Cape Fever

When a book’s narrator and protagonist confesses to a lie—right in the first sentence!—you can bet that events are only going to go sideways from there. And in that regard (not to mention many others), South Africa-born author Nadia Davids’ Cape Fever does not disappoint. Soraya, a Muslim woman in 1920s colonial Cape Town, South Africa, applies for a job in a British expat’s once grand, but now deteriorating, estate. Mrs. Hattingh, her potential employer, presents very much like Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations (particularly as portrayed by Anne Bancroft in the 1998 movie version). Alone with her recollections of her earlier life and youthful beauty, Hattingh engages Soraya not only as a housekeeper, but also as a live-in companion. The younger woman is dubious about this latter aspect, especially since she can sense the house is filled with unquiet spirits, but she needs the money for her family, so she accepts the role. The book gathers momentum gradually, building trust between not only Soraya and Mrs. Hattingh, but also between the author and the reader. Both women carry a torch for absent men; Mrs. Hattingh for her London-based war hero son, and Soraya for her fiancé, Nour, who is working on a farm to save money for school. For most of the book, the younger Hattingh is perpetually on the cusp of visiting, while Soraya and Nour can manage only occasional interactions. When Mrs. Hattingh offers to write letters to Nour on the allegedly (but not actually) illiterate Soraya’s behalf, the women immerse themselves in a curious weekly ritual where neither is being completely transparent about either their motives or actions. And when the truth finally outs, the toxic fallout propels the story into overdrive, endangering the futures of both. Davids deftly captures both the cloyingly patronizing attitude of the expat British toward their “inferiors” and the vibrancy of Soraya’s separate, unequal society that inhabits a parallel space supporting the colonials. Along the way, Davids’ incorporation of Islamic culture and supernatural elements elevate the story, just as Soraya’s blend of dried orange peel and cardamom elevates Mrs. Hattingh’s doughnut recipe into something that both surprises and delights.