Johanna

I steered the little hatchback between the corrugated iron shacks. The car’s wheels rolled along the plateaus on either side of a veritable canyon running along the middle of the dirt path. A torrent of un-ladylike curses hovered just behind my clenched teeth. Tension tightened the muscles in my hands. My fingers held the steering wheel as if it was the key to the survival of the human race.

People around us stared as we crawled toward Johanna’s home. They stared at me. It wasn’t every day you saw a white woman driving ever deeper into one of the numerous squatter camps around Johannesburg in South Africa. This particular one wasn’t very big, which was a blessing. I love getting lost. This is not surprising, I suppose, as I’ve had more than enough opportunity to acquaint myself with the condition. Getting lost in a squatter camp in what was arguably the crime capital of the world, where people got killed by hijackers if they didn’t hand the keys of their cars over fast enough, wasn’t my idea of fun, though.

My white face alone could be lethal in a country where bitter black people, remembering years of mistreatment, wouldn’t listen to me explaining that my family wasn’t personally responsible for implementing apartheid.

“Turn right here, madam.” Johanna pointed to the next corridor between square hovels. She waved to a neighbour, her perpetual happy smile even brighter than usual. I complied, relieved that the chasm between the car’s wheels had shallowed to a mere rut, hoping the small wheels of the little hatchback wouldn’t drop into the rain-runoff ditch in the middle of the path as I turned. The folks returning from work in the suburbs seemed harmless, but hey, you never knew when a tsotsi wielding an AK47 and a massive shoulder-chip would leap out from between the dwellings and require that I walk home tonight. Or get taken home by an ambulance. Or a hearse.

“Over there, madam.” She pointed to a light blue shack where a boy of around ten played in the dirt. He looked up with eyes that said it was hard to generate curiosity in a heart so bereft of hope. I stopped in front of Johanna’s home, seeing for the first time in all the months she worked for me where she’d come from when she arrived at my house three mornings a week.

A few interested neighbours came closer. Johanna beamed at them, but then, Johanna always seemed to beam. As maids go she wasn’t a very good one, but I’m a difficult person to get along with and Johanna managed that daunting task with a smile. I kept her on, even though I sometimes had to wash the dishes again after she left.

She’d been devastated when I told her we were leaving for Ireland. And rightly so. In South Africa it was unusual for middle-class families to not have a domestic servant who did all the housework while both adults in the family had jobs outside the home. In fact, you had to fight off the pleas for work from desperate women, poorly educated, sometimes illiterate, scampering for any available positions. With unemployment hovering around forty percent at the time, it was a buyer’s market, and Johanna was damaged goods.

Johanna was half blind.

She flung the passenger door open to a chorus of greetings. The smell of unwashed bodies and smoke from cooking fires poked fingers into the car, told my nose we ain’t in Kansas any more. I got out, too, smiled and said hello as I was introduced to family and friends. Johanna proudly showed me her little baby. The three-month-old girl, chubby-cheek sweet, treated me to a gummy smile.

“Where shall I put the stuff, Johanna?”

“Right here, Madam.” She indicated a space between her shack and the next which some industrious boyfriend, perhaps a family member, had covered with smooth cement. I opened the boot and started unloading.

The pile of clothes, linen, books and household goods grew and grew. Johanna fluttered about, pulling pillows and toys from the back seats of the groaning car. Our entourage exclaimed in delight, looked over the booty and loudly discussed its merits with Johanna.

I had given her as much as I could. We would take only a suitcase and a backpack each on the plane. When the grateful car was relieved of its burden, Johanna stood in front of her small mountain, beaming as always. I don’t think I ever saw her not smiling.

“Right Johanna. Goodbye. Good luck.”

She’d told me how she’d once had a thriving industry going using a manual sewing machine to repair clothes for people. There was no electricity in the squatter camp, unless you illegally – and dangerously – hooked up your shack. Then her sewing machine had broken. The three hundred Rand it would take to have it fixed had been beyond her, and instead she joined the endless ranks of sore-footed hopefuls going from house to house in the still mostly white suburbs. “Please, madam, I’m looking for work.”

I dipped a hand in my pocket now and brought out a small roll of notes. “Micky and I wanted you to have this. But Johanna, you must use it to fix your sewing machine. Okay? Because if you do that, you can earn money for yourself.”

The sunshine smile widened even more. “Oh, thank you Madam, thank you so much.”

I can’t remember if I hugged her goodbye before getting in my car again. I hope I did. I arrived home to find someone scratching through the rubbish bags we left on the pavement for collection. There was thirty Rand still in my wallet. I handed it over, a big gift for a beggar. My usual stipend was two Rand. But hey, we were leaving. His gap-toothed grin made me feel guilty.

It seemed bizarre to be sitting on the other side of the earth two days later. The sounds and smells of Africa still echoed in my mind. Ireland was in the last grip of winter, but our rented house’s central heating kept us separate from the cold, detached.

I wondered if Johanna would keep her promise and have her sewing machine fixed. Somehow, I thought not.