1.
Night. The heat is stifling.
CHRISTINE is on all fours, scrubbing the stone floor. She is sweating profusely. She sings a circular phrase â a soft atonal moan from a church spiritual. She periodically scrapes an enamel bucket along the floor so that it remains by her side as she cleans. JULIE enters and walks circles â aching with boredom and loneliness. She sits at the table, her feet up. She rises and walks across the floor â leaving footprints. CHRISTINE follows behind and erases them without a change of expression. JULIE disappears into the night. JOHN stands at the door, watching his mother, who continues her work unawares. He has a large âthrowâ about his neck and shoulders.
JOHN: (Watching where she left.) Sheâs mad again tonight, ma. Bewitched.
Looking out across the night sky.
Itâs a dark night. Whereâs this moon? Supposed to be full.
CHRISTINE: The swallows are flying low. Weâll have rain after midnight â when this heat breaks.
JOHN: (To himself.) Ja1... Dangerous. Coming to our party like that.
CHRISTINE: Poor baby. Sheâs been wild since Baas2 Jan broke off the engagement.
CHRISTINE goes to the stove and brings JOHN a plate of food. They bow their heads and pray.
JOHN: Salt?
CHRISTINE: Hayi kaloku!3 Taste first.
He tastes and indicates for the salt. She hands it to him with playful annoyance. He adds generously. She snatches it away. He moves to his bench, and sits. He eats.
Indicating a chair at the kitchen table.
You can sit to eat. Meneer4 is away.
He glances about â then moves to the table, sits and eats.
CHRISTINE is peeling potatoes now.
JOHN: (Looking towards the stove.) Whatâs that stink?
CHRISTINE: Itâs for Julieâs dog, Diana.
JOHN: You have to cook for her dog now too?
CHRISTINE: Sheâs pregnant. Miesie5 wants me to take care of it. The bitch was in heat last month and all the pedigree dogs from around here wanted her.
JOHN: I heard them howling. I thought it was just the moon.
CHRISTINE: But our Swartkop got her. Klein Mies6 was furious. She says the dog betrayed her. (Stirring the foul fluid.) She asked me to prepare something that will kill the puppies in the womb.
JOHN: (To himself.) Mies Julie... Sheâs dancing wild out there with our boys â but she wonât let her bitch touch ours. Sheâs like all white women. Too proud. But not proud enough. Maybe sheâll blow her brains out â like her mama.
CHRISTINE: Haai!7 I donât want such talk in my kitchen. I want you to go get her and bring her back here.
JOHN: Iâm still eating, ma.
CHRISTINE folds her arms and stares at her son.
The new boys were asking how come you can you cook for me in here â and theyâre out there with no electricity or water.
CHRISTINE: This is my kitchen. They will never understand how things work around here. They come to Veenen Plaas8 and want to take what weâve been working for all our lives.
JOHN: When winter comes â our children will freeze. Meneer refuses to turn the heat and water back on until we chase the squatters away. Itâs a brutal way. Punishing us to get them off the land.
CHRISTINE: They must build their shacks somewhere else. Meneer doesnât want them living here.
JOHN: Heâs a hard boer9. By law they have the right to live here â if their parents did. A storm is coming to this farm. The workers are celebrating Freedom tonight, but there is anger on the wind out there.
CHRISTINE: This is Meneerâs land. He decides. Finished and klaar10.
JULIE enters the kitchen. JOHN stands immediately â caught in the forbidden act of sitting at the family table. But JULIE paces, preoccupied. JOHN finishes eating on his feet, and then goes to his bench to polish the Meneerâs boots. CHRISTINE stirs the concoction at the stove. Mother and son surreptitiously watch JULIE , who is unaware of their gaze.
CHRISTINE: Rain coming tonight Miesie. I can smell it. The ants are moving faster. The clouds gathering low.
JULIE doesnât respond. She lies back, full length, on the kitchen table.
Iâll go give this to Diana. It wonât be easy on her. The pregnancyâs too far already.
But Iâll do my best.
She strokes JULIEâs hair and then goes out, looking for the dog.
JOHN removes the âthrowâ from his shoulders and drops it to the floor. He begins polishing the Meneerâs boots. Nothing for sometime but JULIE â who rises and paces â and John working at the boots. JULIE is restless, preoccupied, wanting. JOHN watches her when she cannot see him.
When she can, he is inscrutable in servitude.
JULIE: I was looking for you.
JOHN: (Stands.) Do you need me, mies?
JULIE: Come back to the party and dance.
JOHN: Donât go back there looking for trouble, mies.
JULIE: Niemand sal aan my raak nie.11 My pa will shoot the black man in the head that puts his hands on me. Then heâll shoot me. Told me that once when I was little. That was my bedtime ...