A scuffling sound next to me makes me jump like a cartoon character. I scrape my wrist on the rusting metal grille. It is only a pigeon scrabbling about in the dry leaves trapped in the gutter. I turn and hurry down the steps. My heart is beating so hard I can see the sides of my vision throbbing.

Moira is bent double from laughing.

* * *

“Australia.” Moira settles in the passenger seat and fastens her seatbelt. “I wonder if that means the Twitter account is genuine.”

“Twitter account?”

“There’s a Twitter account in John Coetzee’s name in which he describes himself as ‘an Australian writer.’ We thought it was fake. It might still be fake. It’s not even verified.”

“How did John Coetzee go from being a technophobic nobody to someone who has to be verified on Twitter?”

“He wrote a brilliant book.”

“I don’t think it was brilliant.”

“That’s because you aren’t thinking clearly. You should try to be more like fiction-Lucy. She is nicer than you are. Fiction-Lucy would admit that the book is brilliant.”

* * *

How can you live in a country your whole life and make no effort to learn any of its local languages? Most Swiss people can speak, or at least understand, both German and French. Most Americans who live close to the Mexican border have taken the trouble to learn basic Spanish.

What does it say about English-speaking South Africans that many of us don’t understand a word of any African local languages apart from hello and goodbye? What kind of arrogance expects an entire country to conform to the language we speak? When we travel overseas, we acquaint ourselves with useful phrases, or use Google Translate to help us manage the language for the few weeks we are there. It is courteous to make an effort to speak the local language, even if your interlocutor switches to English immediately.

Yet in three hundred and fifty years, we have never bothered to learn any indigenous South African languages.

These were the thoughts that went through my mind as my assailants argued about whether they had time to rape me. At least, I think that is what they were saying. They were speaking isiXhosa. I had to infer what they were saying from the way they grabbed my breasts and mimed thrusting their hips. I didn’t understand the words. I have never wanted to join a conversation more.

“No,” I wanted to say. “Please don’t. There is no time. You will be interrupted. Flee now while you have the chance.”