At Home with Apartheid: The Hidden Landscapes of Domestic Service in Johannesburg

Six: From Homes with Apartheid

164 SiX From Homes with Apartheid Imagine a middle-class house in the Northern Suburbs in the 1960s. Place nothing extraordinary in the scene, no unusual architectural features or exotic pets or idiosyncratic art hanging on the walls. The house can be either one-story or two-, on perhaps a quarter-acre lot that has a well-tended flower garden in the front, a one-car garage at the side, next to the domestic worker’s room, and an above-ground swimming pool in the back. A large sliding-glass door connects the family room to the backyard, and from our vantage point we can see most of that room, the kitchen beyond it, and much of the yard as well. As luck would have it, at the moment the entire family and the worker are at home. By observing their activities , their interactions with the home and one another, we can glean some understanding of how various residents might collectively contribute to building a multilayered landscape within a given property and beyond it. Because the father is present, we can assume it is a weekend afternoon, and because the boys are playing in the pool, it is likely summer. The house appears midcentury new, judging from the absence of any detailing on the ceiling or moldings, the wall of sliding-glass doors leading outside, and the kitchen opening directly into the family room. Its furnishings are stylish. Low armchairs with sleek lines, matching coffee table, portable record player, and a shiny new car reinforce this image, as do the built-in cabinets and tiled wall in the kitchen. Given the spate of consumption that From HomeS witH ApArtHeid 165 coincided with South Africa’s growing economy during this period, homes filled with such items would have been unremarkable among this class of whites. Several other details also mark this as a middle-class home that supported a comfortable lifestyle: the pet cat, the fish bowl, the swimming pool, art on the walls, books in the credenza, and matching canisters full of pantry items. In fact, each of the family members is engaged in an activity that locates this household squarely within a normative middle-class South African urban lifestyle. The eldest daughter, lying on the family room floor, is studying, probably for either high school or university courses. University education was the preserve of the elite, and the fact that her family can afford the tuition and do without her contribution to the family income is one indicator of their wealth. Even if she is in high school still, she appears to be a senior student and so formed part of the minority of scholars nationwide, if we consider both white and nonwhite populations, who were able to matriculate. The mother sits outside in a lawn chair having tea. Afternoon tea was an English custom, and its observance distinguished households that could afford and had the freedom to take time away from labor for refreshment and socializing. Two cups and saucers—not mugs—on the small round table suggest that the father has either recently finished his tea, or that a friend has come and gone, and the teapot and creamer suggest the leisure of ceremonial serving and pouring and the time for multiple cups. The woman of the house reads a newspaper, and a pile of magazines lies beside her, hinting that she has been able to spend some time relaxing in the sun with light, recreational fare. Father shines his car while smoking a pipe. It may have been that he previously washed it with the hose that the boys now use to spray themselves , but it is unlikely that a middle-class white man, unless a car buff, would wash his own car. Even if he did not have a gardener to do the job for him, male African day labor was readily available for such tasks. In any case, his white shirt and pipe suggest that he is engaged in a hobby of love, not a chore. The boys play in the pool. Most suburban yards were large enough that they could easily support laughing boys waving water hoses, fathers waxing cars, and mothers quietly reading, without one set of activities disturbing 166 At Home witH ApArtHeid the other. The youngsters are not engaged in household tasks, since yard work would likely be taken care of by a gardener and indoor responsibilities , of...