black revolutionaries incited riots that took over the cities, the suppressed and angry blacks massacring whites, the yellow bakkie provided an escape route. The banker had provided warning, Maureen remembered. July, the servant who had lived in their yard since they were married, stayed loyal to the Smaleses. He led them out of the city. Maureen returns to the present moment as she bathes her children, and then herself. She smells bad. July brings them food: porridge, spinach, and fruit. The family has always ended a meal with fruit, and Maureen is touched by July's attempt to preserve routine. Reality reaches Maureen, and she tells July that they will cook their own meals. July brings firewood and at dusk comes to see if they can start their own fire. He also brings goat's milk, although he is not sure that Gina will like it. July's son tags along, listening as his father tells Maureen to boil the milk.

The bakkie, which had been hidden in the bush, is moved to a group of abandoned huts. The headlights are off for this operation, as everyone is afraid that the black nationalists who are fighting the whites will discover the refugee family and punish them and the village. July guides Bam's driving from the road, as he had on the journey from the city. Maureen cannot believe they escaped, that July stood in their living room and offered his village as a refuge, that the truck had not broken down, that July had always found petrol and water to keep them going and guided them the six hundred kilometers to his village. Maureen knows it is a miracle, but the whole event still terrifies her, as does the present. She knows the tap water will run out soon and the children will have to drink from the river.

The village is tiny, and the only residents are July's extended family. Maureen knows that if anyone tells a roving army band that a white family is in hiding there, they will all die. If anyone discovers the bakkie, they will all die. When she expresses this fear to July, he laughs at her. He is ruler of the village, and he has told them that the Smaleses gave him the truck. They know that in effect they have, although they return to it for the dwindling supplies left inside.

In the confusion of fleeing, Victor had packed an electric racecar set, and he begs to set it up to show off to the black children. Victor insists that his mother must tell the black children not to touch it, and she laughs at him "as adults did, in the power they refuse to use." Maureen tells Victor she cannot speak to the black children, and he becomes sullen. Royce keeps asking for Coca-Cola, unable to accept or understand their present situation. As Maureen boils water for the next day, she asks Bam what they will do if one of them falls ill. He does not answer. Maureen thinks of the truck as a landlocked ship that will soon be taken apart for scrap and rusted to uselessness, unless they travel home shortly.

Analysis
Since 1948, South Africa operated under the legal rule of apartheid. The word "apartheid" comes from the language Afrikaans and means the quality of separateness. In effect, apartheid segregated public areas and established the rule of a white minority. The country had been essentially ruled by whites since the British had colonized South Africa, and most urban areas were segregated. However, in 1948 a legal system was set into place that legitimatized and enforced segregation. All people were classified by race, mixed marriages were forbidden, the most valuable property was deeded to whites and all public areas were divided into black and white sectors. Blacks and people of mixed descent had to carry "pass books" as identification that allowed them in or out of different sections of the country. This was an all-encompassing legal system of discrimination that kept whites in power and prevented blacks from ever rising to positions of responsibility or wealth. Blacks were not even considered citizens, though they were the people native to the land. Whites enjoyed protected status and the wealth of the nation, as well as the most desirable jobs and property.

This system fell apart in much the way Nadine Gordimer describes it in July's People. Nationalistic parties of blacks rose up against the white minority with targeted strikes. Different groups were involved, but all took advantage of the chaos caused by disrupting communication and supply lines to the whites. Riots were incited, and the population, which had endured so much discrimination and prejudice, rose angrily against the white oppressors. These riots were put down by white military force numerous times, causing the death and massacre of many blacks. The whites controlled access to weapons and so had the ability to hold back the black population for a long time, but eventually the riots could not be quelled.

A minority of whites opposed the policy of apartheid, like the fictional Smaleses. Not all whites believed in their status as rightful rulers, and like the Smaleses some felt guilty for the way whites had wielded power. The Smaleses had been born in South Africa, but thought of themselves as "pariah dogs" on the country, not as rightful citizens. Yet their actions were largely useless. They treated their servants well, like people, and they spoke angrily against the lawfulness of apartheid, but the Smaleses did not leave or change the system. Thus, the quiet guilt Maureen feels during these chapters complicates and deepens her disorientation. She probably suspected all along that the white rule had to be temporary; but she feels betrayed that all of her good acts, her belief in the blacks' ability to self-govern, did not end up providing her family some safety. She knows only blind luck and July's generosity saved her family from the rioters.

There is one absolutely vital fact about Nadine Gordimer's July's People that must be remembered: it was purely fictional. Gordimer wrote this novel in 1981 with the system of apartheid still in full force. International pressure to end apartheid was building, many of the leaders of the black nationalist movement were in exile promoting their cause and learning the political skills they were not allowed to learn in South Africa, and riots and violence against whites had become a part of life. White males from many countries were conscripted into the South African army and forced to fight against the blacks. However, it wasn't until 1984 that the government began to admit that apartheid wasn't working and began to take the first small steps towards reform. The changes were surface level, not actual reform, and the government began a serious media censorship campaign to try and rejuvenate the international image of South Africa, but the resulting backlash led to the eventual end of apartheid in 1990.

Thus, Gordimer's novel is set in an imaginary future. She has envisioned an end to apartheid and a white family forced to live in the economic situation that apartheid enforced for millions of blacks throughout the country. Gordimer was born in and lived in South Africa and had a clear grasp of the situation and the likely end result, and her novel would have terrified the whites living in South Africa at the time. Through Maureen, Gordimer gives witness to merciless death and chaos for all who participated in the system of apartheid, even if only by remaining in the country.

When apartheid did end, however, this apocalyptic vision did not hold true. Riots and massacres on both sides occurred, there were assassinations and violence by blacks and whites, but the actual transition out of apartheid was legal and celebrated with songs and flag raising. Whites gave in and power was handed to the people in open elections, resulting in Nelson Mandela's ascendancy.

Although the situation is fictional, Maureen's state of mind at the beginning of the book allows several important points to be made about the real circumstances of apartheid. First of all, the contrast between her life as a white and her life with blacks indicates the immense economic divide present in the country. Maureen recalls knickknacks and hotel rooms, but the reader is immediately confronted with pigs, chickens, sackcloth, iron springs jutting out of a bed frame, and dirt floors. She remembers that the only time she has been in a rondavel was a family vacation, and it seems that she cannot place herself in the village. The second comparison that these chapters introduce is the gap between adult and child perception of events. The foolish fixation that caused Victor to pack the racecar set shows that he did not comprehend their destination or their reason for fleeing the city. However, Maureen's refusal to help Victor talk to the black children or set up his set to show them indicates her foolishness. Victor's actions are adaptive. He wishes to impress the other children and perhaps make friends with them, and he knows that his racecar set will be exotic and exciting. Maureen's callous rejection of his wishes shows that she does not yet believe they will actually be living in the village. Despite his limited comprehension, it is the child who readies for the time in the village, not the adult. The third point is the idea that miracles and salvation can be horrifying. Maureen is grateful to July for saving her family, and she is grateful that they are all alive. However, the miracle does not end the horror. Simply escaping the city was miraculous, but it did not end the fear or make the Smaleses comfortable. Instead, it stranded them in a village to witness the effects of apartheid firsthand.