The victimisation, I saw, was universal. It didn’t depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition. It didn’t depend on any of the

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?’

To our surprise, Maiguru did leave, by bus, early the next morning. She did not slink away in the dark, but quite openly packed a suitcase, put on her travelling clothes, had her breakfast and left. Babamukuru was still feeling injured, which was why, I thought, he let her go, but Nyasha had a different theory. She thought Babamukuru simply did not believe that Maiguru would doit. Would do it, could do it. It made no difference, she said. The point was that he did not believe. Babamukuru, she said, expected his wife to get cold feet before she got to the bus-stop or, at the latest, before the bus pulled away. It would have been useful, Nyasha said, if things had turned out that way, because then Babamukuru would always have been able to remind his wife that she had tried to leave and had failed. Unfortunately, she told me, Babamukuru had to wait until Maiguru had boarded that bus and had gone to discover whether he was right or not, and by that time it was too late to do anything about it.

She did tell us, didn’t she, what she thinks, and did anyone say anything? No. Why not? Because Maiguru is educated. That’s why you all kept quiet. Because she’s rich and comes here and flashes her money around, so you listen to her as though you want to eat the words that come out of her mouth. But me, I’m not educated, am I? I’m just poor and ignorant, so you want me to keep quiet, you say I mustn’t talk.