Mine Boy: 'One of my all-time favourite novels' (Tsitsi Dangarembga) by Peter Abrahams

Author:Peter Abrahams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was nearly midnight and the last taxi was crowded. Maisy had to sit on Xuma’s knee. There were eight of them in the back seat of the taxi and it was hard to move.

The day had gone so quickly that before they knew it, it was time for the last bus. And then they missed it. Maisy’s friends had been good. They were as full of laughter as Maisy and soon Xuma had felt that he had known them all his life.

They had behaved as though he were Maisy’s man and Maisy had looked at him waiting for him to deny it but he had said nothing. They had given them beer, not as it was made in the city, but as it was made on the farm. And they had talked, and all the time Maisy had been close to him.

He had forgotten Eliza and Leah and Daddy and Ma Plank and the mines and everything connected with the city. And it seemed that Maisy was not connected with the city. And there had been laughter, free and happy as in the old days on the farms.

They had talked much of the farms for the man of Maisy’s friend came from the farms and loved the farms much. He talked of going back to the farms when he had money to buy a piece of land. But when he did so his woman looked at him as one would look at a child playing with water.

And under the warmth of their friendliness and the freedom to talk that the beer had given him, and with his hand on Maisy’s shoulder he talked about his home and his people. About the beauty of morning on the highveld when the sun came up and the birds sang and the cattle called to be led out to pasture, and about the sweetness of his mother and the great strength of his father when he and his brother were young. And how they used to chase rabbits. He had told them all things he had done as a child and as a young man.

Then other people had come and more beer had flowed and there had been singing and much laughter and dancing. He had danced with people he had not known. He had spoken to them and they had spoken to him. And Maisy’s friend had thrown her arm round his neck and made him carry her. And Maisy had laughed and thrown her arms round the neck of her friend’s man. And all the people had clapped and laughed.

And men carried women in their arms and they made a ring and marched round the room till the room was too small and then they had gone into the yard.

And there they had made a ring and a woman had sung a song and the people in the ring had clapped and stamped their feet. And a man and a woman had gone into the centre of the ring. And they had danced.

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