It was strange the way she had begun to call me ‘Sisi’, because she was older than I and so did not need to cali me that; nor had she done so when she came home for Nhamo’s funeral or when I arrived, a matter of a few hours ago. Not that it was important in itself. After all, Maiguru called me ‘Sisi’, affectionately and companionably, so Anna might have picked it up from her. It only became important when you considered it with all the other strange ways she was adopting, of kneeling down to talk to me and not looking at me as she talked but at a spot on the floor a few inches in front of me. The worst thing was that she hardly talked at all, said no more than the few words necessary to convey her message. You have met Anna as she was before she began to behave like this, and I think you will agree with me that nothing on earth could have changed her so quickly into a quiet, reserved person. The change then had to do with me. It was very sobering to think that my change of address had changed me into a person Anna could not talk to. It was disconcerting too, because I wasaware only of the change of address. The self I expected to find on the mission would take some time to appear. Besides, it was not to be such a radical transformation that people would have to behave differently towards me. It was to be an extension and improvement of what I really was. Anna’s behaviour made me feel uncomfortably strange and unfamiliar with myself, so I spoke roughly to her.