Hum If You Don’t Know the Words (2017) is a historical fiction novel by Bianca Marais. Marais was born in South Africa in the year the novel starts, 1976, when apartheid’s strict racial segregation rules governed the country. Like the main character, Robin, Marais was raised in part by a nanny who was Black. The novel explores themes like the concept of karma, the instinct to run from pain, and the importance of bearing witness to tragedy.

This guide uses the Kindle version published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Content Warning: This book contains depictions of racism and violence.

Plot Summary

In Boksburg, a suburb of Johannesburg, nine-year-old Robin Conrad lives with her mother, father, and twin sister, Cat, in a neighborhood for families of the men who work in mines. Their maid, Mabel, is a Black woman from QwaQwa. In Transkei, an area farther south in South Africa, a middle-aged mother named Beauty, who lives with her two teenage sons, leaves to retrieve her daughter, who went north to study and live with her uncle in Soweto. The novel switches between Robin and Beauty’s points of view.

While Robin’s her parents are at an event, the police arrive at the door. They hurt Mabel as she tries to protect Robin and then reveal that Black people have killed Robin’s parents and she must go with the police to the station. When her mother’s sister Edith arrives, Robin realizes that her parents are really dead and admits that her twin sister isn’t real. They check that Mabel is okay, and as soon as she can, Mabel departs for her home in QwaQwa. Edith takes Robin to her apartment, and they don’t speak of what happened. Robin meets a neighboring Jewish family in their apartment building and becomes friends with their son, Morrie. When a social worker named Wilhelmina tries to visit, Edith pushes her out and then takes the phone off the hook so that she can’t call to schedule an appointment to return.

After many hours, Beauty reaches Soweto, where the chaos and the number of Black people shock her. Searching for her daughter, she finds herself amid a student protest of the school curriculum mandated by the Afrikaner government. Though the protesters are peaceful, the white police shoot and them and spray tear gas. Beauty passes out, waking to a nightmare scene of children dying in the streets. Her nephews take her to her brother Andile’s home, and she looks for Nomsa. She learns that Nomsa was one of the protest leaders, is friends with a girl named Phumla, and now is either dead or waiting until it’s safe to leave the country. Beauty attends informal meetings, asking for information. People share their opinions: Some consider Nomsa brave; others say she endangered their kids by staging the protest. Beauty believes in nonviolent resistance.

Beauty’s search leads her to a white woman named Maggie, who uses her status and connections to help the resistance. Through Maggie, Beauty learns that Nomsa is safe and is waiting to cross the border into Rhodesia to join the armed wing of the African National Congress. Beauty wants to retrieve Nomsa so that she doesn’t inflict violence on anyone, but Maggie tells Beauty that they can’t do anything yet because their network has been discovered. At that moment, the police come to search Maggie’s house and nearly discover the hidden meeting room, which contains proof of the resistance.

After taking Robin in, Edith loses her job and her lover and begins to drink all day. Robin tries and fails to help Edith and eventually goes to the library in search of books about orphans like her. There, she meets the librarian Maggie, who wants to help her find a book, but when Maggie mentions that Robin’s parents must sign her library card, Robin lets out all the tears she hasn’t yet cried in the 41 days since her parents died. Maggie then arranges for Edith to go back to her job as a flight attendant while also giving Beauty a legitimate reason to be in Johannesburg: Beauty will take care of Robin while Edith is away.

Robin is used to having a Black maid but not a Black woman raising her and living with her. She tries to maintain emotional distance from Beauty because of the pain she felt when Mabel left, but her walls quickly dissolve. When Robin contracts scarlet fever, Beauty is scared but can’t take her to a hospital because their arrangement is illegal. Someone calls with information about Nomsa, but Beauty chooses to stay with Robin until she can get treatment. Maggie sends a nurse, who happens to be Wilhelmina. Delirious from fever, Robin asks Beauty to tell her the truth, and she does.

Beauty continues to seek information about Nomsa. Through her contacts, she learns that Nomsa has been spending time with a man named Shakes. Shakes blindfolds Beauty and takes her to a room, threatening her if she doesn’t stop looking for Nomsa. Robin witnesses the blindfolding and resolves to help Beauty.

When Edith is called to work, Robin spends Christmas with her friend Victor and his friends. After a joyous night, someone throws a brick through the window with an anti-gay note on it, hurting Victor’s friend Johan. Beauty returns to Transkei to see her sons. For Robin’s 10th birthday, people throw her a party. At the party, she asks Victor and Johan why they aren’t calling the cops about the person who threw the brick. He tells her about karma, saying people get what they deserve.

The next time Beauty leaves to search for Nomsa, Robin sneaks into the car with her and Wilhelmina to go to Soweto. Spying from outside a bar, she sees Beauty speaking with a server woman and notices the man who blindfolded Beauty. Beauty’s perspective reveals that the server woman is Nomsa’s friend Phumla, but she denies having any knowledge. Later, Morrie teases Robin for not being a real detective and hides some of Edith’s jewelry for Robin to find. When Edith finds it missing, Robin denies involvement, and though Beauty says she didn’t take it, Edith fires her. As Beauty leaves, Robin confesses. On the one-year anniversary of Nomsa’s disappearance and Robin’s parents’ deaths, Beauty and Robin make memory altars and talk about their loved ones.

One day in the park, Nomsa approaches Robin, asking for Beauty. She writes a note for Robin to deliver, asking Beauty to meet her in the park that weekend. Morrie snaps a picture of them. Robin doesn’t tell Beauty, fearing that Beauty might leave her. After Robin acts strangely, Beauty accidentally finds the note and picture in Robin’s hiding spot. As Robin tries to explain herself, Beauty has a heart attack. Robin calls for medics, but when they see that Beauty is Black, they don’t treat her. The Goldmans take Beauty to the Soweto hospital. That day, Robin learns that four men beat up Victor. When she visits him in the hospital, she recalls what he said about karma and resolves to make things right with Beauty.

Robin asks the man who works in their building, King George, to drive her to the bar in Soweto so that she can ask for help and find Nomsa. There, King George distracts Shakes while Robin talks to Phumla. Robin confesses that it’s her fault Beauty didn’t show up for Nomsa, and Phumla says all white people are the same. Robin begs her for help, sharing her story and showing them her “Free Nelson Mandela” T-shirt and what Beauty taught her about music and dance, but Phumla still refuses to help. As she waits for King George in the car, a boy whose twin brother Beauty tried to help after the protest tells Robin Nomsa’s location. He says that the next day Nomsa is going to Moscow with Shakes.

Robin and King George follow Shakes home. Getting Nomsa’s attention through the window, Robin explains why her mother didn’t show up. Nomsa assumed that her mother thought she was a lost cause since she had done bad things. Shakes comes out of the house with a gun, and they drive away as he tries to catch them. They go to the hospital where Beauty is recovering, and Robin watches through the window as Nomsa and Beauty reunite. Robin reflects on all that Beauty taught her, including the truth that love can only be given freely. Hearing Edith’s voice, Robin turns to find her and the Goldmans, who have come to get her.