‘We were able to move southwards because my father did well with the shop. Trading in jewellery. A cousin would have the right contacts, a shipment would come in. I don’t know – I didn’t pay attention much. In 1951 we moved to Constantia; the house wasn’t large, but the address was right – we’d made it. Alberta came to work for us. Her name was really Bathandwa, but my mother asked if we could call her Alberta; she liked the name, although she never explained why. Bathandwa seemed to agree.’
It happened so long ago that Marion had taught herself to think of it as something she’d once read in a book. Bathandwa had been older than Marion, mid-twenties or so. The regular cleaner of the Baumann household, Hettie, had died the year before, sick with tuberculosis in a hospital for blacks with not enough medicines, no beds. Marion was at first surprised at how young Bathandwa was. And then she was surprised by Bathandwa’s ragged ear, an ear that looked as if a dog had tried to turn it into lunch. She never found the courage to ask Bathandwa what had happened to her ear.
There was a period when the Smiths next door had no one and asked Mrs Baumann if they could borrow her girl, Alberta. For two weeks she shared her time between the Baumanns and the Smiths, and then Marion never saw her again.
One day Alberta was taking out the washing, she passed Marion in the hallway and asked if she knew that Mrs Smith next door had only nine toes, and did Marion know what had happened to the pinkie on her left foot? And that the nail on Mr Smith’s ring-finger was rotten – soon he’ll have no nail. Whitlow. Alberta said Marion’s mother had rings on her neck, red welts: did Marion know how they got there, did she notice how they came and went? So-and-so had a wooden leg from an accident at the border. So-and-so drank, her liver was finished. On it went, an inventory of scars. It made Marion, who never said anything in response, uncomfortable, but the passing remarks became a ritual of Alberta’s. Once, Marion went into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. Did you know, Alberta started, glancing over her shoulder as she stood at the sink, that Mr and Mrs Smith couldn’t fuck? He had no cock, she no pussy. ‘The children are borrowed, gifts from the gods who take pity on the weak.’
Marion had been friendly with the Smith girls, and frequently went round for tea. One day she was over at the Smiths’, eating crackers and Marmite with her friends. A commotion deeper within the house, the sound of a loud banging and Mr Smith shouting, made the girls get up and run to where his voice was coming from.
‘Dad, what’s going on?’ one of the Smith girls asked.
‘Alberta was in the bathroom.’
‘I was just cleaning up. I’ve finished work, Sir. I’m going home now.’
Bathandwa was dressed in dark-blue jeans and a red fitted top. Marion noticed the more familiar powder-blue uniform poking from the tote bag Bathandwa carried.
‘Why are you wearing my wife’s earrings? Give them.’
‘These are my own earrings, Sir.’
Slender things speckled with diamantés, dangling and almost touching her bare shoulders.
‘Nonsense. You think I’m stupid? Give.’
They all stood frozen in the passageway. Marion and the Smith girls tried to get a good look at Bathandwa, but the mass of Mr Smith was blocking most of their view.
‘But they are mine, Sir.’
His hands shot through the space and slapped her cheek.
‘And the shoes as well,’ he said.
They were new shoes, heels Bathandwa had bragged about to Marion earlier in the week.
‘Take them off.’
Mr Smith stripped the girl who cleaned his house. Near the end, when she was almost naked, he said, ‘And what’s that smell? Who told you you could use my wife’s perfume?’
Afterwards, no one spoke about it. Mrs Smith came home and raised only an eyebrow when Mr Smith told her he’d caught the girl stealing. He handed his wife the things that wouldn’t fit, shoes that were not to her liking. The Smiths finally got their own maid and the Baumanns found someone new as well. Before the woman could tell them her name, they asked if they could call her Alberta.
‘Apartheid happened, you see? Hortensia?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘All those things happened and I didn’t do anything about them.’
Hortensia noted a smell in the air. Sweat and face cream.