plants. Sometimes they will bloom, sometimes they will be quiet, with just their leaves. And I’ll plant trees all around. There are rocks near the dam if you can drive me there.”
“And the plants?”
“An old man will give some to me.”
“It’s a lot of work.”
“Yes. You would pay me the same whether I do a lot or a little work. If I just wander around and splash a little water here and there, the day will go by so slowly, I’ll fall asleep under a tree, and you’ll fire me.”
She laughed. He was a handsome man with an open, intelligent face. She wondered what his story was, whether she’d ever know. “Have you eaten anything today?”
“No, I have not.”
“How do you plan to work without eating? I’ll ask Itumeleng to give you porridge in the mornings. And food for your dog. And you don’t need to work tomorrow or Sunday.”
“I wish to work all seven days.”
“I’ll pay you the same amount.”
“You cannot pay me for the days I’m not working.” He was quiet a moment, looking at the ground. “If I work seven days a week, I earn thirty rand a month. If I work five days a week, I will earn twenty-three rand a month.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Five over seven is equal to the unknown divided by thirty. Therefore, seven times the unknown equals one-fifty. One-fifty divided by seven equals a little less than twenty-three rand.” He stopped, realizing he’d said too much.
“You never worked in a garden before, did you?”
He hesitated. “No, mma.”
“How far did you go in school?”
“I completed university. Before I came here, I was in fact in my first year of medical school.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If I had told you, you would not have hired me. I have no papers. I came with nothing. Only the clothes on my back. You are angry?”
“No.”
“It was necessary to leave for political reasons.”
“You don’t need to say anything more. I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know.”
“Thank you, mma. I will come Saturdays to water the trees. Two days is too long for them to go without water.”
“Well, then, Sunday and Tuesdays are holidays. You will have two days off each week, and you’ll be paid thirty rand for five days.”
“Yes, madam.”
“And don’t come on Tuesday. And please don’t call me madam.”
He smiled, put both hands together, and bowed slightly. “I understand, mma.”
“Can I ask you how old you are?”
“Twenty-seven years old, madam. I worked three years before I attended university. My mother’s employers helped me go to university and then medical school. I was very lucky.”
Lucky? How could he say such a thing?
He went to the faucet and turned on the hose.
8
Lawrence returned home from Swaneng the following weekend. When he stepped from the truck, he kissed Alice’s cheek, not her mouth. It was impossible for her to know whether the coolness between them these days was temporary or permanent. Since coming to Botswana, certainties eluded her.
Daphne had recently gone into heat. Lying on the cool cement of the kitchen floor, she panted happily, leaking blood. The male dogs were gathering outside the window for the third night in a row. When darkness fell, they would moan and fight and howl while the Siren paced restlessly.
Lawrence and Alice got ready for bed and climbed in. Their goodnight kiss felt like two blind animals bumping into each other in the dark. A small whimper rose to Alice’s lips, the kind of cry Daphne made to the dogs on the other side of the wall. Lawrence felt miles away, as though his heart were buried down a mine shaft. She wanted to shake him, tell him to wake up. She could almost hate him when he was like this. Outside, she could hear the dogs at it, circling the house, cracking the bones of their desire, woofling and digging, the smaller ones jumping up and down on their hind legs. Alice found it creepy imagining them out there, a gang of sex-starved ruffians under the Southern Cross, vying for young Daphne in her first blooming.
Lawrence had promised Daphne’s former owners, who’d returned to Scotland, that she’d be bred with Peter Ashton’s dog, who had an equally good Alsatian pedigree. Alice would never have made a promise like that. She didn’t trust all that hyperbreeding. She liked mutts. They were better adjusted, and their names were better. Daphne. How pretentious, but that was the name she’d come with. Alice lay in the dark imagining Peter Ashton