The World Beneath (17 page)

doek
— Afrikaans for head scarf

duiker
— a small African antelope

hamba kahle
— Xhosa for farewell

hayi
— Xhosa for no

jislaaik
— Afrikaans exclamation of astonishment

mielie-pap
— maize porridge, a staple food in southern Africa

moegoe
— Afrikaans slang for “twit”

mos
— Afrikaans for “after all”

safe house
— a house where freedom fighters could find shelter

stoep
— Afrikaans for “veranda”

suurvygies
— a ground-growing succulent (the name translates as “sour figs”) whose fruit can be made into a preserve

tamatie-bredie
— Xhosa for lamb stew with tomatoes

tjoek
— Afrikaans slang for “prison”

tokolosh
— Xhosa for the little evil spirit who haunts bedrooms

Umkhonto we Sizwe
— “Spear of the Nation,” the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC), which was the main revolutionary organization fighting the apartheid government, and which formed the first truly democratic government of South Africa

I grew up as a privileged white child surrounded by poverty and deprivation that we largely didn’t see. This was a world in which it was illegal for a boy to live with his mother, in which black people not only did not have the vote but barely had a legitimate existence, in which those on both sides of the conflict were brutalized.

I wrote
The World Beneath
because this was the world that I grew up in, and it was why I left South Africa for England. The South Africa of 1980 — still reeling from the murder of political activist Steve Biko and from mass bannings of publications and people — was a dangerous place for a newly qualified journalist, and those who were brave enough to stay often ran into trouble with the police, like my fellow students whom I wrote about in
Class of ’79
.

The house in
The World Beneath
was the house that I lived in; and although the boy himself does not exist and neither my family nor I feature directly in the book, we too had a black maidservant whose children were being raised far away in the Ciskei, and who, like many, was supporting them with no state help; I’m not sure if she had help from the children’s father.

Our maid was also called Beauty. To my shame, I met only one of her children, just once, a bright and loving little girl whom I tried to teach to read. But she was just on a visit and soon returned to her grandparents.

I was outraged to learn that white children got their schoolbooks for free but that black children had to pay for theirs. Then, in 1976, my last year at school, the Soweto riots broke out, and it was shocking to hear of all the children who were shot.

For many children and teenagers, the apartheid era in South Africa is not even a memory. They were simply too young when the last white government was in power, and if they recall Nelson Mandela, it will be as a past president of South Africa, not as its most famous political prisoner.

This is why I wanted to write about that time and about the rise of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

First, to my daughter and son, Imogen and Dominic Warman Roup, for being unfailingly loving and encouraging. They were just seven and nine years old when the manuscript was first read aloud to them, chapter by chapter, and were extremely discerning and strict editors. Julian Roup, for keeping calm and keeping me fed through all those after-work work hours. And the usual suspects: Gail Walker, Fiona Powrie, Barbara McCrea, Jeanne Samuels, Liz Wildi, Tracey Hawthorne, Susie Rotberg, and Heather Meyerratken — my sister, and my sisters under the skin: they know what I owe them. My nieces, Kate and Hannah Walker, who, like their mother, were early readers. Joe Bond, for his encouragement during the darkest times. My beloved parents, Lynne and George, without whom none of this would have been possible. Ros Barber: poet, scholar, author of
The Marlowe Papers,
and my creative writing tutor at the University of Sussex. My editor and friend, the poet and children’s writer Mara Bergman, for her patience and her faith in my ability — even when that ability was quite invisible to me — as well as her extraordinary skill in turning this into a book for the most discerning audience of all.

Janice Warman

East Sussex

January 2015

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2014 by Janice Warman

Cover photographs copyright © by akg-images (man), The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images (woman being served tea), Tim Street-Porter/Beateworks/Corbis (home), Michele Burges/Alamy (boy)

With thanks to Tony Brutus for kind permission to include “I am the exile,” by Dennis Brutus © 1968 Dennis Brutus

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First U.S. electronic edition 2016

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2015931429

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