Barbara Mutch - The Housemaid's Daughter

I had never heard of Barbara Mutch before and I picked the book off a bookshelf to kill boredom that comes with travelling.  The book took me longer than normal to read because the subject matter was complex and I had just discovered facebook. I nonetheless eventually completed reading the book which gave an account of times just before and during apartheid.

It is interesting that I finished reading this book at a time when Trevor Manual was  quoted as infamously telling reporters at the government leadership summit in Pretoria that "We [government] should no longer say it's apartheid's fault." Whereas Trevor undoubtedly had a valid point that people needed to "move on", he nonetheless cause a storm  by presupposing that the legacy of apartheid could just be wished away.  I digress, but opine that Trevor would still have articulated his views without distracting from the fact that the evils of apartheid - like those of slavery and the holocaust - cannot just be wished away.

Barbara Mutch's story is the story of a family that fell apart. It is principally the story of Cathleen who leaves Ireland to marry her sweetheart in the Karoo. Cathleen - though white -  is a very lovable character married with two children. She is the matriarch of the home. She loses her son to a war (and its demons), her daughter to the worries of this world, and her husband who, though present, is absent.  In the big scheme of things her marriage and family life is one of convenience but she is stuck in it for better or for worse. She befriends her house girl and the house girl's daughter even though they are from a different race. The house girl's daughter is named after Cathleen's sister in Ireland. Although facebook has not been invented yet, Cathleen finds solace in her diary where she rants and the letters that she sends to her family in Ireland.

As fate would have it, Ada (her housemaid' daughter) gives birth to a mixed race child whose father is Cathleen's husband. This happens at the time when the laws against mixing of races have reached the Karoo. The child - a daughter - belongs  neither to the whites nor to the blacks Not only is Cathleen a 'laughing stock' amongst her white friends but it also puts her husband  the risk of arrest  because this copulation across the races is against the law. 

What is also "fascinating" is that Ada is ostracised by her own people for betraying them. The problem is not that she had a child out of wedlock but that she had a child with a white man.  The tragedy is that she cannot explain that her master took advantage of her. The betrayal her people feel, runs deep.  If Ada must have a child, she could go ahead and do so but not with a white man. That was unforgivable.

The book does not seek out to justify anything (it isn't even an anti - apartheid system book) but simply to tell a story of a time and place. Surprisingly, my best character is Cathleen. One cannot help but admire her strength and fortitude in the midst of a life that is so tough. She finds solace in the cards that God - in his wisdom - has dealt her.