Summary
In this chapter, Mandisa and her family recuperate from the police raid. Her fear has reached its maximum point, and she is plagued by fearful questions about what is going on. But at the same time, the police have brought with them "an army of answers" (115). These answers, although they are for the most part unacknowledged by Mandisa, are powerful: "flooding us into a state of psychotic paralysis...the knowledge plunged us into despair" (115). In the wake of the terrifying raid, the family gathers around this new information and tries to make sense of what they have learned, with "no end to the insights, suggestions, proposals, and guesses gushing out of our mouths" (115). Before they can make any true progress in this, Skoanna knocks on the door.
Skoanna has come to warn the family of neighborhood gossip. This was already on Mandisa's mind, as she had wondered "what did the neighbors think of the commotion?" as soon as the police left (115). Mandisa was taught in her childhood to fear a tarnished reputation. Her community's caring is often interpreted as nosiness, and she knows that her neighbors must have had a close eye on the situation. Skoanna is shocked, her "eyes were fairly popping out of their sockets," as she pretends not to know what has happened: "what is this lawaai (noise), in the middle of the night?" (115). Dwadwa is not pleased with the interruption, and he responds curtly and asks her to leave so that the family might "try and put ourselves together without further interruption," as they have "had enough of that for one day, wouldn't you agree?" (115).
Once Skoanna has angrily left, Mandisa turns to Dwadwa in anger, but he tells her that if she is so interested in gossip she might as well follow her neighbor out. We are allowed insight into their relationship as Mandisa grows annoyed with her husband and his tendency to ascribe any person who annoys him to her: "'Your child' and 'Your friend' or 'Your neighbor'" (116). He moves on quickly from the argument, and Mandisa is left staring at his back: "There's nothing more irritating than taking offense when the person who is the source of that is oblivious of your anger" (116). This segment offers some levity and comedic relief in a moment of terror for Mandisa. We are brought back into the pain of her situation as she leaves Dwadwa to look for her children. As she looks for the two at home, she thinks of the one who isn't, the one for "whom, at that moment, my very arms ached" (116).
Lunga and Siziwe have reacted to the police raid in different ways. Lunga's injuries were superficial, and it is important for Mandisa to catalog them and realize that he will survive. Siziwe, on the other hand, "was a wreck" (116). Mandisa finds her in the dining room, sitting with her back against the wall and her head against her knees. As Mandisa turns to tend to her daughter, they are interrupted by another neighbor, Qwati. Qwati is an older woman with swollen varicose veins that are bandaged up all over her legs. She, too, is sent away from the home by Dwadwa. Siziwe has not noticed Qwati's arrival and quick departure. She is in a panic. Her eyes are "big and round, pushed out as those of a tadpole in a drying ditch," and from deep in her throat comes the "panicky cooing of a frightened dove" (117). Mandisa brings her child to her bedroom and lies her down on the bed. She shakes the girl from her shoulders in an effort to stop the continuous cry and relentless shivering.
Mandisa brings Siziwe tea, which stops the fearful noises from coming. Siziwe sits up and stares at the wall, unblinking. Although Mandisa does not yet recognize it, this is the moment that the girl comes to terms with what her brother has done. She lies back as if asleep, and Mandisa watches her for a while, "as though she were a baby only hours old" (117). As soon as she tries to creep away, Siziwe calls out for her mother, with a cry of "one in darkest despair" (117). She begins to cry, but she will not tell her mother why she is crying. She tells her mother that Mxolisi had come home before Mandisa had arrived from work. He went into the hokkie to hide something and then quickly left. As soon as she tells her mother this, she tenses up and "something" comes over her face "like a shutter" (118). She becomes "cagey like a fox," and stops speaking (118). Although Mandisa presses, Siziwe does not offer her mother any more information, so Mandisa leaves her in her bedroom.
Finally, Mandisa is left to tend to herself. She is more afraid than ever: "all the fear and anger I'd kept in check since those men had come and woken us welled up and mingled with this new fear of what Siziwe had almost told me" (118). She sits down in a chair and begins to sob. Dwadwa lays a light hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. As he leaves for work, he asks if she will be alright. She responds that she must stay at home, in case Mxolisi decides to come back. "What if he doesn't," Dwadwa asks her, and this causes her to respond with conviction, "Mxolisi always comes home" (118). Dwadwa tells her not to bother, that Mxolisi probably knows that the police are looking for him and will be hiding. Mandisa asks Dwadwa why the police are after her son, and he responds incredulously and unkindly: "How long have I told you that this child will bring us heavy trouble one day because of this long foot of his?" (120). She has no response to this, so he pushes on: "Don't say I never told you so, this son of yours... one shushu day, you mark my words, one shushu day, wait and see... he will come here dragging such a thorny bush of scandal, you won't know what to do with yourself or where to hide your eyes" (120).
Analysis
Denial is a key theme in the novel, as Mandisa denies what her son has done for as long as she can. Although the police bring answers about Mxolisi's whereabouts with them, primarily that he is in hiding and that he is in trouble, Mandisa is not yet ready to face the terrible truth of her son's involvement in Amy's death the day before. Although the police raid brought "all the answers," it has also "not told us a thing" (115). All of Mandisa's family members are ready to accept the truth, but they seem unable to admit what they know to Mandisa. The weight of what she is going to come to know causes them to treat her abnormally, as Lunga retreats, Siziwe acts cryptically, and Dwadwa acts brusquely.
Siziwe tries to tell her as much as she can but seems either to know that her mother isn't ready to accept the truth, or is unable to be the one to devastate her so completely. Still, some part of Mandisa knows what Siziwe is trying to tell her: "Or what I feared, and refused to accept, she had been trying to tell me" (118). The chapter ends with a significant moment of foreshadowing from Dwadwa's character, who has an "I told you so" moment with his wife. Although he doesn't tell her what Mxolisi has done, he tells her that he has warned her in the past of the scandal Mxolisi would one day bring to the family. This is an interesting moment because it shows that while Mandisa had not seen the murder coming, others have. Although Dwadwa is described as a simple laborer by Mandisa, he is able to see the violence that will erupt out of Mxolisi's political action long before Mandisa knows to worry about her son.
Mandisa uses the imagery of animals often in this chapter as she analyzes her daughter's behavior in response to the police raid. When describing Siziwe's initial terror, Mandisa uses the image of a tadpole in a drying ditch and of a panicked dove letting out a "deep dull growl, a trembly sigh, filled with blind despair" (117). Both of these comparisons describe helpless animals in distress. Both the dying tadpole and panicked dove are unable to help themselves, and so are overcome by the purely physical manifestations of their terror. Comparing characters to animals is an important motif that Magona utilizes. She often does so when the characters are robbed of some humanizing characteristics, like autonomy. Later in the chapter, Siziwe acts "cagey as a fox" in response to her realization of her brother's culpability (118). Again, we are provided an image of defensiveness, although it is devoid of the helplessness of the previous two comparisons.
In this chapter, we gain more insight into Mandisa's relationship with Dwadwa. Their relationship is strained by this occurrence with Mxolisi, especially since Dwadwa is not Mxolisi's biological father and so does not take full responsibility for the boy or his actions. Although Mandisa has had a few long-term relationships in her lifetime, it is only her relationship with Dwadwa that she remarks upon fondly. She is appreciative of his honest, straightforward nature. Although he is shown being brusque with her and their neighbors in this chapter, he is gentle with Lunga when he helps him recover from the attack, and gentle with his wife when she is crying at the kitchen table. Mandisa paints a picture of the family that Mxolisi came from, and it is not the kind of family one would typically expect to breed a murderer. Although the parents are overworked, and the children have been failed by their schools, they are loving and invested in each other's lives. They pick each other up after this act of terror by the police, tending to wounds both physical and psychological.
