grew beside an old colonial-style house with whitewashed walls and a wraparound porch. An odd noise, like an untuned radio, came from the rear of the house. He walked farther down the road to see what the noise was. Birds babbled in vine-shaded cages that hung from the back and side of the house and from the shade trees. Bee eaters in blues and yellows and greens sat in cages, parrots behind bars shrieked into the trees, parakeets twittered next to their mates. It was a carnival of birds, an amazement, although truth be told, it was sad to see them in cages. What is a bird if it can’t fly? It might as well be a cockroach.
A gardener toiled in the yard, and Isaac walked on. Three houses farther up the road he asked for work and was turned away. At a fourth house, he was met by a barking Alsatian. White Dog put her tail down and slunk off to the side of the road. There was no fence or gate around the yard, and he saw no gardener. He put his hand out to the barking dog, thinking, she’ll either bite it or sniff it. She did neither. He walked past her into the yard, wondering whether she was one of those stinkpot dogs who make you think they’re your friend and then bite you on the ass. He wouldn’t turn around. He’d make her think he wasn’t scared, even though a little animal scurried up and down his backbone, yelping in fear. Alsatians had always spooked him.
A white woman came out of the house. She was dressed as though she was going to work.
“I am looking for gardening work, madam.”
“Have you any experience?”
“Yes, madam.” It was the truth, if it was life she was asking about.
“Do you have references?”
“No, madam. A thief took my suitcase on the train, but in any case, I am an excellent worker.”
“Your English is not bad. You’re from South Africa, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Are you here illegally?”
He thought it best not to answer.
“Well, I don’t mind either way. Our gardener left this past week—his mother took sick in Francistown. I’ll give you a try and pay you in food today. If you do well, you can come back tomorrow.”
“Thank you, madam.”
She led the way to the side of the house. “I’d like a bed of flowers here.”
“Marigolds?” It was the only flower name he knew in English.
“Not marigolds. There are already too many marigolds in the world. I don’t know what kind yet.”
“Yes, madam, thank you.”
She handed him a spade, and he set to work. White Dog sat solemnly near the road, her paws crossed. Isaac dug, squaring the corners of the garden carefully, turning over the dirt and breaking up the clods with his hands, sifting it through his fingers so the smallest seed could survive. He worked steadily, not stopping for anything. When he finished, he paused. The woman came out, as though she’d been watching him.
“Why did you make it square?” she asked.
“I thought this is the way you would like it.” White people were always making square corners.
“Don’t think about what I like. Think about what’s beautiful. Straight lines look like a cemetery.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Please don’t call me madam. Have you eaten today?”
“No, mma.”
“What do you like?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What do you like to eat?”
To be asked such a question. “I like meat,” he said quickly, then thought he might have sounded too bold.
She didn’t look bothered. “I’ll ask Itumeleng to bring you meat at noon when we have it. Have you met her?”
“No, madam.”
“She’s here every day. If you have questions when I’m at work, you can ask her. Give this bed some curves and then please put water on the trees in the back. They’re new, and need watering every day.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Please don’t call me that. When you call me madam, I feel like I’m a hundred years old.”
He smiled and then grew serious. “What must I call you?”
“Call me Alice.”
“Madam, I cannot.”
“Well, then.” She shrugged helplessly. “Don’t call me anything.”
5
When she’d first come here, Alice found that there were no basements in Botswana. Life was lived in the god-eye of light so bright, it felt as though you could hold your hand up to the sun and look through it to bone. How huge the sky was, broken by nothing. Birds flew into it and disappeared, like stones in water.
Lying in bed in the heat next to her sleeping husband, she wondered whether this was what