Just then a shiny silver Mercedes pulls up, crunching stones under its wheels on the driveway. The woman closes the door behind her and walks toward the car. She lowers her things onto the paved walkway, her handbag, uniform, and plastic bag with food abandoned. Thandi watches her bend to the driver’s side, furiously knocking on the window with her knuckles. The driver rolls down his window as she gesticulates widely with her hands, pointing at Jullette and Thandi. “Dey claim dey looking fah you, sah!”
There is something magnificent in her movement. Thandi could watch her all night. The light from the car has become a stage light. In different circumstances she would have tried to capture the wild strokes of this woman’s arms in her sketchpad, the impassioned annoyance and disbelief that shake her body like a mighty wind shakes a tree. “Look at har,” Jullette says next to Thandi, staring straight ahead with a stricken look on her face. “Actin’ like she own di place. Is like she nuh know seh she’ll pass through dis godfahsaken life without a donkey hair to har name. She spen’ har whole life cooking, cleaning, an’ protecting dese people, t’inking what belongs to dem is hers too. But is bare crumbs she scrape from dem dinnah table fi build di pride wah she ’ave. A pride weh hide di truth dat she will always deh pon har black knee, scraping.”
Two white men get out of the car. One is wearing shades even though it’s night. The silver-haired one is dressed in an army-green general’s uniform, complete with epaulets.
“You’re sure that Margot won’t be involved in this?” Thandi says to Jullette in a whisper between clenched teeth while observing the people in the driveway.
“She’s not,” Jullette says with a smirk. “Dis is your show.”
“No need to worry, I’ll handle it, Peaches,” the man wearing the shades is saying to the maid. “You can go home now.” The woman gives Thandi and Jullette a final glance before picking up her things and hobbling toward the front gate like a bird, her neck long as if to match her annoyance. Thandi could have sworn that she was looking up into the woman’s flared nostrils earlier at the door; but her fading, small, off-kilter frame makes her seem less intimidating. Once she steps through the gate, Thandi lets out a breath. The two men make their way from the driveway toward the front door. The man wearing the shades jingles his keys in his pocket. Right behind him, the general takes stiff, measured steps.
“You’re early,” the man wearing shades says to Jullette, his tone as casual as his gait. “And I see you’ve brought a friend.”
“Yes.” Jullette gives the man a toothy grin. Here she doesn’t seem like Thandi’s friend at all, but someone who came to do business. Her demureness is a tool. “My friend is new. I’m here wid har to mek har feel comfortable,” Jullette says. Thandi cringes at Jullette’s inability to switch from backward patois to standard English in the presence of these men. Its cadence clashes with the beauty and elegance of the setting. Like two Dutch pots banging into one another. Thandi imagines the smirks on their faces when they turn away. But Jullette doesn’t seem to care about the way she sounds. She seems confident, like she owns some part of them. They laugh with her, not at her. Thandi doesn’t get the joke.
“What is your friend’s name?” the man wearing the shades asks Jullette. Thandi senses him looking at her, though he doesn’t address her directly.
“Thandi,” Jullette answers.
The man lifts his hand to shake hers. A gesture that surprises Thandi, since she has never shaken anyone’s hand before in greeting.
“Alphonso,” he says.
“Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Sir?” The man guffaws. “Just call me Alphonso.”
Embarrassed, she apologizes. She cannot see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, though she feels him studying her, the revelation denting a comma at the sides of his mouth. It forces her to pull her hand away. But he holds on to it.
“You’re quite stunning,” he says. “Are you a model?” He’s still holding on to Thandi’s hand.
“No, I’m—”
He puts a finger to Thandi’s lips. This catches her off guard. His touch is gentle, like a soft kiss. The same intrusion by someone else would have annoyed her, made her slap the finger away. But she does nothing. “You should learn to take a compliment,” he says, removing his finger.
Thandi feels perspiration trickling down her sides. God forbid if it soaks the skintight dress. “Uhm, where is the bathroom?” she asks.
“Come. I’ll gladly show you.” Alphonso gently pushes the front door with his shoulder. As soon as it opens into the well-lit living space, Thandi notices the paintings. “Follow me.” He bends slightly like a portly butler, one hand behind his back, the other gesturing for her to step farther inside. There are paintings and sculptures everywhere. Thandi resists the urge to turn and turn like the bamboo ceiling fan spinning above their heads. Alphonso must have noticed her noticing everything, because he slows to her pace.
“You like?”
“It’s like a museum,” she says.
“I’m a collector.”
“You live here?”
“Sometimes.”