I tried to control my imagination and found a comforting explanation for the fact he had started finding jobs for us to do together. He’d been kind, I told myself, letting us stay and not taking any money. Maybe he regretted being so generous, and wanted something in return. When I thought about it that made sense. Let Eileen rest. I didn’t mind hard work. It wasn’t all that hard, in fact. He gave me a scythe and taught me how to use it, and I spent the day after he’d talked about Pietermaritzburg cutting overgrown grass and clearing stones off a patch of ground at the side of the house until I could smell my own sweat. The day after, I helped him to rehang a gate in a fence which made a narrow yard in front of the pen where he kept three pigs. As we worked, one of them lay on her side, watching with small, intent eyes, while a line of young fastened themselves on the teats along her belly. We planted potatoes, too, digging the furrows and dropping them in about a foot apart and then pulling the soil across the rows.
