whites live in her mother's house. Martha tells July that whites bring trouble. However, he displays his power by reminding them that he can tell the whites to stay or to go. Then he demonstrates his power over Martha, saying she must do what he says as well.

Martha reflects that July shouldn't be there to order them around and make them accept white people. In her world, "the money must come, the man must go" and the women rule the village in the absence of the men. July speaks about the other servants at the Smaleses' residence and realizes he doesn't know if the cook is safe, and his voice trails off into silence.

In the twelfth chapter, a cat has a litter of kittens in the hut, and the children bring a plastic mesh bag for a nest. A man in the village who uses those mesh bags to make rope comes to ask for his bag back. Aghast, Victor protests that he stole nothing and argues when his parents pay the man a tiny sum of money for the bag. Furious that they paid for trash, Victor becomes red-faced and as angry as the kittens when Gina and Nyiko pull them away from their mother. Bam asks Nyiko whose cat it is, but she cannot comprehend the question and laughs at him for asking. They are no one's cats.

Later, Maureen and Bam listen to the radio news about which buildings have been destroyed. After, Bam asks who has taken the kittens. Maureen replies that she drowned them and for a moment Bam cannot distinguish that as truth and perceives it as a joke, something appropriate to their previous life, not to their present. Maureen confirms it as truth as she takes off her shirt and shakes the fleas out of it. Her neck reminds Bam of her father's neck, in the most disturbing of ways, and when she puts it back on he still looks at her as alien. He asks why she didn't get one of the blacks to do it.

Analysis
Maureen's machinations attempt to control July and reassert her power over him. She reverts to treating July as servile when she tries to get July to come to her hut by using her child as a messenger. Seeing July's calm approach alters her attitude because it suddenly reveals how petty she was. This back and forth can also be seen in July's wavering about the car keys. Both of them are unsure of their new status and relationship.

Maureen's petty behavior also seems bizarre because of her meditations just prior to sending Royce to get July. Her philosophical attitude is yet again liberal and just, based on humane rationalization. However, her behavior is riddled with entitlement. When she reprimands July for calling himself a "boy," she acts as if she is superior, that she knows more and has rejected the false system. In truth she hasn't, as her forcing him to come to her demonstrates. When he then says that he is merely thinking of how things were, that she used to trust him with every possession, Maureen becomes angry because to her the world has irrevocably changed and their past life no longer exists. She lashes out at July for suggesting that the old ways could be kept. Her approach crosses a line, however, because it threatens July's world. The merest hint that she could tell Martha about Ellen undermines every bit of trust and loyalty that existed between them. For July, the divide between city life and village life is necessary. With only visits every two years, he had to make a different life for himself in the city. But that was forced upon him by white privilege. Throwing Ellen in his face is inexcusable because it merges worlds that cannot even be properly compared.

Gordimer does not allow the reader as deep an understanding of Bam, but this is in part because he is able to stay in motion. Bam repairs things, fixes up the water tower, and goes hunting. Unlike Maureen, he is not trapped into immobility by a lack of skills. When he hunts, Bam feels primal and aimed towards survival. His perspective narrows to the "minute by minute" attitude that he and Maureen have already said they must adopt. While Maureen stares out at the bush, Bam crawls through it, and that enables Bam to be much closer to the survival instinct and thus to being calm. Like Maureen, however, Bam feels as if he has been severed from his old life. He cannot help but feel separated and distanced from the overall philosophical framework under which he operated in the city. By living from minute to minute, both Maureen and Bam feel as if they are stuck in a timeless outpost. Days merge into the ones before and the ones likely to be after, and only unusual events spark their attention. Mostly, the Smaleses seek to survive and to stay busy and to adapt to their situation. Only when extraordinary things happen do they step away from their quietly fearful, closed mindsets.

The feast allows the Smaleses to be thrust into the present moment without fear or pain. The piglet provides much-needed protein as well as excitement, and the anticipation builds during the long roasting process. By the time they eat, the Smaleses are giddy with delight. Furthermore, they feel bonded together by the joy. The family stays together all evening, laughing and talking and singing. For the first time since the city, they enjoy each other's company. This culminates in Maureen and Bam having sex, but the children are present in their consciousness even during that coupling. The Smaleses feel like a family.

The feast also allows Gordimer to make clear that even in poverty-stricken, fearful conditions, the human tendency to laugh and celebrate persists. The Smaleses step outside their problems and their worries and towards each other once the basic need for food has been satiated. Survival instincts may pull them apart, but the suggestion is that when basic needs are met, it becomes possible to love and bond to others again.

July's family is also riddled with problems due to the changing regime. During apartheid, those who worked in the city were only granted vacation once every two years. July has not lived in the village with his wife since before they were married, and she is unused to his constant presence and orders. He rules the village, but she has always ruled it in his name. When he tries to get her to praise the meat that the white family brought, it is partly in order to share his pride in the Smaleses but also in order to prove that his decision to bring the Smaleses to the village was correct. When Martha fails to agree, July demands that she obey him and acknowledge his authority. July must struggle to be accepted as leader because his constant absences have given Martha the power. She cannot adjust to his presence.

The litter of kittens very clearly demarcates the gap between Bam and Maureen. Maureen allows the children to play with the kittens, but when no one is around she drowns them. There is no food for the kittens, but some of them may have survived like other feral cats. By drowning them, Maureen makes sure that her children won't feed the cats their own food and won't witness their deaths. Bam knows that this was the appropriate action, but his questioning why she drowned them herself instead of having one of the blacks do it reveals that he still believes whites superior to blacks. He feels that Maureen was entitled to ask one of the villagers to undertake an unsavory task simply because she didn't want to do it. Maureen knows that she has no right to ask more of the villagers than she already has, and so it is apparent that Bam still has not internalized the equality of blacks and whites. Furthermore, he has not internalized that now he is a barbarian hunter and his wife is a poverty-stricken drowner of kittens, while July lords over the village with absolute authority.