Maru

Margaret Cadmore’s life is peaceful and quiet, along with her heart. She knows she and Moleka love each other, and she is content with that knowledge. She believes he will never approach her for a relationship because she is a Masarwa. She has no existence in the village except as the friend of Dikeledi. Most of the villagers have forgotten about the Masarwa teacher. Living in the deserted library, Margaret observes the lives of others for her own entertainment, including the antics of a mother goat and her kid, whom she names the Queen of Sheba and the Windshield-wiper. These simple things and the visits of Dikeledi comprise her entire life. She is happy and content, and most of all, not lonely.

Dikeledi asks Margaret to draw another picture of her, claiming that she lost the first one. In reality, Maru had taken the picture for himself. He has Dikeledi take a huge parcel of art materials to Margaret during a two-week school break.

In a whirlwind of creative activity, losing sleep and forgetting to eat, Margaret spends the school break creating pictures and paintings—all taken from visions in her mind’s eye. These visions are primarily of the village, and the Queen of Sheba and her kid’s humorous behavior.

When Dikeledi returns, she is astonished to find that Margaret has created over thirty artworks. Dikeledi separates three pictures from the others. Significantly, these pictures include a field of daisies, a small house at the end of a dusty path, and the black outline of a man and a woman surrounded by bright light. Dikeledi recognizes the man as her brother, Maru.

As instructed, Dikeledi takes all of the artworks to Maru, who immediately remarks on the three special paintings, which match his own dreams for their future. He says that he has been waiting for Margaret to have these visions. He places the pictures where he can see them every day and muses about how to approach Margaret. He feels her art reveals that she has the same vision of the future that he does. Maru bides his time, and has his friends fix up a little house, as seen in Margaret’s picture, far from Dilepe:

All these dreams and thoughts took place in moments of optimism which alternated with periods of great despair. Arrogance was a show with him, to frighten people. He was very humble.

At such times he would think: “What will I do if she does not love me as much as I love her?” A terrible reply came from his heart: “Kill her” (82).

Maru’s ego will not allow Margaret to get away from him. He will have her, or she will die. The cruelty of Margaret having no choice in her relationship with Maru is one of the areas in which Head’s narrative and themes break down; if Margaret has no free will to choose her life’s companion, then she is not free.

Meanwhile, Dikeledi buys a large canvas and helps Margaret stretch it onto a wooden bar. Every evening, she comes over and patiently mixes paint ingredients for Margaret. As Margaret paints, a portrait of Dilepe at sunset emerges. As the year progresses, Margaret continues to be joyful at the unfolding of her quiet and happy life, with Dikeledi’s true caring and friendship, and the companionship of the Queen of Sheba and the antics of the baby goat, the Windscreen-wiper.

In contrast, Dikeledi seems preoccupied, upset, and quiet. Moleka has gone back to his old behavior of sleeping with other women in the village, which humiliates Dikeledi. Neither Margaret nor Dikeledi is aware that they are both in love with Moleka.

The narrator reports, “They did not know how near they were to killing each other. One of them was the top dog, just then, silently and secretly drawing on all the resources of the sun. The other knew she lacked something. It was there one day, gone the next. They had only to mention his name and one of them would die” (85).

Margaret keeps silent about her love for Moleka because she does not expect such a man to be interested in marrying a Masarwa woman. Dikeledi knows of Maru’s interest in Margaret, never suspecting that Moleka and Margaret have any type of relationship. Therefore, the situation is diffused, ending with Dikeledi telling Margaret that Margaret may be surprised about whom she will marry.

The omniscient narrator gives a glimpse of Dikeledi’s future:

She was to remember those words one day when certain events occurred to throw her from the quiet, static niche she had found for herself. That peace was only for one year. It was to depart forever after that. She was to become another Dikeledi who alternated happiness with misery, finding herself tossed about this way and that on permanently restless seas. (85)

With only two days left to the end of the school year, all of Dilepe gossips about Dikeledi’s thickening waistline, waiting for the drama to unfold. Dikeledi tells Margaret that she is getting married, but she does not say whom she is to marry. Even Moleka’s mother gets involved: she is asked by one of Maru’s friends to talk to her son about making his relationship right with Dikeledi.

Oddly, Dikeledi, Moleka, Margaret, and Maru accidentally help each other during this period, though they are all keeping secrets from each other. For example, Maru does not accept Margaret’s painting of Dilepe at sunset, so Dikeledi brings it to her house, where the sight of it offers Moleka peace and joy every day. For Margaret, all of the peace and joy has disappeared from her life.

On the last day of school, Dikeledi announces that she is marrying Moleka the next day because she is pregnant with his child and asks Margaret to the wedding. Margaret immediately feels that her neck is half broken: “A few vital threads of her life had snapped behind her neck and it felt as though she were shriveling to death from head to toe” (88). As she reaches home, the rest of the “threads” in her neck snap, and she falls onto her bed, unconscious and unmoving (89).

Ranko, who has continued to spy upon Margaret for Maru, runs to inform him that Margaret is so ill she might die. Maru lacks sympathy for her. While everyone in the village is at the wedding reception at Dikeledi’s home, Maru and two of his spies go to Margaret’s home.

Maru enters and tells Margaret she should not let a worthless man like Moleka hurt her. He says he had hoped Margaret would realize that he was in love with her himself. In addition, he says that nothing is wrong with her now. She seems surprised by his pronouncements, and she finds that she is indeed recovering from her living death. Maru instructs Ranko and his other friends to pack all of Margaret’s belongings in the van. They drive to the house Margaret had painted so long ago in a village a thousand miles from Dilepe.

Maru had given Dikeledi a note for Moleka. In it, Maru announces his marriage to Margaret and tells Moleka that they have left Dilepe. Maru also counsels Moleka that people who quarrel should eventually make up. From this moment, the situation turns around for Dikeledi as Moleka begins to act like a proper husband.

When the people of the village hear of Maru’s marriage, they talk about Maru as if he were dead. However, the Masarwa who hear of his marriage to one of their own begin to question their lowly position. Social change is happening; the Masarwa can no longer accept the status quo as they realize that they are just as human as everyone else.