Out of Bounds

Sharing secrets with Rebecca was fun, especially when Rebecca had let her visit her dim, tiny room in the servants’ quarters at the top of their block of flats. It had started with her desperate desire to see the bedspread that Rebecca had been patiently embroidering for months on “baby-sitting” nights when Veronica’s parents went

Veronica had studied their smiling black faces to see if they looked like their mother, trying to match the faces to the names she asked Rebecca to repeat.

The farm, a small holding owned by Marika’s parents, lay against a mountain in the middle of the Magaliesberg. As well as growing fruit and vegetables and keeping a few animals, the van Reenens rented out a small cottage on the farm, mostly to city visitors. It was near enough to Johannesburg for Mr. and Mrs. Martin with their only child, Veronica, to get away from the ever-increasing hustle for short breaks. They were regulars, coming two or three times a year. In fact, Mr. Martin had been visiting since he was a child, when Marika’s mother herself had been a small girl on the same farm.

hour bus ride away.
Sharing secrets with Rebecca was fun, especially when Rebecca had let her visit her dim, tiny room in the servants’ quarters at the top of their block of flats. It had started with her desperate desire to see the bedspread that Rebecca had been patiently embroidering for months on “baby-sitting” nights when Veronica’s parents went out. Although Veronica didn’t think she needed to be “baby-sat,” she liked Rebecca’s company. Together they would sit and talk at the table in the Martins’s kitchen until it was her bedtime. She had watched the bedspread growing and, when it was finally completed, had begged and nagged to see how it looked on the bed. But before she could be taken, Rebecca had made her promise, “Remember, you are not to tell your ma or pa!”

Back home in Johannesburg it was Rebecca, their maid, to whom Veronica confided. She was a far better listener than Margaret because she made sympathetic noises. With Veronica’s mother often helping out at her father’s office, or busy with Mothers’ Union meetings, they spent a lot of time together. Whether she was cooking, washing, ironing, or dusting, Rebecca was always prepared to chat. But she never came to the farm with them. Instead she went to visit her own children, living with their grandmother, a five