Introduction

Longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize • A Finalist for the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize • One of the Best Black Heritage Reads (Essence Magazine) • One of The Millions' and Refinery 29's Best Books of the Year (So Far), from One of Publishers Weekly's Writers to Watch

Loving thy neighbor is easier said than done.

Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbors. One is black, the other white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed, and are living with questions, disappointments, and secrets that have brought them shame. And each has something that the woman next door deeply desires.

Sworn enemies, the two share a hedge and a deliberate hostility, which they maintain with a zeal that belies their age. But, one day, an unexpected event forces Hortensia and Marion together. As the physical barriers between them collapse, their bickering gradually softens into conversation and, gradually, the two discover common ground. But are these sparks of connection enough to ignite a friendship, or is it too late to expect these women to change?

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Excerpt

One

The habit of walking was something Hortensia took up

after Peter fell ill. Not at the beginning of his sickness,

but later, when he turned seriously ill, bedridden. It had

been a Wednesday. She remembered because Bassey the

cook was off on Wednesdays and there were medallions

of lamb in Tupperware in the fridge, meant to be warmed

in the convection oven, meant to be eaten with roasted

root vegetables slathered in olive oil. But she hadn’t been

hungry. The house felt small, which seemed an impossible

thing for a six-bedroomed home. Still, there it was.

‘I’m going out,’ Hortensia had shouted at the banister.

According to the nurses, she wasn’t supposed to leave

him unattended but Hortensia held the nurses and their

opinions in contempt. She didn’t see the need to knock

on the door and tell him she was leaving, either. She had

convinced herself that Peter’s hearing, unlike his deteriorating

body, was intact. That he was capable of hearing

even while buried beneath blankets, hearing through the

closed door of what she called the sickbay, hearing down

the stairs, hearing as she closed the front door behind her.

She’d gone out through the pedestrian gate, looked up

and down Katterijn Avenue and turned right towards the

Koppie.

The Koppie, a small rise in an otherwise flat landscape,

was the obvious place to walk to that first time, and every

time since. Being neither fit nor young, it was important

to her (especially with her bad leg) that the slope was

gradual enough not to be a bother; but still high enough

to afford Hortensia a sense of accomplishment each time

she climbed it. She was petite and her strides were small.

Her walk had grown laboured over the years but in her

youth, with her small stature and vigorous movements,

she had been regularly confused, from afar, for a child.

Her curly black hair cut close to the skull didn’t help her

appear any more adult. Up close, though, there was

nothing childlike about the sharpness of her cheekbones,

her dark serious face, her brown eyes.

Once on top of the Koppie, Hortensia liked to trail

through the grasses and low bush. She wore her hiking

boots and enjoyed the crunch of their soles on the rough

ground. All this had been a surprise that first time;

enjoyment of nature wasn’t generally something

Hortensia engaged in. But at the advanced age she was,

with over sixty years of a wrecked marriage behind her,

this enjoyment was precarious. The slightest thing could

upset it.

The top of the Koppie was planted with wild-growing

vines and scattered pine trees. A path cut through the long

grasses and although it looked maintained, Hortensia

couldn’t help but think of the Koppie as a forgotten land.

Once it became of interest to her she quickly noticed that

the kids of the neighbourhood didn’t play there, and the

adults of Katterijn seemed to flatten the hill with their

gaze, discount its presence.

Soon after she started climbing it – to get away from a

dying man, to give him room to die faster, to catch fresh

air, she couldn’t work out which – some old bat from the

committee mentioned it; put it on the agenda in fact.

Katterijn committee meetings never failed to make much

ado of the quotidian, to wrestle the juices from the driest

of details, to spend at least an hour apiece on the varied

irrelevances experienced by the committee members since

the last meeting.

The Koppie was also a surprise because Hortensia had

reached the age of eighty-five without having understood

the meditative power of walking. How had she missed

that? she scolded herself. But now, with Peter almost

gone, it seemed right that she discover walking, that she

do a lot of it and that she not resist the contemplation

it provoked in her, the harking back to the past, the

searching. These were all things Hortensia had grown

skilled in avoiding. All her life she’d occupied her time

with work. In return her company, House of Braithwaite,

had enriched her and, in exclusive circles particularly in

Denmark, amongst interior designers and fashionably

nerdy textile-design students, made her famous.

Before the Koppie, memories were balls of fire sitting in

the centre of each earlobe. A headache, her doctor in Nigeria

had called it when it first started, but this was no headache.

It was resentment, and Hortensia found that if she looked

away from the things that were rousing – the memories –

she was not happy but nor was she in agony. And then, so

many years later, to discover walking. To discover that if

she remembered while walking, the memories were bearable.

Was it the fact of simultaneously thinking back while moving

forward in a wide-open space, unconstricted? Not that the

walking made the memories come sweetly. They

came with anger and it helped that the Koppie was deserted,

so Hortensia could shout and not be disturbed by any other

living thing except some squirrels and, judging by the small

mounds of sand, a colony of ants.

Katterijn was an enclave of some forty houses within Cape

Town’s suburb of Constantia. Not all owners lived on the

premises; many were European, leased their properties out

and boasted of their African summer homes at dinner

gatherings. The Estate had its origins as a wine farm. When

Hortensia and Peter had moved to South Africa the agency

had made a fuss about the great history of Katterijn, which

went as far back as the late 1600s. A Dutch man, Van der

Biljt (Hortensia found the name unpronounceable), had

visited the Cape, a guest of the Dutch East India Company.

Corruption was rife in the company, and Van der Biljt

was a reluctant part of a team posted by the directors to

bring order to the venality. The parcel of land was gifted

to him to sweeten the deal, encourage him to settle after

the mission was completed, should he so wish. He so did

and eventually used the land to produce wine as well as

fruits and vegetables. Some said Katterijn was the name

of his lover, a slave concubine, but others – more invested

in a de-scandalised history for the neighbourhood –

insisted Katterijn was his daughter. What about the history

of the slaves? Hortensia had asked, because it was in her

nature, by then, to make people uncomfortable. The agent

did not know anything about the slaves of Katterijn; she

directed their attention, instead, to the marvellous view of

Table Mountain.

It had been 1994. South Africa shed blood and had

elections. The USA hosted the World Cup. Nigeria beat

Bulgaria 3–0. Already sick, nothing excited Peter, but soccer

still could. And as the players put the ball through the

goalposts fair and square, a democratically elected president

in Nigeria was arrested; the previous year a perfectly

decent election had been annulled. Hortensia and Peter

agreed to leave Nigeria. After the perpetual warmth, they

were reluctant to return to England’s cold climate. South

Africa with its new democracy, its long summers and famed

medical facilities would ensure the best conditions as Peter

got sicker. They’d arrived to their new home and Hortensia

had realised that she would be the only black person living

in Katterijn as an owner. She’d felt disgust for her

surroundings, for the protected white gentry around her

and, in her private dark moments, she felt disgust for

herself as well.

Despite its beauty, Katterijn turned out to be ugly and,

to begin with, Hortensia was unable to fathom why. Not

one for uncertainty, she preferred simply not to notice the

prettiness at all, then the puzzle of how something apparently

good-looking could generate disgust would be

avoided altogether. The houses were white and green and

the lawns were wide and planted with flowers, bushes and

grass that presented a manicured wildness. Gardens made

to look like they’d sprung up that way, except they hadn’t,

they’d been as good as painted into place; branches trained

and bent into position. The Katterijners had simply

mastered a popular pastime, making a thing appear to be

what it is not. But by the time Hortensia had worked all

this out she was too tired to move again. And besides, she

wondered if such a place wasn’t just right for her.

Once a month a Katterijn committee meeting was held.

As far as Hortensia understood it, the committee had been

started by a woman named Marion Agostino who also

happened to be her neighbour, a nasty woman who

Hortensia did not like. But then again Hortensia did not

like most people. She had stumbled upon the meetings by

accident, soon after she arrived in Katterijn. No one had

thought to mention that by rights, as an owner, she was

entitled to while away time with the other committee

members. The information was let slip. At the time

Hortensia had felt that the initial omission was not forgetfulness

but deliberate, and it was easy enough to assume

that the slight was based on skin colour. Armed with the

knowledge, Hortensia had taken the short trip to Marion’s

and pressed the buzzer on her intercom.

‘It’s Hortensia James from next door.’

She had not been offended by the absence of any show

of welcome from her neighbour or the other residents.

They had not come to Katterijn to make friends, something

both she and Peter had managed without for the bulk of

their lives.

‘Wait, I’ll call my madam,’ a disembodied voice said.

Hortensia leaned her shoulder against the wall.

‘Hello?’ That must be Marion.

‘It’s Hortensia. From next door.’

‘Yes?’

This was the moment when Hortensia understood she

would not be invited in. The slight annoyed her briefly,

but she waved it away as unimportant.

‘I’ll be attending the meetings.’ It mustn’t sound like

she was asking permission. ‘The committee meetings.’

‘Hmm, I hadn’t realised you were owners.’

Hortensia still listening at the buzzer like a beggar. ‘Yes,

well, we are.’

‘Oh, well, I was confused. And . . .’ Hortensia could

almost hear Marion searching for another gear, ‘. . . is that

gentleman your husband?’ She wasn’t asking so much as

scolding.

‘Who, Peter? Yes.’ Again this hadn’t surprised Hortensia.

She’d fallen in love with a white man in 1950s London.

They had been asked on many occasions to verify their

courtship, to affirm that they were attached, to validate

their love. Within a year of being together they were

practised at it. ‘Yes, Peter is my husband.’

‘I see.’

In the silence Hortensia supposed Marion was thinking,

inching towards her next move, preparing another strike,

but instead she heard a sigh and almost missed the details

of the upcoming meeting. Marion even threw in a dress

code as a parting gift.

‘We dress for our meetings, Mrs James. We follow

rigorous decorum.’ As if she thought dignity was something

Hortensia required schooling in.

The meetings seemed to have been created for the purpose

of policing the neighbourhood; keeping an eye out ‘for

elements’, the community librarian had explained to

Hortensia. Foolishness, she’d thought, and soon been vindicated

after attending a few sessions. The meetings were a

show of a significance that did not exist. Old women, with

their wigs, their painted nails, their lipsticks seeping down

whistle lines; scared and old rich white women pretending,

in the larger scheme of life, that they were important.

Hortensia attended because the women were amusing,

nattering on in earnest about matters that didn’t matter.

She enjoyed to think she was laughing at them. But

really it passed the time, took her mind off whatever

else there was.

There were times, however, when the meetings moved

from amusing to offensive. Once, a black couple moved

into Katterijn, renting a duplex not on the Avenue but off

one of the minor roads. They had two children. A neighbour,

an old man, green at the gills and one-toothed,

complained that the children ought not to bother his

postbox. The matter was raised in committee. He claimed

that the children were assaulting his postbox, messing with

it. How did he know this, had he seen it? No, he had

smelt it when he climbed down his stoep to collect the

mail. He knew the smell of brown children. Could this

botheration come to an end? he pleaded. Hortensia had

cursed him, walked out of that meeting. And as if the

Heavens had heard the man’s plea, the botheration came

to an end – he died.

Regardless, Hortensia always went back. To mock them,

to point out to them that they were hypocrites, to keep

herself occupied.

* * *

Hortensia checked her watch. Give or take, there were

usually ten people present, ten of a possible thirty or so

owners. Tonight twelve had shown up. It was all women,

all over sixty, all white. This was Katterijn. The meetings

were usually tedious but this time apparently something

important was to happen. ‘Crucial’ had been the word

used by her neighbour Marion.

‘Evening,’ Hortensia greeted the batty librarian whose

name, just then, she couldn’t remember.

‘Hortensia, good you’re here. Today is crucial.’

As if the word had been circulated, sent out in memo

by Marion. True, there was an extra breeze of excitement.

Hortensia, as always, chose a chair near the door. She did

it deliberately to remind whoever might bother to notice

that she could leave. Well, they could all leave, but it was

particularly important to her for them to know that she

could leave first.

‘Evening, ladies.’ Marion Agostino seemed to press these

words out of her nose. Her smile was painted in a red too

red for white skin, Hortensia thought, showing her distaste,

hoping people would notice. ‘Today’s meeting is particularly

crucial.’

A shiver went round, scented in a bouquet of Yardley,

Anaïs Anaïs and talcum powder. Sometimes Hortensia

hoped the women were pretending, like she was. She hoped

they were there for the same reason, even if secretly. Not

for the discussion of fencing left unfixed, bricks from

previous works uncollected; nor for hedges to be trimmed

or three quotes to be inspected; but for the promise of

something non-threatening and happily boring with which

to pass the time, get nearer to death, get closer to being

done with it all. After so many years of living – too many

– Hortensia wanted to die. She had no intention of taking

her life but at least there were the Katterijn committee

meetings, slowly ticking the hours off her sheet.

‘So.’

Hortensia watched Marion lengthen her stubby neck

and lace her fingers together atop a manila folder obsequiously

named (in elaborate stencil) Katterijn Committee

Meeting File. That the same tattered folder had been in

use for the twenty years Hortensia had been whittling

time away at these meetings proved the kind of nonsense

they’d been up to.

‘Yes, there is this pressing matter, but I first wish to

deal with issues pending from our last meeting . . .’

True to form, Marion was circling the issue, circling.

Marion the Vulture. Hortensia looked around the table.

They were bickering about a swing in a park, just by the

highway that headed back towards the city centre. A

group of vagrants had taken possession of it. Clothes

were seen drying there, strung along the bars. Offensive

smells had been noticed. Someone resolved to take the

message to City Council. Then there was the clutch of

trees that was blocking someone’s view of Table Mountain,

but someone else’s grandmother had planted them, and

so on.

‘Okay, so now,’ Marion was readying for her big strike

of the evening. Her hair was dyed a wan colour to conceal

the fact that she’d been living for over eighty years. At

one meeting Hortensia had overheard her refer to herself

as a woman in her late sixties and almost choked on the

tepid rooibos tea she’d been drinking.

‘. . . finally, ladies, to the matter at hand. I’m not sure

if any of you realise – in fact the only reason I found out

is because of my first granddaughter, I’m sure you all recall

that she’s a law student – well, the point is, a notice has

been made of a land claim in Katterijn. The notice was

published in the Government Gazette by the . . . Land

Claims Commission.’

‘What’s that?’ Sarah Clarke asked.

Sarah was the only other person on the committee who

got so much as a word in edgeways. She was the resident

gossip, now in the unfamiliar position of asking a question,

since there was little that Sarah Clarke did not already know.

‘It’s the . . . Commission . . . it deals with land claims,

things like that.’

Hortensia rolled her eyes. Not that she cared but, naturally,

she knew all about it and said so, explained that the

Commission was set up in the Nineties to restore land

to the disenfranchised. While reaching into the hallowed

folder, Marion spat a look at her.

Marion pulled out a map of Katterijn, which she unfolded

in the centre of the table with a reverence Hortensia had

seldom seen shown for paper.

‘The Land Claims Commission, Sarah, is one of those

things with a self-explanatory name. And now,’ she rose to

point out the parcels of land, ‘a group of some . . .’ she

rifled papers, more a show of importance than a real search

for information, ‘some three families . . . well, one big

extended family, the Samsodiens.’

Marion rifled some more, until Hortensia had to concede

that perhaps she was actually looking for information and,

more than that, the woman looked nervous.

‘What’s the claim, Marion?’

‘Just a moment, Hortensia. Just a moment.’

She found what she was looking for. ‘The claims process

has just this month been reopened, so . . . what I mean is

they’d been closed since 1998 and then, for various reasons,

on the first of July—’

‘Why were they closed?’ asked a woman whose name

Hortensia could never recall.

‘Well, Dolores, they were closed because . . .’ She rifled.

‘Doesn’t say here, but—’

‘The Commission was only open to claims from ’94 to

’98. That was the window-period.’ Hortensia was enjoying

herself. It wasn’t like Marion to give away such easy

points but, while she was being generous, it was Hortensia’s

aim to collect. Their rivalry was infamous enough for the

other committee women to hang back and watch the show.

It was known that the two women shared hedge and

hatred and they pruned both with a vim that belied their

ages.

Marion looked crestfallen. She was of course accustomed

to doing battle with Hortensia, anywhere from the queue

at Woolworths to outside the post office, but these

committee meetings were like sacred ground to her, sacrosanct

– she never got over the shock each time Hortensia

questioned her authority.

‘The Commission,’ Hortensia continued, ignoring

the glare in Marion’s eyes, ‘came about as a result of the

Restitution of Land Rights Act that was passed by the thennew

government.’ Hortensia relished the use of those

words ‘new’ and ‘government’, aware of how much they

affected the women.

‘Alright, alright, Hortensia. If we can just get back

to the actual issue that we – gathered here – must deal

with. The history lesson can continue after the meeting is

over. Thank you. The Samsodiens are claiming land.

The Vineyard basically. I’m surprised the Von Struikers

aren’t here, I’ll make a call and request they attend the

next meeting. It might be their land, but something like

this will affect us all. Don’t even get me started on what

it’ll do for property prices.’

Hortensia hated the Von Struikers. Bigots of the highest

order, they owned the Katterijn Vineyard, bottled a

limited-edition white wine and sometimes a red, neither

of which Hortensia found drinkable. Not because of its

taste; even if the wines were the best thing ever, she would

have found them unacceptable. The thought of drinking

anything made by Ludmilla and Jan Von Struiker made

her sick.

‘They make me sick,’ Hortensia had once railed to Peter

after a dinner at Sarah Clarke’s, where Ludmilla had let

slip the year that she and Jannie had arrived in Cape Town

to start their ‘small venture’. ‘It took her a whole minute

to realise what was wrong with coming to South Africa

in the Sixties.’

Ludmilla pronounced ‘v’ with an ‘f’ sound and resembled

the largest of the babushka dolls. Once, when

Hortensia still deigned to entertain them, she’d offered

her cheeks to be kissed in greeting and caught a whiff of

foul breath. All these details she piled together as incriminating.

‘The claim dates back to the Sixties when the Von

Struikers acquired the land. I’ve made copies here for all

present – you can study the details so we can discuss at

the next meeting. It’s going to be a long haul.’

‘How do you mean?’ Hortensia felt like a fight.

‘Well, we’re going to challenge it of course. I certainly

won’t be allowing this and I doubt Ludmilla and Jan will

be, either. I’m sure, if pushed, these people would be hard

pressed to substantiate the claims. People looking for easy

money, if you ask me.’

‘When you say “these people” what you really mean is

black people, am I right?’

‘You most certainly are not, and I would—’

‘Marion, I’m not in the mood for your bigotry today.

I distinctly remember asking you to keep your racist

conversations for your dinner table.’

‘I beg your—’

‘Ladies. Please. Let’s try and finish the meeting. Marion,

I assume that’s all for now?’ Sarah had her uses. Thick as

she was, she made a good buffer. ‘Shall we continue at the

next meeting? Do we need to type up a formal response

to the Commission? Perhaps you want to speak to

Ludmilla first then feed back to us.’

‘Well, yes, but actually.’ Marion was smiling; so soon

recovered, Hortensia thought woefully. ‘There is one more

thing. Specifically with regards to the Jameses’ property.’

Hortensia’s ears pricked up.

‘This is a special case. Well, not case as such. It’s not a

claim but rather a request.’ Marion relished the moment

and, despite her absent-mindedness just moments before,

she appeared to have memorised all the details of this

‘special case’; she knew it word-for-word, and the spaces

in between – as if she’d written it herself.

‘I received a letter from a woman, Beulah Gierdien. She

had a grandmother named Annamarie, who was born in

1919, right here,’ Marion said and a few of the women

looked around the meeting room, half-expecting to still

find the afterbirth dangling on the back of a chair or laid

out on the plush azure carpet. ‘Annamarie’s mother was

a slave woman on the farm for which No. 10 was the main

house.’ Marion looked pointedly at Hortensia. ‘It states

here that No. 12 – that would be my property – is where

the adjoining slave quarters were, but that . . . well, that

bit is . . . I think they got their facts wrong there. I do

intend to challenge that but, anyway, where was I . . .? I

must say it’s a rather protracted and odd request.’ She was

enjoying herself. ‘There’s no money involved, Hortensia,

so you can relax.’

‘Get on with it, Marion. I need to be getting home

soon.’

‘Well, it’s precisely that home that Beulah Gierdien

seems interested in, Hortensia. Or at least one of the trees

on the property. She refers to it as a “Silver”.’

‘The Silver Tree. Yes, I have one of those. What, she

wants the tree?’

‘It’s not quite that simple.’

The librarian, Agatha, coughed. A woman, lips newly

Botoxed, poured herself some water but struggled to drink.

People stretched in their chairs; someone’s yawn cracked

and silence settled again.

‘Apparently our Silvers – your single Silver Tree and

my several – marked the edge of the properties in that

day. There were no fences. Anyhow apparently the trunk

of your Silver has some carvings on it.’ Marion arched an

eyebrow. ‘You’d need to confirm that, Hortensia, but that’s

what she’s saying were the markers.’

‘Markers for what?’

‘For where Annamarie’s children are buried. For where

Annamarie requested, in her last will and testament, that

she be buried.’ Marion was beaming.

‘She wants to bury her grandmother on my property?’

‘Correction, she wants to bury her grandmother’s ashes

on the property. The woman’s been dead a while already.’

Through the excited chatter Hortensia snapped her

fingers for Marion to hand over the documents. There

were several sheets of paper, handwritten in a neat cursive.

Hortensia started to scan the pages.

‘Perhaps, while you familiarise yourself with that,

Hortensia, we can call a break. Ladies.’ Marion, her face

beatific, rose and the other women followed suit.

‘And the reason she wrote to you?’

Marion shrugged. ‘She got the contact for the committee

via the Constantiaberg Bulletin. My guess is she assumed

the owners lived overseas and her best bet was to write

to the committee.’ It was always gratifying when outsiders

acknowledged the significance of having a local committee.

Hortensia stayed sitting; she continued reading. The

Katterijn Estate had originally been 65 hectares of land

that, as the years collected, got parcelled and sold and

parcelled and sold. By the 1960s only a small portion was

being farmed, and this was the land the Von Struikers now

owned.

In the mid-nineteenth century Annamarie’s grandfather,

Jude, had worked on the original wine farm. He’d also

formed the group of slave men used to construct most of

the buildings from that era, some of which still stood: the

post office, Beulah wrote; the library, which was actually

stables. They built the roundabout and planted most of

the trees that formed the generous groves within the

suburb. Jude was a dark man with paper-white eyes and

small feet that his wife, apparently, had teased him about.

Hortensia grimaced as she read, just the sort of memorylane

nonsense she found difficult to swallow – people

fawning over their individual and collective histories.

Jude and his wife had children as slaves, but grew old

in freedom. Their daughter, Cessie, gave birth to Annamarie.

Jude and his wife, on being granted their freedom, had

been permitted to remain on the land as workers and earn

wages. Annamarie’s parents had inherited the same agreement

and stayed on in Katterijn – raising their family.

Annamarie learned how to read. But by 1939 the Land

Act of 1913 caught up with the small family and they were

forcibly moved off the land. By then Annamarie was

twenty years old, a mother herself and a wife. Except her

first child had died at birth and, after another child died

too, her husband walked off somewhere one night and

was found floating in the lake. Father and babies were

buried under No. 10’s Silver Tree.

Hortensia looked up. Marion was standing by the

refreshments table chewing something; their eyes met.

Marion offered a smile, which Hortensia ignored and

returned to Beulah Gierdien’s notes.

After the tragedies Annamarie settled in Lavender Hill

and married again. They had a boy, Beulah’s father.

Hortensia laid the papers down.

A few of the members were milling around the tarts,

the meeting having gone on for longer than seemed bearable.

Someone had prepared flapjacks, scorned at first

(for fat content, for too-largeness) but eaten by all. People

piled their plates, filled their cups and settled back in

their seats.

‘So you see, Hortensia, this is not about your favourite

topic, the race card. For once we’re on the same side.’

Marion’s smile looked set to burst and set the world alight.

‘Not so.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Not so, Marion. We are not on the same side. You

should know this by now. Whatever you say, I disagree

with. However you feel, I feel the opposite. At no point

in anything are you and I on the same side. I don’t side

with hypocrites.’

Marion was red. And quiet.

‘I am not in agreement with you to push back on the

Samsodien claim. Let those who are justly claiming their

rights to the land – land owned by hoodlums, I might add

– let them claim it.’

‘And the Gierdien woman?’ Marion managed to let out

in a squeak.

‘This,’ Hortensia indicated the pile of papers in front

of her, ‘is sentimental claptrap and I won’t be taking any

notice of it at all. That you thought to waste precious

committee-meeting time on something so trivial is, indeed,

a puzzle to me.’

Marion’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Sarah Clarke slurped her tea. The meeting was adjourned. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. The residents of Katterijn are described as having “mastered a popular pastime, making a thing appear to be what it is not.” In what ways is this sentiment seen throughout Katterjin and South Africa at large?

2. While Marion is staying at the guesthouse after her home is damaged, she muses, “This is what it feels like to be an old woman, discarded by your own family. Money. The only thing with the power to bring some respite to old age.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

3. At a dinner party held when Marion was six years old, she told the guests, “Ma said black is the same as Kaffir.” Some “tutted their disapproval” and many laughed. What does this incident reveal about Marion’s upbringing and about the state of South Africa during Marion’s childhood?

4. After the accident with the crane leaves Hortensia injured and bed-bound, a string of nurses attempt to tend to her. One in particular gets into an argument with Hortensia after he tells her about his “buddy” at the bank who taught him the “African handshake.” Hortensia responds by asking, “Which is it that makes him your ‘buddy’? The fact that he’s black or the fact that he’s poor—or is it both?” What do you think Hortensia was getting at with her question? Do you think it was inappropriate for her to ask the question? Why or why not?

5. Bassey beat Peter “quite brutally” the first time the two played chess, yet he lost every game after. Do you think Bassey lost those subsequent games on purpose? What does this event tell us both about race relations and the relationship between housekeeper and employer?

6. Hortensia learned that in Cape Town “a smiling black woman was a dangerous weapon in its apparent innocuousness.” What does this mean and how does Hortensia deploy this weapon throughout the novel?

7. The main characters in the novel are older women, and they both reflect upon the difficulties of aging. Hortensia finds it especially annoying when the nurses speak to her a tone of voice that suggests she is “mentally deficient.” Have you witnessed this sort of thing in your own life? Did the novel make you change your thoughts about the elderly and how they should be treated?

8. How does Marion’s visit to the library serve as a turning point in the novel and for Marion?

9. The novel jumps from the viewpoint of two complex women—Marion and Hortensia throughout the novel. Why is this structure so appropriate and useful for this novel and the major themes it presents?

10. Why do you think Hortensia decided not to let the nurses in to administer the drip that was helping to keep Peter alive? Do you agree with her actions?

11. The author uses wit and humor throughout the novel in clever ways. What were some specific moments that you found especially funny? Why is humor such an effective tool in this novel in particular?

12. Did you believe Agnes’s story about the painting? Do you think she should have given it back to Marion?

13. What could Peter have meant when he told Marx, “My wife, I love her very much, but that’s the easy part”?

14. How does the relationship that Hortensia and Marion forge by the novel’s end speak to larger issues that have plagued post-apartheid South Africa?

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