have been successfully pushed out of the country, and when the sun met the horizon in the east they would all be driven into the ocean and killed. The Xhosa believed their crops would return and their cows would come back to life. Crucially, prosperity could only return to the nation upon the death of the settlers. On that fateful day, however, "the sun went and died in the west" (125). Not only did the Xhosa people learn that their sacrifice was not successful, but any hope for the nation and its future prosperity also died at the hands of the settlers. While the Xhosa suffered, the settlers prospered, the "abelungu remained stubbornly alive and well, their mines greedily hungry for the strong hands and arms of young men" (126). They were able to take advantage of the weak state of the natives and exploit their labor. The future of the two groups was outlined clearly.
In this chapter, Magona addresses the power of words in two ways. The first way she does this is through Mxolisi's silence. Mxolisi is not able to confess to murdering Amy, but he is also unable to deny it: "No answer denying that he used a knife on the dead girl came from my son's lips" (136). This silence mirrors that of his childhood when the trauma of telling the police officers where to find his friends silenced him for years. In this situation, like that of Amy's death, Mxolisi became an actor in a larger drama. Through his inability to confess to the murder, Mxolisi mirrors his younger self, quieted by the weight of what he has done. The second way Magona addresses the power of words is through Mandisa's inability to think the word murder. As in the example above, Mandisa does not use the word murder when describing her reuinion with her son, choosing to call the act the use of a knife. Although she finally knows the truth, Mandisa is not yet able to address what her son has done. This is something she faces sometime between the time of the murder and writing the novel, as we see with the opening line of the novel, "My son killed your daughter" (5).
Finally, in this chapter we see Mandisa come to terms with her son's actions. On one hand, she is finally forced to face the truth, and although this does nothing to lessen her pain and her fear, it allows her to be finally reunited with her son. On the other, we are able to see her begin to accept her son's actions within the frame of her community's history. Her white teachers taught her that the Xhosa's sacrifice was a sign of ignorance, and should be looked down upon. Tatomkhulu disagreed with that interpretation: "He explained what had seemed stupid decisions, and acts that had seemed indefensible became not only understandable but highly honorable" (127). In many ways, Mandisa is attempting to convince Amy's mother of the same about her son.
