Summary
Mandisa arrives home and faces the aftermath of the murder. She does not yet know that her son was involved, and anxiously waits for him to come home. Upon arriving, roughed up and missing a shoe from the chaos of her trip, Mandisa encounters Siziwe. Siziwe at least suspects her brother has been involved in the incident, but she refuses to admit it to her mother. She tells her mother that Lunga is home, but doesn't know where Mxolisi is. Although it is clear that she suspects something, Mandisa reads her hesitation as a lack of care for her brother. Mandisa asks when Siziwe last saw him, and the daughter responds with a "disquieting look," an "incongruous marriage of haughty indifference and naked pity" (33). Siziwe flees, and Mandisa makes her way to her room. She wonders at her daughter's behavior, noting that Siziwe didn't notice the state that she was in.
Mandisa worries. “All I wanted," she recounts, "was the knowledge, the certainty, that all three of my children were home” (33). 45 minutes after her arrival, her neighbor, Skonana, interrupts her stress. Mandisa is annoyed by her arrival and becomes even more annoyed when Skoana asks after her missing shoe. Never mind about that, Mandisa tells her, then asks: "What has been happening here? What have you people been doing to our lovely township while we were busy sweating at work?" (35). Much of what Mandisa learned on the bus is confirmed by Skoanna, who was home at the time of the murder. Her neighbor tells her that a "mlungu" (white) woman has been killed, to which Mandisa, surprised that just one death inspired such commotion, replies "One?" (35). But one is enough, certainly enough, to change their lives forever.
Guguletu is a very violent place, and to live there is to hear of a new incident every day. Black people are killed, raped, stolen from, and assaulted with little to no consequence. But to kill a white woman is a new occurrence. It is a violence that brings dire consequences with it, and Mandisa can see them coming: "What would the police do to us?" (36). The police are not a positive presence in Guguletu. At best, they are a "source of irritation," but at their worst, they are propagators of oppression, "a presence we dread, an affliction" (36). They are "perpetrators of evil," who "live in the benign atmosphere cultivated by that corruption" (36). In their presence, crime has thrived and overtaken Guguletu. Peace and safety are fragile. People leave for work and don't know if they will be home for dinner.
Mandisa is already shaken by the news her neighbor has given her, but she has more. She tells Mandisa that it was schoolchildren who killed the white woman ("Who else would do such a mad thing?") (37). This causes Mandisa to detect a bit of scorn in her neighbor's tone, as Skoanna never had children of her own and was vocal about her opinions on the youth of Guguletu. Mandisa gets annoyed and begins to usher Skoanna off, so she might be able to worry in peace. But Skoanna is not finished sharing the information she has. It happened down the street, she tells Mandisa, and each word "rolled off her tongue as a bullet from a gun" (37). Mandisa, wounded and worried, listens as Skoanna relates that last of the information—that Amy was dragged out of her car and stabbed.
Analysis
This chapter teaches us about womanhood in Guguletu. Before Mandisa knows to worry about Mxolisi, it is Siziwe she worries about. Siziwe is vulnerable in the chaos, and on her way home, Mandisa worries that her daughter will be raped. Rape, along with all other forms of violence, is common in Guguletu. Mandisa is able to relax a bit when she sees Siziwe at home, but a question of the relative worth of women arises when Mandisa learns that the schoolchildren have killed a white woman. Although the police perpetuate violence in Guguletu and do nothing to protect black women from the terror they face daily, they will rip the township apart in defense of one white woman. This is an example of the horrible injustice black women faced daily in apartheid South Africa, vulnerable under a regime that had no regard for their lives.
Magona uses dramatic irony in this chapter. Both the reader and Siziwe know that Mxolisi has been involved in the murder, but Mandisa has not yet heard the news. As she receives more information on what happened, we see each new fact wound her, and are forced to imagine how the unbearable weight of the truth will eventually hit her. We are made to understand Mandisa's relation to the violence as observers, and we see her horror without the shame that plagues her in the moment. Although she will forever be implicated in her son's sin, at the moment of its occurrence, Mandisa was just as shocked as everyone else.
The reader learns more about the terror of living in Guguletu. Mandisa expands on her description from the previous chapter in order to show how the township worsened from the bleakness of her youth. In this chapter, Magona introduces the police as antagonists in the novel. As arms of the government, the police worsen the black South Africans' plight. Instead of upholding the law, the police institute lawlessness in Guguletu. Because of their lack of regard for black life, they allow violence to fester in the township. In fact, they participate in violence and are responsible for the deaths of many innocent people. The police are the force that paraded through Blouvlei, destroying homes and herding people like livestock into their new towns. Although they work for the government, they are a different entity. While the government sends cruel mandates from Cape Town, the police are the vicious lackeys who enact them.
In this chapter, Magona uses simile to describe Mandisa's shaken mental state. As Skoanna tells Mandisa what she knows about the murder, Mandisa is affected in ways that can only be described through the imagery of violence. For example, when Skoanna tells Mandisa that the murder happened down her street: "Each word rolled off her tongue as a bullet from a gun bang! bang! bang! bang!" (37). Magona shows that although Mandisa's wounds aren't physical, she has not been left unscathed. She is shaken by the terrible news, and it steals her words. She can't make herself ask how Amy was murdered: "Couldn't come out and say out loud—how did the children kill this woman? as though I were talking about the slaughter of a chicken" (37). The absurdity of the event, coupled with its gravity, silences Mandisa. The terrible event has made her miserable, miserable even before she has learned the worst news of all.
Magona ends the chapter with sensory imagery. As Skoanna tells Mandisa that Amy was murdered by knife, she makes a motion with her hands: "Her right fist, thumb up, plunged into the cupped palm of the left hand" (37). The motion makes a striking noise, "softer than that produced by two hands clapping against each other... A thunk, lacking sharpness but heavy as hell" (37). The "heavy" noise accentuates the weight of the news she is departing on Mandisa. The imagery helps the reader hear the noise with Mandisa. In doing so, they feel the heavy thunk of Mandisa's heart, weighed down by all that she has learned so far. A chapter full of depictions of the most terrible things hands can do is appropriately ended with the image of them communicating something beyond words.
