The Promise

The narration cuts to Cherise Coutts’ (now Coutts-Smith’s) office. There, Amor explains that she wants to give away all her inheritance payments, which she never collected, adding that she will get Cherise the account number into which the money can be deposited soon.

The next day, Amor visits Salome’s house. Lukas and Salome are both home, but Salome greets Amor much more warmly than Lukas does. Finally, 31 years after Manie’s promise to Rachel, Amor presents the deed for the house to Salome, granting her ownership of the property. This sudden information disorients Salome, who had completely given up on this possibility and was planning to move back to her home village.

Lukas is very angry at Amor’s gesture. He explains that it is virtually worthless; the small house is even more dilapidated now than it was when Manie originally made the promise. Moreover, he sees the house as not rightly Amor’s to give away, given that Dutch colonists, whom the Swarts are descended from, only gained power in the first place by stealing land from Black South Africans.

Shaken by his anger, Amor insists that owning her own property is still something meaningful for Salome, even though Amor admits there is a competing