July's People

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss racism and apartheid.

July, a servant, begins his day by serving his employers tea, as “his kind” (South African Black people) have always done. However, this morning, he has no door to knock on, and the can of milk he brings them is “jaggedly” opened.

As Maureen Smales, his white “madam,” awakens, she finds herself in a lowly mud hut with a dirty thatched roof. Gradually, her sense of dislocation yields to jumbled memories. As the daughter of the “shift boss” of a gold mine, she recognizes the close, dung-floored hovel as the traditional abode of Black laborers; in fact, she has stayed in similar huts (rondavels) while on vacation.

This, however, is no vacation: As she wakes up beside her architect husband and their three children, she recalls the dangerous voyage that brought them here. For three days and three nights, she lay hidden on the floor of their bakkie (pickup truck) as her husband, Bamford “Bam” Smales, sleeplessly drove away from their comfortable house in the city. Now, in this dark hovel, the seats of the bakkie have been repurposed as beds for the children; the only other furniture is an iron bed and part of a damaged stove.