wished Lucia would be quiet. Her case was a serious one and it did not help to be rude to Babamukuru. Lucia was my mother’s sister, several years younger than my mother and a wild woman in spite of - or maybe because of — her beauty. She was dark like my mother, but unlike my mother her complexion always had a light shining from underneath the skin, so she could afford to scoff at the skin-lightening creams tha@other girls used. ‘Fanta and Coca- Cola!’ she laughed. ‘Aiwa! Not me. I prefer to be the same colour all over.’ Asa result, her skin was not deteriorating and breaking; it remained glowing and healthy

Do you really have a Master’s Degree?’ Maiguru was flattered. ‘Didn’t you know?’ she smiled at me over the top of her glasses. How could I have known? No one had ever mentioned it to me. ‘But Maiguru,’ I answered immediately, emboldened by the thought of my aunt obtaining a Master’s Degree, ‘did you ever say?’ “Did you ever ask?’ she countered, and continued, ‘yes, we both studied, your uncle and I, in South Africa for our Bachelor’s Degrees and in England for our Master’s.” ‘I thought you went to look after Babamukuru,’ I said. ‘That’s all people ever say.’ Maiguru snorted. ‘And what do you expect? Why should a woman go all that way and put up with all those problems if not to look after her husband?’

It had to be avoided because it was deadly. I could see it. It was definitely black, we were taught. It had well-defined edges, and it was square rather than round so that you knew where it ended. It worked like a predatory vacuum, drawing the incautious into itself and never letting them out. And now Babamukuru was saying that 150 this was where my parents were, which meant myself and my sisters too. I could not associate myself or mine with sin so I smothered my misgivings in literal interpretations of the things we were taught in Sunday School. I convinced myself that sin was what people who had lived long ago, in Bcand early AD, had done to each other. Yet Babamukuru was sure enough that my parents were sinning to want to provide a wedding for them, a wedding that would cost a lot of money. It was a complex problem, too complex for me to | think my way out of, so I pushed it once more to the back of my mind. I hoped it would go away and leave me to enjoy the remainder of the vacation with Nyasha. Since there wasn’t much of it left. Tete was the first to leave. This caused another rearrangement of sleeping-quarters, with the boys moving into the hozi. Babamunini went the day after Tete and Babamukuru the day after that. Nyasha went too on that day, leaving me depressed and unhappy because I would not see her again until term began in three weeks time, and that was a terribly long time for me to think of spending without her. Nyasha was something unique and necessary for me. I did not like to spend too long without talking to her about the things that worried me because she would, I knew, pluck out the heart of the problem with her multi-directional mind and present it to me in ways that made sense, but not only that, in ways that implied also that problems existed not to be worried over but to extend us in our search for solutions. And there were many things that worried me in those days. Deep in the less accessible areas of my mind, although outwardly I would have hotly denied it, I was ashamed of what to me was a pervasive and enervating vagueness. Consciously I thought my direction was clear: I was being educated. When I had been educated, I would find 4 job and settle down to it, carrying on, in the time that was available before I was married into a new home, Babamukuru’s great work of developing the family. Issues were well defined for me at that time: these were the goals and this was how we would reach them. Babamukuru was my touchstone who showed me that this was true. So I should have been content to go to school and achieve my good grades. I should have been content with preparing myself for the life I have described. But Nyasha’s energy, at times stormy and turbulent, at times confidently serene, but always reaching, reaching a littl

It had to be avoided because it was deadly. I could see it. It was definitely black, we were taught. It had well-defined edges, and it was square rather than round so that you knew where it ended. It worked like a predatory vacuum, drawing the incautious into itself and never letting them out. And now Babamukuru was saying that 150 this was where my parents were, which meant myself and my sisters too. I could not associate myself or mine with sin so I smothered my misgivings in literal interpretations of the things we were taught in Sunday School. I convinced myself that sin was what people who had lived long ago, in Bcand early AD, had done to each other. Yet Babamukuru was sure enough that my parents were sinning to want to provide a wedding for them, a wedding that would cost a lot of money. It was a complex problem, too complex for me to | think my way out of, so I pushed it once more to the back of my mind. I hoped it would go away and leave me to enjoy the remainder of the vacation with Nyasha. Since there wasn’t much of it left. Tete was the first to leave. This caused another rearrangement of sleeping-quarters, with the boys moving into the hozi. Babamunini went the day after Tete and Babamukuru the day after that. Nyasha went too on that day, leaving me depressed and unhappy because I would not see her again until term began in three weeks time, and that was a terribly long time for me to think of spending without her. Nyasha was something unique and necessary for me. I did not like to spend too long without talking to her about the things that worried me because she would, I knew, pluck out the heart of the problem with her multi-directional mind and present it to me in ways that made sense, but not only that, in ways that implied also that problems existed not to be worried over but to extend us in our search for solutions. And there were many things that worried me in those days. Deep in the less accessible areas of my mind, although outwardly I would have hotly denied it, I was ashamed of what to me was a pervasive and enervating vagueness. Consciously I thought my direction was clear: I was being educated. When I had been educated, I would find 4 job and settle down to it, carrying on, in the time that was available before I was married into a new home, Babamukuru’s great work of developing the family. Issues were well defined for me at that time: these were the goals and this was how we would reach them. Babamukuru was my touchstone who showed me that this was true. So I should have been content to go to school and achieve my good grades. I should have been content with preparing myself for the life I have described. But Nyasha’s energy, at times stormy and turbulent, at

was surprised that Nyasha took so much interest in the things our grandparents and great-grand- parents had done. We had quite a debate about it, but I was sure that I was right, because Babamukuru himself had opted for a wedding rather than the cleansing ceremonies. When I confronted Nyasha with this evidence of the nature of progress, she became quite annoyed and delivered a lecture on the dangers of assuming that Christian ways were progressive ways. ‘It’s bad enough,’ she said severely, ‘when a country gets colonised, but when the peopledo as well! That’s the end, really, that’s the end.’

‘Do you really have a Master’s Degree?’ Maiguru was flattered. ‘Didn’t you know?’ she smiled at me over the top of her glasses. How could I have known? No one had ever mentioned it to me. ‘But Maiguru,’ I answered immediately, emboldened by the thought of my aunt obtaining a Master’s Degree, ‘did you ever say?’ “Did you ever ask?’ she countered, and continued, ‘yes, we both studied, your uncle and I, in South Africa for our Bachelor’s Degrees and in England for our Master’s.” ‘I thought you went to look after Babamukuru,’ I said. ‘That’s all people ever say.’ Maiguru snorted. ‘And what do you expect? Why should a woman go all that way and put up with all those problems if not to look after her husband?’