Hum If You Don't Know the Words

On the anniversary of both Nomsa’s disappearance and Robin’s parents’ deaths, Beauty and Robin make memory altars. Robin asks Beauty if people change in heaven, trying to understand whether her racist dad would be upset that a Black woman is raising her. Beauty says that those things don’t matter anymore: People in Heaven care only that the people they love are happy. Robin says a prayer for her parents, and Beauty says a prayer for Nomsa in her head. She’s both proud of Nomsa and angry with her. She hasn’t given up hope of finding her.

Beauty receives a note under their door telling her that the man she met with in the park the previous night is now dead because of her. The note warns her to stay away. She reflects on the man in the park, who said he was helping her only because he didn’t believe that women have a place in the resistance. He accepted a letter from Beauty to deliver to Nomsa. As she left the park, Beauty saw an owl. She thought the owl signaled Nomsa’s death, but for the first time, Beauty is scared for her own life. She begins to get her affairs in order just in case.

A Black woman approaches Robin in the park and asks what she’s reading. The woman is skittish and paranoid, looking around constantly. She reveals that she’s Nomsa and asks why her mother isn’t there to pick up Robin. Robin says Beauty will be there tomorrow, and Nomsa is upset, saying she can’t just come whenever she wants. She writes a note to her mother, asking Robin to tell Beauty to meet her there at two o’clock on Sunday afternoon. She swears Robin to secrecy.

Morrie walks over, having taken a picture of Nomsa and Robin talking, and Robin takes the photo. She hides it and the letter in the secret compartment in Edith’s room where she hides her mother’s mascara and decides not to tell Beauty to meet Nomsa. She doesn’t want Beauty to leave her, and she thinks that if Nomsa cares enough she’ll find another way to see her mother.

Beauty notices Robin acting anxious and strangely attentive, doting on Beauty. Robin doesn’t leave the house, but she claims that nothing’s wrong.

Robin and Morrie go to the library, and on the bus ride home she realizes she doesn’t have her mother’s mascara. They search everywhere, to no avail, and Robin breaks down about losing the last link to her parents.

She gets a call that four men beat up Victor and he’s in the hospital. She goes downstairs to tell the Goldmans, and while she’s gone, Beauty inadvertently finds Nomsa’s note. As Robin explains her logic, Beauty rubs her chest and collapses to the ground. Robin calls an ambulance, but the paramedics see that the patient is Black and leave. In the hall, Robin screams for help and gets the Goldmans, but Mr. Finlay, the man who complained about Beauty’s presence in the building before, stands in the doorway demanding answers about Beauty. He calls her a slur, and Robin attacks him, knocking him over and punching him. The Goldmans take Beauty to Bara, the hospital for Black people in Soweto.

Three days after Beauty’s heart attack, she’s stable but isn’t allowed visitors who aren’t family. Wilhelmina asks Robin if Beauty might have received some news to prompt this, and Robin says no. When Edith calls to ask if Robin is okay, Robin blames her and says she hates her.

Robin visits Victor in the hospital. He cries when he sees her, and as she holds his hand she remembers what he said about karma and realizes that she caused everything to go wrong. She did a bad thing, so bad things are happening to her and to the people she loves. She vows to make things right.

Robin tells Morrie everything, including her plan to find Nomsa. Morrie is skeptical. As Robin stares at the photo Morrie took of her and Nomsa, she sees a woman in the background who she has seen twice before: once at the shebeen and once in the police station, where she gave her a blanket the night her parents died.

She finds King George and offers him all her money to drive her to the shebeen in Soweto. King George won’t take her money but says he’ll help her. When cops search the car at a checkpoint, she hides in the backseat under a blanket. Just as they’re about to discover her, shots ring out elsewhere, and the police are distracted enough that King George drives away.

They find Phumla at the shebeen but also see Shakes. King George says he’ll distract Shakes so that Robin can talk to Phumla, and eventually he comes stumbling out with Shakes and gets into the white van. Phumla is shocked to see Robin and asks her why Nomsa’s mother didn’t show up to the park. Robin admits it was her fault, and Phumla says white people are all the same. She tells Robin to leave, threatening to call security. Instead of running away, however, Robin channels what Victor said about facing fears and running toward the danger.

Desperate to explain herself, Robin follows Phumla into the shebeen. The patrons immediately notice her, shocked to see a white child in a shebeen in Soweto, but Robin focuses on getting Phumla to help her. The woman who owns the place introduces herself as Mama Fatty, and Robin curtsies, calling her Queen Fatty. To convince them she isn’t like other white people, Robin shows off her Nelson Mandela T-shirt and explains that she wants to live in peace with Black people. She names the song that’s playing and finds a young boy to dance to kwela music with. The patrons enjoy her performance, but Phumla still doesn’t trust her, even when she says she knows the White Angel. Robin remembers that she hurt Beauty and tries to take responsibility. She tells them the story of the past year of her life. Phumla shakes her head, still believing it could be a trap. Finally, Robin reminds her that she gave her a blanket when she was led into the police station wearing few clothes. She considers this but still says she can’t help Robin.

Trying to stay awake in King George’s car as she waits for him to return, Robin takes out Beauty’s journal and sees a letter to her. It explains that she’s choosing to keep fighting to find Nomsa, no matter what may happen to her, and that she loves Robin and believes in her.

Robin heads back inside to try again. She finds the boy she danced with looking for her. He says he wants to help her because Beauty was kind to his twin brother when he was dying. He says that Nomsa is going to Moscow with Shakes to train as a soldier the next day. Their trip was delayed when the security police raided Shakes’s place, which helps Robin understand why Phumla didn’t trust her: She thought Robin used Nomsa’s letter to tip off the police.

The boy tells Robin he knows where Nomsa and Shakes are and asks why white people hate Black people. She says she doesn’t know and offers a few explanations: Maybe white people need Black people so much that it scares them, or perhaps it’s just easy to hate someone. He makes her promise that she won’t grow up to be like them.

Robin and King George follow Shakes to his decoy house and then his real one. Finding Nomsa alone, Robin beckons her out of the house. Sitting in the car, Robin tells Nomsa everything. Nomsa thought her mother gave up on her because of the bad things she did, but Robin shows her Beauty’s journal and tries to convince her to go to the hospital with her. Shakes comes out of the house with a gun. He yells at Nomsa and shoots at the car as they drive away.

Nomsa visits Beauty bed in the hospital. Robin watches from a window. Acknowledging that this is their moment, not hers, she walks away. As she looks for the car, she sees Edith and the Goldmans, who have come to find her.