The thing is—I don’t feel believed. Even with all the medical evidence supporting my claim: the photos of my vaginal tearing, the bruises on my thighs, the cervical trauma, the semen, the bites and contusions and saliva all over my body—I don’t feel believed. I am the unreliable witness. I am the inherently untruthful complainant.

It’s like quantum theory. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it scream? If a woman gets raped in a farmhouse and nobody is there to witness it, did it happen?

My father witnessed it, but he doesn’t count because he is my father.

Sometimes I see such scepticism in my therapist’s eyes that I know she doubts my story. Yes, she has read the medical reports. Yes, she followed the media when the story was all over the news. Yes, she knew that Coetzee based his book on my experience. She had heard of me before I was ever referred to her.

But I was not what she expected. Sometimes I disgust her. Sometimes I irritate her. Sometimes I can see the words “pull yourself together” trembling on her lips.

And so, I write down my worst fears. My worst fear is not that I will be raped again one night when I am alone in my flat. My worst fear is that I will not be believed.

CHAPTER 3

My friend Moira is a star-fucker. A literary star-fucker. She would walk past Idris Elba in the street without a second glance, but she would follow Jonathan Franzen to the ends of the earth.

Starfucker (Urban Dictionary)

A person who is obsessed with and seeks out personal interaction with celebrities. The desired interaction is often, but not necessarily, sexual in nature.

I don’t like the compound word “starfucker” so I’m keeping it separate as “star-fucker,” but the meaning is the same. Moira has always been in awe of John Coetzee. He was the official Great Man of Letters at the University of Constantia English Department, even before he produced any letters worth noting. After the book appeared and the literary plaudits poured in, her awe changed to worship.

It took little effort, therefore, to persuade her to accompany me to his house in the Bo-Kaap. Moira is hard at work on a Map of the Stars, showing where the most famous authors in Cape Town live. Coetzee’s house is already on her radar. Number 15, Companie Street, Bo-Kaap.

Not for Coetzee the bright, Neapolitan-ice-cream colours of many Bo-Kaap houses. Neither cerulean blue nor fuschia pink have the power to tempt him. His house remains resolutely white—a lily among the colour-burst of roses.