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a woman he hardly spoke to. In his mind, he was transported. He was in Bombay for a visit, young, eager, fresh from South Africa, feted by his uncle and aunt. He saw himself, as though he were watching a documentary film, standing out on his uncle’s tiny balcony, smoking a cigarillo, and listening to an unknown girl chatting on the balcony above. His curiosity had risen so high that he had leaned forward and looked up. That had been his first glance of his future wife. Then, as now, she had been hanging out a basket of washing, a waving line of pure white against the whitewashed walls and the sun bleached sky. His eyes had swum with red outlines for a moment, and when he recovered he had to squint to see her. She had also been wearing white, as though she were part of the conspiracy of light that glowed against him. But she was attractive - he had seen more beautiful, more conventionally pretty girls, but this one was tall and lithe and laughing, and he had liked her.
     
    “Shall I make some tea?” Miriam asked, her voice small in the large, quiet space of the shop. He looked up and nodded, and she went into the kitchen. At the range, she stopped abruptly and gripped the cold edge of the stove, and waited while a surge of dizziness passed over her. She closed her eyes for a few moments, and then looked out through the window for the first trucks. There was no sign of them yet, but she could see Robert walking slowly towards the shop from the store room, carrying a huge squash in each arm. At the back door he bent very slowly at the knees, so that his bony legs almost buckled, and lowered the vegetables gently onto the ground. He had dropped one earlier, and Omar had shouted at him not to be so clumsy - who did he think would buy a bruised squash? Robert had not been able to think of anyone who would, and had therefore accepted his admonishment with good grace, and now he carried the squashes with utmost care, cradling them in each of his thin sinewy arms as delicately as if they were chubby children. His boss shouted at him frequently, and although there were often times when he was sure he had not done the thing he had been accused of, he bore all the shouting in silence and apologised where necessary. It had never occurred to him that he might defend himself - it was not his place.
    Anyway, no amount of shouting could make him unhappy to be working for these people. Although his wage was small, his mistress would often send him home with leftover food, or bits of material for his mother to use in sewing clothes, and she treated him well. She trusted him with the children. He knew about children - he himself was the second of seven surviving brothers and sisters. Robert’s eldest brother was in Johannesburg, working in the mines. His family had celebrated when his brother had left for the city, for they were hungry for income, and Johannesburg was were the jobs were. But his brother lived in rough conditions, and worked in even worse ones. Robert had been there once to visit him, and had had to share with his brother a tiny bed in a concrete building that housed more than one hundred men. The beds were so crammed together that Robert felt the raw breath of the man in the next bunk upon his face for most of the night. His brother was thinner than he had been at home, and his face was worn and creased with dust. He coughed almost all the time that he was awake. The mines were dark and cramped and the air was bad, his brother said, and the hours so very long. Robert had left after three days, sorrowful at having to leave his brother there, but unable to contain his own relief at the realisation that if that was how life was in the city, he would be happy to remain in the countryside.
     
    The kettle began its high-pitched whine, and Miriam spooned two heaps of the crushed dried tea leaves into the pot, then carried a cup in to her husband.
     
    “Thank you,” he said, but he did not look up.
     
    For a short while they