Review: Vivien Horler
Cape Fever, by Nadia Davids (Scribner)
The brooding tension that permeates this novel about the relationship between a madam and her servant builds until you start to wonder: “Will she kill her? Don’t kill her!”
Which is a long way from the beginning.
It is 1920, just two years after the end of World War I. Mrs Hattingh, a widow, lives in a street of houses meant “for doctors and ambassadors”. Her son, Mr Timothy, was wounded in the war, but is now practising as a lawyer in London. Mrs Hattingh is lonely.
She needs a cleaner/cook, which tells Soraya Matas, visiting from the Quarter for a job interview, that Mrs Hattingh is not as wealthy as her house suggests. The dark patches on the wallpaper indicate paintings that once hung here have been sold.
The name of the small colonial city – much disparaged by Mrs Hattingh – is never given, but any Capetonian will recognise the City Bowl, the Quarter and the District.
Soraya comes from a family in the Quarter, one that is battling to make ends meet. Her father is a Muslim scribe, and while his work hangs in many homes and businesses, he doesn’t make much money. Her mother does what she can, but there are several children to be fed and educated.
Soraya first went into service aged 12, but now, seven years later, is seeking a new position. The reason she left her previous job is not spelt out, but we can guess.
We all know people like Mrs Hattingh – domestic employers who try to seem kind and accommodating, but who, we soon realise, are something else entirely.
In the interview Mrs Hattingh asks about Soraya’s cooking skills. She replies that the cook in her previous job taught her “the settlers’ dishes”, while her mother taught her “our food”.
Mrs Hattingh is excited. “But how wonderful! Can you make that lovely spiced mince dish with dried mint … kee…kee… the name escapes me now?”
“Keema. Yes, madam.”
Mrs Hattingh replies: “Excellent. We shall get along famously. I always hire your people if I can help it, Soraya. I’ve long admired the skilled cleverness of your men and the industriousness and modesty of your women, even if some say the former is merely cunning and latter crippling shyness.”
And there we have it.
A few questions later it becomes clear Mrs Hattingh wants Soraya to live in. Soraya protests – she lives close by and could be at Mrs Hattingh’s house early in the mornings – but Mrs Hattingh makes it clear the job is contingent on her living in. She can go home once a fortnight on Sundays. Soraya reluctantly agrees.
Once she has taken Soraya on, Mrs Hattingh is endlessly and uncomfortably curious about her servant’s private life. She soon establishes that Soraya is engaged to Nour, and that he is away, working on a farm before he goes to teachers’ training college. We also discover Soraya, while not exactly illiterate, finds reading and writing difficult.
Mrs Hattingh has a solution. Soraya can dictate letters to her, and Mrs Hattingh will send them on. At first this weekly time together seems to have mistress and servant seem, for an hour or so, more like equals, but it is not long before Soraya discovers Mrs Hattingh is embellishing her letters. Tensions begin to rise.
Meanwhile Soraya, lonely and endlessly dealing with the dust blown in by the wind, finds comfort in various spirits that haunt Mrs Hattingh’s house: Fatima, who previously worked for Mrs Hattingh for years, and Rosa, skin the colour of roasted coriander seeds, in a portrait in Mrs Hattingh’s bedroom.
Mrs Hattingh tells her: “She’s lovely, isn’t she, my Rosa… Came with the house. Worth a small fortune now apparently. And from your neighbourhood, but ever so long ago. You know, the moment I saw you, I was struck by your likeness to her.”
Nadia Davids is an acclaimed and prize-winning playwright who now lives in California. But her evocation of the mistress-servant relationship, the close-knittedness of a Muslim family, and Soraya’s joy at being free – briefly – from the constraints of Mrs Hattingh’s house when sent on an errand to the District, show Davids has not lost touch with her original home.
Cape Fever, Davids’ debut American novel, will stay with you. It is very good.