Maiguru said a lot of things then. ‘Yes, she is your brother’s child,’ she said. ‘But when it comes to taking my money so that you can feed her and her father and your whole family and waste it on ridiculous weddings, that’s when they are my relatives too. Let me tell you, Babawa Chido, I am tired of my house being a hotel for your family. I am tired of being a housekeeper for them. 1am tired of being nothing in a home I am working myself sick to support. And now even that Lucia can walk in here and tell me that the things she discusses with you, here in my home, are none of my business. I am sick of it Babawa Chido. Let me tell you, I have had enough!”

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?’ Maiguru was more serious than she had ever been before. Her seriousness changed her from a sweet, soft dove to something more like a wasp. ‘That’s what they like to think I did,” she continued sourly. The lower half of her face, and only the lower half, because it did not quite reach the eyes, set itself into sullen lines of discontent. She bent over her books to hide them, and to prove that she was not unhappy at all she made a chuckling sound. I think she thought gaily but sounding pained. ‘Whatever they thought,’ she said, ‘much good did it do them! I still studied for that degree and got it in spite of all of them — your uncle, your grandparents and the rest of your family. Can you tell me now that they aren’t pleased that I did, even if they don’t admit it? No! Your uncle wouldn’t be able to do half the things he does if I didn’t work as well!” ‘You must earn a lot of money,’ I breathed in awe. My aunt laughed and said she never received her salary. I was aghast. ‘What happens to your money?’ I asked. “The money that you earn. Does the Government take it?’ For I was beginning to understand that our Government was not a good one. ‘You could say that,’ my aunt laughed, forcing herself to be merry again but not succeeding. She gave up, took off her glasses and leaned back in her seat, staring wistfully through the verandah’s arches to the mountains and beyond. ‘What it is,” she sighed, ‘to have to choose between self and security. When I was in England I glimpsed for a little while the things I could have been, the things I could have done if - if —if things were ~ different - But there was Babawa Chido and the children and the family.

Don’t push me too far,’ Babamukuru pleaded. Mustering up his courage, Chido tried to help. ‘They were only talking for a few minutes, Dad,’ he said, and was ordered to be silent. “You, Chido, keep quiet,” Babamukuru snapped. ‘You let your sister behave like a whore without saying anything. Keep quiet.’ “Babawa Chido,’ began Maiguru, but was silenced immediately. Nyasha grew uncharacteristically calm at times like this. ‘Now why,’ she enquired of no particular person, ‘should I worry about what people say when my own father calls me a whore?’ She looked at him with murder in her eyes. ‘Nyasha, be quiet,’ Chido advised. ‘Chido, I have told you to keep out of this,’ reminded Babamukuru, gathering himself within himself so that his whole weight was behind the blow he dealt Nyasha’s face. ‘Never,’ he hissed. ‘Never,’ he repeated, striking her other cheek with the back of his hand, ‘speak to me like that.’ Nyasha fell on to the bed, her miniscule skirt riding up her