Hum If You Don't Know the Words

The novel’s second narrator, Beauty, wakes before dawn to leave because she received a distressing letter from her brother. She and her two sons live in a small hut; its design reflects the world before it had borders. Her 15-year-old son, Luxolo, asks to go with her. He wants to be the man of the house since his father left for a mining job years ago. She tells him no, hugs him and her younger son, Khwezi, and sets off.

Her brother’s letter said that he could no longer protect her daughter, Nomsa, who left Transkei to get an education in the city. Beauty must traverse white territory, so she wears shoes and a bra, praying that she won’t get robbed. Khwezi runs after her when she forgets her bag of food. She promises to return with Nomsa.

At the mine dump, Robin and Cat spy on the Afrikaner boys in their neighborhood, where all the families of miners live. They watch as the boys use their catties (slingshots) to shoot rocks at bottles and cans, which Robin notices are from her family’s trash. The girls duck since they’re in the direction of the targets. When the boys run out of cans to target, they nearly shoot a cat, and Robin intervenes. She says she wants to hang out with them, and they criticize her for being a woman and being English. Robin wonders why they still resent the English for the Boer War, which happened more than 100 years ago. At home, she realizes that Cat is still at the dump but thinks she’ll be fine because she’s great at hiding.

Beauty sits in a crowded minivan taxi, talking to a woman about the dangers in Soweto. The woman is a school teacher, which explains why her speech sounds more educated. She holds the woman’s baby briefly. At a gas station, she uses the bathroom. Since the Black bathroom is broken and the owner refuses to spend money to fix it, Beauty secretly uses the white bathroom. She thinks about how white people took the fertile land, leaving the Black population with useless land. She wonders why white people tan at the beach when they hate people with dark skin so much. Beauty isn’t allowed on the beach, because of her race.

Arriving in Soweto, a Black suburb of Johannesburg, Beauty is in awe of the chaos surrounding her: the city’s never-ending sights, sounds, and smells and more people who look like her than she’s ever seen in one place. The minivan passes a police barricade, and Beauty decides to go directly to the school to find Nomsa. The teacher tells her that a protest is occurring over the curriculum that the Afrikaners force upon them. In a crowd of schoolchildren heading to the protest, Beauty looks around desperately for Nomsa but can’t find her. A boy instructs the crowd to be peaceful, but people get impatient, and police start shooting, using attack dogs, and spraying tear gas. Beauty passes out and wakes up to a nightmare scene: children dead and a river of blood in the street. Her brother’s sons, Dumi and Langa, help her to her feet and drag her to safety. She tries to comfort children who are dying in the street.

Robin wins a bike race and returns home to see her parents getting ready for an event. They’re affectionate with each other. The event was last minute, so her dad says he’ll ask Mabel to stay late. In the kitchen, a pot of water simmers as Mabel sits in the adjoining maid’s bathroom room, listening to a radio report about the Soweto riot. Robin’s dad calls the children savages and explains to his wife that the government is struggling to control the “blacks.” Feeling unsafe, Cat and Robin ask their parents not to leave. It’s the last time Robin sees them.

Robin wakes in the middle of the night to a banging on the door. She notices that Cat snuck to their parents’ bed to wait for them to return. Robin leaves her room, and she and Mabel open the door. The cops question Mabel and tell her to bring the child because they’re both going with the police. Mabel tries to explain that Robin’s parents will worry if they leave and tells the cops that they can’t take Robin. A cop slaps Mabel to the ground. Robin convinces her to stand up, and as they leave the house the police tell Robin that Black people killed her parents.

In the back of the cops’ van, Robin realizes Cat isn’t with them, and Mabel makes Robin swear not to tell them about Cat. Robin tries to convince herself that the police must be wrong about her parents, and from the cops’ radio they glean that they’re going to Brixton. Mabel begins shaking because she knows that this station is notorious for torturing Black people.

At the station, Robin is told to sit and wait in one place, and the officer tells her they’re taking Mabel to ask her questions. Robin hears metal clanging and shouting. The police lead many injured Black people through the door where Mabel was taken. Robin hands her blanket to a girl who walks in wearing little clothing. Told not to move from the bench, Robin pees herself. Her Aunt Edith comes around the corner, her eyes puffy from crying, and Robin realizes that the police were telling the truth about her parents. She begs Edith to take her back to their house to get Cat, and Edith responds that Cat isn’t real.

Beauty wakes up at her brother Andile’s house after searching for Nomsa without success for the whole day before. She asks Andile for the full story, and he reveals that Nomsa was one of the leaders of the protests. She tried to recruit her cousin, Andile’s son Langa, but he was nervous that their protests would attract police attention. Nomsa lied in her letters to her mother because she promised before she left not to join any political organizations. Andile tried to talk to her, but she was defiant, which is when he wrote to Beauty. He made sure the letter was cryptic in case police intercepted it. He blames himself for Nomsa’s fate.

Robin explains the inception of Cat: Robin played the role of another sibling to assume all the qualities she was ashamed of, like sensitivity and fear. She started by looking in a mirror and continued so that she could conjure Cat almost whenever she needed. Edith asks her why she still pretends, and Robin tries to accept the reality that her parents are dead. Robin says she wants Mabel, and the police release Mabel only after Edith threatens to make a call if they don’t. Once in the car and safely away from the station, Edith and Robin notice that Mabel is badly hurt. Mabel says she wants to go home to QwaQwa and then leaves.

Edith and Robin arrive at Edith’s flat in Johannesburg, both careful to ignore the overwhelming grief that will arise when the reality sinks in. Edith even acknowledges Cat to keep up their charade. They chatter and joke, sometimes accidentally touching on the subject and then distracting themselves again. Edith’s apartment is filled with knickknacks from her world travels. Trying to find clothes that fit Robin, Edith dumps out a bag of gifts for Robin from her travels. Many are cartoon characters that Robin doesn’t recognize because TV is banned.